Meet Martha Garcia-Murillo, Dean @ UNO College of Information Science and Technology  

The University of Nebraska at Omaha celebrated the 30th anniversary of its College of IS&T earlier in May. Recent efforts to give students and the wider community experience in emerging technologies include Nebraska Cyber MATRIX, AI-CCORE and OMA x AI.

Garcia-Murillo holds the title of “Lee D. and Willa Seemann Distinguished Dean” and has been featured by local organizations and initiatives for her knowledge and expertise, such as Nebraska Women in STEM. 

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or support other entrepreneurs?

Higher education is a place where faculty do research and students explore, experiment, with what they are learning. This environment creates many opportunities to be innovative and entrepreneurial.

At the College of Information Science and Technology, I see how the expertise of our faculty and students can translate into a new venture. My goal is to make sure we take full advantage of that talent and support ideas that can grow into meaningful entrepreneurial initiatives.

The field of computing is especially well-suited for entrepreneurship. Many of our faculty members are developing technologies with real-world impact, and several have secured patents and licensed their innovations.

I care deeply about their work and the research they are advancing. I see my role as helping them move those ideas forward by finding funding, connecting them with people who can help test their projects and supporting them as they explore whether their technologies could eventually become companies.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you were just starting out?

I would tell myself that ideas do not have to be perfect at the beginning. They need to be tested, refined and strengthened over time.

Today, because of artificial intelligence, it is easier for students to move from an idea to a minimum viable product. They can try an initial concept, test it, learn from what does not work, refine it and try again. Artificial intelligence can also help simulate potential customer groups by creating agents with specific demographics. That does not replace the need to talk to real people, but it can provide immediate feedback when students are just starting out.

For faculty, the process is often more complex. Their projects tend to involve advanced research that requires significant funding, institutional support and time. Federal funding, philanthropic support and strong partnerships can help move these transformative projects forward.

We have seen success in this area. Several research projects that began in the lab have moved into trials. For example, we have a technology that helps with ocular toxoplasmosis that has been in trial for five years and has now been licensed. We also have work related to the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer that is beginning human trials. 

In addition, we launched AI-CCORE and Nebraska Cyber MATRIX, two initiatives that are developing content and platforms to support workforce development in Nebraska through artificial-intelligence-embedded projects that address the challenges of post-artificial-intelligence teaching and learning.

How do you stay motivated when things feel overwhelming — or stagnant?

When I feel overwhelmed by the challenges our students and faculty face as they try to move their initiatives forward, I often think about the story from “Bird by Bird.” It tells of a young man who had to write a large report about birds. Feeling overwhelmed, he received advice: Write it bird by bird.

That idea has stayed with me. Big goals can feel impossible when we look at everything at once. But when we take one step at a time, solve one problem at a time, and support one person at a time, we can make significant progress. That mindset keeps me motivated. The work may be difficult, but each small step matters and moves you forward.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome and how did you overcome it?

One of the biggest challenges in creating something new is that the project itself is only part of the work. When you introduce something into a context where it has not existed before, you also have to help the organization understand what needs to change so the initiative can succeed.

That often means developing new policies, procedures, partnerships and ways of thinking. To overcome that challenge, it is important to learn from the past and find people who have done something similar. Their experiences can help create a map for moving forward.

It is also important to have champions at the highest levels of the organization. These champions can help open doors, identify the right people to involve and support the creation of the processes needed for a new initiative to thrive.

How can the Nebraska community support you?

The Nebraska community can support us by helping students develop an entrepreneurial mindset early. We want to start even at the high school level and give young people the opportunity to experience entrepreneurship, innovation and computing in ways that feel exciting and possible.

One way the community can help is by supporting the NextGen AI summer camp we run every year. We invite entrepreneurs, industry leaders and community partners to help us grow this effort by recruiting students, supporting training, serving as mentors and judges and helping students continue their ventures after the camp ends.

The community can also support the applied research for which UNO is well-known. Our faculty and students are working on projects that can make a real difference in Nebraska and beyond. With the right support, partnerships and investment, we can help those ideas move from the classroom and the lab into the world.