Research

��ɫ��Ƶ and VCU partnership seeks answers to chronic neuropathy pain after breast cancer treatment

Katarina Benson — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:47:32 +0000

��ɫ��Ƶ and VCU partnership seeks answers to chronic neuropathy pain after breast cancer treatment Katarina Benson Fri, 10/23/2026 - 14:47

A new research collaboration between ��ɫ��Ƶ and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) aims to improve understanding of peripheral neuropathy, a painful and often life-altering side effect experienced by breast cancer survivors involving damage to the nerves that can interrupt daily function.

With a $200,000 grant from the Commonwealth Health Research Board, the project, “Proteomic and Neuroimmune Signatures of Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Breast Cancer,” focuses on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a common side effect of chemotherapy that affects more than 50% of patients, with up to 30% experiencing persistent symptoms that can interfere with treatment and become chronic.

Nadine Kabbani. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Led by Nadine Kabbani, a professor in George Mason’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience; Imad Damaj of VCU’s Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology; and Paula Bos of the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, the project brings together expertise in neuroscience, cancer biology, pharmacology, proteomics, and artificial intelligence.

Damaj is a highly accomplished investigator with extensive expertise in neuropathic pain, including CIPN. Bos brings deep expertise in breast cancer biology and has been instrumental in establishing the team's clinically relevant breast cancer model of CIPN. Together, the investigators provide complementary expertise, with Kabbani leading the proteomics, neuroimmune, and computational systems biology components of the project.

“Bringing a cancer biologist into the neuropathy research space has helped us think about the problem differently,” Kabbani said. “The side effects of any treatment occur within a specific context. We believe understanding that context may change the way the field approaches neuropathy.”

The findings could have broad implications for cancer survivors, clinicians, and researchers working to reduce long-term treatment-related complications.

“Cancer survival rates have improved dramatically, especially for breast cancer,” said Kabbani, a George Mason alumna and neuroscientist whose research focuses on molecular neuroscience, immune signaling, and public health. “But many survivors continue to live with neuropathy long after their cancer treatment ends. Understanding why that happens is critical if we want to improve quality of life after cancer.”

What makes the project distinctive is its focus on the cancer itself—not just the chemotherapy. Historically, many studies have treated chemotherapy as the sole driver of neuropathy. Kabbani and her collaborators theorize that the biological environment created by cancer may also contribute to pain development.

“The prevailing view has been that chemotherapy damages nerves and that damage causes pain,” Kabbani explained. “Our work suggests that the cancer background matters too. The cancer changes the immune environment, and that may influence how neuropathy develops.”

The team has developed a breast cancer model that more accurately reflects the conditions experienced by patients. Researchers will use the model to examine how both cancer and chemotherapy reshape sensory pathways involved in pain perception.

“We’re interested in how the nervous system rewires itself,” said Kabbani. “Chronic pain isn’t simply a response to an injury. It reflects long-term changes in how information is processed. We want to understand the molecular networks that drive those changes.”

Neurons. Photo by Getty Images

In addition to generating new scientific knowledge, the award provides valuable research opportunities for graduate students and early-career scientists at both institutions.

George Mason biosciences PhD student Samantha Schwarting, the leading graduate student on the study, has been working with Christopher Lockhart, an assistant professor in George Mason’s School of Systems Biology, developing computational approaches to analyze the project’s large-scale datasets.

After taking a machine learning course with Lockhart, Schwarting began applying her newly learned knowledge to develop a new graph of neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), for analyzing her proteomic data. This AI model now allows Schwarting and the team to evaluate how thousands of proteins interact within complex biological networks rather than focusing only on just individual proteins showing the largest changes as typically done.

Schwarting’s graduate research assistantship is being funded by George Mason’s Grand Challenge Initiative-sponsored Quantum Leap project, which champions applying quantum computing to complex biological problems.

“Machine learning allows us to identify the influential players within a complex system,” Schwarting explained. “Sometimes the proteins driving the network aren’t the ones changing the most. AI helps us find relationships we might otherwise miss.”

Those insights could ultimately support the development of more targeted therapies and accelerate efforts to repurpose existing drugs for neuropathy treatment.

“More people are surviving cancer than ever before,” Kabbani said. “That means we need to put equal energy into helping survivors live well after treatment. Understanding the biology of chronic neuropathy is an important step toward that goal.”

This research supports the Grand Challenge Initiative's goal of improving human health, well-being, and preparedness

Discover more GCI health research >>

Learn about other solutions >>

Explore the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience

Topics

Advancing AI research, from the word Go

Nathan Kahl — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 12:08:30 +0000

Advancing AI research, from the word Go Nathan Kahl Thu, 10/22/2026 - 08:08

A computer program so adept at playing the game Go that it could beat the world's best players changed the career plans of ��ɫ��Ƶ computer science assistant professor Simin Chen.

Watching advances in artificial intelligence (AI), especially its ability to outperform human experts at the ancient strategy game, convinced Chen that he wanted to explore opportunities the technology offered, so he left his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering behind.

