News from Brown

Arts and Humanities

What to expect from the Brown Arts Institute in 2021-22 and beyond

July 29, 2021

Leaders at the Brown Arts Institute, which transitioned from the Brown Arts Initiative in July, are planning for a return to in-person performances, exhibitions, film screenings and more.

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Featured Headlines

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Science and Technology

Brown physicist, Ph.D. student launch mentoring program for underrepresented students

August 2, 2021

Working with the National Society of Black Physicists and the Harlem Gallery of Science, Brown physicist Stephon Alexander with the help of Ph.D. student Farrah Simpson launched the ‘Dream+Inspire: Mentoring Future Leaders’ program.

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News and Events

Medal for Bears softball great highlights Brown student, alumni athletes in Summer Olympics

July 29, 2021

Class of 2016 graduate Janet Leung earned bronze with Team Canada in women’s softball, while five other Brown Bears are competing in track and field, swimming and rowing events.

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Student Life

Sarah Zylberfuden: Making connections in canine cognition

July 28, 2021

With dogs important contributors in everything from rescue operations to assisting people with disabilities, the rising senior is spending her summer in a Brown laboratory researching the reasoning abilities of man’s best friend.

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Social Sciences

$3.4 million NIH grant to bolster population science at Brown

July 28, 2021

A five-year award from the National Institutes of Health will advance research at the Population Studies and Training Center, which confronts health inequities, economic divides and other major societal problems.

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Recent Highlights

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Social Sciences

Education expert joins $2 million grant project to transform high school civics

July 28, 2021

An education policy expert at Brown is part of a research team that will boost high school civics lessons by connecting students directly with members of Congress.

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Arts and Humanities

With new awards, humanities, social sciences faculty to advance scholarship on freedom, sexuality

July 26, 2021

Prestigious awards from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars will allow assistant professors Elena Shih and Emily Owens to finish book projects on contemporary sex trafficking, and enslaved women in antebellum New Orleans.

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News and Events

Brown acquires residential building to offer affordable, high-quality housing for 270 graduate students

July 22, 2021

The University will transition River House, home to a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in the Jewelry District, to affordable, safe, campus-accessible housing for graduate students.

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Student Life

Whitney Terrill: Aligning personal insurance with collective good

July 21, 2021

As a member of B-Lab — the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship’s summer startup accelerator — Terrill is developing the Reem Company, an insurance carrier that benefits the greater good, as outlined by her Islamic faith.

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Science and Technology

Leading xenon researchers unite to build next-generation dark matter detector

July 19, 2021

Even as two powerful dark matter detectors are set to switch on later this year, scientists including a Brown professor are already planning a new experiment aimed at mysterious dark matter particles.

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News and Events

Rodney Chatman named Brown’s vice president for campus safety

July 20, 2021

An accomplished leader with decades of law enforcement experience in municipal and higher education settings, Chatman will direct Brown’s Department of Public Safety and oversee campus-wide safety efforts.

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News and Events

Letter from President Paxson: In support of Brown’s DACA community

July 21, 2021

President Christina H. Paxson wrote to the campus community about the University's unwavering support for students and employees who benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

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Environment

Brown environmental expert testifies on equity in renewable energy before U.S. House committee

July 16, 2021

Myles Lennon, an assistant professor of environment and society and anthropology, urged members of Congress to support renewable energy research and innovation that could aid and protect marginalized communities in the U.S.

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News and Events

For second consecutive year, First Readings will examine Brown’s historical ties to the slave trade

July 15, 2021

Incoming undergraduates in the Class of 2025 will read a digitized version of the pioneering Slavery and Justice Report, the selected text for the First Readings program for the second year.

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Arts and Humanities

Halle Bryant: Indexing Rhode Island’s Indigenous history

July 14, 2021

The Class of 2021 graduate is working with Rhode Island’s Tomaquag Museum to index 1930s issues of a Native American magazine that sheds light on the lives of Indigenous people in New England and beyond.

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Student Life

Pre-college programs at Brown offer high school students the chance to learn on campus or online

July 8, 2021

The first in-person [email protected] sessions since COVID-19’s arrival are welcoming nearly 800 high school students to campus this summer, while many others participate virtually from across the globe.

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Science and Technology

Initiative to expand Ph.D. student diversity in STEM graduate programs has lasting positive effects

July 8, 2021

A study that looked at 10-year outcomes of the Initiative to Maximize Student Development showed that it increased diversity within academic programs and prepared underrepresented students for successful careers in STEM.

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News and Events

Brown’s on-campus students, employees achieve 90% COVID-19 vaccination

July 8, 2021

Near-universal vaccination among community members on campus is enabling reduced mask requirements, removal of vaccinated individuals from routine COVID-19 testing and expanded in-person operations.

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Arts and Humanities

Jeremy Chan: Gamifying the scramble for Africa

July 7, 2021

As a teaching assistant in the history course African Experiences of Empire, Chan is designing board games that deepen students’ knowledge of everyday life in sub-Saharan Africa as European powers were seizing control.

