Akron Life October 2022

EDUCATION

by Alexandra Sobczak and photos provided by Brain Health Research Institute

Head Space The Brain Health Research Institute spans disciplines to make discoveries.

Kent State University’s Brain Health Research Institute is nestled within the Integrated Sciences Building, but it reaches across campus. Staff and students from 27 departments are researchers within the institute, working on interdisciplinary studies about brain health and diseases.

“It’s not just life sciences, such as biology, chemistry, phys ics, not just the physical sci ences. It’s social sciences, like psychology, sociology, arts, humanities,” says Michael Lehman, the institute’s direc tor and professor of biologi cal sciences. “All those are disciplines where faculty are fundamentally interested in how the brain works.” The institute launched in 2019, but its physical space opened to researchers, both students and staff members,

last fall. It includes a common space, conference room, individual labs and “collaboratories,” which are open-concept spaces where researchers can communicate across disciplines while sharing lab space and resources, encouraging collaboration. “To have that sort of diversity of research is really a caul dron for creativity,” he says. Lehman explains the institute and some of the research done there.

PROCESSING CENTER

Students now have a relaxed space to hang out — a com mon area with tables, cushy chairs and a wavy 3D ceiling design meant to mimic brain waves. “Nothing substitutes for actu ally having the space where you can have social events or lunches, or just gatherings to talk about ongoing research or sharing information, study groups, whatever it is,”

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