“You may not know this, but crumbs are dangerous in space, so we don’t bring things like crackers,” said Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station for NASA. “Crumbs might get in someone’s eye as they float around and that’s a hazard.”

Gatens was the keynote speaker at the Deep Space Food Symposium held at The Ohio State University last week. She was joined by a full day’s worth of speakers including Christian Lange from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), NASA colleague G. Michael Green and John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Technology at Ohio State.

Ohio State President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. opened the symposium, highlighting what became a theme for the day: collaboration toward a greater goal.

“This is a special gathering for a special topic, a special mission,” Carter said. “… There’s a lot of excitement here. This is where academia, industry, government all come together to solve some of the biggest challenges we think about [for] deep space exploration.”

In addition to panels, the day also featured the announcement of the American winner of the CSA and NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge. The challenge invited teams around the country to submit proposals for “novel and game-changing food technologies or systems that require minimal inputs and maximize safe, nutritious and palatable food outputs for long-duration space missions, and which have potential to benefit people on Earth.”

Food, Gatens said, is a vital resource for astronauts. Not just for nutrition, though.

“If you think about the social and psychological role that food plays in your life – a gathering of friends and family for dinner, celebrating holidays and breaking bread, spending time together – there’s comfort in having your favorite food and beverages when you’re away from home,” she said. “And that’s no different for our astronauts in space on long-duration missions.”

Interstellar Lab, a Floridian team, won the top prize with its modular, bioregenerative system for producing fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms and insects.

Green, chief of staff for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA, highlighted the importance of challenges in finding solutions to complex problems, calling them “the best starting point” for students and professors. Academia has a large role to play, Green added.

“So many times it is important to partner with our friends in academia to look at a tough problem that maybe we don’t know how to solve,” he said.

Gatens agreed.

“The partnership here at Ohio State has been really important for this challenge.”

Audience members listened to the speakers with rapt attention. While attendees were mostly graduate students, faculty and contractors, two stood out: 12-year-old Molly Pease and her mother, Colette.

After seeing “Apollo 13” for the first time last year, Molly admitted to being “obsessed” with space. Her mother came across the symposium and noted that it was open to the public.

“We were just at the NASA booth and totally geeked out,” she said. “You just say, ‘NASA,’ and the cool factor exponentially increased. It felt like the chance of a lifetime for her to see the director of the International Space Station.”

The program brings together Ohio State’s research expertise and entrepreneurial spirit with Techstars’ accelerator model that has supported the growth and success of thousands of companies. This new program represents one of the core features of Ohio State’s new Center for Software Innovation.

The center and its vision were made possible by Ratmir Timashev and the generosity of the Timashev Family Foundation.

“We are thrilled to welcome the inaugural cohort of Techstars ventures to Columbus,” said Executive Director of the Center of Software Innovation Shereen Agrawal. “It’s been incredible to see both the expansive Techstars community and the Columbus entrepreneurial ecosystem, as always, show their support. Through this program, we are excited to continue our dedication to fostering high-impact innovation.”

The goal of the program is to bring together mission-driven founders working on problems distinctively suited to the resources available to them at Ohio State and in central Ohio in health care, alternative energy, automotive, agriculture, AI and commerce. Software companies from Columbus, Los Angeles, Chicago, London and cities from around the world were selected in the inaugural cohort. They will be located at Carmenton, Ohio State’s innovation district, for the duration of their programming.

“We believe these companies are building the critical infrastructure for healthier, more fulfilling lives for each of us now and for generations to come,” said Tim Grace, managing director of Techstars Columbus. “Over the next 13 weeks, they will be based in Columbus and work with our team, exceptional Entrepreneurs in Residence and mentors to master the art of building momentum in their businesses, the building block for success in sales, fundraising, team building and much more.”

The companies will have access to funding, receive training and mentorship by top experts in software, and connect with the combined networks of Ohio State and Techstars. The program will help founders define their product, core customer and market, and go-to-market strategy, in addition to getting additional support in raising seed or A-round venture capital funding.

The program will lead to a Demo Day in Columbus on May 29 where the companies will have an opportunity to showcase their progress.

The inaugural companies are:

• Aspect Health: Improving lifestyle-reversible hormonal imbalances for women via continuous glucose monitoring and human-assisted AI coaching.
• Besample: Connecting researchers to human samples anywhere in the world.
• Blended Edge: AI-native app integration platform for software teams.
• Blomso: Live sensor-tech that helps farmers reduce fertilizer waste to make sustainable practices pragmatic and profitable.
• Cariqa: Transforming EV charging with integrated financial perks, simplified pricing and enhanced operator-consumer relationships.
• Currents: The operating system for owning Things.
• Pedal Data: Harnessing AI & gait tracking to stop the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
• PlugOp Technologies: Redefining energy management for EV charging stations.
• Rubato: AI-powered, reimbursable music therapy for dementia patients and their caregivers.
• Seek: First at-home lab test that measures how alcohol impacts women’s health.
• Sentius: Automated enterprise tasks with generative AI using autonomous agents.
• Superfan: Where fans connect around the music they love.

“Proton therapy is the perfect example of personalized care in cancer. You can target the proton beam in a highly specific way that results in virtually no damage to the surrounding healthy tissues,” said Arnab Chakravarti, MD, director of the proton therapy center and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at OSUCCC – James. “This technology has the potential to literally improve the health and well-being of millions of people across Ohio and beyond.”

Located on Ohio State’s west campus at 2121 Kenny Road, the proton therapy center offers comprehensive radiation oncology treatment options for both adult and pediatric patients at a single location.

“This is a significant day, especially for our patients and their families,” said Timothy Cripe, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation at Nationwide Children’s. “Having this resource right here in Columbus makes vital treatment more accessible for those who need it and allows families to stay here in Columbus throughout their entire treatment. With the opening of this facility, it is thrilling to get a glimpse into what is now possible in the realm of cancer treatment for children, and we look forward to continuing our work to improve the quality of life for all our patients.”

What is proton therapy
Proton therapy is an advanced type of radiation treatment that uses protons (positively charged particles) instead of X-rays to destroy cancer cells. It minimizes the damage to surrounding healthy cells, a common side effect of traditional radiation like X-rays. The therapy can be used alone or in combination with other therapies to treat brain cancer, lymphoma, retinoblastomas and sarcomas in children, and several localized cancers including prostate, brain, head and neck, lung, spine and gastrointestinal in adults.

Research potential through ‘FLASH’ proton therapy 
Scientists will be able to conduct important research on a high-dose proton therapy known as FLASH that can target treatment to a pinpoint and deliver it in a 10th of a second. Ohio State is one of just a handful of institutions in the world poised to conduct translational research in this form of proton therapy.

Preclinical data suggests this proton therapy could reduce what would normally be 30 days of treatment to a single dose, delivered in less than a second. It is estimated that this form of proton therapy is still five to 10 years from approved use in patients, making the research investigating FLASH protons so important.

“If we can shorten that treatment course from what would have been six to eight weeks to a single day, care becomes far more accessible, especially for underserved populations,” said Chakravarti. “Bringing this important technology to central Ohio demonstrates our institution’s commitment to creating a cancer-free world.”

Proton therapy is considered a game-changer in pediatric cancer care, adds Cripe, who treats children with cancer at Nationwide Children’s. The size and physiology of pediatric patients can make traditional radiation more difficult to administer without damaging surrounding tissues, which can lead to long-term side effects.

“Proton therapy is a promising cancer treatment for kids and critical for many of our patients,” he said. “Imagine a child’s cancer is eliminated with proton therapy, and they can go to on to live 70 more healthy, normal years without most of the radiation-related long-term side effects of cancer treatment in childhood.”

Building a complex team to deliver complex disease treatment 
The proton therapy center is staffed by a team of physicians, medical physicists, engineers, IT specialists, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning experts, radiation biologists and cancer biologists who are committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for patients.

It is equipped with the Varian ProBeam 360°  treatment system. This is the first treatment center in the United States specifically built with a dual-capability system that can deliver both conventional proton therapy and research-level FLASH to both adults and children. Varian is testing the FLASH system in pre-clinical models, and FLASH is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The story of proton therapy is still being written, and we are writing it here in central Ohio,” said Chakravarti.

The center’s first proton therapy treatment was delivered to an adult woman with a skull based chondrosarcoma in mid-December 2023. To learn more, visit cancer.osu.edu/proton-therapy.

“Poinsettias, in fact, are not poisonous,” said Garrett Owen, assistant professor of sustainable greenhouse and nursery systems. “Previous research at [Ohio State] has found that poinsettias are not poisonous, but we do not encourage anybody or any animal to ingest poinsettias.”

In the 1970s, Ohio State’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science debunked the longstanding myth of poinsettias being poisonous. The research assured the public that poinsettias pose no threat, encouraging a reevaluation of the popular holiday plant.

Owen advises buyers to focus on personal preferences when choosing a plant, emphasizing color variations such as reds, whites, pinks and novelties with variegated bracts. He stresses the importance of choosing a visually appealing plant with roundness and well-branched elegance.

He said with care, the colorful plants can last throughout the season.

“Keeping poinsettias beyond the holiday season can be performed. You want to keep those in a sunny window away from cold air drafts, and then you periodically want to water them maybe one to two times a week,” he said. “You want to make sure that the soil is … not over moist because they are susceptible to root rot. So just picking up that pot to see if it’s too wet, you may not want to water it, but if it’s a little dry, you can go ahead and hit it with a little water.”

In 2019, the U.S. poinsettia industry was valued at an impressive $216.5 million, producing around 45 million plants, according to industry reports. As families prepare to adorn their homes with poinsettias, the plant once feared for its perceived toxicity is now celebrated as a symbol of beauty, resilience and the enchantment of the season.

Ohio State ranked 11th among all universities in research expenditures in FY 2022 in the NSF’s annual Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey rankings, up one spot from the previous year. The university remained at 7th among publics.

“Ohio State’s research and creative expression community is committed to groundbreaking, convergent research that provides positive impacts for our community, state and world,” said Peter Mohler, acting president and executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “We are pleased that our rankings continue to improve, but are even more pleased to continue working with our partners and stakeholders to expand our research efforts and amplify their impacts.”

The university ranked just behind Duke and Stanford and ahead of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Harvard.

Ohio State is 6th in the country in terms of industry-sponsored research, totaling nearly $142 million in FY 2022. Federally funded research is up to $636,902,000, a 14% year-over-year increase.

Overall, research and development spending by academic institutions totaled $97.8 billion in FY 2022, an increase of $8 billion from FY 2021. R&D expenditures funded by federal sources accounted for $4.9 billion of the total increase. 

Ohio State can point to strong momentum with a series of recent awards across disciplines.

Julie Johnson was recently announced as the director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science. As director of the CCTS, Johnson is the principal investigator of a seven-year, $37.9 million Clinical and Translation Science Award from the National Institutes of Health, which funds the center’s work to turn scientific discoveries into clinical therapies. 

NSF awarded $5 million to researchers at Ohio State as the lead institution, co-funded with an additional $3.75 million from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, studying the use of artificial intelligence to help understand climate impacts on biodiversity. The AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center will bring together ecologists and computer scientists from six universities in the United States and Canada, with partners in the UK, Europe and Australia, to develop new AI-enabled, data-supported approaches to study how changes in climate are impacting life – including animals, plants and insects – on Earth.

Ohio State, Honda, Schaeffler Americas, and state and federal leaders recently announced the creation of a new $22 million battery cell research and development center. Slated to open in April 2025, the lab will accelerate the domestic development of battery cell materials and manufacturing technologies while providing an experiential learning setting for advanced battery technology workforce development.

With a grant totaling $22 million from the National Institute of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) program, researchers at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) at UC Berkeley, Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine, and UC San Francisco are developing new approaches to treat multiple neurodegenerative diseases as well as clinical tests to help new CRISPR-based therapies reach patients.

Slated to open in April 2025, the lab will accelerate the domestic development of battery cell materials and manufacturing technologies while providing an experiential learning setting for advanced battery technology workforce development.

With $22 million in commitments to date, this project will include the renovation of a 25,000-square-foot facility in Ohio State’s innovation district into a dedicated battery cell research, production and education support space. The center will be managed and operated at Ohio State by the Institute for Materials and Manufacturing Research (IMR).

“Ohio State’s commitment to research, innovation and bringing solutions to the world is at the heart of our land-grant mission,” said Peter Mohler, acting president and executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “We have more reach and impact when we work with our partners at the local, state and federal levels and we join industry-leading partners like Honda and Schaeffler.”

Honda will serve as lead foundational partner for the project and has committed $15 million for the research and development center. The project was also endorsed by the State of Ohio and JobsOhio.

“Honda is committed to an electrified future for our automobiles, motorcycles and power products worldwide,” said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “We have had a long-standing relationship with Ohio State that goes back more than 30 years, and this new facility is an extension of that great partnership. This facility will be a great resource to train the next-generation workforce in advanced manufacturing technologies.”

The completed project will also create a hub for academic and industry connections across chemical and physical sciences, engineering, business and policy. Once completed, the project will create a strong pipeline of industry talent while also attracting electric vehicle battery manufacturing and supply chain businesses to help support the evolving vision for the industry.

“Schaeffler is developing the next generation of all solid-state battery technology to support the automotive industry’s transition to electric mobility. Our strategic partnership with The Ohio State University provides a hands-on and collaborative approach with the goal of providing industry-leading and scalable solutions that will position Ohio at the center of battery technology,” said Jeff Hemphill, chief technology officer of Schaeffler Americas.

“When presented with an opportunity to take the lead in battery innovation, particularly with reputable Ohio employers such as Honda and Schaeffler, it is wise to capitalize on that potential,” said Husted. “Establishing this battery technologies innovation center on Ohio State’s campus will play a key role in ensuring that we continue to be pioneers in automotive and sustainability advancements.”

“The EV industry, aerospace and aviation, health care and more will benefit directly from this innovative center by gaining a competitive advantage in battery technology,” said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. “This collaborative effort between Honda, one of the world’s most successful manufacturers, and Ohio State, a global leader in academic and industry research, establishes one more extraordinary asset for Ohio as industries across sector lines move toward more electrification.”

Congressional champions for this project include U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and U.S. Reps. Joyce Beatty and Mike Carey, who all participated in today’s event. Through their work, $4.5 million in federal funding was secured through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Extramural Construction program.

“We know how to make cars in Ohio. The auto industry is our past, and our future. The next generation of vehicles that families will drive all over the country and all over the world will be made in Ohio, by Ohio workers,” said Brown. “Ohio State, One Columbus, and Honda came to us with this project, and we worked together to secure the investment to make it happen. This is how we are burying the term ‘Rust Belt.’”

“The announcement of Ohio State’s new battery research center is yet another step in the right direction of academic excellence,” Beatty said. “I’m proud to have helped secure federal funding to see this project into fruition and look forward to seeing this investment grow and flourish. This also continues to mark central Ohio as a pivotal workforce hub in America from the key technologies, economic impact, products, training and infrastructure this center will offer.”

“I was proud to help secure federal funding for this new battery cell and research center at my alma mater,” said Carey. “This investment will help ensure this new research center has a state-of-the-art facility to develop and assemble electric vehicle batteries right here in Ohio.”

The federal funding will support a 4,000-square-foot dry room, which is necessary for the assembly of battery cells due to the extreme moisture sensitivity of cell components. The dry room and new battery cell assembly equipment will facilitate the accelerated development and translation of batteries from the lab to practical scales, including the electric vehicle market.

Selected as 2023 Millennium Fellows, 11 undergraduates joined a prestigious international leadership development initiative offered by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) and the Millennium Campus Network (MCN). Millennium Fellows participate in a semester-long program to improve organizational abilities, partnership building and community impact skills while working on a sustainable development-related project.

Daniel Tcheurekdjian, a sophomore theoretical physics and math honors student from Shaker Heights, Ohio, founded the startup Aleph Innovations to help improve patient health care access in everything from appointment scheduling to insurance authorization. With the Millennium Fellowship, he found an international community and podium to help advance his dream. He’s now a campus co-director for the Millennium Fellowship project.

“We learned about the Millennium Fellows program as we were looking for opportunities to take our social impact to the next level,” said Tcheurekdjian. “We had the technology and the traction, but we needed a platform and mentorship to determine how to optimize our actions to cause the greatest positive social impact. The Millennium Fellowship seemed to fit those criteria, so we applied. The program itself has been everything we were hoping for and more.”

Carmen Badell-Kestler, a sophomore pre-med student from Greenville, Ohio, is the project’s campus co-director, and eight of the other Millennium Fellows are working collectively on the project. The group meets on campus and virtually with Millennium Fellows worldwide to enhance skills, support projects, and strengthen regional and international communication and collaboration.

“Aleph also received tremendous support from the Ohio State community,” Tcheurekdjian added. “The staff and partners at the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship, the Department of Mathematics Advisory Board, on which I serve, and the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association have all been extremely supportive and helpful.”

Aleph team members were 2022 President’s Buckeye Accelerator finalists and were invited to pitch to the award program again this month. The President’s Buckeye Accelerator supports student founders as they prepare a startup for launch. The accelerator combines entrepreneurship skill building, deep mentorship, community building and funding with a structured process. Accelerator applicants complete a six-week Boost Camp from which six student ventures are selected for the year-long accelerator.

“The 11 undergraduate students who have earned international recognition as 2023 Millennium Fellows are a testament to the innovative spirit that flourishes across our university,” said Melissa Gilliam, executive vice president and provost. “I am proud that these young people are demonstrating a deep commitment to improving the lives of people we serve and garnering well-deserved international recognition.”

Sanjana Ranade, a senior neuroscience and Spanish major from Gahanna, Ohio, is using her Millennium Fellowship to develop an outreach initiative to help sixth- to 12th-graders understand brain form and function.

“Adolescence is a critical period of brain development,” said Ranade, “so brain education is of special relevance and importance to this age group.”

Ranade’s project will form community connections with local middle and high school science teachers and utilize her neuroscience training to produce creative virtual content about brain development to engage adolescent populations.

In addition to Ranade, Tcheurekdjian and Badell-Kestler, Ohio State’s 2023 Millennium Fellows are Katharine Jong, College of Arts and Sciences; Mykenna Roy, College of Arts and Sciences and John Glenn College of Public Affairs; Aiden Clerico, Fisher College of Business; and Joshua Klasmeier, Michael Lapurga, Christopher McCann Jr., Sriadhav Parameswaran and Michael Watters, College of Engineering.

The 4,000 members of the Class of 2023 Millennium Fellows were chosen from a record-breaking 44,369 applicants from over 3,000 campuses across 170 nations. Students on more than 260 campuses in 38 nations are participating this year. The Class of 2023 is engaging in projects collectively advancing all 17 UNAI sustainable development goals and all 10 UNAI principles.

