Education (Colleges & Universities)
Here's a look at documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
Education (Colleges & Universities)
Auburn College of Engineering Hosts National Transportation Leaders for CUTC Summer Meeting (7/2/26)
Binghamton University: Biology Alumni Receive Honor for Undergraduate Paleontology Research (7/2/26)
Featured Stories
MUSC Health, Charleston County schools team up to expand care for student-athletes
CHARLESTON, South Carolina, July 2 -- The Medical University of South Carolina issued the following news release:
* * *
MUSC Health, Charleston County schools team up to expand care for student-athletes
MUSC Health Sports Medicine has been named the official health care partner for the Charleston County School District (CCSD) through a five-year agreement, providing comprehensive sports medicine services across the district. MUSC Health will provide 11 athletic trainers dedicated to CCSD schools along with physician support.
This new partnership includes the following schools:
- Baptist Hill ... Show Full Article CHARLESTON, South Carolina, July 2 -- The Medical University of South Carolina issued the following news release: * * * MUSC Health, Charleston County schools team up to expand care for student-athletes MUSC Health Sports Medicine has been named the official health care partner for the Charleston County School District (CCSD) through a five-year agreement, providing comprehensive sports medicine services across the district. MUSC Health will provide 11 athletic trainers dedicated to CCSD schools along with physician support. This new partnership includes the following schools: - Baptist HillMiddle School and Baptist Hill High School.
- Burke High School.
- Military Magnet Academy.
- North Charleston High School.
- R. B. Stall High School.
- St. John's High School.
- Wando High School.
- West Ashley High School.
"At MUSC Health, we're committed to keeping student-athletes healthy, safe and performing at their best, both on and off the field. This partnership with Charleston County School District expands access to expert sports medicine care, athletic training services and specialized resources that support injury prevention, treatment and recovery," said Saj Joy M.D., CEO of MUSC Health-Charleston Division. "We're proud to partner with CCSD to help ensure student-athletes across Charleston County have access to the high-quality care they need to succeed."
For each school, an MUSC Health athletic trainer will provide daily on-site sports medicine coverage throughout the academic year as well as physician coverage for all home varsity football games. The partnership also extends to the summer months for off-season conditioning and training. Injured or ill athletes and coaches will receive expedited access to the vast services provided by MUSC Health. "Charleston County School District Athletics is thrilled to partner with MUSC Health to provide our student-athletes, coaches and parents with exceptional athletic training services," said CCSD's executive director of Athletics, Gene Ross. "Having dedicated MUSC athletic trainers on our sidelines ensures that our school communities have access to top-tier, localized medical care and injury prevention. This collaboration allows us to elevate safety, health and the overall athletic experience across all our athletic departments."
The partnership strengthens coordination between school-based athletic training services and MUSC Health's broader sports medicine network. When additional evaluation or treatment is needed, student-athletes can be connected to the appropriate specialists and services, supporting timely, comprehensive care.
For more information about the MUSC Health sports medicine services, visit Sports Medicine | MUSC Health.
About MUSC Health
Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state's only comprehensive academic health system, with a mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates nearly 3,500 students in six colleges and trains more than 1,060 residents and fellows across its health system. MUSC leads the state in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, including National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE awards. For information on our academic programs, visit musc.edu.
As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. In 2025, for the 11th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.
MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $8.9 billion. The more than 36,200 MUSC members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, contract employees, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research and patient care.
About the Charleston County School District
Charleston County School District (CCSD) is a nationally accredited school district committed to providing equitable and quality educational opportunities for all its students. CCSD is the second-largest school system in South Carolina and represents a unique blend of urban, suburban, and rural schools spanning 1,300 square miles along the coast. CCSD serves approximately 51,000 students in 90 schools and specialized programs.
CCSD offers a diverse portfolio of educational options and specialized programs delivered to the students of CCSD through neighborhood, magnet, IB (international baccalaureate), Montessori, and charter schools and programs. Rich educational opportunities for students include programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); music and other creative and performing arts; career and technical preparation programs; military; dual credit; and many more.
***
Original text here: https://www.musc.edu/content-hub/News/2026/07/01/musc-and-ccsd-partnership
* * *
MUSC Health, Charleston County schools team up to expand care for student-athletes
MUSC Health Sports Medicine has been named the official health care partner for the Charleston County School District (CCSD) through a five-year agreement, providing comprehensive sports medicine services across the district. MUSC Health will provide 11 athletic trainers dedicated to CCSD schools along with physician support.
This new partnership includes the following schools:
- Baptist Hill ... Show Full Article CHARLESTON, South Carolina, July 2 -- The Medical University of South Carolina issued the following news release: * * * MUSC Health, Charleston County schools team up to expand care for student-athletes MUSC Health Sports Medicine has been named the official health care partner for the Charleston County School District (CCSD) through a five-year agreement, providing comprehensive sports medicine services across the district. MUSC Health will provide 11 athletic trainers dedicated to CCSD schools along with physician support. This new partnership includes the following schools: - Baptist HillMiddle School and Baptist Hill High School.
- Burke High School.
- Military Magnet Academy.
- North Charleston High School.
- R. B. Stall High School.
- St. John's High School.
- Wando High School.
- West Ashley High School.
"At MUSC Health, we're committed to keeping student-athletes healthy, safe and performing at their best, both on and off the field. This partnership with Charleston County School District expands access to expert sports medicine care, athletic training services and specialized resources that support injury prevention, treatment and recovery," said Saj Joy M.D., CEO of MUSC Health-Charleston Division. "We're proud to partner with CCSD to help ensure student-athletes across Charleston County have access to the high-quality care they need to succeed."
For each school, an MUSC Health athletic trainer will provide daily on-site sports medicine coverage throughout the academic year as well as physician coverage for all home varsity football games. The partnership also extends to the summer months for off-season conditioning and training. Injured or ill athletes and coaches will receive expedited access to the vast services provided by MUSC Health. "Charleston County School District Athletics is thrilled to partner with MUSC Health to provide our student-athletes, coaches and parents with exceptional athletic training services," said CCSD's executive director of Athletics, Gene Ross. "Having dedicated MUSC athletic trainers on our sidelines ensures that our school communities have access to top-tier, localized medical care and injury prevention. This collaboration allows us to elevate safety, health and the overall athletic experience across all our athletic departments."
The partnership strengthens coordination between school-based athletic training services and MUSC Health's broader sports medicine network. When additional evaluation or treatment is needed, student-athletes can be connected to the appropriate specialists and services, supporting timely, comprehensive care.
For more information about the MUSC Health sports medicine services, visit Sports Medicine | MUSC Health.
About MUSC Health
Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state's only comprehensive academic health system, with a mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates nearly 3,500 students in six colleges and trains more than 1,060 residents and fellows across its health system. MUSC leads the state in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, including National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE awards. For information on our academic programs, visit musc.edu.
As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. In 2025, for the 11th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.
MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $8.9 billion. The more than 36,200 MUSC members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, contract employees, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research and patient care.
About the Charleston County School District
Charleston County School District (CCSD) is a nationally accredited school district committed to providing equitable and quality educational opportunities for all its students. CCSD is the second-largest school system in South Carolina and represents a unique blend of urban, suburban, and rural schools spanning 1,300 square miles along the coast. CCSD serves approximately 51,000 students in 90 schools and specialized programs.
CCSD offers a diverse portfolio of educational options and specialized programs delivered to the students of CCSD through neighborhood, magnet, IB (international baccalaureate), Montessori, and charter schools and programs. Rich educational opportunities for students include programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); music and other creative and performing arts; career and technical preparation programs; military; dual credit; and many more.
***
Original text here: https://www.musc.edu/content-hub/News/2026/07/01/musc-and-ccsd-partnership
MIT: How urban design leads to better wellness
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 (TNSjou) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news:
* * *
How urban design leads to better wellness
An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents' health.
-
A new big-data analysis of the U.S. pinpoints how urban design aids the health of city residents -especially when cities provide walking opportunities, greenery, and mixed-use streets with a blend of commercial and residential activity.
The study examines tens of thousands of urban ... Show Full Article CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 (TNSjou) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news: * * * How urban design leads to better wellness An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents' health. - A new big-data analysis of the U.S. pinpoints how urban design aids the health of city residents -especially when cities provide walking opportunities, greenery, and mixed-use streets with a blend of commercial and residential activity. The study examines tens of thousands of urbancensus-bureau tracts in the U.S., seeing how city features correlate with population health measures, while accounting for socioeconomic considerations as well.
"We found that on a very large scale, urban planning and design, such as the availability of different amenities and their spatial arrangement, plays a critical role in population health outomes," says Winston Yap, a visiting scholar at the MIT Senseable City Lab, a postdoc at Cornell University, and co-author of a new paper outlining the study's findings.
While there is not one design template for all locations, short and well-connected blocks with a variety of amenities, as well as the strategic placement of parks, all help well-being -physiologically and psychologically.
"We usually think about physical health first, but we also found a high correlation between good design and mental health," says Fabio Duarte, an MIT researcher and co-author of the paper. "If you are walking more, it is not only a matter of physical fitness, but gives people a chance to avoid isolation, have serendipitous meetings with people, and at least see there are others around."
The paper, "Urban motifs associated with population health," (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00151-9) appears today in Nature Health. The authors are Yap; Duarte, who is associate director and a principal research scientist at MIT Senseable City Lab; postdocs Yu Zheng, Kee Moon Zhang, and Peng Luo, who is also an incoming assistant professor at the University of Iowa; Paolo Vineis, a professor at Imperial College, London; Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; and Filip Biljecki, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
Only connect
The researchers say they conducted the analysis not just due to an interest in cities, but out of recognition that health care systems are often swamped, and preventative health measures are ever-more important.
"We wanted to do this study because health care systems around the world are overloaded," Yan says. "There's a lot of burden on health care systems, and there is a need not just for treatment but for prevention as well, for obesity, high cholesterol, depression and other mental health issues, and more."
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed 28,323 census tracts, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau along with health data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They then used geospatial data, including more than 8 million street view images, to see how urban form related to the health status of residents in those areas. The study accounts for socioeconomic factors and other variables in building an assessment of the relationship between design and health. The study confimed that by themselves, socioeconomic factors are associated with urban health disparities; it then examined the relative impact of differences in urban design in those different settings.
"By bringing together open demographic, health, and environmental data, the study highlights the importance of open data accessibility for planning healthy cities," says Ratti.
The scholars also applied a graph deep-learning model to the data, an emerging machine-learning technique they used to help understand which key factors in urban design are most connected to health outcomes.
The research reveals that in some cases, rectangularity in city blocks, and "building spread," meaning structures that cover the full size of their lots, can enhance wellness. Examples of this include Manhattan or Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, where mixed-use buildings on relatively short blocks create many amenities and a variety of walking routes. That said, circular and curving street forms can also work, as long as they feature a lot of interconnectedness as well.
Urban greenery is almost always a significant factor in urban wellness, with parks scoring high as a facet of city design that helps resident health. Beyond that, expanding the tree canopy can also help urban health outcomes.
The presence of cultural institutions and restaurants are also linked to general health, while access to health care amenities are understandably connected to physical health improvements. In general, access to points of interest, broadly defined, whether cultural or commercial, is a significant factor in abetting better health, in cities across the country.
"One of the major contributions of the study is that we look at not only one or two cities, but the entire United States," Yap says. "In a large-scale study, we were trying to find patterns that were consistent across different urban contexts, as well as populations with different characteristics. Just using this data, we can predict very confidently the population health outcomes for a neighborhood."
Knowing where to intervene
The research also provides a kind of road map for urban planners and city officials when it comes to policy decisions and local improvements. Among other things, the study suggests where cities might see the greatest return on investment in urban improvements, in health terms. Improvements in lower-income neighborhoods, on aggregate, may generate about four times the added health benefits than the same level of investment in better-off areas that already realize the benefits of good urban amenities.
"It's important to know where to intervene," Yan says.
"I think for me it shows how intertwined different policies are," Duarte adds. "Some funding for urban development could have a direct influence on health, and could be more inexpensive than [direct spending on health]."
The researchers regard the study as just one empirical step in this domain. As they note, additional studies could observe changes over time, to further enhance our picture of the connection between urban design and health. Still, as the authors write in the paper, "we believe that our broad picture provides an overarching scaffolding for the understanding of the social and material determinants of health and can guide [further] analytical studies."
The research received support from the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program of the National Research Foundation Singapore; the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART); and the MIT Senseable City Lab consortium. It is part of the Largescale 3D Geospatial Data for Urban Analytics project, supported by the National University of Singapore.
***
Original text here: https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-urban-design-leads-to-better-wellness-0701
* * *
How urban design leads to better wellness
An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents' health.
-
A new big-data analysis of the U.S. pinpoints how urban design aids the health of city residents -especially when cities provide walking opportunities, greenery, and mixed-use streets with a blend of commercial and residential activity.
The study examines tens of thousands of urban ... Show Full Article CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 (TNSjou) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news: * * * How urban design leads to better wellness An extensive study of U.S. cities identifies walkable neighborhoods, urban greenery, and access to amenities as key contributors to residents' health. - A new big-data analysis of the U.S. pinpoints how urban design aids the health of city residents -especially when cities provide walking opportunities, greenery, and mixed-use streets with a blend of commercial and residential activity. The study examines tens of thousands of urbancensus-bureau tracts in the U.S., seeing how city features correlate with population health measures, while accounting for socioeconomic considerations as well.
"We found that on a very large scale, urban planning and design, such as the availability of different amenities and their spatial arrangement, plays a critical role in population health outomes," says Winston Yap, a visiting scholar at the MIT Senseable City Lab, a postdoc at Cornell University, and co-author of a new paper outlining the study's findings.
While there is not one design template for all locations, short and well-connected blocks with a variety of amenities, as well as the strategic placement of parks, all help well-being -physiologically and psychologically.
"We usually think about physical health first, but we also found a high correlation between good design and mental health," says Fabio Duarte, an MIT researcher and co-author of the paper. "If you are walking more, it is not only a matter of physical fitness, but gives people a chance to avoid isolation, have serendipitous meetings with people, and at least see there are others around."
The paper, "Urban motifs associated with population health," (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00151-9) appears today in Nature Health. The authors are Yap; Duarte, who is associate director and a principal research scientist at MIT Senseable City Lab; postdocs Yu Zheng, Kee Moon Zhang, and Peng Luo, who is also an incoming assistant professor at the University of Iowa; Paolo Vineis, a professor at Imperial College, London; Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; and Filip Biljecki, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
Only connect
The researchers say they conducted the analysis not just due to an interest in cities, but out of recognition that health care systems are often swamped, and preventative health measures are ever-more important.
"We wanted to do this study because health care systems around the world are overloaded," Yan says. "There's a lot of burden on health care systems, and there is a need not just for treatment but for prevention as well, for obesity, high cholesterol, depression and other mental health issues, and more."
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed 28,323 census tracts, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau along with health data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They then used geospatial data, including more than 8 million street view images, to see how urban form related to the health status of residents in those areas. The study accounts for socioeconomic factors and other variables in building an assessment of the relationship between design and health. The study confimed that by themselves, socioeconomic factors are associated with urban health disparities; it then examined the relative impact of differences in urban design in those different settings.
"By bringing together open demographic, health, and environmental data, the study highlights the importance of open data accessibility for planning healthy cities," says Ratti.
The scholars also applied a graph deep-learning model to the data, an emerging machine-learning technique they used to help understand which key factors in urban design are most connected to health outcomes.
The research reveals that in some cases, rectangularity in city blocks, and "building spread," meaning structures that cover the full size of their lots, can enhance wellness. Examples of this include Manhattan or Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, where mixed-use buildings on relatively short blocks create many amenities and a variety of walking routes. That said, circular and curving street forms can also work, as long as they feature a lot of interconnectedness as well.
Urban greenery is almost always a significant factor in urban wellness, with parks scoring high as a facet of city design that helps resident health. Beyond that, expanding the tree canopy can also help urban health outcomes.
The presence of cultural institutions and restaurants are also linked to general health, while access to health care amenities are understandably connected to physical health improvements. In general, access to points of interest, broadly defined, whether cultural or commercial, is a significant factor in abetting better health, in cities across the country.
"One of the major contributions of the study is that we look at not only one or two cities, but the entire United States," Yap says. "In a large-scale study, we were trying to find patterns that were consistent across different urban contexts, as well as populations with different characteristics. Just using this data, we can predict very confidently the population health outcomes for a neighborhood."
Knowing where to intervene
The research also provides a kind of road map for urban planners and city officials when it comes to policy decisions and local improvements. Among other things, the study suggests where cities might see the greatest return on investment in urban improvements, in health terms. Improvements in lower-income neighborhoods, on aggregate, may generate about four times the added health benefits than the same level of investment in better-off areas that already realize the benefits of good urban amenities.
"It's important to know where to intervene," Yan says.
"I think for me it shows how intertwined different policies are," Duarte adds. "Some funding for urban development could have a direct influence on health, and could be more inexpensive than [direct spending on health]."
The researchers regard the study as just one empirical step in this domain. As they note, additional studies could observe changes over time, to further enhance our picture of the connection between urban design and health. Still, as the authors write in the paper, "we believe that our broad picture provides an overarching scaffolding for the understanding of the social and material determinants of health and can guide [further] analytical studies."
The research received support from the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program of the National Research Foundation Singapore; the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART); and the MIT Senseable City Lab consortium. It is part of the Largescale 3D Geospatial Data for Urban Analytics project, supported by the National University of Singapore.
