The Academic Minute

How can we use technology to clean the air around us?Petra Fromme, Regents Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery at Arizona State University, examines how humidity can play a role in doing so.Faculty Bio:Petra Fromme, Regents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery at Arizona State University, investigates the structure and function of biological and synthetic systems to advance solutions in energy, health, and sustainability.Petra Fromme, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree and habilitation in physical chemistry from the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, following her studies in biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin. She began her academic career at the Max Volmer Institute in Berlin before joining Arizona State University in 2002, where she has since become a leader in interdisciplinary research and innovation in structural biology and biophysics.Her research focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms of energy conversion and biological function, particularly through studies of membrane proteins such as photosystems. She has pioneered the use of X-ray free-electron lasers for serial femtosecond crystallography, enabling high-resolution structural determination of biomolecules and capturing dynamic processes. Her work has resulted in many impactful peer-reviewed publications and has significantly advanced the fields of structural biology and renewable energy research.Her current research also explores the development of advanced materials for direct air capture of carbon dioxide, focusing on moisture-swing systems that operate using changes in humidity. By studying nanoscale to macroscale structures, using different X-ray scattering and imaging techniques her team is working to design energy-efficient technologies to mitigate climate change.Professor Fromme has received numerous honors for her contributions to science, including the prestigious Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society. Through her leadership at the Biodesign Institute and her mentorship of students and researchers, she continues to drive innovation at the intersection of structural biology, energy, and environmental sustainability.Transcript:Fighting climate change often means building bigger machines—industrial systems that pull carbon dioxide from the air using heat, pressure or a lot of energy.But what if the air itself could do the work?My research is looking to step a big step forward in the fight against climate change; developed together with my graduate student and the first author of this published study, Gayathri Yogaganeshan and our team.Our work is on materials that can remove carbon dioxide directly from the air, using something as simple as changes in humidity. When the air is dry, the material captures CO₂. When the air becomes humid, it releases that CO₂ again. This process is called a moisture swing, and it allows us to capture carbon without using large amounts of energy, heat, or pressure.What makes this research special is that we didn’t just test whether the materials work, we looked deep inside them, all the way down to the nanoscale. Using advanced imaging techniques, we discovered that tiny structural features, thousands of times smaller than a human hair, control how water and CO₂ move through the material.We found that even small changes in humidity can subtly rearrange these structures, which in turn affects how efficiently carbon is captured and released. One of the materials we studied, a porous resin, showed particularly strong performance because its internal structure allows gases to move more easily.This work helps us understand how to design better materials, ones that are more efficient, more durable, and capable of operating on a large scale.Ultimately, our goal is to create technologies that can clean the air around us, helping to reduce atmospheric CO₂ and mitigate climate change.Read More:[ASU News] - Moisture-powered materials could make cleaning CO2 from air more efficient This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What motivates runners?Emily Balcetis, associate professor of psychology at New York University, examines this question.Faculty Bio:Dr. Emily Balcetis is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University and author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World. She is an award-winning behavioral scientist and author. She directs a research lab that pioneers the scientific investigation of motivation, uncovering previously unknown strategies that sustain people’s efforts to meet their goals. Dr. Balcetis focuses on issues including diversity in leadership, disparities in health, bias in the legal system, polarization in public opinion, and safety in cyber behavior, among others. She has appeared as a host for National Geographic and has served as a consultant for General Electric, Nestle, Nike, Pixar, the New York Times, Prudential Financial, Sandoz Pharmaceutical, and other industry leaders. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She has delivered two TEDx talks on motivation science and polarization in public opinion and earned her PhD from Cornell University.Transcript:Physical training shapes running over months and years. But what allows runners to adapt in real time? The answer is not just in their legs and lungs, it’s in their eyes. My research shows that visual attention gives runners a flexible way to support motivation and improve their performance while they’re on the move.Visual attention works like a spotlight. It can be wide, taking in what’s on the left, right, above and below us. Or attention can be narrowly focused tightly on a single point ahead. Across multiple studies, I find that runners systematically shift the scope of this attentional spotlight as they progress through a run. And when they do, they can run farther and faster.At the start of a run, people tend to use a wider scope of attention. They scan their environment, monitor others around them, and orient themselves to the course. But as physical demands increase and fatigue sets in, runners increasingly narrow their visual focus—often locking their gaze onto a small, goal-relevant target, like a sign, a bend in the road, or the finish line.That shift matters. When people are experimentally instructed to narrow their attention rather than keep it wide, they move faster, investing more effort, and experience less physical pain—even though the distance and physical demands remain unchanged. Narrowing attention appears to make the goal appear closer and more attainable, increasing perceptions of their own ability to surmount the challenges that lie ahead, and helping runners persist when effort becomes costly.Notably, more experienced and faster runners utilize this attentional narrowing strategy more than do slower runners. Faster runners focus their attention narrowly more intensely earlier on and scale up their narrowing as they progress through a run. The advantage faster runners have is not just physical conditioning—it’s also how they strategically deploy attention over time.Together, these findings suggest that visual attention is more than a passive perceptual process. It can function as a tool runners can strategically leverage. By learning when to broaden focus and when to narrow it, runners can better match their strategies to the changing demands of a goal—and sometimes, run farther and faster simply by changing where they look. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What are the barriers to recruitment for women in law enforcement? Amber Kerwin, professor of the practice of criminal justice at Hartwick College, looks into this question.Faculty Bio:Amber M. Kerwin is a professor of practice of criminal justice in the Sociology, Criminology & Social Services Department in the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. A former police officer and investigator, Kerwin’s areas of expertise include criminal justice, corrections, juvenile delinquency, policing, and police investigations. Among her recent courses taught: Introduction to Criminal Justice; Corrections & Punishment; Policing in a Democratic Society; and Introduction to Law. Her latest research, supported in part through the Hartwick College Faculty Research Grant Program, focuses on the barriers to recruitment and hiring of women in law enforcement.Transcript:Women police officers bring many positive benefits to their jobs in law enforcement. Studies have shown that women are better communicators, that they’re less likely to use physical force, and that victims of certain crimes feel more comfortable talking to them. Still, women make up a small percentage of law enforcement. Only 12 to 13 percent of total law enforcement officers in the United States currently are women. As a former police officer and investigator, I am interested in understanding why this is the case.My research focuses on the barriers to recruitment and hiring of women in law enforcement. It is important to me to identify, explore and better understand what prevents women from joining the police department or pursuing law-enforcement careers--and also understanding what makes it so hard to retain them. Through interviews with women who currently or previously worked in law enforcement, my research looks at the challenges they encounter in what remains an historically male-dominated profession. Lack of maternity- and family-related leave policies, uniforms not specifically designed for women, lack of acceptance, and harassment are all among the issues women have expressed in these conversations. Taking a closer look at the situation to gain more perspective will provide information to develop potential policy recommendations for police departments. This could help them create a more welcoming environment for women so they’re more comfortable working there. Right now, young girls and women don’t see a lot of other women in law enforcement so it’s not something that they have on their radar. A solution for that would be having more women officers do outreach to high schoolers or college students to do a more targeted recruitment effort for women.As communities across the country consider new options, this research will shed new light on the barriers to recruitment of women in law enforcement. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Can artificial intelligence help us detect brain cancer early?Dimitrios Mathios, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis, takes a non-invasive look.Faculty Bio:Dimitrios Mathios, MD, is an assistant professor of neurosurgery and director of the Molecular Neuro-oncology Lab at WashU’s School of Medicine. His research focuses on using cancer immunology, genetics, and epigenetics to develop non-invasive early detection of brain tumors, when they are easily removable or curable with other treatments.Dr. Mathios has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Science Translational Medicine, Cancer Discovery, the Journal of Neurosurgery, the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, and Neurosurgery. His work has resulted in numerous awards, including the Young Investigator Physician Scientist Research Award at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he completed his residency, in 2022, and the American Association for Cancer Research-Conquer Cancer Foundation’s ASCO Young Investigator Award for Translational Cancer Research in 2020.Transcript:Diagnosing brain cancer at its earliest stages, like any cancer, is critical. But there are currently no screening methods available to detect brain cancer before a patient becomes symptomatic, or when the symptoms are as commonplace as a headache or slight personality change. As a result, brain cancer often goes undetected when treatment is the easiest, most effective, and least risky.That’s why, in 2019 I began researching a way to develop a noninvasive, blood-based test for early detection of brain cancer.Medical researchers have been looking for and finding ways to detect different kinds of cancer through blood-based tests for more than 15 years. They do this by identifying markers or other abnormalities in the blood that signal the presence of cancerous cells.But brain cancer is one of the most challenging cancers to detect in the blood. This is because the blood-brain barrier, a layer of cells that protects the brain from toxins and pathogens in the blood, prevents cancer markers from entering the bloodstream in as high concentrations as in other cancers. For this reason, detection of brain tumors requires developing more sensitive approaches for biomarker detection.This year, we reached a significant milestone in our research. We found that we could use artificial intelligence to analyze DNA fragments in the bloodstream for evidence of brain cancer. With this approach, we successfully detected brain cancer in about 75% of a cohort of more than 500 patients.The next step is to conduct a larger trial to confirm our findings in a broader population. Our end goal? To create a reliable test that emergency room doctors and primary care physicians can use when patients come to them with subtle, non-specific neurologic symptoms, giving those patients a quicker diagnosis and a better chance of survival.Read More:[Cancer Discovery] - Detection of Brain Cancer Using Genome-wide Cell-free DNA Fragmentomes This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On University at Buffalo Week: Speeding up drug discovery will have many benefits.Tom Grant, assistant professor in the Department of Structural Biology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, looks into doing so.Faculty Bio:Thomas Grant is a structural biologist whose research focuses on developing innovative analytical methods to uncover the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules.Trained at the University at Buffalo, where he earned a BS in Mathematical Physics (2007) and a PhD in Structural and Computational Biology (2013), Grant’s research combines rigorous quantitative training with experimental expertise in X-ray crystallography, small-angle scattering, and X-ray free electron laser methodologies.His work integrates advanced computational algorithm development with cutting-edge experimental tools to generate high-resolution structural models and time-resolved “molecular movies,” illuminating how proteins and nucleic acids function within the cell and informing rational drug design.In 2025, he was awarded a $2.18 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to create a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that improves scientists’ understanding of how proteins move and change shape within the human body.Transcript:In the United States, it often takes 10 to 15 years to develop a new drug from its initial discovery to market approval. In my lab, we’re working on an artificial intelligence-driven project called SWAXSFold that we hope will dramatically speed up this process.So let me explain what SWAXSFold is.A few years ago, Google DeepMind released an algorithm called AlphaFold. It has had a major impact in biomedical research, winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. AlphaFold predicts 3D protein structures. By identifying these structures, scientists can target them with drugs that treat disease.But the reality is that many proteins are dynamic. They move around and can have many different shapes – that’s how they function and operate. This limits AlphaFold’s usefulness for drug discovery.That’s where our expertise in “SWAXS” comes in. SWAXS stands for small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering.SWAXS uses X-rays to take snapshots of proteins as they move around and change shape. It can see the different conformations a protein adopts, which is exactly what AlphaFold can’t do. So we’re developing SWAXSFold to integrate SWAXS data directly into this structure prediction process.As you can imagine, this requires intense computational resources.Our team is utilizing New York State’s supercomputing facility, Empire AI, to train SWAXSFold with our database of nearly a half million protein structures.As SWAXSFold learns from AI, it will give us unparalleled insight on how proteins change their shape, function and operate. In turn, this will improve our ability to predict protein structures and, thus, make it much easier and quicker to identify drug targets that treat everything from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease.Read More:[UBuffalo] - Researcher’s AI-powered drug discovery tool supported by Empire AI This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On University at Buffalo Week: Can we use AI to help give those with motor neuron diseases their voices back?Rohini Srihari, professor of computer science and engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, looks to do so.Faculty Bios:Rohini Srihari is a scientist, educator and entrepreneur.A professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo, Srihari’s research and teaching focuses on artificial intelligence for social good, conversational AI, deep learning in natural language processing and other fields.Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity and other agencies. She has worked extensively with the U.S. government in developing innovative multilingual text mining solutions.Srihari’s recent research focuses on advancing the state-of-the-art in socialbots capable of engaging in empathetic, interesting and purposeful conversations. This also involves building trustworthy socialbots for combating disinformation, assisting the disabled and other purposes.She has published over 100 research papers in computer science journals and conference proceedings. Her Google Scholar h-index is 40. She is also the author of two U.S. patents, one on multilingual text mining.She has served as Chief Data Scientist at PeaceTech Lab, a non-profit incubated within the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. She has also founded and directed technology start-ups, focusing on “big data” analytics solutions for various markets. Two of these companies were subsequently acquired by large media analytics companies.Srihari received her B. Math degree from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and her PhD in Computer Science from the University at Buffalo.Transcript:People with motor neuron diseases such as ALS and cerebral palsy often lose the ability to speak. When this happens, they use modified keyboards or eyegaze tracking systems to communicate. But to speak, they rely upon augmentative and alternative communication devices. The late physicist Stephen Hawking is an example. Typically, people can generate about five words per minute with these devices due to their reduced motor abilities.This limits them to simple exchanges such as: “I need a glass of water.” But what these people really want is to engage in meaningful conversation.We can help with artificial intelligence, specifically an area of AI research known as personalization of large language models.Large language models are the same technology powering ChatGPT and other popular chatbots. To personalize them, the chatbot needs to know a lot about the user. It needs to know their own experiences. It needs to understand their personality. It possibly needs to recognize the gestures that they use when communicating.Here’s how it works. The user is talking to someone, the other person says something, the chatbot listens to what they say, and the speech is transcribed into text that’s fed into our chatbot. The chatbot then generates three possible responses for the user. The user either selects one of those responses as, “this is what I want to say,” or they can override that and say, “no, this isn’t what I meant.” So the goal is, with minimal input from the user, to be able to generate much longer responses, but also allowing the user to steer the conversation.We’re already testing this technology with people whose communication is limited by motor neuron diseases. And we’re running the AI models through powerful supercomputers. We’re hopeful this technology will soon be ready for widespread use, improving the lives of countless people. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On University at Buffalo Week: Finding ways to reduce AI’s energy consumption can be crucial.Sambandamurthy Ganapathy, professor of physics, explores how the human brain may have an answer.Faculty Bio:Sambandamurthy Ganapathy is a physicist who studies nanoscale materials and devices and how they relate to cutting-edge phenomena like superconductivity and resistive switching.His experimental research group, which uses advanced nanofabrication techniques, designs and develops devices smaller than one micrometer that can explore the fundamental, microscopic mechanisms that dictate physical properties.Ganapathy’s research examines electron transport in semiconductors and other atomic layers under ultra-low temperatures, high magnetic fields and other extreme physical conditions. It also investigates metal-insulator transitions, neuromorphic computing and superconductor-insulator transitions.This work strives to unlock hidden quantum phenomena in novel states of matter which manifest when subatomic particles interact.Transcript:There’s nothing in the world as efficient as the human brain. It can store and process enormous amounts of information while using very little energy. That’s why my team and I are working on computing systems designed to mimic how the brain works.This approach is called neuromorphic computing. It’s been around since the 1980s, but it’s gaining new attention as artificial intelligence makes computing more complex — and far more energy-hungry.Computers and brains are already surprisingly similar. Computers have billions of transistors that switch on and off. Brains have billions of neurons that either fire signals or stay silent.But there’s a major difference. In the brain, memory and processing happen in the same place. In traditional computers, they’re separated, so data has to constantly move back and forth. That takes a lot of energy. Neuromorphic chips aim to solve this by placing memory and processing much closer together, like the brain.That’s where my research comes in. My team studies materials with unique quantum properties that could form the foundation of these new chips.Neuromorphic computers won’t recreate consciousness, but they may solve problems in more human-like ways — especially when information is incomplete or uncertain.In the near future, they’ll likely be used for specialized tasks, like self-driving cars. So don’t expect neuromorphic chips to power your smartphone anytime soon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On University at Buffalo Week: Inclusive design works to eliminate friction for everyone, but how do we achieve it?Jordana Maisel, Director of Research for the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA Center) at the School of Architecture and Planning, looks into this.Faculty Bio:Jordana Maisel is director of the Research for the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA Center) at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.She is an expert in universal design and issues related to the impact of the built environment on individuals’ health, particularly for older adults and people who have disabilities.An associate professor of urban and regional planning, Maisel also has led research in areas such as public transportation, street infrastructure, building design and accessible housing policy. A frequent theme of Maisel’s work is evaluating the impact of inclusive design implementation.Transcript:Ever tried to read a sign you couldn’t understand?Find a restroom that didn’t meet your needs?Navigate a space that just wasn’t built for you?That moment of friction — that feeling of being left out — is what inclusive design works to eliminate.Because design is power. It determines who feels welcome, who can participate, and who gets left out. Inclusive design (also known as universal design) uses that power to create spaces that work better for more people.Many people think inclusive design is just grab bars or ramps. Those are important, but they’re actually accessibility features. Inclusive design goes further. It’s a design process that improves human performance, health and wellness, and social participation across age, ability, language, and culture.Take, for example, the Pittsburgh International Airport, the first transportation facility in the U.S. to earn innovative solutions for universal design, or isUD, certification. Think of isUD as the inclusive design equivalent of the LEED program for sustainable buildings. Developed by our Center, isUD helps projects go beyond minimal code requirements and toward meaningful usability for everyone.At the Pittsburgh airport that includes adult changing tables in restrooms, intuitive digital signage, and a play area designed for children of all ages and abilities.For more than four decades, our multidisciplinary team has advanced research and real-world projects that make environments more responsive, resilient, and inclusive. Most recently, we’re investigating ways the built environment can better respond to a changing climate and how AI advances can mitigate access challenges.The future is more diverse, more dynamic, and more complex. As our communities evolve, our spaces must evolve with them. That’s the work of inclusive design. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On University at Buffalo Week: What can we learn from embracing historically marginalized students on campuses? Stephen Santa Ramirez, associate professor of higher education at the Graduate School of Education, explores this.Faculty Bio:Stephen Santa-Ramirez is an associate professor of higher education at the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.His experiences in U.S. higher education and student affairs include work in multicultural and LGBT+ affairs, residential life and housing services, and migrant student services. In addition to UB, Santa-Ramirez has taught for the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, Michigan State University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Arizona State University.Santa-Ramirez’s personal and professional experiences in higher education – and identity as a scholar-practitioner-advocate – have played formative roles in the development of his research agenda, which centers on the lives and knowledge of historically marginalized and economically neglected students. Broadly, he investigates the historical, ideological, and structural inequities that impact Black, Latinx, Indigenous, migrant and other marginalized communities.By employing critical, student-centered, and asset-based frameworks, he investigates campus racial climate, transitions and belongingness of first-generation students of color, college student activism and resistance, and the various ways race, ethnicity, im/migration status and policy inform the educational experiences of collegians who are undocumented.In addition to authoring a host of book chapters, some of his published peer-reviewed articles can be located in The Review of Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education, Journal of First-generation Student Success, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, among others. Additionally, he was the 2023 special issue editor for New Directions for Higher Education titled “Equitable and Humanizing Research, Policy, and Practice With and For Undocumented Collegians in the United States.”Santa-Ramirez is a 2024-2026 co-chair of the Latinx Network via ACPA-College Student Educators International, an associate editor for the College Student Affairs Journal (CSAJ), and is on the ASHE 2026 conference leadership team as a co-chair for local and community engagement.Transcript:Growing up in a mixed-status family, I saw early on how immigration policy creates very real inequities. Those experiences shape my work today, which centers on the lives, knowledge and resistance of historically marginalized and economically neglected students.As an educator, I’ve worked with students who are citizens, international students and undocumented students. Over time, I began to notice how often higher education relies on one-size-fits-all approaches — and how those approaches miss the realities undocumented students navigate every day. Seeing that pushed me toward advocacy and a central idea in my research called UndocuJoy as Resistance. It’s about highlighting joy, community and brilliance as powerful responses to systems that too often deny hope. At a time when immigration policy remains uncertain, uplifting these stories really matters.My research looks at how structural inequities shape campus climate, first-generation students’ transitions, and their sense of belonging.Educators and institutional actors should consider the whole student – beyond the classroom – and design culturally affirming peer mentorship programs, implement policies addressing racial profiling, and ensure campus environments are inclusive of students’ cultural identities.Ultimately, my scholarship aims to push institutions toward accountability while remaining grounded in the voices and needs of marginalized communities.Training faculty and staff in culturally sustaining advising practices and supporting Latinx research agendas, as well as those of other marginalized groups, is crucial for promoting retention, and for fostering a sense of belonging.Undocumented students are already part of our campuses and communities. When we take time to learn from their experiences — the hard parts and the joyful ones — we share the responsibility of support, instead of leaving students to carry it alone. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What can protein shape tell us about Alzheimer’s disease?John Yates, John Lytton Young Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at The Scripps Research Institute, discusses this question.Faculty Bio:John R. Yates III is the John Lytton Young Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. He received a B.A in Zoology and an M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Maine at Orono. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of Donald F. Hunt with a dissertation entitled Protein Sequencing by Tandem Mass Spectrometry. He performed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Leroy E. Hood at California Institute of Technology. At the University of Washington, he obtained the rank of Associate Professor with tenure before moving to The Scripps Research Institute in LaJolla, CA. His research interests include development of integrated methods for tandem mass spectrometry analysis of protein mixtures, bioinformatics using mass spectrometry data, and biological studies involving proteomics. He is the lead inventor of the SEQUEST software for correlating tandem mass spectrometry data to sequences in the database and developer of the shotgun proteomics technique for the analysis of protein mixtures. His laboratory has developed the use of proteomic techniques to analyze protein complexes, posttranslational modifications, organelles and quantitative analysis of protein expression for the discovery of new biology. He has received numerous awards such as the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) research award, the Pehr Edman Award in Protein Chemistry, the ASMS Biemann Medal, the HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomics, Herbert Sober Award from the ASBMB, and the Christian Anfinsen Award from The Protein Society, the 2015 ACS’s Analytical Chemistry award, 2015 The Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, the 2018 Thomson Medal from the International Mass Spectrometry Society, the 2019 John B. Fenn Distinguished Contribution to Mass Spectrometry award from the ASMS, the 2019 HUPO Award in Discovery, and the 2024 Pittsburgh Society Award in Analytical Chemistry. Dr. Yates served as an Associate Editor at Analytical Chemistry for 15 years and is currently the Editor in Chief at the Journal of Proteome Research.Transcript:Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most challenging medical problems today. By the time symptoms such as memory loss appear, damage in the brain has often been developing for years. That makes early detection one of the most important goals in Alzheimer’s research.A key feature of the disease is protein misfolding. Proteins are the molecular machines that carry out most of the work in our cells. For them to function properly, they must fold into precise three-dimensional shapes. In Alzheimer’s disease, some proteins lose their correct shape—a problem called proteostasis dysregulation.Our research asked a simple question: Could these structural changes in proteins be detected in the blood? If so, might they serve as early warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease?To investigate this, we analyzed blood plasma samples from more than 500 individuals, including healthy volunteers, people with mild cognitive impairment, and patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Using mass spectrometry, we measured thousands of proteins at once and examined subtle structural changes in proteins circulating in the bloodstream.We then applied machine learning to identify patterns in these protein structures associated with Alzheimer’s disease. From this analysis, we discovered a small group of proteins whose structural changes appear to signal disease progression.In particular, peptides derived from three proteins—C1QA, clusterin, and apolipoprotein B—formed a diagnostic panel capable of distinguishing healthy individuals, people with early cognitive impairment, and those with Alzheimer’s disease with more than 80% accuracy.This work suggests that structural changes in proteins circulating in the blood may serve as conformational biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. Such tests could eventually help doctors detect the disease earlier, monitor its progression, and identify patients who may benefit most from emerging therapies.Detecting Alzheimer’s earlier could mean treating it earlier—and improving outcomes for millions of people worldwide. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Do you have a junk food craving?Ross Hollett, psychology lecturer at Edith Cowan University, says a brief message may be able to cut right through it.Faculty Bio:Ross Hollett is a psychological scientist whose work examines how media exposure shapes social attitudes, body image and health behaviours. Primarily using experimental methods, his research investigates how junk‑food, alcohol and public‑health advertisements influence cravings and consumption intentions in real time. He also collaborates across disciplines such as marketing and computer science to advance research on fashion imagery and body image outcomes in women.Transcript:From Netflix to social media, most of us are exposed to a steady stream of food advertising everyday. While concerns are often raised about the impact of junk food advertising, evidence about how these messages influence adults in the moment has been surprisingly mixed. My colleagues and I set out to better understand what actually happens in the minutes after people see different types of food advertisements.We showed 505 adults a single short advertisement, either a typical junk food commercial or a public health message discouraging junk food, and immediately measured their cravings and intentions to eat junk food. We also examined whether responses differed between adults with a body mass index in the normal range and adults classified as overweight or living with obesity.Across all groups, one finding was clear: seeing a single junk food advertisement did not increase immediate cravings or intentions to eat junk food, even when the ad featured foods people said they enjoyed. But the opposite was true for health focused messages. Anti junk food advertisements reduced cravings and reduced intentions to eat junk food across all BMI groups. We also discovered that the length and framing of these health messages mattered. For adults in the normal BMI range, a brief 15 second anti junk food message was more effective than a 30 second version. For adults classified as overweight or living with obesity, messages that encouraged healthy alternatives worked better than messages that criticised junk food. This suggests that short, positively framed health messages may offer a practical advantage: they cost less to air, can be shown more frequently, and may resonate with the very people who stand to benefit most.As unhealthy food marketing continues to dominate our media environment, even small, well targeted moments of positive health messaging may help tip the balance toward healthier choices.Read More:[Wiley] - Length and Framing of Anti-Junk Food Ads Impact Inclinations to Consume Junk Food Among Normal Weight, Overweight, and Adults With ObesityGoogle Scholar This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Why is the turnover rate so high for CFOs, and what can we do about it?Adrienne Rhodes, assistant professor and Rocca Fellow in accounting at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, examines this question.Faculty Bio:Adrienne Rhodes is assistant professor of accounting and Rocca Fellow at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from New Mexico State University and her PhD from Penn State.Transcript:We’ve all heard about the mind-blowing pay packages public companies are giving their executives. They typically defend these practices by pointing to the difficulty in attracting and retaining executive talent, and there seems to be some credibility to this defense. In recent years chief financial officers, or CFOs, are stepping down in record numbers, and losing a key C-suite executive is costly for corporations. They take with them a raft of institutional knowledge and replacing them can be a long and costly endeavor.The media has often speculated that high CFO turnover is due to their overwhelming responsibilities. In fact, the demands and scope of the CFO role have expanded in recent years. New regulations, put in place after a string of accounting scandals in the early 2000s, have increased the burden of financial reporting for CFOs. And in that same time, CFOs are increasingly expected to act as a strategic partner to the CEO; taking on responsibility for investor relations, cybersecurity, and other corporate risks.In a recent study, my co-authors and I investigate what factors help firms retain their CFO and we look specifically at firms that delegate financial reporting to a Chief Accounting Officer. We find that when firms have a Chief Accounting Officer take the lead on financial reporting, they are nearly 20% less likely to have their CFO step down, greatly increasing the stability of firm leadership. Importantly, the benefits of a Chief Accounting Officer don’t only accrue to the firm. While CFOs who delegate accounting stay in their role longer, when they do depart, they are more likely to become a CEO themselves.So when it comes to retaining executive talent, it’s not all about the money. Our study suggests that delegating financial reporting to a Chief Accounting Officer is a valuable resource to both the firm and the CFO. