Education (Colleges & Universities)
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Education (Colleges & Universities)
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Virginia Tech: The Why - Tripp Shealy Trains Engineers to Challenge the Status Quo
BLACKSBURG, Virginia, Aug. 25 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news:
* * *
The why: Tripp Shealy trains engineers to challenge the status quo
By Melody Warnick
A few months after Tripp Shealy arrived at Virginia Tech as a new assistant professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, he told his department head that he wanted a $125,000 brain imaging machine.
In certain corners of the university -- say, psychology or neuroscience -- a brain-imaging machine, like the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that Shealy had his eye on, are standard ... Show Full Article BLACKSBURG, Virginia, Aug. 25 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news: * * * The why: Tripp Shealy trains engineers to challenge the status quo By Melody Warnick A few months after Tripp Shealy arrived at Virginia Tech as a new assistant professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, he told his department head that he wanted a $125,000 brain imaging machine. In certain corners of the university -- say, psychology or neuroscience -- a brain-imaging machine, like the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that Shealy had his eye on, are standardkit. In civil engineering, Shealy would be the only faculty member with one. His department head questioned whether he really wanted to go through with it. "This was not a typical request," Shealy admitted.
But Shealy, who was recently made a full professor in the department, is as much of a behavioral scientist as he is an engineer. "Broadly, I study design cognition," he explained. "I'm interested in how engineers think -- and how we get them to think differently."
He got the machine.
The colorful heat maps of the brain that the fNIRS machine produces provide tangible proof of what Shealy deeply believes: that humans are not as rational as they think. That includes engineers.
Case in point: After graduating from Clemson with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, Shealy was working for a construction contractor in upstate South Carolina. At a meeting in the job site trailer, he raised his hand and asked, "Why are we doing it this way?" Everyone chuckled and said, "Because we've always done it this way."
"I didn't think that was a very good answer," Shealy said.
Status quo bias can be a driving rationale in engineering, but it's not a reasonable one. Fast-moving environmental and societal changes demand fresh ways of seeing the built environment and new approaches to creating infrastructure that can keep up with the world.
"What I'm trying to do is help engineers think differently about how we design these things that are supposed to last 50, 75, 100 years, when the world's going to look like a very different place," he said. "It's design cognition, but particularly for environmental and social change."
The fNIRS machine is just one of many technologies -- along with computer numerical control (CNC) machines, virtual reality headsets, and more -- that Shealy uses to convince engineers that the way they've always done things might not be good enough anymore.
The problem with the status quo
Shealy grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, a low-lying coastal city that's among the nation's more vulnerable to storm impacts. He vividly remembers sitting in snarled traffic on I-26 as his family tried to evacuate from looming storms. "We never had snow days growing up, but we had many hurricane days," he said.
Shealy's grandfather owned a construction company in the area, and as a kid Shealy swept job sites before graduating to summer jobs building seawalls, docks, and bridges along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Sometimes they were repairing structures that had been damaged by the last passing storm.
All this instilled a sense in Shealy that things were changing. That 100-year-storms were becoming 20-year storms. That these supersized storms didn't read the building codes and would happily wallop anything in their path.
In 2012, as a master's student in civil engineering at Clemson, Shealy joined a group of structural engineers that went to New York after Hurricane Sandy to examine what actually went wrong in the homes that had been destroyed and make recommendations to storm-proof building codes in the Northeast.
The damage he observed shocked him. So did learning that it wasn't flooding that caused the most damage, it was how restoring electricity to a previously flooded home often ignited a fire that burned entire neighborhoods down. Shealy saw how their work could lead to small changes that would prevent other families from losing everything to a storm and its aftermath.
"Helping with this research project that was providing recommendations to improve building codes for the Northeast, that hooked me for the Ph.D.," Shealy said. "I saw the power of research."
Back at Clemson, Shealy approached one of his professors, Leidy Klotz, about pursuing a Ph.D; Klotz immediately offered to advise him. "Tripp really cares about making a positive difference in the world," said Klotz, now a professor of engineering at the University of Virginia. "That's what drew him to the sustainability and resilience challenges, that's what drew him to behavioral science, and that's what drew him to being a professor. My sense with Tripp is that he's been very deliberate about making these choices throughout his career and life, constantly trying to align his skills with the challenges and opportunities."
During his doctoral studies, Shealy also worked closely with psychologists at Columbia on translating behavioral science theories to engineering decision-making. Together, they explored how showing engineers what other teams had accomplished could motivate them to rethink what was possible. Psychologists refer to these influences as role models and descriptive norms, and their research showed that they could encourage engineers to pursue more ambitious sustainability goals.
"That helped shape my viewpoint of, 'How do we get engineers to think differently?'" Shealy said. "Everything else since then has been trying to do that."
Engineering for a rapidly changing world
Under the overarching banner of changing behavior, Shealy has allowed his interests to range widely. "I've been motivated by, 'Where do I think I can make the biggest impact?'" he said. "I'm going to do that. That's been my North Star."
Early in his career, that meant using brain-imaging research to examine how engineers used Envision, a sustainability rating system like LEED that is used by approximately 7,000 engineers across the country. In its first iteration, engineers could earn points from Envision for designing projects that were more sustainable than the industry norm.
But Shealy suspected that the system might have more influence by capitalizing on loss aversion -- humans' instinctive hatred of losing something they once had. He used his brain imaging machine to study how engineers' brains reacted when the Envision system was redesigned so that engineers started with a perfect score, then lost points for each less-sustainable choice. They were far more motivated to avoid losing points than they had been to gain them.
"We literally changed where the cognitive effort was happening in their brain," Shealy said. "And it worked."
Based on its behavioral science research, the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, Envision's creator, ultimately changed the Envision rating system used by 7,000 working professionals. "That seems like a pretty big impact," Shealy said.
Shealy believes that for civil engineers, increasing empathy might be one key to changing behavior.
In a recent study with Ph.D. student Joshua Trump, participants donned virtual reality glasses and, for a few technology-aided moments, embodied a bird avatar. "We had them fly around the site as a bird, then we had them do a design process where they looked at the site and came up with a conceptual design for it," Shealy explained. "Engineers who experienced the site as a bird generated more ideas that supported both wildlife and people."
Increasing a person's feeling of empathy for nature, they discovered, can change how people think and ultimately change their design ideas. Simply giving engineers tools to view a problem differently carries over into the solutions they create for it.
For society more widely, Shealy aims to promote better, more sustainable decision making. During a sabbatical in Glasgow, Scotland, Shealy worked with Professor Anja Maier, head of the University of Strathclyde's Department of Design, Manufacturing, and Engineering Management, to interview cyclists about their motivations and the barriers they faced. The research was part of an effort to explore design interventions that would encourage active travel -- a topic both consider vital for creating sustainable futures.
"Tripp brings a remarkable combination of curiosity, creativity, and generosity to every interaction, and his good humor is genuinely contagious," Maier said. "It had been some time since I had personally undertaken data collection 'in the wild,' and Tripp approached the experience with enthusiasm, energy, and a genuine interest in engaging with people directly."
Infrastructure to survive an uncertain future
If he could wave a magic wand, Shealy would convince all engineers to take environmental risks more seriously. He's quick to present examples of when they didn't.
For instance, the time in 2025 when the Third Avenue swing bridge in New York got stuck because a heat wave expanded the metal joints so much that it couldn't close. "Engineers were not thinking about the extreme heat conditions that we're dealing with today," he said.
Or consider the Kansai Airport in Osaka, Japan, which was built on a manmade island and is now regularly flooded. "We're giving it awards one decade and the next decade it's sinking back into the ocean."
Shealy sees other examples closer to home, like parking structures that are built with only a handful of electrical vehicle chargers. Part of the work of engineers is future-proofing their designs. "The future doesn't look like the past," he said. "We're designing for a world that no longer exists. And that's not very rational."
Shealy's latest research project was inspired by another hurricane. After Helene wreaked havoc in the Southeast, Shealy saw firsthand how rebuilding efforts were hampered not just by storm damage, but by limited workforce capacity and supply chain challenges. "We're using a systems thinking approach to look at the conditions that shape recovery after a disaster. That means understanding how labor, materials, housing, and construction interact and where there may be opportunities to improve the process. We're trying to answer one question: How do we get people back into homes faster?"
Taking their cue from advanced manufacturing, he and Associate Professor Adam Phillips have gravitated toward industrialized construction, designing 1,600-square-foot homes built out of plywood and oriented strand board parts that are cut out in a factory by a CNC machine. Loaded onto a semi truck, they're delivered looking just like flat-pack IKEA furniture, then slotted together like puzzle pieces on site. The instructions are engraved onto the material, so you need only low-skilled labor for assembly. And structural testing shows that homes built this way perform just as well or better than stick-built homes.
"You can store the pieces in a warehouse and distribute them after a disaster event occurs," Shealy said. "Volunteer organizations can be much more productive building those than trying to cut 2x4s and stand up a wall. And the electrical is already pre-programmed into the material, so you don't need skilled labor."
Because the system doesn't require high-tech machinery, just a standard CNC machine and a digital file, warehouses around the country can cut and ship out versions of homes customized to local needs, from snow in the Northeast to hurricanes in the Southeast to earthquakes in the West.
Flat-pack housing, Shealy said, hits the sweet spot between building in a warehouse and building on site, and it has the potential to make rebuilding after a disaster quicker, cheaper, and less wasteful.