***
Original text here: https://news.mit.edu/2026/how-urban-design-leads-to-better-wellness-0701
La Roche University Advances Global Academic Collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, July 2 -- La Roche University posted the following news release:
* * *
La Roche University Advances Global Academic Collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia
La Roche University is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Academic Cooperation with University of Southampton Malaysia (opens in a new tab) (UoSM), further strengthening the University's commitment to global engagement and expanding opportunities for international academic collaboration in Southeast Asia.
The agreement was formally signed by Christina A. Clark, ... Show Full Article PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, July 2 -- La Roche University posted the following news release: * * * La Roche University Advances Global Academic Collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia La Roche University is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Academic Cooperation with University of Southampton Malaysia (opens in a new tab) (UoSM), further strengthening the University's commitment to global engagement and expanding opportunities for international academic collaboration in Southeast Asia. The agreement was formally signed by Christina A. Clark,Ph.D., President of La Roche University, and Ehsan Mesbahi, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Provost of University of Southampton Malaysia. The partnership establishes a collaborative framework grounded in shared commitments to academic excellence, global mobility, research collaboration, and intercultural learning.
Under the framework of the MOU, La Roche University and University of Southampton Malaysia will explore a broad range of collaborative initiatives designed to benefit students, faculty, and staff at both institutions. Areas of cooperation include student and faculty exchanges, joint research activities, academic conferences and workshops, the exchange of academic materials and institutional knowledge, dual-degree opportunities, workforce development initiatives, and short-term academic and experiential programs. The agreement also supports the development of globally focused educational pathways that encourage intercultural engagement, innovation, and collaborative learning across disciplines.
Located in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, University of Southampton Malaysia is the international branch campus of the University of Southampton, a globally recognized research-intensive institution and founding member of the United Kingdom's prestigious Russell Group. UoSM delivers internationally focused academic programs grounded in the same academic standards, curriculum, and research excellence as its United Kingdom campus.
The University of Southampton is consistently ranked among the world's leading universities, including No. 80 in the QS World University Rankings 2025 and No. 115 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024. Several academic disciplines also rank among the global top 100, including Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Through its innovative international education model, UoSM provides students with access to globally recognized British education, cross-cultural learning experiences, and strong pathways for academic and professional success throughout Southeast Asia and beyond.
"Global partnerships play an essential role in preparing students to succeed in today's interconnected world," said President Clark. "Our collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia creates exciting opportunities for academic exchange, cross-cultural learning, and innovative international programming that will benefit both institutions and their students."
This agreement represents another important milestone in La Roche University's expanding global partnership network and broader internationalization strategy. Through collaborative academic initiatives and international learning opportunities, both institutions aim to foster intercultural understanding, support academic innovation, and create meaningful educational experiences that prepare students to lead in a globally connected society.
About La Roche University: An independent liberal arts university in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, La Roche University offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs with particular strengths in education, business, criminal justice, cybersecurity and forensics, psychology, nursing, and health and medical sciences as well as interior architecture & design and graphic design. This residential university provides a vibrant campus community for women and men enjoying multiple student organizations and an exciting NCAA Div. III athletics program. Founded by the Sisters of Divine Providence in 1963, La Roche University embraces its Catholic heritage while welcoming people of all faiths and backgrounds. With a legacy of social justice and a commitment to international exchange, La Roche University educates students to be lifelong learners and achievers in an increasingly diverse and global society.
***
Original text here: https://laroche.edu/news/la-roche-university-advances-global-academic-collaboration-with-university-of-southampton-malaysia/
* * *
La Roche University Advances Global Academic Collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia
La Roche University is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Academic Cooperation with University of Southampton Malaysia (opens in a new tab) (UoSM), further strengthening the University's commitment to global engagement and expanding opportunities for international academic collaboration in Southeast Asia.
The agreement was formally signed by Christina A. Clark, ... Show Full Article PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, July 2 -- La Roche University posted the following news release: * * * La Roche University Advances Global Academic Collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia La Roche University is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Academic Cooperation with University of Southampton Malaysia (opens in a new tab) (UoSM), further strengthening the University's commitment to global engagement and expanding opportunities for international academic collaboration in Southeast Asia. The agreement was formally signed by Christina A. Clark,Ph.D., President of La Roche University, and Ehsan Mesbahi, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Provost of University of Southampton Malaysia. The partnership establishes a collaborative framework grounded in shared commitments to academic excellence, global mobility, research collaboration, and intercultural learning.
Under the framework of the MOU, La Roche University and University of Southampton Malaysia will explore a broad range of collaborative initiatives designed to benefit students, faculty, and staff at both institutions. Areas of cooperation include student and faculty exchanges, joint research activities, academic conferences and workshops, the exchange of academic materials and institutional knowledge, dual-degree opportunities, workforce development initiatives, and short-term academic and experiential programs. The agreement also supports the development of globally focused educational pathways that encourage intercultural engagement, innovation, and collaborative learning across disciplines.
Located in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, University of Southampton Malaysia is the international branch campus of the University of Southampton, a globally recognized research-intensive institution and founding member of the United Kingdom's prestigious Russell Group. UoSM delivers internationally focused academic programs grounded in the same academic standards, curriculum, and research excellence as its United Kingdom campus.
The University of Southampton is consistently ranked among the world's leading universities, including No. 80 in the QS World University Rankings 2025 and No. 115 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024. Several academic disciplines also rank among the global top 100, including Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Through its innovative international education model, UoSM provides students with access to globally recognized British education, cross-cultural learning experiences, and strong pathways for academic and professional success throughout Southeast Asia and beyond.
"Global partnerships play an essential role in preparing students to succeed in today's interconnected world," said President Clark. "Our collaboration with University of Southampton Malaysia creates exciting opportunities for academic exchange, cross-cultural learning, and innovative international programming that will benefit both institutions and their students."
This agreement represents another important milestone in La Roche University's expanding global partnership network and broader internationalization strategy. Through collaborative academic initiatives and international learning opportunities, both institutions aim to foster intercultural understanding, support academic innovation, and create meaningful educational experiences that prepare students to lead in a globally connected society.
About La Roche University: An independent liberal arts university in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, La Roche University offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs with particular strengths in education, business, criminal justice, cybersecurity and forensics, psychology, nursing, and health and medical sciences as well as interior architecture & design and graphic design. This residential university provides a vibrant campus community for women and men enjoying multiple student organizations and an exciting NCAA Div. III athletics program. Founded by the Sisters of Divine Providence in 1963, La Roche University embraces its Catholic heritage while welcoming people of all faiths and backgrounds. With a legacy of social justice and a commitment to international exchange, La Roche University educates students to be lifelong learners and achievers in an increasingly diverse and global society.
***
Original text here: https://laroche.edu/news/la-roche-university-advances-global-academic-collaboration-with-university-of-southampton-malaysia/
Bridging the Digital Divide: Spelman Alum Earns Fulbright Award for Research in Kenya
ATLANTA, Georgia, July 2 -- Spelman College issued the following news:
* * *
Bridging the Digital Divide: Spelman Alum Earns Fulbright Award for Research in Kenya
*
More than 8,000 miles from Spelman College's campus in Nairobi, Kenya, Journei Ferguson, C'2026, spent her summer teaching middle and high schoolers their first lines of code.
Ferguson was named a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Program Research Award, which will fund a year of work and research in Kenya with the Angaza Center, a Kenya-based organization expanding digital literacy among students in low-resource communities. ... Show Full Article ATLANTA, Georgia, July 2 -- Spelman College issued the following news: * * * Bridging the Digital Divide: Spelman Alum Earns Fulbright Award for Research in Kenya * More than 8,000 miles from Spelman College's campus in Nairobi, Kenya, Journei Ferguson, C'2026, spent her summer teaching middle and high schoolers their first lines of code. Ferguson was named a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Program Research Award, which will fund a year of work and research in Kenya with the Angaza Center, a Kenya-based organization expanding digital literacy among students in low-resource communities.The Fulbright Program is one of the most competitive academic honors in the country.
"There is no limit to what I can do," Ferguson said. "Life keeps sending me abroad."
For Ferguson, the journey has always been the point. Her mother named her Journei after the path she walked through pregnancy, and Ferguson has spent her four years at Spelman discovering just how much that name would come to define her.
The Journey Abroad
Ferguson's road to the Angaza Center began the previous year, after she was awarded the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service, a fellowship that pairs scholarship funding with a fully funded summer abroad built around a social issue. With it came a semester studying in London, which was her first time leaving the country.
She wanted her next chapter abroad to connect her more directly to Black communities. A Google search pointed her toward the "Silicon Savannah" of Africa: Kenya. She found the Angaza Center, a nonprofit that works to expand tech literacy among students in Nairobi and beyond.
She arrived in Nairobi with thirty days and a long list of goals. Staying with the family of the Angaza Center's CEO, Michael Odongo, Ferguson immersed herself in Kenyan culture. She attended a traditional ceremony, tried new foods, and even took a solo safari trip. At the Angaza Center's Nairobi headquarters, she taught Python fundamentals to about 25 students encountering computers for the first-time and conducted research on the barriers to digital literacy in under-resourced schools, learning more about herself in the process.
By the end of the summer, Ferguson knew her work in Kenya was unfinished. With only about a month before the Fulbright application deadline in October, she completed her application with letters of recommendation from the Angaza Center's CEO and the chair of the computer science department. Spelman alumna and writing mentor Ariana Benson, C'2019, reviewed her essays. Then came the wait. She found out she was a finalist in January and received news of the award in April.
"Even if I don't feel qualified, I still apply," Ferguson said. "Spelman has given me the confidence that I am qualified."
Studying Computer Science
A Houston native raised by a single mother, Ferguson knew education could open doors for her. She earned her associate degree while still in high school. As a first-generation college student, Ferguson wanted to go to an HBCU and change the trajectory of her family. She learned about Spelman by watching YouTube vlogs from a Spelman student who had attended her high school.
Spelman is a safe haven," Ferguson said. "It's hard to leave Spelman without being successful. It'll change your life and trajectory."
Computer science wasn't originally part of the plan. After seeing a TikTok video about CodeHouse featuring CodeHouse co-founder & Director of the Spelman Innovation Lab Jaycee Holmes-Nguyen, C'2016, Ferguson decided to study computer science.
Founded by Morehouse and Spelman alumni, siblings Ernest Holmes and Jaycee Holmes-Nguyen alongside their friend Tavis Thompson, CodeHouse works to level the playing field for HBCU students in technology through scholarships, mentorship, and hands-on training.
Ferguson applied for the scholarship and along with the financial support gained a community of friends, mentors, and support that has helped her navigate college and her career, including internships at Microsoft, McKinsey, and the Department of Defense. Ferguson also co-founded The BIT (Black Innovators of Tech) with two other CodeHouse scholars Ashley Darling, C'2026, and Jakylan Fuller Reed to close the technology gap in underserved communities through coding education for middle and high school students.
"I can't stress enough the crucial factors that played a role in my journey," she says. "God, my mom, CodeHouse, the Spelman Computer Science Department, and Michael Odongo and The Angaza Center are all instrumental in my success."
When her Fulbright fellowship in Kenya ends, Ferguson plans to bring what she's learned back to the policy world, potentially pursuing a master's degree in public policy to create structural change in tech policy.
Ferguson hopes her own path will inspire other women, especially young Black women.
"My deepest hope for the future, and the advice I live by, is that young Black girls continue to be daring, unapologetic, and completely sovereign," she said.
Are You the Next Spelman Fulbright Scholar?
For students weighing whether to apply for a fellowship as competitive as the Fulbright, Ferguson's advice is simple:
Be confident," she said. "Kenya only had two spots, but I truly believed I was going to get it, so I applied. Don't back out because you're unsure of the odds."
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, sends American citizens abroad annually for a year of graduate study, research, or English teaching as cultural ambassadors. Spelman students interested in applying are encouraged to connect early with the Office of Fellowships and Awards.
For more information, contact the Office of Fellowships and Awards in the Office of Undergraduate Studies or visit fulbrightscholars.org.
***
Original text here: https://www.spelman.edu/news/2026/06/bridging-the-digital-divide-spelman-alum-earns-fulbright-award-for-research-in-kenya.html
* * *
Bridging the Digital Divide: Spelman Alum Earns Fulbright Award for Research in Kenya
*
More than 8,000 miles from Spelman College's campus in Nairobi, Kenya, Journei Ferguson, C'2026, spent her summer teaching middle and high schoolers their first lines of code.
Ferguson was named a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Program Research Award, which will fund a year of work and research in Kenya with the Angaza Center, a Kenya-based organization expanding digital literacy among students in low-resource communities. ... Show Full Article ATLANTA, Georgia, July 2 -- Spelman College issued the following news: * * * Bridging the Digital Divide: Spelman Alum Earns Fulbright Award for Research in Kenya * More than 8,000 miles from Spelman College's campus in Nairobi, Kenya, Journei Ferguson, C'2026, spent her summer teaching middle and high schoolers their first lines of code. Ferguson was named a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Program Research Award, which will fund a year of work and research in Kenya with the Angaza Center, a Kenya-based organization expanding digital literacy among students in low-resource communities.The Fulbright Program is one of the most competitive academic honors in the country.
"There is no limit to what I can do," Ferguson said. "Life keeps sending me abroad."
For Ferguson, the journey has always been the point. Her mother named her Journei after the path she walked through pregnancy, and Ferguson has spent her four years at Spelman discovering just how much that name would come to define her.
The Journey Abroad
Ferguson's road to the Angaza Center began the previous year, after she was awarded the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service, a fellowship that pairs scholarship funding with a fully funded summer abroad built around a social issue. With it came a semester studying in London, which was her first time leaving the country.
She wanted her next chapter abroad to connect her more directly to Black communities. A Google search pointed her toward the "Silicon Savannah" of Africa: Kenya. She found the Angaza Center, a nonprofit that works to expand tech literacy among students in Nairobi and beyond.
She arrived in Nairobi with thirty days and a long list of goals. Staying with the family of the Angaza Center's CEO, Michael Odongo, Ferguson immersed herself in Kenyan culture. She attended a traditional ceremony, tried new foods, and even took a solo safari trip. At the Angaza Center's Nairobi headquarters, she taught Python fundamentals to about 25 students encountering computers for the first-time and conducted research on the barriers to digital literacy in under-resourced schools, learning more about herself in the process.
By the end of the summer, Ferguson knew her work in Kenya was unfinished. With only about a month before the Fulbright application deadline in October, she completed her application with letters of recommendation from the Angaza Center's CEO and the chair of the computer science department. Spelman alumna and writing mentor Ariana Benson, C'2019, reviewed her essays. Then came the wait. She found out she was a finalist in January and received news of the award in April.
"Even if I don't feel qualified, I still apply," Ferguson said. "Spelman has given me the confidence that I am qualified."
Studying Computer Science
A Houston native raised by a single mother, Ferguson knew education could open doors for her. She earned her associate degree while still in high school. As a first-generation college student, Ferguson wanted to go to an HBCU and change the trajectory of her family. She learned about Spelman by watching YouTube vlogs from a Spelman student who had attended her high school.
Spelman is a safe haven," Ferguson said. "It's hard to leave Spelman without being successful. It'll change your life and trajectory."
Computer science wasn't originally part of the plan. After seeing a TikTok video about CodeHouse featuring CodeHouse co-founder & Director of the Spelman Innovation Lab Jaycee Holmes-Nguyen, C'2016, Ferguson decided to study computer science.
Founded by Morehouse and Spelman alumni, siblings Ernest Holmes and Jaycee Holmes-Nguyen alongside their friend Tavis Thompson, CodeHouse works to level the playing field for HBCU students in technology through scholarships, mentorship, and hands-on training.
Ferguson applied for the scholarship and along with the financial support gained a community of friends, mentors, and support that has helped her navigate college and her career, including internships at Microsoft, McKinsey, and the Department of Defense. Ferguson also co-founded The BIT (Black Innovators of Tech) with two other CodeHouse scholars Ashley Darling, C'2026, and Jakylan Fuller Reed to close the technology gap in underserved communities through coding education for middle and high school students.
"I can't stress enough the crucial factors that played a role in my journey," she says. "God, my mom, CodeHouse, the Spelman Computer Science Department, and Michael Odongo and The Angaza Center are all instrumental in my success."
When her Fulbright fellowship in Kenya ends, Ferguson plans to bring what she's learned back to the policy world, potentially pursuing a master's degree in public policy to create structural change in tech policy.
Ferguson hopes her own path will inspire other women, especially young Black women.
"My deepest hope for the future, and the advice I live by, is that young Black girls continue to be daring, unapologetic, and completely sovereign," she said.
Are You the Next Spelman Fulbright Scholar?
For students weighing whether to apply for a fellowship as competitive as the Fulbright, Ferguson's advice is simple:
Be confident," she said. "Kenya only had two spots, but I truly believed I was going to get it, so I applied. Don't back out because you're unsure of the odds."
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, sends American citizens abroad annually for a year of graduate study, research, or English teaching as cultural ambassadors. Spelman students interested in applying are encouraged to connect early with the Office of Fellowships and Awards.
For more information, contact the Office of Fellowships and Awards in the Office of Undergraduate Studies or visit fulbrightscholars.org.
