I’m continually awed by the research our faculty does. From making breakthroughs in the vision and hearing sciences to learning about how participation in an online community can help people quit smoking, researchers at the University of Iowa are constantly making meaningful change.

UI physician and scientist Michael Abràmoff’s Iowa City–based company, IDx, founded on the basis of research done at Iowa, specializes in using artificial intelligence to diagnose diabetic retinopathy, which causes blindness but can be treated. Work like this both helps people affected by retinopathy and opens up jobs for people in the Iowa City community. I’m proud that IDx’s forward-thinking work was spun out of UI research, that Iowa makes these transitions from research to real-world application possible.

Other UI specialists are working on other senses. Researchers in both the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Iowa Cochlear Implant Clinical Research Center, which is led by Bruce Gantz, are pursuing projects aimed at understanding how we process noise and speech. It’s a multidisciplinary effort: Carolyn Brown and Paul Abbas, from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, are studying how the inner ear’s processing of stimuli differs from person to person; Ruth Bentler, also in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, is studying how cochlear implants affect wearers’ day-to-day lives; and Bob McMurray, of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, is exploring both how people with hearing impairment process information in noisy places and how they compensate for that impairment. The work is supported by a grant that the researchers recently received from the National Institutes of Health, a clear demonstration of the importance of their efforts.

Another UI researcher, Kang Zhao, is contributing to people’s health and well-being in a completely different way. Zhao, assistant professor of management sciences in the Tippie College of Business, is the co-author of a study that found tobacco users are more likely to quit when they actively participate in an online community dedicated to smoking cessation. The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, provides valuable information for those facing the difficult task of cutting tobacco out of their lives.

These are just a few examples of how UI researchers are making tangible contributions to the greater good; the UI community is full of people making a difference every day. From providing accurate ophthalmological diagnoses to improving the way people with hearing loss navigate the world to helping people quit smoking, UI faculty are at the forefront of their fields and have made Iowa a hub for advanced research and discovery. I’m inspired by their breakthroughs, and I can’t wait to see what their future efforts will yield.