Bringing the project to fruition has been a collaborative effort involving undergrads, grad students, and professors. "Our plan is to build a house," he said. "If funded, we have permission from VT to build a 1600-square-foot residential structure on Plantation Drive using our system. And planning to have students build the boxes outside Hitt Hall and time them to see how fast it takes with little instruction." The last thing they're waiting on is grant funding; they're also trying to get industry partners on board.
Shealy sees this kind of construction as a game changer. But he knows it won't be an easy change, precisely because it's so new. "It's going to require doing things in a way that maybe we haven't done in the past," he said.
Luckily, doing things in new ways that happens to be Shealy's specialty. "I'm always asking, 'Why are people still thinking in the same way we've always been doing things?'" he asked. "There's got to be a better way."
* * *
Original text here: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/08/coe-shealy-WHY2026.html
* * *
The why: Tripp Shealy trains engineers to challenge the status quo
By Melody Warnick
A few months after Tripp Shealy arrived at Virginia Tech as a new assistant professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, he told his department head that he wanted a $125,000 brain imaging machine.
In certain corners of the university -- say, psychology or neuroscience -- a brain-imaging machine, like the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that Shealy had his eye on, are standard ... Show Full Article BLACKSBURG, Virginia, Aug. 25 -- Virginia Tech issued the following news: * * * The why: Tripp Shealy trains engineers to challenge the status quo By Melody Warnick A few months after Tripp Shealy arrived at Virginia Tech as a new assistant professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, he told his department head that he wanted a $125,000 brain imaging machine. In certain corners of the university -- say, psychology or neuroscience -- a brain-imaging machine, like the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that Shealy had his eye on, are standardkit. In civil engineering, Shealy would be the only faculty member with one. His department head questioned whether he really wanted to go through with it. "This was not a typical request," Shealy admitted.
But Shealy, who was recently made a full professor in the department, is as much of a behavioral scientist as he is an engineer. "Broadly, I study design cognition," he explained. "I'm interested in how engineers think -- and how we get them to think differently."
He got the machine.
The colorful heat maps of the brain that the fNIRS machine produces provide tangible proof of what Shealy deeply believes: that humans are not as rational as they think. That includes engineers.
Case in point: After graduating from Clemson with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, Shealy was working for a construction contractor in upstate South Carolina. At a meeting in the job site trailer, he raised his hand and asked, "Why are we doing it this way?" Everyone chuckled and said, "Because we've always done it this way."
"I didn't think that was a very good answer," Shealy said.
Status quo bias can be a driving rationale in engineering, but it's not a reasonable one. Fast-moving environmental and societal changes demand fresh ways of seeing the built environment and new approaches to creating infrastructure that can keep up with the world.
"What I'm trying to do is help engineers think differently about how we design these things that are supposed to last 50, 75, 100 years, when the world's going to look like a very different place," he said. "It's design cognition, but particularly for environmental and social change."
The fNIRS machine is just one of many technologies -- along with computer numerical control (CNC) machines, virtual reality headsets, and more -- that Shealy uses to convince engineers that the way they've always done things might not be good enough anymore.
The problem with the status quo
Shealy grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, a low-lying coastal city that's among the nation's more vulnerable to storm impacts. He vividly remembers sitting in snarled traffic on I-26 as his family tried to evacuate from looming storms. "We never had snow days growing up, but we had many hurricane days," he said.
Shealy's grandfather owned a construction company in the area, and as a kid Shealy swept job sites before graduating to summer jobs building seawalls, docks, and bridges along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Sometimes they were repairing structures that had been damaged by the last passing storm.
All this instilled a sense in Shealy that things were changing. That 100-year-storms were becoming 20-year storms. That these supersized storms didn't read the building codes and would happily wallop anything in their path.
In 2012, as a master's student in civil engineering at Clemson, Shealy joined a group of structural engineers that went to New York after Hurricane Sandy to examine what actually went wrong in the homes that had been destroyed and make recommendations to storm-proof building codes in the Northeast.
The damage he observed shocked him. So did learning that it wasn't flooding that caused the most damage, it was how restoring electricity to a previously flooded home often ignited a fire that burned entire neighborhoods down. Shealy saw how their work could lead to small changes that would prevent other families from losing everything to a storm and its aftermath.
"Helping with this research project that was providing recommendations to improve building codes for the Northeast, that hooked me for the Ph.D.," Shealy said. "I saw the power of research."
Back at Clemson, Shealy approached one of his professors, Leidy Klotz, about pursuing a Ph.D; Klotz immediately offered to advise him. "Tripp really cares about making a positive difference in the world," said Klotz, now a professor of engineering at the University of Virginia. "That's what drew him to the sustainability and resilience challenges, that's what drew him to behavioral science, and that's what drew him to being a professor. My sense with Tripp is that he's been very deliberate about making these choices throughout his career and life, constantly trying to align his skills with the challenges and opportunities."
During his doctoral studies, Shealy also worked closely with psychologists at Columbia on translating behavioral science theories to engineering decision-making. Together, they explored how showing engineers what other teams had accomplished could motivate them to rethink what was possible. Psychologists refer to these influences as role models and descriptive norms, and their research showed that they could encourage engineers to pursue more ambitious sustainability goals.
"That helped shape my viewpoint of, 'How do we get engineers to think differently?'" Shealy said. "Everything else since then has been trying to do that."
Engineering for a rapidly changing world
Under the overarching banner of changing behavior, Shealy has allowed his interests to range widely. "I've been motivated by, 'Where do I think I can make the biggest impact?'" he said. "I'm going to do that. That's been my North Star."
Early in his career, that meant using brain-imaging research to examine how engineers used Envision, a sustainability rating system like LEED that is used by approximately 7,000 engineers across the country. In its first iteration, engineers could earn points from Envision for designing projects that were more sustainable than the industry norm.
But Shealy suspected that the system might have more influence by capitalizing on loss aversion -- humans' instinctive hatred of losing something they once had. He used his brain imaging machine to study how engineers' brains reacted when the Envision system was redesigned so that engineers started with a perfect score, then lost points for each less-sustainable choice. They were far more motivated to avoid losing points than they had been to gain them.
"We literally changed where the cognitive effort was happening in their brain," Shealy said. "And it worked."
Based on its behavioral science research, the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, Envision's creator, ultimately changed the Envision rating system used by 7,000 working professionals. "That seems like a pretty big impact," Shealy said.
Shealy believes that for civil engineers, increasing empathy might be one key to changing behavior.
In a recent study with Ph.D. student Joshua Trump, participants donned virtual reality glasses and, for a few technology-aided moments, embodied a bird avatar. "We had them fly around the site as a bird, then we had them do a design process where they looked at the site and came up with a conceptual design for it," Shealy explained. "Engineers who experienced the site as a bird generated more ideas that supported both wildlife and people."
Increasing a person's feeling of empathy for nature, they discovered, can change how people think and ultimately change their design ideas. Simply giving engineers tools to view a problem differently carries over into the solutions they create for it.
For society more widely, Shealy aims to promote better, more sustainable decision making. During a sabbatical in Glasgow, Scotland, Shealy worked with Professor Anja Maier, head of the University of Strathclyde's Department of Design, Manufacturing, and Engineering Management, to interview cyclists about their motivations and the barriers they faced. The research was part of an effort to explore design interventions that would encourage active travel -- a topic both consider vital for creating sustainable futures.
"Tripp brings a remarkable combination of curiosity, creativity, and generosity to every interaction, and his good humor is genuinely contagious," Maier said. "It had been some time since I had personally undertaken data collection 'in the wild,' and Tripp approached the experience with enthusiasm, energy, and a genuine interest in engaging with people directly."
Infrastructure to survive an uncertain future
If he could wave a magic wand, Shealy would convince all engineers to take environmental risks more seriously. He's quick to present examples of when they didn't.
For instance, the time in 2025 when the Third Avenue swing bridge in New York got stuck because a heat wave expanded the metal joints so much that it couldn't close. "Engineers were not thinking about the extreme heat conditions that we're dealing with today," he said.
Or consider the Kansai Airport in Osaka, Japan, which was built on a manmade island and is now regularly flooded. "We're giving it awards one decade and the next decade it's sinking back into the ocean."
Shealy sees other examples closer to home, like parking structures that are built with only a handful of electrical vehicle chargers. Part of the work of engineers is future-proofing their designs. "The future doesn't look like the past," he said. "We're designing for a world that no longer exists. And that's not very rational."
Shealy's latest research project was inspired by another hurricane. After Helene wreaked havoc in the Southeast, Shealy saw firsthand how rebuilding efforts were hampered not just by storm damage, but by limited workforce capacity and supply chain challenges. "We're using a systems thinking approach to look at the conditions that shape recovery after a disaster. That means understanding how labor, materials, housing, and construction interact and where there may be opportunities to improve the process. We're trying to answer one question: How do we get people back into homes faster?"
Taking their cue from advanced manufacturing, he and Associate Professor Adam Phillips have gravitated toward industrialized construction, designing 1,600-square-foot homes built out of plywood and oriented strand board parts that are cut out in a factory by a CNC machine. Loaded onto a semi truck, they're delivered looking just like flat-pack IKEA furniture, then slotted together like puzzle pieces on site. The instructions are engraved onto the material, so you need only low-skilled labor for assembly. And structural testing shows that homes built this way perform just as well or better than stick-built homes.
"You can store the pieces in a warehouse and distribute them after a disaster event occurs," Shealy said. "Volunteer organizations can be much more productive building those than trying to cut 2x4s and stand up a wall. And the electrical is already pre-programmed into the material, so you don't need skilled labor."