***
Original text here: https://www.spelman.edu/news/2026/06/bridging-the-digital-divide-spelman-alum-earns-fulbright-award-for-research-in-kenya.html
AI Shows Promise and Peril for Women, Professor Claudia Flores Tells UN
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, July 2 (TNSrep) -- Yale Law School posted the following news:
* * *
AI Shows Promise and Peril for Women, Professor Claudia Flores Tells UN
A new report from a United Nations working group chaired by Professor Claudia Flores warns that the brisk growth of artificial intelligence may worsen existing gender inequalities and pose new risks to the human rights of women and girls worldwide.
"AI and digital technologies are reshaping the conditions under which women and girls exercise their rights," the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls writes. "Without ... Show Full Article NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, July 2 (TNSrep) -- Yale Law School posted the following news: * * * AI Shows Promise and Peril for Women, Professor Claudia Flores Tells UN A new report from a United Nations working group chaired by Professor Claudia Flores warns that the brisk growth of artificial intelligence may worsen existing gender inequalities and pose new risks to the human rights of women and girls worldwide. "AI and digital technologies are reshaping the conditions under which women and girls exercise their rights," the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls writes. "Withoutdeliberate, gender-responsive governance, these systems risk amplifying exclusion, reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and exacerbating structural inequalities."
Flores presented the report, "Women's and Girls' Rights and Artificial Intelligence and Related Digital Technologies 4," (https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6248-womens-and-girls-rights-and-artificial-intelligence-and-related) to the U.N. Human Rights Council during its 62nd session at the United Nations Office in Geneva on June 24.
The report recognizes AI's potential for good for women and girls, including expanding access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. But AI can also entrench and amplify gender inequality, discrimination, and violence "invisibly, at scale, and beyond accountability," Flores stressed when introducing the report.
The answer, according to the report, is regulation. Efforts by countries to regulate the technology have not kept up with AI's fast expansion, Flores told the council. Self-regulation by corporations fails to address the experiences of women and girls, she added.
The working group identified three conditions for achieving substantive gender equality in the digital age: closing the digital divide, harnessing AI and digital technologies to bolster rather than undermine women's and girls' human rights, and promoting women's and girls' meaningful participation and leadership in public and political life.
In her remarks, Flores urged the council to reject the notion that AI is too complex and fast-moving to regulate. She insisted that the world can chose to regulate AI to protect human rights.
"AI is merely the latest step in human innovation and humanity has faced such moments before and found the capacity and the will to direct transformative technology towards the common good," Flores said. "The future of AI is being written and the choice of who it serves is ours to make."
Flores was appointed to the working group by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council in 2023, becoming chair in 2025. She most recently addressed the U.N. on behalf of the group in the fall. Composed of five independent experts, the working group has a mandate to intensify efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls throughout the world.
At Yale Law School, Flores is a clinical professor of law. She directs the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and is faculty co-director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Her teaching, scholarship, and practice center on international human rights, constitutional reform, global inequality, and state accountability.
***
Original text here: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/ai-shows-promise-and-peril-women-professor-claudia-flores-tells-un
* * *
AI Shows Promise and Peril for Women, Professor Claudia Flores Tells UN
A new report from a United Nations working group chaired by Professor Claudia Flores warns that the brisk growth of artificial intelligence may worsen existing gender inequalities and pose new risks to the human rights of women and girls worldwide.
"AI and digital technologies are reshaping the conditions under which women and girls exercise their rights," the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls writes. "Without ... Show Full Article NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, July 2 (TNSrep) -- Yale Law School posted the following news: * * * AI Shows Promise and Peril for Women, Professor Claudia Flores Tells UN A new report from a United Nations working group chaired by Professor Claudia Flores warns that the brisk growth of artificial intelligence may worsen existing gender inequalities and pose new risks to the human rights of women and girls worldwide. "AI and digital technologies are reshaping the conditions under which women and girls exercise their rights," the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls writes. "Withoutdeliberate, gender-responsive governance, these systems risk amplifying exclusion, reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and exacerbating structural inequalities."
Flores presented the report, "Women's and Girls' Rights and Artificial Intelligence and Related Digital Technologies 4," (https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6248-womens-and-girls-rights-and-artificial-intelligence-and-related) to the U.N. Human Rights Council during its 62nd session at the United Nations Office in Geneva on June 24.
The report recognizes AI's potential for good for women and girls, including expanding access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. But AI can also entrench and amplify gender inequality, discrimination, and violence "invisibly, at scale, and beyond accountability," Flores stressed when introducing the report.
The answer, according to the report, is regulation. Efforts by countries to regulate the technology have not kept up with AI's fast expansion, Flores told the council. Self-regulation by corporations fails to address the experiences of women and girls, she added.
The working group identified three conditions for achieving substantive gender equality in the digital age: closing the digital divide, harnessing AI and digital technologies to bolster rather than undermine women's and girls' human rights, and promoting women's and girls' meaningful participation and leadership in public and political life.
In her remarks, Flores urged the council to reject the notion that AI is too complex and fast-moving to regulate. She insisted that the world can chose to regulate AI to protect human rights.
"AI is merely the latest step in human innovation and humanity has faced such moments before and found the capacity and the will to direct transformative technology towards the common good," Flores said. "The future of AI is being written and the choice of who it serves is ours to make."
Flores was appointed to the working group by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council in 2023, becoming chair in 2025. She most recently addressed the U.N. on behalf of the group in the fall. Composed of five independent experts, the working group has a mandate to intensify efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls throughout the world.
At Yale Law School, Flores is a clinical professor of law. She directs the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and is faculty co-director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Her teaching, scholarship, and practice center on international human rights, constitutional reform, global inequality, and state accountability.
***
Original text here: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/ai-shows-promise-and-peril-women-professor-claudia-flores-tells-un
MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news:
* * *
MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars
*
As a new academic year dawns, the MIT-Kalaniyot program is welcoming its second cohort of scholars to campus, expanding an innovative effort to build new connections between MIT and researchers from Israel.
In fall 2026, MIT-Kalaniyot has 11 new scholars arriving at MIT to pursue research, collaborating with Institute faculty across a wide variety of disciplines. They consist of seven new Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows ... Show Full Article CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news: * * * MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars * As a new academic year dawns, the MIT-Kalaniyot program is welcoming its second cohort of scholars to campus, expanding an innovative effort to build new connections between MIT and researchers from Israel. In fall 2026, MIT-Kalaniyot has 11 new scholars arriving at MIT to pursue research, collaborating with Institute faculty across a wide variety of disciplines. They consist of seven new Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellowsand four new Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars, who are faculty on leave from institutions in Israel.
It is another step forward for a program which, less than two years ago was still an idea on a drawing board. The project aims to enhance research and create stronger community ties -not only among those connected to the program, but across the MIT campus.
"The goals of the program are to build academic ties between MIT and Israel, alongside a strong, supportive community," says Or Hen, an MIT nuclear physicist and a co-founder of MIT-Kalaniyot. "MIT has a mission that revolves around research, education, and entrepreneurship, and MIT-Kalaniyot strengthens MIT, to help meet that mission for the world."
The scholars will be working on a wide range of topics, including mathematics, materials science, behavioral economics, architecture, modern history, chemistry, quantum computing, and computational methods for examining cellular activity.
"We designed Kalaniyot to strengthen MIT's research and its community at the same time," says Ernest Fraenkel, a professor of biological engineering and a co-founder of MIT-Kalaniyot. "We now have scholars in the program working in each of MIT's five schools. The academic breadth shows our model is working." MIT-Kalaniyot will also feature its first teaching fellow at the Institute, hosted by MIT's History program.
MIT-Kalaniyot was founded by Hen and Fraenkel as a constructive response to discord over conflict in the Middle East. Hen is the Class of 1956 Associate Professor of Physics and associate director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science; Fraenkel is the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology.
Fraenkel and Hen credit multiple members of MIT's community and upper administration for backing the MIT-Kalaniyot idea from the start, making it feasible for the program to launch.
"When we first shared the idea, we were very encouraged by the response from MIT's senior leadership," Fraenkel says. "They understood the value of a faculty-led effort, and their constructive response gave us confidence that our approach could be successful."
"This would be impossible to do the way we're doing it without the administration's support," Hen says. "The program is faculty-led and institution-backed. That's what you want."
Hen adds: "I think MIT today is home to one of the most, if not the most, accepting and welcoming communities for Israelis, and I can stand by that statement very strongly. The way our community grew these past years is remarkable."
Embedded at MIT
MIT-Kalaniyot, named for a well-known flower that grows in Israel and other parts of the region, welcomed its first cohort of scholars to the MIT campus for the 2025-26 academic year. Hen and Fraenkel also give Tal Cohen, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, substantial credit for developing the concept.
Scholars at Israel's nine state-recognized universities are eligible to seek the MIT-Kalaniyot fellowships, which enable research, collaboration, and training at the Institute. The scholars come from a range of academic and personal backgrounds, including both Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.
The program is highly competitive, with many more applicants than positions currently available. Applicants are encouraged to identify in advance MIT faculty they would like to work with; accepted applicants then already have a "faculty host" lined up. Many of the new fellows will be working with researchers in established MIT labs, for instance.
"When they're here, they are treated exactly like anybody else in an academic unit at MIT and that's really important," Fraenkel says. "They're embedded in these places."
The program is also intended to generate the kinds of community connections that help scholars flourish, both professionally and personally. MIT-Kalaniyot features weekly lunches, attended by people from the larger community, where scholars can forge connections and friendship.
The program also features informal academic talks and discussions, with the talks given by MIT researchers both within and outside of MIT-Kalaniyot. Hen, for one, has already seen the benefits of such events; one paper he has recently co-authored directly stemmed from discussions he had at a program event.
"The range of MIT faculty who stepped forward as hosts has been one of the most gratifying parts of the program," Fraenkel says. "It shows that this is not confined to one field or one corner of the Institute. It is becoming part of MIT's broader academic life."
Adds Hen: "I think it sends a very strong and important message. We're able to move forward at MIT and build collaborative partnerships with strong ties."
An additional facet of the program is the potential impact of MIT-based research in practical, tangible ways. One of the 2025 fellows, a leading physician, focused her MIT work on new methods of breast cancer detection, and now, back in Israel, is working to apply those findings in active medical settings.
Plans for future growth
Having first taken root at MIT, the MIT-Kalaniyot concept is now spreading to other places. In the last two years, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California have implemented the concept, with other universities in the process of adopting it as well.
"This national movement all started by replicating the MIT model," Hen says. "Each university then innovated in their own way. They start from the MIT approach, and then they adapt to what's happening on their campus. They learn from us, we learn from them, and together we support a broad academic network."
The progress at MIT and elsewhere has led Hen and Fraenkel to feel optimistic about the ongoing evolution of MIT-Kalaniyot.
"We started at a tense time on our campus, not really knowing what the future would hold, and it's exceeded our hopes," Fraenkel says. "Now we want Kalaniyot to become a recognized center at MIT, funding seed grants for research that wouldn't happen any other way."
While Fraenkel and Hen do not yet have a firm timetable for those developments, they regard them as being realistic.
"Now we see Kalaniyot as a program that helps MIT well beyond our community," Hen says. After all, he observes, simply as a vehicle for research, the program has the potential to provide added capacity for MIT, as well as the further connections to top scholars being generated by the effort.
Indeed, Hen reflects, he is motivated the question: "How do we best support MIT in realizing its mission for the world?" Overall, he says, "I think that's the ultimate goal of Kalaniyot. We do it in one way, other people can do it in other ways, and as long as you do net good, and support the MIT mission, we value and treasure that, and just want to be part of it."
"I really believe this is the DNA of MIT," Fraenkel says. "We're all about finding practical solutions to society's biggest problems. Kalaniyot brings extraordinary people here to do exactly that, and the whole Institute is stronger for it."
***
Original text here: https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-kalaniyot-program-expands-new-cohort-of-scholars-0701
* * *
MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars
*
As a new academic year dawns, the MIT-Kalaniyot program is welcoming its second cohort of scholars to campus, expanding an innovative effort to build new connections between MIT and researchers from Israel.
In fall 2026, MIT-Kalaniyot has 11 new scholars arriving at MIT to pursue research, collaborating with Institute faculty across a wide variety of disciplines. They consist of seven new Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows ... Show Full Article CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, July 2 -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the following news: * * * MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars * As a new academic year dawns, the MIT-Kalaniyot program is welcoming its second cohort of scholars to campus, expanding an innovative effort to build new connections between MIT and researchers from Israel. In fall 2026, MIT-Kalaniyot has 11 new scholars arriving at MIT to pursue research, collaborating with Institute faculty across a wide variety of disciplines. They consist of seven new Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellowsand four new Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars, who are faculty on leave from institutions in Israel.
It is another step forward for a program which, less than two years ago was still an idea on a drawing board. The project aims to enhance research and create stronger community ties -not only among those connected to the program, but across the MIT campus.
"The goals of the program are to build academic ties between MIT and Israel, alongside a strong, supportive community," says Or Hen, an MIT nuclear physicist and a co-founder of MIT-Kalaniyot. "MIT has a mission that revolves around research, education, and entrepreneurship, and MIT-Kalaniyot strengthens MIT, to help meet that mission for the world."
The scholars will be working on a wide range of topics, including mathematics, materials science, behavioral economics, architecture, modern history, chemistry, quantum computing, and computational methods for examining cellular activity.
"We designed Kalaniyot to strengthen MIT's research and its community at the same time," says Ernest Fraenkel, a professor of biological engineering and a co-founder of MIT-Kalaniyot. "We now have scholars in the program working in each of MIT's five schools. The academic breadth shows our model is working." MIT-Kalaniyot will also feature its first teaching fellow at the Institute, hosted by MIT's History program.
MIT-Kalaniyot was founded by Hen and Fraenkel as a constructive response to discord over conflict in the Middle East. Hen is the Class of 1956 Associate Professor of Physics and associate director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science; Fraenkel is the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology.
Fraenkel and Hen credit multiple members of MIT's community and upper administration for backing the MIT-Kalaniyot idea from the start, making it feasible for the program to launch.
"When we first shared the idea, we were very encouraged by the response from MIT's senior leadership," Fraenkel says. "They understood the value of a faculty-led effort, and their constructive response gave us confidence that our approach could be successful."
"This would be impossible to do the way we're doing it without the administration's support," Hen says. "The program is faculty-led and institution-backed. That's what you want."
Hen adds: "I think MIT today is home to one of the most, if not the most, accepting and welcoming communities for Israelis, and I can stand by that statement very strongly. The way our community grew these past years is remarkable."
Embedded at MIT
MIT-Kalaniyot, named for a well-known flower that grows in Israel and other parts of the region, welcomed its first cohort of scholars to the MIT campus for the 2025-26 academic year. Hen and Fraenkel also give Tal Cohen, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, substantial credit for developing the concept.
Scholars at Israel's nine state-recognized universities are eligible to seek the MIT-Kalaniyot fellowships, which enable research, collaboration, and training at the Institute. The scholars come from a range of academic and personal backgrounds, including both Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.
The program is highly competitive, with many more applicants than positions currently available. Applicants are encouraged to identify in advance MIT faculty they would like to work with; accepted applicants then already have a "faculty host" lined up. Many of the new fellows will be working with researchers in established MIT labs, for instance.
"When they're here, they are treated exactly like anybody else in an academic unit at MIT and that's really important," Fraenkel says. "They're embedded in these places."
The program is also intended to generate the kinds of community connections that help scholars flourish, both professionally and personally. MIT-Kalaniyot features weekly lunches, attended by people from the larger community, where scholars can forge connections and friendship.
The program also features informal academic talks and discussions, with the talks given by MIT researchers both within and outside of MIT-Kalaniyot. Hen, for one, has already seen the benefits of such events; one paper he has recently co-authored directly stemmed from discussions he had at a program event.
"The range of MIT faculty who stepped forward as hosts has been one of the most gratifying parts of the program," Fraenkel says. "It shows that this is not confined to one field or one corner of the Institute. It is becoming part of MIT's broader academic life."
Adds Hen: "I think it sends a very strong and important message. We're able to move forward at MIT and build collaborative partnerships with strong ties."
An additional facet of the program is the potential impact of MIT-based research in practical, tangible ways. One of the 2025 fellows, a leading physician, focused her MIT work on new methods of breast cancer detection, and now, back in Israel, is working to apply those findings in active medical settings.
Plans for future growth
Having first taken root at MIT, the MIT-Kalaniyot concept is now spreading to other places. In the last two years, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California have implemented the concept, with other universities in the process of adopting it as well.
"This national movement all started by replicating the MIT model," Hen says. "Each university then innovated in their own way. They start from the MIT approach, and then they adapt to what's happening on their campus. They learn from us, we learn from them, and together we support a broad academic network."
The progress at MIT and elsewhere has led Hen and Fraenkel to feel optimistic about the ongoing evolution of MIT-Kalaniyot.
"We started at a tense time on our campus, not really knowing what the future would hold, and it's exceeded our hopes," Fraenkel says. "Now we want Kalaniyot to become a recognized center at MIT, funding seed grants for research that wouldn't happen any other way."
While Fraenkel and Hen do not yet have a firm timetable for those developments, they regard them as being realistic.
"Now we see Kalaniyot as a program that helps MIT well beyond our community," Hen says. After all, he observes, simply as a vehicle for research, the program has the potential to provide added capacity for MIT, as well as the further connections to top scholars being generated by the effort.
Indeed, Hen reflects, he is motivated the question: "How do we best support MIT in realizing its mission for the world?" Overall, he says, "I think that's the ultimate goal of Kalaniyot. We do it in one way, other people can do it in other ways, and as long as you do net good, and support the MIT mission, we value and treasure that, and just want to be part of it."
