Interdisciplinary

Jinhee Jeong, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, MEDICINE

Reza Sameni, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESS, EMORY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINERRING

AI-Augmented Cardiovascular Pattern Detection in Chronic Kidney Disease: Integrating Human Physiology + Biomedical Informatics for Precision Risk Detection

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) confers a 10–20-fold increase in cardiovascular (CV) mortality. Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) overactivity is a well-established hallmark of CKD, yet decades of mechanistic insight have not translated into actionable clinical tools due to analytic barriers, methodological heterogeneity, and the absence of standardized computational infrastructure. This project addresses these gaps by applying computational methods to high-dimensional autonomic and hemodynamic data from a uniquely rich CKD cohort, with the goal of enabling precision cardiovascular medicine in CKD.  This URC proposal leverages an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration between Human Integrative Physiology (HIP) and Biomedical Informatics (BMI) at the Emory School of Medicine. The HIP team provides more than 200 well-characterized CKD datasets, including gold-standard muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and beat-to-beat hemodynamic recordings collected across mechanistic and interventional studies. The BMI team contributes expertise in physics-informed modeling, biomedical signal processing, and interpretable machine learning to develop computational frameworks for physiology-grounded phenotype discovery.  Through an iterative collaborative workflow that integrates physiological domain knowledge with advanced computational methods, we will: (1) identify data-driven cardiovascular phenotypes using unsupervised learning applied to MSNA and hemodynamic time-series data; (2) validate phenotype relevance through associations with clinical outcomes and disease characteristics; and (3) establish open-source, reproducible computational frameworks for CV risk stratification in CKD.  Together, this interdisciplinary team will generate interpretable CV phenotypes, validated analytic frameworks, and preliminary data that will form the foundation for future NIH R01 applications

Don Operario, PhD

PROFESSOR, ROLLINS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BEHAVIORAL, SOCIAL, AND HEALTH EDUCATION SCIENCES

Public Health at a Crossroads: Oral Histories of Institutional Change and Scientific Practice

Public health depends on stable institutions, scientific expertise, and sustained collaboration among government agencies, universities, and community organizations. Political and organizational change can disrupt these foundations, with consequences for research, education, practice, and population health. While historians have documented public health institutional change across the twentieth century, relatively little empirical work has captured how professionals experience and interpret restructuring as it unfolds in real time. This interdisciplinary project is led by two public health scholars with complementary training—one a behavioral–social scientist and the other a health historian. Drawing on approaches from public health and health history, the project examines how recent federal restructuring has affected individuals and organizations across the U.S. public health system. Using oral history interviews with government staff (including current and former employees of federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), academic researchers, and community partners, the study will document lived experiences of institutional change, professional uncertainty, collaboration, and adaptation. Interviews will be analyzed both as qualitative data and historical sources, allowing the research team to capture immediate impacts while situating them within longer trajectories of public health governance, scientific authority, and institutional memory. By integrating qualitative methods with historicist contextual analysis, the project will identify how public health professionals respond to shifting political and organizational conditions and will highlight strategies for sustaining public health capacity amid uncertainty. Outputs will include peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and a curated oral history archive.

Justin Pynne, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, ENVIRONMENTA SCIENCES

Justin Burton, PhD

PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, PHYSICS

Illuminating the Invisible: Photoluminescence Bridging Physics, Ecology, and Visual Arts

Photoluminescence represents a ubiquitous yet invisible dimension of biodiversity. While nearly all vascular plants and many fungi exhibit distinctive fluorescent patterns under UV excitation, their ecological functions and diagnostic potential remain poorly understood. This interdisciplinary project integrates physics, ecology, and visual arts to investigate photoluminescent phenomena in southeastern U.S. flora and fungi, with two primary objectives, all inviting novel discovery and public engagement: (1) create an initial "Fluorescence Flora" documenting UV-induced fluorescence patterns across multiple wavelengths for at least 20 plant and 5 fungal species around Emory’s campus; (2) investigate the novel phenomenon of spontaneous light emission from living plant tissues on silver-based photographic film in complete darkness using camera-less photography and spectrophotometric analysis to determine whether emission results from actual photon production or chemical interactions with silver halides.  This interdisciplinary collaboration brings together an environmental science ecologist, two physics researchers, and a visual arts fellow, all with opportunities for student researchers. Methods include field UV photography, systematic camera-less film experiments, laboratory spectral analysis, and protocol development for adoption by ecologists and artists. Short- and long-term goals include scientific publications, reproducible protocols, and public exhibitions. By treating artistic practice as knowledge generation and scientific questions as aesthetic opportunities, this project exemplifies transformative interdisciplinary research, revealing novel mechanisms of light-matter interaction while building conservation charisma for overlooked taxa through visible documentation of invisible diversity.