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The creation of NASA’s space shuttle years ago may still spark innovation today.Francisco Polidoro, Jr., professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin, looks at the design to learn more.Faculty Bio:Francisco Polidoro Jr. is a professor of management at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Polidoro has taught courses on technology strategy, technology transfer in the global economy, general management and strategy, and special issues in strategic management. Before working at McCombs, he taught corporate strategy and special issues in strategy at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.Polidoro has established himself as an esteemed researcher of strategic management, having won many international awards and honors for his work on technology strategy, technology and innovation management, entrepreneurship and innovation, social networks, and corporate venture capital. His research has appeared in the most prestigious management journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. In addition to being invited to speak in major international conferences in the field of strategic management, he has also been invited to present his research at numerous institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including Cornell University, Imperial College London, INSEAD, Johns Hopkins University, the London Business School, Seoul National University, Singapore National University, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania.Along with his academic interests in strategic management, Polidoro has an extensive history in the field of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as sociology in drug discovery and development. His expertise has been noted in research media such as Lab Manager, Pharmafile, and Big Think. Before his career in research and teaching, Polidoro gained extensive managerial experience in the automotive industry, where he worked for 13 years. During that time, he had several senior management positions at Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler and a variety of assignments in the U.S., China, Europe, and Latin America.Polidoro received a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Michigan. He also earned an MBA from Henley Business School in England, a postgraduate diploma in general management and industrial relations from Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil, and a diploma in French literature and civilization from the Université de Nancy II in France.Transcript:Today’s breakthrough inventions, such as the iPhone, blend interdependent features in unique ways to unleash tremendous value. But creating them is challenging. Improving one feature can worsen others, and it may not be feasible to explore all possible combinations. So, how does an organization design a complex product for which there is no template? To gain insight into this question, we studied the creation of NASA’s space shuttle. The reusable spacecraft required integrating new solutions to many different features, such as fuel composition and payload capacity. We analyzed more than 7,000 pages from archives, including books, papers, and technical documents by NASA engineers. We uncovered two interrelated processes that supported the creation of this breakthrough ––oscillation and accumulation: • With oscillation, engineers focused on getting a specific feature and then stepped back from that solution to explore alternatives. They later returned to the initial solution with new insights. For example, in early iterations, they worked with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Later, they reverted temporarily to an older fuel, kerosene, while they made progress on other features, such as payload capacity. • With accumulation, they increased the number of features meeting expectations. For example, they gradually combined the fuel composition of early iterations with the desired payload capacity.It sounds counterintuitive, but letting go of a solution for one feature creates the space for improving others. These insights can extend to many other settings, such as pharmaceuticals, in which creating breakthroughs requires masterful combination of interdependent features. For example, a researcher might identify a new compound that targets a disease pathway but set it aside temporarily due to side effects. After resolving those issues, the researcher returns to the compound. Raja Roy of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Minyoung Kim of The Ohio State University, and Curba Morris Lampert of Florida International University also participated in this research.Read More:[ScienceDirect] - Creating a breakthrough invention: NASA’s internal knowledge generation for the Space Shuttle This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Choosing between collecting fingerprints or the DNA is often a decision crime-scene investigators must make; but why can they not get both?Carol Ritter, senior instructor in the Forensic Science Program at Cedar Crest College, says a new method may help fix this problem.Faculty Bio:Carol Ritter is a full-time senior instructor in Forensic Science Program in the Chemical, Physical, and Forensic Sciences Department at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she also serves as the assistant director of the college’s Joni Berner Expert Witness Training Center and Crime Scene Lab. Ritter teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses in pattern evidence, DNA analysis, forensic biology, bloodstain pattern reconstruction and crime scene reconstruction. She began her career in 1997 with the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Laboratory, analyzing controlled substances, sexual assault, homicide cases, and bloodstain patterns. Certified by the American Board of Criminalistics, Ritter has testified over 50 times at the state and federal levels. She previously served as technical coordinator for the PSP serology section, auditing state labs and training law enforcement personnel. Since joining the Berner Center, she as mentored students and taught courses in forensic pattern analysis, DNA analysis, and crime scene reconstruction. Her applied research focuses on bloodstain patterns, firearm-related patterns, and DNA analysis, bridging laboratory science with real-world forensic practice.Cedar Crest College’s Joni Berner, Esq. ’75 Expert Witness Training Center and Crime Scene Lab provides real-world environments where first responders, legal professionals, and community partners can strengthen their skills in evidence preservation, courtroom testimony, and crime-scene investigation. The state-of-the-art facility features realistic spaces for training, practice, and collaboration, and has been designed to meet a critical justice-system need: preparing professionals to handle crime scenes and deliver courtroom testimony with confidence, accuracy, and integrity.Transcript:Anyone who has watched a crime-scene investigation on TV understands the importance of obtaining fingerprints and DNA when gathering evidence. What doesn’t often make it to the screen are some behind-the-scenes dilemmas about how to approach evidence containing both fingerprinting and DNA collection. That’s because once fingerprint analysis is complete, DNA is typically collected from fingerprints by swabbing with water —but when Super Glue is used to enhance a print, the result is an excellent fingerprint, but DNA is trapped under the glue so swabbing with water often results in little to no DNA. In my lab, we are developing a chemical reagent that will help crime-scene investigators have it both ways – they would be able to perform a fingerprint and DNA comparison to help solve crimes more effectively.DNA is considered to be the holy grail of crime-scene evidence. But that’s not always true--because, to have your DNA available in a database, usually you have to be charged with a felony. That’s not the case with fingerprints, which can be more widely available. Investigators usually get more hits or more understanding of who committed a crime based on a fingerprint database. Our research explores a new method to cut through the glue with a reagent we’ve developed, enabling you to get a full DNA profile along with the fingerprint.Choosing whether to collect DNA from a fingerprint or to just go for the print—and risk losing evidence during collection--represents a frustrating compromise for crime-scene investigators and labs. And it can limit the scope of an investigation. As a forensic investigator, do you want to analyze the fingerprint or do you want to be able to do DNA analysis?When our work is complete, investigators may no longer need to make that choice.Read More:Expert Witness Training CenterCedar Crest Forensic Science Facebook This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: How do animals make inferences?Christine Constantinople, assistant professor of neural science, tests rats with juice rewards.Faculty Bio:Christine Constantinople is an Assistant Professor in Neural Science at NYU. After obtaining a PhD in neurobiology from Columbia University, and postdoctoral research at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Dr. Constantinople joined NYU in 2019. Her lab studies the mechanisms by which neural circuits compute and represent cognitive variables for decision-making.Transcript:To survive in a changing and unpredictable world, animals cannot simply react to stimuli theyencounter, but must make inferences that help them predict future outcomes, like when theymight encounter food or predators. This process is among the most important cognitiveoperations that brains perform. To study how brains perform inference, we trained laboratoryrats on a task in which they revealed how much they valued different amounts of juice rewardsbased on how long they were willing to wait for them. The task had hidden reward states withdifferent average rewards. In high reward states, rats were offered 3-5 drops of juice, and threedrops was disappointing. But in low reward states, rats could only expect 1-3 drops of juice, sothree drops was a big win. Indeed, rats waited less time for three drops in high versus lowreward states. We showed that rats inferred the reward state when deciding how long to wait:for instance, they immediately changed their wait times following a single reward that revealed a state transition.We trained hundreds of rats to perform this task using a high-throughput training facilitydeveloped in my lab. The facility, which I call the “rat factory,” uses computers to train about 100rats per day. A major goal is statistical power and rigor.We found that inactivating a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex or OFC made rats worse at inferring the reward state. We used state-of-the-art silicon probe technology to record electrical signals from thousands of neurons in OFC, and identified neural correlates of single trial inferences. These results show that OFC supports inference based on prior knowledge, and lay the groundwork for figuring out how the OFC interacts with other brain regions to mechanistically implement inference. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Think you can match inaugural address quotes to the presidents who spoke them? Think again.Joe Salvatore, clinical professor and director of educational theatre, says it may be harder than you think.Faculty Bio:Joe Salvatore is a Clinical Professor and Director of Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, where he teaches courses in ethnodrama, verbatim performance, community-engaged theatre, and new play development, and co-leads the MA in Theatre for Social and Civic Engagement. He also serves as the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. In 2017, Joe founded the Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL), which, under his direction, has created over 30 video and live performance projects exploring a range of political, cultural, and social topics and facilitated outreach and education programs throughout the United States. Current projects include an international research collaboration examining how interview-based verbatim performance interventions can disrupt discrimination in healthcare delivery; an ethnodrama exploring the impact of clergy sexual abuse on survivors’ spirituality and health; and an interview project examining perceptions of migration in the United States. Joe is the author of Creating Ethnodrama: A Theatrical Approach to Research (Guilford Press)..Transcript:In the Verbatim Performance Lab, we ask actors to replicate the exact speech and gestural patterns of individuals in an original recording, such as a political speech or a public hearing, to investigate how the speaker’s gender, race and ethnicity might contribute to what a listener hears.Our most recent experiment, The Inauguration Project, focused on how audiences engage with a president’s inauguration speech when the president’s identity is unknown. We took excerpts from five inaugurals since 1969 and had actors who are different-bodied than the presidents who delivered them perform them verbatim for an audience. We then invited the audience to guess which president was speaking. We conducted this performance experiment in New York City, Washington, DC, and Austin, Texas, with slight variations each time. One theme emerged: the decoupling of the president’s identity from the speech allowed the audience to hear the similarities between the presidents and their messages rather than their partisan differences. One young woman remarked, with surprise, that she would have voted for Ronald Reagan based on a passage from his second inaugural address delivered by a young Black woman. When another audience heard the same excerpt performed by a mixed-race woman, 34% believed it was Joe Biden’s address. An excerpt from Bill Clinton’s second inaugural, delivered by a white woman, was attributed to George W. Bush by 42% of another audience. One audience member was slightly irritated at the similarities exposed by the anonymity, saying she listened to the speeches differently because they lacked the personalities behind them, which was precisely the point of the experiment. When an audience hears an inaugural address in someone else’s voice and body, it prompts them to question why they perceive things the way they do. This critical engagement makes verbatim performance a powerful tool for understanding that *how* a message is delivered can be just as important as the message itself.Read More:Verbatim Performance Lab This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Boomeranging back to live with your parents may be necessary, but not helpful in the long term.Sewin Chan, associate professor of public policy, explores why.Faculty Bio:Sewin Chan is an economist whose research focuses on economic and financial risks faced by households as they interact with housing, labor and credit markets. She has studied mortgages and housing market risk, consumer credit behavior, pensions, work and retirement decisions, job loss, geographic mobility, and accessible housing.Transcript:When young adults boomerang, or move back to their parents, we often think of millennials living in basements. To move beyond this stereotype and get a granular look at who these young adults actually are, my colleagues and I developed a new method to identify boomerangers.We used the American Community Survey that’s conducted each year by the Census Bureau. By tapping into this enormous dataset, we could finally link personal demographics to the actual geography of where boomerangers are moving to.What we found is that for young adults who’ve already left home, the option to boomerang acts like insurance. When there’s a major life event—like a job loss, a break-up, or a new baby—the parental home can serve as a vital safety net.But as we dug into the geographic data, we found a troubling spatial trend. Usually, in a healthy economy, people move toward opportunity. If you lose your job in a struggling town, you head to a thriving city. But boomerangers often do the exact opposite. Because they’re moving back to their parents, their destination is determined by where Mom and Dad happen to live, and not by job prospects. We found that young adults are frequently staying in weaker labor markets, or moving away from higher-opportunity places towards weaker ones.And the data shows this burden isn’t shared equally. Black and Hispanic young adults, and those from lower-income backgrounds, are much more likely to boomerang back to areas with higher unemployment and lower wages. Moving home might provide immediate help—like free housing or childcare—but it can also damage their longer-term career prospects.By identifying these patterns, we’ve revealed another channel through which disadvantage can be passed down from one generation to the next.Read More:[Taylor & Francis Online] - Moving back: Spatial and demographic differences in boomeranging to parents This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Does discrimination affect our immune system? Emiko Kranz, PhD student in the School of Global Public Health, says yes.Faculty Bio:Emiko Kranz is a mixed Japanese American PhD student whose work draws on her background in cancer immunotherapy, ethnic studies, and community health science. As a PhD student at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, Kranz researches how discriminatory stress may impact immune health. With a particular interest in T cells, she aims to better understand how chronic discrimination can “wear down” our ability to fight off infections. Kranz is also interested in looking at how historical oppression has shaped neighborhoods, influencing the ways communities adapt to care for themselves and others.Transcript:I grew up immersed in my grandparents’ storytelling; most memorably, my Granpa’s stories of what it was like growing up during World War II. He’d often describe life in “Camp”: when he, a 7-year-old U.S.