Because the system doesn't require high-tech machinery, just a standard CNC machine and a digital file, warehouses around the country can cut and ship out versions of homes customized to local needs, from snow in the Northeast to hurricanes in the Southeast to earthquakes in the West.
Flat-pack housing, Shealy said, hits the sweet spot between building in a warehouse and building on site, and it has the potential to make rebuilding after a disaster quicker, cheaper, and less wasteful.
Bringing the project to fruition has been a collaborative effort involving undergrads, grad students, and professors. "Our plan is to build a house," he said. "If funded, we have permission from VT to build a 1600-square-foot residential structure on Plantation Drive using our system. And planning to have students build the boxes outside Hitt Hall and time them to see how fast it takes with little instruction." The last thing they're waiting on is grant funding; they're also trying to get industry partners on board.
Shealy sees this kind of construction as a game changer. But he knows it won't be an easy change, precisely because it's so new. "It's going to require doing things in a way that maybe we haven't done in the past," he said.
Luckily, doing things in new ways that happens to be Shealy's specialty. "I'm always asking, 'Why are people still thinking in the same way we've always been doing things?'" he asked. "There's got to be a better way."
* * *
Original text here: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/08/coe-shealy-WHY2026.html
University of Arkansas: Chemical Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious CAREER Award
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, Aug. 25 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news:
* * *
Chemical Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious CAREER Award
Engineers must make predictions to design something new. A chemical engineer planning a storage tank needs to know how a gas or liquid will behave as temperature and pressure change. A biomedical engineer formulating a new pharmaceutical may have to predict how much of a drug compound will dissolve in water or other liquids and how temperature affects that process.
Engineers use equations of state -- specific mathematical representations ... Show Full Article FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, Aug. 25 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news: * * * Chemical Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious CAREER Award Engineers must make predictions to design something new. A chemical engineer planning a storage tank needs to know how a gas or liquid will behave as temperature and pressure change. A biomedical engineer formulating a new pharmaceutical may have to predict how much of a drug compound will dissolve in water or other liquids and how temperature affects that process. Engineers use equations of state -- specific mathematical representationsof physical and chemical properties -- to make those predictions. But an equation of state is only as accurate as the data on which it's based. Collecting more data can be difficult and expensive. And an equation of state does not tell an engineer how certain its predictions are.
Jacob Monroe, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, has received a five-year National Science Foundation CAREER Award worth $563,155 to use machine learning to develop a model that can make more accurate predictions of thermodynamic properties while also providing estimates of uncertainty. While Monroe is a chemical engineer, the model could improve the work of engineers in many fields.
The prestigious CAREER Awards support early-career faculty with the "potential to serve as academic role models in research and education," according to the NSF.
"Jacob was an incredible hire for us back in 2023," said Bob Beitle, interim head of the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering. "His CAREER proposal successfully integrated all components of faculty career development; it is no wonder it was awarded."
Learning About Machine Learning
Monroe was a University of Virginia undergraduate working in a biomedical lab when he saw the possibilities of using computers to speed the research process. The lab was screening potential drugs. What if the computer could narrow down target molecules, making the lab work more efficient?
He discovered that this was already an established area of research.
"It felt very personal, like I came up with this idea. And then someone said, 'oh yeah, people do this.' And I never turned back," he said.
In his research, Monroe looks at individual atoms to predict a system's thermodynamic properties, such as temperature, pressure and density.
During his postdoctoral fellowship, his adviser encouraged him to investigate whether machine learning could aid his work.
"I was kind of skeptical of machine learning. But the more I read on it, I saw it was tightly tied to what we call statistical mechanics," he said.
Imagine you want to know the thermodynamic properties of a glass of water. It's not possible to simulate every atom in the glass. Using statistical mechanics, Monroe can study a small number of molecules and predict the thermodynamic properties of the entire glass of water. Machine learning can follow a similar approach, using a smaller set of known data to predict other results.
"I try to go back to the theory and come up with new methods that improve simulations and our ability to make physical predictions by incorporating machine learning techniques," Monroe said.
A Tool for Working Engineers
The equation of state Monroe is creating can make better predictions of thermodynamic properties when data is limited. The method can also point to what additional data would most improve the predictions. That allows engineers to focus their resources on collecting the data that would have the greatest impact.
"Before running actual experiments, let's try running simulations," Monroe said. "And we can run a lot of simulations on supercomputers. Instead of running, say, 100 experiments, you might be able to run 10,000 simulations and then only need three experiments."
The model will also tell engineers how certain its predictions are.
"If you have an important decision you need to make and you don't have a model that gives you high certainty, you can go back and collect more data," he said.
A degree of uncertainty might be acceptable in some situations. For others, it could be dangerous.
The software that engineers use today to design products and systems does not provide an estimate of uncertainty. One day, Monroe believes, his research could be incorporated into those programs and become an integral part of how engineers carry out their daily work.
"We have a long way to go. We have to do the work, do the research. We have to talk to people who create these software programs and convince them this is a useful thing," Monroe said. "But I see this becoming extremely beneficial."
* * *
Original text here: https://news.uark.edu/articles/82734/chemical-engineering-professor-receives-prestigious-career-award
* * *
Chemical Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious CAREER Award
Engineers must make predictions to design something new. A chemical engineer planning a storage tank needs to know how a gas or liquid will behave as temperature and pressure change. A biomedical engineer formulating a new pharmaceutical may have to predict how much of a drug compound will dissolve in water or other liquids and how temperature affects that process.
Engineers use equations of state -- specific mathematical representations ... Show Full Article FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, Aug. 25 -- The University of Arkansas issued the following news: * * * Chemical Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious CAREER Award Engineers must make predictions to design something new. A chemical engineer planning a storage tank needs to know how a gas or liquid will behave as temperature and pressure change. A biomedical engineer formulating a new pharmaceutical may have to predict how much of a drug compound will dissolve in water or other liquids and how temperature affects that process. Engineers use equations of state -- specific mathematical representationsof physical and chemical properties -- to make those predictions. But an equation of state is only as accurate as the data on which it's based. Collecting more data can be difficult and expensive. And an equation of state does not tell an engineer how certain its predictions are.
Jacob Monroe, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, has received a five-year National Science Foundation CAREER Award worth $563,155 to use machine learning to develop a model that can make more accurate predictions of thermodynamic properties while also providing estimates of uncertainty. While Monroe is a chemical engineer, the model could improve the work of engineers in many fields.
The prestigious CAREER Awards support early-career faculty with the "potential to serve as academic role models in research and education," according to the NSF.
"Jacob was an incredible hire for us back in 2023," said Bob Beitle, interim head of the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering. "His CAREER proposal successfully integrated all components of faculty career development; it is no wonder it was awarded."
Learning About Machine Learning
Monroe was a University of Virginia undergraduate working in a biomedical lab when he saw the possibilities of using computers to speed the research process. The lab was screening potential drugs. What if the computer could narrow down target molecules, making the lab work more efficient?
He discovered that this was already an established area of research.
"It felt very personal, like I came up with this idea. And then someone said, 'oh yeah, people do this.' And I never turned back," he said.
In his research, Monroe looks at individual atoms to predict a system's thermodynamic properties, such as temperature, pressure and density.
During his postdoctoral fellowship, his adviser encouraged him to investigate whether machine learning could aid his work.
"I was kind of skeptical of machine learning. But the more I read on it, I saw it was tightly tied to what we call statistical mechanics," he said.
Imagine you want to know the thermodynamic properties of a glass of water. It's not possible to simulate every atom in the glass. Using statistical mechanics, Monroe can study a small number of molecules and predict the thermodynamic properties of the entire glass of water. Machine learning can follow a similar approach, using a smaller set of known data to predict other results.
"I try to go back to the theory and come up with new methods that improve simulations and our ability to make physical predictions by incorporating machine learning techniques," Monroe said.
A Tool for Working Engineers
The equation of state Monroe is creating can make better predictions of thermodynamic properties when data is limited. The method can also point to what additional data would most improve the predictions. That allows engineers to focus their resources on collecting the data that would have the greatest impact.
"Before running actual experiments, let's try running simulations," Monroe said. "And we can run a lot of simulations on supercomputers. Instead of running, say, 100 experiments, you might be able to run 10,000 simulations and then only need three experiments."
The model will also tell engineers how certain its predictions are.
"If you have an important decision you need to make and you don't have a model that gives you high certainty, you can go back and collect more data," he said.
A degree of uncertainty might be acceptable in some situations. For others, it could be dangerous.
The software that engineers use today to design products and systems does not provide an estimate of uncertainty. One day, Monroe believes, his research could be incorporated into those programs and become an integral part of how engineers carry out their daily work.
"We have a long way to go. We have to do the work, do the research. We have to talk to people who create these software programs and convince them this is a useful thing," Monroe said. "But I see this becoming extremely beneficial."
* * *
Original text here: https://news.uark.edu/articles/82734/chemical-engineering-professor-receives-prestigious-career-award
Returning to Binghamton With New Perspectives
BINGHAMTON, New York, Aug. 25 -- Binghamton University issued the following news:
* * *
Returning to Binghamton with new perspectives
Clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice Willie Eggleston to begin new tenure at SOPPS
By Ethan Knox '20
Sometimes, a little outside perspective is all you need to know that Binghamton is where you belong.
At least, that was true for Willie Eggleston, who is returning to Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) this year with the benefit of added experience.
