News from Brown

The Rosenberger Medal has been awarded just 31 times since its establishment in 1919 to a distinguished group of individuals who include among them Nobel laureates, university presidents and chancellors, and esteemed public servants.

This year’s forums explored everything from cancer research and digital health innovations to media and political engagement, the 1968 Black Student Walkout at Brown, and patriotic philanthropy.

During its 251st Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 26, Brown University bestowed honorary degrees on a diverse group of business and community leaders, scholars and artists.

On a weekend that marks graduations, reunions and military sacrifice, the University honored two new officers, a military promotion and seven graduating veterans.

As alumni returned to campus and thousands of new graduates prepared to receive their degrees and begin the next chapter of their lives, the Brown community dedicated a student-designed sundial sculpture named ‘Infinite Possibility.’

At its 251st Commencement on Sunday, May 26, Brown University will confer a total of 2,954 degrees in all categories — undergraduate, graduate, medical and honorary.

Sunday's procession and University Ceremony on the College Green will cap Brown's three-day celebration of Commencement and Reunion Weekend 2019.

In the six months since it opened its doors, the new Watson Institute building has become a prime destination on campus and supported an equally ambitious programmatic expansion underway at the institute.

During its annual Commencement week meeting, the University's governing body also approved the awarding of 2,795 degrees at Sunday's ceremonies.

As college students across the nation contend with challenges accessing healthy, affordable food, the University will provide meals during spring break at no additional cost and require all sophomores to enroll in meal plans.

After a series of investments in academic departments, the University will offer new concentration tracks in business economics and organizational studies as well as a new undergraduate certificate in entrepreneurship.

An expanded substance-use curriculum at the Warren Alpert Medical School ensures that each future physician from Brown graduates well-versed in how to recognize and treat opioid use disorder.

New location on three floors of 249 Thayer St. will advance the center’s mission to make entrepreneurship integral to the life of campus and connected to the world beyond.

A student-designed sundial in the shape of a Mobius strip will mark the position of the noontime sun throughout the year on the plaza in front of Brown’s Engineering Research Center.

As Brown celebrates Commencement 2019 on Sunday, May 26, Jen Thum and Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra will address their fellow graduates in separate Ph.D. and master’s ceremonies on College Hill.

In keeping with a Brown tradition that has stood for two and a half centuries, seniors Ruth Miller and Patricia Rodarte will deliver Commencement speeches on Sunday, May 26.

In the three years since launching its strategic action plan, Brown has boosted student, faculty and staff diversity and implemented a wide range of initiatives in support of diversity and inclusion on campus.

The Policy Lab at Brown will work in concert with government leaders and experts to develop evidence-based policy programs that improve lives and strengthen communities.

Brown leaders invited the campus community to use the year ahead as an opportunity to critically reflect on the University’s defining educational philosophy.

The research shows why levitating droplets on hot surfaces eventually explode if they start out large enough.

Emily Oster’s new book, out on Tuesday, April 23, uses data to help new parents make crucial decisions, from whether to breastfeed to how to discipline a toddler.

Brown University will bestow honorary degrees on a diverse group of business and community leaders, scholars and artists during its 251st Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 26.

"This is the time to be a protagonist and not a spectator," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, in a talk on College Hill.

The funds will support expanded mentorship of biomedical science students and junior researchers from historically underrepresented groups through the Brown-based Leadership Alliance.

Open Curriculum at 50 anniversary kick-off event on May 7 will commemorate a pivotal moment in Brown’s history and begin a 12-month community exploration of the University’s distinctive, student-centered curriculum.

The new initiative at Brown — spearheaded by a master of public health student — will formalize collaboration among faculty and students who are conducting research on health outcomes of Filipinos and Filipino Americans.

A class and symposium examine neurodiversity, a still-nascent concept that explores autism, dyslexia and epilepsy as more than simply disorders.

Class of 2010 MFA graduate Jackie Sibblies Drury earned the drama award for “Fairview,” and Professor Emeritus Forrest Gander won the poetry prize for “Be With.”

The annual “TED Talks”-style event challenged 12 graduate students to explain why their current research matters — to the field and to themselves — in 5 minutes or less.

Renowned engineering professor Huajian Gao is honored for his research in mechanical engineering and material science.

After a successful pilot with high-need students, Brown will expand textbook and course materials program to first-year students receiving University scholarship funds and undergraduates who have a $0 parent contribution.

As envisioned, the state-of-the-art center will provide teams with a central space for training, practice and competition — amplifying the student-athlete experience and advancing teams’ ability to succeed at the highest level.

A partnership between Brown and I.E. University, the 10th annual “Reinventing Higher Education” conference convened 37 international opinion leaders from higher education and the private sector to discuss educating and managing the global workforce of the future.

After a series of surprising discoveries, a team of scientists determined a role of opsin 3 in tuning human skin color in response to ultraviolet rays.

Working with a Brown University faculty member, an undergraduate student developed an algorithm that enables robots to reproduce human-like pen strokes just by looking at images of handwriting or sketches.

In a finding that is soon to be ground-truthed by NASA’s next Mars rover, Brown University researchers show that a Martian mineral deposit was likely formed by ashfall from ancient volcanic explosions.

Some research study participants, for whom the app was most effective, showed decreased brain reactivity to smoking images.

Brown researchers discover that unexpected rewards improve the memory of specific events, which may have implications for how clinicians treat individuals with depression.

Patients who receive more physical therapy are less likely to be readmitted to a hospital within a month, yet the amount of care made available to Medicare patients varies widely.

The annual awards program recognizes the research and scholarship of both longtime and early-career faculty members.

In a study of 200 years of pre-industrial Quebecois genealogical history, researchers at Brown found that fertility-related changes in natural selection during the pre-industrial era paved the way for economic and technological progress.

A team of Brown University scientists proposed a psychological model of three interrelated ways people reduce uncertainty in social situations.

New research shows how Cooper pairs — quasiparticles that make superconductivity possible — can also play an opposite role in an exotic type of insulating materials known as Cooper pair insulators.

Using a powerful X-ray imaging system, Brown University scientists found that catfish move joints throughout their head in a concerted manner to suck in their prey.

The stress-response master regulator is important for antibiotic resistance and the ability for bacteria to cause disease.

The biosphere that exists below Earth’s surface dwarfs the surface biome, and a new collaboration co-led by Jack Mustard will work to better understand what’s underground.

The grant will enable the digitization of the program’s peer-reviewed monograph series, providing increased access to unique, high-quality Judaic studies scholarship.

The results are the first part of a national study of whether a method to detect Alzheimer’s-related plaques improves the outcomes of patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

A new type of hydrogel material developed by Brown University researchers could soon make assembling complex microfluidic or soft robotic devices as simple as putting together a LEGO set.

This type of learning transfer opens the door for applying basic cognitive science research to help patients with vision loss.

Brown researchers are building understanding of the brain, restoring movement for patients with paralysis, unlocking the secrets of devastating diseases and devising new treatments to address brain-related disorders.

With an increased focus on unearthing novel data sources for analysis, Brown’s economics scholars are bringing new insights to complex problems and teaching the next generation of researchers and policymakers to do the same.

Learning at Brown is a collaborative, hands-on experience — one in which students often lead their own research projects or conduct research alongside their instructors.

Humanities scholars at Brown are energizing comparative work that informs a deeper understanding of the most challenging questions of global common concern.