Research UNCovered

Pedro Saenzphoto by Alyssa LaFaro

Pedro Sáenz

Pedro Sáenz is an assistant professor and director of the Physical Mathematics Laboratory in the Department of Mathematics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He works to demonstrate that some odd behaviors displayed by electrons and other atomic-sized particles can be recreated with larger particles visible to the human eye.
photo by Megan May

Dain Ruiz

Dain Ruiz is a rising sophomore majoring in biology and a Chancellor’s Science Scholar within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He studies expansion disorders caused by repetitions in DNA — like Huntington’s Disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, and Myotonic Dystrophy — to develop therapeutics to treat them.
Julian Ruckerphoto by Megan May

Julian Rucker

Julian Rucker is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences and a fellow in the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity. He studies beliefs about structural racism, perceptions of societal racial inequality, and motivations to rectify racial disparities.

Kimberly Burnett

Kimberly Burnett is a PhD student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies the role of gospel music in African American literature and its relationship to depictions of Black womanhood.
Kay Youngstromphoto by Alyssa LaFaro

Kay Youngstrom

Kay Youngstrom is a sophomore and Chancellor’s Science Scholar double-majoring in chemistry and statistics and analytics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. Through an internship with Med Aditus, she uses data analysis to address which of the company’s drugs are most accessible and least susceptible to counterfeits in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Geovani Ramírez

Geovani Ramírez

Geovani Ramírez is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literature within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He combines Latina/o studies, environmental humanities, and disability studies to better understand the social and ecological networks within Latina/o literature.
Daphne Klotsa

Daphne Klotsa

Daphne Klotsa is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies the physics of swarms — systems that exhibit emergent collective and cooperative behavior such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, and crowds of people — in order to engineer similar systems composed of moving parts, from self-propelled nanoparticles in solution to cars in traffic.
Derrick Carrphoto by Alyssa LaFaro

Derrick Carr

Derrick Carr is a PhD student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He searches for rare, compact galaxies called nuggets and strives to understand how they form and evolve.
Divya Narayananphoto by Johnny Andrews

Divya Narayanan

Divya Narayanan is a junior double-majoring in neuroscience and music within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She explores the neural connections between the auditory cortex and thalamus to understand how the brain processes and reproduces sound.
Terence Johnson

Terence Johnson

Terence Johnson is a PhD student in the UNC School of Social Work and a student assistant in the Department of Social Medicine within the UNC School of Medicine. He researches how to create equity within the criminal justice system.