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News and Events

Brown professor and associate provost to receive IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award

July 8, 2021

For his innovative teaching and support for students, engineering professor and associate provost Chris Rose will receive the 2022 Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

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Student Life

Justin Li: Keeping Pride alive in Providence during a challenging year

June 30, 2021

Brown-RISD dual degree student Justin Li led efforts to revive Pride Month activities in Rhode Island this year after challenges related to COVID-19 threatened to cancel the longstanding tradition.

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Health and Medicine

Brown to fund four biomedical technologies with potential for patient benefit, commercial viability

July 6, 2021

Now in its third funding cycle, Brown Biomedical Innovations to Impact will award four faculty projects to accelerate promising medical solutions into commercial technologies.

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Science and Technology

Grant will support gravity research that could update Einstein’s theory of gravity

June 30, 2021

With a $1 million grant from the Simons Foundation, Brown physicist Stephon Alexander will look to expand Einstein’s theory of gravity to explain cosmic mysteries like dark matter and black hole singularities.

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News and Events

Accomplished higher ed leader Sylvia Carey-Butler to lead institutional equity and diversity at Brown

June 24, 2021

Currently the chief diversity officer for Kennesaw State, Carey-Butler will lead the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, overseeing Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan implementation, Title IX and gender equity, and more.

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News and Events

Brown joins second legal brief to urge continued practical training for international students

June 23, 2021

The future of Optional Practical Training, a long-standing federal program that enables temporary employment for international students at American colleges and universities, is at stake in a U.S. Court of Appeals case.

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News and Events

Values should guide leadership, decision-making in crisis, Paxson says in Chronicle discussion

June 21, 2021

Brown President Christina H. Paxson discussed leadership and innovation in a virtual Chronicle of Higher Education event focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Black racism and threats to democracy in 2020-21.

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University Initiatives

For Health Services at Brown, pandemic has brought 15 months of COVID response and innovation

June 17, 2021

Working with departments across the University, Brown’s student-facing health care providers developed innovative ways to provide COVID-19 care while protecting the broader community from the infectious disease.

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Social Sciences

Driven to create policies for a post-pandemic world, Brown’s largest-ever MPA cohort arrives

June 16, 2021

The Watson Institute’s one-year master of public affairs program saw a 58% increase in new students in 2021, due in large part to policy issues laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The University responds to COVID-19

In true testament to the University’s mission to serve the community, the nation and the world, Brown students, faculty and staff are addressing the COVID-19 pandemic on multiple fronts. Explore new research, community impact initiatives, expert perspectives and more.

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Research News

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Health and Medicine

Study shows how U.S. immigration policy can have domestic health effects

July 30, 2021

Researchers designed an innovative way to measure the impact of the 2017 executive order suspending travel from seven Muslim-majority countries on the health of U.S. residents from those nations.

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Health and Medicine

New guidelines intended to help health providers prevent gun injuries and deaths

July 26, 2021

A team of clinicians, researchers and educators, including Brown physician-scientist Dr. Megan Ranney, established new guidelines on educating health care professionals about how to help prevent firearm injuries.

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Science and Technology

New data science platform speeds up Python queries

July 1, 2021

Data queries written in Python, a commonly used programming language, can grind data analytics platforms to a crawl, but a new platform developed by researchers from Brown and MIT may finally solve the Python efficiency problem.

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Social Sciences

Political ‘couples therapy’ could heal a divided America, study finds

July 1, 2021

People were less politically polarized after taking part in workshops modeled on the principles of couples therapy, showed a study conducted by a political scientist at Brown, the nonprofit Braver Angels and other researchers.

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Social Sciences

Partisanship guided Americans’ personal safety decisions early in the pandemic, study finds

June 22, 2021

Results from a new study show that many Americans remain fiercely loyal to their like-minded communities, even when their health is on the line — an important lesson for future pandemics.

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Science and Technology

Brown professor wins prestigious computing award named for his late predecessor

June 15, 2021

Eli Upfal, a professor of computer science, is the winner of this year’s ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award, which is named for a beloved Brown professor who died in 1995.

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Health and Medicine

Deaths of assisted living residents spiked during COVID-19 pandemic, study reveals

June 14, 2021

A new study led by Brown researchers shows the crucial need for specific attention to be paid to assisted living residences in response to pandemics and other emergencies.

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Science and Technology

New model accounts for the effect of behavior changes to predict COVID-19 cases

June 10, 2021

A new infectious disease model that accounts for people’s ‘level of caution’ or ‘sense of safety’ accurately captures surges and declines in COVID-19 cases since March 2020 — and could help predict how the pandemic will eventually end.

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Health and Medicine

The Hassenfeld Study shows how a mother’s data can help countless children

June 10, 2021

A long-term study of mothers and babies, run by the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute, engages Rhode Island families in research that has the ability to make an outsize impact on children’s health.

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Health and Medicine

Top-rated Medicare Advantage plans perform worse for minority, low-income enrollees, study finds

June 11, 2021

A new analysis by researchers at Brown University shows the association of Medicare Advantage star ratings with racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in quality of care.