Fellows who complete their projects and the program earn a certificate recognizing completion from UNAI and MCN, which have partnered since 2018 to present the Millennium Fellowship.

The two-day event, hosted by the university’s Center for Software Innovation, was attended by over 300 people and featured keynote addresses from Ratmir Timashev, software entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of Veeam Software; Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted; Carl Eschenbach, co-CEO of Workday; and Andrew Lang, Global CTO of JPMorgan Chase.

Peter Mohler, Ohio State’s acting president and executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge, helped kick off the first day of Startup Midwest by highlighting the university’s place in a growing innovation-focused ecosystem.

“No matter where you are in the entrepreneurial landscape, you’ll find value in the discussions, breakout sessions … and networking opportunities available here. Ohio State’s network of support and established resources make our university a true destination for entrepreneurs to grow and thrive,” he said. “There's a lot to get excited about, not only during this event but for the future of entrepreneurship at Ohio State and across Ohio.”

Timashev, whose vision for the Center for Software Innovation and the generosity of the Timashev Family Foundation made Startup Midwest possible, said Columbus and Ohio are poised to become a globally prominent, high-tech hub.

“For many here like me, we don’t need to explain why Columbus makes total sense. This is in our DNA. In Columbus, we are gritty. We know how to get the job done,” he said. “We are accelerating the move Columbus has been making in becoming a global tech hub. It’s been already happening. We are just accelerating.

“Columbus is the place where innovation thrives, where opportunities multiply and where the spirit of entrepreneurship becomes ingrained in this city’s identity.”

Timashev and Eschenbach participated in a conversation about entrepreneurship and innovation moderated by Mohler, discussing their experience starting and managing successful software technology companies. Both agreed that the world is on the cusp of another technological revolution with the growth of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.

Breakout sessions at the event focused on new product development; the power of networking and building relationships; the challenges and rewards of starting a company; and the tools and resources Ohio State is providing faculty and students to bring their innovations to market.

Guest speakers included Ayanna Howard, dean of the College of Engineering; Tim Grace, managing director of Techstars Columbus; and Ben Davis, a student and co-founder of Insiderviz, a trading data and visualization tool.

Attendees, including Ohio State students and faculty as well as emerging entrepreneurs and innovators, heard from technology experts, funders and startup founders who provided valuable content, education and opportunities for early-stage technology entrepreneurs.

Husted helped close out Startup Midwest with an address at Ohio Stadium. He reinforced the message of viewing Ohio as a worthy competitor to Silicon Valley.

“My aspiration for Ohio is that we are the most innovative entrepreneurial state in the Midwest and that we use technology to improve the way we serve our customers, the people in the state of Ohio, which should be your goal as entrepreneurs every day,” he said.

Shereen Agrawal, the executive director of the Center for Software Innovation, said that Startup Midwest shows the momentum and energy of the community that is essential to building the center.

“Over the past few days we have been immersed in deep connection and conversation. We have a nearly unimaginable opportunity to be the hub for how software impacts our future,” she said. “Software will increasingly penetrate each industry vertical and together we will be fostering the talent and innovation to create immense world impact.”     

The Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program provides undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups with a research-focused training program that includes courses, experiential learning, faculty and graduate student mentoring, and peer support.

The program is a collaboration between the colleges of Public Health, Engineering and Arts and Sciences and is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

“Our theme is ‘molecules to society,’ which makes sense, given the three colleges involved,” said Amy Ferketich, a professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health. “Our goal is to recruit a diverse group of undergraduate students who are interested in eventually pursuing a PhD.”

The program will provide scholarship funding and a monthly stipend. Ferketich said program leaders want students to avoid having an extra, non-research-related job because the program is expected to be intensive.

“They’ll be paired with a mentor,” she said. “We found some really excellent mentors in each of the three colleges, as well as medicine – people who have a really strong track record in mentoring undergraduate students, publishing with their students and then encouraging students to continue in research careers after undergraduate school.”

The work doesn’t end when the students graduate. The MARC program includes an evaluation process that extends 15 years after students complete the program.

Following completion of the MARC program, students will:

• Feel a sense of community with their peers, faculty and graduate student mentors.
• Have a sense of belonging at Ohio State.
• Increase their self-efficacy for research.

The MARC program emphasizes interdisciplinary research because some of the world’s biggest challenges will require a collaborative approach to solve.

“Science and technology, as we have progressed through the last century, has increasingly become a multidisciplinary domain and there are very few problems that are left that one so-called discipline can address,” said Shaurya Prakash, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. 

Program leaders expect that 80% of students will publish at least one paper as co-author or first author, 50% will apply to a doctoral program at graduation and 80% in three years, and 80% will have a biomedical science career within 10 years.

“This is a training program, and the training program is really intended to show these students there is a way to conduct unbiased, thoughtful research,” Prakash said. “So our message will be that if you want to contribute to a research path and a research career, think big, think bold and learn the methods of how to do this in the right way.”

The program intends to prepare students to be able to take on these challenges.

“We want to provide all the resources, tools and support that students may need to get prepared for a scientific career,” said Marcos Sotomayor, professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

This program is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for five years. More information can be found on the MARC website.

The annual show, presented by the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES), attracts over 100,000 visitors from across the United States and Canada. This year, total attendance was 116,786 with 7,733 students attending from over 210 schools.

Guests can learn about agriculture production from more than 4,000 products displayed by 600 commercial exhibitors. The educational programs feature Ohio State specialists at what is considered among the best in the agricultural exhibition world.

The Farm Science Review is also an opportunity to celebrate the success of the college and the university in the communities they serve. Peter Mohler, acting president and executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State, spoke to a crowd of farmers, government officials, university leaders, industry partners and community stakeholders about Ohio State’s cutting-edge research and innovation partnerships.

One of the recent successes impacting the agriculture community includes Ohio State’s selection as the U.S. ground location for Starlab, the first commercial, free-flying space station in low-earth orbit.

The CFAES Stone Lab on Lake Erie also conducts research for solutions to critical water quality issues facing the region in collaboration with the University of Toledo, Bowling Green, Heidelberg University, Central State and others. 

And in partnership with Nationwide and the Ohio Farm Bureau, the AgTech Innovation Hub is an incubator for groundbreaking ideas to help the agricultural ecosystem understand, manage and mitigate climate risk with the recently announced funding of five projects.

“Thanks to projects like these, CFAES is undertaking $59 million in research across more than 1,000 active awards from federal, state, industry and university partners, many of whom are in this room today,” Mohler said.

Cathann A. Kress, vice president of agricultural administration and dean of CFAES, hosted the opening of the Farm Science Review and called attention to the mission of the college and its focus on the next generation of Ohio farmers.

“We award over $3 million in scholarships annually to our students, in large part because so many of you pay it forward and help us to do that. Our first-year retention rates are almost 95%. About 95% of our graduates are enrolled in graduate education or are employed within six months of me handing them their diploma,” she said. “The best news: Now almost 80% of CFAES graduates stay right here in the state of Ohio and continue to support our industry here in our state.”

The combination of agriculture and high-tech manufacturing is a powerful reminder of a time when the state was at its best, said Gov. Mike DeWine.

“If you go back to the history of this state, even before the Civil War, what you will find is when Ohio was at its greatest, when things were really rolling, we had two big things going for us: one was agriculture and the other was manufacturing,” he said. “This, once again, is Ohio’s time. Those two are coming together. We’re on a roll with both of them and I’m very confident about where we are going as a state.”

Techstars Columbus Powered by The Ohio State University will unlock new opportunities for early-stage entrepreneurs from across the globe to engage in Columbus’ vibrant startup community and lead future high-growth, innovative software solutions.

This new program represents one of the core features of the new Center for Software Innovation, made possible by the historic, $110 million gift from the Timashev Family Foundation to Ohio State earlier this year. Engaging students for the first time this fall, the center provides opportunities in entrepreneurship and offers the undergraduate educational honors program – Integrated Business and Engineering Software Innovation (IBE-SI) – focusing on software innovation, product management, sales and marketing.

“Like so many other immigrants throughout American history, my own journey as an entrepreneur was shaped by the communities that welcomed me. For me, that place was Columbus and Ohio State, who challenged and empowered me to build great software companies,” said Ratmir Timashev, a 1996 Ohio State graduate, serial entrepreneur and former CEO of Veeam. “Today’s announcement will ensure that this community is continuing to champion our brightest software entrepreneurs, while showcasing to the world all that Columbus has to offer.”

The program brings together Ohio State’s research expertise and entrepreneurial spirit with Techstars’ accelerator model that has supported the growth and success of thousands of companies.

Every six months, Techstars Columbus Powered by The Ohio State University will select 10-12 startups and founders from hundreds of applicants from across the world. Selected entrepreneurs will come to Columbus, access funding, receive training and mentorship by top experts in software, and gain access to the combined networks of Ohio State and Techstars. The program will help founders define their product, core customer and market, and go-to-market strategy, in addition to getting additional support in raising seed or A-round venture capital funding.

“Ohio State is pleased to partner with Techstars to offer emerging entrepreneurs access to infrastructure, support and training to build out their disruptive ideas and accelerate economic growth in central Ohio,” said Peter Mohler, acting president and executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “Inspired by Ratmir’s vision, the Techstars partnership is another important part of our strategy to impact the innovation ecosystem at Ohio State and across the state of Ohio.”

Applications for the program are now being accepted through Nov. 29, 2023. Startups interested in the accelerator are encouraged to learn more on the Techstars Columbus website.

“Techstars’ recent State of Innovation Survey shows that more and more founders are opting to build companies in regional hubs like the Midwest,” said Tim Grace, managing director at Techstars. “Columbus is an ideal home for software founders worldwide – in large part thanks to Ohio State’s long standing culture of innovation – and this program will continue this momentum by attracting more top entrepreneurs working to solve pressing global issues to the city.”

To inspire emerging entrepreneurs and showcase Ohio State’s role in software innovation, the university is hosting Startup Midwest: The Premier Event for Rising Technology Entrepreneurs on Oct. 24 and 25, 2023. Learn more at Go.osu.edu/startupmidwest.

As executive director, Agrawal will implement strategies to carry out the center’s vision, build out world-class curriculum led by university and industry experts, expand experiential learning opportunities to prepare the future workforce and oversee the center’s daily operations.

“Throughout her career, Shereen has gained experience launching new technology, leading go-to-market initiatives, forging networks across global technology communities, and developing high-performing teams," said Ohio State Executive Vice President and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam. “These experiences, combined with her passion for cultivating community and fostering students’ potential, will be vital as she grows the center’s team."

Driven by the vision of software entrepreneur and investor Ratmir Timashev, a historic $110 million gift from the Timashev Family Foundation established the Center for Software Innovation, which will expand opportunities for students in entrepreneurship and advance education in software innovation, product management, sales and marketing. Bringing together the College of Engineering, Fisher College of Business and other partners in creative new ways, the center aims to catalyze efforts across the region to create a hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and product development activity.

“This is an exciting new day for the Center for Software Innovation, Ohio State and the city of Columbus," said Ratmir Timashev, who serves as chair of the center’s advisory council. “Shereen understands entrepreneurship and knows what it takes to harness innovation at scale. I’m looking forward to her leadership and all that’s ahead."

Agrawal most recently has served as co-founder and managing partner of Embedded Services, a central Ohio-based consulting firm focused on product and go-to-market strategies. Previously, she served as vice president of business development at Columbus-based Root Insurance where she led major software partnerships. Agrawal has also advised student-led ventures as an executive in residence for Ohio State.

“I am a strong believer in the power of community and ecosystems and am excited to build this future for global innovation in Columbus and at Ohio State," Agrawal said. “The pace of innovation and change is quickly accelerating. With the rapid adoption of AI, automation and more, it is more critical than ever to equip students with the skills to not only adapt but also thrive."

Before returning to her native state of Ohio, Agrawal worked in Silicon Valley, where she held roles at Intel Corp. and Twitter. As part of the finance team at Intel, she focused on developing a competitive advantage in new mobile technology. Her roles at Twitter involved developing an ecosystem of software startups connected to the company’s data products to enable new consumer experiences while growing a novel revenue stream.

Agrawal earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan.

Renowned leaders in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship will share insights with attendees and future founders, through keynote addresses from: Ratmir Timashev, software entrepreneur; Carl Eschenbach, co-CEO of Workday and former general partner at Sequoia Capital; and other high-profile figures to be announced.  Ratmir Timashev’s vision for the Center for Software Innovation and the generosity of the Timashev Family Foundation have made Startup Midwest possible.

Ohio State and central Ohio are quickly becoming the home for entrepreneurs to grow and thrive with increasing access to talent, financial capital, space and resources devoted to creating the next world-changing software idea.

To celebrate and showcase the region’s growing innovation ecosystem, the inaugural Startup Midwest will provide education, resources and opportunities for early-stage technology entrepreneurs and others.

“Startup Midwest is an exciting opportunity to feature the best of what we have to offer. Innovation and entrepreneurship are at the heart of Ohio State’s commitment to foster regional economic development,” said Ohio State Acting President Peter Mohler, the university’s executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge. “We know our faculty, students, staff and the central Ohio community are part of a thriving ecosystem to create the next ‘great idea,’ and this event will help grow that spirit of partnership and curiosity.”

Emerging entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to learn from the experts if their startup idea is marketable, what venture capitalists are looking for when providing funds, and how to pitch their startup so people understand its value. Startup Midwest will feature keynotes by technology leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and breakout sessions focused on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, cloud infrastructure, blockchain, networking receptions and more. Select sessions will be recorded and published following the event for viewing by audiences around the globe.

“Startup Midwest recognizes our region as an epicenter of entrepreneurship and opportunity,” said Timashev. “Along with the Center for Software Innovation and the entire Columbus ecosystem, Startup Midwest invites all builders and disruptors to join us and be a part of this next chapter of innovation.”

Breakout session speakers include:

• Ayanna Howard, Dean of the College of Engineering
• Elodie Dupuy, founder and managing partner at Full In Partners
• Evan Fisher, founder and managing partner at Portal Ventures
• Sebastian Gunningham, former VP of Amazon, Apple, Oracle, WeWork, and Saks
• Jeff Schumann, CEO and co-founder of Aware
• Bryan Semple, operating partner at Francisco Partners; COO at Ambassador Labs

A special panel for Ohio State Entrepreneur Focus will feature representatives from the Ohio State Early Investor Network, the OHI/O Hackathon Group and moderator Tim Keenan from the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship.

Registration is open now. Visit the Startup Midwest website to learn more about the conference, registration and session speakers.

Units were encouraged to draw upon the many assets of Ohio State; create partnerships across departments, colleges and disciplines; consider their faculty on all campuses; engage with centers and institutes; collaborate with external communities; advance Ohio State’s Shared Values; and identify national and international opportunities.

A faculty advisory committee, led by Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Distinguished University Professor and the Vernal G. Riffe Professor in the Department of Political Science, oversaw review of the 59 proposals submitted this year. Approximately 600 reviews were conducted by more than 60 faculty members during the process.

Good-to-Great Grants support the university’s goal of continuously improving academic, administrative and operational excellence as outlined in its Academic Plan. The proposals selected demonstrated significant vision and collaboration, and will be prime targets for future investment, including through philanthropic support. In applying for funding, units reflected on current assets, outlined a vision for excellence and described how additional strategic investment would enable their transition from good to great.

“I am grateful for the units that shared their best ideas for creating partnerships across departments, colleges and disciplines at Ohio State,” said Melissa Gilliam, executive vice president and provost. “I am excited about what lies ahead during the coming years as these Good-to-Great Grants come to fruition.”

Funding will begin in the 2023-2024 academic year.

2023 Good-to-Great Grant Program recipients:

Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology (College of Medicine) – Center for Biomolecular Structure and Function
This new center will foster interdisciplinary connections and expand protein research across the university by serving as a hub for collaborative research at Ohio State. By housing state-of-the-art instrumentation and making protein purification and characterization accessible to all faculty, the center will extend the benefits of structural studies and biochemical characterization to a broader segment of the university’s research community, strengthening cross-disciplinary interactions.

Department of Food Science and Technology (College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences) – Food Innovation and Technology Transfer Laboratory: Supporting Entrepreneurs, Promoting Small Businesses, and Educating the Workforce
The grant will elevate and transform the department’s industry partnerships, classroom capabilities and research operations by developing the Food Innovation and Technology Transfer Laboratory (FITT Lab). Funding will strengthen the department’s extension and outreach, education and research programs by adding one faculty and two staff positions and updating infrastructure to be cutting-edge. Creating the FITT Lab, a teaching kitchen, and an entrepreneur training and support program will provide a central location and programming for students, businesses and entrepreneurs.

Department of Geography (College of Arts and Sciences) and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (College of Engineering) – Growing Ohio State’s Meteorology Research, Education and Outreach: A High Impact Investment
Investment in a mobile weather radar unit will provide critical research and teaching infrastructure, including meteorology-related field research and as an experiential learning educational tool. The grant will also support funding for two new faculty members, strengthening partnerships between the two departments and across the university.

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (College of Arts and Sciences) – Establishing a Center for the Study of Germanic Cultures and the Environment
The creation of this new center will build on the department’s strengths in the environmental humanities and have a far-reaching impact, enabling significant opportunities for research and teaching collaborations with other centers and programs at Ohio State. The grant will also enable the development of workshops, conferences, postdoc and graduate student recruitment grants, graduate student internships and library creation.

Moritz College of Law, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (College of Engineering), Institute for Cybersecurity and Digital Trust, and the Translational Data Analytics Institute – JusticeTech @OSU: Law + CSE Fellowship & Capstone Program
This initiative will create an impactful interdisciplinary program to bolster teaching, research and student training in the legal technology domain at Ohio State. By establishing the JusticeTech Fellowship and Capstone Program, Ohio State will ignite projects that promote ethical artificial intelligence applications in the legal system, evaluate the cybersecurity of legal technology tools and expand access to justice. 

Department of Physics (College of Arts and Sciences) – Advancing Physics from Good to Great
This investment in faculty hiring will focus on two rising national priorities: advancing space station privatization and developing U.S. chip/semiconductor manufacturing technology expertise. Additionally, collaborations among new faculty and colleagues in mechanical and aerospace engineering and astronomy will connect research, build new connections and leverage resources.

Department of Political Science (College of Arts and Sciences) – Sociopolitical Analysis and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is a critical topic for the future of social sciences, and this initiative will enhance graduate training through new coursework and interdisciplinary research projects at the intersection of social science and computer science. While adding new faculty with related expertise, the project will focus on the integration and enhancement of expertise and student learning across multiple units regarding the politics and social impact of artificial intelligence.

Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (College of Arts and Sciences) – The Center for Feminist Research, Education and Engagement (The FREE Center)
Creating the FREE Center will enable the department to deepen and broaden its community engagement by sustaining collaborative interdisciplinary research and teaching partnerships among its core faculty, affiliated faculty, students and community partners. Additionally, the center will elevate the department’s distinction and mobilize faculty across Ohio State to be on the leading edge of community-engaged scholarship.

College of Public Health, Department of Anthropology (College of Arts and Sciences), Department of Sociology (College of Arts and Sciences) – Ohio State Health and Environment Modeling – HEALMOD
This proposal establishes a community of scholars dedicated to convergence research and education on human health and environmental sustainability. HEALMOD will provide a thought space and education hub for faculty, research scientists, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in using quantitative frameworks to investigate pressing global problems while training the next-generation workforce.

“Through the network, we have convened the right academic institutions to innovate at scale and speed to meet the needs of the Midwest’s emerging semiconductor industry,” said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, vice president of knowledge enterprise at The Ohio State University. “Now we are focused on bringing higher education and industry together to ensure our collective success. Collaboration is the new competition and the more expertise and perspectives we bring to the table, the more prosperous our region can be.”  

Industry partners will provide guidance and feedback across the 31-member, 5-state network of colleges and universities on strategies to address the industry’s growing workforce needs, including enhanced and new curriculum offerings, new experiential learning opportunities, innovative ways to help current professionals re-skill and opportunities working with K-12. Industry companies will benefit from direct, coordinated lines to talent and workforce development opportunities throughout network colleges and universities. The advisory group will also work to provide strategic direction on cutting-edge research that creates solutions industry needs now.

Chosen because of their active participation in conversations with the network as it developed, founding members include: Intel, Texas Instruments, Silvaco, Inc., MACOM Technology Solutions, Lam Research Corporation and Tokyo Electron US. Jim Evers, vice president and general manager for Intel Ohio, has agreed to chair the industry advisory board.

“Intel is on a mission to lead domestic chip capacity and capability growth. That’s why we are proud to invest more than $20 billion in the construction of two leading-edge semiconductor factories in Ohio creating more than 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 full-time jobs. To prepare the talent pipeline, Intel is investing in educational and research programs in Ohio and across the U.S. to address the technical challenges and workforce shortages in our industry,” said Evers. “I’m excited to join the Midwest Semiconductor Network’s Industry Advisory Board to accelerate the diverse workforce needed to support the onshoring of the advanced semiconductor industry and to prepare students for exciting careers right here in the Silicon Heartland.”

While meeting the research and development needs of the industry is an important focus of the board, the most pressing work will focus on ensuring workers are prepared and skilled as the first plants begin opening in the Midwest in just a few years.

“By bolstering collaboration across the Midwest, Ohio State is leading a broad effort among higher learning and research institutions that can develop the workforce needed to lead the region into becoming the heart of the semiconductor industry,” said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO. “Exploring new ways to boost the number of well-rounded graduates will bring a competitive edge, reduce on-the-job training for new hires, and advance cross-skill sets that will be required by the semiconductor industry and also across advanced manufacturing, including electric vehicles, solar panels, and aerospace.”

“This advisory board continues the spirit of collaboration that has driven the Columbus Region’s emergence as a technology industry powerhouse,” said Kenny McDonald, Columbus Partnership president and CEO. “By preparing for tomorrow’s challenges today, we can develop the workforce necessary to maximize the potential of Ohio’s semiconductor industry.”

Ohio State has already begun to focus on supporting the coming needs for the semiconductor industry, spurred by several investments made by Intel before ground was broken on its Licking County fabrication plants. In the fall, through the College of Engineering, Ohio State will launch a new undergraduate minor and seven new graduate and undergraduate certificate programs designed to prepare students and working professionals for semiconductor-related careers and meet the needs of this burgeoning industry in the region. Three of the certificate programs are available for working professionals in engineering, math, and the physical sciences to demonstrate competency in semiconductor device fabrication technology to potential employers. The minor and other certificates are attachable to any science or engineering degree at the university. These programs focus on understanding of semiconductor devices, fabrication technology and optoelectronics.  

Beyond training, Ohio State has developed programs that combine experiential learning with research. The Center for Advanced Semiconductor Fabrication Research is a multi-institution education and research center, led by Ohio State and funded by the Intel Corporation, that will advance the fabrication and development of semiconductors and next-generation device technologies. The Ohio Partnership for a Diverse and Inclusive Semiconductor Ecosystem and Workforce is a network of public and private universities, colleges and career technical centers, including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), designed to increase the number, percentage and diversity of students prepared to enter the semiconductor workforce in central Ohio.

"While Ohio State has invested significantly in this area, it is important to note that this is not a single university strategy. Industry requires a multi-faceted workforce that can evolve with the needs of our industry partners. Strong partnerships between universities, community colleges and industry, like those exemplified in the Midwest Semiconductor Network, are essential for the economic future of the Midwest,” said Peter Mohler, interim executive vice president for Research, Innovation and Knowledge.

The White House also recently designated Columbus as one of five workforce hubs where the administration will partner with state and local officials, employers, unions, universities, community colleges, high schools, and other stakeholders to ensure a diverse and skilled workforce can meet the demand for labor driven by investments like Intel’s in central Ohio. Clean energy and transportation are also a focus for the regional hub.

Ohio State proposed the Midwest Semiconductor Network in 2022 in support of the development of semiconductor nanofabrication facilities in the Midwest and the broader, national efforts to promote U.S. leadership in semiconductors and microelectronics. The network is working to leverage existing research, curricular and experiential learning assets, capabilities and expertise within the region and grow the collective capacity to support the domestic growth of robust semiconductor and microelectronics innovation and supply chain ecosystems. Ohio State has been elected by member institutions to lead the network and its governing board for an initial term of three years.

The Pelotonia Research Center is the first new building to open at Carmenton, Ohio State's innovation district. This five-story, 305,000-square-foot laboratory building is equipped with new spaces, technologies and resources needed for researchers to work across disciplines to accelerate new discoveries.

The space is named in recognition of Pelotonia’s collaboration with Ohio State. Since 2008, Pelotonia participants have raised more than $260 million for cancer research at Ohio State.

“The name of the Pelotonia Research Center recognizes this partnership. With their grassroots movement as inspiration, this facility will help unleash the potential of all of our researchers to find bold solutions to the biggest health challenges of our time,” said Hiroyuki Fujita, chair of the Board of Trustees. “Ohio State researchers working here will find new ways to look at cancer, heart disease, mental illness, aging and more. And instead of addressing different aspects of these challenges in different places across campus, the facility will allow them to physically come together in one place.”

Innovation at the Pelotonia Research Center will focus on areas including cancer, gene- and cell-based therapies, cardiovascular and pulmonary medicine, neurological disease, microbiome, food systems and health, artificial intelligence, sensory biology, and social and environmental determinants of health.

“It’s great to be back here at Carmenton to celebrate the opening chapter of an exciting new facility that will transform lives and serve as a beacon of hope throughout Columbus and beyond,” Ginther said. “In this building, the research and the great transformational developments are going to save lives, and make families and neighborhoods stronger. All of this strengthens and widens the scope of prosperity to include all our neighbors. That is the Columbus Way.”

“Today’s ceremony highlights and is a tangible reminder of Ohio State’s land-grant mission dedicated to creating and discovering knowledge to improve the well-being of our local, state, regional and national communities,” said Peter Mohler, interim executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge. “The Pelotonia Research Center embodies that mission and is dedicated to research and innovation with a focus on solutions.”

The center will also include a second home for the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology, dedicated to studying the immune system’s role in fighting cancer, and the Center for Cancer Engineering.

The Pelotonia Research Center’s location in Carmenton will be a benefit to collaborative, curiosity-driven and solutions-oriented research. Carmenton is connected to Ohio State’s academic and medical campuses and is in the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the Midwest.

“If you’re one of the 40,000 people who has participated in Pelotonia or one of the more than 700,000 donors who have ever contributed to our shared vision over the last 14 years, this building is named in your honor and a testament to your tireless commitment and advocacy," said Doug Ulman, CEO of Pelotonia. “And this is so much more than just a building. It’s a beacon of hope. Hope for each and every person who hears those three dreaded words: ‘You have cancer.’ Hope for every scientist and clinician here at The Ohio State University who seeks to understand this disease in order to treat it more successfully in the future.”

Amy Moore, professor and chair of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, will lead a laboratory in the new research center and said it will boost collaboration and lead to better outcomes for patients.

“In my laboratory, I get to study how we can improve nerve growth, what we can apply to improve pain treatment in patients who may have devastating, debilitating outcomes,” she said. “It is in this laboratory that we get to innovate and be on the field of what’s going to be the next great thing for our patients.”

The new research space is where experts will connect to understand some of the biggest questions facing health and well-being:

• Engineers, biologists, material scientists and physicians will work together to find new solutions for cancer.
• Data scientists, biologists and engineers will explore ways to use artificial intelligence for better health outcomes.
• Oncologists, immunologists, data scientists and biologists will look to harness the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer.
• Pharmacists, neuroscientists, engineers and veterinary researchers will discover how next-generation gene therapy research can help address disease.
• Psychiatrists, psychologists and neurologists will better understand how to prevent, diagnose and treat mental illnesses.

The opening continues the momentum in bringing Carmenton, the region’s innovation district, from vision to reality.

The Energy Advancement and Innovation Center, a space for Ohio State researchers, students, local entrepreneurs and industry experts to partner on the next generation of renewable energy, artificial intelligence and smart systems, is expected to open in the fall. And The James Outpatient Care, which will offer comprehensive cancer care from diagnosis to treatment through survivorship and expand patients’ access to clinical trials, is also expected to open in the summer.

These problems, the scholars argue, demand “wicked scientists” to unravel them. That is, people with transdisciplinary training that allows them to think beyond their primary field in the search for solutions to issues like food insecurity, COVID-19 and economic inequality.

“It’s easy to think a problem is just technical and not recognize the political dynamics,” said Moritz, professor in The Ohio State University Department of Anthropology. “If you don’t consider these dynamics, you will not be able to address the problem. You will overlook some of the more important things.”

With this thinking in mind, Moritz led the effort to create a graduate interdisciplinary specialization (GIS) in “wicked science.” The specialization is available to all graduate and professional students.

“With this program, we train students to tackle these wicked problems and make a difference in the world,” he said.

Graduate students will take four classes that focus on transdisciplinary thinking and, just as important, collaborative team dynamics. Moritz is a staunch proponent of skills like conflict resolution, flexibility and reflexivity, what many people call “soft skills,” and sees them as critical to wicked science work.

“The idea is that if you want to work in teams, you need to work with people. If you cannot do that, you’re doomed to fail,” he said. “These competencies are really important. ‘Soft skills’ is kind of a misnomer because these are really hard skills.”

David Hibler, a doctoral student studying evolutional ecology and organismal biology, has taken two of the classes that are part of the GIS.

“[The courses] teach you how to work together with other specialists, how to consider community and stakeholder perspectives, values and needs and how to engage various communities to tackle these large, emergent issues that we are seeing develop in society.”

Hibler recommends the courses without hesitation and has found them to be useful as he prepares for the working world.

“My career will center on public health problems and I can’t do that without being able to work in transdisciplinary teams,” he said. “We need students that are not only excellent at work in their own fields but that are also capable of taking that excellence and working with people outside of their own area.”

Lydia Wisne, a third-year medical anthropology student, is working with Moritz to create an undergraduate certificate for wicked science so more students can participate in this innovative program. For Wisne, developing skills to attack the wicked problems of the day helps combat their overwhelming nature.

“I think some undergraduates are trying to find meaning in their work,” she said. “We see the issues in our world, like climate change and COVID-19, and sometimes those big problems can make us feel hopeless. We want to make a difference and wicked science is a way to start that journey.”

Wisne notes that the emphasis on collaboration in the wicked science program would benefit any participant, including those that do not go on to pursue the problems professionally.

“The goals of discovery, understanding and solution-building can help students build their humility and compassion,” she said. “I’d hope participants would grow into people who make the world a better place, even in small ways.”

Moritz agreed. Wicked science is not meant to replace traditional disciplinary training, he said.

“This is another set of skills: You can leverage your training to tackle problems in a team of people with diverse perspectives. … The more diverse perspectives, the better.”

The Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge, in partnership with the university’s colleges, tracks annual research and development funding and reported $1.38 billion in expenditures for FY22. This is a 11.7% increase over FY21 expenditures, a then-record $1.236 billion.

“It’s exciting to see the transformative research and creative expression being conducted to address societal challenges. This record year is a testament to the hard work, curiosity and commitment to research and innovation on the part of our faculty, students and staff,” said Peter Mohler, Ohio State’s recently announced interim executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge.

The analysis is part of the university’s submission to the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey.

Federal expenditures totaled $636.9 million in FY22. That’s an increase of more than 12% from FY21. That growth was observed across the portfolio of federal agencies, including:

• National Science of Foundation, with a 21% increase.
• National Institutes of Health funding was up 10%.
• Department of Defense expenditures at Ohio State were up 6%.
• Department of Energy funding increased 8%. 

Industry expenditures continued to be strong, totaling $144.77 million in FY22. State-sponsored research expenditures totaled $63.67 million in FY22, a 32% increase from FY21.

Ohio State is ranked 12th among all universities in overall research expenditures in fiscal year FY21, an increase of 12 positions from a previous ranking of 24th in FY20. Ohio State’s ranking also increased among public colleges and universities, moving up from 15th in 2020 to 7th in 2021. 

The HERD survey is currently expected to release its FY22 rankings of higher education research programs in November 2023.

The strong momentum in research investment continues, with some recent highlights including:

• In August 2022, the National Science Foundation announced funding for the Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER) Engineering Research Center, for five years at $26 million with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years.
• Ohio State is the lead partner for the first-ever science park devoted to space research. Voyager Space selected a proposal from the university, the State of Ohio, JobsOhio and One Columbus (“Team Ohio”) to host the terrestrial analog of the George Washington Carver Science Park (GWCSP) at Ohio State. The analog laboratory will be a replica of the Starlab space station science park and allows researchers to test missions and conduct parallel experiments on the ground.
• Ohio State announced in November it will establish and operate a new testing center to support the deployment of zero-emission and low-emission public transportation buses with the support of a $26.5 million investment from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

As the current phase of construction at Carmenton continues, the university has signed a letter of intent with SciTech to work with Tishman Speyer and lead a visioning process and the creation of a master plan for the next phase of Carmenton. SciTech is a not-for-profit organization to promote research and development of the university’s west campus. Once fully realized, the master plan will lead to the next phase of future construction.

“The momentum at our innovation district has attracted one of the country’s top developers,” said Alex Fischer, university trustee and chair of the Master Planning and Facilities Committee. “Tishman Speyer has a well-earned, international reputation for inspirational and connected communities. We are so excited to see this plan unlock the full potential of this vibrant new district in partnership with the university, JobsOhio and the City of Columbus.”  

Tishman Speyer is a pre-eminent builder and a trusted placemaker for the world’s leading companies, institutions and cities. The firm, which has delivered more than 50 million square feet of mixed-use development and redevelopment projects over the past decade, has earned an international reputation for its innovative approaches to architecture, interior design, sustainability, healthy live-work environments and best-in-class tenant amenities.

Tishman Speyer is currently working with the San Francisco Giants on the creation of Mission Rock, a new 28-acre mixed-use development on the Bay Area waterfront, and with Harvard to develop the forthcoming Enterprise Research Campus across 14 acres in the Boston region. Other major mixed-use collaborations include Hazelwood Green in Pittsburgh and Tailgate City in San Diego.

“We are building a community at Carmenton to spark the innovation and creative thinking that Ohio and the world need now,” said Jay Kasey, senior vice president of Ohio State’s Office of Administration and Planning. “The university, SciTech and Tishman Speyer will all play key roles in this process with input from our community partners.”

SciTech and Tishman Speyer will pursue an ambitious timeline to present a vision for Carmenton. Planning sessions with university leaders, SciTech and Tishman Speyer are beginning this month. Visioning sessions between internal and external stakeholders are expected to occur through the first half of 2023.

“Innovation and collaboration are foundational to Ohio State’s aspirations for Carmenton,” said Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer. “We look forward to working with the university, SciTech and the local community to produce a collective vision for a vibrant, welcoming and authentic neighborhood.” 

Carmenton brings private, public and academic sectors together to exchange knowledge, understand problems that seem insurmountable, develop new technologies and accelerate delivering solutions to the market and the world. Work continues on the current phase of three university-led projects: the Interdisciplinary Research Facility, The James Outpatient Care, and the Energy Advancement and Innovation Center. The next phase of Carmenton includes a mixed-use development to offer the district a community that exists beyond the traditional workday, including places to live, dine and play.

“Ohio’s three Innovation Districts offer a generational opportunity to positively impact lives and advance science while incubating exciting new ideas and bringing them to market. When fully realized, the innovation district at Carmenton will serve as a place for entrepreneurial energy and world-class innovation right here in Central Ohio,” said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef.

“This project is not just important but crucial to reach our goals as a region,” said Kenny McDonald, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership and a member of the SciTech board. “We have the opportunity to create an energetic home for innovators and a new university neighborhood with unlimited potential.”

“Convergent research solving the world’s most complex problems featuring collaboration from Ohio State, industry and our community partners will find a home at Carmenton,” said Peter Mohler, Ohio State’s recently announced interim executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge. “We’re looking forward to starting the next phase of this incredible development.”

When fully built out, Carmenton will cover more than 270 acres and will be designed to merge entrepreneurial, corporate, academic, research and health care communities in collaborative spaces and programs.

“This is an exciting opportunity. The master plan is expected to include space to live, play and innovate and create a neighborhood that feels vibrant and welcoming – to attract and retain talented people,” said SciTech President Amanda Hoffsis.

The district’s name comes from the university’s alma mater, “Carmen Ohio,” which can be translated to mean “Song of Ohio.”

This year is monumental for the district. The Interdisciplinary Research Facility is set to open this summer and will include the new Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology, where researchers will explore how to use the body’s immune system to fight cancer, and the Chlapaty Laboratories focused on cardiovascular innovation.

The Energy Advancement and Innovation Center, a space for Ohio State researchers, students, local entrepreneurs and industry experts to partner on the next generation of renewable energy, artificial intelligence and smart systems, is expected to open in the fall. And The James Outpatient Care, which will offer comprehensive cancer care, from diagnosis to treatment through survivorship, and expand patients’ access to clinical trials, is also expected to be finished this year.

Mohler, the university’s vice president for research, will transition into the role under the leadership of the current executive vice president, Grace Wang. Pending approval of the Board of Trustees, Mohler will assume the interim title on March 1 as Wang prepares to become president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute this spring.