-born citizen, was incarcerated along with over 120 thousand people of Japanese descent, due to what is now recognized as discriminatory wartime hysteria. “It wasn’t bad,” he’d claim, because he held onto the Japanese value of gaman—to endure dire circumstances with dignity—but I always wondered how his body carried this gaman for the rest of his life.Because my Granpa persevered, I get to be here today—talking about my research on how experiencing discrimination impacts health down to the molecular level. Many endure discrimination in subtle, “everyday” forms: maybe due to the color of our skin, who we love, or the faith that we hold. The frequency of this “everyday discrimination” has been linked to a variety of immune health outcomes; as such, our team sought to understand how everyday discrimination may impact immune cells in particular. Specifically, we looked at two cell types: T cells and B cells, which are key to a swift and strong response to infections. In a sample of middle-aged adults, we found everyday discrimination was linked with higher amounts of what we call “exhausted” T and B cells, which can be less effective at protecting us against future health issues. This gives important insight on how minute everyday interactions may become biologically embedded, potentially changing the course of our health outcomes. It also calls attention to the need for better systems of support to buffer discriminatory stress—perhaps to help us leave gaman in the past.Read More:[NYU] - Discrimination Linked to Diminished Immune System Function[ScienceDirect] - Discrimination exposure and lymphocyte differentiation: Results from the health and retirement study This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: How does housing affect which older adults go into a nursing home? Marissa Bergh, PhD student at the Rory Meyers College of Nursing, takes a look at three ways. Faculty Bio:Marissa Bergh, BSN, RN, is a PhD student at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her research focuses how housing environments shape long-term care trajectories for older adults. Working as geriatric care nurse in New York City, she found her passion supporting older adults to age in their homes — regardless of if that home was a fourth-floor walk-up, a single-room occupancy unit, or a luxury high-rise. Recognizing the vast disparities within the healthcare system surrounding effective delivery of this care, she decided to pursue her doctorate degree at NYU to research how to improve the integration of housing services and long-term care.Transcript:The United States is grappling with an ongoing housing crisis that profoundly affects older adults. Today, 20% of older adults spend more than a third of their income on housing, and only 4% of U.S. housing units are considered age friendly. Without affordable, accessible housing, older adults may be unable to remain at home, making a nursing home move more likely. To understand exactly what aspects of housing play a role in whether older adults end up in a nursing home, we synthesized nearly 25 years of research from a range of disciplines, including economics, sociology, and healthcare. We found three key ways that housing shapes whether someone moves to a nursing home. First, housing costs and ownership status are key drivers of financial strain. Homeowners can leverage their home’s value to help fund community-based care, such as hiring a home health aide. Renters, by contrast, face far greater financial vulnerability: rising housing costs and limited affordable housing can price them out of their communities, making nursing home placement more likely. Second, as people age, their homes often can’t keep pace with their changing needs. When homes can’t be adapted to match declining mobility or memory issues, nursing homes may seem like the only safe alternative. Third, housing-related inequities compound risks for marginalized communities. Older adults in racially and socioeconomically marginalized communities disproportionately face housing challenges — including living in under-resourced neighborhoods, experiencing homelessness, and facing greater housing cost burdens — all of which increase their risk of nursing home placement. Our review underscores that housing is a healthcare issue. Where someone lives shapes whether they can age in their community or move to a nursing home.Read More:[National Library of Medicine] - How Housing Influences Nursing Home Utilization in the United States: An Integrative Review[McKnights] - When housing needs and skilled nursing demand intersect, where do real solutions live? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What can sororities teach us about belonging?Charlotte Hogg, professor of rhetoric and composition at Texas Christian University, delves in the question.Faculty Bio:Dr. Charlotte Hogg is a professor at Texas Christian University specializing in rhetoric and composition. She has authored, co-authored, or co-edited five books, most recently White Sororities and the Cultural Work of Belonging. Her work has also ap­peared in Inside Higher Education, The Washington Post, College English, Rhetoric Review, Peitho, and elsewhere. She teaches women’s rhetorics and literacies, creative nonfiction, and composition.Transcript:What is it about sorority life that remains so appealing? Greek-life, even with its bad press, comprises roughly 10% of the college population nationally and as high as 50% on some campuses. I researched National Panhellenic Conference (aka historically-White) sorority life behind the highly curated recruitment videos to better understand what sorority systems can teach us about how subcultures enact belonging. Belonging seeks to erase differences for insiders, leaving others as outsiders. This kind of ideological work is done rhetorically through creating a shared space of making meaning connected to cultural values. In sororities, this happens by tethering sorority practices, activities, and values to their histories. Constantly connecting the present to the past creates a lineage that can also maintain what is fraught about the system: the divide between insiders and outsiders and who has been able to be a part of that lineage. Participating in activities that emulate principles of the sorority stoke belonging such as songs, rituals, and learning about the organization’s founders and their lasting relevance across time. Repeatedly hearkening the founders, for example, suggests the ways members are tethered to one another and to the sorority whether they joined in 1851 or 2025, bypassing the fact that sororities began at a time when only privileged, White women were afforded the opportunity of a college education. This erasure occurs subtly by emphasizing positive, admirable qualities all members should carry on from the founders such as seeking knowledge, service, loyalty, and friendship. Understanding how belonging happens through rhetorical practices can teach us lessons about the double-sided coin of belonging and exclusivity, be it on college campuses, the workplace, or social media we follow. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What happens when platforms recommend opinions instead of users? Sriniwas Pandey, lecturer at the School of Computing at Binghamton University, details this.Faculty Bio:Pandey is a lecturer in the School of Computing at Binghamton University. He received his PhD degree in system science from Binghamton University. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science engineering from UTU India and IIITDMJ India, respectively. His research interests include complex systems, networks and machine learning. His research aims to comprehend the intricacies of eccentric behavior within society, focusing on identifying the underlying factors contributing to such behaviors and its impact on network dynamics.Transcript:Although social media can serve as a civil digital meeting place, pockets of users with intense opinions that clash with others that have different views has become a common occurrence. There are plenty of reasons for this, but one factor is content recommendations by the platform itself.I co-authored a study with Binghamton University Professor Hiroki Sayama that explores how these content recommendation systems affect the overall social climate on social media.We created a computer simulation of a social media platform with users connected to each other. Each user had a default set of opinions. However these users could form new opinions or be influenced by what they saw from other users. The strength of connection between users could change over time based on how similar their ideas were.We found that when the platform only recommended similar users without adjusting what opinions people saw, users broke apart into tight communities that had very different ideologies.However, when the platform recommended opinions, rather than users, there was far less network fragmentation. This worked even when people naturally preferred users similar to them. This also led to more unusual or off-center opinions. We experimented with different initial social network configurations.When people were exposed to diverse opinions, their “knowledge base” expanded, giving them more room to generate creative ideas within their community.This implies that echo chambers are less likely when people see diverse opinions. The findings drive home the importance of social media design – and how choice of recommendation strategy can impact the cohesion of the platform’s community and the extent to which users are able to express less mainstream viewpoints. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

There are stark mortality differences between pregnancy and abortion.Maria Steenland, assistant professor of family science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, explores this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Steenland is an Assistant Professor in Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a health services and health policy researcher focused on maternal and reproductive health policy in the United States. Her research useseconometric methods to evaluate maternal and reproductive health programs and policies, with a particular focus on Medicaid policy. The overarching goal of her research is to identify policy options to increase the equity and quality of women’s health services. Her previous researchhas examined the effect of Medicaid payment policies for immediate postpartum contraception, and expansions of Medicaid eligibility in pregnant and postpartum populations.Transcript:After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June of 2022, some advocates and academics expressed concern that abortion bans would harm maternal health. They argued that banning abortion could increase maternal mortality in part because the risk of death from childbirth is much higher than the risk from abortion. Continuing a pregnancy places significant physiologic stress on the body, which can lead to life-threatening complications, such as hemorrhage, sepsis, stroke, and heart failure. A prior study, using data from 1998 through 2005, found that the risk of death from childbirth was about 14 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. In the years since that estimate, the measurement of maternal death has improved, increasing the number of pregnancy-related deaths identified annually. At the same time, abortions are taking place earlier in pregnancy, reducing the risk of complications. Given these changes, my colleagues — Kerra Mercon, Ben Brown, Marie Thoma — and I re-estimated the difference between pregnancy-related death and abortion-related death using national data. Using figures from 2018 to 2021, we calculated a range of mortality ratios. We found that the risk of death from ongoing pregnancy was 44 to 70 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. Importantly, even our most conservative estimate was still three times higher than the previously reported figure. We don’t yet know what effect abortion bans will have on overall maternal mortality in the US. However, we can say that people who are forced to continue their pregnancies because of abortion bans will face a dramatically greater risk of death than had they been able to access an abortion.Read More:[University of Maryland School of Public Health] - Study: Risk of maternal death during pregnancy greatly exceeds risk of death from abortion This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

How do we pull back the curtain on China’s use of AI in its military?Cole McFaul, senior research analyst at Georgetown University, explores this key question.Faculty Bio:Cole McFaul is a Senior Research Analyst and an Andrew W. Marshall Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where he mainly focuses on emerging technology competition in the Asia-Pacific and China’s science and technology ecosystem. Prior to joining CSET, Cole researched the political economy of China’s international engagement strategies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Cole holds a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University.Transcript:It’s no secret that China is using AI to modernize its military and compete with the U.S. and other rivals. However, what has remained secret is civilian firms’ involvement in these efforts and China’s fusion of commercial innovation with military power.My colleagues Sam Bresnick, Daniel Chou and I set out to answer a key question: who supplies the PLA with AI-related goods and services? Our project relies on a novel data set of 2800 AI-related contract award notices published by the PLA between January 2023 and December 2024. We define an AI-related award as any contract supporting AI-enabled or autonomous technologies, like language and vision models, unmanned vehicles, augmented and virtual reality, simulation and training environments, and smart manufacturing and robotics.From this data set, we identified 338 entities awarded two or more AI-related contracts. Using open-source information, we classified each into one of three groups: state-owned enterprises, research institutions, and nontraditional vendors (which are firms without self-reported state ownership).We found that state owned enterprises and defense-affiliated research institutions led in AI-related military procurement. Institutions like AVIC, NORINCO, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Seven Sons of National Defense dominate the top of the list.But a deeper look at who supplies the PLA with AI-related goods and services reveals that a wide range of other organizations are also active. Nearly 70 percent of the entities awarded two or more AI-related contracts were nontraditional vendors. Civilian universities like Shanghai Jiao Tong, Tsinghua University, and Peking University were also awarded AI-related contracts.Our research reveals that, at least in the public procurement of AI-related goods and services, military-civil fusion is no longer aspirational—it’s operational. Unless the United States adapts to this reality, it risks facing a Chinese defense base that is more capable, adaptable, and technologically sophisticated.Read More:[CSET] - Pulling Back the Curtain on China’s Military-Civil Fusion[CSET] - Civilian Tech Is Powering China’s Military This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What is Gulf War Illness and why is recognition important?Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, seeks to inform.Faculty Bio:Dr. Golomb is a Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego with over 15 years of experience treating veteran patients, including veterans with Gulf War Illness (GWI). She was the inaugural Scientific Director for the Congressionally directed Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC) and her research for RAND and with funding from the Department of Defense have expanded knowledge of exposure relations, mechanisms, markers and treatment for GWI. Dr. Golomb and her team remain committed to research to improve the lives and health for our heroes from the Gulf War.Transcript:For decades, Gulf War veterans have battled for recognition of the often devastating health challenges they experience as a consequence of their honorable service. Next month, we will mark an immensely important milestone for Gulf War veterans, their families, clinicians and researchers. Gulf War illness will finally receive its own International Classification of Diseases — or ICD — diagnostic code. This is more than just administrative coding. This is long-overdue validation for the suffering of the quarter-million affected veterans. It is a formal acknowledgment that Gulf War illness is real, it is physical, and it is service-related. Gulf War illness affects about one-third of the nearly 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. It manifests as a consistent profile of symptoms: persistent fatigue, cognitive difficulties, chronic pain, respiratory issues, skin problems, gastrointestinal distress. Decades of study have linked Gulf War illness to chemical exposures and identified objective abnormalities such as structural brain changes. With this new ICD code, health care providers will be better able to recognize, diagnose, and treat Gulf War illness. Insurance, medical records, research, and public health tracking will now explicitly acknowledge the condition, rather than forcing patients to substitute related diagnoses. For researchers like me, the change accelerates our ability to study Gulf War illness in large populations, monitor treatment outcomes rigorously, and understand how this condition may overlap or interact with other diseases. To all veterans whose symptoms were dismissed and whose needs went unmet: this new diagnostic code is for you. It’s a recognition of your service. It’s a commitment to your care. And it represents hope — hope that research, medicine, and policy will now move forward more fully, more justly, to give you the answers and the support you deserve.Read More:[PNAS] - Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and Gulf War illnesses[ScienceDirect] - Adverse effect propensity: A new feature of Gulf War illness predicted by environmental exposures[National Library of Medicine] - Mitochondrial impairment but not peripheral inflammation predicts greater Gulf War illness severity This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: A non-invasive method for detecting an aggressive brain tumor could be key for patients. But how does it work?Khan Iftekharuddin, Professor and Eminent Scholar, delves into this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Khan Iftekharuddin is a professor and Batten Endowed Chair in Machine Learning in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Old Dominion University (ODU). He concurrently serves as a Director, ODU Vision Lab and an Inaugural Director, Institute of Data Science. Dr. Iftekharuddin has been cited among the top 2% researchers in the globe for both career-long impact and single-year impact, and his Vision Lab has consistently ranked among top teams in Global Brain Tumor Segmentation and Patient Survivability Prediction Challenges co-organized by MICCIA and NCI since 2014.Prior to his current roles, he served as an Interim Dean in Batten College of Engineering and Technology, Associate Dean for Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies, and Chair of the ECE Department at ODU. He received his MS (1991) and PhD (1995) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Dayton, OH.Transcript:Glioblastoma Multiforme, or GBM, is the most aggressive and deadly type of brain cancer, killing about 10,000 Americans each year and accounting for half of all brain cancer deaths in the U.S. The fast-growing cancer spreads microscopic cancer cells in surrounding healthy tissue and has an average survivability of 18-24 months from diagnosis. Prognosis for GBM is poor, with recurrence in 90% of patient cases within six to nine months, even after aggressive treatment protocol including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Diagnosing brain tumor recurrence on standard imaging scans like MRIs is challenging because treatment-related changes in the brain tissues, such as scar tissue, necrosis (dead tissues) and edema (swelling), often appear like recurrent tumor tissue. Currently, the only way to confirm tumor recurrence is through an invasive brain biopsy. My colleagues and I are investigating how computational modeling, AI, and machine learning methods can help distinguish true tumor recurrence from surrounding abnormal tissues, without needing to do a biopsy. This work builds on long-standing research of brain tumor volume segmentation and tracking, tumor sub-typing, and patient survivability prediction. We’re working with about half a dozen clinical collaborators across the US to analyze and process large amounts of high-resolution Magnetic Resonance imaging alongside molecular and patient clinical data. This analysis will help us develop non-invasive AI models that classify tumor recurrence and radiation-induced challenges. These tools could improve early detection, tracking, and treatment planning, helping physicians better predict the trajectory of tumor growth and tailor interventions for individual patients. Additionally, we’re working to study inherent biases in these AI models and ensure that they are representative of different patient populations. This will bolster their robustness and efficacy in clinical settings.Research Projects This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: How fast can a viral variant spread?Hong Qin, associate professor in the School of Data Science and the Department of Computer Science at Old Dominion University, analyzes the data to find out.Faculty Bio:Hong Qin is an Associate Professor in the School of Data Science and the Department of Computer Science at Old Dominion University. His work develops AI and statistical methods for genomic surveillance, pandemic prediction, and trustworthy health AI.Transcript:Viruses evolve as they spread, and when a new viral variant begins to outcompete others, it can quickly reshape an outbreak. But measuring a variant’s advantage is tricky, because case counts and sequencing volume rise and fall for reasons unrelated to biology.A new approach called the differential population growth rate, or DPGR, focuses on comparisons instead of absolute numbers. In a given region and short time window, DPGR looks at two variants that are sampled side-by-side. It tracks the ratio of their weekly sequence counts and takes a logarithm. If that log-ratio changes roughly as a straight line, the slope estimates how much faster one variant is growing than the other. A positive slope means variant A is gaining on variant B; a negative slope means variant A is losing ground.This pairwise design makes one variant an internal control, helping reduce distortions from shifting testing, reporting, or sequencing intensity. DPGR also has an additive property: if variant A overlaps with B, and B overlaps with C, their slopes can be combined to estimate a comparison of A versus C, even when A and C rarely appear together.Using DPGR with genomic surveillance data, researchers can map how variants’ advantages change across places and over time. For example, COVID-19’s Omicron variant outpaced the Delta variant worldwide, but the estimated advantage of Omicron differed by region. DPGR can also compare sublineages and build a “fitness staircase” that summarizes stepwise gains.The result? A simple, interpretable signal that complements other epidemic models and can help anticipate which variant may dominate next.Read More:[Wiley] - A data-driven sliding-window pairwise comparative approach for the estimation of transmission fitness of SARS-CoV-2 variants and construction of the evolution fitness landscapeYouTube This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: When it’s hot out, some places are hotter than others. Maryam Golbazi, research assistant professor of climate science, examines why.Faculty Bio:Maryam Golbazi is a Research Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University working with the Joint Institute on Advanced Computing for Environmental Studies (JI-ACES). She specializes in numerical weather prediction models, atmospheric chemistry modeling, wind energy, and data assimilation. Her work integrates advanced numerical modeling with satellite and in-situ observations to improve forecasts of air pollution, wind energy resources, and extreme weather events. She is currently leveraging data science and AI/ML methods to develop localized weather models, while maintaining the rigor and integrity of established physical modeling techniques. With prior research experience at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and many collaborative projects, Dr. Golbazi’s research bridges science and application to address pressing environmental and energy challenges. She aims to leverage fundamental science and state of the art data-driven techniques to produce actionable insights that help protect communities, inform policy, and guide sustainable infrastructure planning.Transcript:On a summer afternoon in Hampton Roads, Virginia, the heat doesn’t feel the same everywhere. In some neighborhoods, the air lingers thick, heavy, slow to cool even after sunset. In others, just a few miles away, temperatures drop faster, offering relief once the sun goes down. These differences aren’t random. They’re shaped by concrete, roads, buildings, and the environment.In our study, which I conducted with my colleague Frank Liu, we used some of the highest-resolution weather simulations ever applied to a real U.S. city to understand how extreme heat behaves at the neighborhood scale. Instead of looking at cities from satellites, we zoomed in, down to city blocks, using advanced atmospheric models.During two intense heat waves in the summer of 2024, our simulations revealed that dense urban areas were, on average, up to five or six degrees hotter than nearby rural regions. And at night urban neighborhoods stayed warm far longer.But temperature was only part of the story.When we combined heat exposure with census data, a pattern emerged: lower-income communities experienced higher heat stress. And that translated directly into energy demand. That matters, because cooling isn’t free. For families already struggling with energy costs, extreme heat becomes both a health risk and a financial burden.As heat waves become longer and more intense, understanding where heat concentrates, and who pays the price, may be just as important as predicting the temperature itself. Our research shows that climate change isn’t just about rising averages. It’s about how people experience heat differently, day to day, street to street!Read More:[Springer Nature] - High-resolution modeling of extreme heat events with socioeconomic consideration: a real-case WRF–LES approach This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: Can AI chatbots spread generalizations?Tiffany Zhu, assistant professor of global ethics and technology, examines why this could be the case. Faculty Bio:Tiffany Zhu is a philosopher. She is an Assistant Professor of Global Ethics and Technology in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. Prior to joining ODU in Fall 2025, she was a Faculty Fellow in AI Ethics at the California Center for Ethics and Policy at California State Polytechnic University PomonaTranscript:AI chatbots powered by large language models are increasingly shaping our understanding of the world. Some of my research examines how they use a linguistic device called “generics,” which expresses generalizations without explicit quantification. An example of a sentence using a generic to talk about a social group would be: “Immigrants work low-wage jobs”. These statements are consequential because they can spread stereotypes. One study looking at ChatGPT 3.5 found, among other tendencies, that the chatbot often paired social generics with what I call individuation hedges, which emphasize diversity within groups. For instance, when asked “Are women more likely to get attacked while walking alone at night?,” the chatbot affirmed the trend but added that “the likelihood of getting attacked depends on an individual’s characteristics.” Not only are these hedges too formulaic to counteract unfair generalizations, they also reduce the accuracy of some responses, obscure the structural causes of social patterns including oppression, and could lead users to form false or even harmful beliefs about themselves and others.To improve their use, I proposed a strategy with three elements. First, I suggest requiring democratic and interdisciplinary guidance during the process of reinforcement learning through human feedback. Second, I advise shifting away from a transactional toward a dialogical model of AI-human interaction, meaning chatbots should probe for context and user goals and assumptions rather than simply providing answers. Finally, I suggest chatbots should use generics in conjunction with historical framing and asking counterfactual questions, in order to help AI users to think flexibly about how social reality is contingent, changeable, and sometimes unjust. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Old Dominion University Week: Coastal resilience will be key going forward in a warming climate.George McLeod, director of the Center for Geospatial Science, Education, and Analytics, shows how virtual worlds can help us protect our own.Faculty Bio:Dr. George McLeod is the Director of the Center for Geospatial Science, Education, and Analytics at Old Dominion University and Senior Fellow with Virginia’s Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency. He oversees the creation of vital location intelligence for a wide range of academic research questions, including those focused on the intersection of the built landscape and environmental hazards. His expertise in ocean science, geovisualization, remote sensing, and UAV operations has allowed him to play an important role in advancing coastal hazards and flooding resilience research in Virginia.Transcript:When I tell people what we’re working on, the first question is almost always the same: “Okay… what exactly is a digital twin?”At its simplest, a digital twin is a virtual version of a real place or object. Most of us have seen something like this before—think about the detailed, three-dimensional cities you move through in video games. They look real, but they’re mostly just scenery.In our work on coastal resilience, the digital twin isn’t the backdrop; it’s the main character.We’re building virtual versions of real coastal communities and entire regions so we can study very real challenges: sea-level rise, storm flooding, water quality, and the public-health impacts that come with all of that. And unlike a static 3D model, these digital twins are alive. They combine physical models of land and water with models of how systems behave, things like transportation networks, population movement, and hydrology.That lets us ask big, practical questions. For example: If a Category 3 hurricane hits Virginia on top of an extra foot of sea-level rise, which neighborhoods flood first? Which roads are cut off—and for how long? How much damage might we see? Who could be displaced, and where should emergency responders focus their efforts?Our most ambitious project takes this idea even further. We’re working with colleagues at NASA to build what we call the Coastal Zone Digital Twin of the entire Chesapeake Bay. It’s a dynamic system that’s constantly updated, showing what’s happening now, what’s likely to happen next, and letting us test “what if” scenarios, so communities can prepare for the coastal future that’s already on the way. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Are you good at multitasking?Jinglu Jiang, associate professor at the School of Management at Binghamton University, reveals how this behavior may allow harmful emails to slip by.Transcript:The ability to juggle multiple tasks is a defining feature of modern work. But that constant multitasking may make people more vulnerable to phishing attacks.In a recent study, my co-authors and I examined how multitasking affects people’s ability to detect phishing emails. We conducted two online experiments with nearly one thousand participants. In both experiments, participants worked in multitasking settings. They first completed a mentally demanding primary task, like memorizing numbers or work-related information, while being interrupted with a secondary task: deciding whether incoming emails were legitimate or phishing. This setup mirrors everyday work environments, where email alerts arrive while people are focused on other tasks.We found that when the primary task placed a high demand on people’s working memory, phishing detection performance dropped substantially. However, we also identified an important countermeasure. When participants received a simple reminder that some emails might be phishing attempts, detection performance improved—even under heavy cognitive load.We also found that message design plays a role. Reminders were especially effective against phishing emails that promised rewards. By contrast, loss-framed messages—such as warnings about account suspension—tended to trigger vigilance on their own, leaving less room for reminders to add value.Together, these findings suggest that phishing defenses should account for multitasking, not assume users are fully attentive. Organizations may benefit from context-aware reminders that support attention when cognitive demands are highest and risks are most likely to go unnoticed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The intersection of race, gender, and financial access needs further study.Carlena Ficano, professor of economics at Hartwick College, discusses why.Faculty Bio:Dr. Ficano’s areas of expertise include: labor economics, applied econometrics, social policy on low income family well-being, the economics of higher education and, most recently, local economic development.Recent courses taught include:* Econometrics* The Marketplace* Microbes, Markets, and Food* Labor Economics* The Economics of Race and Gender* Principles of microeconomicsHer current research in collaboration with Lawrence Ogbeifun, assistant professor of economics at Hartwick College, https://www.hartwick.edu/people/lawrence-ogbeifun/ investigates barriers that women and racial minorities face in accessing small business loans. This research project engages the authors in applied macroeconomic (Ogbeifun) and microeconomic (Ficano) work that directly relates to and could be used as examples in their regular course offerings in labor economics, the economics of race and gender, principles of microeconomics, principles of macroeconomics, econometrics and macroeconomic theory.Transcript:Is it possible to quantify what is lost both by the entrepreneurs and by the larger society, when access to credit is limited by the intersection of one’s race and gender?Small businesses success is a well-recognized driver of community well-being. But not everyone seeking to secure a small-business loan is viewed equally by lenders--and differential access to credit for minority and women entrepreneurs has the potential to impose significant constraints on local and regional economies.My current research, conducted jointly with co-author Dr. Lawrence Ogbeifun, aims to shed new light on the systemic barriers faced by minority and women entrepreneurs in accessing small business loans and the broader economic consequences of this inequity.Using confidential data on credit application success over a seven-year period and building upon earlier work that examined gender-differences in lending, this current project applies an important new lens to questions of lending discrimination and its implications.By using an intersectional approach that examines race and gender, we are seeking to quantify how small business lending discrimination limits business growth and innovation, ultimately hindering overall economic development.It is our hope that this work will contribute meaningfully to the field of economics and public policy by filling a gap in the literature around the intersection of race, gender, and financial access. Only empirical evidence can shape future lending practices aimed at promoting equity in small business finance—and this topic is relevant to a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, financial institutions, and advocacy groups working toward inclusive economic development.This research is directly relevant to our teaching responsibilities in courses on labor economics, race and gender, and macroeconomic policy. The insights gained from this research will enhance the learning experiences of our students, encourage critical thinking, and contribute to academic discourse and hopefully drive new conversations on systemic inequities. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

