ARA Fellow Dr. Laura James, UAMS
Science Translated
The Translational Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA). As the institute’s director, Dr. Laura James is tasked with nurturing viable and valuable research opportunities across the entire state of Arkansas.
Bottomline Innovation
Research is essential to the state’s economy, creating jobs and building intellectual capital for Arkansas. “Discovery Economics” is a partnership between the ARA Academy and Arkansas Money & Politics to underscore the hard value of science.
ARA Fellow Dr. Xiuzhen Huang, Arkansas State
Arkansas Intelligence
By 2025, AI is expected to be a $60 billion global industry. Arkansas Research Alliance Fellow Dr. Xiuzhen Huang of Arkansas State University is making sure Arkansas is part of that lucrative economy, with the launch of the Center of No-Boundary Thinking. Last year, Arkansas Money & Politics caught up with Dr. Huang to visit about AI research in Arkansas.
ARA Scholar Dr. Morten Jensen, University of Arkansas
Collaborative Heart
Heart disease costs Arkansas too many lives and costs the nation $219 billion each year (CDC). As an associate professor of engineering at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Morten Jensen is dedicated to developing lifesaving technology for use in cardiovascular surgery. Dr. Jensen discuss his most recent cardiovascular research, its impact on Arkansas, and his aspirations for the future.
ARA Fellow Dr. Rebecca Lochmann, UAPB
Feeding the Economy
Did you know that Arkansas ranks second in the nation for aquaculture? Arkansas Research Alliance Academy member Rebecca Lochmann, Director of the Aquaculture & Fisheries Center of Excellence at the UAPB, has focused her research on protecting this nearly $68 million-per-year industry.
ARA President & CEO, Jerry Adams
Economic Catalyst
My second career leading the Arkansas Research Alliance for the last 12 years has broadened my perspective of what role university research should play in the economic future of our state. The 2007 Strategic Plan authored by Accelerate Arkansas identified five core strategies to develop the state’s business and technological competitiveness.
ARA Fellow Dr. Nitin Agarwal, UA Little Rock
Social Media Warrior
The rise of social media has transformed our society. We’re more connected than ever, but we’re also far more vulnerable to privacy breaches, cybercrime and misinformation. UA Little Rock professor Dr. Nitin Agarwal researches cyber information campaigns, social computing, deviant behavior modeling, group dynamics, social-cyber forensics, and privacy.
ARA Scholar Dr. David Ussery, UAMS
Unlocking Genomics
Since the human genome was first mapped in in the 1980s, science has unlocked many mysteries of the human body. Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) Academy member Dr. David Ussery, a professor of bioinformatics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, is using this data to fight diseases, including COVID-19.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Alan Mantooth, UA
High Voltage Economy
Dr. Alan Mantooth of the University of Arkansas serves as director of the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT). His contributions to the state’s economy due to collaborative research have been estimated at more than $1 billion, and he currently oversees more than $30 million in active research projects.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Min Zou, UA
Arkansas’ Nano-Economy
Dr. Min Zou is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Arkansas and a faculty member of the Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering and the interdisciplinary Microelectronics photonics (microEP) Graduate Program at the UA. She and her team are using the tiniest materials to make enormous impacts on Arkansas’ economy.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Clint Kilts, UAMS
Innovation Mentality
Dr. Clint Kilts, ARA Academy Member and director of the Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC) at the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute, researches the use of non-invasive functional brain imaging technology to explore the complex and changing relationship between the organization of information processing in the brain and human behavior and thought.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Tansel Karabacak, UA Little Rock
From Lab to Market
Dr. Tansel Karabacak, ARA Academy Member and Present Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UA Little Rock, shares his experiences and challenges with bringing laboratory innovation to private enterprise, and how that process can be improved through communication.
ARA CEO Bryan Barnhouse
Walking the Halls of Arkansas Research
Bryan Barnhouse, CEO for Arkansas Research Alliance, takes us on a brief but fascinating tour of our state’s incredible research community, sharing his thoughts and visions for the future along the way.
ARA CEO Bryan Barnhouse
The “What Ifs” of Scientific Research
Bryan Barnhouse takes over Discovery Economics for a second month to ask a very powerful and personal question: What if the research that improves and saves lives were made available faster? What kind of impact would it have.
ARA Fellow Dr. Argelia Lorence, Arkansas State
Protecting our Growth Industries
What does a difference of +0.5ºC make on rice, Arkansas’ $6B industry? Climate change is increasing night time temperatures, which is threatening crop yields essential to the nation’s economy and food security. Dr. Argelia Lorence explains how her team is seeking solutions.
ARA Scholar Justin Zhan, University of Arkansas
Merging On to the Data-Driven Economic Highway
As big data gets even bigger, the ability to customize solutions to benefit individual organizations becomes an increasingly daunting challenge. Those challenges motivate Dr. Justin Zhan, member of the ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows and professor of data science at the University of Arkansas.
ARA Fellow Mark Smeltzer, UAMS
Bone of Contention
Despite a close relationship spanning decades, Dr. Mark Smeltzer has not developed fond feelings for his professional protagonist, Staphylococcus aureus. “I am of the personal belief that bacteria do not care about you,” said Dr. Smeltzer. “They just don’t want to die.” Learn more about Dr. Smeltzer’s war against an infection that claims tens-of-thousands of Americans every year.