Today, his research encompasses three interconnected areas: AI, computer programming, and trustworthiness. He examines AI systems at multiple levels, from the data used to develop models to the underlying computing infrastructure that supports them. His goal: identify weaknesses and develop approaches that improve security and reliability throughout these systems.

One particular interest is agentic AI and the considerable promise and risk it brings. AI-generated programs can contain errors or security vulnerabilities, potentially creating problems when the technology is used without adequate oversight.

For Chen, ensuring that these increasingly capable systems produce dependable results is a central research challenge. At George Mason, his immediate priority is establishing a research lab, recruiting students, and developing projects centered on AI, programming, and security. Over the next several years, he hopes to create fundamental frameworks that help researchers and developers build more trustworthy AI agents. His longer-term ambitions extend beyond software engineering to the broader use of AI across engineering disciplines.

Beyond research, Chen also sees important implications for computer science education. As AI becomes increasingly capable of handling routine programming assignments, educators must reconsider how they teach students to think critically and solve problems independently.

"How do we teach the first generally AI assisted computer science students to do human reasoning but not purely rely on AI's answer to finish assignments or tasks?" he said.

Chen compares AI to a powerful calculator. Just as calculators allow people to tackle more complicated mathematical problems, AI can help researchers, engineers, and students accomplish things that would otherwise be difficult or time-consuming.

"People who know how to use AI better can achieve better or higher achievements," he said.

Topics

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science faculty

faculty profile

Research

4-VA project brings 'serious' games to nursing education

Mary Cunningham — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:59:04 +0000

4-VA project brings 'serious' games to nursing education Mary Cunningham Wed, 10/21/2026 - 14:59

Undergraduate nursing education often presents students with large content volumes and limited collaborative engagement, particularly in medical‑surgical courses. Yanika Kowitlawakul, associate professor in ��ɫ��Ƶ’s College of Public Health, School of Nursing, saw a unique opportunity to utilize “digital escape room games” (DERGs) to provide an innovative approach to enhance engagement while fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and clinical judgment.

The 4-VA Team: (l to r) Kowitlawakul, Scrivner, James, Brooks, Guingab, Enfield. Photo by Heather Carroll/College of Public Health

After attending a presentation by Virginia Serious Game Institute’s (VSGI) Jacob Enfield at George Mason’s annual Innovations in Teaching and Learning conference, Kowitlawakul was intrigued by the work conducted at VSGI. She recognized the potential to support the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of DERGs aimed at addressing health-related decision making processes in her medical-surgical nursing course. She saw particular value in leveraging these innovative learning approaches to enhance engagement, collaboration, problem-solving skills, and academic performance among undergraduate nursing students.

However, Kowitlawakul reasoned, the effort would be greatly enhanced with a broader wisdom and knowledge base from nursing programs at other 4-VA schools. Consequently, she called upon Gretchen Wiersma, associate professor and Registered Nursing – Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program Coordinator at University of Virginia and Michelle K. Edmonds, associate professor and associate dean of the Undergraduate Nursing Program at Virginia Commonwealth University to join in the 4-VA effort.

Kowitlawakul also included a supporting group of volunteers from the George Mason community including Amanda Brooks, associate professor, BSN and ABSN program coordinator at the School of Nursing, and Terri Ann Guingab, an instructional designer, who both helped develop case scenarios, reviewed prototypes, provided feedback, collected pre- and post-test data, and evaluated and disseminated the results.

Students working on the escape room games. Photo by Heather Carroll/College of Public Health

At VSGI, Enfield recruited and supervised the student workers on game design, conducted the study, and provided feedback throughout the production. Enfield’s students Alexander Scrivner and Alex James served as the project’s game artist and programmer respectively, bringing the games to life.

Kowitlawakul was focused on ensuring the games created a real difference in students’ understanding of protocols, supported by data and results. “Limited evidence exists regarding how variations in game complexity might influence students’ learning experiences and outcomes," she said. "Our study was designed to specifically compare two digital escape room games—one on acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and the other on increased intracranial pressure (ICP)—and closely examine students’ experiential and perceived learning outcomes as well as factors associated with problem-solving confidence.”

Both games were integrated into a 15-week medical-surgical nursing course in spring 2026. Seventy-five students participated in the AMI game, and 52 in the ICP game.

Following that, a cross‑sectional design was employed, incorporating pre‑ and post‑quiz assessments and validated questionnaires. The results indicated that students spent more time and made more incorrect attempts in the ICP game, reflecting its higher complexity.

Both groups demonstrated improved post‑quiz scores, indicating successful knowledge acquisition. Stress levels were higher during the AMI game, which was introduced earlier in the semester. Strong positive correlations were observed among problem‑solving confidence, collaboration, satisfaction, enjoyment, and creativity, particularly in the ICP game, suggesting that increased complexity may further enhance learning outcomes.