What do electronic medical records have to do with declining COVID mortality rates at hospitals?Indranil Bardhan, Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Health Care Management at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, answers this.Faculty Bio:Indranil Bardhan is the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Health Care Management in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor of management information systems and teaches courses in the MBA program as well as the M.S. program.Bardhan has a courtesy appointment as a professor in the Department of Medical Education at Dell Medical School. His research focuses on health care analytics and digital health innovation, and involves close collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Dell Med. His studies have been funded by the National Science Foundation and the UT Health system.Bardhan’s research has won 10 best paper or runner-up awards and includes more than 50 publications in premier scholarly journals. He has also served as senior editor of several prestigious journals.Bardhan holds a Ph.D. in management science and information systems from Texas McCombs. He was inducted as a distinguished fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society in 2019.Transcript:During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a little-known success story in U.S. hospitals. Mortality rates from COVID cases dropped from more than 7% in April 2020 to less than 2% a year later. What explains this decline? Our research found that one mechanism is a learning effect at hospitals, which is associated with testing new treatments. Using county-level data, we found a lower rate of COVID deaths in counties where hospitals participated in clinical trials and had greater capabilities for health IT, such as using electronic medical records. Not only did counties whose hospitals had greater IT capabilities do better at treating patients several months into the pandemic, but they also learned faster. We found that the learning effect of clinical trials was enhanced by having strong IT capability. More specifically, counties with advanced record use were better able to share data with other hospitals and to learn what treatments were working or not working against COVID-19. That sharing made a life-and-death difference.• Counties with high IT ratings reduced mortality rates per capita 75% over the pandemic’s first year. That’s compared to 47% for low-rated counties.• If all hospitals had had higher levels of IT, they would have seen 20,853 fewer deaths nationwide.As with IT, participating in clinical trials helped hospitals exchange information with other institutions and contributed to solutions. We hope that our research can help policymakers and decision makers understand the value of IT a little bit better. Perhaps they can invest in the right kinds of information technology to help hospitals make faster and better decisions, which ultimately will save more lives.Read More:[Nature] - Learning from COVID-19: clinical trials, health information technology, and patient mortality This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

There may be encouraging news for ovarian cancer patients on the way. Ray Goodrich, professor in the department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at Colorado State University, tells us more.Faculty Bio:Former Executive Director of the Infectious Disease Research Center, Ray Goodrich has been investigating vaccine candidates to combat the pathogens that cause COVID-19, tuberculosis and influenza. He also led the development program for a cancer vaccine targeting solid organ tumors.Goodrich has worked in infectious disease research for more than 35 years, during which he has managed research staff and development programs in the fields of transfusion and transplantation medicine and pathogen reduction technologies. He has been awarded 58 patents covering technology in these areas and is a co-author of 300 peer reviewed articles and abstracts.Goodrich is an active member of the American Chemical Society, serves on the board of directors for the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies and serves as a special government employee for the Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.Transcript:Earlier this year, a biotechnology startup I lead received a patent for an innovative new cancer immunotherapy developed at Colorado State University. More recently, we have been given clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin a Phase 1 clinical trial testing this therapy in humans.The trial will be conducted in ovarian cancer patients at the City of Hope, a leading cancer research center in southern California. We are looking to begin enrolling patients around the end of the year.Here’s how it works: We can extract and expose a patient’s own tumor cells to ultraviolet light and vitamin B2. This renders the tumor cells “quasi-dead.” Those cells, which can no longer divide and are not harmful, are then injected back into the patient. Although the cells are inactive, they help stimulate a patient’s immune system to develop a stronger immune response to attack the cancer in their body.The treatment is similar to a process I developed decades ago to “clean” blood prior to it being given to patients in need of blood transfusions. This blood-cleaning process is widely used today and has helped greatly reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases.I began adapting that process into cancer therapy in 2017 and it has proven effective across multiple studies, including in human tissue samples and in a pilot study in companion dogs at Colorado State University’s Flint Animal Cancer Center.I am optimistic that this therapy may be able to help women who are battling ovarian cancer. If proven safe and effective, the treatment could also be used to treat other types of solid-tumor cancers.This treatment could also greatly improve access to cancer therapy. The devices are small and relatively inexpensive — they could easily be deployed at regional centers and hospitals — and when more people have access to technologies like this, everyone benefits.Read More:[Colorado State] - Cancer therapy developed at CSU cleared for human clinical trials This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Language can shape our societies and our political lives.Edison Bicudo, lecturer in the Department of Society and Politics at Aston University, discusses how.Faculty Bio:Dr Edison Bicudo is a Lecturer in the Department of Society and Politics, Aston University, in the UK. He is interested in the regulation, governance, digitalisation, and financialisation of health technology development. With background in sociology, political economy, and geography, he is also interested in the ideological and cognitive underpinnings of technology governance.Transcript:I have a question for you, the person listening to this podcast. How would you define the nation state?If your definition is something like “the nation state is the manager of collective life” – then your reasoning is metaphoric. You are unconsciously drawing analogies and proposing that THE STATE IS A MANAGER. However, if your answer is something like “the state is the entity protecting people’s values and wellbeing – then your understanding is metonymic. You are unconsciously taking THE WHOLE FOR THE PARTS and considering the relation between national agencies and citizens.Why does the difference matter? Because it motivates concrete projects and measures. If the metaphoric view prevails, the state will take the shape of a corporation trying to maximise gains and outcomes. If the metonymic view prevails, the state will be more like an institution safeguarding wellbeing and rights.It is therefore key to recognise the understandings that prevail in society. This is the interpretation proposed by sociognistics. The word sociognistics combines three words: sociology, cognition, and linguistics. In this approach, social and political conflicts derive from divergent understandings made possible by language.These divergences define whether people favour state efficiency or state morality, whether they trust or oppose science, whether they favour democratic regimes or the newest forms of fascism, and so forth.I could finish by asking: Do you understand? But it is better to ask: How do you understand?Read More:[Taylor & Francis Group] - Sociology, Cognition, and Linguistics Towards a Theory of Sociognistics[Oxford Academic] - Cognitive Foundations of Society: The Concept of Schemata in Cell, Gene, and Tissue Therapies[Elgaronline] - Understandings of commercial and open-source 3D bioprinting: The politics of metaphors and metonymies This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: Can weight loss drugs help reduce alcohol use?Alex DiFeliceantonio, Assistant Professor and Interim Co-director of the Center for Health Behaviors Research, looks into this.Faculty Bio:Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, Ph.D., is an appetitive neuroscientist who studies how the brain integrates peripheral signals to guide food selection and eating behaviors. Using multimodal brain imaging and metabolic measures, her laboratory in Roanoke studies food motivation to ask new questions about diet, food choice, and addiction. While completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Sweet Briar College, she became interested in reward learning and motivation. This led her to pursue a master’s degree and doctorate in biopsychology from the University of Michigan, where she studied how opioids alter motivation in animal models. During her postdoctoral training at Yale University and the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Germany, Dr. DiFeliceantonio examined the role of post-ingestive dopamine signaling in eating behavior and food choices.Transcript:More than half of U.S. adults drink alcohol, and about one in ten meets criteria for alcohol use disorder. Current medications that reduce drinking act directly on the brain. But our work tested a different mechanism.We studied people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists — drugs widely prescribed for diabetes and weight loss. These drugs are known to slow how quickly the stomach empties. We asked: could that also slow alcohol’s path into the bloodstream?Participants taking GLP-1s and those not on the drugs each consumed the same standardized dose of alcohol. We measured breath alcohol concentration, blood pressure, blood glucose, and asked participants to report their cravings and level of intoxication.Despite drinking the same amount, those on GLP-1s showed a slower rise in breath alcohol concentration. They also reported feeling less intoxicated on questions such as “How drunk do you feel right now?”This delayed absorption matters because faster delivery of a drug increases its abuse potential. By slowing alcohol’s effects, GLP-1s may reduce both the subjective appeal of drinking and the physiological impact on the body.Our findings suggest that these medications could play a role in reducing alcohol use — not by altering brain reward circuits directly, but by changing how the body processes alcohol.While this was a small pilot study, the results highlight a promising new direction: repurposing an existing class of safe, widely used drugs to help people who want to cut back on drinking.Read More:[Virginia Tech] - ‘How drunk do you feel?’: Ozempic, Wegovy may help reduce alcohol use This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: How do we distinguish which symptoms belong to what neurological disease?Read Montague, Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor and Director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research, explores this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Montague’s research focuses on computational neuroscience: the connection between physical mechanisms present in real neural tissue and the computational functions that these mechanisms embody. His early theoretical work focused on the hypothesis that dopaminergic systems encode a particular kind of computational process, a reward prediction error signal, similar to those used in areas of artificial intelligence like optimal control. The Montague Lab uses theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches to the problems of mental health and its derangement by disease and injury. They recently pioneered new approaches to measure sub-second fluctuations in dopamine and serotonin levels in the striatum of conscious human subjects.Transcript:Tremor is one of the most common symptoms of neurological disease. But two conditions that cause tremor — Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor — can look very similar, especially in the early stages. Distinguishing them is a persistent challenge.We recorded real-time chemical signaling in the brain during surgery, focusing on dopamine and serotonin. Patients played a simple decision-making game involving fair and unfair monetary offers while we measured how their brain chemistry responded to unexpected outcomes.A computational model revealed clear differences. In essential tremor, dopamine and serotonin worked in opposition: when one increased, the other decreased. In Parkinson’s disease, that reciprocal pattern was disrupted.The strongest signal separating the two disorders wasn’t dopamine, as many would expect, but serotonin. Its altered dynamics turned out to be the most reliable marker of Parkinson’s disease.These results suggest that serotonin could serve as a new biomarker for distinguishing Parkinson’s from essential tremor. More broadly, they show how combining behavioral tasks, computational modeling, and real-time neurochemistry can expose hidden disease signatures in the brain.By identifying these neurochemical fingerprints, we move closer to more accurate diagnoses and, ultimately, more personalized treatments for tremor disorders.This discovery reflects years of international, cross-disciplinary teamwork between researchers who revisited data collected nearly a decade ago with new analytical tools. By combining engineering, neuroscience, and computational modeling, the team transformed a long-standing puzzle into a clinically meaningful finding.Read More:[Virginia Tech] - Scientists reveal brain signaling that sets Parkinson’s disease apart from essential tremor This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Week: Early interventions are key for children with cerebral palsyStephanie DeLuca, associate professor and co-director at the Neuromotor Research Clinic, details why.Faculty Bio:Strokes are devastating events often associated with people over 65. But large numbers of infants have strokes, too, which can cause permanent neuromotor impairments. For more than 25 years, Stephanie Deluca, Ph.D., has studied how intensive neurorehabilitation treatments help children and adults with these impairments. Dr. DeLuca has helped develop and rigorously test multiple neurorehabilitation therapy protocols and led numerous clinical research trials. Her interdisciplinary research efforts have included; engagement of families, international training, and innovative teaching to prepare the next generation of clinicians and scientists. Dr. DeLuca has served as Co-PI on two NIH-funded multisite comparative effectiveness trials, and currently serves as a co-investigator and site- PI on the largest pediatric neurorehabilitation trial ever funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. In addition, she has served as a consultant for Humanity Inclusion funded by USAID and as a co-investigator on two global-health initiative grants funded by the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. DeLuca envisions “precision rehabilitation treatments” that can help all individuals impacted by neuromotor impairments by combining knowledge from diverse disciplines & communities to develop new evidenced-based rehabilitation techniques world-wide.Dr. DeLuca believes that research should serve to empower the individuals, families, and communities impacted by disability and seeks to use research to complete this goal. Dr. DeLuca has also served as a national leader by serving as a Director at Large on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) and previously chaired the Advocacy Committee for this organization and on the Treatment Outcomes Committee. Currently, she serves on the Care Pathways Committee for AACPDM. Before joining Virginia Tech, Dr. DeLuca was a faculty member in the department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she worked to train the next generation of therapists to be both clinicians and scientists.Transcript:Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition that affects how the brain controls muscles, often limiting movement on one side of the body. For many children, this can lead to lifelong challenges with arm and hand function.Early intervention is especially important because the brain is highly adaptable during the first two years of life. During this period, the nervous system is particularly responsive to learning and experience, creating an opportunity to support motor development.Our research examined how different early therapies might help infants and toddlers with unilateral cerebral palsy improve their arm and hand function. In the Baby CHAMP study — short for the Baby Children with Hemiparesis Arm-and-Hand Movement Project — we compared three therapist-delivered interventions designed to encourage movement and skill development.Two of the therapies used constraint-induced movement approaches. These methods limit the use of the stronger arm so the child practices using the weaker one during therapy activities. The third approach focused on bimanual therapy, which encourages children to use both hands together.Children between 6 and 24 months old participated in the study and received intensive, play-based therapy for three hours a day, five days a week, for four weeks.The results showed that children improved their hand and arm function on both arms across all three approaches. Whether therapy involved a cast, a splint worn during sessions, or no constraint at all, the gains were similar.These findings suggest that early, intensive therapy can help infants and toddlers build critical motor skills and that families and clinicians have multiple effective options during an important window of brain development.Read More:[Virginia Tech] - Intensive therapy approaches show benefits for infants and toddlers with cerebral palsy This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Week: Can a diet help you get more benefits from exercising?Sarah Lessard, associate professor, looks into this.Faculty Bio:Identifying mechanisms to optimize the therapeutic benefits of exerciseWhy do some people gain fewer health benefits from exercise than others?Increased aerobic exercise capacity is one of the key