"I really believe this is the DNA of MIT," Fraenkel says. "We're all about finding practical solutions to society's biggest problems. Kalaniyot brings extraordinary people here to do exactly that, and the whole Institute is stronger for it."
***
Original text here: https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-kalaniyot-program-expands-new-cohort-of-scholars-0701
High Point University Earns College of Distinction Honor for 16th Consecutive Year
HIGH POINT, North Carolina, July 2 -- High Point University issued the following news release:
* * *
High Point University Earns College of Distinction Honor for 16th Consecutive Year
High Point University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience. Pictured second from right was Dr. Doug Hall, vice president for Career and Professional Development at HPU, as he met with a student inside Cottrell Hall.
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High ... Show Full Article HIGH POINT, North Carolina, July 2 -- High Point University issued the following news release: * * * High Point University Earns College of Distinction Honor for 16th Consecutive Year High Point University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience. Pictured second from right was Dr. Doug Hall, vice president for Career and Professional Development at HPU, as he met with a student inside Cottrell Hall. - HighPoint University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience.
HPU received honors in several categories on the Colleges of Distinction list, including Career Development, Business, Education and Best Colleges of North Carolina. These honors reflect programs that prepare students for success in HPU's Office of Career and Professional Development, Earl N. Phillips School of Business and Stout School of Education. HPU was also recognized as one of the best colleges for international and transfer students.
"Families from around the world value High Point University's innovative approach to educating students and delivering an effective learning model focused on Life Skills and professional development," HPU President Nido Qubein said. "We remain dedicated to preparing students for the world as it will be."
Colleges of Distinction identifies institutions that offer an engaged, experiential education that makes a meaningful impact on a student's life. Its rigorous selection process focuses on four criteria: engaged students, great teaching, vibrant community and successful outcomes.
This is the latest accolade that HPU has earned for preparing students for successful career and lives. The U.S. News & World Report has named the university the #1 Best Regional College in the South for 14 consecutive years, the #1 Most Innovative Regional College in the South for 11 years in a row and the #1 Best Undergraduate Teaching for Regional Colleges in the South for a third consecutive year.
HPU received those accolades only a month after it was named the #1 Best-Run College in the nation by The Princeton Review for a second consecutive year. The university received high marks in 12 categories from The Princeton Review in "The Best 391 Colleges: 2026 Edition." Those included #2 for Best College Dorms, #6 for Most Active Student Government Association, #9 for Best Career Services and #10 for Most Beautiful Campus.
Data collected by HPU in accordance with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) standards showed an overall placement rate of 99% for all graduates from the Class of 2025. HPU's percentage of 2025 graduates who were employed or furthering their education within 180 days of graduation is 13 points higher than the national average reported by NACE.
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Original text here: https://www.highpoint.edu/blog/2026/07/high-point-university-earns-college-of-distinction-honor-for-16th-consecutive-year/
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High Point University Earns College of Distinction Honor for 16th Consecutive Year
High Point University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience. Pictured second from right was Dr. Doug Hall, vice president for Career and Professional Development at HPU, as he met with a student inside Cottrell Hall.
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High ... Show Full Article HIGH POINT, North Carolina, July 2 -- High Point University issued the following news release: * * * High Point University Earns College of Distinction Honor for 16th Consecutive Year High Point University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience. Pictured second from right was Dr. Doug Hall, vice president for Career and Professional Development at HPU, as he met with a student inside Cottrell Hall. - HighPoint University has been named a College of Distinction for the 2026-27 academic year, marking the 16th consecutive year that HPU has been recognized for its strong commitment to providing students with a transformative undergraduate experience.
HPU received honors in several categories on the Colleges of Distinction list, including Career Development, Business, Education and Best Colleges of North Carolina. These honors reflect programs that prepare students for success in HPU's Office of Career and Professional Development, Earl N. Phillips School of Business and Stout School of Education. HPU was also recognized as one of the best colleges for international and transfer students.
"Families from around the world value High Point University's innovative approach to educating students and delivering an effective learning model focused on Life Skills and professional development," HPU President Nido Qubein said. "We remain dedicated to preparing students for the world as it will be."
Colleges of Distinction identifies institutions that offer an engaged, experiential education that makes a meaningful impact on a student's life. Its rigorous selection process focuses on four criteria: engaged students, great teaching, vibrant community and successful outcomes.
This is the latest accolade that HPU has earned for preparing students for successful career and lives. The U.S. News & World Report has named the university the #1 Best Regional College in the South for 14 consecutive years, the #1 Most Innovative Regional College in the South for 11 years in a row and the #1 Best Undergraduate Teaching for Regional Colleges in the South for a third consecutive year.
HPU received those accolades only a month after it was named the #1 Best-Run College in the nation by The Princeton Review for a second consecutive year. The university received high marks in 12 categories from The Princeton Review in "The Best 391 Colleges: 2026 Edition." Those included #2 for Best College Dorms, #6 for Most Active Student Government Association, #9 for Best Career Services and #10 for Most Beautiful Campus.
Data collected by HPU in accordance with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) standards showed an overall placement rate of 99% for all graduates from the Class of 2025. HPU's percentage of 2025 graduates who were employed or furthering their education within 180 days of graduation is 13 points higher than the national average reported by NACE.
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Original text here: https://www.highpoint.edu/blog/2026/07/high-point-university-earns-college-of-distinction-honor-for-16th-consecutive-year/
Gordon A. Pulsifer Named Chair of Bentley Board of Trustees
WALTHAM, Massachusetts, July 2 -- Bentley University issued the following news:
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Gordon A. Pulsifer Named Chair of Bentley Board of Trustees
By Kristen Walsh
The Bentley Board of Trustees has elected Gordon A. Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 as chair, effective July 1. Pulsifer, who has served as vice chair, succeeds J. Paul Condrin III '83, P '19 '22, who is stepping down as chair after seven years in that role but will remain on the board. Melanie Foley, MBA '02 will now serve as vice chair.
A longtime Bentley supporter, including of the university's No. 1 nationally ranked Pulsifer Career ... Show Full Article WALTHAM, Massachusetts, July 2 -- Bentley University issued the following news: * * * Gordon A. Pulsifer Named Chair of Bentley Board of Trustees By Kristen Walsh The Bentley Board of Trustees has elected Gordon A. Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 as chair, effective July 1. Pulsifer, who has served as vice chair, succeeds J. Paul Condrin III '83, P '19 '22, who is stepping down as chair after seven years in that role but will remain on the board. Melanie Foley, MBA '02 will now serve as vice chair. A longtime Bentley supporter, including of the university's No. 1 nationally ranked Pulsifer CareerDevelopment Center, Pulsifer joined the Bentley board in 2019 and brings decades of strategic leadership expertise. He is president, CEO and founder of First Resource Companies (FRC), a real estate development and management firm specializing in historic preservation and affordable housing. Under his leadership, the company has become one of the top real estate managers in Massachusetts.
After graduating from Bentley with a degree in accounting and earning a CPA license, Pulsifer began his career as a CPA at KPMG and later became chief financial officer at WinnCompanies in Boston. There, he participated in the development and redevelopment of properties across several states.
Pulsifer is a past president of the Massachusetts Apartment Association for the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. He served as chair of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and serves as a board member for Preservation Massachusetts, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the state's historic buildings. His history of advocacy for affordable housing and community development in Massachusetts also includes serving on the boards of Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) and Caritas Communities.
In addition to his experience as an alumnus and trustee, Pulsifer has more ties to the university: his wife Annellen Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 and sons Brenton '08 and Michael '19.
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Original text here: https://www.bentley.edu/news/gordon-pulsifer-named-chair-bentley-board-trustees
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Gordon A. Pulsifer Named Chair of Bentley Board of Trustees
By Kristen Walsh
The Bentley Board of Trustees has elected Gordon A. Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 as chair, effective July 1. Pulsifer, who has served as vice chair, succeeds J. Paul Condrin III '83, P '19 '22, who is stepping down as chair after seven years in that role but will remain on the board. Melanie Foley, MBA '02 will now serve as vice chair.
A longtime Bentley supporter, including of the university's No. 1 nationally ranked Pulsifer Career ... Show Full Article WALTHAM, Massachusetts, July 2 -- Bentley University issued the following news: * * * Gordon A. Pulsifer Named Chair of Bentley Board of Trustees By Kristen Walsh The Bentley Board of Trustees has elected Gordon A. Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 as chair, effective July 1. Pulsifer, who has served as vice chair, succeeds J. Paul Condrin III '83, P '19 '22, who is stepping down as chair after seven years in that role but will remain on the board. Melanie Foley, MBA '02 will now serve as vice chair. A longtime Bentley supporter, including of the university's No. 1 nationally ranked Pulsifer CareerDevelopment Center, Pulsifer joined the Bentley board in 2019 and brings decades of strategic leadership expertise. He is president, CEO and founder of First Resource Companies (FRC), a real estate development and management firm specializing in historic preservation and affordable housing. Under his leadership, the company has become one of the top real estate managers in Massachusetts.
After graduating from Bentley with a degree in accounting and earning a CPA license, Pulsifer began his career as a CPA at KPMG and later became chief financial officer at WinnCompanies in Boston. There, he participated in the development and redevelopment of properties across several states.
Pulsifer is a past president of the Massachusetts Apartment Association for the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. He served as chair of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and serves as a board member for Preservation Massachusetts, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the state's historic buildings. His history of advocacy for affordable housing and community development in Massachusetts also includes serving on the boards of Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) and Caritas Communities.
In addition to his experience as an alumnus and trustee, Pulsifer has more ties to the university: his wife Annellen Pulsifer '80, P '08 '19 and sons Brenton '08 and Michael '19.
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Original text here: https://www.bentley.edu/news/gordon-pulsifer-named-chair-bentley-board-trustees
Cardiff University: Future-proofing eye care in Wales
CARDIFF, Wales, July 2 (TNSrpt) -- Cardiff University posted the following news:
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Future-proofing eye care in Wales
A new partnership will help to attract more Welsh doctors to specialise in ophthalmology, as well as support the training of optometrists, nurses and other key eye health clinicians.
The alliance between eye surgery provider Newmedica and Cardiff University comes as part of a commitment by the two organisations to provide enhanced training in secondary eye care roles, to help address recruitment shortages in a system further stretched by ever-increasing patient demand and ... Show Full Article CARDIFF, Wales, July 2 (TNSrpt) -- Cardiff University posted the following news: * * * Future-proofing eye care in Wales A new partnership will help to attract more Welsh doctors to specialise in ophthalmology, as well as support the training of optometrists, nurses and other key eye health clinicians. The alliance between eye surgery provider Newmedica and Cardiff University comes as part of a commitment by the two organisations to provide enhanced training in secondary eye care roles, to help address recruitment shortages in a system further stretched by ever-increasing patient demand andgrowing waiting lists.
Together, they also aim to meet the urgent need to address pressures with patients at risk of sight loss due to delayed care.
Through the partnership, Cardiff University will continue delivering its established academic programmes while working with Newmedica to deliver new, practice-based training opportunities to satisfy qualification requirements and offer broader professional development. This includes providing clinical placements across outpatient and surgical settings, including rotations and internships for postgraduate trainees and pre-registration optometry students, as well as more specialist training in areas such as glaucoma management, laser procedures and surgical skills. In time, there will also be further training opportunities for nurses, scrub practitioners, advanced optometrists and healthcare managers that will ensure benefits for the entire eye health sector.
Professor Joy Myint, Head of School and Professor of Optometry at Cardiff University's School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, said: "For students, it creates more placements to enable more people to qualify, while also offering enhanced access to diverse clinical environments and career development opportunities. For the wider healthcare system, it represents a meaningful step towards reducing waiting times, improving patient outcomes and strengthening resilience in eye care services through a combined focus on innovation. We are delighted to be working with Newmedica on this initiative."
Newmedica is one of the largest independent providers of NHS and private ophthalmology services in England. It has a number of clinics close to the Welsh border and is already working with NHS Wales to bring down waiting lists, having seen 13,000 Welsh patients in the last year.
Doug Perkins CBE, founder of Specsavers and Newmedica and a Cardiff University alumnus, said: "We are completely committed to doing whatever we can to support eye health in Wales. Through our network of 56 Specsavers stores, alongside Newmedica, we feel that we are uniquely well-placed to meet the needs of the Welsh people and to support the government's mandate to future-proof NHS Wales.
"We believe that through this joined-up service we can help Health Boards develop solutions that allow ophthalmologists and optometrists to work across boundaries, building a Welsh workforce that is committed to the long-term eye health needs of Welsh people - so keeping business in Wales, supporting the Welsh health economy with less need to rely on short-term fixes."
Newmedica' s Medical Director, Ophthalmologist Nigel Kirkpatrick continued: 'Training will initially be delivered in Newmedica clinics, expanding the "teach and treat" model Cardiff University already adopts, enabling students to gain hands-on experience while contributing to patient care under expert supervision. This approach ensures that training is closely aligned to real-world demand and service delivery, benefitting both learners and patients."
The collaboration will also introduce shared performance monitoring through 'report card' style feedback systems. These will track learning outcomes, quality standards, and productivity metrics, ensuring a consistent, high-quality professional development experience.
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REPORT: https://cast.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/the-centre-for-climate-change-and-social-transformations-cast-briefing-45-climate-change-in-2050-how-athletes-envisage-the-future-of-sport.pdf
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Original text here: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/3057050-future-proofing-eye-care-in-wales
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Future-proofing eye care in Wales
A new partnership will help to attract more Welsh doctors to specialise in ophthalmology, as well as support the training of optometrists, nurses and other key eye health clinicians.
The alliance between eye surgery provider Newmedica and Cardiff University comes as part of a commitment by the two organisations to provide enhanced training in secondary eye care roles, to help address recruitment shortages in a system further stretched by ever-increasing patient demand and ... Show Full Article CARDIFF, Wales, July 2 (TNSrpt) -- Cardiff University posted the following news: * * * Future-proofing eye care in Wales A new partnership will help to attract more Welsh doctors to specialise in ophthalmology, as well as support the training of optometrists, nurses and other key eye health clinicians. The alliance between eye surgery provider Newmedica and Cardiff University comes as part of a commitment by the two organisations to provide enhanced training in secondary eye care roles, to help address recruitment shortages in a system further stretched by ever-increasing patient demand andgrowing waiting lists.
Together, they also aim to meet the urgent need to address pressures with patients at risk of sight loss due to delayed care.
Through the partnership, Cardiff University will continue delivering its established academic programmes while working with Newmedica to deliver new, practice-based training opportunities to satisfy qualification requirements and offer broader professional development. This includes providing clinical placements across outpatient and surgical settings, including rotations and internships for postgraduate trainees and pre-registration optometry students, as well as more specialist training in areas such as glaucoma management, laser procedures and surgical skills. In time, there will also be further training opportunities for nurses, scrub practitioners, advanced optometrists and healthcare managers that will ensure benefits for the entire eye health sector.
Professor Joy Myint, Head of School and Professor of Optometry at Cardiff University's School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, said: "For students, it creates more placements to enable more people to qualify, while also offering enhanced access to diverse clinical environments and career development opportunities. For the wider healthcare system, it represents a meaningful step towards reducing waiting times, improving patient outcomes and strengthening resilience in eye care services through a combined focus on innovation. We are delighted to be working with Newmedica on this initiative."
Newmedica is one of the largest independent providers of NHS and private ophthalmology services in England. It has a number of clinics close to the Welsh border and is already working with NHS Wales to bring down waiting lists, having seen 13,000 Welsh patients in the last year.
Doug Perkins CBE, founder of Specsavers and Newmedica and a Cardiff University alumnus, said: "We are completely committed to doing whatever we can to support eye health in Wales. Through our network of 56 Specsavers stores, alongside Newmedica, we feel that we are uniquely well-placed to meet the needs of the Welsh people and to support the government's mandate to future-proof NHS Wales.
"We believe that through this joined-up service we can help Health Boards develop solutions that allow ophthalmologists and optometrists to work across boundaries, building a Welsh workforce that is committed to the long-term eye health needs of Welsh people - so keeping business in Wales, supporting the Welsh health economy with less need to rely on short-term fixes."
Newmedica' s Medical Director, Ophthalmologist Nigel Kirkpatrick continued: 'Training will initially be delivered in Newmedica clinics, expanding the "teach and treat" model Cardiff University already adopts, enabling students to gain hands-on experience while contributing to patient care under expert supervision. This approach ensures that training is closely aligned to real-world demand and service delivery, benefitting both learners and patients."
The collaboration will also introduce shared performance monitoring through 'report card' style feedback systems. These will track learning outcomes, quality standards, and productivity metrics, ensuring a consistent, high-quality professional development experience.
* * *
REPORT: https://cast.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/the-centre-for-climate-change-and-social-transformations-cast-briefing-45-climate-change-in-2050-how-athletes-envisage-the-future-of-sport.pdf
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Original text here: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/3057050-future-proofing-eye-care-in-wales
Virginia Tech's Leading Research Universities Unite to Advance Biomedical Innovation
BLACKSBURG, Virginia, July 1 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news:
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Virginia's leading research universities unite to advance biomedical innovation
The state's Biomedical Research Diamond universities highlight collaboration across Virginia's research enterprise.
By John Pastor
The next generation of medicine won't be built around treating disease after it appears. It will be built around understanding precisely how disease develops - and predicting its course to enable precise interventions before it becomes irreversible.
