In an ongoing effort to meet the challenging health demands of our campus community, state, and nation, Associate Professor Edmond Ramly and new faculty member Professor Matthew Lee Smith are ushering in a new era of interdisciplinary research support.
Ramly, who is Program Director of Design & Implementation Sciences for the Department of Health & Wellness Design (HWD) and Smith, who started his dual appointment in both HWD and the Department of Applied Health Science (AHS) last month, are the new co-directors for the Center for Health by Design (CHxD).
Originally founded in September 2024, the mission of CHxD is to attract and bring together researchers who are engaged in impact-oriented health research, with an intention of designing solutions to health problems with a human-centered approach.
“It can be behavioral interventions, digital health, or organizational sociotechnical solutions in a variety of domains, from chronic disease prevention and management to supporting caregivers,” says Ramly. “All of which have in common the fact that the problems are complex and require interdisciplinary solutions that are not an afterthought, but by design: that we are changing the conditions by which a problem emerges in the first place.”
Ramly and Smith share a common interest in chronic disease management and support for healthy aging; with Smith recently being featured in a Gerontological Society of America member spotlight. Smith says his professional experience has shown the value that centers like CHxD can bring to academic communities because they provide a space for faculty as well as students, postdocs, to get hands-on training and be part of solutions for public health within community, clinical and industry settings.
“We have students and early career faculty who may not have experience with community initiatives and not seen the way these happen outside the classroom,” says Smith. “Learning about program implementation in the classroom is very different than actually sitting down with an older adult to collect data or provide a service.”
In one impact story shared by CHxD member Austin Robinson shares how his research with dietary sodium helps middle-aged and older adults “at risk for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders.”
“Our research tests scalable, food based strategies, such as increasing dietary fiber or improving sleep behaviors, that could blunt salt sensitivity and lower cardiometabolic risk without relying solely on medications,” shares Robinson, who is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology.
"CHxD has extended the support and development that the center has been demonstrating for faculty throughout the school in our Proposal Lab and Research Collaboratories to the rest of their teams, bringing in an ecosystem of students and trainees being able to learn with us,” says Ramly.
In addition to building member support and partnerships, Smith and Ramly are focused on creating connections to resources for impactful research, complementing financial capital with social and intellectual capital.
“We focus on building those capitals by building collaborative processes that align with the IU-Bloomington 2030 goals integrating both student engagement and impactful research,” says Ramly. “On resourcing, we approach it from an abundance mindset—there are a lot of assets in the school, the university, the state, and the country that are under tapped, so we are leveraging those, in partnership for example with the SPH-B Research office, IU Research office, and the Indiana CTSI.”
Smith says the value of CHxD lies in establishing synergies between students, faculty and community organizations for research projects that “are going to be meaningful and have lasting impact” —especially as life expectancies extend and support for healthy aging chronic conditions becomes ever more essential.
"The reality is there is no single approach that is going to meet the diverse needs of the communities we serve, and therefore, we aim to develop tailored, person-centered research approaches and create solutions that are practical, feasible, and relevant,” says Smith.
Read more about SPH-B faculty, staff, and students making a difference at go.iu.edu/48bx.