Humanities News

PHYSICS - A new design for eye and brain implants draws its inspiration from nature. UO researchers have grown rodent retinal neurons on a fractal-patterned electrode, one that mimics the repeating branching pattern in which neurons naturally grow.
THEATRE ARTS - Six years in the making, three powerful films by University of Oregon theater arts alumnus and award-winning documentary filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald raise awareness and shine stark light on the plight of their subjects. He calls the projects his “humanitarian trilogy.”
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - The Center for Environmental Futures at the University of Oregon is sponsoring this year's Eugene Environmental Film Festival, in partnership with the Emerald Earth Film Festival.
BIOLOGY - When Folake Owodunni came to the University of Oregon from Nigeria in 2005 to study premed, she knew she wanted to help people. Today, her international health technology company is poised to help people across Africa.
COMPUTER SCIENCE - Cybersecurity is a growing emphasis in the University of Oregon Department of Computer Science. Department faculty in the UO Center for Cyber Security and Privacy collaborate with colleagues from philosophy, law, business, and other areas to research—and help thwart—threats to internet traffic, cryptocurrency, social media networks, infrastructure security, and more.
MATHEMATICS - In November 1974, University of Oregon distance runner Steve Bence convinced the legendary Steve Prefontaine, his former teammate and close friend, to run in an outlandish event: the “Great Race.”
ECONOMICS - I start the hike with false urgency, excited after hours in the car. It is late fall and snowing, which I am not expecting. I watch the flakes melt into my clothes. “Cotton kills,” they say, because it won’t keep you warm when wet—but here I am, in jeans.
PHYSICS - Now that the NASA James Webb Space Telescope has reached its destination a million miles from Earth and begins beaming back images of the deepest parts of space this summer, Charity Woodrum, a 2018 University of Oregon alumna, will be among the first to pore over them, looking for clues to how our galaxy came to be.
Ten UO researchers and scholars whose work focuses on subjects including digital stewardship, pulmonary hypertension and literature in imperial China have received 2022 Faculty Research Awards.
POLITICAL SCIENCE, HISTORY - As the world scrambles to assess the ramifications of the invasion of Ukraine, UO experts are shedding light on the calculations of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the impact of the attack on Ukraine, Russia and the West.
HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY - A new app developed at the UO uses technology to help users quantify their time in nature and maximize the benefits.
LINGUISTICS - Many factors contribute to communication struggles between aging patients and their healthcare providers, and University of Oregon linguist Melissa Baese-Berk hopes to boil those difficulties down to their linguistic elements and improve communication in the health care setting.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - An environmental science class is using the UO’s sustainability dashboard to overcome a common problem with such topics: making a big, global issue like climate change relevant at the local level.
BIOLOGY - In lab experiments that followed Caenorhabditis elegans worms for many generations, sexual selection after sperm are released was a bigger driver of evolutionary change than sexual selection before mating. Researchers in the lab of UO biologist and Provost Patrick Phillips report their findings in a paper published Feb. 14 in PLOS Genetics.
COMPUTER SCIENCE - Assistant professor Ramakrishnan Durairajan has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation for his research into computer networks that use multiple cloud computing services.