“We are excited to have Dr. Mohler lead the university’s Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge. Ohio State continues to show incredible momentum toward the goal of doubling research expenditures over the next decade to address societal challenges and improve people’s lives and Peter has played a critical role in that progress,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson.

Ohio State has seen record-breaking growth in research and development expenditures over the last two years. The university was 12th among all universities in overall research expenditures in fiscal year (FY) 2021, an increase of 12 positions from a previous ranking of 24th in FY2020. Ohio State’s ranking also increased among public colleges and universities, moving up from 15th in FY2020 to 7th in FY2021. 

Mohler has been at Ohio State since 2011, when he joined the university as director of the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute and subsequently served as chair of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology in the College of Medicine. Mohler also has previously served as vice dean of research in the College of Medicine. He continues to serve as the chief scientific officer of the Wexner Medical Center.

“Dr. Mohler is an exceptional research leader who has spent more than a decade in the university’s proud culture of excellence,” Wang said. “He has been capably leading the Office of Research and will continue our mission to achieve the transformative impact of research, creative expression, innovation and knowledge to advance our society, and further serve our community through partnerships and entrepreneurship.”

“I am excited for the opportunity to continue to grow our research and innovation environment, and thankful to the Board of Trustees, President Johnson and Dr. Wang for the opportunity to collaborate with the university’s outstanding research and innovation community of leaders, faculty, students and staff to positively impact people’s lives,” Mohler said.

Mohler has more than 250 publications, including manuscripts in Nature, Cell, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Circulation, Nature Medicine and PNAS. His research focuses on uncovering the mechanisms underlying abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure with the goal of designing new diagnostics.

He has received multiple awards, including being named a Pew Scholar and an Outstanding Investigator of the American Heart Association. Mohler was named an inaugural NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Outstanding Investigator (R35 Award) and leads large program grants funded by the American Heart Association and the LeDucq Foundation.

Mohler received a bachelor’s in biology from Wake Forest University and his doctorate in cell and molecular physiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and performed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University Medical Center.

“We are excited to welcome Dr. Warner to Ohio State. The breadth of his knowledge and experience will be critical to serve the Wexner Medical Center’s mission of exceptional patient care, innovative research and educational excellence, and to create world-class health care solutions to improve people’s lives,” said Hiroyuki Fujita, PhD, chair of the Board of Trustees.

Warner will join Ohio State on April 1, pending approval by the Board of Trustees.

He will lead efforts to advance and pioneer interdisciplinary approaches to health care delivery, research and teaching at the Wexner Medical Center. Warner will also work closely with university leaders to advance the excellence of the university and its academic medical center through signature integrated teaching and learning, and convergent research initiatives.

“With three decades of service, Dr. Warner is uniquely suited to lead the Wexner Medical Center at a time when access to high-quality health care is more important than ever and near-daily advancements in technology and research are reshaping the medical landscape,” said President Kristina M. Johnson, PhD. “On behalf of the university community, I want to thank the board for recruiting such an outstanding new Buckeye.”

Warner comes to Ohio State from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he has served as CEO of the UT Southwestern Health System, as well as executive vice president for health system affairs, since 2018. Prior to those roles, Warner was CEO of UT Southwestern University Hospitals and Clinics, playing a key role in the design, planning and opening of the 460-bed William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, which recently expanded to include more than 750 total beds. Currently, he oversees UT Southwestern’s clinical enterprise, which includes more than 100,000 inpatients and approximately 4 million outpatient visits annually.

Throughout his tenure as one of the nation’s foremost health care leaders, Warner has consistently led efforts to advance patient satisfaction and the quality and safety of hospitals and health systems. It’s a commitment that has helped to make UT Southwestern — located in Dallas, the ninth largest city in the nation — a highly regarded and consistently top-ranked medical center serving a large metropolitan area.

During his time at UT Southwestern, the medical center has earned regional and national distinction for quality of care and patient experience. Clements University Hospital has been ranked the No. 1 hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth, and the No. 2 hospital in Texas, for six consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report. Since the hospital’s opening, UT Southwestern Medical Center has been a two-time recipient of the Rising Star Award from Vizient, the benchmarking organization for academic medical centers, for top performance in quality, safety and patient-centeredness. Additionally, both UT Southwestern’s hospitals and medical practice recently received Press Ganey Pinnacle of Excellence Awards for patient satisfaction and experience over the past three years.

“Dr. Warner’s record of exemplary leadership, service and vision will help the medical center continue our momentum as one of America’s top-ranked academic health centers,” said Leslie H. Wexner, chair, Wexner Medical Center Board of Trustees. “We are delighted to welcome him to the university and to Ohio.”

Warner holds the Nancy and Jeremy Halbreich, Susan and Theodore Strauss Professorship in Cardiology, and the Jim and Norma Smith Distinguished Chair for Interventional Cardiology. From 2017-18, he served as president of the American Heart Association (AHA). He was named an AHA fellow (FAHA) in 2016 and has served on its national board of directors since 2014 — along with leadership roles on numerous additional Association groups related to research, strategy, innovation and more. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Warner, as chair of the Association’s Quality Certification Business Management Committee, played a critical role in the creation and quick launch of the first-of-its-kind COVID-19 CVD Registry.

Last year, he received the Heart Association’s Gold Heart Award, the highest volunteer honor bestowed by the organization. Though the Gold Heart Award is described by the American Heart Association as a lifetime achievement award, Warner continues to be actively engaged with the Association — and considers his new role as CEO of the Wexner Medical Center and executive vice president at Ohio State as the next step in a career focused on innovation and improving the quality and safety of health care for individuals and families in the communities in which they live.

“This is an exciting time to be joining such an esteemed and respected academic medical center and university. Few institutions have such a bold vision combined with the comprehensive breadth and depth of programs and a strong focus on improving health equity,” Warner said. “The opportunity to make a lasting impact alongside this community of exceptional faculty, staff and learners is both inspiring and exciting. I can’t wait for our work together to start.”

Warner received his MD from Vanderbilt University and completed his residency training in internal medicine at UT Southwestern, where he served as chief resident. He did his fellowship training in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. He served on the faculty at Duke until he returned to UT Southwestern in 2003. He received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Physician Executive MBA program at the University of Tennessee in 2011.

A national and international speaker and lecturer, Warner has published more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, reviews, chapters and monographs. Along with the American Heart Association’s Gold Heart Award, he received the Association’s Distinguished National Leadership Award in 2018 and has been named a Super Doctor by Texas Monthly Magazine from 2007-2022.

Warner comes to Ohio State at a time of expansion and growth to meet the needs of communities in central Ohio and throughout the state.

The Wexner Medical Center Outpatient Care New Albany opened in 2021 and Outpatient Care Dublin opened in 2022. Construction continues on The James Outpatient Care at Carmenton, the university’s 270-plus-acre innovation district that will serve as a hub for research and entrepreneurship in high-growth sectors. Carmenton will also feature the Interdisciplinary Research Facility, which will serve multiple research disciplines, including biomedical, life sciences, engineering and environmental sciences. Two floors in the research facility will be dedicated to The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, including the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology. In addition, the Inpatient Hospital Tower — focused on patient care, research and education — is scheduled to open in 2026.

In the most recent U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings, the Wexner Medical Center was recognized as a national leader in nine specialties. Among 20 common adult procedures and conditions, the medical center was rated as high performing in 14. The Best Hospitals rankings mark the 30th consecutive year that Ohio State has been recognized as a leading health care provider in the United States.

“Working in academic medicine is a great privilege, and I am honored by the trust the Board of Trustees has placed in me to help propel Ohio State forward and lead a world-class medical center committed to advancing transformative health care that improves the lives of the people we serve across central Ohio, the nation and the world,” Warner said.

Ohio State is ranked 12th among all universities in overall research expenditures in fiscal year (FY) 2021, an increase of 12 positions from a previous ranking of 24th in FY2020.  The university ranking also increased among public colleges and universities, moving up from 15th in 2020 to 7th in 2021. 

The NSF’s annual Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey rankings show that Ohio State’s research and creative expression community conducted $1.236 billion in research and development expenditures in FY2021.

“Ohio State has an ambitious goal to double research and development expenditures over the next decade to address societal challenges and improve people’s lives. Our advancing rankings among our peer institutions are proof of the hard work and relentless innovation on the part of our faculty, students and staff,” said Peter Mohler, vice president for research at Ohio State.

“The university has long been committed to groundbreaking, convergent research to advance robotics, artificial intelligence, biomedical sciences and other fields of research and creative expression,” said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, Ohio State's vice president for knowledge enterprise. “While we are pleased to see this recognition, our effort to use science and discovery to solve large, complex societal challenges continues unabated.”

For industry-sponsored research, Ohio State is 6th among all universities, with $129.9 million in expenditures.

Overall, research and development spending by academic institutions in the United States totaled $89.9 billion in FY 2021, an increase of $3.4 billion (4%) from FY 2020.

The HERD survey is the primary source of information on research and development expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities. The survey collects information on research and development expenditures by field of research and source of funds and gathers information on types of research, expenses and personnel.

Year over year, federal research spending at Ohio State grew 7.7%, from $539 million in FY 2020 to $581 million in FY 2021. Ohio State’s institutional investment in research grew to $404 million in FY 2021, up from $152 million the previous fiscal year.

The university said that in addition to increased university investment in FY 2021, better alignment across colleges, units and affiliated entities allowed Ohio State to identify additional institutional investment that was previously not reported as part of the HERD survey.

New research findings in mouse models of one genetic risk for autism support the idea that loss of a specific gene interferes with cells in the brain whose role is to inhibit signaling. Though there are fewer of these cells than other neurons and their signals don’t travel very far, they have enormous influence on patterns of information transmission within the brain and to the rest of the body.

Ohio State University researchers found that deleting a copy of the autism-risk gene Arid1b from specific brain cells decreased the number of inhibitory cells and lowered signaling between inhibitory cells and the excitatory cells they help control. Previous research has suggested reduced inhibitory signals in mouse models of the disorder result in a range of autism-related behaviors. 

In separate experiments, the scientists found that signaling changes linked to inhibitory cells can be seen in the same genetic mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) very shortly after birth, but the disruption might not be strong enough to interfere with normal brain development powered by a host of other genes. 

Studying disease risk genes’ effects on brain circuitry is intended to pave the way to possible therapies, but this pursuit also offers insights into how normal circuits function because “in many cases, that’s still a mystery,” said senior author Jason Wester, assistant professor of neuroscience in Ohio State’s College of Medicine.

“The circuits are the level of analysis that are crucial for understanding brain function – that’s a key to understanding not just what goes awry in neurodevelopmental disorders, but also to understanding how normal circuits work,” Wester said. “We’re asking what neurodevelopmental disorders can tell us about how normal circuits work – and what that tells us about how we go about trying to fix disrupted circuits.” 

The research posters were presented today (Monday, Nov. 14, 2022) at Neuroscience 2022, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. 

There are many genes associated with risk for ASD, which is among the reasons it is such a difficult disorder to study and treat. In fact, in a recent data-mining RNA sequencing study, Wester’s lab created the first organized list of genes that relate to formation of synapses – vehicles for circuit transmission among cells – across the brain. 

“We hoped to provide clues for whether or not we might consider therapies for autism that could be fixable across the whole brain if we tweaked a single gene,” he said. “Unfortunately, we found it’s not likely. Autism risk genes are not concentrated in a specific group. But we did find many among inhibitory neurons, suggesting they are potentially key targets for therapeutics.” 

Wester deletes one copy of the Arid1b gene in specific brain cells in mice – rather than throughout the body in the way natural gene loss would occur – to examine where circuit changes go wrong in ways that could lead to symptoms associated with autism, such as problems with social communication, repetitive behaviors, learning deficits or anxiety. 

“We knock out the gene in a subpopulation of cells to investigate their contributions to circuit abnormalities, and look at changes in synaptic properties during development over time and compare them to control mice,” he said.

In examinations of circuit development in brain slices, the researchers found that loss of the gene from excitatory neurons has only subtle effects on signaling, which suggests, in this mouse model, that loss of the gene in excitatory cells is not a likely driver of autism-related behavioral abnormalities. 

Loss of the gene in inhibitory neurons, however, led to changes in synaptic physiological functions and connectivity at varying levels depending on their location in the cortex. 

The team also monitored hippocampus activity in the brains of 1-week-old mice lacking a copy of the Arid1b gene in brain cells to see if genetic problems affected circuitry at that very early stage. They found some delays in synapse development and lower frequency of information transmission involving inhibitory neurons, but normal hippocampal development appeared to occur despite those changes. Though it’s too soon to tell, this finding could have implications for potential timing of interventions related to repairing damaged circuity, Wester said. 

Precision in understanding brain circuitry is vital to the design of therapies to address ASD. 

“Our data indicate that in some cases, circuits between excitatory and inhibitory cells seem normal, but circuits right next to them consisting of slightly different subtypes of neurons are the ones that are disrupted – so if you dial up inhibition everywhere and dial it up in the wrong places, you could introduce a whole new host of problems,” he said.

“That’s why what we’re doing is valuable, because it can tell us where to target interventions and open up new avenues for therapies.”

This work was supported by a Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) Pilot Award.

Co-authors of the posters include Alec Marshall, Danielle Boyle, Meretta Hanson, Devipriyanka Nagarajan, Julie Fitzgerald, Emilee Gaitten, Noor Bibi, Olga Kokiko-Cochran and Bin Gu, all of Ohio State.

Grace Wang, The Ohio State University’s executive vice president of research, innovation and knowledge, has been named president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, one of the nation’s first technological universities.

“This is an incredible opportunity for Grace, and I know you join me in wishing her the best as a continued partner in higher education,” said President Kristina M. Johnson in a message to students, faculty and staff Monday.

Wang joined Ohio State in December 2020 to help lead the university’s cutting-edge research, creative expression and scholarship. Over the past two years, she has worked closely with university leaders, research faculty and staff, and critical partners at the state and federal level to create a vision and structure for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge — including record-breaking research and development expenditures of $1.236 billion in FY21 and the vibrant future of Carmenton.

During Wang’s tenure, Ohio State was awarded eight major cross-disciplinary research centers with total, multi-year federal funding of $122.9 million. Areas of focus range from artificial intelligence to Imageomics to Starlab, a NASA-funded effort to develop a new generation of commercially based, human-occupied space stations.

Her work helped establish the university’s partnership with Intel to bolster research and build a workforce pipeline that the company and its suppliers require. Ohio State also launched the President’s Research Excellence program, providing seed support for 41 cross-disciplinary teams focused on research that has the potential to have a major impact on society and garner external support.

“Our momentum in advancing research excellence is only accelerating,” Johnson said. “Please join me in expressing our gratitude to Grace. Her outstanding contributions — including the development of an exceptional staff and leadership team — will ensure that Ohio State’s research-and-discovery engine continues to grow.”

Wang’s last day at Ohio State will be March 1, and a nationwide search for a successor will begin immediately.

Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson joined U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, university leaders, faculty, students, and government and industry partners to make the announcement at the Center for Automotive Research on Friday. Johnson and Brown toured the facility and discussed the future of transportation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

“I want to commend Sen. Brown’s steadfast leadership in securing this important investment,” Johnson said. “The transportation sector is the largest domestic contributor to climate change, generating more greenhouse gas emissions than any other part of our economy. Encouraging public transportation use can help reduce that impact, which is why it’s so important that the bus fleet of the future is as clean and energy-efficient as possible. This investment recognizes and supports the innovative research and testing work being done by Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research to maximize clean, safe and efficient mobility to advance the mission of the FTA.” 

Funding for the investment was made possible through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Brown helped to write and pass.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is already getting resources to Ohio communities to improve transportation,” Brown said. “We worked to ensure the infrastructure law will allow communities to upgrade their buses, and with our long history of the Ohio auto industry leading the country and the world, our state is the obvious choice to lead this innovative research. I’m working to make sure Ohio gets its fair share – or more – of infrastructure investment, and this is a great step in that effort.”   

The new agreement will support the construction and operation of the testing center through fiscal year 2026. The funds will go toward establishing a dedicated research, development and testing laboratory at CAR’s facilities on the university’s west campus. 

The new lab will include component and vehicle-level testing and validation equipment, with a focus on batteries and energy storage, hydrogen fuel cells, electric motors and power electronics. The testing center will also use the network of on-road testing facilities of the university-affiliated Transportation Research Center Inc. (TRC), North America’s most advanced vehicle proving ground, and its SMARTCenter, an advanced test track for vehicle automation testing and development. TRC brings a vast range of facilities and expertise to the program to speed up development and deployment of zero- and low-emission transit vehicle technologies.

Ohio State’s expertise in mobility research will help the transit industry develop and deploy the cleanest and most energy-efficient buses and transit vehicles. The program will also help transit agencies across the U.S. select the best vehicles and technologies to meet their customers’ needs. The university’s testing center will collaborate with transit vehicle manufacturers, component suppliers, industry organizations and transit agencies. The resulting research will be used by the public transportation industry and the FTA.

“Investment in public transportation advances American industries and its workforce, mitigates climate change and spurs innovation,” said FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez. “Thanks to President Biden and Chairman Brown, this partnership with The Ohio State University merges the significant investment in low-emission transit vehicles, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with the talent and expertise of the Center for Automotive Research. The transit sector continues to lead in advancing the climate, equity, innovation and workforce development goals prioritized by this administration.”

Research and testing at the center will be led by dedicated engineering staff and supported by research faculty, senior research staff, and skilled laboratory and testing technicians. All aspects of the programs will engage students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Additionally, the program will support CAR’s STEM education and K-12 engagement initiatives, including summer internships for high school students and a mobility research summer camp. 

“This program will allow us to further expand our efforts towards developing the electrified mobility workforce our industry and our nation need,” said Giorgio Rizzoni, director of the Center for Automotive Research. “We are delighted to be able to assist the FTA in its goal to achieve zero emissions in the transit fleet.”

The Ohio State bus-testing center is supported by funding that Brown secured to accelerate the deployment of zero-emission bus technology. Brown worked to establish FTA’s testing program for bus components in the 2015 transportation law and secured additional funding in annual appropriations.

DARPA Forward featured two days of presentations and panels by leading researchers, innovators and defense leaders at the Ohio Union this week. Ohio State hosted one of six regional events being held at universities nationwide to connect Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) leaders with new communities of talent.

“I think this is truly remarkable what DARPA has done over the years. We’re excited to learn about the new frontiers being explored by the DARPA ecosystem,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “At the same time, we’re excited to learn from our own researchers and those from the universities and other affiliations who are here and are pushing boundaries of work. ... Ohio State is focused on taking a bold and non-incremental approach to some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

Johnson helped open the second day of the conference and pointed out that her research into optical interconnections received DARPA funding. She said the President’s Research Excellence program she established follows a model similar to DARPA’s: providing support for novel, high-risk and high-reward research, as well as funding large cross-disciplinary teams addressing large, complex societal challenges. 

