Photo By Maddi Langweil | In August, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine's Maj. John Sellers,...... read more read more
Lethal warfighters power the force of today, but the Army will employ a far more vigorous generation in the future. To support this evolution of warfighters, the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine is developing new scientific innovations, as revealed during the 2025 Military Health System Research Symposium.
The Department of Defense's premier annual scientific conference invites DoD subject-matter experts, international partners and industry-related organizations to engage in conversation and spark new efforts that will enhance the future warfighters’ ability to serve and protect in response to evolving military needs.
This year, several U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine researchers, soldiers and Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education research fellows attended the four-day international event presenting seven oral presentations and eighteen poster presentations while moderating four warfighter-centric sessions to hundreds and thousands of the four thousand attendees.
“I’m excited to be here and very grateful for the opportunity to present and be immersed amongst others of expertise,” said Capt. Katelyn Culley, Occupational Therapy Researcher at USARIEM. “MHSRS grants our team the opportunity to showcase cognitive biomedical research which offers solutions to optimize and sustain Warfighter mental performance, lethality and readiness. Our work focuses on environmental exposures, readiness state monitoring, occupational epidemiology, injury risk mitigation, return to duty strategies and biomedical performance enhancement to sustain and improve Warfighter capabilities for present and future missions.”
Culley had the opportunity to present two research posters, one on the relationship between pain catastrophizing and pain sensitivity in Army basic trainees and the other on leveraging culturally relevant events for empirically supported suicide prevention training. Similar to Culley’s work, many attendees were drawn to USARIEM presentations, including Staff Sgt. Michelle Ott’s study on the diet quality of U.S military cadets across sexes, conducted by the Military Nutrition Division at USARIEM.
Ott and the research team found that the diet quality of U.S. military cadets could be improved, and future research will be needed to look at potential mediators of lower diet quality between men and women. “This was a very popular topic during my session; it opened up new doors to speak with others in the nutrition field,” Ott said.
But to make a difference, like the research Ott and Culley conducted, “it has to be actionable data,” said USARIEM Research Psychologist Bill Tharion during Wednesday’s human system and wearable oral presentation session, which he moderated. Tharion adds that the work USARIEM does to support the warfighter needs to have a keen sense of purpose that directly helps build the future of the U.S. Armed Forces.
In a previous operational health and performance session, moderated by Research Physiologist Holly McClung and Lt. Col. Bridget Owens, McClung delivered an oral presentation on the award-winning Army Comprehensive Body Composition Study, known as the ACBC. The ACBC study led to key updates to Army policy that modernized the way warfighters are measured under the Army Body Composition Program.
“We need to understand what the force looks like and make sure every warfighter is equally unbiasedly measured. At the time, the most current database we had was from the early 2000s and the equations we were using were 20 years old, and we know that the U.S. population has changed, the Army population has changed,” McClung said during her oral presentation. “So, the time was right for USARIEM to go out and answer these questions to inform Army Senior Leaders.”
As researchers shared innovative policy-changing research that benefits the future of warfighter fitness and long-term health in one session, on the other side of the conference in another session, Col. Laura McGhee, Acting Chief of the Military Performance Division, discussed how to translate research from the lab to experimentation — a concept that is used for operational testing of proposed warfighting concepts, technologies and conditions to meet the needs of the future force.
“Not everything a lab does results in something that can participate in experimentation,” McGhee said during Tuesday’s afternoon session.
For many experienced USARIEM researchers, like research physiologists Karl Friedl, Beth Beidleman and Gabrielle Giersch, MHSRS has become an annual place to present and collaborate with fellow associates. Other USARIEM researchers presented at MHSRS for the first time including Staff Sgt. Gabrielle Martinez and Lt. Col. Pierre Fabries, Ph.D., Research Physiologist.
“When I attended MHSRS last year, I observed confident and rehearsed scientists and applied that experience and knowledge to the presentation we get to see today,” Martinez said. “I took my mentorship from my officers and the investment I’ve been putting in myself to highlight this important work that I get to present this year.”
This research, Martinez suggests, has been a year-long study that she has helped conduct and complete from the beginning to the end. “I now get to see all that data that I helped collect come alive,” she said.
Each year at the Military Health System Research Symposium, researchers, fellows and soldiers showcase their warfighter-centric work with the promise to support the new generation of the military. At MHSRS, like-minded peers are forming a better, stronger and faster group of warfighters to be more lethal and optimized in all environments—a mission USARIEM strives for everyday.
“As a warfighter and as a researcher, I am part of the extraordinary team at USARIEM that uses science to support people like me,” Ott said. “The work we do positively impacts the warfighter that has already saved countless lives and will save more in the future.”
USARIEM is a subordinate command of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command under the Army Futures Command. USARIEM is internationally recognized as the DOD's premier laboratory for Warfighter health and performance research and focuses on environmental medicine, physiology, physical and cognitive performance, and nutrition research. Located at the Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts, USARIEM's mission is to research and deliver solutions to enhance Warfighter health, performance and lethality in all environments.
| Date Taken: | 08.08.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.26.2025 12:16 |
| Story ID: | 546517 |
| Location: | KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 57 |
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This work, USARIEM Optimizes Lethality at the Military Health System Research Symposium, by Maddi Langweil, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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