The findings of this study have several important implications for nursing education, particularly in medical–surgical courses. First, the results support the integration of DERGs as effective and engaging instructional strategies. Both the AMI and ICP scenarios promoted learning and engagement, suggesting that game-based approaches can enhance students’ active participation and knowledge acquisition in complex clinical topics commonly taught in medical-surgical curricula. Second, the influence of task complexity on performance outcomes highlights the need for careful instructional design. More complex scenarios, such as the ICP DERG, may increase cognitive demand and stress, which can negatively affect learning and confidence.

Third, the findings emphasize the importance of collaborative learning and peer interaction, particularly in early learning experiences. Incorporating structured teamwork and opportunities for discussion can help students build confidence in problem-solving, especially when first introduced to game-based learning strategies. Finally, given the negative impact of stress, especially in more complex scenarios, educators should consider strategies to monitor and manage student stress, such as providing clear instructions, debriefing sessions, and supportive learning environments. This is particularly important in medical-surgical education, where students must develop confidence in managing high-acuity clinical situations.

With the hard work completed, the team is now sharing their findings through a variety of journals and conferences. The response has been very positive and the team has already received requests from nursing schools around the country, as well as China, who have an interest in obtaining the games, creating their own similar games, or want to collaborate in additional work. The group is now preparing proposals for external funding to expand the project.

“This grant not only allowed us to explore scalable, game-based learning strategies that can be shared nationally and internationally, but also strengthened my personal teaching approach,” concluded Kowitlawakul. “Connecting with Gretchen, Michelle, the folks at VSGI, and nursing students was an inspiring experience that brought so many great ideas to the collective table for this project. It was energizing to collaborate with such a diverse and talented group working toward an important goal.”

This story was originally posted on the ��ɫ��Ƶ provost site.

Explore Research at George Mason

In This Story

Terri Ann Guingab, MEd

Amanda Brooks, DNP, FNP-BC

Topics

CPH - School of Nursing

4-VA at Mason

Virginia Serious Game Institute

Nursing Research

Research

College of Public Health

innovative classes

One in five young adults in the U.S. experience daily anxiety

Heather Carroll — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:31:01 +0000

One in five young adults in the U.S. experience daily anxiety Heather Carroll Tue, 10/20/2026 - 16:31

Key Takeaways

Anxiety diagnoses among young adults increased from 17.9% in 2020 to 23.4% in 2024, according to a new George Mason study, with higher rates among women and lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.
The study examined how overlapping identities, including race, sex and sexual orientation, relate to anxiety disparities.

In This Story

Melissa L. Villodas, PhD, LMSW, LCSW-A

Nearly one in five young adults in the United States reported feeling anxious every day in 2024, up from 15% in 2020. Over the same period, the odds of receiving an anxiety diagnosis as well as use of prescription anxiety medication each rose by roughly a third.

Melissa Villodas Assistant Professor, Social Work. Photo provided

The overall increase in anxiety varied by race and ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation, according to a new study by ��ɫ��Ƶ researcher Melissa Villodas. The research found higher rates of anxiety among women and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) young adults than among their peers. Racial and ethnic differences were less clear-cut, varying by whether researchers looked at anxiety symptoms, diagnoses, or medication use and by sex and sexual orientation.

Published in the American Journal of Public Health, the study explored anxiety among nearly 11,000 U.S. adults ages 18 to 25. While most research considers demographic characteristics separately, Villodas and her colleagues studied them in combination to reveal differences that might be overlooked.

“Rather than assuming that all young adults experience anxiety in the same way, these findings underscore the importance of considering the multiple social identities and contexts that shape experiences with anxiety,” said Villodas, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at the College of Public Health.

Why it matters

Young adulthood is a vulnerable phase for the onset of mental health problems, and anxiety was already rising in this age group before the COVID-19 pandemic. The study can’t establish what caused the increases after 2020, but the researchers say its findings warrant attention to possible lasting impacts from the pandemic.

The research also offers a more specific picture of which young adults need support and raises questions about whether groups with fewer diagnoses are facing obstacles to get help.

Key findings

The researchers analyzed National Health Interview Survey responses between 2020 and 2024. Key findings included:

Daily anxiety, diagnoses, and medication increased. Daily anxiety rose from 15% to 19.5%, reported anxiety diagnoses increased from 17.9% to 23.4%, and prescription anxiety medication use rose from 9.8% to 13.3%. Despite the increase in daily anxiety, the intensity of anxiety respondents reported didn’t change significantly overall.
Nearly half of LGB young adults reported an anxiety diagnosis. In 2024, 44.6% reported having received a diagnosis, compared with 18.5% of straight young adults. Prescription anxiety medication use among LGB respondents doubled from 12.9% in 2020 to 26% in 2024. Among straight respondents, it increased from 9.3% to 10.4%.
Women consistently reported higher rates than men. In 2024, 32.1% of women reported having received an anxiety diagnosis, compared with 14.7% of men. About one in four women reported daily anxiety, and one in five took prescription anxiety medication.
Differences also emerged within racial and ethnic groups. Hispanic LGB young adults had about 4.7 times the odds of taking anxiety medication as their straight Hispanic peers. Black women had higher odds of an anxiety diagnosis and medication use than Black men.
Fewer diagnoses didn’t necessarily mean milder anxiety. In 2024, 31.3% of non-Hispanic White respondents reported an anxiety diagnosis, compared with 12.7% of non-Hispanic Black respondents, and 15.3% of Hispanic respondents. But across the study period, Black and White young adults did not differ significantly in reported anxiety intensity. The researchers noted that access to care, stigma, and differences in how symptoms are recognized might help explain the disparities.

