Group Descriptions
Wayne State University ’s Interdisciplinary Research Groups are faculty-initiated and faculty-led collaborations of researchers from two or more departments who bring their disciplinary expertise to bear on a single research topic. By sharing information, tools, perspectives and data the goal of these Groups is to advance understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline. Group members also collaborate on research funding proposals and present their research at Group meetings.
Click below for a description of WSU’s current Interdisciplinary Research Groups.
Bioinformatics Interest Group
Brain Reperfusion Injury
Canadian Studies Committee
The Complex Systems Group
Computational Protein Network Analysis
Counterterrorism Research Group
Diabetes Research Group
E-Health
HASTAC
Michigan Collaborative Urban African American Aging Research
MLSC Computer Assisted Surgery
MRI Research Concourse
Multilingual Development
The Neurotrauma Research Group
Personality Disorders Group
Proteases and Cancer Program
Public Health: Geomapping Group
Public Health: Pandemic Flu
Science and Society
Supply Chain Research Group
Bioinformatics Interest Group
The objective of the group is to exchange information among laboratories on the development of new bioinformatics applications for biological data. This group actively promotes inter-laboratory and interdisciplinary research.
Contact: Professor Jeffrey Ram
Department of Physiology
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Brain Reperfusion Injury
This ad hoc group was formed to study brain reperfusion injury.
Contact: Professor Gary Krause
Department of Emergency Medicine
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Canadian Studies Committee
This group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty who participate in the WSU Canadian Studies Program, promoting research, fostering courses of instruction, enhancing awareness of Canadian culture and society, promoting US-Canada transnational cultural and economic connections.
Contact: Professor John Bukowczyk
Department of History
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The Complex Systems Group
Monthly group meetings provide an opportunity for faculty to meet other investigators who use, or may need to use, a complex systems approach to their research, as well as an opportunity to build new research collaborations. The group sponsors a monthly seminar series that spotlights faculty research or brings in outside speakers. The group includes faculty from Psychology, Anthropology, Physics, Computer Science, the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Civil Engineering, Social Work, Political Science, Institute of Gerontology, Communications, Geography, Nursing, Chemical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering. The group would like to create a certificate program for Complex Systems, host a Complex Systems training seminar to demonstrate the software tools for agent based modeling, and to participate in the Fall 2006 SIAM conference.
Contact: Professor David Bowen
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Website : http://www.complex.wayne.edu
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Computational Protein Network Analysis
The focus is on understanding protein networks by combining experimental and computational approaches. Projects include developing algorithms to assign function to uncharacterized genes and proteins, predicting protein-protein interaction and networks.
Contact: Associate Professor Russell Finley Jr.
Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
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Counterterrorism Research Group
This group studies the effectiveness of counterterrorism strategies.
Contact: Department Chair, Daniel S. Gellar
Department of Political Science
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Diabetes Research Group
This group creates an infrastructure for diabetes research, fosters collaborative diabetes research projects, presents semi-monthly seminars, and develops common research themes.
Contact: Professor Anjan Kowluru
College of Pharmacy and Health
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E-Health
E-Health brings together researchers who are interested in integrating existing and emerging Health Information Technologies (HIT) for developing and enhancing intelligent psychosocial, learning and decision making capabilities and motor skills for all users of IT within a minority group, community, or population context. The group seeks to collaborate on trans-disciplinary grant opportunities, to provide a forum for exchange of E-Health ideas and to collaborate in generating high-quality peer-reviewed multi-authored publications. Current projects include developing a multi-media E-Health platform to define, build and generate the next generation prototypes for personalized information, monitoring and consultative health services among urban seniors to modify behavior in specific areas such as those related to smoking and weight loss. Plans are underway to include fitness, disease management and other behavioral modification areas using virtual reality applications for the handicapped and socially disabled. The group has also launched an international journal, the International Journal of Health Information Systems and Informatics. Group members include faculty from Nursing, Institute of Gerontology, Business, Industrial Engineering, Psychology, Library and Information Science at WSU, and from Business Administration at the University of Windsor.
Contact: Professor Joseph Tan
School of Business Administration
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HASTAC
HASTAC (pronounced “haystack”) is an acronym for Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, a national consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists, and engineers from universities and other civic institutions across the country that are committed to new forms of collaboration fostered by creative uses of technology. Since 2003, HASTAC has been developing tools for multimedia archiving and social interaction, gaming environments for teaching, innovative educational programs in information science and information studies, virtual museums, and other digital projects. The aim of HASTAC is to promote expansive models for thinking, teaching and research.
