For the past 50 field seasons, researchers from the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences have collected valuable data on sharks off the North Carolina coast. The survey — among the oldest of its kind in the U.S. — has lasted for decades due to the dedication of UNC researchers, staff, and students.
Nearly 4 million sports- and recreation-related concussions happen each year. About 300,000 of those occur in football. For a long time, such data didn’t exist because these injuries weren’t understood or taken seriously. Decades before he became UNC’s chancellor, neuroscientist Kevin Guskiewicz strived to create the playbook for preventing and treating concussions — and changed the game forever.
Cynthia Fraga Rizo is an associate professor within the UNC School of Social Work. She researches intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, and human trafficking to prevent such acts and provide survivors with effective services and interventions.
Dain Ruiz is a rising sophomore majoring in biology and a Chancellor’s Science Scholar within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He studies expansion disorders caused by repetitions in DNA — like Huntington’s Disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, and Myotonic Dystrophy — to develop therapeutics to treat them.
Christina Rudosky is a teaching assistant professor of French in the Department of Romance Studies within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies surrealism and why objects were coveted, collected, and brought to life through writing and art during this 20th-century avant-garde movement.
Julian Rucker is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences and a fellow in the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity. He studies beliefs about structural racism, perceptions of societal racial inequality, and motivations to rectify racial disparities.
Kimberly Burnett is a PhD student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. She studies the role of gospel music in African American literature and its relationship to depictions of Black womanhood.
Zardas Lee is a PhD student in the Department of History within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. They explore how people from small colonies in South and Southeast Asia pursued dreams of freedom and independence in the 1940s and ’50s while empires and superpowers dominated the world order.
Kay Youngstrom is a sophomore and Chancellor’s Science Scholar double-majoring in chemistry and statistics and analytics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. Through an internship with Med Aditus, she uses data analysis to address which of the company’s drugs are most accessible and least susceptible to counterfeits in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Sing Wai Wong is a third-year periodontology resident in the UNC Adams School of Dentistry. He studies how autophagy — the process by which the body cleans out damaged cells to regenerate new, healthy cells — affects bone loss in the mouth.