Driven to Discover

Impact Innovations Award

Dr. Ellen Demerath is a Distinguished McKnight Professor in the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. Her research portfolio examines the interplay of genetic and early-life environmental factors on growth rate and body composition changes throughout the lifespan, and their impact on obesity and chronic disease risk in later life.

Dr. Logan Spector is a Professor in the University of Minnesota’s Medical School, Pediatrics Department and is pediatric cancer epidemiologist specializing in the etiology of leukemia, bone, and liver tumors. The goal of Dr. Spector’s research is to enable prediction, early detection, and eventually, prevention of childhood cancer.

Together, in their roles as Co-Directors of the Driven to Discover Research Facility, Drs. Demerath and Spector spearheaded the creation, development, implementation and growth of the program, building it into a successful platform that brings together University faculty, staff, students and fair-going Minnesotans to promote greater public understanding and participation in research.

The Driven to Discover (D2D) Research Facility at the Minnesota State Fair launched in 2014 and links the substantial research capacity of the University of Minnesota with the largest public gathering in the state. The D2D program helps build a culture of research participation and accelerate learning on issues critical to the health and wellbeing of Minnesota citizens. Serving as a forum for knowledge and ideas, D2D allows fair-goers to participate in research in an innovative and convenient way. The D2D Research Facility allows researchers to meet enrollment goals in a matter of hours or days (as opposed to months or years) and provides a broader pool of participants than typically accessible. In ten years, the D2D program has reached more than 490,000 fair-goers and enrolled nearly 167,000 individuals.