Wayne State participates in the national organization through its own HASTAC group, led by Professor Julie Thompson Klein from Interdisciplinary Studies. The group is honored to have been selected as one of the local sites to participate in the national HASTAC 2006-2007 In/Formation Year presentation series.
Contact: Professor Julie Thompson Klein (ad5820@wayne.edu)
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Website: http://www.hastac.org
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Michigan Collaborative Urban African American Aging Research
This group is a collaboration between WSU and the University of Michigan to promote research among minority scholars, on the topic of aging. Scholars meet to discuss research questions and findings.
Contact : Peter Lichtenberg, Academic Director
Institute of Gerontology
Website: http://mcuaaar.iog.wayne.edu/
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MLSC Computer Assisted Surgery
The goal of this group is to advance the technologies related to computer assisted neurosurgery. One sub-group is developing a patient specific finite element model to accurately predict the magnitude and location of gravity induced brain shift.
Contact: Associate Professor Vipin Chaudhary
Department of Computer Science
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MRI Research Concourse
This group applies Physics and Math knowledge in MRI in order to advance research. The group includes graduate students and faculty from various departments.
Contact : Professor Mark Haacke
Radiology
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Multilingual Development
This group is investigating language development in children who are acquiring two languages from birth.
Contact: Professor Eugenia Casielles
Department of Romance Language and Literatures
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The Neurotrauma Research Group
This group affords an opportunity for faculty to meet other neurotrauma researchers from across campus who investigate neurotrauma, from insult to rehabilitation. The goals of this group are to build new research collaborations and to begin to develop a Neurotrauma Center. The group includes faculty from Biomedical Engineering, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Radiology, Neurosurgery, Neurology, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. The group held the first in a series of seminars on October 28, 2005, and plans to submit a joint research application in the Spring of 2006.
Contact : Professor King Yang
Director, Bioengineering Center
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Personality Disorders Group
This group brings together faculty members whose research interest is Personality Disorders. Initially, the Group will focus on probing neurobiological mechanisms as well as the development of new treatment approaches to personality disorders, with initial emphasis on Borderline and Schizotypal Personality Disorders. Group members plan to collaborate on research projects and to seek funding for them. The group also plans to host a half- or full- day seminar on Personality Disorders in the Fall of 2006. The group currently includes faculty from Psychiatry, Psychology, Pediatrics and Biology, and has invited Nursing.
Contact : Professor Diane Chugani
Pediatrics
Contact: Professor Nash Boutros
Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
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Proteases and Cancer Program
The program goal is to advance understanding of the roles of proteolytic enzymes, their associated binding proteins/activators, and endogenous inhibitors during malignant progression with the ultimate aim of targeting them for therapeutic intervention.
Contact: Bonnie Sloane, Department Chair
Pharmacology
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Public Health: Geomapping Group
This group brings together faculty members who are interested in developing a database of Public Health information that can support research on international Public Health issues. Group members include faculty from the Center for Urban Studies, Geology, and Nursing at WSU, from the University of Windsor, and from Henry Ford Health System.
Contact : Larry Lemke
Geology Department
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Public Health: Pandemic Flu
This group brings together faculty members who want to gather data and conduct research into pandemic flu. The group will apply together for one or more research grants in calendar year 2006. Group members include faculty from Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Art and Art History at WSU, from Nursing at the University of Windsor, and from Henry Ford Health System.
Contact: Assistant Professor Daniel Barth-Jones
Family Medicine
Contact : Nancy Christ
Office of the Vice President for Research
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Science and Society
This group examines the social aspects of science and technology. The group holds monthly meetings at which members present papers on their current research interests or discuss recent literature in Science and Technology Studies.
Contact: Associate Professor Marsha Richmond
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
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Supply Chain Research Group
The primary aim of the Supply Chain Research group, started in 2003, is to develop a viable yet comprehensive framework to facilitate “coordination” in supply chains through strategic, tactical, and operational decision support tools and agents. The group aims to develop methods, tools, and algorithms for improved supply chain coordination by bringing together multi-agent systems, computational intelligence, advanced statistical and operations research methods (in particular Graphical Models and stochastic optimization techniques), and game theory (in particular multi-agent reinforcement learning). Collaborations are currently in place with Ford Motor Company and General Motors. The group meets on weekly basis in the Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Department.
Contact : Dr. Ratna Babu Chinnam, Associate Professor & Graduate Chair
Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering
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