(By Nicholas Sargen, lecturer in the Darden School of Business) Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, policymakers have had their hands full dealing with the fallout from global supply-chain shortages. More recently, they have confronted yet another challenge as global energy prices have surged to their highest levels in several years.

Youngkin has visited the deep-red Valley to publicly meet voters more often than the Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe, but that is not surprising when a race is as close as this year’s, said J. Miles Coleman, of UVA Center for Politics. “Youngkin probably thinks, on a very basic mathematical level, he can get more votes out of the Valley,” Coleman said. “And in an election like this where it’s so close, where both sides feel like they maybe have their backs up against the wall, they’re going to turn out their base voters as much as they can.”

Spillmann reached out to researchers at UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute, which developed a data dashboard for state and local health officials soon after Virginia reported its first cases. The reports include information on mobility, drawn from anonymized cell phone data collected by a company called SafeGraph, showing where and when Virginians were traveling to help understand the impact of safety restrictions.

“It’s still close enough that it won’t take a large shift for Youngkin to pull off an upset, and that will have national implications,” says longtime Virginia politics watcher Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics. “The perception is that [Virginia] is bluer than it is – and that’s why a Youngkin upset would be devastating” for Democrats, he adds.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has announced the 2021 class of Packard Fellows for Science and Engineering. Twenty early-career scientists and engineers working in fields including astrophysics, evolutionary biology, engineering, geosciences, nanotechnology, neuroscience and physics will each receive $875,000 over five years to pursue their research. The awardees include UVA chemist Robert Gilliard.

UVA’s women’s and men’s teams are both listed among the contender for the NCAA championship.

(By Stanley Stepanic, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures) The vampire is a common image in today’s pop culture, and one that takes many forms: from Alucard, the dashing spawn of Dracula in the PlayStation game “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”; to Edward, the romantic, idealistic lover in the “Twilight” series. In many respects, the vampire of today is far removed from its roots in Eastern European folklore. 

Bonumose, a food technology company, is investing $27.7 million in its expansion in Albemarle County, which will add 64 employees over the next three years. The company, which specializes in “healthy sugar,” is relocating from University of Virginia’s North Fork research park to a 50,000 square feet section of the former State Farm building on Pantops. Ed Rogers, Bonumose CEO and co-founder, said the company wants to make healthy sugar affordable for the global mass-market and to have a positive impact on public health. “Central Virginia is a beautiful place,” he said.

(Commentary) Once we notice the different ways nature can benefit us without our even knowing, it’s easier to understand why the subconscious may be drawn to it. If feeling connected to nature can reduce stress and increase happiness, then how can we expand on that to benefit our everyday lives? It reminds me of a professor at the University of Virginia, Tim Beatley, who introduced me to the concept of biophilia. He encourages students to look for ways to “bring the outdoors in.”