STEM-Talk: Hans Van Dongen on the cognitive toll of fatigue and sleep loss

Hans Van Dongen knew when he majored in astrophysics, it would not likely be his career.

It was the diversity and rigor of scientific disciplines he would study in pursuit of that degree at Leiden University in the Netherlands that appealed to him.

“When you signed up for astrophysics they tell you, ‘you are not going to be an astrophysicist, but you will be able to do pretty much anything else that you put your mind to because you have learned all of these different skills.’ And that is exactly what happened. I learned a ton of all these different parts of science, and then could apply that anywhere I wanted.”

On this episode of STEM-Talk, Van Dongen joins Dr. Ken Ford and co-host Dr. Kevin Gluck to explore his research into sleep deprivation, shift work, fatigue risk management, and much more.

Dongen is director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University. His research focuses on sleep and sleep deprivation and its effect on cognitive function. He’s also exploring the interplay among the body’s circadian system and its homeostatic system — a system that aims to correct our circadian balance when it is off.

“The circadian clock is a proactive system that regulates our biology to be in tune with the light-dark cycle,” Van Dongen says. “From time to time, you will have to deviate from that rhythm because something else happens. The biological clock doesn’t really like that, but you are going to have to deal with it.” That’s where a secondary biological system comes in, a system whose job it is to get you back to balance called the homeostatic process.

The conversation covers many of the psychological, cognitive, and physical effects of sleep deprivation.

“When people are sleep-deprived, the salience of information that says what you are trying to do is not helpful is dampened,” Van Dongen says. “It’s as if that information is somehow not important to the brain anymore. You can recognize there is a problem and you can’t remediate it.”

It is a fascinating conversation that includes:

• The influence that frequent childhood moves had on Van Dongen’s sense of curiosity and ambition.
• How his father’s teaching career opened the door for Van Dongen to be able to toy with one of the first home computers in the Netherlands.
• What sleep loss is and what effect it has on our immune system, metabolism, and brain function.
• How night shift work effects the risk of metabolic disruption and disorder — even after as little as three days on that schedule.
• The wide range of physical and cognitive effects of sleep deprivation, including the inability to adapt to changing circumstances of a task while sleep deprived, and the value of team assessments of readiness to combat sleep deprivation.
• What might be behind the “mid-day slump.”
• Why young scientists should embrace failure, and much more.

“Sleep deprivation affects you across the board, but it doesn’t affect you across the board in the same way exactly all the time. It’s a lot more complicated,” Van Dongen says.

Listen to STEM-Talk today on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.

IHMC Unveils New Leadership Team to Build on Legacy of Innovation

After more than 34 years under the leadership of founder Dr. Ken Ford, the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition will see a new senior leadership team take the reins.

Ford will step into an emeritus role as of January 2025.

Under Ford’s leadership, IHMC was built from a small office inside the University of West Florida into an independent research entity with an international reputation for excellence and innovation. The Institute focuses on a broad range of topics related to amplifying and extending human capabilities through three primary research focus areas: artificial intelligence and human cognition, robotics and exoskeletons, and healthspan, resilience and performance.

Dr. Morley Stone steps into the role of Chief Executive Officer, having previously served as Chief Strategic Partnership Officer.

“When Morley joined IHMC, I said I believed he would have a game-changing impact,” Ford says. “I have full confidence that the leadership team we have assembled — led by Morley — is poised to do just that and I am certain he will lead IHMC into a promising future for many decades to come.”

Dr. William Dalton, chairman of IHMC’s Board of Directors, said the board is grateful for Ford’s contributions.

“IHMC has gained a profound reputation for the contributions it has made over the years, and that reputation is embedded in the scientific endeavors performed by Ken and his colleagues,” Dalton said. “I believe I can speak for all the Board members in thanking Ken and all he has done for society in building IHMC, and Morley for leading us in our future endeavors.”

Also stepping into a new role is Julie Sheppard, who served as IHMC Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Vice President. Sheppard assumes the Of Counsel role for IHMC, where she will continue to support the Institute in special projects.

Sheppard has been at IHMC since its inception as an independent research institute of the State University System of Florida. Formerly she served as the General Counsel at the University of West Florida and Associate General Counsel at the University of North Florida.

“The team at IHMC is second to none and it has been my privilege to be part of the growth we have experienced while maintaining the culture of collaboration and family that makes this a special place,” Sheppard says. “The Of Counsel role allows me to continue supporting IHMC and its mission in the community while reserving some time for my family and myself in this next chapter.”

Stone said he was humble and grateful for the opportunity to lead IHMC.

“As IHMC has evolved, the growth trajectory that Ken laid out has been thoughtful and purposeful,” Stone says. “All three of our core competencies — AI and computational sciences, robotics and exoskeletons, and healthspan, resilience, and performance — are robust and vital, and are contributing to one another. We’ve built a virtuous circle here of collaboration and innovation. The commitment to that will not change on my watch, and I am looking forward to what the next chapters of our story will bring.”

Prior to joining IHMC, Stone served as the Senior Vice President for Research at The Ohio State University. He also served as the Chief Technology Officer for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and was the first Chief Scientist of the Human Performance Wing of AFRL. From 2003 to 2006, he was a program manager in the Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests are broad, spanning areas such as the interface of materials science, biotechnology, human performance, and autonomous systems. He is a Fellow of both AFRL and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

The new senior leadership team will be rounded out by Cassie Guilliams, who will serve as Chief Operating Officer.

In this role, Guilliams will oversee administrative functions including but not limited to human resources, benefits, immigration, insurance, board functions, affirmative action plans, and other administrative functions.

Guilliams comes to IHMC from Houston, Texas, where she served as General Counsel, Director of Human Resources & Asset-Management for Star Furniture Company. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Houston-Downtown and her law degree from South Texas College of Law.

After spending much of her professional life in the private sector, Guilliams was drawn to the opportunity to join IHMC’s culture.

“(In the private sector) I always knew what my impact was for the team I worked with, but what IHMC does can truly make the world better,” she said. “What more of an opportunity could you ask for professionally and personally.”

Stephanie Tillery Rothfeder will assume the role of General Counsel for IHMC. She has served for six years as Associate General Counsel at the Institute, working directly with Sheppard.