The 60-year-old agency oversees about 250 research and development programs to develop transformative technology related to national security. DARPA’s $4.12 billion budget supports research at companies, universities, the Department of Defense and other labs, and the organization has launched innovations that include stealth technology, voice recognition programs and GPS devices.

The DARPA Forward conferences offer an opportunity to expand the agency’s reach, support regional and national innovation ecosystems, and boost high-risk, high-reward research.

“The collaborations and partnerships that can be formed at a conference of this caliber are central to the university’s mission as a hub of research and innovation,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president of research, innovation and knowledge. “Our faculty continue to build momentum in discoveries, convergent research and technological breakthroughs that address critical societal and national security challenges.”

One of those researchers is Xiaoguang (William) Wang, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the College of Engineering. Wang is part of the DARPA Risers program, which focuses on up-and-coming researchers whose work is related to national security and demonstrates the potential to lead to technological breakthroughs.

Under the Risers program, individuals in the early stages of their research careers are recognized for their notable work and present their ideas directly to DARPA.

“I feel honored,” William Wang said. “As a junior faculty member, being selected as a DARPA Riser provides me an opportunity to directly interact with DARPA. My research, to some extent, aligns with some mission of DARPA.”

Wang presented research on the design of nanomaterials for absorption and conversion of radiant energy at a DARPA Risers program. He said it is valuable for the university to host the DARPA Forward conference because of the networking opportunities it offers.

“As a new faculty member, the most valuable thing for me is the suggestions that I received from direct communication with DARPA program managers,” he said. “It provided me guidance on how to move forward with approaching DARPA about proposal applications.”

Neurological disorders affect 1 in 6 individuals worldwide, according to the United Nations. Existing treatments fail to restore health to many, and promising new treatments face a long and complex path to market.

The new NeuroTech Institute (NTI) will accelerate the pace of progress. A biotechnology accelerator, NTI houses three programs focused on disorders of neural communication, the neural genome and the network of the mind. It is already working on technology advancements to help individuals dealing with paralysis from spinal cord injury.

NTI is the result of years of preparations by Ohio State and Battelle and uses a collaborative approach to science – uniting clinicians, engineers and patient advocates to pioneer new treatments.

NTI is recruiting faculty, researchers and support staff who will add to the depth of expertise of already existing faculty across Ohio State and Battelle.

“This new institute complements Ohio State’s efforts to build new opportunities for interdisciplinary research, translation and partnerships and accelerate solutions for patients with neurological disorders,” said Peter Mohler, vice president for research at Ohio State.

“By partnering with Ohio State and combining our resources, skills and vision we will be able to bring speed, creativity and expertise to bring world-changing neurotechnology solutions,” said Matt Vaughan, Battelle executive vice president of applied science and technology. “Ohio State brings breakthrough foundational science, Battelle brings advanced development and applied science and technology, and the institute brings the accelerator and philanthropic elements.”

Tim Lucas, professor of neurological surgery at Ohio State’s College of Medicine, was recruited to be NTI’s inaugural chief executive officer. Lucas brings four large awards from the National Institutes of Health as well as sponsored research agreements from government and industry to the new institute.

“At NTI, our mission is to restore quality of life to those suffering from neurological diseases, such as dementia, epilepsy and addiction. Through our innovations, we will ensure that patients benefit from new treatments as quickly as possible,” Lucas said.

More information on NTI may be found at https://neurotechinstitute.org    

OSEP contributes $810,000 each year to the university or affiliated philanthropic causes as part of its commitment to academic engagement.

Grants include $50,000 to Jordan Clark, assistant professor in the College of Engineering. The grant will fund Clark’s research related to reducing energy used by laboratory exhaust fans around Ohio State’s Columbus campus.

Running exhaust fans is often a necessary part of research, since the fans divert fumes from potentially noxious substances, Clark said.

“This is kind of an energy hog that not too many people think about,” he said. “Especially in the wet labs, you’ll have a bunch of the fume hoods that chemists, chemical engineers work in. They need to be held at a negative pressure to make sure that whatever they’re working on doesn’t escape into the general building. In order to do that, you have to run fans constantly.”

Clark said the OSEP grant will assist him and his team in verifying data they’ve collected on reducing energy usage when running laboratory exhaust fans.

“What that means for a typical situation,” he said, “if you can turn things down by half, which is often the case, if you can get a better prediction of where that plume of air is going to go, you’ll end up using about one-eighth of the energy.”

Another $50,000 OSEP grant has been awarded to Ryan Winston, assistant professor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The grant will fund Winston’s proposal, “Using Campus as a Living Laboratory: Curbing Sediment in Stormwater to Improve Campus Sustainability.”

Winston said the grant will advance research that he and Halina Steiner, assistant professor in the Knowlton School of Architecture, have been working on since fall 2018.

“The long and the short of the idea is to essentially develop a new curb and gutter design along the side of standard streets that you would see in any urban area across the country, with the idea here of helping to control pollutants that are transported by stormwater runoff when it rains,” Winston said. “We are rethinking how that piece of infrastructure that’s been around for several centuries, at least, is constructed.”

Winston said the grant will enable his team to further the “Using Campus as a Living Laboratory” concept and develop curbs and gutters around campus to control pollution. Curbs and gutters that the team designed in the Knowlton School’s laboratory in 2019 and 2020 contain indentations that filter out pollutants.  

“These indentations helped to slow the velocity of the stormwater,” Winston said. “The indentations in the curbs and gutters are also meant to collect things like sediment, cigarette butts, things of that nature. And then campus facilities, which comes through and street-sweeps frequently anyway, can hopefully remove all of that material using their street sweepers and essentially keep it out of the Olentangy River.”

Other OSEP grant award winners include:

$50,000 to Steve Volkmann, Planning, Architecture and Real Estate and Facilities Operations and Development; “Graves Hall Green Space.”

$50,000 to Ed McGowan, Administration and Planning and Facilities Operations and Development; “Quietly Mowing Campus with Zero Emission Mowers.”

$48,162 to Matilde D’Arpino, College of Engineering; “Planning Tool for Assessing Ohio State Options for a Sustainable and Responsible Energy Usage.”

$45,000 to Allison MacKay, College of Engineering; “Sustainable Cities, Equitable Societies – Case Studies to Develop Student Competencies in Sustainable and Just Infrastructure Design.”

$44,000 to Jennifer Heckscher, Fisher College of Business; “Evaluating a One-of-a-Kind Experiential Energy Innovation Hub: Human-Centered Innovation Spring for the Energy Advancement and Innovation Center (EAIC Spring).”

$40,000 to Gisell Jeter-Bennett, College of Engineering; “Engineering House Learning Community’s Service-Learning Program with South Side Family Farms.”

$35,000 to Ramteen Sioshansi, College of Engineering; “Convergent Graduate Training and EmPOWERment for a Sustainable Energy Future.”

$33,500 to Shawn Midlam-Mohler, College of Engineering; “EcoCar Competition.”

$28,000 to Qian Chen, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; “Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Building Energy and Water Use Intensities.”

$15,000 to Tom Reeves, Office of Student Life; “Student Video Production Project.”

$15,000 to Courtney Price, STEM Impact Collaborative; “WestFest Community Science Day.”

$13,000 to Parker Sutton, Knowlton School of Architecture; “Prairie Baroque.”

$11,410 to Liam Nigro, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; “The Green Renaissance Project: Sustainable Pathways to Community Wellness and Resilience Through Art.”

$10,307 to Andrew Leber, College of Arts and Sciences and Brain Sciences; “Climate and Cognitive Science Mini-Conference.”

$7,000 to Michelle Franco, College of Engineering; “The Diggers Studio: Cultivating an Ethic of Social and Ecological Sustainability in Landscape Labor.”

In addition, OSEP supported the following projects this year:

Ohio State Arts Initiative, $200,000.

WOSU Sustainability Programming, $25,000.

EmPOWERment Program Capstone Project, $20,000.

Hack OH/IO, $15,000.

In 2017, the university and OSEP entered into the comprehensive energy management partnership, which launched an unprecedented energy efficiency program and established Ohio State as an international leader in sustainability. OSEP is a joint venture between ENGIE North America and Axium Infrastructure. The university’s Energy Academic Collaboration Council provides support for the grant program.

For more information, click here.

The AgTech Innovation Hub will be facilitated by the offices of innovation for both organizations as well as the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES). Nationwide and Ohio State will work together to encourage the development of new solutions that will help the agricultural ecosystem while better understanding, managing and mitigating climate risk.

“Ohio farmers need new science, new strategies, new skills, new tools, new funding and new collaborations. I’m so happy today to have the honor to announce a new partnership between [CFAES] and Nationwide,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “[The Innovation Hub] will offer fertile ground for programs and ideas that contribute to agricultural resiliency, food security and the economic security of farmers and food producers.”

Nationwide is pledging up to $2 million in initial funding to identify and execute initiatives for the Innovation Hub and plans to provide additional funding and resources in the future. The partnership was announced at the 2022 Farm Science Review.

“The partnership also creates opportunities for collaborations across institutions and industries, developing new solutions to help the supply chain for other challenges,” said Mark Bervin, president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Property and Casualty. “We are so excited to partner with The Ohio State University and we are excited to see the impact that we will make on the agricultural community, not just here in Ohio, but everywhere.”

The AgTech Innovation Hub will provide a variety of tools, resources, skillsets and funding platforms to address the dynamic and changing needs of agriculture innovation to minimize climate risk and accurately insure those risks.

“This partnership will build on the collaborative that Nationwide and the Nationwide Foundation already have with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and The Ohio State University,” said Cathann A. Kress, Ohio State’s vice president for agricultural administration and dean of CFAES. “It will challenge our students and faculty to bring innovative solutions to the table to tackle the grand challenges we face regarding the nexus of ecosystem sustainability, food security, and viable production agriculture.”

The Innovation Hub will promote applied research, technology transfer, the exchange of knowledge and experience, and transdisciplinary innovation in support of agricultural technology. Programs may include early-stage entrepreneurs, mature companies or producers developing new or value-added products or manufacturing processes.

The GWCSP, established by Voyager and its operating company Nanoracks, is a core element of Starlab, the companies’ future commercial space station. In December 2021, Voyager and Nanoracks won a $160 million Space Act Agreement from NASA to design Starlab as part of their Commercial Destination Free Flyers (CDFF) project. The GWCSP is the world's first-ever science park in space, operating today on the International Space Station.  

"We have only just begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities and opportunities that await us in the ‘final frontier,’ and our ability to maximize future exploration hinges on collaboration between scientists and industry experts,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “Locating the terrestrial lab of the George Washington Carver Science Park at Ohio State will be the best possible way to facilitate this joint effort and ensure we are sharing resources, research and knowledge across multiple disciplines."

The research conducted at the GWCSP terrestrial lab will generate positive social, economic, educational and quality-of-life outcomes for a broad range of constituents, in particular, the Ohio agriculture community. Some of these benefits include research to preserve Ohio’s water quality, improve crop genetics and production efficiency, and enhance animal health for Ohio’s agricultural community.

“The George Washington Carver Science Park is a wonderful example of the powerful synergies that Ohio offers to commercial space ventures,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. “This landmark partnership at the intersection of aerospace and agriculture is extraordinary. Together, we will accelerate transformational aerospace technologies as Ohio continues to lead this nation into the Aerospace Age of the 21st Century.”

The effort will begin this year with a facility at Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. This facility is also home to the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service.

Next year, the organizations plan to break ground on a stand-alone facility on the Ohio State Aerospace and Air Transportation Campus, home to the university airport, Ohio State’s Aerospace Research Center, Knowlton Executive Flight Terminal and Education Center, and a range of corporate, government and private aviation and aerospace activities. 

“Ohio is the birthplace of aviation and has a deep-rooted history in aerospace and defense innovation,” said Dylan Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Voyager Space. “It’s clear that Ohio offers the most beneficial location for a terrestrial facility to support the long-term success and utilization of George Washington Carver Science Park. Company researchers, operators, visionaries, and space change makers in Ohio will have the ability to influence and inspire organizations pursuing aerospace research and development and we are thrilled to be partnering with Team Ohio on this exciting project.”

“By collaborating with Team Ohio, Voyager Space will launch one of the most creative public-private partnerships in one of the most sought-after space destinations on this planet,” said John Horack, Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy at Ohio State. “We know this facility will transform into a broader commercial space research magnet that serves as the primary North American site for the George Washington Carver Science Park.”

Ohio State researchers, including students, are already excited about the opportunity.

Nicholas Nastasi, a PhD student in the environmental science graduate program, said his research focuses on modeling microbial growth in dust collected from the International Space Station to gain insight into how microorganisms react during actual spaceflight. The research will inform future human-occupied spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit for spacecraft and astronaut safety.

“The Starlab and Ohio State partnership is incredibly exciting,” Nastasi said. “This partnership will give current and future students unprecedented access to space-related research. Space has a great ability to inspire, and this collaboration will no doubt inspire students to literally reach for the stars.”

Cassidy Brozovich, a senior in the food, agricultural and biological engineering program, is researching the design of 3D printed substrates to grow plants in space. Brozovich said the substrate is recyclable and that the designs are customizable to tailor to each plant’s needs.

“By having the terrestrial analog lab at Ohio State, I will be able to design an experiment to test my models in space. The opportunity to work on something so cutting edge is both overwhelming and exciting,” she said. “This also gives Ohio State the unique opportunity to become a leader in the space industry through this project.”

The George Washington Carver Science Park honors the legacy of the famed American agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of food products and practical, sustainable farming methods. The science park is the first space-dedicated member of the International Association of Science Parks, a catalyst for global participation in the space research ecosystem.

The new center will lay the foundation for a sustained, highly skilled and diverse semiconductor manufacturing workforce by developing comprehensive experiential learning frameworks for both graduate and undergraduate students, all while paving the way for leading-edge device technologies through state-of-the-art research.

Intel announced a funding award today for the Center for Advanced Semiconductor Fabrication Research and Education (CAFE) of $3 million over three years. This grant comes on the heels of Ohio State convening the Midwest Regional Network to Address National Needs in Semiconductor and Microelectronics, a network of 12 Midwest colleges and universities developing innovative solutions in higher education to support domestic semiconductor education, research and workforce needs.

Earlier this year, Intel announced it will invest more than $20 billion to construct two new chip factories in Ohio. Intel will invest $50 million directly in institutions of higher education in the state, while another $50 million investment from Intel will be matched by $50 million from the National Science Foundation in national funding opportunities.

“The Midwest has extensive experience in serving as an economic driver and support system for some of this nation’s most important undertakings, dating back to World War II and beyond,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “We look forward to reprising that role and helping America retake its rightful place as a leader in the semiconductor industry through this important collaborative effort to train the workforce of tomorrow. By working together, we are much greater than the sum of our parts, and the proof of that will be in the highly trained experts who will emerge from this program prepared to take any challenge and succeed.”

CAFE will partner Ohio State with nine other institutions in the state, including Ohio University, the University of Cincinnati, Central State University and Wilberforce University, as well as the education consortium Five Colleges of Ohio, Inc., composed of Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Wooster.

By bringing together these institutions of higher education into a single, interdisciplinary center, CAFE will provide semiconductor research opportunities to students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, who can share in the access to world-class facilities in an experiential learning environment with a team science approach.

CAFE will be operated at Ohio State by the Institute for Materials Research (IMR), which promotes and supports materials and manufacturing research and initiatives across disciplines and colleges at the university. In addition to IMR operating Ohio State’s premier semiconductor fabrication facilities, the institute’s mission is to build large-scale programs that leverage the multidisciplinary strengths of Ohio State. IMR executive director Steven Ringel, professor in Ohio State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and associate vice president for research, is the lead principal investigator.

CAFE will offer exceptional opportunities for undergraduates to learn through hands-on research experience. Manufacturing internships for students, as well as graduate and postdoctoral research associateships, will further immerse and train tomorrow’s semiconductor workforce in a variety of real-world settings.

The new research center’s multidisciplinary, diverse and interactive culture will also be enhanced through its coordination with the National GEM Consortium and the Ohio Five-OSU Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program.

The center will create new training programs and explore next-generation semiconductor device fabrication with activities aligning with many areas of strength within Ohio State’s semiconductor ecosystem: materials synthesis, characterization, device design and processing.

“The research we will carry out as part of the Intel-funded CAFE center will benefit our students, faculty and staff who are engaged in semiconductor research tremendously,” said Ringel. “The structure of CAFE will enable the convergence of both graduate and undergraduate students in an environment of interdisciplinary research and experiential learning that will provide exciting opportunities for current and future generations of students to get in on the ground level and cultivate the future of America’s silicon heartland.”

At Ohio State, access to world-class facilities related to semiconductor fabrication and research will afford experiential learning environments with a team science approach. Primary shared facilities central to CAFE’s research and education efforts at the university include Nanotech West Laboratory, the Semiconductor Epitaxy and Analysis Laboratory, the NanoSystems Laboratory, and the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis.

“We are excited to have this opportunity in Ohio’s semiconductor ecosystem, so diverse teams of faculty, staff and students can showcase their talent by having access to state-of-the-art facilities and research experts in semiconductor fabrication,” said IMR Director of Innovation Jay Sayre, who leads the CAFE student experiential plan. “This new, unique learning experience will introduce undergraduate and graduate students, and will inspire them to seek new horizons of research in academic labs and create a sustained pipeline of talent entering the semiconductor industry.”

CAFE anticipates broadening its reach to Ohio colleges and universities currently not part of the initial effort as it evolves its core program through event series that include lab training sessions and student-centric symposiums.

“Through the Provost’s Early Career Scholars Program, we aim to recruit and recognize extraordinary faculty as they are beginning their careers at Ohio State,” said Melissa L. Gilliam, executive vice president and provost. “This program is part of our growing work to support faculty at all stages of their professional lifecycle and enable them to do their best work with an entrepreneurial, innovative and creative spirit.”

As part of the program, scholars will hold a Provost’s Early Career Professorship for the first five years of their Ohio State appointment, or until their promotion to associate professor with tenure. Scholars will also receive annual funding from the Office of Academic Affairs to be used for research, startup costs and external engagement. The cohort will participate in activities focused on research and scholarship, participate in social programming and interact with university leaders.

“Our colleagues in this inaugural cohort are emerging as impactful scholars and transformative educators and mentors at Ohio State,” said Patrick Louchouarn, senior vice provost for faculty. “Programs like this will help us attract an inclusive and innovative group of faculty, support them throughout all their career stages, and build on our thriving community of scholars.”

