Society

Society: Understanding Human Nature and Behavior

The Road to Reproductive Health

October 8, 2019

By the time she was 14 years old, Vaishnavi Siripurapu had already developed a passion for feminism and reproductive health. After working in a university biology lab in high school, she set her sights on a career that combined her love of science with that of gynecology. Now a sophomore at UNC, she researches ways to educate young people about sex and relationships.

Anusha Chari

October 2, 2019

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.

Puerto Rico’s Breaking Point

September 20, 2019

After Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico in 2017, millions of people lost power — some for nearly a year. But the blackout wasn’t just the work of a powerful hurricane. Decades of debt, economic dependence, and bad financial deals set up the territory and its electrical company, PREPA, for failure. To get to the root of the catastrophe, UNC anthropologist Sandy Smith-Nonini and filmmaker Roque Nonini teamed up to create a documentary about the underlying forces of Puerto Rico’s energy crisis.

Eleftheria “Ria” Kontou

August 28, 2019

Eleftheria “Ria” Kontou is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of City and Regional Planning within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She uses transportation models to uncover whether ride-sourcing platforms like Uber and Lyft affect city road crashes, injuries, fatalities, and DUI rates to help urban planners identify solutions for safe, efficient mobility.

Juan Carlos González Espitia

August 21, 2019

Juan Carlos González Espitia is an associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Studies within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. In his historical study of syphilis in the Spanish-speaking world, he explores the ways the disease affects private and public life, literature, the arts, medical discourse, politics, and public policy.

A Dual Focus

August 20, 2019

After a 21-year career in the U.S. Army, John Bechtold is now a PhD student in UNC’s Department of American Studies, using photography as a means to discuss American public memory and cultural perceptions of war.

Tuned into Neuroscience

August 14, 2019

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.

One Size Won’t Fit All

August 13, 2019

Nearly 35 percent of Americans are considered obese — a diagnosis that has become so common the American Medical Association recognizes it as a chronic disease. While the diagnosis is the same for all, the treatments vary; what works for one person typically doesn’t work for another. In response, researchers from across UNC have joined forces to tackle this ever-growing problem.

Soldering Learning Leaks

August 8, 2019

New research from Carolina Demography shows how students “leak out” of the postsecondary educational pipeline and examines education outcomes at North Carolina public schools, identifying where interventions could be implemented. UNC researchers have long been at work to close these gaps, from early childhood classrooms to public policy platforms.

The Known Unknowns

August 6, 2019

In 2016, a group of North Carolina researchers published evidence of high rates of PFAS in the Cape Fear River basin. While this unregulated family of chemicals is used in the production of everyday goods, its impact on human health is largely unknown. For the past year, scientists from UNC-Chapel Hill, five other UNC system universities, and Duke University, have researched these potentially dangerous chemicals found in drinking water sources across the state.