Tillery Rothfeder spent most of her legal career practicing contract and municipal law, serving as an attorney for the City of Pensacola to the various City departments and enterprises. This experience in government and contracts transitioned well for IHMC’s legal needs.

In addition to acting on legal issues, Tillery Rothfeder led the submission that earned IHMC a Hire Vets Medallion Award from the U.S. Department of Labor. Helping to earn recognition for IHMC’s role as a workplace that prioritizes the recruitment and hiring of veterans is just one way that Tillery Rothfeder works to ensure that IHMC’s organizational values are reflected to the community.

“It is an honor to step into the role of General Counsel. It is also an honor to have worked with Julie and gained from her mentorship over the years,” she says. “IHMC clearly excels in the scientific and technical work, yet IHMC has also created a valued footprint in the community. I am excited to be part of taking that impact into the future.”

Board member Mort O’Sullivan called Ford “the heart, soul and founder of IHMC.  Julie became his alter-ego. Together, they shepherded the growth of IHMC to what it is today. This transition will add to their legacy through the quality of the leadership team they assembled to lead IHMC forward. Morley is well prepared and we all expect great things to continue at IHMC.”

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System and is affiliated with several Florida universities. Created at the University of West Florida, IHMC’s main campus in historic downtown Pensacola opened in 1999. A branch campus in Ocala, Fla., opened in 2010. The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance research complex opened in Pensacola in 2024.

Ocala Research Showcase highlights IHMC’s footprint and impact

The Ocala community has long supported IHMC. But to many, the research that goes on there is a bit of a mystery.

Ocala’s campus is home to computer scientists, engineers, and linguists engaged in research spanning machine learning, natural language understanding, natural language understanding for social cybersecurity, and speech analysis for physiological state determination.

The inaugural Ocala Research Showcase was an open house-style event highlighting IHMC scientists and sharing the impact their research can have in artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics and exoskeletons, and healthspan, resilience, and performance.

Research Scientist Dr. Ian Perera led the coordination of the event along with Laurie Zink, development and community outreach director at the Ocala campus.

“(The showcase) created an opportunity to open up opportunities for collaboration with industry and researchers, engage with educators to help them better understand how to prepare their students for the rapid changes in technology their students will experience, and reach out to the public to show them the work we’re doing to augment their capabilities,” Perera said.

The hands-on demonstrations aimed to connect with different human capabilities     – from physiological monitoring via eye tracking, to VR for identifying cognitive impairments from mild traumatic brain injury, to EEG for skill identification. Demos also included a memory augmentation app, work on enhancing the capabilities of Large Language Models, and identifying proficiency or potential talent for interacting with AI systems.

“Many visitors had never heard of IHMC and were amazed that we were engaged in such interesting work in their community,” Perera said. “Educators were very impressed with the potential of technology to provide more insight into the human condition.” Archna Bhatia received excited feedback from those who eagerly awaited the release of the memory augmentation app incorporating her research, with many saying they wanted to use it themselves or recommend it to family members.

Ocala hosts community outreach efforts including Evening Lectures, Science Saturdays and Summer Robotics Camp on campus. Laurie Zink, development and community outreach director in Ocala, said many showcase guests had never been to IHMC before and all left impressed.

“We gave out so much information on our education outreach opportunities and made and enhanced connections in the community that will be critical to our continued success,” Zink said. “We are looking forward to next year’s showcase already.”

Projects featured included:

• A cognitive assessment deployed in both virtual reality and an online platform, to aid in early detection of mild traumatic brain injury. These injuries can occur from sports impacts or near explosions or detonations in military situations and training and can have a significant impact on cognitive functioning — even without a clinically defined concussion happening.
• Hardware that allows eye tracking underwater to help track this crucial indicator for physiological state. In underwater situations, changes in an air mixture can rapidly affect an individual’s cognitive state, and early detection of this can save the lives of divers.
• Applying Large Language Models and Reinforcement Learning to teach LLMs to automatically learn to solve open-ended puzzle games, which is challenging at present for the models.
• A partnership with Army Research Laboratory to develop questionnaires and tasks that identify and stress the core cognitive skills needed to work with AI, which can often be opaque and unpredictable.
• A memory augmentation project focused on harnessing Natural Language Processing to help seniors with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias retrieve words in the course of daily life. The effort is being supported by funding from the Massachusetts AI and Technology Center, a member of the a2 Collective, which represents the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratories for Aging Research (AITC).
• A project using electroencephalography (EEG) to determine a person’s cognitive state (concentration, mood, fatigue, etc.), their reaction to stimuli, and their innate or learned skills in certain tasks.
• Work in the new Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Center to better understand the factors that determine human health and abilities, and how we can build on that foundation toward optimizing the human experience.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk wins Signal Award in Health & Wellness Podcasts

IHMC’s podcast STEM-Talk has earned another accolade, winning the bronze award in the third Annual Signal Awards for best General Health and Wellness podcast.

Dr. Ken Ford, IHMC’s co-founder and CEO, co-hosts the podcast with colleagues from IHMC, including Drs. Dawn Kernagis, Marcas Bamman, and Tommy Wood. The episode featured by the Signal Award is Episode 162 with Dr. Marc Hamilton, an international expert in muscle physiology and professor at the University of Houston. He has published pioneering work on the soleus push-up, a potent physiological method which Marc discovered having the ability to elevate metabolism for hours, even while sitting.

STEM-Talk, with more than 170 episodes, features conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world of science and has been downloaded by more than 4.3 million people across the world since its launch in 2016.

In 2019 and 2017, STEM-Talk won first place in the Science and Medicine category of the annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards. In 2020, STEM-Talk was nominated for a Webby Award in Science and Education.

“The STEM-Talk team is honored by the recognition from the Signal Awards,” Ford said. “We began STEM-Talk to create a venue for thoughtful and insightful conversations with scientists, researchers, and experts of the highest caliber. Awards such as the Signal Award are a gratifying recognition of our efforts.”

The latest episode features Dr. Rudy Tanzi, best known for co-discovering all three familial early onset Alzheimer’s genes — discoveries that have expanded what we know about the disease, how we might counter its effects, and the speed with which drug therapies can be brought to market.

