Invention

Invention: Redefining Enterprise and Technology

Jayashankar Swaminathan

Jayashankar Swaminathan is the GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Global Operations at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and a professor in the Department of Statistics and Operations within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He researches how to improve business operations.

UNC graduate student Lauren Woods draws out a pattern for a cheetah-print crop top in the costume shop at PlayMakers Repertory Company.

A Stitch in Time

Most of what you see at a theatrical performance can’t be purchased in a store. Each piece is specifically designed, created, and modified for the actor who will wear it on stage. What does that involve? Just ask the team at the PlayMakers Repertory Company costume shop.

A Leading Research Institution

University Research Week, November 4-8, is an annual celebration of Carolina’s research excellence and an effort to increase participation by students, of all levels, in research activity. Through lectures, workshops, lab tours, and more, the campus community will become more familiar with our world-class research and the strategic initiatives that make Carolina one of the top research institutions in the world.

Seniors Maribel Herrera and Chloe Schneider and junior Nehemiah Stewart use an infrared gas analyzer to measure carbon dioxide levels in the peatlands of the North Andean páramo.

photos & video by Alyssa LaFaro

Climate Game-Changers

For thousands of years, the northern Andes Mountains have acted as a carbon sink, preserving organic matter as thick soil. As the planet warms, what will happen to all that carbon? This past summer, Carolina undergraduates traveled to Ecuador to take a closer look.

photo by Matthew Westmoreland

Anusha Chari

Anusha Chari is a professor in the Department of Economics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences and an adjunct professor in the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. She studies how international trade and capital markets — financial systems that raise capital via shares, bonds, and other investments — affect economic growth across East Asia and Latin America.

Tuned into Neuroscience

There are a host of ways neuroscientists can study the brain. Some analyze its chemistry, others its structure. UNC researcher Flavio Frohlich examines its electrical system, what he calls the "language of the brain," and investigates how miscommunication in these signals can play a role in psychiatric illnesses.

photo by Alyssa LaFaro

Nichola Lowe

Nichola Lowe is a professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. Her research unpacks the processes and practices that contribute to more equitable forms of regional economic development and labor market adjustment.

a girl wears an augmented reality headset while controlling long rods on a simulator that mimics laparoscopic surgery

Augmented Health Care

Henry Fuchs is always looking 20 years ahead, and two decades from now the computer scientist thinks augmented-reality eyeglasses will be the norm. Fuchs and his team of students and colleagues are developing an augmented-reality program to aid in laparoscopic surgery training and, maybe one day, revolutionize minimally invasive surgery.

photo by Ben Premaux

A Tooth for a Tooth

When an adult loses a front tooth, dentists can replace it with an implant. What about children, who have years of development ahead of them? The answer: relocate an existing tooth to the site of the missing tooth. UNC dentists are the first in the U.S. to try this innovative procedure, called autotransplantation.

Boyce Griffith adjusts a pulse duplicator

photo by Liah McPherson

Cardiac Computation

In his youth, Boyce Griffith was writing computer programs before he could drive a car. Now a UNC mathematician, he creates computational models of the human heart to improve the prediction and treatment of cardiac diseases.