The program is open to tenure-track, early-career candidates from all disciplines who have exceptional promise in their respective fields. Given the excellence and potential of early-career faculty at Ohio State, the inaugural cohort includes both incoming and current assistant professors. Looking to next year and beyond, this program will be a powerful effort that will enable Ohio State to recruit top early-career candidates across disciplines.

These eight Early Career Scholars were nominated by their college dean, and a faculty committee evaluated nominations and made recommendations to the Office of Academic Affairs.

The 2022-2023 Provost’s Early Career Scholars are:

Chinyere Agbai
Assistant Professor (beginning 2023)
Department of Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences
Agbai’s research seeks to uncover the roots of the racial wealth gap in homeownership and explore their consequences for inequality in wealth and health. More broadly, her work is concerned with the linkages among urban inequality, racial wealth gaps, and social determinants of health, public policy and structural racism.

Christina Dyar
Assistant Professor
College of Nursing
Dyar’s research aims to understand and reduce health disparities affecting sexual and gender minority populations, with a focus on bisexual individuals, sexual minority women, and nonbinary individuals. She is particularly interested in understanding mechanisms through which stigma-related stressors impact mental health and substance use.

Hun Lee
Assistant Professor
Department of Management and Human Resources, Fisher College of Business
Lee’s research examines leadership effectiveness and diversity management. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management and Human Resource Management.

Horacio Lopez-Nicora
Assistant Professor
Department of Plant Pathology, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Lopez-Nicora is a plant pathologist, nematologist and applied statistician committed to improving and better protecting soybean health. His research is driven by the intertwined goals of ensuring food stability and helping growers manage diseases that affect yield.

Ashleigh LoVette
Assistant Professor
Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion, College of Public Health
A public health scholar, LoVette’s research aims to promote the health and well-being of young people using community- and strength-based approaches incorporating the concept of resilience. Her current work examines how resilience, trauma, health behaviors and social contexts influence sexual and mental health outcomes among girls and young women of color, particularly those affected by HIV.

Parvati Singh
Assistant Professor
Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health
Singh studies how sudden changes in the socioeconomic and health policy environment affect populations’ mental health and health service use. Much of her work focuses on vulnerable groups such as low-income populations, racial minorities, children and people with mental disorders.

Brian Skinner
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences
Skinner’s research program focuses on new quantum materials and finding ways that these materials can do things traditional materials cannot. He also applies concepts from solid state and material physics to different settings, ranging from quantum information to the dynamics of human groups.

Lydia Walker
Assistant Professor and Seth Andre Myers Professor in Global Military
Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences
Walker is a historian of 20th century global decolonization. Her work explores the international history of South Asia, Southern Africa, military intervention and insurgent resistance. 

The National Science Foundation announced funding today for the Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER) Engineering Research Center, for five years at $26 million with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years. If fully realized, it will be one of the largest research investments in the last decade for Ohio State.

Ohio State will partner with Case Western Reserve University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Northwestern University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville along with more than 70 industry, educational and technical organization collaborators to develop and implement new manufacturing technologies for agile, high-performance and high-quality components.

Glenn Daehn, the Mars G. Fontana Professor of Metallurgical Engineering, will serve as the director of the center.

“This transformational investment for Ohio State is about much more than research, though that alone is certainly significant. It’s about enhancing U.S. innovation and reclaiming our nation’s position as a leader in domestic manufacturing,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “We must invest in both American-made products and our local workforce to safeguard against future supply chain challenges and ensure we remain at the forefront of technological advancements that will transform the way we do business and improve our lives.”

Through basic, applied and translational research, HAMMER will accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent autonomous manufacturing systems that will use multiple processes to control material properties and component dimensions to allow rapid customization. These systems will learn from each operation, improving themselves over time.

The new research center and its partner network offers a rare opportunity to develop not only the future of engineering, but also future engineers. Robust partnerships with industry, educational and technical organizations will enable HAMMER to train personnel at many levels from pre-college to practicing engineers, at scale.

The HAMMER-led, next-generation certification standards will facilitate widespread adoption of advanced technologies and the associated workforce. Diversity and inclusion is one of the pillars of the new research center. Special emphasis will be focused on including urban, military and Appalachian communities in educational pipeline programs.

“HAMMER is one of the most significant, high-impact, large-scale research centers to be established at Ohio State. It will advance the current state of manufacturing technologies by uniting design, tools, intelligence and computational materials engineering into a single framework and providing new opportunities to commercialize research,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president of research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “This will enable the agile production of new components in ways that are not now attainable, and with systems that allow for rapid customization and high-quality performance.”

In addition to the collaboration with the four partner universities, HAMMER will include convergent research across colleges at Ohio State. The College of Arts and Sciences, College of Medicine and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs join the College of Engineering in supporting the new engineering research center.

“The NSF investment affirms the visionary direction of Ohio State, as well as engineering’s prominence in AI and robotics,” said Dean of the College of Engineering Ayanna Howard. “We are committed to paving the way to a reimagined future that builds upon a culture of diversity and inclusion, strong workforce development efforts and an expanding innovation ecosystem. Most importantly, this collaboration will help catapult revolutionary ideas while training our most valuable asset, talented students.”

Daehn said the NSF and industry investment in HAMMER is only part of the broader future for the research center.

“We really want to develop what is a new industry based on hybrid, autonomous manufacturing. We have a team of nearly 40 of the best, most innovative academics in manufacturing, materials and artificial intelligence across five institutions, and over the past three years developed a vision of what is really a new way of manufacturing and developed plans to change the manufacturing industry,” he said. “We welcome people reaching out to us asking to be involved.” 

The NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) program supports convergent research, education and technology translation at U.S. universities to lead to strong societal impacts.

Each ERC has interacting foundational components that go beyond the research project, including engineering workforce development at all stages, a culture of diversity and inclusion where all participants gain mutual benefit and value creation within an innovation ecosystem that will outlast the lifetime of the ERC.

Since the program’s start in 1985, NSF has funded 75 ERCs throughout the United States. NSF supports each center for up to 10 years. This investment has led to many successes, including:

• More than 240 spinoff companies
• More than 900 patents
• More than 14,400 total bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to ERC students
• Numerous research outcomes enabling new technologies

Over the years, the ERC program has adapted to meet the nation’s future workforce and technological needs.

For academic researchers, no guide exists to help them take that first step toward commercializing their research. Now, a new book is filling that resource gap.

Titled “Beyond Discovery: Moving Academic Research to the Market” (Oxford University Press, 2022), the book is aimed specifically at researchers working in academe, and details how to approach and navigate the world of commercialization, the many ways in which the process can play out, and who the major players are in a university environment.

“Most of the world doesn’t know how this happens, and people in universities don’t realize they’re part of a pipeline. This is the first book written specifically for faculty that tells them how to play the game,” said co-author Jean Schelhorn. “There are multiple ways to commercialize research, and faculty need to hear that. There are different levels of involvement with tech transfer, and the hallmark for academics is that the inventor stays involved – but only as involved as they want to be.”

Schelhorn and co-author Joan Herbers, both affiliated with The Ohio State University, brought very different, but complementary, backgrounds to development of this guide.

Schelhorn, a chemist, is a serial patented inventor and former industry executive who over decades has developed expertise in coaching and strategizing with scientists as they wade into commercialization waters. She is the current director of commercialization and industry collaborations in Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where she shepherds faculty inventors through patent applications, licensing agreements and other ventures.

Herbers, an evolutionary biologist, is a professor and dean emerita in biological sciences at Ohio State, where she was the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded initiative to increase the presence and success of women faculty in STEM and foster women scientists’ pursuit of commercializing their technologies.

The authors emphasize their intention is to demystify the world of commercialization by describing the various types of professionals who help move the process along, substituting regular words for the jargon, and explaining the many pathways to achieving the “transfer of technology out of the institution and into another entity.”

“A faculty member once said to me, ‘You know, this world is like trying to cross the Grand Canyon. How am I going to do that without a guide?’” Herbers said. “So we’re trying to be their guide.”

Among the book’s major take-home messages: Moving research into the marketplace does not have to mean forming a startup company. 

“If you look at the world right now, there is a huge emphasis on startups and entrepreneurship, which implies you are forming a company,” Schelhorn said. “Some technologies are not appropriate for a startup. Meanwhile there is this huge world of licensing, and how you do that is not understood. 

“Essentially, everything leaves the university as a license. However, getting there is a very complex process and in this book, we explain it at a detailed level.”

Because the information may feel heavy for trepidatious aspiring inventors, Schelhorn and Herbers made a concerted effort to write a highly readable book that inspires scientists to consider how their work might change the world.

“A lot of it is very complex information. There’s a lot of fun in there, too,” Schelhorn said. “And I can say from experience that going through this process with a team is really a great ride.”

In developing the book, Schelhorn drew on her deep knowledge as a former private-sector patent strategist and longtime Ohio State tech-transfer specialist helping academic scientists imagine a future in which their inventions are making a difference in people’s lives. She partnered with Herbers, who has spent her entire career steeped in the academic culture, and trying to improve it.

“The result is truly one of a kind,” Herbers said. “This is a culture underserved in terms of material that will help them advance in this area, so our goal was to bring clarity to the field the inventor has to walk through. And we are meeting people where they are, in this culture.

“I have not patented or commercialized a darn thing. But I do know how faculty think and why this can be a hard sell for them.”

Interspersed among the book’s explanatory chapters are profiles of inventors representing a range of fields, career stages and institution types that are designed to increase the chances that readers will see themselves in the commercialization world and be encouraged to give it a try.

The inclusion of these profiles was particularly attractive to the publisher, said Sarah Humphreville, senior editor, Oxford University Press.

“What we thought was so special about this book was that, though Drs. Herbers and Schelhorn themselves brought a wealth of hands-on teaching, research and commercialization experience, they also gave space throughout their manuscript to the diverse experiences of so many individuals who had taken interesting, often unusual paths toward commercial success,” Humphreville said. “Readers from nearly all academic specialties can find glimmers of their story, or the potential of their ideas, in the stories shared – which, as a publisher, we found quite exciting.”

To help inventors share their stories and build new networks, Schelhorn and Herbers have also established a website, https://gobeyonddiscovery.com/.

“There’s a whole ecosystem for startup founders,” Schelhorn said, “but there’s very little out there for people who want to keep their foot in an institutional environment and still have things matter in the world.”

Last month, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo announced the appointment of 32 leaders and experts to the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship (NACIE).

NACIE is tasked with developing a national entrepreneurship strategy to strengthen America’s ability to compete and win as the world’s leading startup nation and as the world’s leading innovator in critical emerging technologies.

“We must invest further in our entrepreneurs and innovators so that America continues to lead the world in discovering and commercializing critical technologies. At the same time, we must better ensure that more communities throughout the country are included in the ecosystems that will generate these critical innovations. The Biden Administration looks forward to tapping the expertise of the new NACIE members to build a better America and further strengthen our competitiveness on the global stage,” Raimondo said. “I applaud these individuals – leaders in their respective fields of industry, workforce development, academia, technology and innovation – for their commitment to serve.”

“The United States has some of the world’s greatest creative minds and boundless resources, yet the ranking as the topmost innovative country has eluded us. The higher education sector, long recognized as one of our nation’s most significant assets, has a critical role to play in securing our rightful position as a leading global innovator,” Johnson said. “At Ohio State, we have always valued the power and importance of the innovation economy, spending $1.24 billion on research in 2022 alone as part of an ambitious plan to double expenditures over the next decade. As a member of the advisory council, I am proud to share this commitment and put what we have learned to work to create new opportunities for the next generation of STEM experts.” 

Johnson joins Revolution CEO and former AOL founder Steve Case as voting non-federal co-chairs. Members of the council come from higher education, the technology industry and the venture capital community.

The council will work to identify and recommend solutions to drive the innovation economy, including growing a skilled STEM workforce and removing barriers for entrepreneurs ushering innovative technologies into the market. The council also facilitates federal dialogue with the innovation, entrepreneurship and workforce development communities.

“The technological, societal and economic challenges that we face as a nation today require even stronger bridges between discovery, innovation and commercialization,” said National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, who will serve as a federal ex-officio co-chair. “I’m excited to work with the NACIE to help advance the highly integrated research and innovation ecosystem, with a particular focus on expanding the geography of innovation by engaging with diverse communities all across the country.”

Ohio State’s Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge is an example of academia, government and industry supporting startups that drive innovation. University research expenditures for the 2021 fiscal year were $1.236 billion. Since fiscal year 2017, 75 startups have been formed from technology developed at Ohio State technology.

“As a land-grant research university, it is our responsibility to translate our discoveries and knowledge for the greater good,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president of research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “President Johnson’s leadership and unique experiences will help amplify higher education institutions’ critical role in our innovation economy and inform a national conversation on how we can cultivate and grow entrepreneurship and deepen cross-sector partnerships.”

NACIE is a federal advisory committee managed by the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. More than 260 nominations were received. Members will serve two-year terms.

A full list of council members is posted on the NACIE website.

“When we bring together different expertise and different points of view, we have the potential to solve some of society’s biggest problems,” said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, vice president for knowledge enterprise at Ohio State. “This funding provides a vital seed for Ohio State researchers to explore their ideas to solve complex problems and a mechanism to drive convergent research across the university.”

Since the inception of the PRE program in 2021, Ohio State has invested more than $3 million in seed support for cross- and interdisciplinary research that have the potential to attract external funding.

March 2022 Accelerator Grant recipients include a proposal titled “A Feasibility Pilot Study to Reduce the Intergenerational Transmission of Obesity to Children of Parents Undergoing Bariatric Surgery.”

Research has found that children of parents with severe obesity who have bariatric surgery are at high risk of developing obesity and disordered eating behaviors, said principal investigator (PI) Keeley Pratt, a professor with the College of Education and Human Ecology.

Pratt and a team that includes co-investigators Alicia Bunger, College of Social Work, and Chris Taylor and Bradley Needleman, College of Medicine, received a $50,000 Accelerator Grant. Their project will compare the early effects of two interventions (parent-only vs. parent and child), integrated into routine preoperative care for parents and their children.

“I have a pretty strong background in family-based pediatric weight management, and in that type of a setting, because weight status and behavior are so congruent between parents and children, when children have obesity and are referred to pediatric weight management, often their parents have obesity, too,” Pratt said. “I kind of flipped the lens in looking at adult weight management and bariatric surgery.”

The majority of patients who make lifestyle changes to address obesity through the bariatric surgery process are women who are of child-bearing or parental age, Pratt said.

“There are a bunch of children who are witnessing the effects of bariatric surgery on parents, and it provides this opportunity to potentially either intervene on children’s health or even to prevent obesity for those children,” Pratt said. “It’s kind of this untapped area where there’s a really promising clinical impact of the work. This project is developing the feasibility of what would it be like to intervene in that setting in the least invasive way possible.”

For a proposal titled “Artificial Intelligence-Driven Development of Novel Chemical Tools for Controlling Mosquito Disease Vectors,” PI Peter Piermarini of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) is working with co-investigators Liva Rakotondraibe and Xiaolin Cheng with the College of Pharmacy. The research team will use their $50,000 grant to explore an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) approach to accelerate development of novel, plant-derived chemical tools for controlling mosquito-transmitted diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Zika virus, Piermarini said.

“We discovered a compound – cinnamodial (CDIAL) – that a plant produces that's endemic to Madagascar. It's a plant that's used in traditional medicines, and we identified a molecule within that plant that is toxic to mosquitoes,” he said. “What's interesting about the molecule is that it kills mosquitoes that have been become resistant to conventional insecticides that are used for mosquito control. Resistance is an emerging problem because it's reducing the number of chemical tools that are available to control mosquitos effectively.”

The researchers plan to use AI to identify which part of the CDIAL compound can be used as a natural insecticide, Piermarini said.

“We’re going to generate a few dozen derivatives of this molecule and test them against mosquitoes. And then we’re going to use artificial intelligence to try to help tease out which parts of the molecule are promoting its activity against mosquitoes, and also tell us which parts may be weak in its activity against mosquitoes,” he said. “Through those analyses, we're hoping to identify modifications we can make to CDIAL to make it a much more effective insecticide for killing mosquitoes.”

For a proposal titled “What Lies Beneath: Using Microsporidian Parasites to Control Mosquito Breeding in Stormwater Catch Basins," CFAES researchers Sarah Short and Ryan Winston are collaborating with Risa Pesapane with the College of Veterinary Medicine. The research team is testing whether microsporidian parasites could be used for effective mosquito control in stormwater catch basins, which are prime breeding sites in cities around the world, said Short, the project’s PI.

“Microsporidian parasites are natural parasites of many animals, and there are some that are highly specific to certain species of mosquitoes. This is an area that is very understudied but that may hold promise for novel control of mosquito populations,” Short said.

While the research team’s work is currently limited to laboratory experiments and field tests, the results could eventually have a global impact, Short said.

“There are very few researchers actively investigating microsporidian parasites of mosquitoes, so it's also an opportunity for us to put Ohio State in a novel place as a research institution,” she said.

Other March 2022 Accelerator Grant recipients include:

“Targeting Ethylene Signaling to Condition Crop Resistance to Geminiviruses” – The project will identify strategies to build plants that are resistant to geminiviruses and mitigate crop losses that exacerbate global food insecurity. PI: David Bisaro, College of Arts and Sciences.

“Determining Primary Splicing Changes in Spinal Muscular Atrophy” – The project will identify genes that lead to spinal muscular atrophy. PI: Arthur Burghes, College of Medicine.

“Development of Nanobody-Based Protein Degraders Targeting Misfolded Proteins in Neurodegenerative Diseases” – The project will identify new therapeutic treatments for neurological disorders. PI: Nam Chu, College of Medicine.

“Cis-inhibition of Notch Pathway Activity in Development and Disease” – The project will use developmental and cancer biology, biochemistry and engineering approaches to identify disease detection strategies. PI: Susan Cole, College of Arts and Sciences.

“Developing the ‘van der Waals’ Vacuum as a Host for Quantum Bits” – The project will explore a novel approach to protect electronic devices from radio frequency interference. PI: Jay Gupta, College of Arts and Sciences.

“Small Molecule Inhibitors for Directed Targeting of BET/Brd4 Extra-Terminal Domain as a Novel Cancer Therapeutic” – The project will develop small molecule inhibitors to target indicators associated with cancer. PI: Ross Larue, College of Medicine.

“Developing a Transformative Social-Emotional Learning Program for Adolescents” – The project will develop social-emotional learning intervention strategies for middle school students. PI: Tzu-Jung Lin, College of Education and Human Ecology.

“Discovery of Novel Therapeutic Targets to Improve Health Span after Spinal Cord Injury” – The project will address the liver’s responses that impair recovery from spinal cord injuries. PI: Dana McTigue, College of Medicine.

