Fellows’ Research … Center Projects
CRE activities are centered around the research that brought our Fellows to the Center. Fellow’s projects raise questions that require interdisciplinary inquiry and methods of the humanities and social sciences to address. Their research programs present questions about the impact of their research on participants, communities, and environments, as well as its implications for how we understand ourselves and shape possible futures. Their studies also raise traditional research ethics questions on topics like balancing risks and potential benefits, managing conflicting interests, and protecting privacy. Those traditional questions sit alongside more contemporary challenges of, for example, co-designing research with community members or potential end users of technologies, or employing machine learning and AI.
The Center will pursue projects that emerge as Fellows explore the questions that brought them together to address challenges in their work. Collaborating through the CRE, Fellows will develop materials and methods to create a culture of ethical inquiry and problem-solving among their colleagues and trainees. The Center will serve as an incubator for development of training program materials and best practices for ethical, positively impactful research.
This page hosts descriptions of Fellows’ projects and the questions they present. Over time, the page will feature projects and products that the Center develops utilizing the expertise of its external advisors and leveraging the collective curiosity and experience of its members. The page will also post resources for education and problem-solving that emerge from our CRE Fellows’ collaboration. In the meantime, consult the Connections page to see the many Pitt and Pittsburgh resources with expertise and experience that the Center will both tap and amplify. Current projects and recent publications are listed below.
Projects
Bioethics of Real-World Data Collection in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, led by Avniel Ghuman, addresses the ethical issues associated with recording not only physiological, brain activity, and behavioral data from in-patient research participants, but also behavioral data from visitors and hospital staff who enter their rooms. The project is supported by an ELSI Supplement Research Grant from the Research, Ethics and Society Initiative of Pitt Research and informs development of the bioethics aim of the five-year, multi-site study, Bridging Brain, Behavior, and Physiology Dynamics: A Unified Approach to Understanding Seizure Propensity and Brain Network Excitability, co-led by Avniel Ghuman and funded by NINDS. Anne Stetler will conduct semi-structured interviews exploring the issues to be analyzed include disclosure of recording, consent, management of incidental findings, data privacy, data sharing, and employee concerns about research participation. (R61MH13867)
A Fully-implanted Spinal Cord Stimulation System to Restore Sensation and Relieve Phantom LimbPain after Lower-limb Amputation, led by Lee Fisher, commenced under the NIH UG3/UH3 phased cooperative agreement mechanism to test the safety and efficacy of somatosensory restoration for reducing phantom limb pain. The project includes attention to the ethical dimensions of both initial testing and eventual widespread clinical adoption of fully implanted systems that communicate wirelessly with external sensors on the prosthesis and long-term at-home use of somatosensory neuroprostheses. (UG3NS137282)
Developing a Collaborative Cohort and Training Materials for Participant-Centered Neural Prosthetic Research, a qualitative research study led by Takashi Kozai (“TK”) and Lisa Parker to understand and begin to address challenges to developing co-design collaborations between neural prosthetic researchers and end users of implantable neural devices to ensure that device development reflects not only the priorities and daily experience of end users, but also their specific subjective experiences with devices in development, e.g., resulting sensations (of heat, tingling, pressure) or visual perceptions. Co-investigator Amy Flick (science communication, Department of English) is interviewing researchers and research participants (end users) about their preparedness and willingness to engage in co-design. The project will lead to development of training materials to prepare researchers and end users to collaborate in projects along the research pipeline. The project is supported by a CTSI Trans-Disciplinary Collaboration Pilot Award to the Schools of Engineering and Public Health.
Equity in Maternal and Birthing Outcomes and Reproductive Health through Community Engagement (EMBRACE Center for Excellence), with MPI Dara Mendez, employs interdisciplinary research guided by reproductive justice principles and public health critical race praxis to advance maternal and reproductive health equity and justice focused on Black birthing people in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and the surrounding region. Academic researchers and community-led and Black-led partners collaborate to develop, implement and evaluate multi-level interventions and policy efforts, and to provide multidisciplinary training.
AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, September 2023 - August 2025, Anne Stetler worked in the Office of the Assistant Director researching investments the National Science Foundation (NSF) has made in projects and initiatives having the goal of translation. She gained experience with NSF programs in Technology, Innovation and Partnerships and related large scale NSF multi-directorate funding, federal science policy related to funding agencies, and interagency coordination. The fellowship supports her pivot toward incorporating into her research portfolio both collaboration with internal and external stakeholders and increased attention to communication about science with a range of publics and stakeholders.
Publications and presentations
Sundermann AJ, Javaid W, Parker LS.Pathogen genomic surveillance in health care: emerging ethical dilemmas in outbreak detection and patient notification. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. Published online 2026:1-6. doi:10.1017/ice.2026.10519
Kozai TDY, Hooks BM, Vazquez AL, Gharbawie O, Huang C, Graczyk EL, Smith M, Taylor DM, Hernandez-Reynoso AG, London A, Ford P, Anderson E, Chen X, Flick AI, Parker LS, Gaunt RA. Solving the problem of inception: A cross-species perspective on strategies for a mechanistic refinement of intracortical microstimulation. Journal of Neural Engineering, 23 April 2026. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/ae54cf
Sundermann AJ, Javaid W, Parker LS. Pathogen Genomic Surveillance in Healthcare: Emerging Ethical Dilemmas in Outbreak Detection and Patient Notification. Poster, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Chicago, IL, April 8-10, 2026.
Alreja A, Ward MJ, Ma Q, Russ BE, Bickel A, Van Wouwe NC, González-Martínez JA, Neimat JS, Abel TJ, Bagić A, Parker LS, Richardson RM, Schroeder CE, Morency L, Ghuman AS. A new paradigm for investigating real-world social behavior and its neural underpinnings. Behavior Research Methods, 2023; 55:2333–2352. doi: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01882-9
Méndez DD, Tapia A, Sanders a, Casas A, Smalls M, Davis EM, Rathbun S, Gary-Webb T, Burke L, Omowale S, Adodoadji L, Gianakas J, Lai Y, Feghali M, Wallace M. Real-time experiences of racism and stress in association with postpartum weight retention: A longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study. American Journal of Epidemiology, August 2025, 194(8):2200-2210. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwae424
Méndez DD, Scott J, Adodoadji L, Toval C, McNeil M, Sindhu M. Racism as a Public Health Crisis: Assessment and Review of Municipal Declarations and Resolutions Across the United States. Frontiers in Public Health. 11 Aug 2021; 9:686807 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.686807 PMID: 34458221; PMCID: PMC8385329.
Sinex DCE, Besterfield-Sacre ME, Mena I, Bilec M, Abramowitch SD, Wosu SN. The Development and Perceived Impact of Mentor-Mentee Retreats on the Long-Term Development and Enhancement of Mentor-Mentee Relationships. In 2020 IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Uppsala, Sweden, 2020, pp. 1-9, doi: 10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274055.
Haidar G, Bhamidipati D, Despines L, Sullivan C, Stuart S, Beckham JM, McMahon DK, Veldkamp P. An initiative to increase organ donor registration among persons with HIV. American Journal of Transplantation, 22(11): 3186-3187.
Wosu SN, Abramowitch S, Gau D. Early Lessons in Changing Engineering Culture for the Success of URM Doctoral Students in Engineering: PITT STRIVE. In 2019 IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC), 2019, pp. 287-294. doi: 10.1109/isecon.2019.8882024.