"For the last couple of years, I've been teaching medical students, ... Show Full Article BINGHAMTON, New York, Aug. 25 -- Binghamton University issued the following news: * * * Returning to Binghamton with new perspectives Clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice Willie Eggleston to begin new tenure at SOPPS By Ethan Knox '20 Sometimes, a little outside perspective is all you need to know that Binghamton is where you belong. At least, that was true for Willie Eggleston, who is returning to Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) this year with the benefit of added experience. "For the last couple of years, I've been teaching medical students,future professionals who are doing something completely different than what I'm doing," he said. "I think that having the chance to work with folks with a different background than myself and collaborate with medical professors really gave me the opportunity to get some new perspectives on what is effective when you are teaching."
The newest clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice at SOPPS, Eggleston earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and completed a two-year fellowship in clinical toxicology and emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University and with the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse. Eggleston first worked as an assistant professor at SOPPS when the school opened in 2017, before moving into positions as the assistant clinical director for the Upstate New York Poison Center and an assistant professor in emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Applied Toxicology (DABAT).
"It's been surreal to see how fast Binghamton grew, and how quickly we went from a new school, to having a strong regional reputation, to now starting to get a strong national reputation," Eggleston added. "I talk to colleagues now who work with our alumni, and it has been very cool to see how quickly our alumni network has spread and some of the incredible opportunities where our alumni have found themselves in their careers."
Eggleston's focus is on toxicology; he is also a clinical pharmacy specialist, providing services for patients with drug or medication overdose or poisoning. He first discovered his interest in the topic when he was in pharmacy school himself, after his own clinical rotation with the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse, New York. It only took him a week in the role to know he could devote his life to the topic.
His research has previously focused on naloxone, used to reverse the effects of an overdose, and how it is administered, as well as medication-assisted treatment (MAT) options for opioid use disorder. His goal is to more effectively use the tools we have and better identify the potential damage of certain drugs. Although these are not the only patients he sees, the lack of access to these effective options during the initial increases in opioid overdoses in the U.S. did inspire him to pursue harm reduction.
"It's a different way to think about pharmacy, because you're treating patients, but instead of the disease and how we fix it, it's 'Here's the symptom or problem that's been caused by the drug -- the thing that we use to fix things -- and now we need to go another level and fix that,'" he said.
But while it took him a while to discover his passion, he knew that he wanted to teach; he credits his own mentor at Wilkes with connecting him to opportunities, and many of the faculty working during his first tenure at Binghamton supported his success. He hopes to provide that same resource to his students and junior faculty now that he has even more professional experience.
"My mentors here really helped me to hone my skills and become a more proficient researcher. I want to have the opportunity to give back and to do that for other folks," Eggleston said. "One of my goals is moving from a researcher to a research mentor, helping support ideas and initiatives and shape others into becoming proficient researchers."
Some of the things he's most excited for during his return align with this goal. Along with meeting students and following them through their professional careers as well as the opportunities to engage with programs like The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST), he hopes to explore pedagogical questions around generative artificial intelligence and science communication.
"One of my biggest goals is to collaborate to develop better tools for helping the public understand pharmacy and healthcare," he said. "A lot of my teaching has been around the process of finding information and using that information to come to the best treatment decision. We have a lot of confusing high-level science that gets published in peer-reviewed journals behind paywalls -- there's a big gap that exists, where the public is interested and wants more healthcare information, and they want places they can find reliable evidence they understand."
As the fall 2026 semester begins, he hopes to approach these problems while teaching. He says he's come to see "a good teacher as a good coach" -- someone who is always cheering on his students -- and he can't wait to discover new approaches while at Binghamton.
"It's always challenging to try to approach something a new way," he said, "but I'm really trying to think of strategies that get students more engaged, that require them to do hands-on critical thinking rather than just being a speaker that shares knowledge."
* * *
Original text here: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/6428/returning-to-binghamton-with-new-perspectives
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Returning to Binghamton with new perspectives
Clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice Willie Eggleston to begin new tenure at SOPPS
By Ethan Knox '20
Sometimes, a little outside perspective is all you need to know that Binghamton is where you belong.
At least, that was true for Willie Eggleston, who is returning to Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) this year with the benefit of added experience.
"For the last couple of years, I've been teaching medical students, ... Show Full Article BINGHAMTON, New York, Aug. 25 -- Binghamton University issued the following news: * * * Returning to Binghamton with new perspectives Clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice Willie Eggleston to begin new tenure at SOPPS By Ethan Knox '20 Sometimes, a little outside perspective is all you need to know that Binghamton is where you belong. At least, that was true for Willie Eggleston, who is returning to Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) this year with the benefit of added experience. "For the last couple of years, I've been teaching medical students,future professionals who are doing something completely different than what I'm doing," he said. "I think that having the chance to work with folks with a different background than myself and collaborate with medical professors really gave me the opportunity to get some new perspectives on what is effective when you are teaching."
The newest clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice at SOPPS, Eggleston earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and completed a two-year fellowship in clinical toxicology and emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University and with the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse. Eggleston first worked as an assistant professor at SOPPS when the school opened in 2017, before moving into positions as the assistant clinical director for the Upstate New York Poison Center and an assistant professor in emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Applied Toxicology (DABAT).
"It's been surreal to see how fast Binghamton grew, and how quickly we went from a new school, to having a strong regional reputation, to now starting to get a strong national reputation," Eggleston added. "I talk to colleagues now who work with our alumni, and it has been very cool to see how quickly our alumni network has spread and some of the incredible opportunities where our alumni have found themselves in their careers."
Eggleston's focus is on toxicology; he is also a clinical pharmacy specialist, providing services for patients with drug or medication overdose or poisoning. He first discovered his interest in the topic when he was in pharmacy school himself, after his own clinical rotation with the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse, New York. It only took him a week in the role to know he could devote his life to the topic.
His research has previously focused on naloxone, used to reverse the effects of an overdose, and how it is administered, as well as medication-assisted treatment (MAT) options for opioid use disorder. His goal is to more effectively use the tools we have and better identify the potential damage of certain drugs. Although these are not the only patients he sees, the lack of access to these effective options during the initial increases in opioid overdoses in the U.S. did inspire him to pursue harm reduction.
"It's a different way to think about pharmacy, because you're treating patients, but instead of the disease and how we fix it, it's 'Here's the symptom or problem that's been caused by the drug -- the thing that we use to fix things -- and now we need to go another level and fix that,'" he said.
But while it took him a while to discover his passion, he knew that he wanted to teach; he credits his own mentor at Wilkes with connecting him to opportunities, and many of the faculty working during his first tenure at Binghamton supported his success. He hopes to provide that same resource to his students and junior faculty now that he has even more professional experience.
"My mentors here really helped me to hone my skills and become a more proficient researcher. I want to have the opportunity to give back and to do that for other folks," Eggleston said. "One of my goals is moving from a researcher to a research mentor, helping support ideas and initiatives and shape others into becoming proficient researchers."
Some of the things he's most excited for during his return align with this goal. Along with meeting students and following them through their professional careers as well as the opportunities to engage with programs like The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST), he hopes to explore pedagogical questions around generative artificial intelligence and science communication.
"One of my biggest goals is to collaborate to develop better tools for helping the public understand pharmacy and healthcare," he said. "A lot of my teaching has been around the process of finding information and using that information to come to the best treatment decision. We have a lot of confusing high-level science that gets published in peer-reviewed journals behind paywalls -- there's a big gap that exists, where the public is interested and wants more healthcare information, and they want places they can find reliable evidence they understand."
As the fall 2026 semester begins, he hopes to approach these problems while teaching. He says he's come to see "a good teacher as a good coach" -- someone who is always cheering on his students -- and he can't wait to discover new approaches while at Binghamton.
"It's always challenging to try to approach something a new way," he said, "but I'm really trying to think of strategies that get students more engaged, that require them to do hands-on critical thinking rather than just being a speaker that shares knowledge."
* * *
Original text here: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/6428/returning-to-binghamton-with-new-perspectives
New York University Issues Q&A: Many New Moms Suffer From Anxiety and Depression - What About Their Partners
NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- New York University issued the following Q&A on Aug. 24, 2026, involving Erin O'Connor, professor of education and Director of the Steinhardt's Early Childhood Education Program:
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Many New Moms Suffer from Anxiety and Depression. What About Their Partners?
Steinhardt Professor Erin O'Connor's new research finds mental health screening lacking for parents who have given birth--and nonexistent for other caregivers, who also struggle
-
While postpartum depression has received more attention in recent years as a common complication of new parenthood, there's ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- New York University issued the following Q&A on Aug. 24, 2026, involving Erin O'Connor, professor of education and Director of the Steinhardt's Early Childhood Education Program: * * * Many New Moms Suffer from Anxiety and Depression. What About Their Partners? Steinhardt Professor Erin O'Connor's new research finds mental health screening lacking for parents who have given birth--and nonexistent for other caregivers, who also struggle - While postpartum depression has received more attention in recent years as a common complication of new parenthood, there'sa broad spectrum of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) that often go unnoticed, both in public conversation and in doctor's offices. And it's not just mothers whose mental health can decline during this transition.
"We know birthing caregivers aren't being screened enough," says Erin O'Connor, professor of education and director of NYU Steinhardt's Early Childhood Education Program. "But non-birthing caregivers are almost never screened at all--and that's not just true for partners, it's true for adoptive parents, LGBTQ+ caregivers, and other family structures that get left out of the conversation entirely."
Last year, O'Connor and her co-author, NYU research scientist Robin Neuhaus, published Missed Screenings, Missed Support, a national study of caregivers with PMADS revealing that 40% of caregivers who experienced a PMAD were never screened during a follow-up appointment. The researchers also found that even when caregivers were screened, they were often afraid to share mental health concerns for fear of judgment or being separated from their children.