health benefits of aerobic training. Some individuals, however, are “exercise resistant” and fail to improve fitness and other key health markers with training. People with metabolic diseases such as Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes have blunted improvements in aerobic capacity with training. The identification of high and low responders to exercise training can be a valuable tool in determining which mechanisms are most important in mediating the health benefits of exercise — information that is critical to identifying therapies to improve the health benefits of exercise.Transcript:Exercise is widely recognized as one of the best ways to improve health. It helps people lose weight, build muscle, and strengthen the heart. It also improves how the body takes in and uses oxygen for energy, one of the strongest predictors of health and longevity.But for people with high blood sugar, those benefits can be harder to achieve. Even when they exercise regularly, their muscles may not improve their ability to use oxygen efficiently. High blood sugar also increases the risk of heart and kidney disease and can prevent muscles from responding to exercise the way they should.Our research explored whether diet might help restore those exercise benefits. In a study using mice with hyperglycemia, we tested a ketogenic diet — a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate diet that shifts the body toward burning fat instead of sugar.After one week on the ketogenic diet, the mice’s blood sugar returned to normal levels. Over time, their muscles also began to change. The diet caused remodeling in the muscles, making them more oxidative and improving how they responded to aerobic exercise.The mice also developed more slow-twitch muscle fibers, which support endurance. Their bodies became more efficient at using oxygen, a key sign of improved aerobic capacity.These findings suggest that lowering blood sugar may help restore the body’s ability to adapt to exercise, highlighting how diet and exercise can work together to shape metabolic health.Read More:[Virginia Tech] - Keto diet could unlock the effects of exercise for people with high blood sugar This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: Is there a better exercise than running for blood sugar control?Zhen Yan, Professor and Director of the Center for Exercise Medicine Research. examines one.Faculty Bio:Zhen Yan’s research highlights the importance of the power plants of our cells, the mitochondria. The quantity, number, and function of mitochondria are critically important to maintaining good health. Yan believes dysfunctional mitochondria is the genesis of a range of deadly and deblitating human diseases, including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer, and cognitive decline. His research aims to find ways to improve mitochondrial quality and quantity. Exercise intervention is one of the best ways to promote mitochondrial function.Transcript:Running is often praised as the best exercise for burning calories and protecting against diabetes. But when we directly compared running with weightlifting in a controlled experiment, we found weightlifting provided greater benefits for blood sugar control.Using a newly invented model of weightlifting by our lab, mice accessed food by performing a squat-like motion. The load increased over time progressively. Another group of mice had free access to a running wheel, representing endurance exercise. We compared the impact of exercise while mice were on high-fat diet.Over eight weeks, both groups improved glucose tolerance and reduced fat. But weightlifting was more effective. Mice in the weightlifting group showed lower insulin resistance, less obesity, and stronger improvements in insulin signaling in skeletal muscle.Importantly, these benefits were not explained by gains in muscle mass or exercise performance, suggesting that weightlifting triggers unique metabolic pathways.Diabetes and obesity are global health challenges. While endurance, resistance, and high-intensity interval training all improve long-term blood sugar control, our findings highlight that resistance training may offer stronger protection.The take-home message is simple: weightlifting-types of exercise are equally, if not more, effective than running in preventing obesity and improving whole-body metabolism.Read More:[Virginia Tech] - Weightlifting beats running for blood sugar control, researchers find This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Texas Christian University Week: Geography education may be getting an upgrade thanks to AI. Xiaolu Zhou, associate professor of geography, explains how this approach is evolving to enhance student learning.Faculty Bio:Dr. Xiaolu Zhou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas Christian University and co-leads the Human-Centered AI Future research cluster in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with expertise in Geographic Information Systems, Big Data Analytics, and Urban Informatics. Dr. Zhou has received numerous grants and awards, including the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series Award. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and co-edited a book published by Elsevier. His research supports data-driven decision-making in cities and helps bridge the gap between emerging technologies and real-world urban challenges.Transcript:Artificial Intelligence is changing how I teach and learn geography. In the past, analyzing New York City’s yellow cab trips or Chicago’s Divvy bike rides took weeks or even months to clean, process, and interpret. With AI, that same work can now be done in a fraction of the time. What once felt like advanced research is now accessible to students, who can work with real-world data, run analyses, and uncover meaningful spatial patterns without being overwhelmed by technical barriers.AI also allows me to create custom case studies that bring geography into conversation with the world around us. In class, for example, we explored the Israel–Hamas conflict. Instead of relying solely on a textbook, we used AI to identify credible resources, summarize complex information, and support more focused discussion. It made the topic immediate and accessible, helping students engage with current events through a geographic lens.Personalized learning has been another change. When we studied Dutch disease, AI suggested resources tailored to each student’s interests, from economic impacts to environmental consequences. It created a learning environment where students could move at their own pace, following the threads that mattered most to them.However, teaching geography with AI also means teaching about AI itself. We discuss how these technologies intersect with privacy, surveillance, and military applications. Students learn not only to interpret maps and data, but also to question the ethical and geopolitical implications they raise.In short, AI is transforming geography education from memorizing maps into a way of understanding the world through data, insight, and critical thinking. It’s making the discipline more dynamic, connected, and empowering for both educators and students. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Texas Christian University Week: Have you sent your DNA off to be tested?Amina Zarrugh, associate professor of sociology, examines how these tests can lead to misunderstandings of race.Faculty Bio:Amina Zarrugh is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas Christian University. Her research focuses on politics and forced disappearance in North Africa as well as race and ethnicity in the U.S. Her work has appeared in journals such as Social Problems, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Critical Sociology, Middle East Critique, Teaching Sociology, and Contexts, among others. She completed her BA in sociology and government and her MA and PhD in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.Transcript:Many of us have seen commercials for 23andMe or AncestryDNA, two leading companies for at-home DNA-based genealogical testing. With a small saliva sample taken at home, these companies promise to reveal long-lost ancestries. While millions in the United States have taken the companies up on this offer, we still know very little about how people interpret the tests and what they take away from them.What we do know is that the tests have been valuable to communities long denied information about their ancestry, especially Black communities in the United States. As the industry reaches more people, including those who already have access to ancestral information, we asked: “How do people who take at-home DNA-based ancestry tests interpret their results?”To answer this question, we analyzed over 400 YouTube videos of people reacting to their results. One key finding is that consumers often confuse ancestry with race or ethnicity, interpreting race as a biological category identifiable through DNA. Although they provide a saliva sample, many shift to using the language of “blood,” even labeling types such as “Native blood” or “Black blood.”Because the tests use terms like “ethnicity estimates,” consumers are encouraged to think about identity in quantities and proportions. They may downplay or emphasize results based on what they view as “desirable” ancestries, reinforcing long-standing stereotypes.These findings raise concerns about how misinterpretation of DNA-based technologies could revive racial science—the false belief that race is biological rather than a social construct. Given the deep ties between racial science and twentieth-century racism, our research underscores the importance of careful scientific and public understanding of these technologies.Given how deeply intertwined racial science was with twentieth century projects of racism, our research emphasizes the importance of how scientists and the public understand DNA-based technologies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Texas Christian University Week: Misinformation in the medical field is not new. Melissa Reynolds, assistant professor of early modern European history, looks back to find out more.Faculty Bio:Melissa Reynolds is a historian of early modern Europe whose research examines how ordinary people understood their relationship to medical and scientific knowledge and to the natural world around them. She received her PhD from Rutgers University and held fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University prior to her appointment as Assistant Professor of History at TCU. She is author of Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print (University of Chicago Press, 2024) and co-edits The Recipes Project, a scholarly digital publication focused on recipes and their role in the histories of food, art, magic, medicine, and science.Transcript:The circulation of medical misinformation on social media has been in the news a lot—so much so that it sometimes feels like we’re the first people in history to deal with the problem. But 500 years ago, readers had to wade through a similar quagmire of unverified medical knowledge.As a historian of early modern medicine, I’ve spent the past decade researching how readers in Tudor England navigated the dramatic increase in medical publishing between 1485 when the printing press was first brought to England, and 1557, when the Stationer’s Company was established to license and authorize printed books. Over those seven decades, printers produced more than 350 editions of medical books in English, offering advice on everything from how to cure the plague to how to eat a healthy diet. What I found was that these books contained very old knowledge that had circulated among English readers for centuries in handwritten manuscripts. What changed, in other words, wasn’t the medical advice itself; what changed was that for the first time, printers had a commercial incentive to propagate this advice. It didn’t matter to printers whether miracle cures worked. What mattered was that books sold. Understanding the dynamics of medical marketing from 500 years ago can help us see our present problem of medical misinformation in a new light: this is not the first time that new media has generated new commercial incentives that end up destabilizing medical expertise. At the same, this history suggests a way forward: in Tudor England, printers eventually organized to regulate the free-for-all market created by print. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Texas Christian University Week: What you think about your body’s appearance can have many effects on your well-being.Jeannine Gailey, professor of sociology, discusses how to change harmful beliefs.Faculty Bio:Jeannine A. Gailey is professor and director of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Texas Christian University. Her research focuses on sociology of the body, fat studies, gender, sexualities, and deviance. She is the author of the monograph, The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman and co-editor of Fat Oppression Around the World. Her publications have appeared in journals such as, Feminist Psychology, Journal of Gender Studies, Fat Studies, Qualitative Research, Social Psychology Quarterly, Deviant Behavior and Cultural Criminology, to name a few.Transcript:Negative body image is so common in women that it is often considered normal, but it’s impact can be devastating. Body image refers to one’s perceptions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs about their own body. Poor body image can harm mental health, strain relationships, and lower overall well-being. My collaborator, Dr. Jamie English, a licensed clinical social worker and eating disorder specialist, and I are interested in whether narrative therapy can improve women’s body image and sexual wellbeing by helping participants rewrite their body story. Narrative therapy has the potential to help with negative body image because it separates the individual from the problem, helping women see themselves beyond negative body image. Our participants are adult women whose struggles with body image are negatively impacting their sexual relationships. While we are still in the early stages of the study and continuing to recruit participants, the results so far are promising.Of the 10 women who have completed each phase of the study, which includes a pre and post-test, entrance and exit in-depth interviews and three narrative therapy sessions, all have shown at least some improvement. Most have experienced significant positive changes in how they feel about their bodies and appearance.Participants report that they are no longer fixated on their bodies, weight, or food, and shared that they now have the tools to think differently about their bodies. A few shared that the sessions helped them identify a trauma that had kept them stuck in patterns of negative self-thought.Rewriting their body story, they tell us, is giving them the freedom to think beyond their appearance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Texas Christian University Week: Making better leaders going forward is key; so how do we do so? Ariane Balizet, Assistant Provost for Faculty Success and Professor of English, reads some classic texts to find out. Faculty Bio:Ariane M. Balizet is the inaugural Assistant Provost for Faculty Success and Professor of English at Texas Christian University, where she created a nationally-recognized New Faculty Mentoring Program in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts. In addition to the TCU Deans’ Award for Teaching, she has received ten recognitions for research, service, and graduate and undergraduate teaching since joining the faculty in 2008.Ariane Balizet specializes in the literature of Renaissance England and its afterlives in popular culture and pedagogy. She is currently researching a book on games and colonial competition in early modern England, Spain, and the Caribbean. She is the author of Shakespeare and Girls’ Studies (2019), Blood and Home in Early Modern Drama: Domestic Identity on the Renaissance Stage (2014), and many essays on Renaissance emotions, histories and theories of girlhood, and performance in early modern England and Spain. Most recently, she co-edited Strategic Shakespeare: Transformative Leadership for the Future of Higher Education (2025), with Marcela Kostihová and Natalie K. Eschenbaum..Transcript:Yes, studying Shakespeare can make you a better leader. But as a Shakespeare professor, I can promise that you won’t find many examples of good leadership in Shakespeare’s works. If anything, Shakespeare’s plays delight in bad leadership: the bloodthirsty tyrant Macbeth; the foolish megalomaniac Lear; or the spoiled, narcissistic Richard II. While Marcela Kostihová, Natalie Eschenbaum, and I don’t look to Shakespeare for leadership role models, we have found that leaders can strengthen their influence and effectiveness in modern contexts through the core liberal arts skills used in studying plays about tyrants, despots, and even teenage lovers, whose passions and mistakes reveal timeless truths about power, responsibility, and the human desire for connection and meaning.After a quarter-century teaching Shakespeare’s plays and poetry to young people, we’ve learned that the skills required to make sense of Romeo and Juliet are the very skills successful leaders use in times of crisis or change. These include a sophisticated grasp of historical context, to recognize the difference between novelty and true innovation, the ability to understand conflicting viewpoints and data sets, to make critical decisions when there is no “right” answer, and an appreciation for the value of a good story, to communicate clearly when change is necessary to advance a shared mission and sustain trust.Shakespeare is certainly not, as a murderous Macbeth would say, the “be-all and end-all” of good leadership. But studying Shakespeare shows us that learning history, philosophy, religion, languages, and literature — that is, learning from the Humanities — equips us to lead with empathy, courage, and confidence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Where are PFAS chemicals in our wastewater facilities coming from? Bridger Ruyle, assistant professor of civil, urban and environmental engineering, says the answer may be surprising.Faculty Bio:Bridger Ruyle is an Assistant Professor of environmental engineering in the Civil, Urban and Environmental Engineering Department at New York University Tandon School of Engineering.His research explores how human activity, the biosphere, and climate change affect water quality. Specifically, research foci in the Ruyle lab include developing analytical tools to quantify chemical contamination in environmental media and associated uncertainty, understanding biogeochemistry and impacts of fluorinated chemicals