Research

Nehemiah Stewart

November 7, 2019

Nehemiah Stewart is a junior double-majoring in chemistry and mathematics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. His research interests include how neurons survive and die in normal and diseased situations and developing methods to combat illnesses. In addition, he is a member of UNC’s JV basketball team and symphony orchestra and recently launched a university-based ridesharing app called Vector.

Cassandra Myers

November 5, 2019

Cassandra Myers is the director of the Office of Human Research Ethics within the UNC Research division. She oversees the protection of human subjects in research and helps researchers achieve study goals by ensuring they meet compliance and regulatory needs.

Alecia Septer

October 30, 2019

Alecia Septer is an assistant professor in the Department of Marine Sciences within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She researches how bacteria compete for space and resources to aid in the development of future treatments for when such microbes cause health problems.

Kate Richardson

October 16, 2019

Kate Richardson is a junior and Chancellor’s Science Scholar double-majoring in physics and computer science within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She researches dark matter and how it might be composed of hypothetical elementary particles called axions.

Oliver Lamb

October 9, 2019

Oliver Lamb is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Geological Sciences within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He explores how seismology and infrasound can be used to study natural phenomena like active volcanoes.

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.

Carnivorous Conservation

September 12, 2019

Native only to a 90-mile inland radius around Wilmington, the Venus flytrap is a symbol of the Atlantic coastal plain’s unique ecology — and a contender for the federal endangered species list. As wild populations suffer due to poaching and habitat loss, UNC researchers work to preserve these carnivorous wonders through genetic testing and seed banking.

Trapped on the Surface

September 10, 2019

In the past decade, the Cape Fear River has become more susceptible to algal blooms — a potential public health concern for more than 1.5 million people relying on the river as a drinking water source. UNC researcher Nathan Hall thinks droughts and slow flows are the culprit, and aims to predict when future blooms will occur.