March 4 Research Bulletin (Texas A&M University)

How to Submit an Item to Research Bulletin

Send: Research-related news about Texas A&M faculty, staff or students at our colleges, schools or member agencies, including honors, publications, presentations and appearances in news media.
Note: The Research Bulletin does not publish links to scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles. If your work appears in a journal, please first work with your college or school communications team to develop a news story, then submit the link to that story for inclusion.
Include: A URL that links directly to your news coverage, research story or professional achievement.
Email: rcomm@tamu.edu

News-Media Coverage

GMToday, Daniel Oney (Real Estate Research Center), about how strong population and income growth in Dallas–Fort Worth is driving investor interest in rental housing, while complex ownership structures make tracking investor purchases increasingly difficult.

KBTX, David Matarrita-Cascante (Agriculture and Life Sciences), about how population shifts and development in rural Texas are increasing wildfire risk, as the expansion of the wildland-urban interface complicates fire prevention, education and emergency response.

KORA 98.3, Jianrong Li (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences), about a $2.17 million National Institutes of Health study to identify early brain changes and genetic risk factors linked to Alzheimer’s disease, which aims to enable earlier detection and improve understanding of disease progression.

Labroots, Harrison Coker (Agriculture and Life Sciences), about how recycling plant and human waste using bioregenerative life support systems can transform simulated lunar and Martian soils into nutrient-rich growing media, advancing sustainable food production for future space missions.

Medscape, Lyndsay MacKay (Nursing), about how even with training, parents of children with medical complexity often feel overwhelmed, financially strained and emotionally burdened, highlighting the need for hospital-based clinics and support systems that better address families’ needs during the transition home.

SciTechDaily, Piotr Bojakowski and Katie Custer Bojakowski (Arts and Sciences), about the use of advanced underwater survey techniques to document a World War II B-17 bomber in the Baltic Sea and recover artifacts to help identify the missing crew.

Articles From Colleges and Schools

Brian King (Agriculture and Life Sciences) and researchers in the Arch H. Aplin ‘80 Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism advance applied research in consumer behavior, destination management, sustainability, health and wellbeing, and emerging technologies to drive innovation and strengthen communities across Texas and beyond. A New Vision for Hospitality Education at Texas A&M
Constantine Karathanasis (Arts and Sciences) found that Aristophanes’ comic portrayals of elderly Athenian judges likely reflected real demographic and economic conditions, showing that older men plausibly dominated Athens’ courts because modest judicial pay and population patterns made service especially suited to retired citizens. Comedy or Census? A Reexamination of Ancient Athenian Judges
Giuliana Noratto (Agriculture and Life Sciences) and Lauren Stranahan (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences) found that anthocyanin, the natural pigment that gives dark sweet cherries their color, slows down the development and spread of cancer. Sweet Cherry Compounds Show Promise in Slowing Aggressive Breast Cancer Spread, Texas A&M Study Discovers
Jennifer Dulin (Arts and Sciences) and team reported that fewer than one percent of transplanted spinal cord neurons formed synaptic connections with host motor circuits, offering a potential explanation for the inconsistent functional recovery observed in neural cell transplantation for spinal cord injuries. Spinal Cord Research Reveals Inconsistencies With Cell Transplantation
Shyamal Talukder, Yubin Yang and Mahendra Bhandari (Agriculture and Life Sciences) advanced innovative rice breeding strategies using artificial intelligence, genomics and precision phenotyping to boost yields, improve quality and develop nutrient-rich purple rice for health-focused markets. Texas A&M Agrilife Research Projects To Enhance Rice Yields, Health Benefits
Shreya Raghavan, Alex Walsh, Daniel Alge and Oscar Benavides (Engineering) created models of dormant colon cancer liver metastasis and developed imaging techniques, with the goal of learning more about cancer cell behavior to improve treatments. Texas A&M Engineers Illuminate Cancer’s Deadly Hideout
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station partnered with ZettaJoule to build a high-temperature research reactor in College Station, strengthening the university’s role as a leader in nuclear engineering. Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, ZettaJoule Sign Agreement to Explore Building Transformative Gas Research Reactor
Tung Nguyen (Engineering) and a team of nearly 1,000 researchers created “Humanity’s Last Exam,” an expert-level assessment that reveals AI’s current limitations and serves as a benchmark for AI development. Don’t Panic: ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ Has Begun
Wayne Chen (Engineering) developed uncertainty-aware AI systems that generate engineering solutions, with an overall goal of increasing AI trust and sustainability. Redefining Engineering Design With Trustworthy AI
Zina Trost (Arts and Sciences) used virtual reality to help people with spinal cord injuries practice physical movements and to relieve their neuropathic pain through immersive walking experiences. How Zina Trost Is Using Virtual Reality To Ease Pain FromSpinal Cord Injuries

Accomplishments

Guillermo Aguilar, Heng Pan, Xingyong Song and Stavros Kalafatis (Engineering) were named 2026 Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors.
Vani Mathur (Arts and Sciences) co-edited Health Psychology’s special issue to advance pain research.

Professional Development

Research Development Services offers faculty development programs and research funding workshops to assist in the process of applying for grants.    

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) offers virtual workshops that meet the face-to-face requirements of University SAP 15.99.99.M0.04. Please note that it is the responsibility of each college or school (with support or information from individual principal investigators) to ensure that all student and postdoctoral researchers associated with them are compliant with the RCR training requirements.    

High Performance Research Computing offers an ongoing series of short training courses for beginning, intermediate and advanced researchers.    

University Libraries presents a series of online workshops in research-related subjects, such as managing citations, managing research data, searching databases and publishing and copyrighting. 

Events

The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) will host Matthew Kraft, professor of education and economics at Brown University, March 5 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Memorial Student Center, Room 2406, as part of the CEHD Speaker Series. His lecture, “Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives,” will explore how transfer incentive programs affect student achievement and whether teacher effectiveness remains consistent across school contexts.

The Texas A&M Health Institute for Healthcare Access is hosting the “All of Us and More: Hidden Health Patterns in Data Conference” March 19-20 at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center. Registration can be completed here. The conference, which highlights Hagler Institute for Advanced Study Fellow José Pagán as a featured commenter on day one, will unite leaders in data science, public health, clinical research and social policy to explore how linking diverse data — clinical, genomic and social — can deepen our understanding of health.

The “Workshop on Food-Energy-Water-Health Nexus as a Catalyst for a Resource-Secure and Resilient Texas” will take place April 16 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Memorial Student Center, Room 2400. This event aims to position Texas A&M as a leader in integrated Food-Energy-Water-Health systems research, highlight innovations addressing resource security challenges, and define actionable opportunities to expand impact in Texas and globally. Registration is open to Texas A&M faculty and staff and will close April 2.