The RAPID (Rural Aerial Provision of Intervention & Delivery) initiative has been selected as one of three winning projects in the President’s Interdisciplinary Research Accelerator Challenge, organized by the UNLV Division of Research.

RAPID is co-led by principal investigator Kavita Batra and co-PI Dr. Deborah Kuhls (both Medicine). The interdisciplinary leadership team also includes Paul Oh (Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering), Dr. Elissa Palmer (Medicine), Jason Flatt (Public Health), and Noehealani Antolin (Medicine).

Together, the team represents expertise across emergency and trauma care, family and rural medicine, public health and health equity, engineering and aviation systems, data and analytics, and community engagement. The RAPID initiative focuses on strengthening emergency response systems by integrating medical drones into 911 and EMS workflows to deliver lifesaving care faster, particularly for rural and frontier communities.

As part of the award, the RAPID team will receive support to work with the national research development firm McAllister & Quinn on extramural funding strategy, proposal development, and review.