Collaboration to enable collaboration

The Interdisciplinary Research Enabling Initiative was a collaborative effort spearheaded by TDAI with 12 other Ohio State entities that supported and advanced interdisciplinary science, scholarship and creative expression to address pressing societal challenges. Partners provided a combination of funding, facilities, staff support and other in-kind resources for research pilots and extramural proposal development, postdoctoral fellows, workshops and other convening activities, and more.

The initiative's cooperative approach grew from an innovative collaboration in 2020 by TDAI; the Center for Clinical and Translational Science led by Rebecca Jackson, MD; and the College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics, chaired by Lang Li, PhD, that combined resources to award grants to five research teams despite pandemic-related budget constraints.

“This effort is a coming together of partners that is only possible at Ohio State, to enable transformational work that only our community can do,” said TDAI Faculty Director Tanya Berger-Wolf, PhD, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology; and Electrical and Computer Engineering. “It is all manner of helping people to connect across disciplines and utilize resources to create data-enabled solutions for the greater good."