That vision united researchers from Virginia Tech, the ... Show Full Article BLACKSBURG, Virginia, July 1 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news: * * * Virginia's leading research universities unite to advance biomedical innovation The state's Biomedical Research Diamond universities highlight collaboration across Virginia's research enterprise. By John Pastor The next generation of medicine won't be built around treating disease after it appears. It will be built around understanding precisely how disease develops - and predicting its course to enable precise interventions before it becomes irreversible. That vision united researchers from Virginia Tech, theUniversity of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Old Dominion University at the inaugural Biomedical Research Diamond symposium in Richmond, where scientists described advances spanning neuroscience, cancer, rare diseases, cardiovascular and metabolic health, immunology, artificial intelligence, and drug discovery.
Although the diseases differed, the scientific strategy was consistent: understand the biology, identify the mechanisms that drive disease -- and those that promote health and longevity such as exercise and nutrition -- and use that knowledge to develop more precise interventions at the molecular, cellular, and systems levels.
Anthony LaMantia of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC presented research that traces a genetic mutation associated with schizophrenia and autism to the brain circuits the mutation disrupts during development, identifying a way to restore healthy neural connections by activating an alternative biological pathway rather than correcting the original mutation.
In all, the presentations illustrated why Virginia's leading research universities have chosen to work together.
Advances in biomedical research increasingly depend on expertise distributed across disciplines and institutions, combining basic science, engineering, computation, clinical research, and pharmaceutical development to move discoveries more efficiently toward patient care.
"The challenges facing human health today are too complex for any one investigator or even any institution to solve alone," said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and Virginia Tech vice president for health sciences and technology. "The Biomedical Research Diamond, and the commonwealth's continued financial support and prioritization, reflects a shared commitment to bringing together expertise, infrastructure, and talent across Virginia's leading research universities to accelerate discoveries that improve lives.
"There are scientific opportunities now that weren't here 10 years ago for early-stage discovery, computational modeling, drug design, and running very informed trials that use biomarkers that enable strategic stratification of patients and higher success rates for clinical research outcomes," Friedlander said.
Frank Gupton, chair of pharmaceutical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, where the symposium was hosted, said translating discoveries into therapies requires capabilities that no single institution possesses.
"Collectively, we have them all," Gupton said.
Gupton said Virginia's opportunity extends beyond discovery to one of the most difficult stages of biomedical innovation: translating promising laboratory findings into therapies that can reach patients.
"Discoveries can't be laboratory curiosities," he said. "They've got to be things that we can actually show a line of sight to commercialization."
By combining expertise in basic science, engineering, clinical research, pharmaceutical development, and manufacturing, the Biomedical Research Diamond aims to bridge the gap between laboratory discovery to patient care.
Jason Powell, director of government affairs at Hunton Andrews Kurth and a former senior advisor in Virginia state government, said the partnership reflects years of evolving state investment in research.
Early efforts focused on strengthening individual universities, he said, but the Biomedical Research Diamond represents a shift toward supporting a coordinated statewide enterprise.
"The commonwealth has shown that it's willing to be an investor and is looking for results that benefit the entirety of the commonwealth, and not just one university, because it's Virginia versus the world," Powell said.
The goal was to have a "single coordinated entity" capable of generating returns that no one university could achieve alone.
The effort grew from a recognition that Virginia already possesses internationally recognized strengths in biomedical research, engineering, clinical medicine, biotechnology, and data science.
The partnership seeks to connect those capabilities, creating a statewide research enterprise to move discoveries more efficiently from laboratory science to patient care.
The collaboration also represents a shift in how Virginia's universities work together.
"What we've seen is a transition from those relationship-based collaborations to more institutional collaborations," said Eric Weisel, senior associate vice president for enterprise research and innovation at Old Dominion University. "Institutional collaboration is what's going to allow us to compete with other states."
Mark Esser, chief scientific officer of the University of Virginia's Manning Institute for Biotechnology, said the partnership is ultimately about people. After 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, he has watched companies search the world for the scientists and entrepreneurs who drive biomedical innovation.
"The name of the game is talent," Esser said.
Virginia already educates many of those people, Esser said, but too many leave the commonwealth after graduation. Building a stronger biomedical research and biotechnology ecosystem will help keep that talent in Virginia while strengthening the nation's ability to compete globally.
"This isn't just about competition within the state," Esser said. "This is really about national security and national economic security."
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Original text here: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/06/research-fralinbiomed-researchdiamond.html
* * *
Virginia's leading research universities unite to advance biomedical innovation
The state's Biomedical Research Diamond universities highlight collaboration across Virginia's research enterprise.
By John Pastor
The next generation of medicine won't be built around treating disease after it appears. It will be built around understanding precisely how disease develops - and predicting its course to enable precise interventions before it becomes irreversible.
That vision united researchers from Virginia Tech, the ... Show Full Article BLACKSBURG, Virginia, July 1 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news: * * * Virginia's leading research universities unite to advance biomedical innovation The state's Biomedical Research Diamond universities highlight collaboration across Virginia's research enterprise. By John Pastor The next generation of medicine won't be built around treating disease after it appears. It will be built around understanding precisely how disease develops - and predicting its course to enable precise interventions before it becomes irreversible. That vision united researchers from Virginia Tech, theUniversity of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Old Dominion University at the inaugural Biomedical Research Diamond symposium in Richmond, where scientists described advances spanning neuroscience, cancer, rare diseases, cardiovascular and metabolic health, immunology, artificial intelligence, and drug discovery.
Although the diseases differed, the scientific strategy was consistent: understand the biology, identify the mechanisms that drive disease -- and those that promote health and longevity such as exercise and nutrition -- and use that knowledge to develop more precise interventions at the molecular, cellular, and systems levels.
Anthony LaMantia of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC presented research that traces a genetic mutation associated with schizophrenia and autism to the brain circuits the mutation disrupts during development, identifying a way to restore healthy neural connections by activating an alternative biological pathway rather than correcting the original mutation.
In all, the presentations illustrated why Virginia's leading research universities have chosen to work together.
Advances in biomedical research increasingly depend on expertise distributed across disciplines and institutions, combining basic science, engineering, computation, clinical research, and pharmaceutical development to move discoveries more efficiently toward patient care.
"The challenges facing human health today are too complex for any one investigator or even any institution to solve alone," said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and Virginia Tech vice president for health sciences and technology. "The Biomedical Research Diamond, and the commonwealth's continued financial support and prioritization, reflects a shared commitment to bringing together expertise, infrastructure, and talent across Virginia's leading research universities to accelerate discoveries that improve lives.
"There are scientific opportunities now that weren't here 10 years ago for early-stage discovery, computational modeling, drug design, and running very informed trials that use biomarkers that enable strategic stratification of patients and higher success rates for clinical research outcomes," Friedlander said.
Frank Gupton, chair of pharmaceutical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, where the symposium was hosted, said translating discoveries into therapies requires capabilities that no single institution possesses.
"Collectively, we have them all," Gupton said.
Gupton said Virginia's opportunity extends beyond discovery to one of the most difficult stages of biomedical innovation: translating promising laboratory findings into therapies that can reach patients.
"Discoveries can't be laboratory curiosities," he said. "They've got to be things that we can actually show a line of sight to commercialization."
By combining expertise in basic science, engineering, clinical research, pharmaceutical development, and manufacturing, the Biomedical Research Diamond aims to bridge the gap between laboratory discovery to patient care.
Jason Powell, director of government affairs at Hunton Andrews Kurth and a former senior advisor in Virginia state government, said the partnership reflects years of evolving state investment in research.
Early efforts focused on strengthening individual universities, he said, but the Biomedical Research Diamond represents a shift toward supporting a coordinated statewide enterprise.
"The commonwealth has shown that it's willing to be an investor and is looking for results that benefit the entirety of the commonwealth, and not just one university, because it's Virginia versus the world," Powell said.
The goal was to have a "single coordinated entity" capable of generating returns that no one university could achieve alone.
The effort grew from a recognition that Virginia already possesses internationally recognized strengths in biomedical research, engineering, clinical medicine, biotechnology, and data science.
The partnership seeks to connect those capabilities, creating a statewide research enterprise to move discoveries more efficiently from laboratory science to patient care.
The collaboration also represents a shift in how Virginia's universities work together.
"What we've seen is a transition from those relationship-based collaborations to more institutional collaborations," said Eric Weisel, senior associate vice president for enterprise research and innovation at Old Dominion University. "Institutional collaboration is what's going to allow us to compete with other states."
Mark Esser, chief scientific officer of the University of Virginia's Manning Institute for Biotechnology, said the partnership is ultimately about people. After 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, he has watched companies search the world for the scientists and entrepreneurs who drive biomedical innovation.
"The name of the game is talent," Esser said.
Virginia already educates many of those people, Esser said, but too many leave the commonwealth after graduation. Building a stronger biomedical research and biotechnology ecosystem will help keep that talent in Virginia while strengthening the nation's ability to compete globally.
"This isn't just about competition within the state," Esser said. "This is really about national security and national economic security."
* * *
Original text here: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/06/research-fralinbiomed-researchdiamond.html
University of Oklahoma Health: Clinical Trial to Evaluate Immunotherapy Drug for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Following Surgery
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, July 1 -- The University of Oklahoma Health campus issued the following news:
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Clinical Trial to Evaluate Immunotherapy Drug for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Following Surgery
Muhammad Furqan, M.D., professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and Associate Director of Clinical Research at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, is leading a national clinical trial evaluating whether immunotherapy can improve outcomes for patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following surgery.
Lung cancer remains the leading ... Show Full Article OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, July 1 -- The University of Oklahoma Health campus issued the following news: * * * Clinical Trial to Evaluate Immunotherapy Drug for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Following Surgery Muhammad Furqan, M.D., professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and Associate Director of Clinical Research at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, is leading a national clinical trial evaluating whether immunotherapy can improve outcomes for patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following surgery. Lung cancer remains the leadingcause of cancer-related death among both men and women in the United States, accounting for approximately 20% of all cancer deaths. NSCLC represents about 85% of all lung cancer diagnoses.
While overall incidence of NSCLC has declined in recent years, a growing proportion of cases are being diagnosed at earlier stages, including stage I disease, largely due to increased screening and earlier detection of smaller tumors. Surgery is the standard treatment for patients with stage I NSCLC. Following surgery, patients are monitored with routine imaging to detect recurrence. Approximately 20% to 30% of patients experience disease recurrence, which is often no longer curable. Currently, there is no postoperative therapy for patients with stage I NSCLC removed through surgery.
Over the past decade, immunotherapy has transformed the treatment of lung cancer and significantly improved outcomes for patients with stage II, III and IV disease. Researchers now hope to determine whether immunotherapy can also benefit patients with stage I NSCLC by reducing the risk of recurrence and potentially preventing the development of new lung cancers.
"The success of immunotherapy in more advanced stages of lung cancer raises an important question: Can we improve outcomes for patients with stage I disease who currently have no approved postoperative treatment options?" Furqan said. "This trial is designed to answer that question."
This question is particularly relevant in Oklahoma, where lung cancer incidence and mortality remain high, and ongoing efforts at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center and across the state are focused on improving lung cancer screening and early detection to enhance outcomes for patients.
The phase III trial, AASI-NSCLC (A082302), is a national study conducted through the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network, including the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, SWOG Cancer Research Network, ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, and NRG Oncology.
Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either one year of the immunotherapy drug atezolizumab following surgery or standard surveillance alone. Investigators will evaluate whether the addition of immunotherapy improves disease-free survival and overall survival. More details are available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07388524.
If successful, the trial could establish the first postoperative treatment strategy for patients with stage I NSCLC that has been surgically removed and potentially change the standard of care for thousands of patients diagnosed each year.
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About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university with campuses in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. As the state's flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. In Oklahoma City, the OU Health Campus is one of the nation's few academic health centers with seven health profession colleges located on the same campus. The OU Health Campus serves approximately 4,000 students in more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs spanning Oklahoma City and Tulsa and is the leading research institution in Oklahoma. For more information about the OU Health Campus, visit www.ouhsc.edu.
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Original text here: https://inside.ouhsc.edu/news/article/clinical-trial-to-evaluate-immunotherapy-drug-for-stage-i-non-small-cell-lung-cancer-following-surgery
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Clinical Trial to Evaluate Immunotherapy Drug for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Following Surgery
Muhammad Furqan, M.D., professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and Associate Director of Clinical Research at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, is leading a national clinical trial evaluating whether immunotherapy can improve outcomes for patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following surgery.
Lung cancer remains the leading ... Show Full Article OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, July 1 -- The University of Oklahoma Health campus issued the following news: * * * Clinical Trial to Evaluate Immunotherapy Drug for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Following Surgery Muhammad Furqan, M.D., professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and Associate Director of Clinical Research at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, is leading a national clinical trial evaluating whether immunotherapy can improve outcomes for patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following surgery. Lung cancer remains the leadingcause of cancer-related death among both men and women in the United States, accounting for approximately 20% of all cancer deaths. NSCLC represents about 85% of all lung cancer diagnoses.
While overall incidence of NSCLC has declined in recent years, a growing proportion of cases are being diagnosed at earlier stages, including stage I disease, largely due to increased screening and earlier detection of smaller tumors. Surgery is the standard treatment for patients with stage I NSCLC. Following surgery, patients are monitored with routine imaging to detect recurrence. Approximately 20% to 30% of patients experience disease recurrence, which is often no longer curable. Currently, there is no postoperative therapy for patients with stage I NSCLC removed through surgery.
Over the past decade, immunotherapy has transformed the treatment of lung cancer and significantly improved outcomes for patients with stage II, III and IV disease. Researchers now hope to determine whether immunotherapy can also benefit patients with stage I NSCLC by reducing the risk of recurrence and potentially preventing the development of new lung cancers.
"The success of immunotherapy in more advanced stages of lung cancer raises an important question: Can we improve outcomes for patients with stage I disease who currently have no approved postoperative treatment options?" Furqan said. "This trial is designed to answer that question."
This question is particularly relevant in Oklahoma, where lung cancer incidence and mortality remain high, and ongoing efforts at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center and across the state are focused on improving lung cancer screening and early detection to enhance outcomes for patients.
The phase III trial, AASI-NSCLC (A082302), is a national study conducted through the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network, including the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, SWOG Cancer Research Network, ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, and NRG Oncology.
Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either one year of the immunotherapy drug atezolizumab following surgery or standard surveillance alone. Investigators will evaluate whether the addition of immunotherapy improves disease-free survival and overall survival. More details are available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07388524.
If successful, the trial could establish the first postoperative treatment strategy for patients with stage I NSCLC that has been surgically removed and potentially change the standard of care for thousands of patients diagnosed each year.
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About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university with campuses in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. As the state's flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. In Oklahoma City, the OU Health Campus is one of the nation's few academic health centers with seven health profession colleges located on the same campus. The OU Health Campus serves approximately 4,000 students in more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs spanning Oklahoma City and Tulsa and is the leading research institution in Oklahoma. For more information about the OU Health Campus, visit www.ouhsc.edu.
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Original text here: https://inside.ouhsc.edu/news/article/clinical-trial-to-evaluate-immunotherapy-drug-for-stage-i-non-small-cell-lung-cancer-following-surgery
University of Arkansas: English Doctoral Students Receive Dissertation Research Awards
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, July 1 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news:
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English Doctoral Students Receive Dissertation Research Awards
John Plavcan and Abigail Ross, two doctoral candidates with the Graduate Program in English, have received Dissertation Research Awards for 2026 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
The grants, each for $8,000, are annually presented to Ph.D. students who have been nominated by their departments and selected by the college. Plavcan and Ross will use their awards to travel for the purpose of researching their respective dissertation ... Show Full Article FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, July 1 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news: * * * English Doctoral Students Receive Dissertation Research Awards John Plavcan and Abigail Ross, two doctoral candidates with the Graduate Program in English, have received Dissertation Research Awards for 2026 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The grants, each for $8,000, are annually presented to Ph.D. students who have been nominated by their departments and selected by the college. Plavcan and Ross will use their awards to travel for the purpose of researching their respective dissertationprojects.
Plavcan's dissertation will focus on the ways in which medieval architecture is recreated and preserved in digital media for modern consumers to interact with and learn from. A lot of his focus will be placed on the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, which recreates in detail the art and architecture of medieval Bohemia.
With the grant's funding, Plavcan will be able to travel to Czechia to document all of the cities and historical sites recreated in the game.
"Considering how extensively the game and its relation with history is discussed," Plavcan said, "it is surprising how little direct comparison there is between the in-game assets and the real-life environments recreated and referenced."
Plavcan will have the opportunity to gather a great deal of material "not only for [him]self, but for public dissemination."
Ross' dissertation, to be titled Monstrous Protest Literature: Southern and Indigenous Gothic Archetypes (1930-2020), will examine how Gothic literature uses monstrous figures to critique systems of oppression. Focusing on both Southern Gothic and Indigenous Gothic texts, she will explore how representations of gender, race and colonialism shape literary depictions of the monstrous.
Ross noted, "The project pays particular attention to the role of women and marginalized communities, arguing that Gothic literature often functions as a form of protest against social, political and cultural injustices."
The funding from the award will provide Ross with an important opportunity to conduct archival research in both Oxford, Mississippi, and New Haven, Connecticut, that will deepen her understanding of the literary and historical contexts surrounding Southern and Indigenous Gothic texts.
"Access to these materials will be invaluable as I complete my dissertation," Ross said.
Find more information about the achievements of the graduate students in English (https://english.uark.edu/graduate/ma-phd-english/awards-publications-and-presentations.php).
