Dayton Business Journal: Wright State enters agreement with WPAFB for campus access, deeper collaboration

Col. Travis Pond, deputy commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, and Wright State President Sue Edwards signed an agreement that allows Wright-Patterson Air Force Base personnel to work throughout the Wright State’s campus. (Photo by Erin Pence)

A local university has expanded upon a previously signed agreement which will allow Air Force personnel to access its campus. The agreement will provide an effective collaboration between both entities that will further strengthen the partnership.

Thanks to an expanded partnership agreement, researchers from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) now have access to work throughout Wright State University’s campus.

The agreement builds on an initiative launched in December 2022 that gave Air Force researchers access to office and laboratory spaces in Wright State’s Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building. Wright-Patt personnel now can utilize other areas of Wright State’s campus, including labs, classrooms, office space and on-campus housing.

The agreement demonstrates Wright State’s commitment to supporting Wright-Patt and the region, said Sue Edwards, Wright State University president.

“Wright State, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base all benefit from our close partnership,” Edwards said. “This partnership offers Wright State students and faculty hands-on experience through internships, cooperative programs and research projects while supporting workforce development for AFRL and WPAFB. By linking academic expertise with cutting-edge research and real-world applications, the collaboration creates a robust ecosystem for innovation, talent cultivation and contributions to national security.”

More than 60 AFRL researchers are actively working in laboratories in Wright State’s Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building, fostering deeper collaboration and integration. The research conducted in the facility includes sleep research, brain stimulation for performance augmentation and cognitive performance monitoring.

The Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building is home to translational research and collaboration with highly integrated laboratories, core resources and interactive student spaces. A full 55,000 square feet of the four-story building is dedicated to research.

“Putting people on Wright State’s Campus, working together, getting them outside the fence from an Air Force perspective, is going to allow excellence to happen,” said Timothy Bunning, chief technology officer at the Air Force Research Laboratory. “I think there are wins on both sides.”

This building houses the region’s only advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner dedicated exclusively to research, facilitating groundbreaking work in neuroscience.

The MRI scanner is operated by Wright State’s Center of Neuroimaging and Neuro-Evaluation of Cognitive Technologies, whose mission is to foster a collaborative environment for the Defense Department and academic neuroscience research in the Miami Valley.

The scanner was funded through a Defense University Research Instrumentation program from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the State of Ohio Action fund by leveraging Wright State’s collaborations with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s 711th Human Performance Wing.

“Research is, for me, the heart and soul of advancement in our community,” Edwards said. “Our Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building is the ideal building for collaborative research to be conducted. And we look forward to furthering our work with the AFRL team throughout Wright State’s campus in the future.”

Read the article at bizjournals.com/dayton.