News
Dietrich School Africana Studies Faculty Member Leads Conversation on Class, Gender and Fiction
Black History Month celebrations at Pitt kicked off with an event featuring Dietrich School Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Robin Brooks discussing her latest book, “Class Interruptions: Inequality and Division in African Diasporic Women’s Fiction.”
Brooks spent a year in Jamaica conducting research for the book, which Robert J. Patterson, chair and professor of Africana Studies at Georgetown University, described at the event as a “timely” and “fascinating” intervention between humanities and social sciences.
Statement from Dean Kathleen Blee
Offensive comments that target or disparage any ethnic, racial, religious or other underrepresented group are dangerous, hurtful and stand in direct opposition to the University’s values and the Dietrich School’s values. We remain committed to creating a safe and welcoming environment for all our students, faculty, and staff members and we know that the work of fostering a truly inclusive community must be ongoing.
Dietrich School Physicists Connect the Qubits to Build Quantum Computer
One day, quantum computers may overtake our current technology, harnessing the strange properties of quantum mechanics to crack codes and solve problems that are impossible for modern computers to tackle. It’s a distant dream, but one that a team of Dietrich School researchers are helping to bring closer to reality with a quantum computer that uses Lego-like components hooked together in a unique shape that’s more efficient than others that exist today.
In Recent "Nature Communications" Article, Dietrich School Biologists Show That Many Viruses Travel on Pollen
We rely on pollinators like honeybees to grow a wide array of the world's crops. But that same reliance may put plants at risk of disease, according to new Pitt research. In the first study to take a broad look at virus hitchhikers on pollen grains, Dietrich School biologists show that a variety of viruses travel on pollen — especially in areas close to agriculture and human development where honeybees dominate.
Dietrich School Associate Dean Named AAAS Fellow
Kay Brummond, associate dean of faculty and a professor of chemistry in the Dietrich School, is among four University of Pittsburgh faculty members named to the most recent class of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellows, one of the most distinct honors within the scientific community — and a historic one as well, dating to 1874.
Dietrich School Faculty Member Receives Grant to Study Korean Language Learning
Boo Kyung Jung, instructor of Korean in the Dietrich School's East Asian Languages and Literatures Department, has received a $21,000 grant from the Academy of Korean Studies to explore how students learn and use a unique, crucial, and complex aspect of Korean grammar -- honorifics -- terms that show respect when addressing an older person or someone of high status. Most languages use some honorifics, such as "sir" or "ma'am” in English, but in Korean they are essential.
Dietrich School Political Scientist Receives Fulbright Specialist Program Award
Scott Morgenstern, professor in the Dietrich School's Department of Political Science, has earned a Fulbright Specialist Program award. Morgenstern intends to complete his project in Spain at the Universidad de Salamanca.
Smithsonian Magazine Recognizes Dietrich School Historian's Book Among Best of 2021
Smithsonian Magazine has named history Dietrich School Associate Professor Keisha N. Blain’s new book, “Until I am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America” (Beacon Press, 2021), as one of the best history books published in 2021. The book is one of ten selected by the magazine.
Learn More About Spring 2022 Return to Campus
Learn more about how the University's Pittsburgh campus is re-opening for the Spring term.
Dietrich School Undergraduate Wins 2022 Marshall Scholarship
“Maja is a uniquely curious, focused and a compelling researcher and scholar,” said Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. “I am hardly surprised that she earned such a distinguished award, and I join the rest of the University of Pittsburgh community in celebrating this milestone and her continued success.”
Dietrich School Astronomers Among First to Have Access to New NASA Telescope
On December 22, NASA will launch into space the successor to its Hubble telescope, a highly sensitive and astronomically expensive tool capable of seeing objects that are farther and fainter than ever before. It’ll unfold its 21-foot mirror and in a few months will begin beaming down the first of many captivating images, along with data that will keep scientists busy for years to come. Four Dietrich School astronomers are among the researchers who have been granted highly sought-after time using the telescope in its first year in operation.
Dietrich School Faculty Member Selected as Finalist for Gordon Bell Special Prize in HPC-based COVID-19 Research
To better understand the coronavirus’s journey from one person to another, a team of 50 scientists has for the first time created an atomic simulation of the coronavirus nestled in a tiny airborne drop of water. This research was enabled by a software package developed by Dietrich School faculty member Lillian Chong, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry. Chong and her graduate student Anthony Bogetti were part of this work, and this effort has been selected as a Finalist for the 2021 Gordon Bell Special Prize in HPC-based COVID-19 research.
Dietrich School Science Revealed Public Lecture Series Presents, "Nothingness: So much to talk about!" December 2
Words like “nothingness” and “empty space” may seem like simple concepts, referring to the complete absence of content. But in practice, these concepts have been topics of ongoing debate with important implications for our understanding of the universe. This panel discussion and Q&A at this event, involving several leading Pitt experts as well as our distinguished visitor James Owen Weatherall (author of the popular book Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing), will reveal in publicly accessible terms some of the complications and interesting ideas that arise when we try to get a grip on…nothing. What is (or is not) really out there? What are its properties? What shape does it take? Join us to find out a lot about nothing!
Three Dietrich School Awardees to be Recognized at Annual Iris Marion Young Ceremony
Congratulations to this year's Iris Marion Young Awardees, including staffer Laura Nelson from the Dietrich School's Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (OUR), assistant professor Sarah Hainer from our Department of Biological Sciences, and Aparna Ramani, an undergraduate healthcare activist pursuing her bachelor’s degree with majors in Natural Sciences and Sociology as well as an MPH in Health Policy and Management in the Accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s degree program in the Graduate School of Public Health.
Women of Visions Exhibit Celebrates Black Women Artists
The Women of Visions: Celebrating 40 Years exhibit, presented by the Dietrich School's Department of History of Art and Architecture, runs through February 2022 in the University Art Gallery. Founded in 1981, Women of Visions is believed to be the longest-running collective of Black women artists in the United States. The 50 works in the exhibition span a range of media, from painting and sculpture to quilts and ceramics. Together, they attest to the powerful voices of Black women, and the unique identity of the WOV artists.