Villodas’ coauthors were Alexandria B. Forte of the University of Connecticut, Hayden C. Dawes of Bryn Mawr College, Michelle R. Munson of New York University, and Mansoo Yu of the University of Missouri.

Thumbnail photo provided by BillionPhotos.com

Topics

Women's Health

Anxiety

LGBTQ+

Medication Assisted Treatment

Research

College of Public Health

Childhood experiences of war loom large over CEOs’ decision-making

Katelynn C Hipolito — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 14:15:51 +0000

Childhood experiences of war loom large over CEOs’ decision-making Katelynn C Hipolito Mon, 10/19/2026 - 10:15

Likening business to war has become a cliché. This shopworn comparison glosses over the grim fact that war informs the backdrop, and backstory, of a great many companies, and their leaders.

Eun Hye (Grace) Jo, accounting professor at the Costello College of Business. Photo provided

The trauma of war has long-lasting reverberations, influencing business decisions taken decades later, argue Eun Hye Jo and Jenny Jung-Wha Lee, accounting professors at Costello College of Business based in ��ɫ��Ƶ Korea.

Their recent paper in Journal of Business Research (co-authored by Laurelle (Ellie) Chapple of Queensland University of Technology) examines how early-life experience of the Korean War (1950-1953) affected CEOs’ responses to business challenges.

“The project had a personal motivation that emerged from a conversation about the Korean War. We realized that war and military service had meaningful connections to both of our family histories: Eun Hye’s grandfather was a Korean War veteran, while Jenny’s father was a retired South Korean Army lieutenant colonel. Growing up with these family histories exposed us to stories about war and military service and made this research question especially meaningful to us,” comment the pair of Costello researchers.

The three-year conflict between North and South Korea claimed more than two million casualties, over half of whom were civilians. All in all, approximately ten percent of the population of the peninsula lost their lives in the conflagration. The traumatic aftereffects of the Korean War on both sides may be intensified by the lack of formal resolution, with no peace treaty signed and tensions between the combatants continuing into the present day.

“The project had a personal motivation that emerged from a conversation about the Korean War. We realized that war and military service had meaningful connections to both of our family histories: Eun Hye’s grandfather was a Korean War veteran, while Jenny’s father was a retired South Korean Army lieutenant colonel. Growing up with these family histories exposed us to stories about war and military service and made this research question especially meaningful to us.”

– Eun Hye (Grace) Jo and Jenny Jung-Wha Lee, accounting professors at Costello College of Business

The research team collected financial performance data on Korean-listed companies during the period 2002 to 2023 (excluding the smallest companies and those in the finance industry); their data-set comprised 24,703 firm-year observations. They segmented the data by CEO age, allowing them to analyze firm activity in light of whether the focal CEO was born prior to the Armistice Agreement that ended Korean War hostilities.

They were particularly interested in sales downturns, which could act as trigger events for war-exposed CEOs. Their theory was that these CEOs would have a stronger emotional response to a decline in sales, resulting in larger workforce reductions.

And indeed, the researchers found that when Korean firms were led by war-exposed CEOs, they exhibited lower employment stickiness—hiring about 22 percent less aggressively during sales upswings and cutting employment about 106 percent more sharply during downturns.

On closer investigation, the researchers saw that the entirety of the effect was concentrated among CEOs who experienced the Korean War between the ages of 4 and 15, as opposed to earlier childhood years, which do not usually produce lasting memories, due to the phenomenon known as “infantile amnesia.”

Jenny Jung-Wha Lee, accounting professor at the Costello College of Business. Photo provided

“Our interpretation is that early-life war exposure may heighten sensitivity to downside risk. War is an extreme environment marked by uncertainty, loss, and resource scarcity, and exposure to that kind of instability during formative years may shape how individuals perceive threats and make decisions under pressure later in life,” the Costello co-authors explain.

As additional verification that their findings were due to war exposure in formative years and not a generational mindset or the effects of aging, the researchers performed birth-region comparisons between war-exposed CEOs. They identified a direct relationship between CEOs’ downside risk sensitivity (as measured by employment stickiness) and the number of civilian Korean War casualties in their home environment as they were growing up.

“For us, the broader takeaway is that experiences during formative years can leave lasting imprints that may surface decades later in managerial decisions,” Jo and Lee say. Because their study dealt with a historically specific example of wartime trauma, they are hesitant to broaden their findings to other potentially scarring events, such as economic depressions or pandemics. However, they say, “We do not view war as necessarily unique in the broader theoretical sense. It is plausible that other severe formative experiences could also leave lasting imprints on how leaders perceive risk and make trade-offs later in life.”

