About
The Tetrad Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research funded 40 new interdisciplinary research projects by catalyzing cross-unit collaborations, paving the way for unique research initiatives and extramural support. Tetrad teams will present the results of their projects at the Tetrad Symposium, January 28, 2026, in the MSU Union Ballroom.
Agenda
| 8:30 - 9:00 a.m. | Poster setup |
| 9:00 - 9:15 a.m. | Networking & Refreshments |
| 9:15 - 9:30 a.m. | Event begins, Welcome Remarks from Doug Gage, VP for Research and Innovation; Dave Washburn, Chief Executive Officer, MSU Research Foundation; Jack Lipton, Associate Dean for Research Analytics, College of Human Medicine; Victor DiRita, Chair, Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology |
| 9:30 - 9:45 a.m. | Presentation 1: Exploring Socioeconomic Status/Poverty, Parental Stress, and their Interaction with Community Cohesion Upon Adolescent Mental Health in Black Families Tetrad team: Jinnifer Ortquist, MSU Extension; Meika Smart (C.S. Mott Department of Public Health), Emilie Smith (Human Development and Family Studies) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 9:45 - 10:00 a.m. | Presentation 2. Radiopaque Biomedical Devices from Novel Iodinated Polymer Composites Tetrad team: Robert Ferrier (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science), Adam Lauver (Pharmacology and Toxicology), Kendell Pawelec (Radiology) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 10:00 - 10:15 a.m. | Presentation 3: An Emergency Physician, Computer Scientist, and Statistician Walk into a Bar…: Our Experience(s) Pursuing Clinical and Technical Lines of Inquiry Applying AI Models to Clinical Challenges Associated with Skin and Soft Tissue Infections Tetrad team: Vishnu Boddeti (Computer Science and Engineering), Mathew Reeves (Epidemiology and Biostatistics), Joshua Reynolds (Emergency Medicine) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 10:15 - 10:30 a.m. | Presentation 4. AIoT-based Continuous, Contextualized, and Explainable Driving Assessment for Older Adults Tetrad team: Zhichao Cao (Computer Science and Engineering), Honglei Chen (Epidemiology and Biostatistics), Fei Sun (Social Work) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 10:30 - 10:45 a.m. | Presentation 5. Building Interdisciplinary AI Approaches to Predict and Communicate Microbial Food Safety Risks Tetrad team: Teresa Bergholz (Food Science and Human Nutrition), Yoo Jung Oh (Communication), Jiyoon Yi (Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 10:45 - 11:00 a.m. | Presentation 6: Developing a Research-Practice Partnership with a Local School District Tetrad team: Ashlee Barnes-Lee (Social Work), Kristy Stein (Educational Administration), Laura Tortorelli (Teacher Education) (10-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A) |
| 11:00 - 12:00 p.m. | Poster Session |
| 12:00 p.m. | Closing Remarks |
| 12:45 p.m. | Guests can mingle in the room until 12:45 p.m. |
Research Posters
- Voice Analysis for Mental Health Evaluation Using AI with Investigation of the Role of Physical Activity in Mental Health
- Amara Ezeamama (Psychiatry), Leapetswe Malete (Kinesiology), Maryam Naghibolhosseini (Communicative Sciences and Disorders)
- A Search for Research: Mapping Archives in a Time of War
- Emily Elliott (Digital Humanities), Gillian MacDonald (History), Terri Miller (Library)
- Tracking Airborne PFAS in Indoor Environments and Respiratory Tracts Upon Exposure
- Kaisen Lin (Civil and Environmental Engineering), James Moran (Integrative Biology), Tian Qiu (Chemistry)
- Development of a liver-humanized mouse model for imaging and toxicology
- Christiane Mallett (Radiology), James Wagner (Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation), Brad Upham (Pediatrics and Human Development)
- Sauna Therapy for Black Americans with High Blood Pressure
- Katharine Currie (Kinesiology), Gregory Fink (Pharmacology and Toxicology), Nigel Paneth (Epidemiology and Biostatistics)
- Electrical and optical monitoring and manipulation of neuronal activity followed by AI-assisted data analyses: application to autism mouse models
- Lucas Pozzo-Miller (Pediatrics and Human Development), Erin Purcell (IQ), Hongbing Wang (Physiology)
- Development of Anti-CA 19-9 Monoclonal Antibody Using Qβtm-CA 19-9 Conjugate
- Xuefei Huang (Chemistry), Lorenzo Sempere (Radiology), Linda Qu (Surgery)
- Environmental Justice in the Workplace
- Kwesi Brookins (UOE), Chu-Hsiang Chang (Organizational Psychology), Kenneth Rosenman (Medicine)
- Genome-wide analyses of AID footprints
- Jin He (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Wen Huang (Animal Science), Kefei Yu (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)
- Variability in affect during language processing in preschool aged children with autism spectrum disorder
- Nicole Jones (C.S. Mott Department of Public Health), Barbara Thompson (Pediatrics and Human Development), Courtney Venker (Communicative Sciences and Disorders)
- Novel links between early changes in blood clotting factors and acetaminophen overdose-induced liver damage
