When political parties stoke partisan conflicts – often by contesting formal state institutions, like systems for managing elections – actual democratic capacity may take a hit as public opinion polarizes.
Shaun Nichols, professor of philosophy and director of the cognitive science major in the College of Arts and Sciences, compares high-minded philosophical systems to the ways people approach everyday problems. Like picking wild blueberries.
Seven 2021 graduates and recent Cornell alumni accepted Fulbright U.S. Student awards to research, study or teach English during the 2021-22 academic year, 15 were chosen for 2022-23.
Cornell Chronicle
NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez
Artist conception of the James Webb Space Telescope
Professor Tao Leigh Goffe works at the intersection of environmental humanities, science, and technology. As a researcher, writer, and DJ, she is especially interested in histories of imperialism, migration, and globalization.
Nilay Yapici, Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences and assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior, investigates the mysterious brain-body connections that regulate eating behavior.
Rich social and cultural transformations came to the classical world in Late Antiquity, roughly 250 CE to 750 CE. Moving away from the paradigm of decline and fall, historians have taken a new look at the period, including the rise to prominence of Christianity.
<p><a href="https://africana.cornell.edu/noliwe-rooks">Noliwe M. Rooks</a>, t<span class="person__title">he W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature in </span>Africana Studies and the American Studies Program, knows that the lived experience can be the spark that leads to scientific insight and award-winning scholarly writing.</p>
<p><a href="https://physics.cornell.edu/thomas-hartman">Thomas Hartman</a>, assistant professor of physics, studies high-energy theoretical physics. His goal, he explains in this <a href="https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/exciting-mysterious-world-spacetime">article in Cornell Research</a>, is to bring to light the fundamental properties of nature, which derive from the subatomic world of quantum physics.</p>
<p>Goldwin Smith Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology <a href="https://research.cornell.edu/researchers/kelly-r-zamudio">Kelly R. Zamudio</a> studies amphibians, especially frogs, combining field work and observation of behavior with genetics and genomics to glimpse the genetic processes underlying species traits. Recently her lab has turned that expertise to studying two virulent fungi of the genus Batrachochytrium, commonly called chytrids, that affect frogs and salamanders.</p>
Justin J. Wilson, a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, is expanding on existing chemotherapeutic treatments by investigating the biomedical application potentials of other heavy transition metals, particularly compounds of the element rhenium, in order to develop a more targeted approach to halting cancerous cell division.
Cornell Research's newest enstallment of academician features takes a look at Astronomy research associate Thomas Nikola, and Developmental Sociology research assistant and lecturuer Sarah C Giroux. Both faculty incorporate active research studies in evolving fields into their teaching, bringing academic excellence to their fields.
Associate Professor of Psychology, David Smith's research aimed at understanding how the brain stores information has implications ranging from recognizing teachers in the grocery store to neurodegenerative diseases.
<p>The research of <a href="https://mbg.cornell.edu/people/charles-aquadro/">Charles Aquadro,</a> professor of molecular biology and genetics and director of the Cornell Center for Comparative and Population Genomics, is featured in <a href="https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/deploying-population-genetics">this Cornell Research story.</a></p><p>A population geneticist, Aquadro looks at changes in genetic variability in populations over time and space. </p>
<p><a href="https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/what-transparent-worm-can-reveal">This Cornell Research story</a> focuses on the work of <a href="https://mbg.cornell.edu/people/jun-liu/">Jun "Kelly" Liu</a>, professor of molecular biology and genetics, whose lab uses c. elegans nematodes to explore questions that improve the general understanding of developmental processes, stem cell biology and cellular reprogramming, and fundamental mechanisms involved in cell-cell signaling. </p>
As humans, we have an insatiable desire to understand the cosmos and our place in it. How did the universe begin and how did it evolve? What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy? How will it all end? “These are the most fundamental questions one can ask,” says Steve Kang Hoon Choi, Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow. “If we believe greater knowledge betters our lives, then this is what drives us to study the cosmos.”
<p>This <a href="http://bit.ly/2HZomt5">Cornell Research profile</a> explores the work of <a href="https://romancestudies.cornell.edu/edmundo-paz-soldan">Edmundo Paz-Soldán</a>, professor of Spanish literature in the Department of Romance Studies.</p><p>The story says that Paz-Soldán initially shied away from devoting his life to literature.</p>
<p>How do nations decide when to go to war? What are the rules that govern when it is permissible to resort to war under international law? This <a href="http://bit.ly/2H7zIdY">Cornell Research profile</a> of History Professor <a href="https://history.cornell.edu/isabel-virginia-hull">Isabel Hull </a>explores her research into situations when war has been deemed permissible, specifically at what history tells us—the period 1814 to 1914 and the criteria known as jus ad bellum.</p>
<p>Vivekinan L. Ashok, a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, is working with <a href="https://government.cornell.edu/peter-k-enns">Peter K. Enns</a>, associate professor of government, and other Cornell researchers, including <a href="https://government.cornell.edu/suzanne-mettler">Suzanne Mettler,</a>The John L.</p>
<p>This <a href="http://bit.ly/2IzECN1">Cornell Research story</a> focues on the work of Chih-chun Lin, Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the in the lab of <a href="https://mbg.cornell.edu/people/andrew-clark">Andrew G. Clark</a>, professor of molecular biology and genetics.</p>
<p>For many people, theater is pure entertainment, the chance to experience some great acting or to enjoy the glitz of an extravagant production. But beneath the surface, there is another aspect to the art, one that <a href="http://pma.cornell.edu/bruce-levitt">Bruce A. Levitt</a> and <a href="http://pma.cornell.edu/beth-frances-milles">Beth F. Milles</a>, professor and associate professor, respectively, in performing and media arts, address.</p>
<p>“The world we have is a world created by humans,” says<a href="http://africana.cornell.edu/n%E2%80%99dri-th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se-assi%C3%A9-lumumba"> N’Dri T. Assié-Lumumba</a>, professor of Africana Studies and Research. “So we have the capacity to create another world, to imagine that world, and to work toward it. That is the passion that guides my work.”</p>
The flight capabilities of insects are nature’s solution to locomotion in air, according to Z. Jane Wang, Physics, and there are general principles of locomotion and evolution we can learn from them.
<p>“Our relationships are a source of joy and comfort, but they also bring a lot of pain,” says <a href="http://www.psych.cornell.edu/people/faculty/zayas-profile/">Vivian Zayas,</a> associate professor of Psychology.</p>
The National Science Foundation awarded Cornell $9 million over five years to establish a neurotechnology hub, dedicated to developing new technologies for imagine the brain, then disseminating them to the wider neuroscience community.
<p>We don’t realize it, but forms are all around us—ordering our lives—says <a href="http://english.cornell.edu/caroline-levine">Caroline E.</a></p>
<p>This <a href="https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/critical-thinking-attained-through-physics">Cornell Research story</a> profiles the work of Natasha Holmes, assistant professor of physics, who studies the teaching and learning of physics, particularly in lab courses.</p>
“I write in books, not in individual poems,” says poet Lyrae N. Van Clief-Stefanon, English. “A group of poems that make up a book will have an over-arching through line, all these threads that I’m holding together.”
Climate change is a game changer: glaciers melt, sea levels rise, weather patterns become unpredictable. Garcia is exploring its impacts in her latest book project, "Climate Refugees: The Environmental Origins of Refugee Migrations," which looks at environmentally driven migrants.