O'Connor is the co-founder (along with Neuhaus) of the Nested Institute for Families, a nonprofit that promotes family wellbeing through research and advocacy.
She's now expanding her research to include a specific focus on non-birthing parents (including biological fathers, same-sex partners, adoptive parents, and others), a group O'Connor says is often overlooked in research and policy, yet who are critical partners for birthing parents and their children's development.
NYU News spoke to O'Connor about the effects of PMADs on both parents and children, and some ideas for overcoming the shortcomings in the healthcare system that can leave them untreated.
What led you to study caregivers' experiences with PMADs?
My early work as a developmental psychologist focused on children's relationships with the adults around them, and particularly how teacher-child relationships shape children's social, emotional, and academic development. Across that work, one lesson became increasingly clear: children's well-being cannot be separated from the well-being of the adults caring for them.
That realization led me to look more closely at the transition to parenthood. It is a period of enormous emotional, relational, and practical change, yet many families receive surprisingly little sustained support. Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are common and treatable, but caregivers often struggle to recognize what they are experiencing, talk about it honestly, or find appropriate care.
Erin O'Connor Erin O'Connor
We founded the Nested Institute for Families to better understand those gaps and help build systems that support the whole family, rather than waiting until a caregiver or child is already in crisis.
What are the biggest challenges for caregivers with PMADs?
One of the biggest challenges is that screening does not always feel like a genuine invitation to receive help. In our national study of more than 1,000 birthing caregivers, 48 percent of those who recalled being screened said they did not feel able to answer the questions completely honestly.
Some caregivers feared being judged as a bad or incapable parent. Others worried that disclosing intrusive thoughts or severe distress could trigger involvement from child protective services. Whether or not those fears reflect what a provider would actually do, they shape how parents respond and can prevent screening from identifying people who need support.
The other major problem is fragmentation. Professional guidelines recommend screening at multiple points during pregnancy and after birth, but screening practices and follow-up vary considerably. Symptoms may also emerge or intensify months after delivery, when regular contact with the birthing parent's healthcare providers has decreased.
Even when a caregiver does disclose symptoms, a screening tool is only useful if there is a clear and accessible path to care. Too often, parents are left trying to navigate provider shortages, insurance barriers, inadequate paid leave, childcare demands, and healthcare systems that do not communicate well with one another.
What are the most common risks for children whose mothers have PMADs?
It is important not to suggest that a child whose mother experiences a PMAD will inevitably have developmental difficulties. Many parents recover with treatment and support, and children can benefit from strong relationships with partners, grandparents, teachers, and other caregivers.
At the population level, however, maternal depression and anxiety have been associated with increased risks in areas such as early language development, emotional regulation, behavior, and, later, internalizing symptoms. The pathways are complex. A caregiver experiencing severe depression or anxiety may have less energy, emotional availability, or practical support, which can affect everyday interactions with a baby or young child.
That is why supporting the caregiver is also an investment in the child's developmental environment. The caregiver's health matters in its own right, but effective support can have benefits across the family.
More recently, you've turned your attention to the partners of birthing caregivers. Why?
Our earlier study showed us that PMADs do not occur in isolation. Birthing caregivers frequently described their partners as their primary source of emotional support, but many also told us that their partners were struggling and had received very little information or attention from healthcare providers. In that study, 98 percent of birthing caregivers reported that their partners had not been screened for perinatal mental health concerns.
Communication within the couple also emerged as a major concern. Only 22 percent of birthing caregivers in our study said they felt able to speak honestly with their partners about their mental health. That means many parents may be relying most heavily on the person they feel least able to fully open up to during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.
At the same time, the partner may also be experiencing depression, anxiety, exhaustion, or feelings of exclusion, while being treated by the healthcare system primarily as a helper. When both caregivers are struggling, they may each have less capacity to support the other.
We're now asking non-birthing caregivers directly about their own experiences--fathers, LGBTQ+ parents, adoptive parents, and other caregivers who are often missing from this research. So far we've heard from about 400 caregivers and hope to reach 1,000, with a particular focus on groups that have historically been left out of the conversation. We're also conducting around 30 in-depth interviews to understand what the transition to parenthood felt like emotionally and psychologically, what support people got, and what support they were missing.
The goal is not to shift attention away from birthing parents. It is to recognize that supporting partners and strengthening communication can make the entire caregiving system more resilient.
What changes do you want to see to support new parents?
First, screening should be ongoing and connected to care. It should occur at several points during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and a positive screen should lead to timely assessment, treatment options, and follow-up. We also need appropriate ways to identify and support mental health concerns among non-birthing caregivers. That starts with screening that feels human, not like a checklist with "right" answers. A positive screen also needs to lead somewhere. It can't just end with a referral list of providers who aren't taking new patients. That means investing in training: there's currently a shortage of providers with real expertise in perinatal mental health.
Second, the United States needs comprehensive paid family leave. Recovery from birth, bonding with a new child, attending medical appointments, and supporting a partner in distress all require time. Leave policies should reflect the diversity of modern families and recognize the caregiving roles played by partners, adoptive parents, grandparents, and other relatives.
Third, mental health support should be integrated into the places where families already receive care. Obstetric and pediatric settings are especially important because pediatric providers may continue seeing the family regularly after the birthing parent's routine postpartum care has ended.
Finally, providers need training not only in administering a questionnaire but also in having conversations that feel safe and nonjudgmental. Screening without trust, follow-up, and a realistic path to treatment is not enough.
What about outside of healthcare? Could there be support for parents to access in other community settings?
One of the central questions guiding our future work is how to create more approachable pathways into care. Through research-practice partnerships in New York City, we are working with community organizations and early-childhood partners to explore how trusted community supports can play that role. One area we are studying is whether preschool teachers and early-childhood staff can be better equipped to notice caregiver distress and connect families with services, without asking educators to become therapists.
Our aim is to work alongside community partners to develop and test practical models that can be offered in familiar settings, such as preschools, Head Start programs, family centers, and community-based organizations. Ultimately, we want families to have more than one door through which they can reach care.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2026/august/-many-new-moms-suffer-from-anxiety-and-depression--what-about-th.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1
* * *
Many New Moms Suffer from Anxiety and Depression. What About Their Partners?
Steinhardt Professor Erin O'Connor's new research finds mental health screening lacking for parents who have given birth--and nonexistent for other caregivers, who also struggle
-
While postpartum depression has received more attention in recent years as a common complication of new parenthood, there's ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- New York University issued the following Q&A on Aug. 24, 2026, involving Erin O'Connor, professor of education and Director of the Steinhardt's Early Childhood Education Program: * * * Many New Moms Suffer from Anxiety and Depression. What About Their Partners? Steinhardt Professor Erin O'Connor's new research finds mental health screening lacking for parents who have given birth--and nonexistent for other caregivers, who also struggle - While postpartum depression has received more attention in recent years as a common complication of new parenthood, there'sa broad spectrum of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) that often go unnoticed, both in public conversation and in doctor's offices. And it's not just mothers whose mental health can decline during this transition.
"We know birthing caregivers aren't being screened enough," says Erin O'Connor, professor of education and director of NYU Steinhardt's Early Childhood Education Program. "But non-birthing caregivers are almost never screened at all--and that's not just true for partners, it's true for adoptive parents, LGBTQ+ caregivers, and other family structures that get left out of the conversation entirely."
Last year, O'Connor and her co-author, NYU research scientist Robin Neuhaus, published Missed Screenings, Missed Support, a national study of caregivers with PMADS revealing that 40% of caregivers who experienced a PMAD were never screened during a follow-up appointment. The researchers also found that even when caregivers were screened, they were often afraid to share mental health concerns for fear of judgment or being separated from their children.
O'Connor is the co-founder (along with Neuhaus) of the Nested Institute for Families, a nonprofit that promotes family wellbeing through research and advocacy.
She's now expanding her research to include a specific focus on non-birthing parents (including biological fathers, same-sex partners, adoptive parents, and others), a group O'Connor says is often overlooked in research and policy, yet who are critical partners for birthing parents and their children's development.
NYU News spoke to O'Connor about the effects of PMADs on both parents and children, and some ideas for overcoming the shortcomings in the healthcare system that can leave them untreated.
What led you to study caregivers' experiences with PMADs?
My early work as a developmental psychologist focused on children's relationships with the adults around them, and particularly how teacher-child relationships shape children's social, emotional, and academic development. Across that work, one lesson became increasingly clear: children's well-being cannot be separated from the well-being of the adults caring for them.
That realization led me to look more closely at the transition to parenthood. It is a period of enormous emotional, relational, and practical change, yet many families receive surprisingly little sustained support. Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are common and treatable, but caregivers often struggle to recognize what they are experiencing, talk about it honestly, or find appropriate care.
Erin O'Connor Erin O'Connor
We founded the Nested Institute for Families to better understand those gaps and help build systems that support the whole family, rather than waiting until a caregiver or child is already in crisis.
What are the biggest challenges for caregivers with PMADs?
One of the biggest challenges is that screening does not always feel like a genuine invitation to receive help. In our national study of more than 1,000 birthing caregivers, 48 percent of those who recalled being screened said they did not feel able to answer the questions completely honestly.
Some caregivers feared being judged as a bad or incapable parent. Others worried that disclosing intrusive thoughts or severe distress could trigger involvement from child protective services. Whether or not those fears reflect what a provider would actually do, they shape how parents respond and can prevent screening from identifying people who need support.