Doug Hutchings, ARA Academy Director
The Science Behind the Natural State
I often wonder how Arkansans view the state’s efforts to bolster innovation, support entrepreneurship and advance research activities. Growing up in Mena, I know it wasn’t on my radar, and I don’t remember it being discussed at all. There were usually much more pressing needs that demanded attention.
ARA Fellow Dr. Steven Foley, NCTR
Seeking Safer Foods
Foley and his team are developing a database of Salmonella virulence genes that can be used by FDA and other public-health organizations to detect an increase in Salmonella’s disease-causing ability. This allows improved utility of the gold-standard, whole-genome sequencing, for dissecting foodborne outbreaks and understanding risk.
ARA Fellow Dr. Weida Tong, NCTR
Systematic Discoveries
As the Director of the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, ARA Academy Member Dr. Weida Tong and his team develops tools using information technology to advance the FDA’s mission to protect and promote public health.
Amy Hopper, Program Manager, ARA
Tools of the Research Trade
Amy Hopper, Project Manager for Arkansas Research Alliance, outlines her journey in helping to create the Arkansas Core Facilities Exchange, an online resource that opens a wealth of science resources of researchers all across the Natural State.
ARA Fellow Dr. Laurent Bellaiche, UA
Out-Thinking the Brain
Stepping into the office of Dr. Laurent Bellaiche, an Arkansas Research Alliance Fellow and Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Arkansas, is almost like stepping inside his mind, which is ironic because he has devoted part of his research to duplicating the awesome power of the human brain.
ARA Fellow Dr. Hugh Churchill, UA
Exploring the Quantum Universe
If you’re among the millions of Marvel fans who have watched Ant-Man, you likely have gained a broad (if fantastical) definition of quantum physics. Hollywood sheds a glamorous spotlight on the science, ARA Academy Member Dr. Hugh Churchill warns us to temper the high expectations.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Mansour Mortazavi, UAPB
Reshaping the World with Nanostructures
The development of instruments to observe the atomic structures in atomic and molecular level changed the science and development of the materials forever. Dr. Mortazavi discusses the impact the study of nanomaterials have had on the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and they future they hold for science.
ARA Fellow Dr. Mariya V. Khodakovskaya, UA Little Rock
Farming Mars with Earthly Carbon-Based Nanomaterials
“Our recent research with the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium and NASA holds the potential to solve the problem of how to feed astronauts during long-term space exploration missions,” revealed Dr. Khodakovskaya
ARA Fellow Dr. Fabricio Medina-Bolivor, A-State
Power Plants: The Promise of Plant-Based Cancer Treatments
At the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) at A-State, Dr. Fabricio Medina-Bolivar and his team have found very promising results in novel organic compounds that have a particularly positive effect on cancer treatments.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Alan Tackett, UAMS
Unlocking Our Own Immune System to Fight Cancer
The human body is a fortress of self-defenses, particularly at the cellular level, where immune cells known at “T-cells” protect the body from infection. Research has shown that T-cells may even help fight cancer, which would provide another alternative to radiation and chemotherapies.
ARA Fellow Dr. Hong-yu Li, UAMS
Research is Competition: Best Research Wins
“Research laboratories recognize that the race for innovation is a war for talent,” said Dr. Hong-yu Li, who has won more than $4 million in funding the last two years as an Arkansas Research Alliance Academy Member and professor at the University of Arka sas for Medical Sciences.
ARA Fellow Dr. Jay Xu, A-State
Flipping the Switch(grass)
Located on the Arkansas State campus in Jonesboro, ABI is a spearhead of impactful science in Arkansas. ABI collaborative re- search has led to many successful collaborations, projects, discoveries and more than $800 million in new research funding. A portion of that funding is from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), sup- porting breakthrough biofuel research from ARA Academy mem- ber, Dr. Jianfeng Xu.
ARA Fellow, Dr. Laura Schnackenberg, NCTR
NCTR Drug Research Could Save Consumers Millions
Dr. Laura Schnackenberg, NCTR’s director of the Division of Systems Biology, leads a multidisciplinary team exploring a wide range of innovative research. One area of research is focused on reducing the use of animal testing in nonclinical studies.
ARA Fellow Dr. Jingyi Chen, UA
Arkansas Research is Transforming Healthcare & Energy
Dr. Jingyi Chen is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas. But the Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) Academy member may more accurately be described as an extraordinary solver of difficult problems.
ARA Fellow Dr. John Imig, UAMS
Challenging Arkansas to Invest in Research (and a better tomorrow)
Innovation can seem to come out of nowhere. Like ChatGPT. In reality, the AI program was developed over years or decades with incremental advancements and a variety of victories and failures/false starts, both behind the scenes and quite public.
Bryan Barnhouse, ARA
A Good Marriage Requires Investment
Economic development is a well-intended and well-estab- lished profession. It offers a variety of positive ways to influence the growth of an area and the future of its residents. Arkansas’ elected and business leaders agree that university research is one such path. Since 2009, the Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) has united the state’s focus on recruiting and retaining top minds in key scientific disciplines and specialized fields of engineering.