About TiCER

AIM 1: Expand and Increase the Impact of Environmental Health Research at Texas A&M

Center members will be organized around four thematic areas to facilitate exchange of ideas and experiment approaches, identify common exposure and disease interests, and promote cross-disciplinary synergies among members that lead to new collaborations and higher impact discoveries.

The four thematic areas are:

• Stressors to responses
• Environment and metabolism
• Climate change and health
• Environmental justice and policy

AIM 2: Enhance Research Capacity, Integration, and Translation

The Center will facilitate research across mechanistic, individual, and inter-individual scales by integrating a set of Facility Cores that bridge technologies, capabilities, and expertise across the Texas A&M campus.

AIM 3: Recruit and Mentor Promising New Environmental Health Investigators

The Center will champion the recruitment, mentoring, and career development of new investigators in environmental health research through a multi-faceted program that spans career stages, from new investigators to emerging leaders.

AIM 4: Promote New Investigations in Environmental Health Research

The Center will promote new, innovative research directions and research motivated by community and stakeholder concerns that originate from individual investigators or cross-disciplinary teams using a robust campus-wide Pilot Project Program.

Pilot Project Program (PPP). The overall concept of the PPP is to promote the Center mission by stimulating new investigations to expand the footprint of environmental health research at Texas A&M. This will be achieved by funding outstanding and innovative environmental health research projects. It is expected that these projects will address the major thematic research areas of the Center, attract new faculty into environmental health research, facilitate collaborative teams, and promote investigations into community and stakeholder environmental concerns. The PPP will also serve to encourage interactions among Center members, use of Facility Cores, and participation of young investigators by integrating them into the Center.

AIM 5: Create an Intellectual Atmosphere that Connects Stakeholders and Researchers

The Center will identify and educate Center members about community concrens and translate discoveries back to communities and other stakeholders to support the translation and application of research findings to inform decision-making at individual, community, and policy-making levels.

Leaders from the Center’s four thematic areas, two Facility Cores (Translational Research and Data Science), Community Engagement Core, and Pilot Project Core will form a Program Committee responsible for Center programming. The Program Committee will ensure integration across Center activities, track Facility Core usage, and evaluate benefits to Center members and stakeholders. The Program Committee will be advised by an Internal Advisory Board composed of institutional leaders who will provide direct access to upper institutional administrators, and by an External Advisory Board composed of international leaders in environmental health research, technology, and community engagement who will ensure the Center’s mission remains focused on “Innovative solutions for addressing exposure-stressor interactions in underserved population in urban and urbanizing areas in the state of Texas.”