Health & Data at ND
The University of Notre Dame's research enterprise focuses on a number of fields of study to deepen and engage with the community, including a commitment to address global and community issues, such as poverty, health disparities, well-being, education, food insecurity, housing, sustainability, cancer, mental health and more.
Biocrossroads' Book of Data and Organizations provides a census of health and health-related data, capabilities, and talent in Indiana. Below are profiles of a selection of Notre Dame's health and data-related Centers and Institutes:
Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health
The Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health (BIPH) seeks to prevent and treat disease, promote wellness, and reduce health disparities by developing new tools to understand human variability at the molecular and cellular levels.
Areas for collaboration
IPH collaborates on projects associated with:
- Molecular Mining
- Molecular Recognition
- Microbiome and Human Health
- Micro and Nanoscale Biomedical Instrumentation
- Point of Use Platforms
Center for Civic Innovation
The Center for Civic Innovation's mission is to address community-identified civic priorities in our region by integrating principles of design and innovation from engineering and the social sciences into interdisciplinary research and education projects.
Areas for collaboration
The CCI's research agenda is driven by regional needs and national interests, with broad research domains including:
- Safe and affordable housing
- Urban environmental sustainability and resilience
- Equitable community health and well-being
- Data-informed decision support for community development.
Children's Environmental Health Initiative
The Children's Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI) leads multiple environmental and public health research projects emphasizing the special vulnerabilities of children. CEHI projects focus on incorporating innovative spatial analysis in combination with field-based sampling into environmental and public health research. CEHI maintains a deep institutional commitment to issues of social justice and thus focuses much of its work in low-income and minority communities.
Areas for collaboration
CEHI is available to collaborate on the use of spatial design of environmental health research. CEHI's long-term vision is to forge a whole new approach to addressing environmental health issues. CEHI has developed, maintains, and extends an extensive fully spatially referenced data architecture on environmental health. This makes it possible to jointly consider diverse variables collected by different disciplines, creating the opportunity to explore the complex and dynamic relationships among the components of health.
Projects associated with:
- Extending CEHI’s research to Indiana data sets
- An emphasis on spatial analytic approaches and GIS capacity-building efforts with a special interest in issues of environmental justice
- Innovative and flexible data architectures, statistical method development, characterization of exposomes and social correlates of health
Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH) serves as a university-wide enterprise that recognizes health as a fundamental human right and works to promote research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities for all. EIGH brings together multidisciplinary teams to understand and address health challenges that disproportionately affect the poor and to train the next generation of global health leaders
Areas for collaboration
EIGH has four objectives:
- Serve as a central organizing and coordinating Institute for global health activities across the university
- Generate and share knowledge to address health problems endemic to the global poor
- Train a new generation of global health researchers
- Undertake service and service-learning in global health
Harper Cancer Research Institute
The fight against cancer requires a team approach and the Harper Cancer Research Institute (HCRI) brings researchers and clinicians from several different backgrounds to help create an efficient and effective research team. HCRI serves as a conduit that translates basic laboratory science into advances in clinical cancer care by engaging partners in academia and industry. HCRI is dedicated to training the next generation of cancer researchers.
Areas for collaboration
HCRI is available to collaborate on innovative and integrative research confronting the complex challenges of cancer. The majority of research at the Institute is divided between these two research programs:
- Tumor-Host Communication
- Mechanisms of Tumor Targeting
IDEA Center
The IDEA Center serves as Notre Dame’s collaborative innovation hub dedicated to expanding the technological and societal impact of the University’s innovations through nurturing and facilitating the movement of the best ideas of faculty, staff, and students from discovery to commercial application.
Areas for collaboration
The Center provides the necessary space, services, and expertise for idea development, commercialization, business formation, prototyping, entrepreneurial education, and student entrepreneurial efforts. The IDEA Center is open to any University researcher and student with an idea they want to commercialize. Future focus is to increase the number of life-science and medical technologies.
Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society
The Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society serves as Notre Dame's intellectual, interdisciplinary hub for students, faculty, and research scientists, an incubator for existing and emerging data science and analytics programs across the colleges, and a collaborator with leaders from industry, government, and academia to advance data innovations and to help transform society and individual lives.
Core capabilities in data science, network science, artificial intelligence, and statistical and mathematical modeling enables research teams aligned toward specific societal challenges that translate out of research and into practice.
Areas for collaboration
The Lucy Institute is interested in collaborating on projects requiring or associated with:
- AI and Ethics
- Computational Biology and Chemistry
- Health and Well Being (i.e., child malnutrition, successful aging)
- Molecular Synthesis
- Neural Science and Brain Networks
- Social and Information Systems (i.e., Social Sensing, Using Smart Devices to Capture the Emotionality of Offline Communication, Dynamics of Human Behavior)
Pulte Institute for Global Development
The Pulte Institute for Global Development — an integral part of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame — combines the existing world-class teaching and research faculty of Notre Dame with a dedicated staff of experienced international development professionals, administrators, and researchers in order to address global poverty and inequality through policy, practice, and partnership.
The Pulte Institute’s vision is to enhance human dignity, equity, and well-being for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations by addressing today’s most compelling global issues.
Areas for collaboration
The Pulte Institute cuts across academic fields to produce multidisciplinary knowledge on complex development challenges in areas related to:
- Sustainability
- Humanitarianism
- Effective States and Development
- Business in Development
- Global Health
William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families
The William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families is an integrated research and clinical services center dedicated to the advancement and wellbeing of children and families in both our local community and around the world.
The Shaw Center translates science into practice by providing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, intervention, and clinical services.
Areas for collaboration
The Shaw Center is interested in project collaborations associated with:
- Child maltreatment
- Intimate partner violence
- Couples communications
- Sensitive parenting
- Minority youth mental health
- Food insecurity
Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities
The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) believes that academic researchers, service providers, and policymakers all play a critical role in ending poverty. LEO matches top researchers with passionate leaders in social service agencies to conduct impact evaluations that identify the innovative, effective, and scalable programs and policies that help people move permanently out of poverty.
Areas for collaboration
LEO is a domestic anti-poverty research lab committed to reducing poverty and improving lives through evidence-based programs and policies. LEO’s impact evaluations generate evidence that is shared with social service organizations, policymakers, funders, and others who can put it to use to help move more families out of poverty.
LEO performs research in six focus areas:
- Education
- Health
- Housing
- Criminal justice
- Self-sufficiency
- Emerging issues