“Engineering Durable Disease Resistance in Plants by Exploiting a Novel Host Protein” – The project involves an innovative strategy that leverages a host protein to enhance staple crops’ immunity to fungal/bacterial pathogens without the application of chemicals. PI: Guo-Liang Wang, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

“Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Life-Saving 911 Care” – The project aims to transform the process for 911 emergency calls, applying an artificial intelligence system to accelerate the identification of life-threatening conditions and set the stage for a prototype real-time decision support system. PI: Henry Wang, College of Medicine. 

“Towards a Conversational Assistant for Patient Prep” – In this project, the researchers aim to take initial steps toward developing an automated conversational assistant that can help patients properly prepare for procedures. PI: Michael White, College of Arts and Sciences.

“Fair Machine Learning Adaptable to Deployment Environments in Healthcare” – The project aims to develop a framework to further facilitate the use of machine learning in health care and improve health equity. PI: Xueru Zhang, College of Engineering.

The PRE program also offers Catalyst Grants to support the efforts of large cross- and interdisciplinary teams to pursue large-scale, high-impact research that addresses emerging or existing challenges of national and international societal importance. These grants may be up to $200,000 and are expected to generate long-term, sustained and significant impact. Concept papers for Catalyst Grant funding are due on June 24, 2022.

President Kristina M. Johnson said in the year since the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK) was formed, achievements have included a $55 million award from the National Science Foundation to support three artificial intelligence centers, Ohio State being selected by NASA to help develop a low-Earth orbit space station research pipeline and the university’s annual research and development expenditures surpassing a record-breaking $1.2 billion threshold.

“With exciting ventures on the horizon like the grand opening of the Innovation District in 2023 and the opportunities with the new Intel semiconductor campus, I look forward to seeing how you’ll expand our research, creative expression and innovation capabilities,” Johnson said to the attendees of the virtual presentation. “I’m thankful to all of you for asking the right questions, promoting new ideas and creating solutions to society’s most pressing issues.”

During the showcase, Melissa Bailey, a professor in the College of Optometry, was named Innovator of the Year. Bailey and her team developed contact lenses that can function as bifocals and a software application to estimate patients’ prescriptions for eyeglasses and contact lenses.

The application “is really important for children and patients who can’t go through all the testing that we normally do with a lot of patients in a typical eye exam,” Bailey said. “Also, internationally there are patients who can’t see well because there’s no one around to get their glasses prescriptions for them.”  She said it would allow for patients to get the glasses they need, even in places where there’s not training and expertise available for local eyecare professionals.

Katelyn Swindle-Reilly, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering, was named Early Career Innovator of the Year. Swindle-Reilly and her team developed an extended-release capsule to help reduce the number of injections required for patients with macular degeneration and other eye conditions.

“Ultimately, I hope that this technology will improve the quality of life for patients, helping them to visit the doctor less often and preserve their vision,” Bailey said. 

Madison Tuttle, a College of Arts and Sciences graduate student, was named Next Generation Innovator of the Year. Her research focuses on finding environmentally sustainable alternatives to metal-based electrode materials.

“When I began learning about our dependence on fossil fuels for energy, I really was inspired to work towards sustainable energy storage technologies for clean energy storage,” Tuttle said.

Also during the Research and Innovation Showcase, researchers shared other breakthroughs and the ERIK leadership team highlighted recent achievements and plans that will continue to enhance the university’s standing among international research institutions.  

“What I’m most excited about for this upcoming year is working with the great team (we have),” said Grace Wang, Ohio State’s executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge. “As we celebrate our first year as Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge, the timing is right to refresh the past strategic plan and build a new five-year strategic plan.”  

New analysis from Ohio State’s Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge shows research expenditures for the 2021 fiscal year were $1.236 billion. The analysis is part of the university’s Office of Research submission to the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey.

The HERD survey is the primary source of information on research and development expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities. The survey collects information on research and development expenditures by field of research and source of funds and gathers information on types of research, expenses and personnel.

“The record-breaking milestone highlights the university’s growing capacity in transformational research and our commitment as a leading land-grant research university,” said Gary Heminger, chair of the Board of Trustees. “It is also a testament to the hard work and innovation that drives our faculty, students and staff.”

Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson announced a goal to double the university’s research expenditures in a decade at her 2021 State of the University address.

“Research is the starting point for innovation, leading to groundbreaking discoveries that have the power to change our lives for the better. It forms the very foundation of Ohio State’s mission as a land-grant university, enabling us to fulfill our ultimate goals of educating a new generation of leaders and giving back to the community,” Johnson said. “That is why I have committed to doubling research and development expenditures over the next decade, and it is incredibly gratifying and encouraging to see our progress. The projects in which our researchers are engaged will transform a wide range of industries and disciplines. That process in many cases is already well underway, and I look forward to what the next 10 years will bring.”

The federal research investment at Ohio State was a bright spot in the report. For the year, federal research spending grew 7.7% from $539 million in FY 2020 to $581 million in FY 2021. Ohio State’s institutional investment in research grew to $404 million in FY 2021, up from $152 million the previous fiscal year. The university said in addition to increased university investment in FY 2021, better alignment across colleges, units and affiliated entities allowed Ohio State to identify additional institutional investment that was previously not reported as part of the HERD survey.

Last year, Johnson announced the President’s Research Excellence program, providing seed funding every year in the next 10 years to faculty researchers, enabling curiosity-driven research and discoveries and addressing large, complex societal challenges.

“Ohio State’s dedication to groundbreaking, convergent research in fields such as artificial intelligence, mobility and cancer immuno-oncology continues to produce new knowledge and innovation that improves our community, state and our world,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge.

Some of the highlights announced in 2021 include the establishment of two new NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes at Ohio State. The AI Institute for Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE) and AI Institute for Future Edge Networks and Distributed Intelligence (AI-EDGE), both led by Ohio State teams in the College of Engineering, will each receive a total of $20 million over five years.

Additionally, Ohio State received a $15 million grant from the NSF to lead the creation of an interdisciplinary institute and establish a new field of study that has the potential to transform biomedical, agricultural and basic biological sciences. The new entity, which will be called the Imageomics Institute, is an inaugural institute for data-intensive discovery in science and engineering created by the NSF as part of its Harnessing the Data Revolution initiative.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes has allocated $16 million toward a seven-year, multicenter research project led by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine that will compare inpatient rehabilitation treatments for traumatic brain injuries (TBI). More than $2.5 million has been awarded for the first year of the project, with the remainder expected to be awarded as the project progresses.

The company, a supplier of drainage products for residential, commercial, agriculture and infrastructure markets, is donating two state-of-the-art stormwater management systems for the Innovation District on West Campus along with a cash gift to install them, as well as funds to support research and teaching opportunities. Additional parts of the gift will promote diversity and inclusion by supporting the Engineering House Learning Community and will help the university improve recycling on campus. The combined value of the product donation and cash gift exceeds $1 million.

“The new collaboration with ADS will greatly improve the way Ohio State manages stormwater runoff from new development in the Innovation District,” said Kate Bartter, executive director of the Sustainability Institute.

Stormwater management is a significant economic and environmental issue for new construction and redevelopment. Stormwater runoff from developed areas carries numerous pollutants to lakes, rivers and oceans; often raises the temperature of the receiving surface water body, negatively affecting aquatic life; and deprives groundwater recharge through absorption of stormwater into the soil.

The management system holds rainwater runoff from buildings, pavement and other surfaces in a series of underground chambers that trap contaminants and then slowly releases the water into the city’s stormwater pipes. 

“The ADS systems will strengthen ecosystem services on campus, which is one of Ohio State’s sustainability goals,” Bartter said. 

The collaboration draws attention to stormwater management at a time when climate change is exacerbating the issue by greatly increasing the number and intensity of storm events. City and state regulations require new development to manage stormwater from heavy rainfall to avoid overflows in combined sewer and other stormwater systems that can spread bacteria and degrade streams. Proper stormwater management can also improve water quality, especially by trapping sediment.

The challenges posed by stormwater management are a powerful motivation for ADS, said Scott Barbour, ADS President and CEO.

“Our reason is water, whether in an urban or rural setting,” he said. “We are pleased to be able to help Ohio State manage stormwater runoff at its new Innovation District with this donation.”

The company also plans to support research and teaching opportunities that will use the larger of the two stormwater systems as a living laboratory for urban water management. This will benefit Ohio State faculty like Ryan Winston, assistant professor in the departments of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (FABE) and Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering and a core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute.

“Most people in urban areas don’t think about where their water comes from or where it goes because so much of the infrastructure is hidden underground,” Winston said. “The installation of the ADS system means that we can create hands-on opportunities for students to learn about sustainable water management outside the classroom.”

Winston is faculty adviser to a capstone team of FABE students who will design a rainwater harvesting system that would pump water stored in the ADS system and use it for landscape irrigation. The final report by the students will help inform opportunities for the university to recycle rainwater and reduce the amount of potable water it consumes. Not only is ADS sponsoring the team, but its executive vice president for product development will also serve as a team adviser.

“Ohio State using our product on campus for research and teaching purposes is one of the most exciting parts of the collaboration,” said Brian King, ADS executive vice president, marketing, product management and sustainability. “We are especially pleased to be able to support engineering students from underrepresented populations through our gift to the Engineering House Learning Community.”

Water is not the only “stream” covered by the new gift.

“Roughly two-thirds of the material used in ADS products is recycled content,” King adds. Ohio State provides single-stream recycling across campus and has recently expanded what it accepts to type 5 plastic (polypropylene) used in yogurt containers and other packaging. As part of its gift, ADS will be the largest sponsor of the university’s “Recycle Right” campaign.

“The better recycling is across campus, the more material will be available for ADS products,” King said.

The collaboration was made possible in part by the Ohio State Administration and Planning team’s strong commitment to making campus more sustainable. Water and waste experts in the Department of Facilities Operations and Development, with technical support from its design and construction team and the university landscape architect, guided the opportunity.

For Bartter, the new relationship with ADS underscores the vast potential of combining research, student learning and campus operations.

“Bringing together Ohio State’s core assets like this is the equivalent of an academic trifecta,” she says. “It really demonstrates what the university can contribute to our knowledge and application of sustainability solutions. This collaboration will not only make our campus more sustainable, but it also will generate research and teaching benefits for years to come.”

Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson is set to share a stage with Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, federal officials and leaders from Intel today as the company announced plans to invest more than $20 billion in the construction of two new leading-edge chip factories in the state.

“I know from experience that building a pipeline of highly skilled talent is critical to success in all industries, and my fellow trustees and I are excited to see Intel choose Ohio for this historic investment in jobs and opportunity,” said Gary Heminger, chair of the Board of Trustees. “Ohio State is well equipped to partner with Intel and the state’s higher education community to develop the skilled workforce and spearhead the 21st century research that will support this transformative development.”

The investment will help boost production to meet the surging demand for advanced semiconductors and support a new generation of innovation from Intel and its customers. The semiconductor factory will bring a new industry at scale for Ohio and the Midwest.

“Semiconductors make almost every facet of modern life possible – from computers and smartphones to cars and appliances – and they played an integral role in the technologies that enabled us to stay connected throughout the pandemic,” Johnson said. “They will also be integral to a wide range of applications in which Ohio State is actively involved from a research perspective, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, vaccine development and more. So, it’s a natural fit for Ohio State, along with our fellow institutions of higher education, to partner on this game-changing investment in semiconductor manufacturing.”

To support the development of the new site, Intel pledged an additional $100 million toward partnerships with educational institutions to develop talent and bolster research programs in the region. The investment over the next decade will include Ohio universities and community colleges and the U.S. National Science Foundation. These partnerships will span a range of activities, from collaborative research projects to building semiconductor-specific curricula for associate and undergraduate degree programs.

“This project will catalyze investment in educational opportunities and high-tech research, building upon Ohio State’s existing research and innovation capacity in semiconductor, electronic and photonic devices, materials, manufacturing and metrology,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge. “As a land-grant flagship university with a commitment to convergent research, we are excited to see the opportunities that flourish with this new venture.”

The announcement also highlights the strong partnership between higher education, government, and business and industry in Ohio. JobsOhio, the state’s economic development organization, and One Columbus, the development partner in the region, provided decisive support to help secure the investment in central Ohio, Wang said.

“We continue to benefit from the strong leadership of JobsOhio President and CEO JP Nauseef and Kenny McDonald, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, to cultivate this vibrant opportunity in our state,” Wang said.

Ohio’s four-year and two-year institutions, as well as vocational and technical schools, will have an opportunity to support everything from research partnerships to training workers for in-demand jobs. Currently, Ohio is a net importer of college students, and Johnson said the opportunity to work at a company like Intel and to contribute to the ongoing research and development efforts created by the project is a strong incentive for those students to stay here in Ohio.

“Today’s announcement is significant for Ohio, for Intel, and for the national interest, as we are still in the midst of a global chip shortage,” she said. “But it also presents a remarkable opportunity for current and future students. It will cement Ohio as a top magnet for retaining and attracting a new generation of talent and build on numerous opportunities under development within our state’s colleges and universities, including at Ohio’s innovation districts, which are already taking shape in partnership with JobsOhio.”

As the largest single private sector investment in Ohio history, the initial phase of the project is expected to create 3,000 Intel jobs and 7,000 construction jobs over the course of the build, and support tens of thousands of additional local long-term jobs across a broad ecosystem of suppliers and partners.

Planning for the first two factories will start immediately, with construction expected to begin at the end of 2022. Production is expected to come online in 2025 and will deliver chips using the most advanced transistor technologies in the industry.

In addition to Intel’s presence in Ohio, the investment is expected to attract dozens of ecosystem partners and suppliers needed to provide local support for Intel’s operations – from semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers to a range of service providers. As part of today’s announcement, Air Products, Applied Materials, LAM Research and Ultra Clean Technology have indicated plans to establish a physical presence in the region to support the buildout of the site, with more expected in the future.

For more information on Intel’s plans in Ohio and its commitment to the community, visit the Intel Ohio web page, and learn more about the economic impact in the state at the JobsOhio website.

Ohio State research and innovation will support the Starlab commercial space station. Starlab is led by Nanoracks, a commercial space company dedicated to providing commercial access to space. Starlab’s partner organizations include Voyager Space (majority shareholder in Nanoracks), Lockheed Martin, Ohio-based Zin Technologies, the Universities Space Research Association and the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation.

Nanoracks has been awarded a $160 million Space Act Agreement by NASA to design and deploy the Starlab commercial space station, which will host the space-based George Washington Carver (GWC) Science Park as part of the agency’s Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development program. Starlab supports NASA’s initiative to stimulate the commercial space economy and provide science and crew capabilities prior to the retirement of the International Space Station (ISS).

“Starlab is an opportunity for transformational leadership and partnership with the commercial space sector in cutting-edge research, across a wide range of domains,” said President Kristina M. Johnson. “It builds on Ohio State’s strengths in industry research and leverages our existing research capabilities to support NASA’s priorities for the development and commercialization of low-Earth orbit. It is incredibly exciting for Ohio State to have this opportunity to engage in transformational leadership and partnership with the commercial space sector while building on and leveraging our strengths in industry research.”

Starlab and the GWC Science Park will focus on a range of research areas, including biology, plant and agricultural science, physical science and materials research. Researchers will have an opportunity to advance in-space and terrestrial agriculture; materials and manufacturing for spaceflight; artificial intelligence; and space-based remote sensing.

“Ohio State’s strengths and expertise across these domain areas, as well as its role as a leading land-grant research university, make it an excellent choice to serve Starlab as the lead university partner in this exciting program,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president for the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge.

The focus on in-space and terrestrial agriculture is a unique feature of the effort and showcases Ohio State’s strengths in interdisciplinary research.

“The College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences is excited to host and operate the ground-based ‘control lab’ for agricultural research aboard the Starlab/GWC Science Park and assist in advancing in-space and terrestrial agriculture,” said Vice President for Agricultural Administration and Dean of CFAES Cathann A. Kress. “Agriculture is entering a digital revolution – this partnership demonstrates our commitment to advancing controlled environment agriculture and affirms we are poised to lead the way.”

“Spaceflight is simply one of the most compelling contexts in which to pursue a wide range of cutting-edge research activities, from AI and robotics to materials and microbiology,” said Ayanna Howard, dean of the College of Engineering. “Combining Ohio State engineering and research capabilities with those from collaborators around the globe, especially at the intersections of disciplines, will help bring forth an exciting future of activities in low-Earth orbit.”

As the lead university partner, Ohio State will:

• Support development and coordination of all university research aboard Starlab/ GWC Science Park.
• Host and operate the ground-based “control lab” for agricultural and other research aboard Starlab/GWC Science Park.
• Serve as a research gateway and catalyst for other potential users, including sovereign space programs and global private-sector industry.

“This collaboration will help the state of Ohio build further upon our long heritage of advancing the future of spaceflight, continuing in the tradition of John Glenn and Neil Armstrong,” said John M. Horack, Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy and lead researcher for the Starlab collaboration. “One can perhaps think of Starlab and the GWC Science Park as integrating many of the strengths of Ohio State’s research infrastructure and campus to the location of low-Earth orbit.”

Ohio State is positioned to receive significant funding to start up university operations. Research work is expected to involve the College of Engineering, CFAES and the College of Arts and Sciences, along with key research centers, faculty, staff and students.

“We have never seen global competition like what we are seeing right now,” Panchanathan said during a morning gathering of administrators and faculty in Pomerene Hall. “But it is about us. Can we be even more excellent than we are so that we might produce even better solutions, outcomes, innovation? So therefore, this moment is challenging us to consider, to design, to innovate at speed and scale.”

With an annual budget of $8.5 billion, the NSF is the only federal agency charged with advancing all fields of scientific discovery, technological innovation and science, technology, engineering and math education. In fiscal year 2020, the NSF distributed $195,016,000 in awards to Ohio, including $67,451,000 to Ohio State, according to the agency’s website.

Panchanathan, a computer scientist and engineer, became NSF’s 15th director in 2020. He previously served as the executive vice president of the Arizona State University (ASU) Knowledge Enterprise, where he was also chief research and innovation officer. He was also the founder and director of the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing at ASU.

During the Pomerene Hall gathering, Panchanathan described NSF’s approach to supporting scientific research and advancement. He said the NSF funds projects that meet three main criteria: advancing the frontiers of research and innovation; ensuring accessibility and inclusivity; and emphasizing the importance of global science leadership.

“The fundamental foundation of these three pillars is this concept of partnership,” Panchanathan said. “How can we blur the walls of these pillars and do a lot more not only within the pillars, but also between the pillars?”