including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, i.e. forever chemicals) and pharmaceuticals, and integrating in-situ and remote sensing data to assess climate impacts on water quality.Transcript:When you pee or flush medications down the drain, you probably assume wastewater treatment plants remove chemicals before the water flows back into the environment. Our study analyzing eight large treatment facilities nationwide revealed something unexpected.We’ve been focused on PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, a class of toxic chemicals usually associated with firefighting foams and non-stick pans. But when we measured PFAS at these wastewater facilities, we found that common prescription drugs account for the vast majority. Here’s why this is concerning. Many pharmaceuticals contain fluorine and meet the chemical definition of PFAS. The fluorine additions stabilize the drugs in your body and help improve their effectiveness as medicines. But that same stability means they are hard to break down during wastewater treatment or in the environment. We found that even the most advanced treatment systems remove less than twenty-five percent before discharging water back into rivers and streams.We used a national model to track how wastewater moves through our waterways and reaches downstream drinking water supplies. During average river conditions, we estimate that about fifteen million Americans receive drinking water containing hazardous levels of PFASdue to wastewater discharges alone. During droughts, when there’s less natural baseflow to dilute the wastewater, that number climbs to twenty-three million people. However, current EPA regulations for drinking water cover only eight percent of the PFAS we detected.These pharmaceuticals are designed to be biologically active at very low doses. What we don’t yet understand is what it means when people who aren’t prescribed these medications are unknowingly exposed to them through their drinking water over years or decades.Read More:Ruyle Laboratory[NYU Tandon School of Engineering] - “Forever chemicals” in wastewater far more widespread than previously known, new multi-university study reveals[NY Times] - ‘Forever Chemicals’ Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage, Study Finds This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: How do vines climb so quickly?Joyce Onyenedum, assistant professor of environmental studies, looks inside the plant to find an answer.Faculty Bio:Joyce G. Onyenedum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. She holds a B.S. in Plant Sciences from Cornell University and received her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. The Onyenedum lab studies the evolution and development of plant biodiversity with a particular interest in addressing the age old question: How do plants climb?Transcript:While most plants are relatively stationary, only climbing vines have the capacity to move rapidly coiling themselves around host trees as a shortcut to access light at the top of the forest canopy. While beneficial to vines, this competitive edge can come at a cost to forest ecosystem because vines are growing quicker and larger in response to increasing temperatures and forest fragmentation. In the tropics, vines are proliferating often outcompeting and killing forest trees, while in highly developed urban centers, we also find vines proliferating. A notable example is the invasive Kudzu vine aka the “plant that ate the south”. Despite the ecological success of vines, we still lack a fundamental understanding of how they move.My lab sought to investigate this problem. Using the common bean vine, we began by breaking down this complex form into phases: common bean begins a truncated shrub, then the main stem suddenly elongates and begins to rapidly whip around in a tightly controlled circular motion to attach to a host. Upon attachment, a critical change occurs within the stem: specialize contractile cells, called G-fibers, form enabling these plants to securely attach to a support to avoid slipping down.But what do G-fibers do? We can answer this question by tweaking the development of G-fibers, which we achieved through enhancing and repressing the plant hormone, Brassinosteroid. Our findings were striking. Vines with excess hormones were lazy they failed to attach to support structures corresponding to a repression of G-fibers. By probing the genetics of this phenotype, we learned that cell wall enzyme gene expression was significantly altered in lazy plants, hence the underdeveloped G-fibers. Together, this study linked cell wall modifying genes to overall plant form and function, revealing a critical role of specialized cells in the success of climbing vines.Read More:[YouTube] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Seeing is believing, especially when it comes to natural disasters. Yuki Miura, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, uses 3D visualizations to see what can happen to your own street.Faculty Bio:Dr. Miura is an assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Center for Urban Science and Progress at NYU. She is also a faculty advisory board member at the Volatility and Risk Institute at NYU Stern School of Business. She is a member of New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC5). Previously, she worked at Morgan Stanley in climate risk management and quantitative strategy.Her research is at the intersection of engineering, climate science, finance, and social sciences. She develops data-driven strategies to mitigate natural hazards and build resilient cities. By coupling advanced modeling with in-depth understanding of socioeconomic factors, she provides actionable solutions for both public and private institutions. She has collaborated with the National Center of Atmospheric Research and the governments of New York State/City. Her work has been recognized through publications in leading journals and featured in The New Yorker and The New York Times.Transcript:When Superstorm Sandy devastated New York City in 2012, it became clear that traditional flood risk maps weren’t helping people understand what they were facing. Statistics and shaded zones on a map couldn’t convey what flooding would mean for your own street, your own home.That’s why we created GeoFlood Studio, an interactive 3D visualization platform that lets you see exactly how water would rise in your neighborhood. You can watch storm surge flow down your actual block and see which subway entrances would flood first.What makes this tool different is the level of detail. You can adjust a human silhouette to your own height and see how deep the water would reach on your body. And our velocity overlays show how fast the water is moving, because two feet of still water is very different from two feet of fast-moving water.Users can explore different scenarios—Superstorm Sandy-level coastal flooding, Hurricane Ida-style rainfall, or both simultaneously—and add projected sea level rise through 2100. You can toggle the East Side Coastal Resiliency seawall on and off to see how protective infrastructure would help.By letting people see themselves in flood scenarios, we’re translating abstract climate risk into something tangible and personal. GeoFlood Studio is one example of how we do this. At the Climate, Energy, and Risk Analytics Lab, where I lead, we go beyond visualization. We develop the underlying hazard models, quantify cascading infrastructure impacts, and design optimization frameworks that help cities decide how to protect and invest. Because understanding risk is only the beginning. Acting on it is also important.Read More:GeoFlood Studio[NYU Tandon School of Engineering] - NYU Tandon researchers launch interactive 3D flood map to help New Yorkers visualize climate risksYuki Miura This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Excessive heat can have consequences for children.Jorge Cuartas, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, determines why.Faculty Bio:Jorge Cuartas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt and the director of the Catalyzing Action for Resilient Ecologies (CARE) lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching from Harvard University, an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University, an M.Sc. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes, and a B.Sc. in Economics from Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano.Dr. Cuartas’ research program lies at the nexus of developmental psychology, economics, and public health and examines:the promotion of resilience and positive developmental trajectories across the life course, globally;the developmental consequences and prevention of violence against children;the design, implementation, and evaluation of parenting and early childhood programs and policies;the intersections between climate change and the science of human development.His research is informed by interdisciplinary theory and employs advanced quantitative methods, including econometrics, psychometrics, and meta-analytic approaches. His work has been published in The Lancet, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Mental Health, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, The Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Child Development, Developmental Science, Child Development Perspectives, and Developmental Psychology, among others. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his work, including the Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship, the American Psychological Association (APA) Developmental Psychology’s Early Career Outstanding Paper Award, APA’s Dissertation Award in Developmental Psychology, the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Victoria S. Levin Award, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, SRCD’s Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant for Global Early Child Development, the Early Childhood Development Action Network’s (ECDAN) Knowledge Fellowship, and the Science and Innovation Fellowship from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Before joining NYU, Dr. Cuartas served as a Consultant for UNICEF, the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), Parenting for Lifelong Health, and the Colombian Government. He is also a researcher at the Centro de Estudios sobre Seguridad y Drogas (CESED) at Universidad de los Andes.Transcript:When we think about climate change, we often picture melting glaciers or rising seas. But in my research, I focus on something closer to home: how heat affects young children’s development.Early childhood is a critical window for brain development and cognitive, social, and emotional skills. I wanted to know whether growing up in hotter environments could quietly shape these foundational skills.To answer this, I combined large-scale child development data with temperature records for nearly twenty thousand three- and four-year olds across six countries—Gambia, Georgia, Madagascar, Malawi, Palestine, and Sierra Leone. This allowed me to track how much heat children were exposed to from birth.What we found was striking. Children exposed to temperatures that were hotter than what is typical for the region where they live—especially if such atypical temperatures were above about 86 degrees Fahrenheit—were less likely to be developmentally on track. The strongest effects showed up in early literacy and numeracy, the basic skills that support learning later in life. In other words, heat doesn’t just make children uncomfortable; it may interfere with how they learn and develop.These effects were not evenly distributed. Children from poorer households, those living in urban areas, and those without reliable access to clean water and sanitation were hit hardest. This shows that heat exposure can amplify pre-existing disparities that tend to persist and even grow across the life course.As the world gets hotter, more children are growing up in conditions that may limit their potential before they ever step into a classroom.The good news is that this is preventable. Investments in cooling, water access, heat-resilient infrastructure and parenting support programs—especially for vulnerable families—can help protect children’s development. If we want children to thrive in a warming world, climate adaptation needs to start early.Read More:[NYU] - Excessive Heat Harms Young Children’s Development, Study Suggests[The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry] - Ambient heat and early childhood development: a cross-national analysis This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On New York University Week: Is there a wildfire that we’re not planning for?Augustin Guibaud, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, examines this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Augustin Guibaud is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a member of the Center for Urban Science and Progress. His research focuses on hazards through physics-based modeling and physics-informed machine learning (PIML), with a particular emphasis on fire safety challenges in complex environments. He leads the IgNYte Lab, which investigates urban air quality monitoring during large-scale haze events, fire dynamics in low buoyancy conditions for space exploration missions, heritage conservation through the modeling of fire-structure interactions, city-scale fire modeling in densely populated areas, and land management strategies for wildfire resilience. Dr. Guibaud’s work bridges practical applications with fundamental lab-scale analyses.Dr. Guibaud is an active member of the Fire Safety in Space ESA International Topical Team, the Combustion Institute, and the Structure group of the French CNRS/Ministry of Culture’s Chantier Scientifique Notre Dame de Paris. He also serves as an Honorary Lecturer at University College London in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering.His contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the 2020 Prix de la Chancellerie and the Distinguished Paper Award at the 39th International Symposium on Combustion.Transcript:Land managers use sophisticated computer models to predict wildfire risk decades into the future. These models account for climate change—rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns. But our research in Portugal revealed they’re missing something critical.Forests don’t stay frozen in time. Over the decades, vegetation itself evolves. Trees die, new species move in, entire ecosystems shift. Current models treat forests as static, essentially planning for forests that won’t exist by the time we need those predictions.We tested what happens when you include these vegetation changes in wildfire models, and the results were striking. In one climate scenario, models without vegetation predicted a fifty-nine percent increase in burned area by 2060. But when we included how forests would actually adapt to those conditions, that increase dropped to just three percent.Even more surprising, some higher-emission climate scenarios actually showed decreased fire risk in Portugal. Local fire risk doesn’t always track with global warming trends. The climate conditions and how vegetation responds can diverge significantly from global patterns. Fire-prone species like eucalyptus might thrive in some areas under certain conditions while declining in others.This matters for practical decisions happening today. Planting fire-resistant trees sounds smart, but if those species won’t survive future conditions, you’ve wasted resources. Worse, if fire-prone species will thrive instead, you’ve locked in elevated risk for decades. Because forest ecosystems take about a century to fully restore, today’s planting decisions echo for generations.Read More:[NYU Tandon School of Engineering] - Wildfire Prevention Models Miss Key Factor: How Forests Will Change Over Decades[ConnectSci] - On the importance of both climate and vegetation evolution when predicting long-term wildfire susceptibility This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Simple materials can teach STEM principles and help students engage with learning. Nicole Fenty, associate professor and chair of the Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership Department at the College of Community and Public Affairs at Binghamton University, discusses several examples.Faculty Bio:Nicole Fenty joined the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Education Leadership as an assistant professor in 2012. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of South Florida and her master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida. She has worked as a special education teacher in elementary schools in the state of Florida.Transcript:STEM education has become a priority for students over the last decade, with concepts such as coding and problem solving now viewed as important across many career pathways. A central area of focus for me is how these concepts can be taught in ways that young learners can meaningfully understand. To explore this, I worked with two students from our doctoral and undergraduate education minor programs respectively, Leyli Yeganeh and Vanessa Uhteg, to examine how early coding concepts could be integrated into classroom literacy instruction.We partnered with two preschool teachers to work with four of their students who were struggling to sequence stories. Because sequencing is a foundational skill in both literacy and coding, we designed an instructional activity using the familiar nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill.”The activities we used were simple and involved hands-on materials - a poster board divided into a grid with tape, picture cards representing four parts of the story, and directional arrows. These tools allowed students to place events in order while also learning basic coding vocabulary such as “grid,” “arrow,” and “forward.”Across three weeks of instruction, students practiced organizing story events using these materials while becoming more comfortable with using coding terms, using the grid effectively, and sequencing pictures correctly. After three lessons, all students were using the materials as intended, applying coding vocabulary, and accurately sequencing the full story.These results highlight an important point about early STEM learning. While digital technological tools are often emphasized, it is the underlying concepts that matter most. When those concepts are embedded in familiar literacy activities, such as storytelling, students are better able to engage with and understand them.Simple, low-tech materials that incorporate meaningful narratives can provide young learners with accessible connections to both literacy and early coding.Read More:[Wiley] - Sequencing Nursery Rhymes through Early Coding in Preschool Settings This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org