For Jo and Lee, these findings highlight the need for power balance as a counterweight to the effects of wartime trauma and other early-life experiences that may inordinately impact an individual leader’s decisions.

“Boards can provide greater oversight of major workforce decisions, particularly during downturns,” they suggest. “Senior leadership teams and HR functions can introduce more structured decision processes that require managers to consider not only immediate cost savings, but also operational continuity, talent retention, and longer-term organizational costs. Bringing multiple perspectives into the process may help balance the influence of any one executive’s personal experiences.”

Learn more about Costello College of Business

Learn about Mason Korea

Topics

Costello College of Business News

Costello College of Business Faculty Research

Accounting - Costello

Costello Research Health & Well-being at Work

Costello Research Corporate Governance

Costello Research Evaluating Performance

Research

Mason Korea

Costello College of Business

NSF grants to support novel space weather prediction models and cybersecurity that could help further non-terrestrial infrastructure

sholla4 — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:08:43 +0000

NSF grants to support novel space weather prediction models and cybersecurity that could help further non-terrestrial infrastructure sholla4 Thu, 10/15/2026 - 14:08

Our modern world relies on satellite networks, from television broadcasts, internet connectivity, cell phone service, GPS, defense, weather forecasting, and more. So, what happens when a major space weather event hits one of these satellites, such as a geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection? And how can we forecast if these types of events are coming?

Edward Oughton. Photo provided

Edward Oughton, associate professor of geography and geoinformation science in the College of Science at ��ɫ��Ƶ, was recently awarded two grants from the National Science Foundation: $499,837 for "AI-enabled, Uncertainty-Aware Space Weather Risk Characterization and Mitigation for Satellite Operations," and $49,357 as co-PI with Alexander Sprintson, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing, for "NSF Workshop on Security Challenges and Research Directions for Space and Non-Terrestrial Networks."

Impacts of space weather vary from minor signal interference to catastrophic satellite damage. But even signal interference, depending on severity, can have major ramifications for society. Disruptions to GPS satellites, for example, can cause inaccuracies in applications that require centimeter-level accuracy, like precision agriculture, or cause critical infrastructure systems that require GPS timing and synchronization signals to malfunction, like power grids or defense systems. Space weather can burn out key satellite components and knock satellites off their trajectories, costing their respective companies upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“When you don’t have reliable forecasts, the critical infrastructure operators are going to take every forecast with a pinch of salt,” said Oughton. “We need to be able to predict and provide decent forecasts for these companies to be able to design systems that can withstand these space weather impacts.” Especially, he notes, as we increase space exploration. “With humans wanting to go back to the moon and then go beyond that, this is going to keep becoming more and more of an issue.”

The nearly $500,000 in funding supports the development of the first end-to-end framework for translating uncertainty in space weather forecasts into actionable risk information for satellite operations, and potential socio-economic impacts, similar to terrestrial weather prediction and risk assessment. This foundational research will combine multiple data sets into machine learning and physics-based models to narrow predictions of geomagnetic storm occurrence, timing, and severity, and their predicted impacts on the nation’s space infrastructure, the economy and society.

“We’re trying to move away from just using crude modeling assumptions to make estimated impacts, toward trying to do integrated scientific engineering modeling where we use the best methods and link them to impacts on the population and businesses,” explained Oughton.

Edward Oughton (top left) and Dennies Bor (bottom left) with ASSIP students. Photo provided.

Along with developing these novel tools, the grant’s education component ensures that the next generation of aspiring scientists and engineers have a hand in learning and creating this critical foundation. Each summer, Oughton takes on a group of high school students as part of the Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program (ASSIP).

“This is one thing George Mason does an amazing job with,” he said. Oughton had 25 ASSIP students this summer, working in groups led by his PhD students. “There’s a whole ecosystem of keen scientists coming from these local, high-quality high schools. They develop research projects. They produce research papers: I have examples of students getting first author on papers in peer-reviewed research journals. There’s so much magic happening there.”

Dennies Bor, PhD student in earth systems and geoinformation sciences, has worked with Oughton on previous NSF grants and expects to support this project as well. "Working with Professor Oughton has strengthened my technical skills in modeling, programming, and data analysis, as well as my ability to communicate research...these experiences are helping prepare me for a career as a research scientist," he said.

The second NSF grant will support a workshop convening researchers from academia, industry, and government to identify critical gaps and develop an agenda to improve cybersecurity of space and nonterrestrial networks.

“We’re seeing increased frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks on satellites, partially because the attack surface has massively expanded in recent years due to the huge expansion of global satellite constellations,” said Oughton. “It’s a rapidly evolving field, so we need to come together to sketch out what challenges these companies and organizations are facing and what are possible solutions for long-term security.”

Between these two grants, Oughton and his team are demonstrating the importance of interdisciplinary thinking when it comes to non-terrestrial challenges. “As geography and geo-information scientists, we bring something different to the party, quantitatively tying together different disciplines to support decisions in industry and government” he said. “And I believe both of these grants are great examples of what George Mason can do.”