Tanzi has co-written two books with Deepak Chopra, “Super Brain” and “The Healing Self,” and is one of the top 50 most cited neuroscientists in the world. He also plays keyboards in the studio for Aerosmith and its guitar player Joe Perry.

Now in its third year, entrants to The Signal Awards are reviewed by The Signal Awards Judging Academy, an esteemed collective made up of the architects, instigators and trailblazers of the medium. Once a year, The Academy collectively listens closely to thousands of hours of audio, selecting the strongest work to be elevated to the status of award-winning.

“STEM-Talk made an impression on the judges,” said Jemma Brown, General Manager of The Signal Awards. “This award is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

Browse the STEM-Talk library today at https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalks/

The Signal Awards set a standard for editorial excellence by honoring the organizations, artists, mavericks and brands who are shaping the podcast industry, and the storytelling medium. Each year, The Signal Awards present Gold, Silver and Bronze Award Winners, and the listening public votes for their favorite Finalists to take home the additional honor of Listener’s Choice Award in each category.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

STEM-Talk: Rudy Tanzi on genetics, aging, and the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s

Dr. Rudy Tanzi is best known for co-discovering all three familial early onset Alzheimer’s genes — discoveries that have expanded what we know about the disease, how we might counter its effects, and the speed with which drug therapies can be brought to market.

He has co-written two books with Deepak Chopra, , “Super Brain” and “The Healing Self,” and is one of the top 50 most cited neuroscientists in the world. He also plays keyboards in the studio for Aerosmith and its guitar player Joe Perry.

A well-rounded career to be certain.

Tanzi is the director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit as well as the director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health. He is also co-Director of the Massachusetts General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

He shares his expertise on this episode of STEM-Talk, available now wherever you listen to podcasts.  It’s a fascinating conversation with someone who is a world-renowned expert in Alzheimer’s Disease.

“If you ask what leads to cognitive decline with age, or in a more serious way, what determines the degree of dementia once Alzheimer’s Disease begins, the answer is the same – the loss of synapses,” Tanzi says. “Inevitably as you age, synapses get lost. It’s our job to build synaptic reserves, like reserves in a bank, because the more synapses you make, the more you can lose before you get into trouble. The way you build synapses is simple: You learn new things.”

Listeners will learn many things in this episode including:

• How Tanzi’s childhood love of music — and a Jimmy Smith jazz album from his father — led from playing the accordion to playing the Hammond B3 organ. His father then asked if Tanzi would rather play the accordion or a Hammond B3 organ? “This is the same type of organ I was hearing in all the bands I was listening to like Yes and Sanatana and others. So, I said, yeah, I think I want to play the organ.”
• How his family’s medical transcription business fed his early science interest and led him to entering the Westinghouse Science Talent Search as a teen.
• How his project for the Westinghouse Science Talent Search on diabetic hypertensive retinopathy still influences his work today.
• His work with Jim Gusella in the early 1980’s at Mass General where they were the first group to discover a specific disease gene linked to Huntington’s disease.
• His discovery of the first Alzheimer’s gene, APP, which causes the production of amyloid and can cause a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s.
• The lifestyle factors that play into whether someone who is predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s can stave off or completely avoid disease development. “Neuroinflammation is the biggest killer of nerve lines and synapses in the brain,” Tanzi says. “As we age, inflammation becomes more and more rampant throughout the body….Your lifestyle, the amount of sleep you get, the quality of your diet and exercise, all of these things affect the rate of neuroinflammation in your brain.”

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

National Institutes of Health award for $7.7 million to determine how people over 60 attain the health benefits of exercise

Dr. Marcas Bamman has received a $7.7 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a clinical trial to determine how people age 60 and older attain the health benefits of exercise.

Bamman is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) who leads the Institute’s Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance team.

This new project is called “Multidimensional Predictive Modeling to Understand Mechanisms of Exercise Response Heterogeneity in Older Adults.”  It is a collaboration with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and the University of Florida.

“This type of research is what the new Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex was built to sustain,” says IHMC’s CEO and Founder, Dr. Ken Ford. “We anticipate that this research will foster significant advances in the understanding of the factors that impact the variability of response to exercise among older adults.”

Age-related functional declines are thought to be caused by hallmark biological processes that compromise healthspan and quality of life, says Bamman.

“Exercise is a potent treatment with promise to mitigate most aging hallmarks, but there is substantial variability in individual exercise responsiveness,” Bamman says. “This project will help us begin to understand what underlies those differences in responsiveness.”

The project will combine endurance and resistance training in alignment with public health guidelines to better understand variable exercise responsiveness in older adults with the goal of improving each older adult’s capacity to attain the many health benefits of exercise.

This inter-individual response heterogeneity was first identified in the context of endurance training and later was established with resistance training by current members of the IHMC team nearly 20 years ago. IHMC’s team has proposed the innovative, but logical, strategy to use combined endurance training and resistance training to maximize health benefits in aging adults.

Low cardiorespiratory fitness and low functional muscle quality are manifestations of the deterioration caused by cellular aging. Importantly, both conditions are modifiable with endurance training and resistance training.

The 2-phase trial, being managed by Senior Research Associate Craig Tuggle, will recruit up to 250 people ages 60 and up for a 23-week study period.

“We know that exercise is a bit of a miracle drug,” Tuggle says. “But we want to explore and better understand the variability in responses people have to it.”

Participants will be put on a protocol of endurance training and resistance training three days a week in Phase I. For Phase II, some will receive targeted augmentation (a boosted exercise prescription and free-living recommendations) while others will continue the Phase I endurance and resistance training protocol.

Recruitment of participants is likely to begin in late 2024 or early 2025.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

STEM-Talk: Anurag Singh on aging, exercise, and urolithin-A

Dr. Anurag Singh has spent his career using research to unlock a better treatment path for the chronic diseases that dominated his early medical practice.

“I felt I was blindly treating the symptomology of these chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes), and it gave rise to the question, ‘What if we could intervene earlier?’” Singh says.