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Original text here: https://news.uark.edu/articles/82546/english-doctoral-students-receive-dissertation-research-awards
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English Doctoral Students Receive Dissertation Research Awards
John Plavcan and Abigail Ross, two doctoral candidates with the Graduate Program in English, have received Dissertation Research Awards for 2026 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
The grants, each for $8,000, are annually presented to Ph.D. students who have been nominated by their departments and selected by the college. Plavcan and Ross will use their awards to travel for the purpose of researching their respective dissertation ... Show Full Article FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, July 1 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news: * * * English Doctoral Students Receive Dissertation Research Awards John Plavcan and Abigail Ross, two doctoral candidates with the Graduate Program in English, have received Dissertation Research Awards for 2026 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The grants, each for $8,000, are annually presented to Ph.D. students who have been nominated by their departments and selected by the college. Plavcan and Ross will use their awards to travel for the purpose of researching their respective dissertationprojects.
Plavcan's dissertation will focus on the ways in which medieval architecture is recreated and preserved in digital media for modern consumers to interact with and learn from. A lot of his focus will be placed on the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, which recreates in detail the art and architecture of medieval Bohemia.
With the grant's funding, Plavcan will be able to travel to Czechia to document all of the cities and historical sites recreated in the game.
"Considering how extensively the game and its relation with history is discussed," Plavcan said, "it is surprising how little direct comparison there is between the in-game assets and the real-life environments recreated and referenced."
Plavcan will have the opportunity to gather a great deal of material "not only for [him]self, but for public dissemination."
Ross' dissertation, to be titled Monstrous Protest Literature: Southern and Indigenous Gothic Archetypes (1930-2020), will examine how Gothic literature uses monstrous figures to critique systems of oppression. Focusing on both Southern Gothic and Indigenous Gothic texts, she will explore how representations of gender, race and colonialism shape literary depictions of the monstrous.
Ross noted, "The project pays particular attention to the role of women and marginalized communities, arguing that Gothic literature often functions as a form of protest against social, political and cultural injustices."
The funding from the award will provide Ross with an important opportunity to conduct archival research in both Oxford, Mississippi, and New Haven, Connecticut, that will deepen her understanding of the literary and historical contexts surrounding Southern and Indigenous Gothic texts.
"Access to these materials will be invaluable as I complete my dissertation," Ross said.
Find more information about the achievements of the graduate students in English (https://english.uark.edu/graduate/ma-phd-english/awards-publications-and-presentations.php).
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Original text here: https://news.uark.edu/articles/82546/english-doctoral-students-receive-dissertation-research-awards
Universities of Wisconsin Award Security-Luebke Roofing the Regents Business Partnership Award
GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, July 1 -- The University of Wisconsin Green Bay campus issued the following news release:
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The Universities of Wisconsin Award Security-Luebke Roofing the Regents Business Partnership Award
In a ceremony last week, Universities of Wisconsin Regent Vice President Ashok Rai and Interim President Renee Wachter, along with UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander presented Shannon Alberts, '99, president and owner of Security-Luebke Roofing with the Regents Business Partnership Award. The award was presented to the locally owned roofing business because of its support ... Show Full Article GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, July 1 -- The University of Wisconsin Green Bay campus issued the following news release: * * * The Universities of Wisconsin Award Security-Luebke Roofing the Regents Business Partnership Award In a ceremony last week, Universities of Wisconsin Regent Vice President Ashok Rai and Interim President Renee Wachter, along with UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander presented Shannon Alberts, '99, president and owner of Security-Luebke Roofing with the Regents Business Partnership Award. The award was presented to the locally owned roofing business because of its supportand collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Both Regent Rai and Interim President Wachter shared the importance of community support and partnership between the regional business and UW-Green Bay. "It's a pleasure to honor Security-Luebke Roofing today," said Regent Vice President Rai. "This illustrates how critical our business partners are to our success and highlights the amazing collaborations between our universities and local businesses that benefit students and communities."
Chancellor Alexander stressed the importance of honoring the Security-Luebke Roofing partnership for students, and the value that this partnership brings to the region. "We continue to talk about UW-Green Bay empowering people to rise, and when we look at how Shannon has done this both with his career and at Security-Luebke Roofing, he exemplifies what this means. It's not a tag line. It's what we do," said Chancellor Alexander. "Our goal is to ensure that everyone in Northeast Wisconsin finds value in having a regional comprehensive here, whether they are a student or connecting with us in countless other possible ways. We are grateful for the support we receive from Shannon and Security-Luebke Roofing. We hope we can continue to show that we deserve their belief in us."
Security-Luebke Roofing stands as a powerful example of resilience, growth and people-first leadership in Northeast Wisconsin. With roots dating back to 1934, the company faced potential closure in 2013 until Alberts and his family stepped in to buy it and start rebuilding. Since then, the business has grown into a thriving organization with 85 employees and a robust fleet serving the region. This transformation reflects not only strategic vision and operational excellence, but a deep commitment to investing in people--equipping teams with the tools, training and support needed to succeed.
Alberts spoke of how the university's mission to help everyone "Rise" resonates with him. After graduating with a psychology degree, he suddenly found himself running a business. "I love the [concept of] Rise and it represents so many things in my life in so many ways," said Alberts. "After we bought the business, I focused on surrounding myself with people who were smarter than me...and learning as much as I could. And in those 13 years, we've grown to include more than 80 employees, countless partnerships and I'm still wrapping my head around the impact we have had on the community. Thank you so much for the award. Go Phoenix!"
At its core, Security-Luebke Roofing is driven by a set of values centered on caring for people, doing what's right, being flexible and working hard. The company has cultivated a culture where employees are supported, connected and proud of their work that extends beyond the job site into meaningful relationships and community involvement. This commitment makes the company a vital contributor to the Northeast Wisconsin community, strengthening the local workforce, supporting families and setting a standard for what a values-driven business can achieve. It is this impact that makes Shannon Alberts' recognition with the Regents Business Partnership Award both fitting and significant.
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About UW-Green Bay
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is a school of resilient problem solvers who dare to reach higher with the power of education that ignites growth and answers the biggest challenges. Serving 11,519 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students as well as 101,000 continuing education learners annually, UW-Green Bay offers 200 academic degrees, programs, and certificates. With campus locations in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Sheboygan and a theatre in Marinette, the University's access mission welcomes all students who want to learn, from every corner of the world. Championing bold thinking since opening its doors in 1965, it is a university on the rise - Wisconsin's fastest growing UW. For more information, visit www.uwgb.edu.
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Original text here: https://news.uwgb.edu/phlash/releases/06/30/the-universities-of-wisconsin-award-security-luebke-roofing-the-regents-business-partnership-award/
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The Universities of Wisconsin Award Security-Luebke Roofing the Regents Business Partnership Award
In a ceremony last week, Universities of Wisconsin Regent Vice President Ashok Rai and Interim President Renee Wachter, along with UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander presented Shannon Alberts, '99, president and owner of Security-Luebke Roofing with the Regents Business Partnership Award. The award was presented to the locally owned roofing business because of its support ... Show Full Article GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, July 1 -- The University of Wisconsin Green Bay campus issued the following news release: * * * The Universities of Wisconsin Award Security-Luebke Roofing the Regents Business Partnership Award In a ceremony last week, Universities of Wisconsin Regent Vice President Ashok Rai and Interim President Renee Wachter, along with UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander presented Shannon Alberts, '99, president and owner of Security-Luebke Roofing with the Regents Business Partnership Award. The award was presented to the locally owned roofing business because of its supportand collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Both Regent Rai and Interim President Wachter shared the importance of community support and partnership between the regional business and UW-Green Bay. "It's a pleasure to honor Security-Luebke Roofing today," said Regent Vice President Rai. "This illustrates how critical our business partners are to our success and highlights the amazing collaborations between our universities and local businesses that benefit students and communities."
Chancellor Alexander stressed the importance of honoring the Security-Luebke Roofing partnership for students, and the value that this partnership brings to the region. "We continue to talk about UW-Green Bay empowering people to rise, and when we look at how Shannon has done this both with his career and at Security-Luebke Roofing, he exemplifies what this means. It's not a tag line. It's what we do," said Chancellor Alexander. "Our goal is to ensure that everyone in Northeast Wisconsin finds value in having a regional comprehensive here, whether they are a student or connecting with us in countless other possible ways. We are grateful for the support we receive from Shannon and Security-Luebke Roofing. We hope we can continue to show that we deserve their belief in us."
Security-Luebke Roofing stands as a powerful example of resilience, growth and people-first leadership in Northeast Wisconsin. With roots dating back to 1934, the company faced potential closure in 2013 until Alberts and his family stepped in to buy it and start rebuilding. Since then, the business has grown into a thriving organization with 85 employees and a robust fleet serving the region. This transformation reflects not only strategic vision and operational excellence, but a deep commitment to investing in people--equipping teams with the tools, training and support needed to succeed.
Alberts spoke of how the university's mission to help everyone "Rise" resonates with him. After graduating with a psychology degree, he suddenly found himself running a business. "I love the [concept of] Rise and it represents so many things in my life in so many ways," said Alberts. "After we bought the business, I focused on surrounding myself with people who were smarter than me...and learning as much as I could. And in those 13 years, we've grown to include more than 80 employees, countless partnerships and I'm still wrapping my head around the impact we have had on the community. Thank you so much for the award. Go Phoenix!"
At its core, Security-Luebke Roofing is driven by a set of values centered on caring for people, doing what's right, being flexible and working hard. The company has cultivated a culture where employees are supported, connected and proud of their work that extends beyond the job site into meaningful relationships and community involvement. This commitment makes the company a vital contributor to the Northeast Wisconsin community, strengthening the local workforce, supporting families and setting a standard for what a values-driven business can achieve. It is this impact that makes Shannon Alberts' recognition with the Regents Business Partnership Award both fitting and significant.
* * *
About UW-Green Bay
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is a school of resilient problem solvers who dare to reach higher with the power of education that ignites growth and answers the biggest challenges. Serving 11,519 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students as well as 101,000 continuing education learners annually, UW-Green Bay offers 200 academic degrees, programs, and certificates. With campus locations in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Sheboygan and a theatre in Marinette, the University's access mission welcomes all students who want to learn, from every corner of the world. Championing bold thinking since opening its doors in 1965, it is a university on the rise - Wisconsin's fastest growing UW. For more information, visit www.uwgb.edu.
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Original text here: https://news.uwgb.edu/phlash/releases/06/30/the-universities-of-wisconsin-award-security-luebke-roofing-the-regents-business-partnership-award/
SUNY-Upstate Medical Campus Joins New York's Cannabis Center of Excellence to Advance Clinician Education
SYRACUSE, New York, July 1 -- The State University of New York Upstate Medical University campus issued the following news:
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Upstate joins New York's Cannabis Center of Excellence to advance clinician education
Upstate Medical University has joined a statewide partnership to help educate healthcare professionals on the safe, evidence-based use of cannabis as New York launches the nation's first Center of Excellence for Cannabis Care and Health Equity.
Announced by the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, the Center of Excellence brings together leading academic medical centers ... Show Full Article SYRACUSE, New York, July 1 -- The State University of New York Upstate Medical University campus issued the following news: * * * Upstate joins New York's Cannabis Center of Excellence to advance clinician education Upstate Medical University has joined a statewide partnership to help educate healthcare professionals on the safe, evidence-based use of cannabis as New York launches the nation's first Center of Excellence for Cannabis Care and Health Equity. Announced by the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, the Center of Excellence brings together leading academic medical centersand public health institutions to develop educational resources that help clinicians navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of medical and adult-use cannabis.
As a partner, Upstate will help advance clinician education and expand access to evidence-based information for healthcare providers and other key stakeholders. Upstate's efforts will focus on the clinical use of cannabis, its safety profile, public health implications and emerging research opportunities, informed by current state and national cannabis policies.
The statewide pilot program will feature Grand Rounds presentations, clinical webinars and educational toolkits for providers in specialties including primary care, emergency medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, pain management and palliative care. The initiative is designed to strengthen patient-provider communication and support informed, equitable care across New York.
"As cannabis policy continues to evolve across the nation, and especially in New York state, healthcare professionals must have access to trusted, evidence-based guidance to support high-quality patient care," said Tolani Ajagbe, MD, division chief of Addiction Psychiatry and program director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at Upstate Medical University. "Upstate Medical University is honored to partner with New York state on this innovative Center of Excellence. Consistent with our mission of advancing health through education, research and patient care, this collaboration will help equip clinicians with the knowledge and resources needed to provide safe, informed and equitable care for communities across New York."
The Center of Excellence was announced as part of Gov. Kathy Hochul's 2026 State of the State agenda and reflects New York's public health-focused approach to cannabis education. Participating institutions will help evaluate educational strategies and develop programs that can be implemented statewide.
Other partners in the Center of Excellence include Stony Brook Medicine, the University of Rochester Medical Center, the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, Albany Medical Center, the CUNY School of Public Health, the University at Albany College of Integrated Health Sciences and the New York State Office of Mental Health.
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Original text here: https://www.upstate.edu/news/articles/2026/2026-06-30-cannibis.php
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Upstate joins New York's Cannabis Center of Excellence to advance clinician education
Upstate Medical University has joined a statewide partnership to help educate healthcare professionals on the safe, evidence-based use of cannabis as New York launches the nation's first Center of Excellence for Cannabis Care and Health Equity.
Announced by the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, the Center of Excellence brings together leading academic medical centers ... Show Full Article SYRACUSE, New York, July 1 -- The State University of New York Upstate Medical University campus issued the following news: * * * Upstate joins New York's Cannabis Center of Excellence to advance clinician education Upstate Medical University has joined a statewide partnership to help educate healthcare professionals on the safe, evidence-based use of cannabis as New York launches the nation's first Center of Excellence for Cannabis Care and Health Equity. Announced by the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, the Center of Excellence brings together leading academic medical centersand public health institutions to develop educational resources that help clinicians navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of medical and adult-use cannabis.
As a partner, Upstate will help advance clinician education and expand access to evidence-based information for healthcare providers and other key stakeholders. Upstate's efforts will focus on the clinical use of cannabis, its safety profile, public health implications and emerging research opportunities, informed by current state and national cannabis policies.
The statewide pilot program will feature Grand Rounds presentations, clinical webinars and educational toolkits for providers in specialties including primary care, emergency medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, pain management and palliative care. The initiative is designed to strengthen patient-provider communication and support informed, equitable care across New York.
"As cannabis policy continues to evolve across the nation, and especially in New York state, healthcare professionals must have access to trusted, evidence-based guidance to support high-quality patient care," said Tolani Ajagbe, MD, division chief of Addiction Psychiatry and program director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at Upstate Medical University. "Upstate Medical University is honored to partner with New York state on this innovative Center of Excellence. Consistent with our mission of advancing health through education, research and patient care, this collaboration will help equip clinicians with the knowledge and resources needed to provide safe, informed and equitable care for communities across New York."
The Center of Excellence was announced as part of Gov. Kathy Hochul's 2026 State of the State agenda and reflects New York's public health-focused approach to cannabis education. Participating institutions will help evaluate educational strategies and develop programs that can be implemented statewide.
Other partners in the Center of Excellence include Stony Brook Medicine, the University of Rochester Medical Center, the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, Albany Medical Center, the CUNY School of Public Health, the University at Albany College of Integrated Health Sciences and the New York State Office of Mental Health.
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Original text here: https://www.upstate.edu/news/articles/2026/2026-06-30-cannibis.php
FAU Nursing Dean Cameron Duncan, Ph.D., Named Fellow of the AAN
BOCA RATON, Florida, July 1 -- Florida Atlantic University, a component of the state university system in Florida, issued the following news:
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FAU Nursing Dean Cameron Duncan, Ph.D., Named Fellow of the AAN
By Gisele Galoustian
Cameron G. Duncan, Ph.D., DNP, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, CNE, FAANP, Holli Rockwell Trubinsky Eminent Dean of Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), one of the nursing profession's highest honors recognizing leaders whose work has significantly advanced healthcare, nursing ... Show Full Article BOCA RATON, Florida, July 1 -- Florida Atlantic University, a component of the state university system in Florida, issued the following news: * * * FAU Nursing Dean Cameron Duncan, Ph.D., Named Fellow of the AAN By Gisele Galoustian Cameron G. Duncan, Ph.D., DNP, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, CNE, FAANP, Holli Rockwell Trubinsky Eminent Dean of Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), one of the nursing profession's highest honors recognizing leaders whose work has significantly advanced healthcare, nursingpractice, research, education and policy.
His induction into the AAN places Duncan among an elite group of nursing leaders. The distinguished cohort of the 2026 Class of Fellows, recently announced by the AAN, represents nurse leaders from 39 states, the District of Columbia and 17 countries who have made substantial contributions to improving health outcomes and are positioned to continue transforming healthcare for years to come.
The academy will formally welcome the 2026 Fellows during its induction ceremony and soiree on Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., a celebration widely regarded as one of the profession's highest distinctions.
"It is a great honor to be named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing," said Duncan. "To be recognized by an organization whose members have helped shape the future of nursing and healthcare worldwide is both humbling and deeply meaningful. I am proud to join this remarkable cohort of nurse leaders and look forward to contributing to the Academy's mission of advancing health policy, promoting nursing leadership and addressing the complex health challenges facing our communities. This recognition also reflects the dedication of my colleagues, mentors, students and patients who have inspired and supported my journey, and I am honored to represent Florida Atlantic University and the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing among the Academy's newest Fellows."