Following the morning presentation, Panchanathan attended the groundbreaking for Ohio State’s Energy Advancement and Innovation Center (EAIC). In celebrating the start of construction for the new hub of energy research and technology incubation, Panchanathan joined Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson; Grace Wang, Ohio State’s executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge; President and CEO for ENGIE North America Bill Collins; Vice President and Head of Major Partnerships for ENGIE North America Serdar Tufekci; and U.S. Representatives Joyce Beatty, Troy Balderson and Mike Carey.

The facility will be a platform for Ohio State faculty members, students, alumni, ENGIE Buckeye Operations team members, local entrepreneurs and industry experts to work together on the next generation of smart energy systems, artificial intelligence, renewable energy and green mobility solutions. 

“This platform is going to only accelerate the potential innovations,” Panchanathan said. “I can assure you one thing: that NSF will ensure that we are going to keep the science, technology and engineering aspects of our nation at the vanguard of competitiveness.”

After the groundbreaking, Panchanathan participated in a roundtable discussion with faculty members who have recently received NSF funding. He and the faculty discussed the opportunities and challenges that arose from conducting research and classes virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the breakthroughs that can be achieved through interdisciplinary research.

“We’re all here with the common belief that by working across disciplines, by working out of the silos that we are in, we can not only do well for humanity, society and also the economy,” Panchanathan said, “but most importantly, we can do even better for the world.”

It’s Johnson’s first ride with the event and she will serve as the honorary captain of Team Buckeye. The university’s superpeloton includes Ohio State students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as their family and friends.

The fight to cure cancer is personal for Johnson, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was a senior in college planning for graduate school.

“What it taught me is that at great universities like The Ohio State University, you have teams of cross-disciplinary researchers. You have physicians who talk to engineers and physicists and biologists and social scientists and artists, and they figure out ways to put together solutions to some of the world’s greatest problems, like curing cancer” she said.

Since its founding, Pelotonia has raised over $217 million for cancer research for the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, including The Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology. 

Pelotonia 2021 will include both in-person ride experiences and self-guided participation options. As in previous years, 100% of every dollar raised by participants goes to Ohio State’s cancer-fighting treatments and research.

Today, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced the establishment of 11 new NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes, building on the first round of seven institutes funded in 2020. The combined investment of $220 million expands the reach of these institutes to include a total of 37 states.

The AI Institute for Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE) and AI Institute for Future Edge Networks and Distributed Intelligence (AI-EDGE), both led by Ohio State teams, will each receive a total of $20 million over five years. Each institute will manage about $10 million in funding with the rest shared by core partner institutions across the United States.

“AI is, without a doubt, the future, offering the opportunity to improve personalized health care, augment cybersecurity, boost smart mobility, enhance food security, and so much more; but its vast possibilities cannot be fully realized without advancements that substantially improve cutting-edge technologies and bring new services to a broader audience,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “That’s why these two NSF-recognized institutes at Ohio State are so important. Not only will they continue the ongoing and incredibly vital work to fully realize the potential of AI, but they will also offer the opportunity to increase the number and diversity of individuals with the skills necessary to meet the long-term workforce needs of this important field.”

Led by NSF, and in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Google, Amazon, Intel and Accenture, the National AI Research Institutes will act as connections in a broader nationwide network to pursue transformational advances in a range of economic sectors and science and engineering fields — from food system security to next-generation edge networks.

Dhabaleswar K. Panda, professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State, is the principal investigator for ICICLE, leading a core team of 46 academic researchers and staff scientists from 13 organizations. The institute will build the next generation of cyberinfrastructure with a goal of making AI data and infrastructure more accessible to the larger society.

“Artificial intelligence is becoming very important. A lot of people are using it, but it is still limited to only advanced technical people. How do we take it to the masses?” Panda said. “That’s where we want to take AI — a plug-and-play version which will be democratized so that anybody can use it over the years.”

Ness Shroff, professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science and engineering, is the principal investigator for AI-EDGE, leading a core team of 30 scientists from 11 collaborating institutions, three Department of Defense research labs and four global companies. The institute will focus on AI innovation for wireless devices, services and applications at the network edge rather than the traditional network core. These edge networks will encompass mobile and stationary devices, wireless and wired access, and computing and data servers.

“These technologies, AI and networking, are critical for a number of things that we do. They are critical for economic health, they are critical for technological development, and they are critical for national defense and national safety,” Shroff said. “It’s extremely important that the U.S. regain its competitive edge in these technologies, and part of the work of these AI institutes is to help make that happen.”

The Ohio State ICICLE team will work in collaboration with the Ohio Supercomputer Center, Case Western Reserve University, Iowa State University, Indiana University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Texas-Austin/Texas Advanced Computing Center, University of Utah, University of Delaware, University of California, San Diego/San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, Davis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IC-FOODS.

AI-EDGE will collaborate with Carnegie Mellon University, Northeastern University, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Michigan, University of Texas-Austin, University of Washington, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois-Chicago. It will also work with its industrial partners including AT&T, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm and the Air Force Research Lab, Army Research Lab and Naval Research Lab to translate the research so that it is widely adopted.

The final steel beam for the facility, wrapped in logos of the university, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and Pelotonia, was raised to top off the building. Hundreds of university students, faculty and staff left signatures across the beam that are now a permanent part of the new building.

The Interdisciplinary Research Facility (IRF), a five-story laboratory building west of Kenny Road and south of Lane Avenue, is part of the university’s booming Innovation District. 

“The IRF is really setting the stage for a different way of doing research, and that’s going to position Ohio State to be a leader not just in Ohio, but in the country,” said President Kristina M. Johnson. “We’re bringing together not engineers in one lab and physicists and artists on the other side of campus. We’re actually bringing them together under one roof so they can tackle society’s major challenges together.”

The project supports multiple research disciplines, including biomedical, life sciences, engineering and environmental sciences, among others. In addition, two floors will be dedicated to The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, including its new Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology.

“This interdisciplinary research facility is the anchor to the first phase of our Innovation District and will house over 300,000 square feet of new collaborative research space,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge.

Johnson and Wang were joined at the ceremony by Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and JobsOhio President and CEO JP Nauseef. The Innovation District is receiving investment funding from JobsOhio and infrastructure support from the city of Columbus. While celebrating the construction progress for the IRF, DeWine highlighted how the research developed in the new building will boost the state.

“We are really eager to see this laboratory completed because it will be the heart of this district. It will house brilliant researchers, brilliant scientists. They will create, they will develop, they’ll share with the whole world their ideas related to medicine, to science and to engineering,” DeWine said. “The district itself will be a hub. It will be a hub for innovation and growth in Ohio, expanding science, technology, engineering, math and educational opportunities and positioning Ohio to compete nationally for growing tech and health care employers.”

The district will include an Energy Advancement and Innovation Center, where Ohio State faculty members, students, alumni, ENGIE researchers, local entrepreneurs and industry experts will work together on the next generation of smart energy systems, renewable energy and green mobility solutions. The university and Nationwide Children’s Hospital are also partnering on an Innovation District-based outpatient care facility that includes central Ohio’s first proton therapy treatment space.

“The IRF and Innovation District are going to transform the way we discover, innovate and learn. We are thrilled that our community and state partners will share in this journey together,” Johnson said.

The Interdisciplinary Research Facility is expected to open by the summer of 2023.

The exchange, based at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, announced the addition today of Ohio State and the Weizmann Institute of Science as partners, referring to both as world-leading research institutions at the forefront of quantum information science and engineering.

“Quantum information technology presents unique opportunities for students and researchers to engage in curiosity-driven and cutting-edge work that solves the problems people face in their everyday lives,” said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. “As a result of this partnership with CQE, Ohio State faculty and students will have the opportunity to learn alongside brilliant collaborators and make a real-world and far-reaching impact.”

Ohio State is the Chicago Quantum Exchange’s first regional partner, strengthening the organization’s connections throughout the Midwest and the nation. The lead member institution in the multi-institutional quantum education initiative QuSTEAM, the university is dedicated to preparing a quantum-ready workforce that can meet the existing and growing demand across the communications, optics, computing and materials industries.

The exchange is composed of a community of researchers aiming to accelerate discovery and innovation in quantum technology and develop new ways of understanding the laws of quantum mechanics, the theory that governs nature at its smallest scales. Anchored by the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, CQE also includes the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University as well as a range of industry partners.

“Having partners across the world, and across the Midwest, broadens our perspectives and as we continue to grow our community from the heart of U.S. quantum research in Chicago,” said David Awschalom, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. “We look forward to collaborating with Ohio State and the Weizmann Institute to advance quantum science and technology and develop a strong, diverse quantum workforce.”

In addition to advancing research in multiple quantum and physics areas as well as such disciplines as nanomechanics and physical chemistry, the exchange seeks to attract talent, funding and industry to the Chicago area to become the source for tomorrow’s leading quantum engineers.

“Working with leaders at Ohio State University and the Weizmann Institute has reinforced for us the deep value of global collaboration on quantum science and technology,” said Juan de Pablo, vice president for national laboratories, science strategy, innovation and global initiatives at the University of Chicago. “Quantum information science is poised to make a profound impact on research, technology and business growth around the globe, and we are excited to continue advancing that work with some of the world’s great research organizations.”

The Accelerator grants were awarded through the President’s Research Excellence (PRE) program, an initiative launched this year to provide seed support for cross- and interdisciplinary research projects that have the potential to attract external funding. Accelerator grants of up to $50,000 fund small teams formed to pursue curiosity-driven, novel, high-risk and high-reward research.

The PRE program supports the university’s goals to help grow its research and innovation enterprise by attracting more externally sponsored research funding to address large, complex societal challenges. The program also includes an additional funding mechanism, Catalyst grants, for large cross- and interdisciplinary teams formed to pursue large-scale research addressing emerging or existing challenges of national and international societal importance. These grants of up to $200,000, will be awarded in the fall.

Ji Wang, assistant professor of astronomy, is part of a team taking up his own curiosity-driven challenge: the search for habitable planets. He is the lead investigator on a project called Peering into Alien Worlds: A Synergistic Astronomical, Geochemical, and Laser Engineering Approach to Explore the Habitability of Terrestrial Planets.

“The first interesting question is about identifying life on other planets, which will be a big, big deal. But the second major question we’re trying to answer is, ‘Do extrasolar planets resemble, or are they similar to, our solar system?’” he said.

The team includes Jennifer Johnson and Scott Gaudi, professors in the Department of Astronomy, Enam Chowdhury, assistant professor of materials science engineering, and Wendy Panero, professor of earth sciences, Wang said, because all three disciplines are needed to understand the size, composition and structure of planets.

“The structure of a planet is critically important to understand the habitability of an exoplanet,” he said. “That is why we think with this team of experts in high-power lasers, stellar physics, exoplanet physics and earth sciences, we can actually address this very ambitious problem.”

Tessa Cannon, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology, is part of an Accelerator grant-winning team studying the microbiota in the digestive tracts of sooty mangabeys. These monkeys are carriers of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is closely related to HIV, but suffer no symptoms of the disease.

“We can really look at the other factors that influence the evolution … within the gut microbiome to allow these monkeys to be able to live with these super high infection rates and high rates of viral replication without ever having any problems,” Cannon said.

Vanessa Hale, assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine and the lead investigator on the project, said the research is the starting point on solving real-world challenges.

“This past year-and-a-half has reminded us how animal health and environmental health is directly linked to human health,” Hale said.

The cross-disciplinary project is co-lead by anthropology professor Scott McGraw and Yael Vodovotz, a professor of food science and technology. The team approach enables attacking a problem that involves virology, microbiome science, primate ecology, and diet.

Hale said team research sometimes pushes experts out of their comfort zone.

“It’s can be challenging for us, but it also means the possibility to move science forward – it’s so much stronger and more exciting,” she said.

Teams funded through this round of Accelerator grants are expected to submit a report on their findings by August 2022 and another round of PRE awards funding is planned to begin in the spring.

On Wednesday, the board’s Research, Innovation & Strategic Partnerships Committee recognized the more-than 20-year collaboration between Ohio State and Honda. Last month both organizations signed a new memorandum of understanding to continue advancing the Honda-Ohio State Partnership.

“Ohio State and Honda have been long-term strategic partners over the last two decades and, most recently, we are very proud and excited that we have just renewed our partnership for the next five years,” said Grace Wang, executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge

Over the life of the partnership, Honda has provided more than $28 million in research funding to Ohio State. The university and automaker have partnered on 235 research projects in the last five years.

Honda has provided co-ops or internships for more than 200 Ohio State students and has hired more than 80 Ohio State undergraduates into full-time positions over the past five years.

“Honda is a top employer for Ohio State and engages extensively with our students to keep the intern and full-time talent pipeline strong,” said Alissa Comella, co-director of the partnership and associate vice president for corporate partnerships. “Building on this commitment last month, Honda announced a new Honda Dreams Scholarship to support diverse students in the College of Engineering and attract these scholars to consider a career at Honda.”

The $5,000 Honda Dreams Scholarships will be awarded beginning in autumn 2021 to students majoring in electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering, or mechanical engineering who are active in the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers or organizations with similar missions.

James Keller, executive vice president of Honda Development & Manufacturing of America, said the partnership with Ohio State helped grow the company and innovation in the industry.

“Besides numerous joint technical research projects, establishment of assets such as the SIMCenter and the driving simulator greatly helped accelerate our capability and expansion and established the foundation for the continuous collaboration with students and Ohio State researchers that we enjoy today,” he said. “With new assets such as the aeroacoustic wind tunnel that’s now under construction at TRC, we’re committed to furthering the partnership for many, many, many more years to come.”

Study findings are published online in Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing.

MIM offers small-group sessions teaching health care providers and other interested employees specific techniques in mindfulness and resiliency for the high-stress environment health care can create.

Successful completion of this program has been shown to significantly decrease perceived stress and inflammation, as well as increase sleep quality and work engagement.

“However, you could argue these results mean nothing for the organization if a month after the program ends, usual stress and burnout levels return to base levels,” said Maryanna Klatt, the study lead author and creator of the Mindfulness in Motion intervention, which is the core offering of the Gabbe Health and Wellness Initiative at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

“Demonstrating sustainability of the results of an intervention is nearly as important as demonstrating the effectiveness of the intervention, yet this is rarely done. Organizations need to be assured the return on their investment to reduce burnout and build resilience produces results that are maintained long after the intervention ends,” said Klatt, who is a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Klatt collaborated with researchers with the Gabbe Health and Wellness Initiative and the Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion at the Ohio State College of Public Health.

Klatt said she embarked on this research to learn if this intervention if worth their time for the individual participants, and worth the money and return on investment for the organization to invest in this program.

“After analyzing date from 66 participants, we found that three of the four outcomes (burnout, perceived stress, resilience) remained significantly improved beyond a year after completing the intervention. Work engagement remained improved, but was not significantly different than baseline levels,” said Klatt, who is now sending former participants “mindful moment” emails on a weekly basis and offering monthly virtual “booster” sessions to continue to reinforce the mindfulness techniques.

“As a health care organization focused on improving health for patients and communities, we also recognize the importance of prioritizing health and well-being for our faculty and staff. Interventions to address current levels of burnout among health care professionals must demonstrate long-term success to help our employees thrive,” said Dr. Hal Paz, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs at The Ohio State University and chief executive officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. 

“More than 580 employees have participated in the Mindfulness in Motion program since 2017, and we are proud that this program is strong and growing, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Ohio Hospital Association asked Klatt if the Mindfulness in Motion intervention could be shared outside of Ohio State; now three health systems across Ohio and the Mercy Health System in Michigan are offering the program to their employees.

The Ohio Hospital Association also partnered with the Gabbe Health and Wellness Initiative to share free mindfulness resources and videos that Klatt developed to address provider resilience, especially as the pandemic continues to burden health care teams.

“We also plan to repeat the sustainability study every other year to see if the positive results may even be sustained longer than the 14+ months we found in this study,” Klatt said.

The governor and first lady Fran DeWine joined President Kristina M. Johnson for a visit to Assistive Technology of Ohio (AT Ohio) and the Spine Research Institute.

AT Ohio is a federally funded nonprofit organization housed in the College of Engineering. The program offers a device lending library for persons with disabilities, and their families, to borrow assistive technology and use it at home, work or school – allowing them to make sure the technology serves their needs before they purchase it.

“All of our programs are focused on the types of technology that help people with disabilities,” said Bill Darling, director of AT Ohio.

Darling demonstrated some of the devices that the library offers, including tools that help people communicate, navigate if their vision is impaired, and learn if they have an educational disability. Darling introduced the governor and Johnson to Brad Whitmoyer, a Lewis Center resident who uses mobility and communication devices provided by AT Ohio.

“Assistive Technology of Ohio is a hidden jewel at Ohio State,” DeWine said. “What they do can transform people’s lives.”

DeWine and Johnson also joined Ayanna Howard, dean of the College of Engineering, to visit students, faculty and staff and observe demonstrations at the Spine Research Institute (SRI). The institute fosters the work of multidisciplinary teams of researchers from the College of Engineering, College of Medicine and Wexner Medical Center to study, treat and prevent spinal disorders.

Supporting and growing convergent research at Ohio State is a priority for Johnson. The university’s recently announced Presidential Research Excellence Fund fuels emergent and convergent research that supports national scientific, medical and engineering priorities.

SRI director William Marras noted that spinal disorders are the No. 1 reason people miss work and the No. 2 ailment for which opiates are prescribed. The health care costs to treat spinal disorders exceed $100 billion a year, he said.

Marras and members of the SRI research team demonstrated wearable technology that analyzes how people with spinal injuries walk, move and work. The technology illustrates the stress different tasks can have on the spine and the muscles around it.

SRI team members also highlighted the collaboration with the Comprehensive Cancer Center to apply engineering principles to better understand the effects that cancer and cancer treatments can have on the spine. 

The institute has a 35-year relationship with the state to provide research and expertise to the Bureau of Workers Compensation, helping employees recover from spinal injuries and return to work.

Howard said SRI highlights the importance of engineering research to improve lives.

“Ohio State engineers are pursuing solutions at many intersections, perhaps none more important than those involving health care. In collaborating with other disciplines and point-of-care experts, engineers can help solve complex problems like chronic back pain with data-driven analysis, artificial intelligence and the fundamental principles of devices and design,” she said.

Both AT Ohio and SRI are success stories that demonstrate how the state can continue to grow and remain vibrant, DeWine said.

“This is something that I think President Johnson is very focused on – not only increasing the research at Ohio State, but making sure that research flows out into the community,” he said. “There’s this vision of Ohio, that this is the go-to place for technology and the go-to place for medical technology.

“We have all the pieces here already. We just have to continue to push and focus. What we’re seeing [at Ohio State] is just one more example of that.”