In-Person Iowa State University Research Day Returns in Spring 2022

Posted Jan 21, 2022

For the first time since spring 2019, the Iowa State University research community will reconvene live and in-person to celebrate and advance research at the university during Research Day 2022.

This year’s event – the fifth in the past six years – takes place Wednesday, March 30, 2022, and features a reimagined format to encourage:

Greater faculty participation;
Peer-to-peer learning;
Greater collaboration, both within and across disciplines; and
The pursuit of large, multi-faceted interdisciplinary research initiatives.

For the past decade, the Presidential Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (PIRI) has been the gold standard for collaborative interdisciplinary research at Iowa State. Research Day 2022 will showcase insights and perspectives of recent PIRI recipients to spur substantive ongoing conversations around collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship, and interdisciplinary research.

This year’s program will start with a keynote address from 2018 PIRI recipient and 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Lisa Schulte Moore. Schulte Moore’s presentation will lead into a roundtable discussion with other PIRI recipients, in which they’ll share key learnings about collaboration, breaking down disciplinary silos, building highly successful teams, and creating a high-impact research emphasis that reflects Iowa State’s cutting-edge research and attracts large external funding opportunities. The roundtable panelists include:

Paul Plummer, 2018 PIRI recipient and director of The National Institute of Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Education (NIAMRRE);
Kimberly Zarecor, 2021 PIRI recipient and co-principal investigator on TechTHRIVE: A Technological Vision for Thriving Rural Communities in an Innovation Economy; and
Hridesh Rajan, 2016 PIRI recipient, whose project focused on creating data-science infrastructures for improving data analysis.

“The Presidential Interdisciplinary Research Initiative is the lodestar for the Iowa State collaborative and interdisciplinary research community,” said Peter Dorhout, Iowa State University Vice President for Research. “The common thread through all PIRI projects funded over the past decade is that they’ve all demonstrated the profound impact that Iowa State research can have when we pursue and embrace the insight and expertise of cross disciplinary collaborators to create innovative solutions to society’s greatest challenges. Research Day 2022 is an opportunity for our entire community to learn from and model the best practices that have contributed to the success our PIRI teams have experienced.”

Following the roundtable will be three breakout sessions intended to further explore the key themes of the PIRI roundtable presentations. Each breakout will provide attendees with three subject matter choices from which they can select. The topics by session are:

Breakout Session 1
Team Science Principles for Creating Successful Interdisciplinary Teams
Entrepreneurship with I-Corps and ISU Startup Factory
Broader Impacts and Your Research

Breakout Session 2
Research Insights and Finding Collaborators
Exploring Seed Funding Opportunities in the Biosciences
Expanding Funding Opportunities: Pursuing Arts & Humanities

Breakout Session 3
Keys to Successful Industry Collaboration
Expanding Funding Opportunities: Foundation Awards
Third Topic: TBD

Invited faculty Lightning Talks, Resource Fair and Moderated Networking round out the activities for Research Day 2022. The March 30 program starts with onsite registration beginning at 8:45 am and ends at the close of the final breakout session at 3:25 pm. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be available during the Resource Fair from 11:35 am to 1:05 pm. Attendee registration is now available and can be accessed here.