Collaboration: A Meeting of the Minds

The Institute's ultimate power lies in its ability to promote collaboration among diverse disciplines, institutions and enterprises. These consortiums bring new expertise, energy and insight to the complex issues affecting human performance.

Indoor Environmental Quality

When indoor environmental quality was identified as one of Syracuse's major areas of expertise, the Institute for Human Performance was tapped to help convert this expertise into a major economic asset.

With the aid of the Syracuse and Central New York Inc., Metropolitan Development Association (MDA) and a $2 million federal grant, a new consortium was created: the New York Indoor Environmental Quality (NYIEQ) Center. Headquartered at the Institute for Human Performance, this organization brings together diverse professionals-research scientists, physicians, engineers, industry leaders and economic development specialists-who will help establish Syracuse as a leader in the emerging field of indoor environmental quality.

NYIEQ Center Program to Help Create Jobs

The New York Indoor Environmental Quality Center, Inc. will invest $1 million over the next three years in support of local companies developing new products or services in the field of indoor environmental quality. The Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP), funded through a New York State Assembly grant to the NYIEQ center in partnership with the Metropolitan Development Association, will award up to $250,000 in matching grants to eligible projects starting in 2001. By 2004, program grants will have leveraged a total investment of $2 million in IEQ product/service development.

NYIEQ Center executive director Lee Davis states "Our objectives are to fuel technology development, drive job creation, and strengthen synergies between companies involved with the center. There is a real social component here, as well. We're talking about the development of products and services that improve health and increase productivity."

The grants will be awarded through an open and competitive process to firms that have the greatest potential for success in creating economic benefits for the Central New York community. The NYIEQ Center will administer the program and establish a selection panel to identify eligible projects. Details on the CAP program and the NYIEQ Center can be found at the NYIEQ Center's website, ww.nyieq.com.

Faster, Better, Safer

When a motor vehicle crashes, a variety of professionals spring into action: 911 operators, police, ambulance crews, firefighters, hospital emergency personnel and others. To develop a more efficient flow of communication among these professionals -- and to reduce the response time to crashes, especially in rural areas -- Upstate Medical University's Department of Emergency Medicine has received a $975,000 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The project's base of operations is the Institute for Human Performance. "There will be many parties involved in our development of a statewide emergency notification plan -- 911 centers, the cellular phone industry, emergency medical services, communications systems, government leaders and more," reports Richard Hunt, MD, chair of emergency medicine at Upstate. "The Institute for Human Performance, with its interdisciplinary focus, is the perfect place to bring these groups together, and our Department of Emergency Medicine is the logical choice to coordinate this statewide effort. We are centrally located and nationally prominent in the field of emergency medicine. And we have no proprietary interest in the outcome. Our interest is in the patient's best interest."

The emergency notification plan that emerges from this project will be the first step toward an improved statewide emergency response system. "We expect to produce a model for New York State that will enable all 50 states to make our highways safer," says Dr. Hunt.

Building Bioengineering Degrees

Longstanding collaboration between Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University's College of Engineering and Computer Science is leading toward the development of joint graduate degrees in bioengineering, with the programs' research components to be based in part at the Institute. Recruited from Northwestern University with the aid of a $1 million grant from the Whitaker Foundation, Jeremy Gilbert, PhD, of Syracuse University is helping to lay the groundwork for the joint degrees. "Bioengineering is crucial to the future of medicine. It brings life science and engineering together to tackle the structural problems of the human body," says Gilbert. "The Institute for Human Performance was central to my decision to come to Syracuse."

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