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Social Sciences

With more two-way dialogue, school board meetings could draw more diverse audiences, study finds

May 24, 2021

A study shows that giving the public more opportunities to converse with school board leaders could increase civic engagement and lead to more public trust in officials — especially among low-income groups and people of color.

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Science and Technology

New algorithm could help enable next-generation deep brain stimulation devices

June 1, 2021

Brown University researchers have developed a technique that could allow deep brain stimulation devices to sense activity in the brain and adjust stimulation accordingly.

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Science and Technology

Study of past South Asian monsoons suggests stronger monsoon rainfall in the future

June 4, 2021

New research finds that increases in monsoon rainfall over the past million years were linked with increases in atmospheric CO2 and the import of moisture from the southern hemisphere, which suggests stronger rains in the future as CO2 levels rise.

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Science and Technology

Scientific computing technology should benefit all, Brown researcher tells Congress

May 19, 2021

Speaking before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee, computer scientist Seny Kamara urged lawmakers to make sure computing technology benefits society at large, not just a privileged few.

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Health and Medicine

Rare blood clots more likely after COVID-19 infection than from vaccine, report finds

May 14, 2021

An analysis led by Brown University neurologist Dr. Karen L. Furie in partnership with the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, put the post-vaccine risk of CVST in perspective.

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Health and Medicine

Making mindfulness meditation more helpful starts with understanding how it can be harmful

May 18, 2021

A study led by Willoughby Britton, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown, shows the importance of defining and measuring the adverse effects of mindfulness.

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Science and Technology

Researchers use ‘hole-y’ math and machine learning to study cellular self-assembly

May 18, 2021

A new study shows that mathematical topology can reveal how human cells organize into complex spatial patterns, helping to categorize them by the formation of branched and clustered structures.

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Health and Medicine

Brain-computer interface creates text on screen by decoding brain signals associated with handwriting

May 12, 2021

Using a brain-computer interface, a clinical trial participant was able to create text on a computer at a rate of 90 characters per minute just by thinking about the movements involved in writing by hand.

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Social Sciences

Politically polarized brains share an intolerance of uncertainty

May 13, 2021

A new study on political polarization led by a Brown University team showed how an aversion to uncertainty is often associated with black-and-white political views.

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Science and Technology

NASA to launch new Brown student satellite

April 21, 2021

NASA has agreed to provide space on a future rocket launch for a new satellite designed and built by Brown University students to test the performance of next-generation solar cells in space.

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Science and Technology

‘Molecular glue’ makes perovskite solar cells dramatically more reliable over time

May 6, 2021

In a study that could help to bring inexpensive, efficient perovskite solar cells one step closer to commercial use, researchers found a way to strengthen a key weak point in the cells, dramatically increasing their functional life.

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Science and Technology

Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life beneath its surface, study finds

April 22, 2021

New research suggests that rocks in the Martian crust could produce the same kind of chemical energy that supports microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface.

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Science and Technology

What a glacial river reveals about the Greenland ice sheet

April 5, 2021

New research shows that water pressure beneath a glacier influences how fast it flows, a finding that could help in predicting the pace at which glaciers slide into the ocean and drive sea level upward.

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Science and Technology

How Brown neuroscientists are using CRISPR to accelerate brain research — and more

April 22, 2021

Brown University neuroscientist Kate O’Connor-Giles discusses how the revolutionary gene editing technology can help reveal secrets of the brain’s function and role in disease.

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Brown in the News

Boston Globe

From the depths of addiction, to helping others in recovery

July 28, 2021

Women's Health

Inside the manipulative world of social media's false COVID vaccine narratives

July 26, 2021

CBS News

Cuba protests continue; U.S. imposes new sanctions on Cuban officials

July 24, 2021

USA TODAY

Are you addicted to food porn? Your online obsession explained.

July 23, 2021

Highlighting Brown’s Distinction

University Initiatives

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in entrepreneurship

July 18, 2019

Offering courses, programs and support to students at every stage of the entrepreneurial process, the Nelson Center has become a nexus for entrepreneurship at Brown in just three years since launch.

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Social Sciences

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in international and public affairs

July 18, 2019

Brown’s scholars in international and public affairs are addressing inequality, convening conversations that move the needle on tough issues and connecting students with practitioners on the ground.

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Science and Technology

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in energy and environmental engineering

July 18, 2019

Researchers in Brown’s School of Engineering are developing next-generation renewable energy technologies, advancing energy efficiency in computing and finding new ways to detect and clean contaminants in the environment.

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Arts and Humanities

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in the arts

July 18, 2019

The University is advancing its reputation for excellence in the arts by forming new partnerships with artists and scholars and making major new investments in programming and facilities.

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Health and Medicine

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in brain science

January 10, 2019

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.

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Social Sciences

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in economics

January 10, 2019

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.

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News and Events

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in educational innovation

January 10, 2019

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.

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Arts and Humanities

Highlighting Brown’s distinction in the humanities

January 10, 2019

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

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