Tag: research


Center for Youth Development and Intervention Sets the Standard for Community-Engaged Research

Members of the CYDI in front of their office.

From the September 2021 Desktop News | Over the past several years, the Center for Youth Development and Intervention (CYDI) has become an example on UA’s campus of successful community engagement. Through community-based research, scholars at the center hope to improve life for those around them and throughout the world. “One in five children and adolescents in the US need mental health services,” said Dr. Susan White, psychology professor and Director of the CYDI. “In fact, most mental health disorders […]

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UA Professor Uses NSF Grant to Explore Evolution and Facilitate Diversity

Three students working on computers

From the September 2021 Desktop News | Dr. Alberto Pérez-Huerta, a professor of geological sciences at The University of Alabama, hopes to change the way people think of geology’s role in the emergence of life on Earth. In July 2020, Pérez-Huerta received an EAGER grant from the National Science Foundation to help him not only make that happen, but to bring Stillman College students with him along the way. Pérez-Huerta’s research focuses on the hypothesis that the biomolecules that eventually […]

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UA Researcher Publishes Article in “Nature Scientific Reports”

A woman crosses through a rainforest on a rope bridge

From the February 2021 Desktop News | In the Amazon rainforest, the Brazil nut tree is an invaluable resource. Towering over their harvesters’ homes at over 160 feet tall, the tree produces fruit that contains the famous Brazil nut, which economically sustains the thousands of people who live there. But the Brazil nut tree’s yield varies from year to year–sometimes it’s bountiful and sustains the harvesters financially, but sometimes, the trees don’t provide a single fruit. UA biology professor Christina […]

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UA Professor Receives Prestigious Grant to Create Digital Dance Archive

Rebecca Salzer

From the February 2021 Desktop News | Dance is one of the most challenging art forms to teach because there is no widely-used form of notation, no scripts to read or music to transcribe. Instead, dance technique and choreography are most often passed down orally, from teacher to student, making it difficult to share with those outside this chain. While the invention of film, then video, and now digital recording has created an alternative means of sharing dance, public access […]

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Physics Graduate Student Selected for Prestigious Department of Energy Program

From the October 2020 Desktop News | Casey Cartwright, a PhD candidate in physics at UA, was selected as one of 52 national awardees of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research program. This program allows graduate students in science, math, engineering, and technology to conduct research in one of the DOE laboratories. Here, students have the opportunity to use state-of-the-art resources and collaborate with esteemed scientists to further their knowledge in their field. Cartwright, whose research […]

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Professor Receives NSF Grant for Archaeological Work in Maya Settlements

Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine, an assistant professor in UA’s Department of Anthropology, was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his archaeological project exploring the cultural and societal changes surrounding the shifting political and cultural allegiances of an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. The $143,000 grant will help Tokovinine and his colleagues excavate La Sufricaya, an ancient Mayan archaeological site that was a suburb of Holmul, the largest city in the region at the time. Like most ancient […]

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Exploring the Worlds of Work: Researchers Help Shape Career Fair for Eighth Graders

West Alabama Works logo

From the October 2020 Desktop News | Two Arts and Sciences researchers are working to study the future of West Alabama’s workforce through Worlds of Work, an event which helps eighth grade students in the area to explore different work fields, careers, and technical training programs through their schools. Dr. Joan Barth, a senior research social scientist in the Institute for Social Science Research, and Dr. Pamela Young, Director of Community Engagement and Economic Development, partnered with the West Alabama […]

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A&S Grad Assisting With Saliva-Based COVID-19 Test

Anne working in the lab

From the October 2020 Desktop News | When Anne Watkins started her master’s of public health at Yale University, she never thought she’d work with any sort of sports team, let alone a whole league. Now, she and her colleagues are partnered with the National Basketball Association to create a new COVID-19 testing procedure that she hopes will make testing more accessible and affordable for all communities. Watkins, a 2019 graduate of UA’s Department of Biological Sciences, is working in […]

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Making a Polar Impact

A student standing in front of an iceburg.

From the September 2020 Desktop News | Asmara Lehrmann is deeply connected to all sides of her identity. A PhD student in geology at The University of Alabama with a passion for paleontology and climate change, her geologist father and Indonesian-immigrant mother both influenced the path she’s on today. “My mother’s family lives in Jakarta, which is a city on the coast that’s actually subsiding,” Lehrmann said. “The city is literally sinking, the sea level is rising, and I would […]

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