The journey to answer that question led him to Nestle Health Science and ultimately to his role as chief medical officer at Timeline Nutrition, a Swiss life-science company focused on improving mitochondrial and cellular health. Singh, who has a medical degree in internal medicine and a Ph.D. in immunology, is our guest for the latest episode of STEM-Talk, available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Singh is known for his research into the gut metabolite urolithin-A, which has been shown to improve muscle quality, protect immune systems, and optimize mitochondrial efficiency. This compound is produced by gut bacteria from metabolizing ellagitannins and ellagic acid, which are found in foods such as pomegranates, red and black berries, walnuts, pecans — and even Iberian ham.

In this conversation, Singh shares how his desire to put “hard biology” at the root of nutritional approaches to healthspan is having groundbreaking impact. He shares:

• His belief that “exercise is a miracle drug. As a physician if I could prescribe it to most of the aging population I would. The problem with exercise is compliance.”
• How his family’s high expectations shaped his childhood. His youth spent in post-colonial India was one in which education was highly valued. “There was always a very clear focus of what I needed to achieve,” Singh says. “Being a doctor was sort of the ultimate prize in education.”
• How his work with Nestle Health Science opened the door to his current research interests.
• How this interest in doing a deep dive into the cellular and biological impacts of the health benefits of certain foods evolved to focus on mitochondrial health.
• How Singh’s research on urolithin-A led to the development of Mitopure, the first postbiotic nutrient that has been shown to trigger mitophagy by targeting cellular decline.
• Urolithin-A’s possible role in improving joint health and disease progression in osteoarthritis, cardiac tissue, brain aging and cognitive decline, fatty liver disease, insulin resistance, and more.
• What he thinks of as the five pillars of healthy aging: Exercise, diet, advanced nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk: Kevin Tracey on bioelectrical medicine and inflammation’s toll

Few people know as much about inflammation and neuroscience as Dr. Kevin Tracey does.

So how does he explain what inflammation — whose identification can be traced to the time of Galen — means to human health?

“Every year, 60 million people die on Earth,” he says. “Two-thirds of them — 40 million people — die of a disease caused or made worse by inflammation.”

That’s why he sees inflammation as “the single major threat to long healthspan because it contributes to the major killers and major unsolved diseases on the planet.”

In the latest episode of STEM-Talk, available now wherever you listen to podcasts, we learn much from Tracey, who was the first to identify the inflammatory reflex, a physiological mechanism that regulates the body’s immune response to injury and invasion.

He is a neurosurgeon, a pioneer in bioelectrical medicine and president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.

The conversation in this episode covers a career spent working on “producing tomorrow’s cures today” in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, including:

• How the death of his mother from a brain tumor when Tracey was 5 years old ultimately influenced his scientific journey.
• How the death of a young patient of his from sepsis further fueled his path, leading him to the insight that “good science begins with hard questions,” as Tracey shared in a TedTalk.
• The molecular mechanisms of inflammation and the use of vagus nerve stimulation to treat it.
• His 1987 discovery of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which contributed to a new class of drugs for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
• Another discovery that allowed him and his colleagues to merge neuroscience and immunology.
• His work on “The Inflammatory Reflex”, which emphasized the basic neural pathway that reflexively monitors and adjusts the inflammatory response.
• A sketch he drew while having lunch, which laid out how treating inflammatory diseases using a bioelectronic device might be possible.
• What advances in bioelectronic medicine he envisions in the next decade, and much more.

Tracey says he chose medical school because “I wanted my science to be in the context of inventing therapies. Making new drugs, making new treatments. To do that I needed to learn how disease works, how pathology works.”

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

Evening Lectures focus on human performance, work culture and much more

The Evening Lecture series for Fall 2024 at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) features a heavy focus on human performance, workplace culture and related topics.

The sessions begin in Pensacola on Sept. 19, 2024, with Sarah Robb O’Hagan, the chief executive officer of EXOS, a coaching company focused on human performance utilizing a team of fitness specialists, performance coaches, physical therapists, dietitians, and psychologists to maximize team performance.

She led the reinvention and turnaround of Gatorade as its global president, the digital transformation of Equinox Fitness Clubs as its President and the transformation of Flywheel Sports to a streaming content business as its CEO. She has held leadership positions at Nike and Virgin and is the author and founder of ExtremeYOU, a book and content platform.

Other Pensacola speakers include:

Oct. 17: Susan Paley, a CEO, founder, investor, and advisor who is focused on the intersection of entertainment, health and human performance. For more than 20 years she has worked with companies to set their strategic course, build their product roadmap, and guide sales and marketing. Throughout her career she has worked at the edges of new technology to see how it can be commercialized for deployment in market, and at scale.

Nov. 13: Dr. Tommy Wood, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the University of Washington and a Visiting Scientist at the IHMC is a UK-trained medical doctor with a Ph.D. in physiology and neuroscience. His research focuses on the physiological and metabolic responses to brain injury and how that impacts brain health across the lifespan. He is also interested in tracking health, performance, and longevity both in elite athletes and the general population. He sits on the scientific advisory board of Hintsa Performance, which includes developing nutrition and lifestyle strategies to optimize performance in Formula 1 drivers. He is a founding director of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

In Ocala, speakers will include:

Sept. 12: Dr. Zach Graham, an IHMC Research Scientist whose research examines how exercise can be implemented to improve health and quality of life for people throughout life and across disease states. Spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s Disease and aging are a few of his areas of research interest, as well as research focused on muscle biology following spinal cord injury. Graham also is a health science research specialist with the Birmingham Veterans Administration Health Care System. His group looks to find novel molecular mechanisms and phenotypes that help guide individualized exercise prescriptions and more precise rehabilitation strategies.

Oct. 10: Dr. Dave Rabin, a board-certified psychiatrist, neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and inventor who has studied resilience and the impact of chronic stress on our lives for more than 15 years. In addition to focusing on integration therapy, plant and natural medicines, couples therapy, and medicine-assisted psychotherapy, Rabin specializes in treatment-resistant mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychosomatic disorders, personality disorders, chronic pain disorders, insomnia, and substance use disorders using minimal and non-invasive treatment strategies.

Nov. 6: Dr. Todd Manini, a University of Florida professor and chief of clinical and population health integration at UF’s College of Medicine. He also serves as director of UF’s Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. The center is funded under the National Institute on Aging and is dedicated to advancing both clinical and biological science for preserving physical independence for older Americans.