The other major problem is fragmentation. Professional guidelines recommend screening at multiple points during pregnancy and after birth, but screening practices and follow-up vary considerably. Symptoms may also emerge or intensify months after delivery, when regular contact with the birthing parent's healthcare providers has decreased.
Even when a caregiver does disclose symptoms, a screening tool is only useful if there is a clear and accessible path to care. Too often, parents are left trying to navigate provider shortages, insurance barriers, inadequate paid leave, childcare demands, and healthcare systems that do not communicate well with one another.
What are the most common risks for children whose mothers have PMADs?
It is important not to suggest that a child whose mother experiences a PMAD will inevitably have developmental difficulties. Many parents recover with treatment and support, and children can benefit from strong relationships with partners, grandparents, teachers, and other caregivers.
At the population level, however, maternal depression and anxiety have been associated with increased risks in areas such as early language development, emotional regulation, behavior, and, later, internalizing symptoms. The pathways are complex. A caregiver experiencing severe depression or anxiety may have less energy, emotional availability, or practical support, which can affect everyday interactions with a baby or young child.
That is why supporting the caregiver is also an investment in the child's developmental environment. The caregiver's health matters in its own right, but effective support can have benefits across the family.
More recently, you've turned your attention to the partners of birthing caregivers. Why?
Our earlier study showed us that PMADs do not occur in isolation. Birthing caregivers frequently described their partners as their primary source of emotional support, but many also told us that their partners were struggling and had received very little information or attention from healthcare providers. In that study, 98 percent of birthing caregivers reported that their partners had not been screened for perinatal mental health concerns.
Communication within the couple also emerged as a major concern. Only 22 percent of birthing caregivers in our study said they felt able to speak honestly with their partners about their mental health. That means many parents may be relying most heavily on the person they feel least able to fully open up to during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.
At the same time, the partner may also be experiencing depression, anxiety, exhaustion, or feelings of exclusion, while being treated by the healthcare system primarily as a helper. When both caregivers are struggling, they may each have less capacity to support the other.
We're now asking non-birthing caregivers directly about their own experiences--fathers, LGBTQ+ parents, adoptive parents, and other caregivers who are often missing from this research. So far we've heard from about 400 caregivers and hope to reach 1,000, with a particular focus on groups that have historically been left out of the conversation. We're also conducting around 30 in-depth interviews to understand what the transition to parenthood felt like emotionally and psychologically, what support people got, and what support they were missing.
The goal is not to shift attention away from birthing parents. It is to recognize that supporting partners and strengthening communication can make the entire caregiving system more resilient.
What changes do you want to see to support new parents?
First, screening should be ongoing and connected to care. It should occur at several points during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and a positive screen should lead to timely assessment, treatment options, and follow-up. We also need appropriate ways to identify and support mental health concerns among non-birthing caregivers. That starts with screening that feels human, not like a checklist with "right" answers. A positive screen also needs to lead somewhere. It can't just end with a referral list of providers who aren't taking new patients. That means investing in training: there's currently a shortage of providers with real expertise in perinatal mental health.
Second, the United States needs comprehensive paid family leave. Recovery from birth, bonding with a new child, attending medical appointments, and supporting a partner in distress all require time. Leave policies should reflect the diversity of modern families and recognize the caregiving roles played by partners, adoptive parents, grandparents, and other relatives.
Third, mental health support should be integrated into the places where families already receive care. Obstetric and pediatric settings are especially important because pediatric providers may continue seeing the family regularly after the birthing parent's routine postpartum care has ended.
Finally, providers need training not only in administering a questionnaire but also in having conversations that feel safe and nonjudgmental. Screening without trust, follow-up, and a realistic path to treatment is not enough.
What about outside of healthcare? Could there be support for parents to access in other community settings?
One of the central questions guiding our future work is how to create more approachable pathways into care. Through research-practice partnerships in New York City, we are working with community organizations and early-childhood partners to explore how trusted community supports can play that role. One area we are studying is whether preschool teachers and early-childhood staff can be better equipped to notice caregiver distress and connect families with services, without asking educators to become therapists.
Our aim is to work alongside community partners to develop and test practical models that can be offered in familiar settings, such as preschools, Head Start programs, family centers, and community-based organizations. Ultimately, we want families to have more than one door through which they can reach care.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2026/august/-many-new-moms-suffer-from-anxiety-and-depression--what-about-th.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1
NASA Selects Caltech to Operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatories
PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news:
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NASA Selects Caltech to Operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatories
NASA has selected Caltech to operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions (OCO-2 and OCO-3) beginning this fall. OCO-2, a satellite, and OCO-3, an instrument on the International Space Station (ISS), both identify where carbon is being emitted and where natural sinks such as forests and oceans are absorbing it.
Data from the OCO missions have direct relevance to better understanding agricultural health, providing information ... Show Full Article PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news: * * * NASA Selects Caltech to Operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatories NASA has selected Caltech to operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions (OCO-2 and OCO-3) beginning this fall. OCO-2, a satellite, and OCO-3, an instrument on the International Space Station (ISS), both identify where carbon is being emitted and where natural sinks such as forests and oceans are absorbing it. Data from the OCO missions have direct relevance to better understanding agricultural health, providing informationabout plant productivity and ecosystem health from farmlands to tropical and high-latitude forests. Data from these instruments will continue to be made publicly available.
"The Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions give us a remarkable vantage point from which to observe our planet," says Caltech Provost David Tirrell, the Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. "We are pleased that NASA has entrusted Caltech to steward the continued operation of these missions, ensuring that they will provide the data needed to make informed decisions about the natural resources on which we all depend. This collaboration is a powerful model for how government, universities, and industry can work together in new ways to sustain world-class scientific capabilities that deliver lasting public benefit."
The Earth is dynamic--one day an atom of carbon might be floating in the atmosphere as a molecule of carbon dioxide, and the next it might be taken in by a photosynthesizing plant to make sugars or dissolved into sea water as bicarbonate. Monitoring how carbon travels throughout the biosphere and atmosphere is crucial for supporting Earth's diverse ecosystems. For example, in 2020, a team led by Caltech used the data from OCO-2 to monitor impacts of severe flooding on crop growth.
OCO-2 and OCO-3 are crucial for monitoring crop health and ecosystem function at the national and global scales. With their unique ability to measure both CO2 inventories and plant activity, these instruments will aid farmers and scientists alike.
Caltech has had significant engagement with the OCO missions since their inception. Many Caltech researchers were involved with the founding and design of OCO-2 and OCO-3, including Christian Frankenberg, the Chandler Family Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist; Paul Wennberg, the R. Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering; former assistant professor James Randerson (now of UC Irvine); and the late Yuk Yung.
OCO mission assets will be loaned by NASA to Caltech. Researchers and facilities both on campus and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, will operate the observatories.
-- Written by Lori Dajose
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Original text here: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/nasa-selects-caltech-to-operate-the-orbiting-carbon-observatories
* * *
NASA Selects Caltech to Operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatories
NASA has selected Caltech to operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions (OCO-2 and OCO-3) beginning this fall. OCO-2, a satellite, and OCO-3, an instrument on the International Space Station (ISS), both identify where carbon is being emitted and where natural sinks such as forests and oceans are absorbing it.
Data from the OCO missions have direct relevance to better understanding agricultural health, providing information ... Show Full Article PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news: * * * NASA Selects Caltech to Operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatories NASA has selected Caltech to operate the Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions (OCO-2 and OCO-3) beginning this fall. OCO-2, a satellite, and OCO-3, an instrument on the International Space Station (ISS), both identify where carbon is being emitted and where natural sinks such as forests and oceans are absorbing it. Data from the OCO missions have direct relevance to better understanding agricultural health, providing informationabout plant productivity and ecosystem health from farmlands to tropical and high-latitude forests. Data from these instruments will continue to be made publicly available.
"The Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions give us a remarkable vantage point from which to observe our planet," says Caltech Provost David Tirrell, the Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. "We are pleased that NASA has entrusted Caltech to steward the continued operation of these missions, ensuring that they will provide the data needed to make informed decisions about the natural resources on which we all depend. This collaboration is a powerful model for how government, universities, and industry can work together in new ways to sustain world-class scientific capabilities that deliver lasting public benefit."
The Earth is dynamic--one day an atom of carbon might be floating in the atmosphere as a molecule of carbon dioxide, and the next it might be taken in by a photosynthesizing plant to make sugars or dissolved into sea water as bicarbonate. Monitoring how carbon travels throughout the biosphere and atmosphere is crucial for supporting Earth's diverse ecosystems. For example, in 2020, a team led by Caltech used the data from OCO-2 to monitor impacts of severe flooding on crop growth.
OCO-2 and OCO-3 are crucial for monitoring crop health and ecosystem function at the national and global scales. With their unique ability to measure both CO2 inventories and plant activity, these instruments will aid farmers and scientists alike.
Caltech has had significant engagement with the OCO missions since their inception. Many Caltech researchers were involved with the founding and design of OCO-2 and OCO-3, including Christian Frankenberg, the Chandler Family Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist; Paul Wennberg, the R. Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering; former assistant professor James Randerson (now of UC Irvine); and the late Yuk Yung.
OCO mission assets will be loaned by NASA to Caltech. Researchers and facilities both on campus and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, will operate the observatories.
