UNC

Sing Wai Wong

March 31, 2021

Sing Wai Wong is a third-year periodontology resident in the UNC Adams School of Dentistry. He studies how autophagy — the process by which the body cleans out damaged cells to regenerate new, healthy cells — affects bone loss in the mouth.

Irene Manning

March 17, 2021

Irene Manning is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She develops functional materials that capture PFAS — chemicals created in the production of goods like Teflon, stain-resistant fabrics, and food packaging — and remove them from water.

Taking the Economy’s Temperature

March 16, 2021

Millions of people are unemployed, many industries are struggling, and some businesses will never open again. Will we recover? UNC economists and financial analysts remain cautiously optimistic.

A Public Health Prognosis

March 11, 2021

Graduate student Rachel Woodul spent two years researching what might happen to hospital capacity when the next pandemic strikes. When it arrived, she compared what her model — and others’ — got wrong to improve how we react to public health crises in the future.

Rachel Woodul

February 17, 2021

Rachel Woodul is a PhD student in the Department of Geography within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences and a research assistant at the Carolina Population Center. She uses geographic information systems to model infectious disease spread, with a specific focus on epidemics and pandemics.

Unearthing the Planet’s History

February 15, 2021

About 2 billion years ago, the oceans were green, the land red and rocky, and only 1 percent of Earth’s atmosphere was oxygen. How did the planet become what it is today? UNC geochemist Xiao-Ming Liu collects samples of soil, rocks, and water from places like Hawaii to find the answer.

Geovani Ramírez

February 3, 2021

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.

Building Resilience for Storm-Battered N.C.

January 21, 2021

The record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season included 30 storms, and while North Carolina managed to dodge the 12 hurricanes that made landfall, that won’t always be the case in the future. A team of interdisciplinary researchers at UNC is combining their expertise in areas like human health, ecology, and urban planning to create a long-term holistic plan helping vulnerable communities prepare for the next generation of extreme weather events.

The Invisible Chase

January 14, 2021

Just over 100 years ago, physicists stumbled upon an elementary particle that could answer questions about the origin of the universe. Elusive and nearly massless, neutrinos may be the solution to understanding everything from the Big Bang to the inner workings of the atomic nucleus — and UNC physicist Julieta Gruszko can’t stop chasing them.

Tiny Molecules, Big Potential

January 12, 2021

North Carolina native and organic chemist Sidney Wilkerson-Hill is investigating ways to recreate the power of plants in the lab — work that could lead to advances in drug development.