- Shawn Jobe (Pediatrics and Human Development), James Luyendyk (Pharmacology and Toxicology), Bradley Riley (Emergency Medicine)
- From Atoms to Materials: Machine Learning Based Reduced-Order Modeling
- Wei Lai (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science), Huan Lei (Statistics and Probability), Hui-Chia Yu (CMSE)
- MSU TIGER: Towards a Translational Institute for Gene Expression and Regulation at MSU
- David Arnosti (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Ingo Braasch (Integrative Biology), Jianrong Wang (CMSE)
- Health and the role of employment among people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
- Marisa Fisher (STRIDE), Janet Hauck (Kinesiology), Patricia West (College of Nursing)
- Art as Medicine: The healing work of every day creativity
- Emiko Blalock (Family Medicine), Natalie Philips (English), Morgan Shipley (Arts and Humanities Health Pathway)
- Impact of Neighborhood Deprivation and Population Density on DNA Methylation and Brain Structure and Function in Infancy
- Yuehua Cui (Statistics and Probability), Rebecca Knickmeyer (Pediatrics and Human Development), Richard Sadler (C.S. Mott Department of Public Health)
- Dose-dependent role for bRaf during GABAergic cortical neuron development
- Amy Arguello (Psychology), Marcia Gordon (Translational Neuroscience), Daniel Vogt (Pediatrics and Human Development)
- The Role of Homeowners Associations in Residential Sustainability
- Anne Choike (College of Law), Asia Dowtin (Forestry), Daniel Kramer (James Madison College)
- Mitigating the debilitating effects of chemotherapy with a prune-rich diet
- George Abela (Medicine), Anne Dorrance (Pharmacology & Toxicology), Kathleen Gallo (Physiology)
- Role of Zinc in sperm motility and function
- Soo Hyun Ahn (Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation), Melanie Balbach (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Thomas O’Halloran (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)
- Perceptions of Merit, Evaluation, and Advancement in the Academic Geosciences
- Kayla Gross (Organizational Disparities Laboratory), Julie Libarkin (Earth and Environmental Science), Edward Timke (Advertising and Public Relations)
- Cellular mechanosensing and its modulation
- Yun Liang (Physiology), Xinyue Liu (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science), Weiyi Lu (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
- A Novel Zebrafish Model for Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery
- Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson (Fisheries and Wildlife), Min Hao Kuo (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Jared Lamp (Translational Neuroscience)
- Advancing Equity for Indigenous Head Start Children through Nurturing Culturally Grounded Learning Experiences in the Classroom
- Jessica Barnes-Najor (UOE), Matthew Brodhead (Counseling, Educational Psychology & Special Education), Christina Myers (Journalism)
- Exploring the Chemical Diversity of Microbial Bile Acid Conjugation in the Mammalian Gut
- Sean Crosson (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics), Linda Mansfield (Large Animal Clinical Sciences), Robert Quinn (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
- Metabolomic and Metallomic Analysis of Human Heart Organoid Development After Mitochondrial Manipulation
- Aitor Aguirre (IQ), Jason Bazil (Physiology), Bong Jin Hong (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)
- Earth Is My Home: Shifting Social Norms to Encourage Pro-Environmental Behaviors
- Katherine Alaimo (Food Science and Human Nutrition), Aaron McCright (Sociology), John Waller (History)
- The role of ZBP1 in microglial response to pathological alpha-synuclein aggregates
- Shailendra Giri (HFHS), Caryl Sortwell (Translational Neuroscience), Bryan Smith (IQ)
- Hepatic OATPs as an imaging reporter protein for gene therapy
- Andrea Amalfitano (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics), Xiaopeng Li (Pediatrics and Human Development), Erik Shapiro (Radiology)
- An Online App to Evaluate Medical Students’ Patient Notes using Natural Language Processing Methods
- Namsoo Shin (CREATE), Ling Wang (Medicine), Yue Xing (Statistics and Probability)
- Environmental Exposure as Structural Trauma: Air Emissions and Community Perspectives from Cancer Alley
- Kaston Anderson Jr. (Psychology), Masako Morishita (Family Medicine), Norman Scheel (Radiology)
- Developing monoclonal antibodies to detect ZIP4 in human cancer cell lines
- Jian Hu (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Chunqi Qian (Radiology), Hua Xiao (Physiology)
- Joining efforts to detect an emerging myxozoan fish parasite in the Great Lakes basin
- Evangelyn Alocilja (Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering), Bartolomeo Gorgoglione (Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation), Jared Homola (Fisheries and Wildlife)
- Cyclic di-nucleotides cross talk at the intersection of plant microbe interactions
- Federica Brandizzi (Plant Research Lab), Maryam Sayadi (IQ), Christopher Waters (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)