-- Written by Lori Dajose
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Original text here: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/nasa-selects-caltech-to-operate-the-orbiting-carbon-observatories
California Institute of Technology: Chemical Physicists Quantitatively Model Electron Interactions in Real Quantum Materials
PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news:
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Chemical Physicists Quantitatively Model Electron Interactions in Real Quantum Materials
A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on simplified models to qualitatively describe the effect, the new work uses the actual atomic and electronic structures of materials ... Show Full Article PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news: * * * Chemical Physicists Quantitatively Model Electron Interactions in Real Quantum Materials A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on simplified models to qualitatively describe the effect, the new work uses the actual atomic and electronic structures of materialsto solve the problem directly.
The work represents a step toward simulations of important quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductors, in which the motions of individual electrons depend so sensitively on what other electrons are doing at any moment that they cannot be averaged together.
The team describes the new technique and results in a paper published in the July 30 issue of the journal Science. The lead authors of the paper are Linqing Peng (PhD '25) and Tianyu Zhu of Yale University. Both Peng and Zhu started working on the project in the lab of Garnet Chan, Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Rudolph A. Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry at Caltech.
"It is now possible to predict the properties of some complicated materials purely through computation without referring to experiment," says Chan, who is the senior author of the paper and a Simons Investigator in Physics. "These first materials that we have studied are like a baby step, or a prototype problem, along the way to more complex phenomena such as high-temperature superconductors and quantum magnets."
The Kondo Effect--A Many-Body Problem
For many of the materials used in computing, including semiconductors such as silicon, the interactions between electrons are so weak that they are insignificant in terms of understanding overall behavior. But to learn more about so-called strongly correlated materials needed for quantum applications, pinning down how electrons interact and bounce off each other is crucial.
The Kondo effect comes into play in the simplest example of such a strongly correlated material: the case where a single magnetic atom, such as iron or manganese, is embedded as an impurity in a metal, such as copper. When that bulk material is cooled below a certain temperature (known as the Kondo temperature), something odd happens. When a normal metal is cooled, its electrical resistance decreases steadily, making the material a better conductor at lower and lower temperatures. When a metal with a magnetic impurity reaches its Kondo temperature, its resistance reaches a minimum and then actually increases.
"That is the signature of the Kondo effect, and it's a property of the electrons in the impurity interacting with the electrons traveling through the bulk metal," Chan explains.
Physicists in the 1970s (including, importantly, alumnus Kenneth Wilson, PhD '61) established a theoretical understanding of the general physics around the Kondo effect. It is a prototypical example of what physicists call a many-body problem, because it involves trying to describe the behavior of a system with many, many particles--in this case, electrons in the metal--that interact in complex ways, making it impossible to solve by looking at the behavior of each particle independently. In this case, the magnetic atom has unpaired electrons, and their spin gives the atom its magnetism. At higher temperatures, the vector of that magnetism, the atom's magnetic moment, fluctuates freely. But as the temperature drops, electrons in the metal begin to interact strongly with the atom's spin and can actually flip their own spin to cancel out a bit of the atom's magnetic moment. This extra scattering interaction causes the characteristic leveling off and then increase in resistance associated with the Kondo effect. Eventually, when the whole cloud of electrons gets involved, it masks the atom's magnetism completely.
The electrons in the metal enveloping the atom collectively arrange themselves into a cloud that "screens," or cancels out, the atom's magnetism.
Solving the Problem Quantitatively
The Kondo effect is one of the most intensively studied problems in quantum many-body physics, in part because it is relatively simple to state. It is used as something of a benchmark that researchers must show they can approximate for new theoretical and computational methods to be accepted. But pinning down the precise way in which the resistance decreases and then comes back up or the exact temperature at which the change occurs for a given impurity in a real material has not been possible until now.
Previous methods have simplified the problem by reducing a material's electronic structure to a small number of orbitals--spaces around an atom's nucleus where electrons are most likely to be found--and then applying an approximate mathematical model to that reduced system.
Chan and his team took a different approach. They used technology that had been developed to very accurately describe molecules in the quantum chemistry field and applied it to this material setting. This allowed them to fully describe the magnetic atom impurities as though they were molecules without having to simplify their interactions.
In the paper, the researchers provide results for seven different transition-metal atoms embedded in copper. For most elements, the new method's predictions exceeded the accuracy of model-based calculations by as much as two orders of magnitude.
"We are in an exciting era in which faithful predictive quantum descriptions of the full chemical complexity of real materials are coming within reach," says Peng. "It is becoming realistic to predict material-specific behavior of correlated electrons from first principles, even in some of the most challenging classes of quantum materials.
"This is an important step toward computationally designing materials whose functions emerge from intricate correlated physics, such as high-temperature superconductivity, where the large chemical space and competition among many phases call for predictive theory to help focus the experimental search for new materials," she adds. "I am excited to see what new materials breakthrough this theory will enable in the future."
Additional Caltech authors of the paper, "Toward an exact quantum many-body treatment of Kondo correlation in magnetic impurities" are Huanchen Zhai, a former postdoctoral scholar; Runze Chi, a current postdoctoral scholar; and Zhi-Hao Cui (PhD '23), who completed the work as a graduate student. The work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, the US Department of Energy and its Center for Molecular Magnetic Quantum Materials, and the US National Science Foundation.
-- Written by Kimm Fesenmaier
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Original text here: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/chemical-physicists-quantitatively-model-electron-interactions-in-real-quantum-materials
* * *
Chemical Physicists Quantitatively Model Electron Interactions in Real Quantum Materials
A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on simplified models to qualitatively describe the effect, the new work uses the actual atomic and electronic structures of materials ... Show Full Article PASADENA, California, Aug. 25 (TNSjou) -- The California Institute of Technology issued the following news: * * * Chemical Physicists Quantitatively Model Electron Interactions in Real Quantum Materials A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on simplified models to qualitatively describe the effect, the new work uses the actual atomic and electronic structures of materialsto solve the problem directly.
The work represents a step toward simulations of important quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductors, in which the motions of individual electrons depend so sensitively on what other electrons are doing at any moment that they cannot be averaged together.
The team describes the new technique and results in a paper published in the July 30 issue of the journal Science. The lead authors of the paper are Linqing Peng (PhD '25) and Tianyu Zhu of Yale University. Both Peng and Zhu started working on the project in the lab of Garnet Chan, Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Rudolph A. Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry at Caltech.
"It is now possible to predict the properties of some complicated materials purely through computation without referring to experiment," says Chan, who is the senior author of the paper and a Simons Investigator in Physics. "These first materials that we have studied are like a baby step, or a prototype problem, along the way to more complex phenomena such as high-temperature superconductors and quantum magnets."
The Kondo Effect--A Many-Body Problem
For many of the materials used in computing, including semiconductors such as silicon, the interactions between electrons are so weak that they are insignificant in terms of understanding overall behavior. But to learn more about so-called strongly correlated materials needed for quantum applications, pinning down how electrons interact and bounce off each other is crucial.
The Kondo effect comes into play in the simplest example of such a strongly correlated material: the case where a single magnetic atom, such as iron or manganese, is embedded as an impurity in a metal, such as copper. When that bulk material is cooled below a certain temperature (known as the Kondo temperature), something odd happens. When a normal metal is cooled, its electrical resistance decreases steadily, making the material a better conductor at lower and lower temperatures. When a metal with a magnetic impurity reaches its Kondo temperature, its resistance reaches a minimum and then actually increases.
"That is the signature of the Kondo effect, and it's a property of the electrons in the impurity interacting with the electrons traveling through the bulk metal," Chan explains.
Physicists in the 1970s (including, importantly, alumnus Kenneth Wilson, PhD '61) established a theoretical understanding of the general physics around the Kondo effect. It is a prototypical example of what physicists call a many-body problem, because it involves trying to describe the behavior of a system with many, many particles--in this case, electrons in the metal--that interact in complex ways, making it impossible to solve by looking at the behavior of each particle independently. In this case, the magnetic atom has unpaired electrons, and their spin gives the atom its magnetism. At higher temperatures, the vector of that magnetism, the atom's magnetic moment, fluctuates freely. But as the temperature drops, electrons in the metal begin to interact strongly with the atom's spin and can actually flip their own spin to cancel out a bit of the atom's magnetic moment. This extra scattering interaction causes the characteristic leveling off and then increase in resistance associated with the Kondo effect. Eventually, when the whole cloud of electrons gets involved, it masks the atom's magnetism completely.
The electrons in the metal enveloping the atom collectively arrange themselves into a cloud that "screens," or cancels out, the atom's magnetism.
Solving the Problem Quantitatively
The Kondo effect is one of the most intensively studied problems in quantum many-body physics, in part because it is relatively simple to state. It is used as something of a benchmark that researchers must show they can approximate for new theoretical and computational methods to be accepted. But pinning down the precise way in which the resistance decreases and then comes back up or the exact temperature at which the change occurs for a given impurity in a real material has not been possible until now.
Previous methods have simplified the problem by reducing a material's electronic structure to a small number of orbitals--spaces around an atom's nucleus where electrons are most likely to be found--and then applying an approximate mathematical model to that reduced system.
Chan and his team took a different approach. They used technology that had been developed to very accurately describe molecules in the quantum chemistry field and applied it to this material setting. This allowed them to fully describe the magnetic atom impurities as though they were molecules without having to simplify their interactions.
In the paper, the researchers provide results for seven different transition-metal atoms embedded in copper. For most elements, the new method's predictions exceeded the accuracy of model-based calculations by as much as two orders of magnitude.
"We are in an exciting era in which faithful predictive quantum descriptions of the full chemical complexity of real materials are coming within reach," says Peng. "It is becoming realistic to predict material-specific behavior of correlated electrons from first principles, even in some of the most challenging classes of quantum materials.