Topics

Research

College of Science

Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science

National Science Foundation

GCI-Space

Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program (ASSIP)

College of Engineering and Computing

Learn more about the College of Science

One AI model, trillions of variants: Breaking mass attacks on voice assistants

Nathan Kahl — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 16:16:20 +0000

One AI model, trillions of variants: Breaking mass attacks on voice assistants Nathan Kahl Thu, 10/15/2026 - 12:16

Imagine sitting in your home, listening to what you think is a run-of-the-mill advertisement or perhaps a piece of music you enjoy. But while you hum along, that audio file is sending a secret, malicious audio message—imperceptible to human ears—telling your home assistant to unlock your door or maybe transfer money from your bank account.

It is this stealth threat that ��ɫ��Ƶ Department of Computer Science associate professor Qiang Zeng is investigating.

"You hear one thing, but what the AI interprets is something else," Zeng said.

Zeng and PhD student Ying Meng developed a technique that could make such attacks more difficult, without slowing down devices or requiring companies to spend millions of dollars retraining their artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

He presented a paper outlining their approach, called DivNet, this summer at the prestigious 2026 ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys) in Cambridge, England.

Zeng is working on a patent for DivNet, given its broad usefulness. Photo provided

The dangers of this melodic, malicious hack are magnified because manufacturers commonly install identical AI models across millions of devices. It would be as if every house in a neighborhood had the same lock, someone possessing one key could access each home. An attacker who successfully manipulates one device could potentially use the same recording against several others.

Training sophisticated models is expensive, so companies have little incentive to create a different one for every customer. DivNet creates numerous slightly different versions of an AI model, preventing attackers from using the same malicious audio to fool multiple devices; rather than giving every device an identical defense, it makes each AI model slightly different.

The researchers accomplish this by examining the millions of numerical values, called weights, that help a neural network process information. Some weights are important for accurately recognizing ordinary speech. Others contribute little to normal recognition but are important to the success of audio attacks. DivNet identifies and selectively changes the latter.

By modifying different combinations of these weights, the researchers produce an enormous number of distinct models that continue recognizing legitimate speech accurately but respond differently to malicious recordings.

Tests using established speech-recognition systems found that DivNet substantially reduced the success of attacks while causing minimal reductions in normal recognition accuracy. Unlike many existing defenses, DivNet also adds no processing time when a device recognizes speech. After an initial analysis, generating a new variant takes only milliseconds. The number of possible variants exceeds the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe, offering an enormous pool of alternatives. Even a single voice assistant can periodically switch variants, making attacks even harder to develop and reuse.

And perhaps its biggest practical advantage is cost. "Every time you train the AI system, it's very expensive because you need the GPU," Zeng said, referring to the powerful processors used to develop AI models.

The researchers created the DivNet project website with demonstrations and technical information, including audio examples showing how identical malicious recordings produce different results across model variants.

Zeng, who started a recent meeting about this research by casually addressing his home assistant with "Alexa, good morning," activating the lights in his home, recognizes the benefits as a consumer himself; he owns five Alexa speakers, by his count.

He said the team is pursuing commercialization, believing the approach could interest major technology companies. "We are applying for patents because we think it has some value."

And for users of the ever-expanding AI assistants, that’s music—and ONLY music—to their ears.

Explore AI at George Mason

Research in Action

In This Story

Qiang Zeng

Topics

computer science

AI hacking

Artificial Intelligence

Research

patent

Student and faculty researchers team up to drive societal change

Susan Martonik — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:47:47 +0000

Student and faculty researchers team up to drive societal change Susan Martonik Wed, 10/14/2026 - 12:47

This summer, classrooms gave way to labs, field sites, and data sets as ��ɫ��Ƶ faculty and students partnered to tackle some of society's most pressing challenges. The research teams explored complex issues—many aligned with the university’s Grand Challenge Initiative—examining them from multiple perspectives and generating new insights to help shape future solutions.

These Summer Team Impact Projects, supported by grants from Mason Impact, were led by faculty members who assembled teams of undergraduate and graduate students from across disciplines. Students—who received stipends to support their participation—took part in a one-week boot camp to begin the 10-week program, along with various enrichment activities throughout the summer. The students shared their findings at the Office of Student Creative Activities and Research Summer Celebration of Student Scholarship and Impact.

Summer Team Impact Project researchers Abigail Naidoo (left) and Katelyn Mckee present at the OSCAR Summer 2026 Celebration. Photo by Susan Lawrence.

The research spanned a wide range of topics, including homelessness and climate-related challenges, using virtual reality to support health, changes in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to better understand how people move through cities, and the impact of generative AI on student writing.

Susan Lawrence and Courtney Massie, director and assistant director, respectively, of the Writing Center, led a project titled “Student Writers and Generative AI: Investigating Practices, Knowledge, and Critical Literacies.” Working with a team of six undergraduate students and one graduate mentor, their research examined how George Mason students are integrating generative AI into their writing processes in realistic academic settings. It also explored the extent to which writers saw themselves thinking critically and the ownership they felt over their work.

