Are influenza outbreaks and weather patterns connected? Researchers have long known that flu season occurs in the colder months, and that infection rates drop dramatically as the weather warms. But why? And could weather forecasting help predict where and when the flu will surge or fall off?
more >Jonathan Moak calls joining the military the single best professional decision he ever made, propelling his career in financial management to the top financial position in the United States Army.
Moak initially was appointed the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army (financial management and comptroller), and then became the senior official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Army (financial management and comptroller) in late October.
more >Medical researchers say their ability to revolutionize cancer treatments is tantalizingly close, if they could just find more efficient and cost-effective ways to sequence the human genome, which is basically the process of sorting and analyzing the unique alphabet soup of each person’s DNA.
more >When new coaches take over athletic programs – no matter what the sport, or how successful the program was previously – they want to put their own imprint on them and build their own culture.
When Lars Tiffany took over as the head coach of the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team in 2016 – succeeding his former coach and mentor – Dom Starsia, he wasn’t immediately sure how he would go about making the program his own.
more >To say Katie Tracy Kishore stayed busy as a University of Virginia student would be a colossal understatement. Known back then as Katie Tracy, she was a four-year letter-winner in both soccer and basketball and in 2002 earned a master’s degree in teaching from the then-Curry School of Education (Now the Curry School of Education and Human Development).
“When I was younger, I was focused on being a super-achiever,” Kishore told her audience when she spoke at the Tom Tom Festival in Charlottesville last spring.
more >A devastating shortage of the pediatric cancer drug vincristine that began late last summer has forced pediatric oncologists across the country to make heart-wrenching decisions about allocation and treatment.
It also made University of Virginia nursing professor Jessica Keim-Malpass wonder: Exactly how are clinicians deciding which patients get the lifesaving drug, and in what doses? Who goes without? How do hospitals share supplies? And could a mathematical model provide a decision path when agonizing shortage realities like this one arise?
more >What do Georgia O’Keeffe and the video game Minecraft have in common?
According to Frankie Mananzan, a third-year University of Virginia student, these are the kinds of questions she faces daily.
As chair of the Student Docents at The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA, Mananzan gives tours of the gallery spaces and engages with curious museum guests of all ages. Following The Fralin’s mission to embrace the validity of any visitor’s opinions on the art they encounter, some interesting comparisons arise.
more >When it comes to romantic partners, we are attracted to people who are kind and treat others well – but we also crave special treatment and, sometimes, are willing to compromise a lot to get it.
That’s the takeaway from a series of 10 experiments conducted by University of Virginia Darden School of Business professor Lalin Anik and Ryan Hauser, a Ph.D. candidate at the Yale School of Management. Anik and Hauser pitted preference for a partner’s overall kindness against a desire to receive unique treatment from that partner.
more >As the son of a Cuban father and Colombian mother, Emilio Alonso didn’t think he would fit in at the University of Virginia. So much so that – despite having been admitted – he had all but scratched UVA off his college list.
But then his Uncle Leo got into his ear.
“He was like, ‘It’s a great school. You can’t pass up this opportunity,’” Alonso said. “So I kind of went reluctantly.”
However, Alonso did a 180-degree turn as soon as he got to summer orientation.
more >Psychology professor James Coan leads a University of Virginia lab that explores how social relationships protect us against stress and keep us healthy. This semester, he is teaching a course called “Why We Hold Hands.”
In the course, undergraduate students are learning to understand how natural selection has shaped the human brain and body to be fundamentally social, and to consider how a human’s social nature affects health and wellbeing, among other things.
more >Kelly Kendrick was studying to become a licensed esthetician in Charlottesville when he was diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Speaking on the phone from his new home in Ohio six years later, Kendrick still remembers how he felt when he got the news six years ago.
“Horrible,” he said. “I felt pretty much alone.”
more >Former Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo has been named the University of Virginia’s associate vice president for safety and security and chief of police.
Longo was named interim chief of police in October and soon thereafter took on the additional interim responsibilities of associate vice president for safety and security. The two positions have now been consolidated under Longo.
more >The University of Virginia is ranked 10th in a list of more than 200 doctoral institutions receiving Fulbright U.S. Student Awards and is the No. 1 public school in the country, a huge ascent since the University was first named to the list in the 2015-16 cycle.
This is the fourth time in five years and the third year in a row that UVA has been included on the list, and marks the first time the University has broken into the top 10 doctoral schools.
more >A surprising discovery about a rare form of childhood brain cancer suggests a new treatment approach for that cancer – and potentially many others.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the supposedly simple cancer, called medulloblastoma, forms an unexpectedly intricate network to drive its growth. Some tumor cells actually turn into another type of cell altogether. The discovery raises the exciting possibility that doctors may be able to intervene to stop the disease – and possibly other cancers as well.
more >Several years ago, while working on a research project with the Arlington County Fire Department in Arlington, Virginia, Sallie Ann Keller had an epiphany. An unprecedented amount of data was available that could be applied to solve real-world problems in service to the public, but there wasn’t a research-ready workforce with the experience or dedication to put that data to practical use.
more >When the University of Virginia launched its Democracy Initiative two years ago, leaders envisioned a forum for honest conversations about issues central to American and global democracy, including race, religion, equity and so much more.
“Universities, if they are to lead in the study of democracy, must model it, studying issues inherent to the founding of our country, promoting robust, civil discourse, particularly when there are disagreements; and participating in those conversations with the community,” Melody Barnes, co-director of the initiative, said.
more >Four technologically and societally minded friends who graduated from Yorktown High School in Arlington a couple of years ago have maintained a friendship that is carrying through their college years at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Stanford University – and are using their relationship to keep the public informed about a major health threat.
more >At the beginning of the radio program, host Raina Douris notes that “World Café” usually focuses on bands with four or five members.
This time, she said, there were 324.
more >Fewer than half of new mothers both intend to follow important guidelines for keeping their babies safe while sleeping and then follow through on those intentions, a troubling new study reveals.
Only 45.4% of new mothers surveyed both intended to comply and then did comply with the recommendation to sleep in the same room, but not the same bed, with their baby, the study found. The recommendation, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, aims to prevent sudden unexpected infant death syndrome, or SIDS, a leading cause of death in babies in the United States.
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