Dec. 10^: Dr. Tim Broderick, IHMC’s Chief Science Officer and Senior Research Scientist. He helps shape research strategy and performs high impact research focused on enhancing human health and performance in extreme environments. Prior to joining IHMC he was an academic surgeon and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Program Manager. He has led multiple flight and undersea medical research projects. In addition to American Board of Surgery certification and fellowship in the American College of Surgeons, operational certifications and experience have prompted recognition as an Honorary NASA Flight Surgeon and NOAA undersea saturation diver.

Visit our website to stay up to date on future lectures in both Pensacola and Ocala.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

Science Saturdays schedule for Fall 2024 released

Science Saturdays are back and ready to turn on new scientific minds this school year.

These 90-minute educational enrichment sessions are a cornerstone piece of community outreach at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). Topics in 2024 will include 3D printing, bottle rockets, secret codes, and more. The sessions are free to the families who attend, thanks to the support of community partners.

For more than 17 years now, Science Saturday has inspired students in grades 3-7 in both Pensacola and on the Institute’s Ocala campus. In the 2023-2024 school year, more than 300 students attended the series, said Dr. Ursula Schwuttke, director of educational outreach for IHMC.

“Science Saturdays is so close to IHMC’s heart,” Schwuttke said. “It is one of our original outreach efforts and reflects the commitment we all feel to giving students of all ages and backgrounds the chance to fall in love with science and technology. We cannot wait to get started.”

Save these dates and visit this site for the latest: https://www.ihmc.us/life/science_saturdays/

Pensacola dates:

Sept. 21: Ozobots Programming, Heath Parr, Brown-Barge Middle School.

Oct.  26: Robot Hands, Dr. Gwen Bryan, IHMC.

Nov. 23   3-D Printing, Nicole Esposito, IHMC.

Dec. 14   Bottle Rockets, Jared Li, IHMC.

Ocala

Sept. 21: Paper Airplanes, Dr. Ian Perera, IHMC.

Oct. 12: Secret Codes, Dr. Arash Mahyari, IHMC.

Nov. 16: Animla Skull Detectives, Dr. Verity Mathis, Florida Museum of Natural History.

Dec. 7: Candy Chromatography, Dr. Manal Fakhoury, Clinical Pharmacologist.

Sponsors for the series in Pensacola include NextEra Energy Foundation/Florida Power & Light, Florida Blue Foundation, Cox, Alera Group, and the Escambia County Sherriff’s Office (with Law Enforcement Trust Fund monies).

Ocala supporters also include Lockheed Martin, Florida Blue Foundation, Cox, Precision Sidewalk Safety and Ocala Electric Utility.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry, and academia to conduct ground-breaking science and develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk: Ken takes listeners questions for an Ask Me Anything episode

Is AI at its peak or is it just getting warmed up?

That’s just one of the questions Dr. Ken Ford, IHMC’s CEO and Founder weighs in on in this “Ask Me Anything” episode of STEM-Talk available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this episode, Ken, who is Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, shares his thoughts on AI given the recent developments in the field, particular in the realm of Generative AI, with programs like Chat GPT becoming a household name in the last year.

“(Large Language Models) as they have been developed can be thought of as memorization machines. When you think of them in this way, scale is everything from this perspective,” Ken says. “I would argue that intelligence is more than memory and recall.  Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) may now be the goal, thinking as a human would. But much of the advance that we have seen in recent years is due to scale increasing, not really due to algorithmic advances.”

Listeners will also learn in this episode which science-fiction author is Ken’s favorite — and which quote from this person he still inspires him.

Other queries in this episode include:

• The FDA’s recent approval of a neural implant device which is touted as a means of allowing people with degenerative neuromuscular disease, or spinal cord injuries, to interface with external technology via neural signals.
• A recently published study titled “APOE 4 Homozygosity Represents a Distinct Genetic Form of Alzheimer’s Disease,” which could leave the impression that those with two copies of the APOE 4 gene are certain to develop the disease with nothing to be done to prevent it.
• Why more gyms and physical therapy centers don’t make blood flow restriction devices available for their clientele, given that studies have shown that BFR improves strength and muscle mass in both young and older adults.
• How our physical fitness regimen should change as we age and the best balance of resistance, cardio, and high intensity interval training bearing in mind an increasing risk for injury.
• And much, much more.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

 

Air Force Academy’s Cadet Summer Research Program interns find home at IHMC

Students have long had a home at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

This summer’s student collaborators included cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy participating in the Cadet Summer Research Program. This program offers opportunities for cadets to get out of the classroom and experience real-world research and development that align with their majors, interests, and potentially their career fields.

Senior Research Scientist Dr. Kevin Gluck, who worked with the students, says that although they won’t all pursue science or engineering in the Air Force, it is certain research and development will play a role in all their careers.

“Their experiences at IHMC this summer established a foundation they will build on in their senior capstone project, and they will carry those lessons about rigorous scientific processes and advanced methodologies forward with them as new officers and emerging leaders within the Air Force,” Gluck says.

All the cadets are majoring in Systems Engineering with a Human Factors focus. They are working on a project funded by a three-year grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research whose goal is to improve scientific understanding of the biological, physiological, and cognitive variations in people in response to nutritional stress, sleep stress, and physical stress.

The cadets are working on retrospective modeling, simulation, and analysis on data sets from previous studies in which those stressors were factors in changes in performance over days or even weeks. Research Scientist Dr. Drew Cranford worked closely with the cadets and praised their work — and their work ethic.

The students got a crash course on how to create and run cognitive models within a cognitive architecture, then they learned how to optimize parameters of the model to predict individual performance as stress varied over the course of the study, Cranford says.

They focused on changes in cognitive performance because of sleep stress. They also are evaluating the validity of computational theories against the human performance data. They have reviewed data including the results of a psychomotor vigilance tests and a second cognitive assessment of working memory.

“This initial focus will provide a foundation for their senior capstone project as we extend the methods to model individual performance heterogeneity in stress response across multiple tasks including attention, visual vigilance, working memory, and reasoning/decision making tasks, and other studies that involve different kinds of stressors,” Cranford says.

“They have surely impressed with their desire to learn and enthusiastic work ethic.”

Intern Weiss O’Connor says he was surprised to learn the detrimental, cumulative effects of sleep deprivation on people.