Duncan was appointed the fourth dean in the 45-year history of FAU's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and assumed leadership of the college in January 2025. He brings extensive experience as an academic leader, clinician, educator and scholar whose work has focused on advancing nursing education, mental healthcare and health policy. Prior to joining FAU, he served as interim dean of the Orvis School of Nursing at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also directed the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program.
During his tenure at the University of Nevada, Duncan led transformative initiatives that strengthened academic programs, enhanced teaching and research excellence, and expanded community engagement through innovative academic-practice partnerships.
A nationally recognized nursing educator, Duncan has earned distinction for implementing innovative programs that improve educational quality and student success.
His scholarship has focused on translational research that bridges evidence-based findings with practical clinical applications. Duncan's research interests include integrating mental health services into primary care settings, advancing healthcare policy, supporting the nursing profession and addressing substance use disorders. His recent work has explored transcranial magnetic stimulation as a potential treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder. He has also built an extensive publication record in peer-reviewed journals and is widely recognized for mentoring students through collaborative research and scholarship.
A first-generation college graduate, Duncan earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2022. He also earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and a post-master's certificate as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at the University of Arizona, and completed a MSN as a family nurse practitioner. Before that, he earned a Master of Science in Nursing in organizational leadership from Grand Canyon University. He also has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is dually board certified as both a family nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, as well as a certified nurse educator.
Duncan's selection as a Fellow of the AAN adds to a growing list of national honors recognizing his leadership and contributions to the profession. He previously served as an Advancing Academic Excellence for Deans Fellow with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in 2023.
The American Academy of Nursing serves the public by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis and dissemination of nursing knowledge. Fellowship in the academy is reserved for nursing leaders whose careers have demonstrated extraordinary contributions to improving health locally, nationally and globally. With more than 3,400 Fellows, the academy represents nursing's most accomplished leaders in research, policy, administration, clinical practice and academia.
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Original text here: https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/american-academy-of-nursing-duncan.php
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FAU Nursing Dean Cameron Duncan, Ph.D., Named Fellow of the AAN
By Gisele Galoustian
Cameron G. Duncan, Ph.D., DNP, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, CNE, FAANP, Holli Rockwell Trubinsky Eminent Dean of Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), one of the nursing profession's highest honors recognizing leaders whose work has significantly advanced healthcare, nursing ... Show Full Article BOCA RATON, Florida, July 1 -- Florida Atlantic University, a component of the state university system in Florida, issued the following news: * * * FAU Nursing Dean Cameron Duncan, Ph.D., Named Fellow of the AAN By Gisele Galoustian Cameron G. Duncan, Ph.D., DNP, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, CNE, FAANP, Holli Rockwell Trubinsky Eminent Dean of Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), one of the nursing profession's highest honors recognizing leaders whose work has significantly advanced healthcare, nursingpractice, research, education and policy.
His induction into the AAN places Duncan among an elite group of nursing leaders. The distinguished cohort of the 2026 Class of Fellows, recently announced by the AAN, represents nurse leaders from 39 states, the District of Columbia and 17 countries who have made substantial contributions to improving health outcomes and are positioned to continue transforming healthcare for years to come.
The academy will formally welcome the 2026 Fellows during its induction ceremony and soiree on Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., a celebration widely regarded as one of the profession's highest distinctions.
"It is a great honor to be named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing," said Duncan. "To be recognized by an organization whose members have helped shape the future of nursing and healthcare worldwide is both humbling and deeply meaningful. I am proud to join this remarkable cohort of nurse leaders and look forward to contributing to the Academy's mission of advancing health policy, promoting nursing leadership and addressing the complex health challenges facing our communities. This recognition also reflects the dedication of my colleagues, mentors, students and patients who have inspired and supported my journey, and I am honored to represent Florida Atlantic University and the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing among the Academy's newest Fellows."
Duncan was appointed the fourth dean in the 45-year history of FAU's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and assumed leadership of the college in January 2025. He brings extensive experience as an academic leader, clinician, educator and scholar whose work has focused on advancing nursing education, mental healthcare and health policy. Prior to joining FAU, he served as interim dean of the Orvis School of Nursing at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also directed the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program.
During his tenure at the University of Nevada, Duncan led transformative initiatives that strengthened academic programs, enhanced teaching and research excellence, and expanded community engagement through innovative academic-practice partnerships.
A nationally recognized nursing educator, Duncan has earned distinction for implementing innovative programs that improve educational quality and student success.
His scholarship has focused on translational research that bridges evidence-based findings with practical clinical applications. Duncan's research interests include integrating mental health services into primary care settings, advancing healthcare policy, supporting the nursing profession and addressing substance use disorders. His recent work has explored transcranial magnetic stimulation as a potential treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder. He has also built an extensive publication record in peer-reviewed journals and is widely recognized for mentoring students through collaborative research and scholarship.
A first-generation college graduate, Duncan earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2022. He also earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and a post-master's certificate as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at the University of Arizona, and completed a MSN as a family nurse practitioner. Before that, he earned a Master of Science in Nursing in organizational leadership from Grand Canyon University. He also has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is dually board certified as both a family nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, as well as a certified nurse educator.
Duncan's selection as a Fellow of the AAN adds to a growing list of national honors recognizing his leadership and contributions to the profession. He previously served as an Advancing Academic Excellence for Deans Fellow with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in 2023.
The American Academy of Nursing serves the public by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis and dissemination of nursing knowledge. Fellowship in the academy is reserved for nursing leaders whose careers have demonstrated extraordinary contributions to improving health locally, nationally and globally. With more than 3,400 Fellows, the academy represents nursing's most accomplished leaders in research, policy, administration, clinical practice and academia.
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Original text here: https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/american-academy-of-nursing-duncan.php
Dartmouth College: Arts and Sciences Faculty Receive Tenure and Promotions
HANOVER, New Hampshire, July 1 -- Dartmouth College issued the following news:
* * *
Arts and Sciences Faculty Receive Tenure and Promotions
Fourteen faculty were promoted to full professor this year, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
-
The Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved promotions for faculty across the Arts and Sciences on June 12.
This year, 14 faculty members were promoted to full professor, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
"I'm delighted to congratulate these exceptional colleagues on this well-deserved achievement," ... Show Full Article HANOVER, New Hampshire, July 1 -- Dartmouth College issued the following news: * * * Arts and Sciences Faculty Receive Tenure and Promotions Fourteen faculty were promoted to full professor this year, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure. - The Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved promotions for faculty across the Arts and Sciences on June 12. This year, 14 faculty members were promoted to full professor, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure. "I'm delighted to congratulate these exceptional colleagues on this well-deserved achievement,"says John Carey, interim dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences. "Promotion and tenure recognize years of rigorous scholarship and creative work, devoted teaching, and generous service to Dartmouth. They have shaped our community and advanced their fields, and I look forward to all they will do in the years ahead."
Dartmouth evaluates faculty for promotion and tenure through a rigorous review in three areas: research, teaching, and service. The promotions take effect on July 1.
The following faculty were promoted to full professor:
Asher Auel, Professor of Mathematics
Auel is a theoretical mathematician whose work spans number theory, algebra, and geometry, much of it concerned with the rationality of algebraic varieties, the theory of quadratic forms, and K3 surfaces. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has co-edited the book Brauer Groups and Obstruction Problems. He has been awarded multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, and the Simons Foundation. At Dartmouth, he led the effort to join the Northeastern Algebraic Geometry Research Consortium and was the founding faculty advisor to the mathematics department's Directed Reading Program. He mentors many award-winning undergraduate researchers and doctoral students.
Laurie Churba, Professor of Theater
Churba is a costume designer who works at the intersection of design and devised theater. Over more than 30 years, her costumes have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional stages nationwide, and from 1997 to 2008 she was part of the costume design team at Saturday Night Live. Lately she has folded design into live performance: with New York's Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, she takes the stage with a sewing machine and improvises costumes in real time, stitching and sculpting alongside the music and movement around her. She brings that collaborative, experimental spirit into her work with students.
Jeffrey Friedman, Professor of Government
Friedman is a political scientist who studies international security, foreign policy decision making, and public opinion on foreign policy. His 2023 book, The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in US Foreign Policy, draws on decades of polling, survey experiments, and historical cases to argue that voters often reward leaders for projecting toughness, even when they disagree with the position the leader is taking. He hosts a podcast for International Security, the field's leading journal, and directs Dartmouth's Rosenwald Postdoctoral Fellows Program in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security.
Feng Fu, Professor of Mathematics
Fu is an applied mathematician and one of the world's experts on evolutionary game theory, which uses mathematics to address complex social and system dynamics, such as the spread of misinformation, disease and vaccine resistance, and the way competing AI agents learn to cooperate. His work has produced numerous papers with undergraduate and graduate mentees and conference talks. Much of his energy goes to undergraduates: he created and teaches an undergraduate game theory course that recently drew more than 330 students, and has worked on research projects with dozens of undergraduates.
Ash Fure, Professor of Music
Fure is a composer and performer who has become a major figure in contemporary music, working between musical composition, art installation, and spatial design, often building new instruments and using architecture so that audiences become participants in the piece. Ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the BBC Scottish Symphony have performed Fure's compositions across the U.S. and Europe. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for Bound to the Bow, Fure has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, and, more recently, a Creative Capital Award. Fure directs Dartmouth's MFA in Sonic Practice program.
Justin Mankin, Professor of Geography
Mankin is a climate scientist and earth-system geographer whose research connects the physical causes of climate change to its concrete human costs, from crop losses to violent conflict to the economic damages traceable to the largest carbon emitters. His work combines observations with climate models and econometrics to answer both fundamental and applied questions, and regularly appears in journals such as Nature Science and PNAS. In 2024 he received the American Geophysical Union's Global Environmental Change Early Career Award. His funded projects have brought more than $2 million to Dartmouth. He regularly provides public and legislative testimony and contributes to NASA, NOAA, and National Academies assessments on drought and the water cycle.
Janice McCabe, Professor of Sociology
McCabe is a sociologist who studies how college shapes students' friendships, their sense of belonging, and where they end up later in life. Her 2025 book, Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends: How Campuses Shape College Students' Networks, draws on in-depth interviews with students at Dartmouth, the University of New Hampshire, and Manchester Community College to show how a school's structures shape the friendships formed inside it. The work has made her one of the leading authorities on college friendships, and she was recently elected president of the Sociology of Education Association. McCabe served as Allen House professor from 2017 to 2026.
Paul Novosad, Professor of Economics
Novosad is an economist mobilizing digital data to answer policy research questions in the Global South. Using satellite imagery, administrative data from governments and app platforms, and--via LLMs--text from legal and historical documents, his work tackles questions like how well courts deliver justice, who gets access to economic opportunity, and how cities sort by class and identity. A core part of his work is dedicated to open science infrastructure: his team builds public data platforms so researchers everywhere can work on these questions. His lab is currently building a new open platform to enable better research on cities in low- and middle-income countries. More than 30 undergraduates have worked in his lab.
Roopika Risam, Professor of Film and Media Studies
Risam helped found the field of postcolonial digital humanities, and her work traces how race, empire, and technology shape the modern world. Her first book, New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, has been taught in over 100 courses worldwide. Her scholarship often takes digital form, such as Torn Apart/Separados, which built visualizations that helped locate children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Her first trade book, Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate, was an NPR Summer Reading pick. She holds a joint appointment with the Comparative Literature Program and is part of the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster.
Robert St. Clair, Professor of French
St. Clair studies 19th-century French literature and culture, using theory to open up historical questions. He is one of the leading scholars of Arthur Rimbaud. His recent book, Counter-Modernities in Nineteenth-Century French Literature: Constellations of Loss in Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Flaubert, his second monograph with Oxford University Press, shows how those writers dwell on loss and defeat, while making a case for reading as an act of hope, a way of imagining a future that stays open. His work on France's 19th-century political upheavals includes his reassessments on the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.
Zaneta Thayer '08, Professor of Anthropology
Thayer is a biological anthropologist who studies how early-life and prenatal environments, from poverty to discrimination, shape human biology and health across a lifetime. She has examined the effects of maternal exposure to genocidal violence in Rwanda and links between cesarean delivery and child cortisol levels in Brazil. She is currently working on a book project about how evolution and culture shape pregnancy and birth experiences. Dartmouth recognized her with the Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2025. Several of her undergraduates have co-authored her research.
Emily Walton, Professor of Sociology
Walton brings a racial lens to enduring questions about community, health, and inequality. As expanded immigration and desegregation policies have encouraged racial integration in many of our nation's communities, her mixed methods research has pushed scholars in both sociology and public health to rethink old assumptions about racial integration and assimilation. Walton's recent book, Homesick: Race and Exclusion in Rural New England, examines the consequences of the demographic transition happening in the Upper Valley. Her work has drawn support from the National Institutes of Health and the Russell Sage Foundation, and she serves as faculty director of Dartmouth's Society of Fellows.
D.G. Webster, Professor of Environmental Studies
Webster studies why governments and citizens respond, or fail to respond, to environmental problems such as deep sea mining, water pollution, and climate change. Much of her work focuses on what she calls the precursors to governance: how processes like learning, innovation, and institutionalization can advance or hinder our collective ability to design and carry out effective environmental policy. She is the author of two books and many peer-reviewed articles. She also edits the journal Global Environmental Politics. A Fulbright Distinguished Fellowship in Oceans Governance took her to the University of Sao Paulo in 2024 and 2025.
Jacqueline Wernimont, Professor of Film and Media Studies
Wernimont is a scholar of how human life becomes data, tracing across history and into the present the ways the dead get counted and bodies become numbers. Her first book, Numbered Lives: Life and Death in Quantum Media, charts that history from the 16th century to today, through technologies from body counts to wearable devices. She also works on "data visceralization," using everyday tools to turn data into something you can take in with all five senses. The co-editor of Bodies of Information: Feminist Debates in Digital Humanities, she chairs Dartmouth's Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster.
The following faculty were promoted to associate professor, with tenure:
Cesar Alvarez, Associate Professor of Music
Alvarez is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance maker. They create large experimental musicals as non-normative possibility spaces for embodiment, inter-dimensionality, socio-political transformation, kinship, and coexistence. With a background as a jazz saxophonist, band leader, and sound artist, Alvarez works in the space between theater, music, performance art, and social practice. Alvarez was a 2018-20 Princeton Arts Fellow and has received the Jonathan Larson Award, the Edward Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre for lyrics, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Amanda Amodeo, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Amodeo is a biologist who studies how cells know their size as an organism develops. She works in the early embryo of the fruit fly Drosophila, where the usual rules are reversed: rather than growing before it divides, a single giant cell divides again and again without growing, until its cells reach a normal size. One of her key discoveries is the role maternal histones play in tracking cell size. Her lab pairs genetics, biochemistry, and sophisticated imaging with mathematical modeling. She has raised significant federal research funding and teaches in the Molecular and Cell Biology graduate program.
Hsien-Chih Chang, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Chang is a theoretical computer scientist who studies the shapes behind computing: the visible ones, like networks and maps, and the hidden ones that surface in seemingly unrelated problems. He uses abstract mathematics to prove how efficiently such problems can be solved. His results have appeared at the ACM Symposium on Theory and Computing, a top conference in theoretical computer science, including a way to compress a sprawling network into a compact "sketch" that preserves the distances within it. His work has earned a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and both graduate and undergraduate students have co-authored his papers.
Maron Greenleaf, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Greenleaf is a cultural anthropologist who studies green capitalism, environmental restoration, forests, and energy transitions across Brazil, the United States, and the UK. Her 2024 book, Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon, grew out of more than 16 months of fieldwork in Acre, Brazil, and gives a close account of carbon offsets in the Amazon. Her current research turns to tree planting and environmental restoration in postindustrial England. She co-founded Dartmouth's Energy Justice Clinic.
Matt Hooley, Associate Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies
Hooley writes about the cultural histories of colonialism and anticolonialism, with particular attention to Indigenous literary and visual-arts modernisms, poetics, and the environmental humanities. His first book, Against Extraction: Indigenous Modernism in the Twin Cities, traces a tradition of Ojibwe anticolonial writing that took shape both alongside and against the extractive colonial infrastructure of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is at work on two new books, one about Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead and another about the cultural histories of colonial water seizure across Turtle Island and Palestine.
Mingwei Huang, Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Huang is an interdisciplinary scholar of race and migration, trained in American studies and gender and sexuality studies. Her first book, Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century, draws on fieldwork among Chinese migrants and businesses in Johannesburg, showing how race, money, and the exploitation of workers shape life there as China's global power rises, much as European and American empires shaped earlier eras. The book received an honorable mention for the 2025 African Studies Association Best Book Prize. Her new research follows global race and migration, the afterlives of gold, and new forms of extraction, all from the vantage of South Africa.
C. Brenhin Keller, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences
Keller studies how Earth's layers have interacted and been shaped by outside events over hundreds of millions of years. He pairs computational modeling with data from public repositories and his own fieldwork, and shares his software as open source. His research ranges from the formation of the moon to the volcanic eruptions behind mass extinctions, and it has earned two of his field's top early-career honors: the American Geophysical Union's James B. Macelwane Medal and the Geological Society of America's Donath Medal, both in 2024.
