Brown University is one of 29 institutions — and the only one in New England — selected to participate in a nationwide effort to study doctoral student aspirations and alumni careers in humanities and STEM fields, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) announced. During the multi-year  project, universities will collect data from current Ph.D. students and alumni using CGS-developed surveys. The resulting information will allow universities to analyze Ph.D. career preferences and outcomes in order to strengthen career services, professional development opportunities and mentoring in doctoral programs. Brown will receive $80,000 in grant money to fund its participation.

Sea sponges known as Venus’ flower baskets remain fixed to the sea floor with nothing more than an array of thin, hair-like anchors made essentially of glass. It’s an important job, and new research by doctoral Engineering student Michael Monn, and others, suggests that it’s the internal architecture of those anchors, known as basalia spicules, that helps them to do it.

Taking advantage of 3-D printing technology, a group of students, including new alum Rana Ozdeslik PhD '17, is creating fanciful but functional custom-made arms for local children with upper-arm anomalies. From the moment he closed the last of the four Velcro straps on his new blue and yellow right arm, 12-year-old Ryan Dean eagerly began exploring what it could do.