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Dr. Grimes research focuses on physical activity and the associated health and social influences across demographic groups. Her work is guided by ecological models that posit multiple levels of influence on physical activity. Her recent work has focused on community-based interventions to address chronic diseases associated with physical inactivity.

Associate professor in and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where I am also an associate faculty member of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. My research focuses on women in conflict, negotiations between states and factionalized insurgencies, and the reintegration of veterans. I currently serve on the editorial board of International Interactions, as the 2022 President of the Midwest region of the International Studies Association, and as a faculty fellow of UMKC's CAFE program. I am also a contributor at Political Violence at a Glance, an affiliated researcher with the Missouri Institute of Defense and Energy, and a 2020/21 alumna of the International Policy Summer Institute.

Dr. Shuo Han is a Research Associate in the School of Science & Engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Han's research centers on questions related to life health, bio-environment, microbial energy, and bio-nanotechnology. Dr. Han is interested in many biological chemistry questions and seeks to conduct sound and exciting science. Dr. Han is a strong proponent of open and collaborative science.

Research in the Cox lab is aimed at understanding the genetic and epigenetic contributions that govern normal facial development and determine an individual’s susceptibility to common craniofacial malformations, such as cleft lip/palate and craniofacial microsomia.

Dr. Spletter's research interests lie in understanding how the regulation of RNA processing and alternative splicing defines the structure and function of muscles. Our bodies contain hundreds of different muscles that have distinct morphological and contractile properties. In muscle disease and atrophy, changes in RNA regulation contribute to muscle malfunction. To understand how these changes alter muscle biology, the Spletter lab uses the powerful genetic model organism Drosophila melanogaster. Many of the RNA binding proteins that regulate RNA processing in muscle, such as CELF, RBFOX and MBNL family proteins, are also found in flies, and structural components as well as the mechanism of muscle contraction are highly conserved. Dr. Spletter's lab focuses on how changes in gene isoform expression alter the construction of the myofibril cytoskeleton and the regulation of actomyosin interactions. They employ a wide variety of experimental techniques, merging classic genetic analysis with live-imaging, confocal microscopy, biochemistry, and transcriptomics. Their work provides disease-relevant insight into the developmental functions of RNA binding proteins, affords a more detailed understanding of the process of sarcomere assembly and reveals conserved mechanisms by which muscles employ RNA regulation to fine-tune their contractile properties.