“Before this project, I assumed that long-term sleep deprivation could have some negative effects, but that humans could eventually adapt to those conditions,” O’Connor says. “With some context from biomathematical models, I’ve seen how detrimental effects continue to progress with sustained deprivation.”

Cadet Kate Judy was intrigued by the use of computational modeling to improve understanding of human performance, as well as the application of this project to real-life, defense-related projects.

“I have not stopped learning since I got here, but the idea of using computers to model and help further study the human brain is simply not something I was familiar with up until now,” Judy says. “I know I have just barely scratched the surface in the first five weeks, and I am excited to continue learning as we progress through our capstone project.”

Critical to the success of the grant and the summer research program is for the students to bite off a substantive but manageable chunk of work to pursue.

Connor Manion, like the others, says the Cadet Research program is a tremendous educational asset that offers students the chance to gain valuable skills.

Manion says stress and fatigue are frequent topics of discussion at the Air Force Academy. IHMC has given Manion the opportunity to learn more about both in a scientifically meaningful way.

While the intellectual aspects of the research program have been valuable, Manion says there have been other benefits.

“The most surprising thing that I have learned is how it is possible to enter a new environment and build a life that suits the way I want to live,” Manion says. “The routine at IHMC has given me the opportunity to explore how it will be showing up to my first assignment or subsequent assignments as I go into my career in the operational Air Force. I believe this facet of my Cadet Research Program trip will have the most profound impact on my life.”

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk: Charles Serhan, expert on specialized pro-resolving mediators, talks inflammation

For Dr. Charles Serhan, music was one of the keys that unlocked his love of science. Serhan counts among his many talents, being an accomplished vibraphone player.

“Many things I learned in music translated to science,” Serhan said. “If you really wanted to play well, you had to study and practice. It’s like learning a language. In science the same is true. You need to learn the language and study and practice every day.”

Why does he love science?

“The rigor and objectivity and the ability to test hypothesis an experiment,” he says. “Nothing is more fun than that.”

Serhan is our guest on the latest episode of STEM-Talk, available now. He is a Harvard professor who discovered specialized pro-resolving mediators, also known as SPMs, which help promote the natural end of the inflammation process and allow a person to avoid anti-inflammatory drugs.

Inflammation is believed to be a contributing factor to metabolic and chronic diseases across a wide spectrum including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, arthritis, and more. Understanding its roots — and the role that SPMs play in switching off the process — is considered a key component to improving healthspan and resilience.

This edition of STEM-Talk features co-host Dr. David LeMay, who appeared on Episode 69 of STEM-Talk back in 2018. LeMay is a sports medicine and rehabilitation physician who has been a consultant for the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals. He is a Visiting Research Scientist at IHMC who is board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, he is board certified in metabolic and nutrition medicine, and has completed a fellowship in anti-aging and regenerative medicine. He is an associate clinical faculty member at Florida State University.

Tune in to their conversation today on your favorite podcast platform.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

IHMC partners with California-based research institute to take aim at the psychology of cyberattackers

The battle against cyberattackers has often felt like an uphill slog. The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) is part of a team looking to turn that tide.

This spring, IHMC partnered with California-based nonprofit research institute SRI to take aim at the psychology of cyberattackers to better defend against their efforts.

The project is funded by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) — the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which launched it in February 2024. DNI refers to the project as Reimagining Security with Cyberpsychology-Informed Network Defenses (ReSCIND)

SRI is one of five organizations IARPA has contracted with for the effort. As part of SRI’s team, IHMC is involved in all aspects of the research, but its unique contribution is the human subjects research expertise Senior Research Scientist Dr. Anil Raj and Research Scientist Dr. Brodie Mather and their IHMC team bring to the project.

The goal is to use psychology-informed defenses to understand cognitive vulnerabilities of an attacker individually and tailor the defenses to the vulnerabilities of that attacker.

“The ultimate goal of the program is reclaim agency in the battle against cyber attacks,” Mather said. “It has felt like a bit of a losing battle, fighting off these attacks for organizations of all sizes. We hope this could be a way for organizations to reclaim some of their time and agency in defending against these attacks.”

Cyber attackers typically take advantage of human errors, but most cyber defenses do not similarly exploit attackers’ cognitive weaknesses. The ReSCIND project aims to flip this script.

By combining traditional cybersecurity practices with cyberpsychology expertise, IARPA is set to engineer a first-of-its-kind technology that makes an attacker’s job harder.

SRI noted in its news release that the technology at the heart of this project could be revolutionary in the field, by measuring, understanding, and exploiting cognitive vulnerabilities to prevent cyber attackers from achieving their goals effectively and efficiently.

The four-year project is multi-phased, with five major technical challenges that IHMC will helped lead the work in. That work began this spring and phase one is expected to take approximately 18 months.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk: Dave Feldman on the Citizen Science Foundation, ketogenic diet research

How did the son of two Bohemian graphic designers become a citizen science advocate who built his knowledge to turn his own health around?

It’s a journey worth listening to, and in this episode of STEM-Talk, Dave Feldman shares that story. The episode is available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Feldman is the founder of the Citizen Science Foundation and is known for his research into the ketogenic diet. Dave is a software engineer by training who embraced a ketogenic diet to avoid his progression toward type 2 diabetes.

After undertaking the high-fat/low-carbohydrate diet, Dave’ LDL cholesterol spiked. Dave’s experience as an engineer provided an unusual conceptual framework as he immersed himself in learning everything he could about cholesterol and lipids. What he learned led him to create the website Cholesterol Code, a research hub for information and emerging data on cholesterol, particularly in the context of a low-carbohydrate lifestyle.

The Citizen Science Foundation is designed to support projects and research that promote collaborative efforts across multiple disciplines, both in and outside formal scientific institutions.

The conversation covers a lot of ground, including:

• How self-directed learning became a theme of Dave’s life, beginning in his youth in the 1980s.
• How the idea of being a “lean mass hyper-responder” came into Dave’s vernacular, what that phenotype means, and the research surrounding it.
• Dave’s 2022 paper on the Lipid Energy Model, titled: “Lipid Energy Model: Reimagining Lipoprotein Function in the Context of Carbohydrate Restricted Diets,” asking him to expound on the concept and its significance.
• The challenges Dave has faced in his journey to self-fund research through crowdfunding, for which he founded a 501c3 non-for-profit, which in 2019 was named the Citizen Science Foundation.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

New biomedical research complex opens IHMC’s next chapter

The new $40 million biomedically-based research complex constructed by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) will be more than a striking addition to the Pensacola skyline.