While Lawrence and Massie oversaw the project, their team of students led the research-- interviewing participants, coding results, and analyzing data to generate findings.

“I conducted qualitative research using in-depth interviews and coding to determine insights about how George Mason students use generative AI in their writing,” said Marisa Parikh, an Honors College student majoring in public administration in the Schar School of Policy and Government. “One of the most valuable things I learned was how new developments in technology are impacting students today. This helped me look more long term at how institutions can promote accessibility to education for all students and use this technology as a tool to increase student success outcomes.”

Lawrence spoke highly of the student researchers’ work. “Having a multidisciplinary team of student researchers was a major asset for this project,” she said. “They connected easily with participants during interviews, and their diverse perspectives on generative AI helped shape how we ultimately interpreted the data.”

The team has submitted their project for presentation at the International Writing Centers Association conference in October and are moving toward publishing a manuscript. Beyond its scholarly contributions, the project also highlighted the Writing Center as a valuable setting for research on writing and literacy.

Jenna Krall, associate professor of global and community health, and Marybeth Mitcham, assistant professor of global and community health, both in the College of Public Health, along with Fengxiu Zhang, assistant professor in the Schar School, led another Summer Team Impact Project on “Supportive Housing as Climate Resiliency: Resident, Community, and Government Perspectives.” Working with a team of nine student researchers, the project sought to understand the challenges of homelessness and environmental hazards using community health, environmental science, and policy frameworks.

“There are huge knowledge gaps in this space, so we split our researchers into three groups to gather multiple perspectives,” said Krall. “Our team meetings became a space where the students could experiment and sandbox ideas for how to analyze the data they collected. They weren’t just checking boxes; they were helping build a knowledge base to inform future research and practice.”

Professor Krall's Summer Team Impact Project members take a field trip to the Lamb Center. Photo by Jenna Krall.

The research team presented their findings to local partners, including the Lamb Center and the City of Fairfax. Efforts are also underway to publish the research.

“The project provided me with real-life experience of how it is to work on a team, in particular building my skill of patience through the research process, understanding the reason for the project, working with colleagues, and letting creative ideas flow,” said student researcher Alex Romero Valenzuela, a community health major in the College of Public Health who is pursuing a master's degree in public health through George Mason's bachelor’s-to-accelerated master's (BAM) program.

For Krall, the experience was rewarding both professionally and personally. A George Mason alum, she participated in a summer research project as an undergraduate. “I’ve wanted to apply for this grant since I started teaching at George Mason,” she said. “It’s especially meaningful to come full circle and introduce current students to research as a potential career path.”

“The Summer Team Impact Projects provide valuable experience for all involved. Faculty can pursue research in areas of personal and professional interest, while students gain hands-on experience with research design, implementation, and analysis,” said Jesse Guessford, director of curriculum and initiatives in the Office of Undergraduate Education. “This program brings together two of George Mason’s key priorities: supporting student success and creating opportunities for faculty scholarship and innovation.”

Explore Research at George Mason

Explore summer research projects

Topics

Summer Impact

Office of the Provost

Mason Impact

Research

Students

College of Public Health

Writing Center

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Schar School

Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

Honors College

George Mason researchers bolster flood resilience of Virginia towns

tdonnel — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:43:28 +0000

George Mason researchers bolster flood resilience of Virginia towns tdonnel Mon, 10/12/2026 - 12:43

In This Story

Celso Ferreira

For residents of Waverly and Jarratt in southeastern Virginia, flooding is an increasingly frequent concern. Intense rainfall, aging drainage infrastructure, low-lying terrain, and unpredictable weather patterns threaten homes, businesses, and public safety. ��ɫ��Ƶ’s Celso Ferreira, a professor of civil, environmental, and infrastructure engineering and director of the Flood Hazards Research Lab, is working to improve the towns’ flood resilience.

Ferreira's project builds on his long-standing work partnering with local governments to apply advanced flood modeling, hazard assessment, and resilience planning tools to real-world community challenges. This project grew from a partnership with the Crater Planning District Commission and the Virginia Climate Center.

Through his research and teaching, Ferreira has created opportunities for students and researchers to provide technical expertise that many smaller communities would otherwise struggle to access. His work combines engineering analysis, data-driven decision making, and community engagement to help local leaders identify vulnerabilities and prioritize solutions.

Cars in a flood. Adobe Stock.

"Communities like Waverly and Jarratt are facing increasingly complex flood challenges," said Ferreira. "Our goal is to provide science-based information that helps local leaders understand their risks and make informed decisions about protecting residents, infrastructure, and economic activity."

The initiative will leverage cutting-edge hydrologic and hydraulic modeling techniques to evaluate flood hazards under a range of conditions. The resulting analyses can help communities identify areas most vulnerable to flooding, assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures, and develop strategies that improve long-term resilience.

For George Mason, the effort reflects a broader commitment to applying research expertise to statewide challenges. As Virginia experiences growing pressure from extreme precipitation events, climate variability, and expanding development, engineering solutions are important for safeguarding communities and critical infrastructure. The College of Engineering and Computing is advancing research that not only expands scientific understanding but also delivers practical benefits across the commonwealth.