Sunmin Kim, Associate Professor of Sociology
Kim is a sociologist who studies race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production, examining how supposedly self-evident categories like race and citizenship are in fact built by social scientists, officials, and activists. His book The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate turns to the Dillingham Commission, which Congress created in 1907 to study immigration, and argues that the new social science it relied on reshaped racial thinking rather than simply discrediting it. His second book will examine the role of social science research in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Iyabo Kwayana, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies
Kwayana is a filmmaker whose work experiments with themes of diaspora across African and Asian communities. She is a multiple jury award-winning filmmaker whose work spans fiction and nonfiction. Trained as a director and cinematographer, she also works as a producer, sound designer, and editor. Her films are distinguished by embodied camera movement and inventive soundscapes that create immersive sensory experiences. She has directed 12 films, with work screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at international festivals from Korea to Serbia and Finland. Supported by grants from the LEF Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation, she was recently honored with Dartmouth's Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Elisabeth Newton, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Newton is an observational astronomer who studies the synergy between stars, their planets, and the galaxy around them. Much of her work centers on small, magnetically active M-dwarf stars, how they spin and generate magnetic fields, and how planets form around young, active stars. As co-PI of the THYME collaboration, she has helped find roughly a third of all known planets younger than 500 million years, among them three planets circling a star just 120 million years old. A recent NASA grant supports her work connecting stellar flares to gravitational microlensing.
Theresa Ong, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Ong is an agroecologist who pairs theory with fieldwork to understand how the interactions among people, organisms, and the environment shape food production and the stability of ecosystems. Her research traces how the diversity of a system, across space, time, and species, builds its resilience to ecological and political shocks, and how small shifts can cascade into large, sometimes irreversible change. Agroforestry and urban gardens are among the buffers she studies. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and led USDA-funded projects totaling more than $10 million.
David Petruccelli, Associate Professor of History
Petruccelli is a historian of Europe who studies the legal and political institutions that emerged after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His book A Scourge of Humanity: The Origins of Interpol and the End of Empire in Central and Eastern Europe traces the organization that became INTERPOL back to efforts to manage crime, migration, and political threats after World War I. Built on multilingual archival research, it has drawn praise for its scholarship and storytelling. His second book will trace the rise and fall of the global prohibition of pornography in the 20th century.
Jonathan Phillips, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science
Phillips studies high-level human cognition, in particular how people make decisions among an enormous number of possible options without weighing each one in turn. He argues that humans have an implicit capacity to reason about possibilities, a finding that reaches into decision making, moral psychology, causal reasoning, theory of mind, and formal semantics. His work draws at once on psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, and neuroscience, and he has published 32 peer-reviewed articles and given more than three dozen invited talks.
Paul Robustelli, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Robustelli is a computational chemist who studies intrinsically disordered proteins, molecules that matter in the chemistry of the cell yet have no fixed structure to tie to their function. His detailed simulations have been at the leading edge of showing how these proteins behave when they meet small molecules, which points toward ways to either boost or block what they do inside living cells. His findings are already informing industry, and he consults for companies working to design therapeutics from this research. He is affiliated with Dartmouth's Neukom Cluster of Computational Science.
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Original text here: https://fas.dartmouth.edu/news/2026/06/arts-and-sciences-faculty-receive-tenure-and-promotions
* * *
Arts and Sciences Faculty Receive Tenure and Promotions
Fourteen faculty were promoted to full professor this year, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
-
The Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved promotions for faculty across the Arts and Sciences on June 12.
This year, 14 faculty members were promoted to full professor, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
"I'm delighted to congratulate these exceptional colleagues on this well-deserved achievement," ... Show Full Article HANOVER, New Hampshire, July 1 -- Dartmouth College issued the following news: * * * Arts and Sciences Faculty Receive Tenure and Promotions Fourteen faculty were promoted to full professor this year, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure. - The Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved promotions for faculty across the Arts and Sciences on June 12. This year, 14 faculty members were promoted to full professor, and 14 were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure. "I'm delighted to congratulate these exceptional colleagues on this well-deserved achievement,"says John Carey, interim dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences. "Promotion and tenure recognize years of rigorous scholarship and creative work, devoted teaching, and generous service to Dartmouth. They have shaped our community and advanced their fields, and I look forward to all they will do in the years ahead."
Dartmouth evaluates faculty for promotion and tenure through a rigorous review in three areas: research, teaching, and service. The promotions take effect on July 1.
The following faculty were promoted to full professor:
Asher Auel, Professor of Mathematics
Auel is a theoretical mathematician whose work spans number theory, algebra, and geometry, much of it concerned with the rationality of algebraic varieties, the theory of quadratic forms, and K3 surfaces. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has co-edited the book Brauer Groups and Obstruction Problems. He has been awarded multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, and the Simons Foundation. At Dartmouth, he led the effort to join the Northeastern Algebraic Geometry Research Consortium and was the founding faculty advisor to the mathematics department's Directed Reading Program. He mentors many award-winning undergraduate researchers and doctoral students.
Laurie Churba, Professor of Theater
Churba is a costume designer who works at the intersection of design and devised theater. Over more than 30 years, her costumes have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional stages nationwide, and from 1997 to 2008 she was part of the costume design team at Saturday Night Live. Lately she has folded design into live performance: with New York's Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, she takes the stage with a sewing machine and improvises costumes in real time, stitching and sculpting alongside the music and movement around her. She brings that collaborative, experimental spirit into her work with students.
Jeffrey Friedman, Professor of Government
Friedman is a political scientist who studies international security, foreign policy decision making, and public opinion on foreign policy. His 2023 book, The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in US Foreign Policy, draws on decades of polling, survey experiments, and historical cases to argue that voters often reward leaders for projecting toughness, even when they disagree with the position the leader is taking. He hosts a podcast for International Security, the field's leading journal, and directs Dartmouth's Rosenwald Postdoctoral Fellows Program in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security.
Feng Fu, Professor of Mathematics
Fu is an applied mathematician and one of the world's experts on evolutionary game theory, which uses mathematics to address complex social and system dynamics, such as the spread of misinformation, disease and vaccine resistance, and the way competing AI agents learn to cooperate. His work has produced numerous papers with undergraduate and graduate mentees and conference talks. Much of his energy goes to undergraduates: he created and teaches an undergraduate game theory course that recently drew more than 330 students, and has worked on research projects with dozens of undergraduates.
Ash Fure, Professor of Music
Fure is a composer and performer who has become a major figure in contemporary music, working between musical composition, art installation, and spatial design, often building new instruments and using architecture so that audiences become participants in the piece. Ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the BBC Scottish Symphony have performed Fure's compositions across the U.S. and Europe. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for Bound to the Bow, Fure has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, and, more recently, a Creative Capital Award. Fure directs Dartmouth's MFA in Sonic Practice program.
Justin Mankin, Professor of Geography
Mankin is a climate scientist and earth-system geographer whose research connects the physical causes of climate change to its concrete human costs, from crop losses to violent conflict to the economic damages traceable to the largest carbon emitters. His work combines observations with climate models and econometrics to answer both fundamental and applied questions, and regularly appears in journals such as Nature Science and PNAS. In 2024 he received the American Geophysical Union's Global Environmental Change Early Career Award. His funded projects have brought more than $2 million to Dartmouth. He regularly provides public and legislative testimony and contributes to NASA, NOAA, and National Academies assessments on drought and the water cycle.
Janice McCabe, Professor of Sociology
McCabe is a sociologist who studies how college shapes students' friendships, their sense of belonging, and where they end up later in life. Her 2025 book, Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends: How Campuses Shape College Students' Networks, draws on in-depth interviews with students at Dartmouth, the University of New Hampshire, and Manchester Community College to show how a school's structures shape the friendships formed inside it. The work has made her one of the leading authorities on college friendships, and she was recently elected president of the Sociology of Education Association. McCabe served as Allen House professor from 2017 to 2026.
Paul Novosad, Professor of Economics
Novosad is an economist mobilizing digital data to answer policy research questions in the Global South. Using satellite imagery, administrative data from governments and app platforms, and--via LLMs--text from legal and historical documents, his work tackles questions like how well courts deliver justice, who gets access to economic opportunity, and how cities sort by class and identity. A core part of his work is dedicated to open science infrastructure: his team builds public data platforms so researchers everywhere can work on these questions. His lab is currently building a new open platform to enable better research on cities in low- and middle-income countries. More than 30 undergraduates have worked in his lab.
Roopika Risam, Professor of Film and Media Studies
Risam helped found the field of postcolonial digital humanities, and her work traces how race, empire, and technology shape the modern world. Her first book, New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, has been taught in over 100 courses worldwide. Her scholarship often takes digital form, such as Torn Apart/Separados, which built visualizations that helped locate children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Her first trade book, Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate, was an NPR Summer Reading pick. She holds a joint appointment with the Comparative Literature Program and is part of the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster.
Robert St. Clair, Professor of French
St. Clair studies 19th-century French literature and culture, using theory to open up historical questions. He is one of the leading scholars of Arthur Rimbaud. His recent book, Counter-Modernities in Nineteenth-Century French Literature: Constellations of Loss in Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Flaubert, his second monograph with Oxford University Press, shows how those writers dwell on loss and defeat, while making a case for reading as an act of hope, a way of imagining a future that stays open. His work on France's 19th-century political upheavals includes his reassessments on the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.
Zaneta Thayer '08, Professor of Anthropology
Thayer is a biological anthropologist who studies how early-life and prenatal environments, from poverty to discrimination, shape human biology and health across a lifetime. She has examined the effects of maternal exposure to genocidal violence in Rwanda and links between cesarean delivery and child cortisol levels in Brazil. She is currently working on a book project about how evolution and culture shape pregnancy and birth experiences. Dartmouth recognized her with the Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2025. Several of her undergraduates have co-authored her research.
Emily Walton, Professor of Sociology
Walton brings a racial lens to enduring questions about community, health, and inequality. As expanded immigration and desegregation policies have encouraged racial integration in many of our nation's communities, her mixed methods research has pushed scholars in both sociology and public health to rethink old assumptions about racial integration and assimilation. Walton's recent book, Homesick: Race and Exclusion in Rural New England, examines the consequences of the demographic transition happening in the Upper Valley. Her work has drawn support from the National Institutes of Health and the Russell Sage Foundation, and she serves as faculty director of Dartmouth's Society of Fellows.
D.G. Webster, Professor of Environmental Studies
Webster studies why governments and citizens respond, or fail to respond, to environmental problems such as deep sea mining, water pollution, and climate change. Much of her work focuses on what she calls the precursors to governance: how processes like learning, innovation, and institutionalization can advance or hinder our collective ability to design and carry out effective environmental policy. She is the author of two books and many peer-reviewed articles. She also edits the journal Global Environmental Politics. A Fulbright Distinguished Fellowship in Oceans Governance took her to the University of Sao Paulo in 2024 and 2025.
Jacqueline Wernimont, Professor of Film and Media Studies
Wernimont is a scholar of how human life becomes data, tracing across history and into the present the ways the dead get counted and bodies become numbers. Her first book, Numbered Lives: Life and Death in Quantum Media, charts that history from the 16th century to today, through technologies from body counts to wearable devices. She also works on "data visceralization," using everyday tools to turn data into something you can take in with all five senses. The co-editor of Bodies of Information: Feminist Debates in Digital Humanities, she chairs Dartmouth's Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster.
The following faculty were promoted to associate professor, with tenure:
Cesar Alvarez, Associate Professor of Music
Alvarez is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance maker. They create large experimental musicals as non-normative possibility spaces for embodiment, inter-dimensionality, socio-political transformation, kinship, and coexistence. With a background as a jazz saxophonist, band leader, and sound artist, Alvarez works in the space between theater, music, performance art, and social practice. Alvarez was a 2018-20 Princeton Arts Fellow and has received the Jonathan Larson Award, the Edward Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre for lyrics, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Amanda Amodeo, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Amodeo is a biologist who studies how cells know their size as an organism develops. She works in the early embryo of the fruit fly Drosophila, where the usual rules are reversed: rather than growing before it divides, a single giant cell divides again and again without growing, until its cells reach a normal size. One of her key discoveries is the role maternal histones play in tracking cell size. Her lab pairs genetics, biochemistry, and sophisticated imaging with mathematical modeling. She has raised significant federal research funding and teaches in the Molecular and Cell Biology graduate program.
Hsien-Chih Chang, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Chang is a theoretical computer scientist who studies the shapes behind computing: the visible ones, like networks and maps, and the hidden ones that surface in seemingly unrelated problems. He uses abstract mathematics to prove how efficiently such problems can be solved. His results have appeared at the ACM Symposium on Theory and Computing, a top conference in theoretical computer science, including a way to compress a sprawling network into a compact "sketch" that preserves the distances within it. His work has earned a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and both graduate and undergraduate students have co-authored his papers.
Maron Greenleaf, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Greenleaf is a cultural anthropologist who studies green capitalism, environmental restoration, forests, and energy transitions across Brazil, the United States, and the UK. Her 2024 book, Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon, grew out of more than 16 months of fieldwork in Acre, Brazil, and gives a close account of carbon offsets in the Amazon. Her current research turns to tree planting and environmental restoration in postindustrial England. She co-founded Dartmouth's Energy Justice Clinic.
Matt Hooley, Associate Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies
Hooley writes about the cultural histories of colonialism and anticolonialism, with particular attention to Indigenous literary and visual-arts modernisms, poetics, and the environmental humanities. His first book, Against Extraction: Indigenous Modernism in the Twin Cities, traces a tradition of Ojibwe anticolonial writing that took shape both alongside and against the extractive colonial infrastructure of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is at work on two new books, one about Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead and another about the cultural histories of colonial water seizure across Turtle Island and Palestine.
Mingwei Huang, Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Huang is an interdisciplinary scholar of race and migration, trained in American studies and gender and sexuality studies. Her first book, Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century, draws on fieldwork among Chinese migrants and businesses in Johannesburg, showing how race, money, and the exploitation of workers shape life there as China's global power rises, much as European and American empires shaped earlier eras. The book received an honorable mention for the 2025 African Studies Association Best Book Prize. Her new research follows global race and migration, the afterlives of gold, and new forms of extraction, all from the vantage of South Africa.
C. Brenhin Keller, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences
Keller studies how Earth's layers have interacted and been shaped by outside events over hundreds of millions of years. He pairs computational modeling with data from public repositories and his own fieldwork, and shares his software as open source. His research ranges from the formation of the moon to the volcanic eruptions behind mass extinctions, and it has earned two of his field's top early-career honors: the American Geophysical Union's James B. Macelwane Medal and the Geological Society of America's Donath Medal, both in 2024.
Sunmin Kim, Associate Professor of Sociology
Kim is a sociologist who studies race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production, examining how supposedly self-evident categories like race and citizenship are in fact built by social scientists, officials, and activists. His book The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate turns to the Dillingham Commission, which Congress created in 1907 to study immigration, and argues that the new social science it relied on reshaped racial thinking rather than simply discrediting it. His second book will examine the role of social science research in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Iyabo Kwayana, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies
Kwayana is a filmmaker whose work experiments with themes of diaspora across African and Asian communities. She is a multiple jury award-winning filmmaker whose work spans fiction and nonfiction. Trained as a director and cinematographer, she also works as a producer, sound designer, and editor. Her films are distinguished by embodied camera movement and inventive soundscapes that create immersive sensory experiences. She has directed 12 films, with work screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at international festivals from Korea to Serbia and Finland. Supported by grants from the LEF Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation, she was recently honored with Dartmouth's Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Elisabeth Newton, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Newton is an observational astronomer who studies the synergy between stars, their planets, and the galaxy around them. Much of her work centers on small, magnetically active M-dwarf stars, how they spin and generate magnetic fields, and how planets form around young, active stars. As co-PI of the THYME collaboration, she has helped find roughly a third of all known planets younger than 500 million years, among them three planets circling a star just 120 million years old. A recent NASA grant supports her work connecting stellar flares to gravitational microlensing.
Theresa Ong, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Ong is an agroecologist who pairs theory with fieldwork to understand how the interactions among people, organisms, and the environment shape food production and the stability of ecosystems. Her research traces how the diversity of a system, across space, time, and species, builds its resilience to ecological and political shocks, and how small shifts can cascade into large, sometimes irreversible change. Agroforestry and urban gardens are among the buffers she studies. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and led USDA-funded projects totaling more than $10 million.
David Petruccelli, Associate Professor of History
Petruccelli is a historian of Europe who studies the legal and political institutions that emerged after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His book A Scourge of Humanity: The Origins of Interpol and the End of Empire in Central and Eastern Europe traces the organization that became INTERPOL back to efforts to manage crime, migration, and political threats after World War I. Built on multilingual archival research, it has drawn praise for its scholarship and storytelling. His second book will trace the rise and fall of the global prohibition of pornography in the 20th century.
Jonathan Phillips, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science
Phillips studies high-level human cognition, in particular how people make decisions among an enormous number of possible options without weighing each one in turn. He argues that humans have an implicit capacity to reason about possibilities, a finding that reaches into decision making, moral psychology, causal reasoning, theory of mind, and formal semantics. His work draws at once on psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, and neuroscience, and he has published 32 peer-reviewed articles and given more than three dozen invited talks.
Paul Robustelli, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Robustelli is a computational chemist who studies intrinsically disordered proteins, molecules that matter in the chemistry of the cell yet have no fixed structure to tie to their function. His detailed simulations have been at the leading edge of showing how these proteins behave when they meet small molecules, which points toward ways to either boost or block what they do inside living cells. His findings are already informing industry, and he consults for companies working to design therapeutics from this research. He is affiliated with Dartmouth's Neukom Cluster of Computational Science.
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Original text here: https://fas.dartmouth.edu/news/2026/06/arts-and-sciences-faculty-receive-tenure-and-promotions