"This is an important step toward computationally designing materials whose functions emerge from intricate correlated physics, such as high-temperature superconductivity, where the large chemical space and competition among many phases call for predictive theory to help focus the experimental search for new materials," she adds. "I am excited to see what new materials breakthrough this theory will enable in the future."
Additional Caltech authors of the paper, "Toward an exact quantum many-body treatment of Kondo correlation in magnetic impurities" are Huanchen Zhai, a former postdoctoral scholar; Runze Chi, a current postdoctoral scholar; and Zhi-Hao Cui (PhD '23), who completed the work as a graduate student. The work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, the US Department of Energy and its Center for Molecular Magnetic Quantum Materials, and the US National Science Foundation.
-- Written by Kimm Fesenmaier
* * *
Original text here: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/chemical-physicists-quantitatively-model-electron-interactions-in-real-quantum-materials
Allegheny College Sees 20% Enrollment Increase for Class of 2030
MEADVILLE, Pennsylvania, Aug. 25 -- Allegheny College issued the following news:
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Allegheny College Sees 20% Enrollment Increase for Class of 2030
Allegheny College is proud to announce that it matriculated 397 first-year and transfer students earlier today, Monday, August 24.
The new cohort -- composed of 375 first-year students and 22 transfer students -- hails from across the globe and already builds upon the College's reputation as one of the nation's premier liberal arts institutions through their academic excellence and artistic endeavors.
The total number of students is a 20% increase ... Show Full Article MEADVILLE, Pennsylvania, Aug. 25 -- Allegheny College issued the following news: * * * Allegheny College Sees 20% Enrollment Increase for Class of 2030 Allegheny College is proud to announce that it matriculated 397 first-year and transfer students earlier today, Monday, August 24. The new cohort -- composed of 375 first-year students and 22 transfer students -- hails from across the globe and already builds upon the College's reputation as one of the nation's premier liberal arts institutions through their academic excellence and artistic endeavors. The total number of students is a 20% increasecompared to last year's enrollment.
"Allegheny is honored to welcome its largest class in the last five years," said Jennifer Winge, vice president for enrollment management. "We're thrilled to have formally minted the Class of 2030 and our transfer students as Gators, and can't wait to see how their contributions enrich our campus."
Allegheny College's class of 2030 includes representation from 27 states and Washington D.C., with about half coming from Pennsylvania.
Through primary and secondary citizenship or home address, the cohort represents 29 distinct countries.
"Home" for the new matriculates ranges from less than a quarter mile to nearly 9,400 miles from the College's historic Bentley Hall.
Of the incoming class, about half graduated high school with above a 3.6 unweighted grade point average, and one tenth -- 40 -- held a 4.0. For students who reported a class rank, 55% graduated among the top quarter of their high school graduating class.
Winge added that Allegheny's enrollment growth is a direct result of redoubled efforts to put community connection at the forefront of the application process. About 16% of matriculants -- 61 students -- were referred by Allegheny students, alumni, or trustees, and received a $4,000 Alumni Referral Grant. Additionally, the number of admitted students who toured Allegheny rose by 13% this academic year.
"Allegheny is becoming more of a first-choice school for more students, and two of the biggest drivers of that trend are invitations from other Gators or simply coming to visit" Winge said. "An Allegheny education is top-notch, and experiencing the beauty of our campus and the vibrancy of our community culture seals the deal for many students and their families."
According to incoming student applications, 81% indicated interest in more than one academic program, reinforcing the relevance of Allegheny College's distinct academic requirement to pursue both a major and a minor in different disciplines. The class's top five most common choices for majors included:
1. Business
2. Biology
3. Psychology
4. Undeclared/Undecided
5. Environmental Science and Sustainability
Although -- as the data reflects -- many incoming students arrive with a desired course of study, they are not required to declare a major until the end of their sophomore year to promote interdisciplinary exploration. In her Matriculation address, First-Year Class Dean Aacha Brown-Gregg told the incoming class that academic discovery is a core feature of Allegheny's educational experience.
"Over the next four years, ... your professors will encourage you to think critically, ask difficult questions, and explore ideas from multiple perspectives; you will discover new interests, make lifelong friendships, and perhaps even change your mind about what you want to study or who you want to become," Brown-Gregg said. "That is not only okay -- it is one of the greatest gifts of a liberal arts education."
Forty-seven members of the class are recipients of Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) scholarships across various artistic disciplines: studio art, dance and movement studies, filmmaking, music, and theatre. Class of 2030 enrollees nearly double the number of winners among instrumentalists and vocalists compared to past creative cohorts.
While many CAPA recipients expand their artistic endeavors into a major or minor, extracurricular participation in the program is the only requirement to maintain the scholarship for their college career.
The incoming class arrives on campus with a long list of accolades; students have published research on new bacteria strains, developed digital board games, conducted advanced studies on spinal cords, crafted designer clothes in a "Junk Kouture" fashion show, and competed in national unicycle competitions.
"You have chosen Allegheny College for the same reason we have chosen you: because we believe that engaging in the best liberal arts education will lead you to extraordinary outcomes," President Ron Cole said. "This is now your community -- embrace it with your unique talents, interests, and experiences. We are a stronger and better place because you are here."
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Original text here: https://allegheny.edu/about/news/enrollment-increase-class-of-2030/
* * *
Allegheny College Sees 20% Enrollment Increase for Class of 2030
Allegheny College is proud to announce that it matriculated 397 first-year and transfer students earlier today, Monday, August 24.
The new cohort -- composed of 375 first-year students and 22 transfer students -- hails from across the globe and already builds upon the College's reputation as one of the nation's premier liberal arts institutions through their academic excellence and artistic endeavors.
The total number of students is a 20% increase ... Show Full Article MEADVILLE, Pennsylvania, Aug. 25 -- Allegheny College issued the following news: * * * Allegheny College Sees 20% Enrollment Increase for Class of 2030 Allegheny College is proud to announce that it matriculated 397 first-year and transfer students earlier today, Monday, August 24. The new cohort -- composed of 375 first-year students and 22 transfer students -- hails from across the globe and already builds upon the College's reputation as one of the nation's premier liberal arts institutions through their academic excellence and artistic endeavors. The total number of students is a 20% increasecompared to last year's enrollment.
"Allegheny is honored to welcome its largest class in the last five years," said Jennifer Winge, vice president for enrollment management. "We're thrilled to have formally minted the Class of 2030 and our transfer students as Gators, and can't wait to see how their contributions enrich our campus."
Allegheny College's class of 2030 includes representation from 27 states and Washington D.C., with about half coming from Pennsylvania.
Through primary and secondary citizenship or home address, the cohort represents 29 distinct countries.
"Home" for the new matriculates ranges from less than a quarter mile to nearly 9,400 miles from the College's historic Bentley Hall.
Of the incoming class, about half graduated high school with above a 3.6 unweighted grade point average, and one tenth -- 40 -- held a 4.0. For students who reported a class rank, 55% graduated among the top quarter of their high school graduating class.
Winge added that Allegheny's enrollment growth is a direct result of redoubled efforts to put community connection at the forefront of the application process. About 16% of matriculants -- 61 students -- were referred by Allegheny students, alumni, or trustees, and received a $4,000 Alumni Referral Grant. Additionally, the number of admitted students who toured Allegheny rose by 13% this academic year.
"Allegheny is becoming more of a first-choice school for more students, and two of the biggest drivers of that trend are invitations from other Gators or simply coming to visit" Winge said. "An Allegheny education is top-notch, and experiencing the beauty of our campus and the vibrancy of our community culture seals the deal for many students and their families."
According to incoming student applications, 81% indicated interest in more than one academic program, reinforcing the relevance of Allegheny College's distinct academic requirement to pursue both a major and a minor in different disciplines. The class's top five most common choices for majors included:
1. Business
2. Biology
3. Psychology
4. Undeclared/Undecided
5. Environmental Science and Sustainability
Although -- as the data reflects -- many incoming students arrive with a desired course of study, they are not required to declare a major until the end of their sophomore year to promote interdisciplinary exploration. In her Matriculation address, First-Year Class Dean Aacha Brown-Gregg told the incoming class that academic discovery is a core feature of Allegheny's educational experience.
"Over the next four years, ... your professors will encourage you to think critically, ask difficult questions, and explore ideas from multiple perspectives; you will discover new interests, make lifelong friendships, and perhaps even change your mind about what you want to study or who you want to become," Brown-Gregg said. "That is not only okay -- it is one of the greatest gifts of a liberal arts education."
Forty-seven members of the class are recipients of Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) scholarships across various artistic disciplines: studio art, dance and movement studies, filmmaking, music, and theatre. Class of 2030 enrollees nearly double the number of winners among instrumentalists and vocalists compared to past creative cohorts.
While many CAPA recipients expand their artistic endeavors into a major or minor, extracurricular participation in the program is the only requirement to maintain the scholarship for their college career.
The incoming class arrives on campus with a long list of accolades; students have published research on new bacteria strains, developed digital board games, conducted advanced studies on spinal cords, crafted designer clothes in a "Junk Kouture" fashion show, and competed in national unicycle competitions.
"You have chosen Allegheny College for the same reason we have chosen you: because we believe that engaging in the best liberal arts education will lead you to extraordinary outcomes," President Ron Cole said. "This is now your community -- embrace it with your unique talents, interests, and experiences. We are a stronger and better place because you are here."
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Original text here: https://allegheny.edu/about/news/enrollment-increase-class-of-2030/