Wednesday, May 13, 2026

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

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Announcements

• The Research Bulletin will transition to an every-other-week publication schedule following today’s edition. It will resume weekly distribution in mid-August. 
• Targeted Proposal Teams is now accepting proposals from eligible Texas A&M faculty. Submissions are due by 5 p.m. on Sept. 4. 
• iThenticate/TurnItIn services will be unavailable for 24 hours beginning May 21 due to a scheduled system upgrade. Following the maintenance window, users will access the platform through a new URL. Please visit the iThenticate page for more information.
• Susan Ballabina was unanimously appointed president of Texas A&M University by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents and assumed her new role on May 11.

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News-Media Coverage

• Alan Kuhnle (Engineering), Galveston County The Daily News, about the development of a machine learning system that uses anonymized smartphone location data to better track recreational fishing activity and improve fisheries management along the Gulf Coast. 
• Dana Gaddy (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences), Times Now News, about how gradual testosterone decline, known as andropause, can affect men’s physical and mental health over time, contributing to symptoms such as reduced muscle mass, fatigue and lower libido. 
• Elizabeth Leake (High Performance Research Computing), HPCWire, about a global effort to develop and test best practices for quantum workforce training, aiming to build international capacity and support the rapidly evolving field of quantum computing through coordinated education, research infrastructure and collaboration.
• F. Gregory Gause III (Government and Public Service), CNN, about the growing rift between the Persian Gulf states and the U.S. and the impact of the Iran war on their monarchies. 
• Lei Zou and Yifan Yang (Arts and Sciences), Mosaic, about research using artificial intelligence and paired street-view imagery to improve hyperlocal disaster damage assessment following events like hurricanes. 
• Matthew Powell-Palm and Soheil Kavian (Engineering), American Medical Journal, about findings that cryopreservation solutions with higher glass transition temperatures reduce thermal stress and cracking during vitrification, offering a potential path to more reliable large-scale organ preservation for transplantation. 
• Joaquin Rodriguez-Nieva and Yuhan Wu (Arts and Sciences), Quantum Zeitgeist, about findings that limits on generating truly random quantum states stem mainly from low-entanglement initial state preparation, restricting how closely quantum systems can achieve full randomness even under chaotic evolution.
• Richard Kreider (Agriculture and Life Sciences), Men’s Health, about how higher daily doses of creatine may safely support not only muscle performance but also cognitive and bone health benefits.

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Articles From Colleges and Schools

• Alex Keene (Arts and Sciences) and undergraduate Ashton Funk studied how Alzheimer’s-related genes affect sleep, using fruit flies to conduct their research, which will be presented at a conference in May. Texas A&M Biology Student and Offensive Lineman To Present Alzheimer’s Research at National Meeting 
• Benjamin N. Montemayor, Arham Hassan, Snehi Bajracharya, Aniqua Salwa and Anka Vujanovic (Public Health) found that the combination of childhood trauma and substance use is linked to depressive symptoms in college students, and that certain substances are more strongly associated with depression, suggesting college health programs should take a more individualized approach for support. Beyond Stress: How Childhood Trauma and Polysubstance Use Shape Depression Risk in College Students 
• Daniel Hajovsky (Education and Human Development) found that when children struggle to read, it is not necessarily due to general intelligence, but rather their strength in skills such as comprehension-knowledge or auditory processing. Why Some Children Struggle To Read: Texas A&M Researcher Leads Study Inside the Brain 
• Joshua Yudkin and Christopher Owens (Public Health) discovered a lack of weight management programs designed for children with HIV, despite a common treatment for the condition being linked to weight gain. Children with HIV Are Living Longer but Facing a New Health Risk: Obesity 
• Nicholas Murphy and Sanjay Mathew (Medicine) found that lithium changed brain activity related to impulsive decision-making for people who survived their suicide attempts, emphasizing that lithium could improve detection and intervention efforts. Lithium May Help Curb Impulsive Decisions Tied to Suicide Risk, Study Finds 
• Rahul Srinivasan, Gauri Pandey and Roger Garcia (Medicine) found that boosting nicotine-responsive receptors, without using nicotine, can protect dopamine-producing brain cells and potentially slow Parkinson’s disease progression in females.Researchers Uncover Brain Mechanism That May Help Slow Parkinson’s Disease, Curiously Only in Females 
• Raymond Robertson (Government and Public Service) co-authored a World Bank study that found that the digital transition and skills are associated with higher employment and earnings, especially for women, suggesting that gender gaps for employment could be narrowed. Digital Use Linked to Higher Employment and Earnings for Women, Global Study Finds 
• Sonya Wesselowski and Sophie Tippit (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences) found that accidental ingestion of ractopamine, a livestock feed additive, can cause severe, sometimes fatal heart damage in dogs, underscoring the need for better awareness among veterinarians and pet owners. Texas A&M Team Finds Cattle Feed Additive Can Cause Heart Damage in Dogs 
• Steven Riechman (Education and Human Development) and Adrien Robin (Nursing) used a Lower Body Negative Pressure device inside a controlled environment chamber to study how spaceflight affects body heat regulation and blood flow. Simulating Space To Protect Human Health 

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Accomplishments

• Jeetain Mittal (Engineering) was inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows for his interdisciplinary research using computational models to better understand how biomolecular systems self-assemble.

• Texas A&M was honored with ComPsych Corporation’s 2025 Health at Work Award in the Mental Health Heroes category for its outstanding program that promotes a positive mental health culture and reduces stigma around mental health issues. 

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Funding

• Texas A&M received a $13 million Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant to expand its Cyclotron Institute and its Radiation Effects Facility. 
• James Sacchettini (Agriculture and Life Sciences) received a $3.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project titled, “Systematic Exploitation of Synergy to Improve Tuberculosis Therapy.” 
• Arum Han (Engineering), Paige Seitz (Agriculture and Life Sciences), Ivan Rusyn and Weihsueh Chiu (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences) received a $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project titled, "NAMs-Decisions Center: New Approach Methods for Decisions on Industrial and Consumer-Use Chemicals."
• Ivett Leyva and Rodney Bowersox (Engineering) received a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to support a project titled, "Aerothermodynamic Modeling and Validation Experiments (AMVE)."
• Yuchao Jiang (Arts and Sciences) received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project titled, "Decoding Cellular Heterogeneity and Gene Regulation Using Single-Cell and Spatial Omics.”  
• Vladislav Panin (Agriculture and Life Sciences), Aref Arzan Zarin and Joshua Lillvis (Arts and Sciences) received a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project titled, “Cross-Neuronal Structural Plasticity in Drosophila Motor Circuits.”  
• Bradford Wilcox and Eric Duell (Agriculture and Life Sciences) received a $1.2 million grant from Edwards Aquifer Authority to support a project titled, "Understanding the Link Between Land Management and Recharge of the Edwards Aquifer."
• Jon Rutter (Transportation Institute) received a $1.1 million grant from the Texas Department of Transportation to support a project titled, “Rail Division Safety and Policy Support Tasks.” 
• Arthur Dogariu (Engineering) received a $1 million grant from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to support a project titled, “Spatiotemporal Characterization of Neutrals Using fs-Talif in West Tokamak.”  

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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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