Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Want to submit an item to Research Bulletin? Details can be found at the bottom of this page.

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Announcement

• Texas A&M University reported $1.433 billion in research expenditures in fiscal year 2025, an increase of 2.8% over fiscal year 2024’s total. 

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News-Media Coverage

• Jeff Warner (Transportation Institute), Traffic Technology Today, about strategies to reduce rail grade crossing collisions. 
• Lucien Nana Yobo (Arts and Sciences), USA Today, about research showing that clusters of ancient volcanic eruptions rapidly disrupted the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation current, underscoring the risks posed today by human-driven climate change. 
• Maria Pia Miglietta (Galveston), Houston Public Media and Texas Standard, about the discovery of a new species of moon jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico. 
• Rebecca Schlegel (Arts and Sciences), The New York Times, about findings that people believe they become more authentic to their true selves as they get older. (Paywall) 
• Shoufeng Lan (Engineering), The Battalion, about laser-based optical propulsion that does not require fuel, with scalable potential to dramatically reduce interstellar travel times and enable precise control of spacecraft and satellites. 
• Yonghoon Lee (Business), The Conversation, about research showing that when women, especially those who freelance, try to expand their careers, they face a “glass wall,” where gender stereotypes cause their moves to be seen as less strategic than men’s. 

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Articles From Colleges and Schools

• Alan Kuhnle (Engineering), Mona Ahmadiani, Richard Woodward and Jessica Magana (Agriculture and Life Sciences) used smartphone data and modern machine learning to track recreational fishing activity, helping fishery managers make better conservation decisions while still allowing access for anglers. Casting New Light on Recreational Fishing Along the Gulf Coast 
• Annmarie MacNamara (Arts and Sciences) found that two weekly sessions of Short-term Methods for Increasing Life’s Enjoyment, or “SMILE,” can improve the brain’s capacity to enhance positive emotions, helping counter depression-related declines in savoring compared to a control group. A Brief Treatment for Depression and Anxiety 
• Charles “Cody” Folden III (Arts and Sciences) successfully validated a new vacuum chromatography technique that can identify rapid decay chains produced during nuclear fusion reactions, advancing the study of superheavy elements. Validating Vacuum Chromatography in Heavy Element Chemistry 
• Edgar Rojas-Muñoz (Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts) and team are investigating how extended reality technologies can be integrated into everyday environments to enhance education, workplace safety, accessibility and real-time mental health support for social good. Researcher Envisions Future in Which Extended Reality Revolutionizes Everyday Life
• Embedzayi Madhiri and Lei-Shih “Lace” Chen (Public Health) found that many young adults would be open to using whole genome sequencing for their future newborns, largely to help prevent disease and plan for their child's health. Most Young American Adults Would Choose Whole Genome Sequencing for Their Own Newborns 
• Jungjoo “Jay” Lee and Junhyoung “Paul” Kim (Public Health) found that while both light and vigorous exercise improved sleep in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, high-intensity activity provided the greatest reduction in sleep disturbances and possibly helped lower dementia risk. For Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment, Exercise Can Be Crucial to Sleep Quality
• Narangerel Altangerel (Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering) developed "The Thermostable Raman Interaction Profiling" technique, which uses a laser to measure molecular interactions and directly observe how drugs bind to proteins. Texas A&M Scientists Invent a Way To Use Light to Directly Observe How Well New Medicines Work
• Nitesh Saxena (Engineering) and his team created “HIPPO” (Hidden-Password Online Password Manager), a browser extension that generates passwords on demand without storing them, reducing stress about passwords and potential breaches for users. Your P@ssw0rds! No Longer Have To Cause Anxiety 
• Stephen Safe and James Cai (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences), Robert Chapkin and Roger Norton (Agriculture and Life Sciences), and Shoshana Eitan (Arts and Sciences) found that compounds in coffee may help protect against aging and chronic disease by interacting with the NR4A1 receptor, a key regulator of inflammation and disease pathways. Coffee Doesn’t Just Wake You Up — It May Help Protect Your Body From Aging 
• Timothy Dellapenna and Kristin Jøsvoll (Galveston) collected soil core samples at Maison Rouge in Galveston, the former home of Jean Lafitte, an infamous figure known as "The Terror of the Gulf," marking the first archeological core analysis conducted in the oldest part of the city. “X Marks the Spot”: Research Led by Texas A&M University at Galveston Researchers Seeks To Find Scientific Treasure Below the Surface of Notorious Pirate’s Former Residence 
• Zhe “Sarina” Zhang (Arts and Sciences) and team developed Spatiotemporal Explicit Causal Transformer (SECT), a new forecasting framework that improves predictive accuracy while preserving clear, interpretable links between spatial and temporal factors. SECT: A Spatiotemporal Explicit Causal Transformer for Path-Faithful Spatiotemporal Attribution

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Accomplishments

• Wencai Liu (Arts and Sciences) was awarded the 2026 American Mathematical Society’s Centennial Research Fellowship for his advances in quantum systems and spectral theory. 

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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 copyright.
• The Animal Welfare Office (AWO) offers virtual workshops that meet the continuing education requirements for investigators as described in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" ("the Guide"). Common topics include understanding and applying Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) guidelines and crafting a well-written animal use protocol. Course offerings change quarterly.

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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 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 development.     
• Email: rcomm@tamu.edu  

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