It will be an accelerant for the pace of discovery that will drive innovations in maximizing the healthspan for everyone from elite military operators and veterans to those with neurodegenerative diseases, musculoskeletal problems, and chronic metabolic conditions.

The Healthspan, Resilience and Performance Research Complex is another step in the evolution of the vision that has been the bedrock of IHMC since its founding by Dr. Ken Ford, the Institute’s Chief Executive Officer.

“Pushing the boundaries of science to maximize the performance and resilience of human beings has long been a foundational tenet at IHMC,” Ford says. “In our healthspan, resilience and performance research thrust, the vision has always been to work from the molecular level to the whole human. This facility brings that to life.”

Dr. Morley Stone, Chief Strategic Partnership Officer, notes that the leading-edge research complex gives IHMC’s interdisciplinary team of researchers the ability to truly realize that vision.

“The healthcare system as it is set up now puts people on a trajectory to decline over decades,” Stone says. “We want to lead the science that drives people to extend the period of a person’s life over which they are high functioning and healthy.”

The unique facility puts Pensacola and Northwest Florida at the center of a human and biological sciences economic ecosystem that did not exist before this $40 million research facility came out of the ground. It also serves as a draw for top research talent to the area from all over the world.

“The ability to move from whole human physiology and performance to the molecular level in one facility — there’s nothing else like it in the southeast that I can think of,” Stone said.

The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex will be an economic and intellectual beacon for the entire Northwest Florida region, says Dr. Marcas Bamman, Senior Research Scientist and Director of Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance research at IHMC.

The science conducted here will be an economic engine, drawing in new funding in federal and industry-sponsored research. Partners in the project have included Space Florida and Triumph Gulf Coast, the nonprofit corporation funded by a legal settlement with British Petroleum following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Funding provided by these agencies helped seed and support the complex.

The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex stands apart among biomedical science hubs due to the collaborative, cross-discipline spirit that has been a hallmark of IHMC since its beginning. Researchers working in the new research complex are literally an arm’s length reach away from experts in AI, cognitive psychology, computational modeling, data visualization, exoskeletons, engineering and more.

“It’s an accelerant for the speed of discovery,” Stone says.

The three-story, 40,000 square foot facility was built by Brasfield & Gorrie and designed by DAG Architects partnered with Atlanta-headquartered Cooper Carry. The complex is literally designed to fuel the pace of discovery. The first floor is built around human participant testing and intervention, featuring rehabilitation facilities, biomedical sampling tools and performance testing laboratories.

“The first floor focuses on clinical and applied science,” Bamman says. “The third floor contains leading-edge wet laboratories for cellular and molecular science, which enable us to extend and better understand the effects we are having on people on the first floor. We now have the unique capacity – leveraging a range of scientists and technology – to deeply study and improve strategies that enhance healthspan, resilience, and performance for all.”

As the biological sciences have become intertwined with information and computer sciences, IHMC is uniquely positioned to accelerate that trend — and excel while doing it, Stone says.

“Every institution that’s doing this work is struggling with how to generate meaning from that information,” Stone says. “Going back to our legacy, being able to tap into artificial intelligence and machine learning capability that was the foundation of IHMC is an invaluable resource for being able to make meaning out of that information that’s generated.”

A regional economic hub, a draw of international experts

The new Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex is not just a magnet for talent. It is a magnet for dollars that come into the community that do more than recirculate around the community.

“In this case, we’re bringing in millions of dollars of new research money into the economy that our researchers use to buy houses, eat at restaurants, and buy cars. That type of impact is hard to match,” Stone says.

While the population at large ultimately will benefit from what IHMC researchers learn about aging, degenerative and chronic metabolic conditions and what interventions might help ameliorate these, military operators are a specific target audience of the research done at IHMC.

“And frankly,” Stone notes, “it’s just part of the moral obligation that we have to our service members to make sure that not only they leave in the best possible shape they can, but the years after they leave are as productive and high functioning as possible. That’s the moral obligation.”

It’s one that thanks to the Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex, IHMC uniquely is positioned to fulfill.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

Triumph Gulf Coast funding will help bolster research capabilities at Pensacola campus

An investment of $7.8 million from Triumph Gulf Coast will allow IHMC to bolster its research capabilities with a facility designed to handle sensitive federal research in support of Department of Defense and intelligence community customers.

The grant to the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition was approved by Triumph’s board of directors in December 2023. Previous Triumph funding helped seed the $40 million Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance (HRP) research complex now under construction. The story is featured in the latest edition of IHMC’s newsletter, which is available now.

The award includes funding to construct a highly flexible, multilevel secure facility. The addition of secure capabilities will bolster the institute’s ability to meet federal grant and contract security requirements. Dr. Morley Stone, IHMC’s Chief Strategic Partnership Officer, says such a facility allows the Institute “to work at a deeper level with key research sponsors and better address their needs.”

Absent the facility, Stone said, travel is required for discussions with some defense-related research sponsors. “Having those discussions locally, and by having the sponsor interact with our researchers and see our facilities, that often leads to more sponsored work.”

David Bear, chairman of the Triumph Board of Directors, says the secure facility is the type of project the board likes to support. Triumph is the nonprofit corporation funded by a legal settlement with BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“IHMC continues to build on the success of its Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance program,” Bear says. The addition of secure facility capabilities expands IHMC’s ability to bring economically impactful research opportunities to the region far beyond the term of this grant, continually improving and diversifying our economy.”

The grant will provide a much-needed secure environment for sensitive federal activities related to requirements stemming from national defense, intelligence, and security sponsors. It also will facilitate collaboration with government agencies, defense contractors, and other research organizations involved in research which demands the greatest protections.

“The incorporation of secure facilities and secure processing capabilities within our new facility will fortify our research capabilities, increase research opportunities, and establish IHMC as a regional leader in research advancements for Government sponsors requiring these highly specialized assets.”said Ryan Tilley, IHMC’s director of strategic program execution and innovation.

