Jackson State University pursues top research status

Professor Kamal Ali and his team of Jackson State University student researchers spent their summer tending to a crate of oysters, magnets and wires.

The team has been developing tiny sensors that attach to oyster shells to collect data on how the creatures respond to changes in their environment.

The marine research project is part of the Mississippi Based RESTORE Act Center of Excellence, or MBRACE, and one of 400 research projects at Jackson State.

It’s also an example of a much larger ambition: JSU leaders want to join the nation’s highest tier of research institutions, a designation they believe could help the university attract top faculty and students, compete for larger federal grants and expand its national reputation.

In April, Jackson State was among 14 historically Black colleges and universities to launch the Association of HBCU Research Institutions. The coalition aims to help HBCUs to compete for larger grants and expand their campus programs. The coalition will also work with the country’s top research universities and receive support from Harvard University. For now, Howard University is the only HBCU in the country with such status.

“As JSU succeeds, so does the city of Jackson and the state of Mississippi, and the collaboration positions us to drive meaningful economic growth and transformative discovery at scale,” Jackson State President Denise Jones Gregory said in an email.

Gaining the designation as one of the nation’s top research universities requires spending at least $50 million annually on research and development and awarding at least 70 research doctorates, according to the American Council on Education, which helps manage the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a system used to group and rank colleges and universities.

The project Ali and his students are working on is also an example of how that research can have a broad impact. EMBRACE, funded with a $26 million, 15-year grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, partners JSU with Mississippi State, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

“Oyster reefs used to be a $100 million industry and prime indicator of the health of the Mississippi Gulf Coast but hurricanes, disease, seawater pollutants and other environmental factors frequently affect these habitats,” said Ali, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “So protecting Mississippi’s culture, traditions and revenue from the Gulf is an important part of what we do here that has the potential to bring jobs and money to the state.”

In 2023, JSU spent nearly $19.5 million in research and development, said Almesha Campbell, the university’s vice president of research and economic development. Jackson State’s key research areas include cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, health disparities, materials science and civil engineering.

For JSU to reach that $50 million benchmark, the university will need to seek larger research grants, not just from the federal government, but from private industry. By partnering with the coalition, the university can gain more visibility and work with other universities who are looking to share resources.

“We’re now asking how do we get more contracts, more grants and opportunities? How do we partner and bring in money that’s not from the federal government into the institution to expand its capacity,” Campbell said.

University leaders are also working to recruit and hire new faculty who could take on research and expand programs to recruit students, Campbell said.

JSU is already close to one of the Carnegie benchmarks. The university awards nearly 68 doctoral degrees annually, close to the 70 research doctorates required for the high research status, said Preselfannie McDaniels, provost and vice president of academic affairs.

JSU has 13 doctoral programs. The College of Education and Human Development awards more doctorates than other programs at the university, McDaniels said. JSU’s top programs have produced 27 education doctorates, 12 health professional doctorates and eight psychology doctorates. Research doctorates are degrees classified by the federal government as focused on research or scholarship.

The university also has an internal quality assurance committee that reviews doctoral programs and student research, she said.

“We were never totally worried about meeting that particular challenge,” McDaniels said. “But we have been very dedicated to making sure that we weren’t focused on numbers when it came to our dissertations. But, we were focused on rigor and on the product itself being the very best.”

Sharolyn Love, a member of JSU alumni group Thee 1877 Project, said the university must end leadership turnover and create a long-term strategic plan to reach its goals. Then it could also attract the support of billionaire donors and other investors.

“We’re seeing a resurgence of HBCUs despite what is happening in the state and across the nation,” Love said. “The designation could open up just a huge avenue of possibilities for the university for the future.”

Strengthening Jackson State’s status as a research university also opens career paths and opportunities for students, Ali said.

“A lot of people don’t know that some of the research we’re doing is work behind the scenes supporting large projects in the state of Mississippi,” Ali said. “But the exposure of the work leads to innovation and opportunity for our next generation of scientists, researchers and engineers.”

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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.