As director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute, Mario Ruiz has monitored some of the most active (and potentially destructive) volcanoes in South America. After earning his PhD at UNC 10 years ago, Ruiz has come back to Carolina to sift through data from the recent eruption of the Cotopaxi volcano.

In the months following one of the most destructive hurricanes of the past decade, UNC researchers had to act fast. Using a unique grant from the NSF, they’re testing water quality in Lumberton — one of the hardest-hit places during the storm.

Kashika Sahay is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Maternal and Child Health in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research interests include gender equity, reproductive health outcomes, women’s empowerment, and violence prevention. In March, she successfully defended her dissertation on family planning among couples in urban Nigeria. She graduates this weekend and is already working as a contractor for the CDC in Atlanta.

The UNC Division of Infectious Diseases launches three simultaneous studies to help prevent HIV within the most susceptible populations.

Senior Alice Yu is an undergraduate researcher in Barry Popkin’s lab within the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is majoring in nutrition, with minors in chemistry and music. Her research focuses on the change in dietary trends of Chinese adolescents using cross-sectional data from the Carolina Population Center’s China Health and Nutrition Survey.

Jada Brooks is an assistant professor in the UNC School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the health of American Indian women, specifically linking exposure to environmental pollutants and psychosocial factors to cardiovascular disease.

The revitalization of Old East Durham has resulted in a dramatic increase in property values over the last 10 years. What does this growth mean for housing affordability, equity, and environmental quality in one of North Carolina’s fastest growing areas?

To find out, the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning is listening (and lending resources) to long-term residents of Durham.

Molly De Marco is a research assistant professor of nutrition within the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, as well as a research scientist at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Her community-based research focuses on improving access to healthy food for low-income and historically marginalized populations in the rural South.

A Robeson County tortilla manufacturer is ready to increase his production from 25,000 pounds of tortillas a week to 120,000 pounds. UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA student Ben Holmes is helping him do just that — through NCGrowth, an affiliate of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise.

UNC undergraduate Patrick Seelinger and professor Steven King are developing a facial recognition app that will provide information on people just by looking at them.

Sophomore Victoria Miller is an undergraduate researcher studying computer science within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on a Chrome extension that helps Facebook users with physical disabilities.

North Carolina’s barrier islands are dynamic landforms in a state of constant change. UNC researchers want to better understand how those changes happen and what they mean for the future of our coast.