The grant also includes funding for additional equipment related to the HRP research that will be housed at the new complex at the corner of Garden and Alcaniz streets.

“Over the course of our work on this project, and as research technology advances, we have identified the need for additional specialized equipment that will significantly contribute to the quality and depth of our research efforts. We are proud that Triumph sees IHMC as a leader in this effort and we are grateful for their support,” Tilley said.

The HRP complex will be a one-of-kind facility for healthspan, resilience, and performance research that also bolsters the regional economy through new funding in federal and industry-sponsored research. The complex will become a hub for collaboration with regional institutions and organizations that share an interest in healthspan and performance.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

 

 

IHMC Robert Griffin represents the America on IEEE Technical Committee

Dr. Robert Griffin has been named co-chairman of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Humanoid Robots, representing the Americas.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the premier professional organization in the field. Griffin’s selection to co-chair the technical committee reflects the high regard for his work and for IHMC’s leadership in the field of humanoid robotics.

“IHMC has been a pioneer in the field of humanoid robotics. Robert’s selection to the IEEE RAS Technical Committee is a much-deserved accolade for him and for the team at IHMC,” said Dr. Ken Ford, IHMC’s founder and chief executive officer.

The Society’s Technical Committee, among other things, leads the annual Conference on Humanoid Robots, the leading international event of the humanoid robotics community. Last year, the conference was hosted in Austin, Texas. Previous locations have included Okinawa, Japan, and Munich, Germany.

The IEEE-RAS includes the flagship conferences of the robotics field, International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) and International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), each of which see more than 5,000 attendees annually.

The robotics team at IHMC has often been lauded at the conference for their work. In 2016, 2019, and 2022, the team won Best Paper accolades at the conference. The most recent winning paper “A Fast, Autonomous Bipedal Walking Behavior Over Rapid Regions,” focused on a newly constructed behavior control system for smooth walking over rough, unbalanced terrain.

“To be appointed as a co-chair to represent the Americas is a great honor. I am excited to work alongside the other co-chairs, whose work and impact on the field of humanoid robots cannot be overstated,” Griffin said. “To be counted among their ranks is an incredible recognition that I am deeply humbled by.”

“This recognition is only possible because of the incredible team at IHMC, whose tireless effort and talents cannot be understated. It’s an exciting time to be working on humanoid robots, and I look forward to seeing what the future in this field brings,” Griffin said.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

STEM-Talk: Alessio Fasano on the roots of, treatments for celiac disease

Dr. Alessio Fasano, who is considered the world’s leading expert in celiac disease and gluten-related disorders, returns for his second appearance on STEM-Talk. The interview is available now where you listen to podcasts.

As he tells co-hosts Dr. Ken Ford and Dr. Marcas Bamman, he went to medical school with the idea of changing the world. And pediatrics, for him, was a love-at-first-sight way to accomplish this lofty goal.

“I realized from the very beginning in medical school that dealing with kids was going to be more fun and interesting,” Fasano says.

When it came time to choose a mentor, he chose someone who had come back from the University of Chicago, where he’d studied diarrheal diseases.

“I thought that was unglamorous. I wanted to save the world and study cancer or HIV. He educated me. He said that every year 5 million kids would die of diarrheal disease, so if I wanted to do something impactful, I should focus on that.”

Ever since, Fasano has been doing work that could have a profound impact of the health and well-being of people. He is director of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to celiac disease and gluten-related disorders, his research is also focused on the microbiome, intestinal permeability and autoimmune disorders, which he discussed in his first interview on STEM-Talk, episode 20.

Since Alessio’s first appearance on STEM-Talk in 2016, he has published two books, “Gluten Freedom” and “Gut Feelings: The Microbiome and Our Health,” which we discuss in today’s interview.

Also in this episode we talk about:

• Fasano’s new project to bring together an international consortium of researchers and scientists for a long-term study that will follow infants who are genetically at risk of developing celiac disease.
• His early career working on cholera, where he discovered the zonula occuldens toxin, the bacteria that causes cholera.
• How the discovery of zonulin, which is the molecule that modulates gut permeability in humans, led Fasano to investigate celiac disease, which is triggered by gluten.
• Why the medical community, historically, has not taken celiac disease seriously. Although just 2 million Americans have celiac disease, an estimated 20 million Americans suffer from gluten sensitivity.
• The progress being made to develop pharmacological interventions for celiac and much more.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.

IHMC hosts the IGNITE event for the NATO Innovation Continuum

Recently, IHMC hosted an international group of experts tasked with innovation and experimentation in the capabilities for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In February 2024, NATO’s Allied Command Transformation launched the Innovation Continuum 2024 series with an event in La Spezia, Italy. From that first event, named Spark, came an initial list of operational scenarios and possible technical solutions to be explored further.

The Ignite event was the second event in the series. Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director Dr. Niranjan Suri was the host of the Ignite event. Throughout his career, Suri’s research has focused on networking, communications, distributed systems, information management, interoperability, the Internet of Things, and the application of machine learning to all of these domains.

“It was a pleasure to host NATO Allied Command Transformation, NATO Communications and Information Agency, NATO Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation, many national representatives, as well as many prominent companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services, here in Pensacola,” Suri said. “We spent four days planning for the experimentation that will take place in the fall.”

Since 2014, Suri has co-chaired a NATO coalition of experts and thought leaders looking at military domains with an eye toward how civilian IoT data could be made available to warfighters on humanitarian or military missions.

The Innovation Continuum is a strategic initiative by Allied Command Transformation to use experimentation and demonstration of cutting-edge science and technology solutions to drive innovation and enhance warfare development through collaboration among NATO enterprise bodies and nations. The events are named Spark, Ignite, Glow, and Shine.

Ignite brought together military professionals, industry leaders, academia representatives, and subject matter experts in the fields of emerging and disruptive technologies. It included deep discussions and practical exercises aimed at operationalizing concepts developed during Spark.

As the Continuum unfolds, Ignite will serves as a catalyst for translating innovative ideas into concrete solutions for NATO to harness the power of technology to safeguard its collective security.

“Activities such as the Innovation Continuum are essential to rapidly take new and emerging technologies, consider how we might use them in the context of NATO, and evaluate these concepts in experiments,” Suri said.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included: DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed, and many others.