This Thursday, faculty members and students gathered to present and provide an update on the development and progress of their interdisciplinary research at the President’s Excellence Fund Symposium at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.
The symposium began with an address from University President Michael K. Young to the faculty that participated in the T3 and X-Grant programs this year. The T3: Texas A&M Triads for Transformation program encourages faculty members to form an interdisciplinary triad that aids in the research and development of their project. The X-Grant incorporates a larger faculty group, but encourages the same integrative collaboration in the different fields of research faculty members pursue. There has been $13 million awarded to the research funding to date and another $7 million is to be awarded by June 1. All 17 colleges and schools and two branch campuses participated in T3 funded projects, and 8 of the X-grant proposals were funded.
The president’s welcome was followed with a keynote speech from managing director of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation, Cecelia Conrad. Faculty members and students then presented posters that showcased the overall development of their research projects. Industrial engineering associate professor Ranjana Mehta’s research project focuses on the detection and prevention of opioid withdrawal, and the team plans to develop technology that helps individuals with substance abuse issues better manage rehabilitation.  
“Folks like us coming from different fields — we have engineers, public health professionals and pharmacists, we come in from different perspectives in trying to develop this technology,” Mehta said. “But we can’t be competitive at the [National Institutes of Health] level because we don’t have prior collaboration work together or we don’t have compiled data. And this particular T3 provides us with that.”
The Interdisciplinary Research Evaluation Team, led by Educational Administrative & Human Resources Development professor Michael Beyerlein, is studying the impact and progress of the President’s Excellence Fund. Educational Human Resource Development doctoral student Sarayu Sankar is on the team that is assessing the initiative.
“We have so many teams being funded using the T3 grant or X-Grant so our team is going to assess the effectiveness and the impact of this grant over time,” Sankar said. “One of the things we are studying is interdisciplinary work. Because we live in a world where there are so many problems, and they are complex and require multiple perspectives.”
The integration and collaboration between the schools and colleges is just one of the outcomes of the President’s Excellence Fund. Agriculture education assistant professor Holli Leggette’s, research team is studying how to improve communication between scientists and the public.
“What the President’s doing is unique in a way that, it brings together collaboration across colleges and across departments,” Leggette said. “And I don’t think we always have the opportunity to that, so I think that is a formalized structure that we have set to allow us the chance to do that.”