"Engineering research should create measurable impacts in people's lives," Ferreira said. "By working directly with communities, we can translate advanced modeling and analysis into tools that support better planning, stronger infrastructure, and safer neighborhoods."

The partnerships with Waverly and Jarratt also demonstrate the value of university-community collaboration. Through these relationships, George Mason researchers bring innovative technologies and specialized expertise to local governments while gaining insight into the practical challenges communities face.

"Flood resilience is not just about responding to the next storm," Ferreira said. "It's about helping communities prepare for the future, adapt to changing conditions, and build confidence that they can withstand and recover from flood events."

As the project moves forward, Ferreira and his team aim to provide Waverly and Jarratt with actionable knowledge that supports long-term resilience. The work exemplifies George Mason’s mission to serve Virginia through research, innovation, and partnerships that address some of the commonwealth's most pressing challenges.

Topics

Sustainability

civil engineering; stormwater infrastructure; climate variability

Research

GCI-Climate

Statistical sleuthing strengthens medical records

Nathan Kahl — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:23:13 +0000

Statistical sleuthing strengthens medical records Nathan Kahl Mon, 10/12/2026 - 12:23

Accurate records are key to a safe, well-run health care system. But getting databases to communicate well even within the same system can be an uphill battle. And when they do talk, there must be processes in place to ensure that the entry for a “John Q. Public” in one database is the same as the “John Q. Public” in another. Otherwise, medical mistakes can happen, and John Quincy might get the drug meant for John Quentin.

That challenging problem is the focus of a new project led by Brenda Betancourt, an associate professor in ��ɫ��Ƶ's Department of Statistics. Funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the project will examine how researchers assess and report the uncertainty that arises when records from different sources are linked.

Betancourt will apply Bayesian statistical models, her research focus, for the project. Photo provided

In the FDA's case, that could mean combining electronic health records from medical providers with Medicare claims, pharmacy records, and other sources. Linking those sources can give researchers richer information about a patient's experience with a drug, medical device, or treatment.

But doing that accurately can be difficult, and small details can make a big difference. For example, a person's first and middle names might appear in one database but only a first name in another. An address may change. Other identifying information may be missing or inconsistent. Two people, such as a father and son, could even share the same name.

“You have a high probability when names appear to match, that those are the same person, but there is no way to confirm,” Betancourt said. “If important information, such as date of birth, is missing, you cannot distinguish between them. What I want to do is evaluate how the linkage quality and the uncertainty that comes with it is evaluated, reported, and incorporated into regulatory inference.”

Record linkage was included in an FDA announcement seeking proposals because the issue cuts across many of the agency's responsibilities, from medical devices to rare diseases. The FDA was interested in data linked by outside sponsors, such as pharmaceutical companies conducting post-market surveillance of their products.

Betancourt said the agency wants the resulting framework to help those organizations understand what information they should report and what potential problems they should consider when conducting linkage studies.

“We want to share it with sponsors to guide them through what they need to be reporting. It will tell them what to take into consideration when they are doing their linkage studies,” she said. It would also provide FDA reviewers with a way to evaluate those studies and determine whether uncertainty in the linkage could affect their conclusions.

The problem extends well beyond any single type of medical data. Health care providers themselves may use different electronic record systems at different locations, making it difficult to connect information even within the same health system.

“Sometimes each location even has a different electronic health record system that is not standardized,” Betancourt said. “You can go to the same big umbrella health system, go to two different locations, and your data is not going to be synced.”

A universal identifier across databases would make matching records far easier, but often no such identifier exists. That leaves researchers piecing together records using information that may itself be incomplete or inconsistent.

Betancourt will begin the FDA project by examining the record-linkage methods currently being used in studies submitted by sponsors. That review will help determine the statistical approaches she uses later in the project.

Which approach proves most useful will depend on what Betancourt finds when she digs into those records. When medical decisions depend on getting John Quincy's records rather than John Quentin's, the devil, as they say, is in the details.

Topics

Statistics

Medical Records

Food and Drug Administration

Research

College of Engineering and Computing

GCI-Health

Research

��ɫ��Ƶ and VCU partnership seeks answers to chronic neuropathy pain after breast cancer treatment

Related News

Topics

Advancing AI research, from the word Go

Topics

4-VA project brings 'serious' games to nursing education

In This Story

Related Stories

Topics

One in five young adults in the U.S. experience daily anxiety

Key Takeaways

In This Story

Why it matters

Topics

Childhood experiences of war loom large over CEOs’ decision-making

Related Stories

Topics

NSF grants to support novel space weather prediction models and cybersecurity that could help further non-terrestrial infrastructure

Topics

Related news

One AI model, trillions of variants: Breaking mass attacks on voice assistants

In This Story

Related Stories

Topics

Student and faculty researchers team up to drive societal change

Related News

Topics

George Mason researchers bolster flood resilience of Virginia towns

In This Story

Topics

Statistical sleuthing strengthens medical records

Topics