Racing Toward Innovation
Convergent science is characterized by cross-disciplinary research teams created to tackle big problems and speed the application of new breakthroughs to commercialization. At UNC, the Institute for ...
Cell by Cell
Since he was in high school, Craig Cameron has been interested in viruses and vaccines. Now, he and a team of microbiologists and immunologists are studying viral infection on a single-cell level to ...
Disassembling Evolution’s Engine
When a research project centered on evolution within spadefoot toads fell through, Emily Harmon shifted her focus to microscopic swimmers called rotifers. The biology PhD student is studying an ...
The Smorgasbord Scientist
Why do some organisms live in groups? What influences their cooperation with one another? How do they choose their mates? PhD student Brian Lerch has a lot of questions about ecology and ...
The Storm that Changed Her
A hurricane in 2010 turned Caela O’Connell’s dissertation plans upside down. It continues to affect her and her research 11 years later as a UNC-Chapel Hill anthropology professor. ...
Connecting Humans and Computers
For most of her life, Ayana Monroe has been fascinated by how people and computers connect — a field called human-computer interaction. Now, as a UNC-Chapel Hill junior and Chancellor’s Science ...
Setting the Art World Ablaze
Upon discovering a series of political cartoons mocking artists in 18th- and 19th-century France in 2010, UNC-Chapel Hill art historian Kathryn Desplanque couldn’t stop searching for them. Now, she ...
The Sanctity of Cherokee
As a result of systemic oppression, there are fewer than 200 native Cherokee speakers in North Carolina. To keep the language alive and pass it to the next generation, UNC-Chapel Hill researcher and ...
A Project of Her Own
Most UNC-Chapel Hill PhD students oversee their own research projects for their dissertations. But Kriddie Whitmore did it in a foreign country — and with the added challenges of a language barrier, ...
Putting Skill to Work
Nichola Lowe spotted the gaps in the U.S. workforce long before the pandemic shined a light on them. She’s spent the last 15 years studying how employees develop and use skills at work, and how ...
Sifting Through Schoolyard Memories
This summer, UNC-Chapel Hill PhD student Colleen Betti and 80 volunteers rushed to uncover a historic schoolyard that was about to be paved over and transformed into a parking lot. Their mission: to ...
In Hot Water
Warming ocean waters are one of many climate change consequences, and scientists have observed fish migrating to stay within their preferred temperature range. Janet Nye, a UNC-Chapel Hill marine ...