NEWS
By
Zach Chandler
Date
Media Contact
Data Institute for Societal Challenges
disc@ou.edu
NORMAN, OKLA. – The University of Oklahoma has received $6 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Accelerating Research Translation program to accelerate multi-institutional, transdisciplinary research that strengthens Oklahoma’s expansive entrepreneurial ecosystem. These projects aim to promote community engagement and increase the scale and pace of proof-of-concept prototypes, all while conducting academic research into tangible solutions that benefit the public.
The project, “Accelerating Research Translation: Intensifying Translation Research in Oklahoma,” known as ART: InTRO, is led by David Ebert, associate vice president for research and partnerships and director of OU’s Data Institute for Societal Challenges. Ebert and program leaders teaming across campus units recently announced the grant recipients for five Seed Translational Research Projects and four fellows for the Accelerating Research Translation Academy.
“These projects are pivotal components of OU's broader endeavor to instigate a university-wide cultural transformation,” Ebert said. “At its core, this movement champions the translation of research, fostering an environment conducive to the creation of user-centric solutions that benefit local, regional and even national communities.”
“Innovation followed by translation to societal impact can be a complicated process for anyone to traverse. This endeavor creates a streamlined and robust network of translation resources by nurturing and capitalizing on partnerships within the university and the state's expansive entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said the Center for Faculty Excellence associate director for research and creative activites, Clara Smith.
Ebert's team will draw upon external expertise from Purdue University, the team’s mentor site, and will leverage relationships with Tribal communities and industry leaders, including the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Choctaw Nation, i2E, the Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber to ensure success.
“Translating OU's foundational research and scholarship is critically important for solving some of the world's most difficult challenges,” said Director of OU’s Institute for Community and Society Transformation and project co-principal investigator Shane Connelly. “Moving findings from our researchers’ academic domains to practical ones informs the development of new technologies, education models, health care applications, policies and other important applications. This highlights important contributions OU makes to the scientific enterprise and society in general.”
"NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice."
Five teams will receive two-year grants of up to $100,000 to develop their prior fundamental research into real-world solutions with a community, regional, or global impact. The projects are intended to move beyond the confines of academic journals and other publication media to spark tangible change.
Ashlee H. Rowe, an assistant professor of biology, will lead the project “Using Artificial Intelligence Driven Biostructures to Engineer Pain Blockers from Scorpion Venom.”
Binbin Weng, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the project "A Novel Mid-Wave Infrared Light Emitter Development” with co-principal investigator Khosrow Namjou, Ph.D., research scientist.
Chongle Pan, an associate professor of computer science and microbiology and plant biology, will lead the project “Safe and intelligent chatbots for effective and accessible health communication” in collaboration with Ruosi Shao, an assistant professor of communications at Florida State University.
Dong Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, will lead the project “Data-Driven Battery Prognostics with Advanced Sensing Towards Second Life Applications.” Zhang will collaborate with co-principal investigators Erkan Kayakan, an assistant professor or aerospace and mechanical engineering, and Yuichi Kajiura and Jorge Espin, aerospace and mechanical engineering graduate research assistants.
Qingggong Tang, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, will lead the project “A Pre-Transplantation Donor Liver Viability Evaluation System (LVES).” Co-principal investigators include Feng Yan, Ph.D. and Chongle Pan, Ph.D., from OU’s Norman campus; Narendra Battula, MD, Zhongxin Yu, MD, and Kar-Ming Fung, MD, from the OU Health Sciences Center; and Bradon Nave from LifeShare Oklahoma.
Felipe Perez, a petroleum engineering postdoc, and Gabriel Barbosa and Tran Le, postdocs in the School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, will lead the project “A User-Friendly Software for De-Risking Hydrocarbon Pipelines.”
In addition to securing two-year funding, recipients will participate in the Accelerating Research Translation Academy. This immersive program consists of two 15-week sessions designed to motivate use-inspired research by developing research translation knowledge, skills and capabilities.
Four additional researchers have also been admitted to the ART Academy and given fellowships of up to $10,000 each: Averi Bates, a graduate student in the School of Computer Science, Chen Wang and Feng Yan, doctoral candidates in the Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering, and Aikaterini Kyprioti, an assistant professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science.
Learn more about the Accelerating Research Translation: Intensifying Translation Research in Oklahoma program through the Data Institute for Societal Challenges.
About the project
This project, funded by NSF Award No. 2331409, began on February 1, 2024, and is expected to conclude on January 31, 2028. Alongside Ebert and Connelly, the ART: InTRO team includes co-principal investigators Clara Smith, associate director of research and creative activities at the Center for Faculty Excellence; Michael Schade, interim director of the OU Office of Innovation and Corporate Partnerships; Brittany Hott, associate director of the Institute for Community and Society Transformation; Carol Silva, senior associate vice president for research and partnerships; and Teri Reed, director of the OU Polytechnic Institute.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit ou.edu.
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