Jennifer Gearin is an animated member of the 2025 First-Year Women Werth Innovators Cohort. As an undergraduate student majoring in physics and linguistic psychology with a minor in astrophysics, Gearin was eager to find a different side to her than her usual space-loving personality. So, when professor of sociology Bradley Wright, her first year UNIV course professor, urged her to join his Life Purpose Lab, she simply could not resist. 

The Life Purpose Lab is designed to include individuals from a range of age groups to discuss and develop frameworks on how to live life with purpose. When compared to how technical Gearin’s majors are, she found this to be a refreshing break that allowed her to visualize her life as a bigger picture. 

After Gearin explained her interests to Wright, he put her in touch with The Werth Institute’s director of leadership development, Katie Britt. Britt, who also directs the First-Year Women Werth Innovators Cohort, was a huge influence on Gearin’s time at Werth. 

“The Werth Innovators Program is an entrepreneurial program encouraging young college students to grow into the entrepreneur side of themselves,” says Gearin. The program mainly runs over the summer for about eight weeks, where students are provided the resources and guidance to explore their areas of interests. 

“Initially, I didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur, but I decided to take a little leap of faith by applying to the program knowing that Katie saw something in me,” says Gearin. “And I think a lot of girls had that same experience.” 

The Werth Innovators program follows a holistic mindset to accommodate an array of interests that allows students of all fields to learn the process of developing ideas and building them into something concrete.

Throughout the program, Gearin noticed that a lot of the projects from the 2025 cohort were community-oriented. 

“I remember one of the girls developed a website and a business for art commissions,” says Gearin. “There was another girl who based her project heavily on mental health. Her platform focused on supporting people with mental illnesses, and she even has a gaming channel on YouTube meant for individuals to relax and simply have fun.” She adds that she connected with the cohort because everyone had similar ideas surrounding the importance of community. 

For her summer 2025 project, Gearin decided to delve into the nostalgic memories of her past and create something meaningful to her hometown in Brevard County, Fla. After coding and designing a website she named Mosaic, Gearin centered the website on a number of locations in and around her hometown. Individuals who have been to that location or are connected to it in any way can go onto the website and write a short description of the place and the story it holds for them. The website also showcases a live gallery of photos for people to view. 

“Back home, my grandparents were a huge inspiration for the project,” says Gearin. “After COVID, it became harder for them to leave the house. As their family members, it’s really hard to see them feel disconnected from everything around them and I can see how it affects them.” By developing the website Mosaic, Gearin’s main goal is to bridge that physical barrier some people face and allow them to experience these locations as if they were physically there. 

“I see it as a little mosaic where each individual story comes together and makes the location a little more colorful,” Gearin says.

With this overarching goal in mind, Gearin plans to collaborate with Britt and hopefully bring this project to UConn as a next step. By creating a page specifically for locations here at UConn, she plans to have students be able to add their favorite locations and a description about them for other students to see and experience for themselves. 

Month of Discovery

October is the Month of Discovery, when undergraduates are introduced to the wealth of research and innovation opportunities at UConn. This month, enjoy profiles of outstanding undergraduate innovators on UConn Today, attend a full slate of programming on campus and online, and register for Discovery Quest to launch your undergraduate experience to new heights.

Students interested in learning more about research and innovation opportunities at UConn can check out the series of events offered as part of the Month of Discovery. Come to Research Connections on Thursday, Oct. 16, to learn how to get involved in UConn research. The Experience Innovation Expo (Monday, Oct. 27) at the Werth Institute is a great opportunity to get inspired and discover the wide range of programs for entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity at UConn.