News

Dietrich School Faculty Member Among Mentoring Honorees
Daniel Shaw, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology, is among the recipients of the 2023 Provost's Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring.

Dietrich School Biologist Shows Phage Attacks in New Light
As antibacterial resistance continues to render obsolete the use of some antibiotics, some have turned to bacteria-killing viruses--bacteriophages, or phages, for short--to treat acute infections as well as some chronic illnesses. Graham Hatfull, the Eberly Family Professor of Biotechnology in the Dietrich School, has just discovered how a specific mutation in a bacterium results in phage resistance. The results were published February 23, in the journal Nature Microbiology.

Dietrich School Faculty Among Recipients of Momentum Funds
Pitt Momentum Funds offer internal funding to faculty across the University to support high-quality research and creative endeavors. The funds aim to increase interdisciplinary collaboration and spur new connections among scholars and scientists, enabling them to broaden and deepen their impact on society.

Dietrich School Faculty Member Wins Renaissance Society of America Digital Innovation Award
Adam Shear, associate professor in, and department chair of, the Dietrich School's Department of Religious Studies, worked on a project that won a Digital Innovation Award from the Renaissance Society of America (RSA).

Dietrich School Faculty Member Discusses Finding the Fun in Writing Again
Angie Cruz, an associate professor in the Dietrich School's Department of English, is a novelist and editor. Her most recent novel, How Not To Drown in A Glass of Water (2022) was listed among the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2022. Learn more about her life and work in this recent interview with Mira Jacobs on "Thresholds."

Dietrich School Astronomer Part of Team Uncovering New Details in Pandora’s Cluster
A team of astronomers, led by Dietrich School faculty member Rachel Bezanson, has revealed the latest deep field image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, featuring never-before-seen details in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744).

Dietrich School Faculty Member Wins Levenson Prize
Ruth Mostern, Director of the World History Center and Professor in the Dietrich School's Department of History, is the recipient of the Association for Asian Studies' Joseph Levenson Prize for her 2022 book The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History, published by Yale University Press. The Levenson Prize, awarded to Mostern in the in the pre-1900 category, recognizes “the English-language books that make the greatest contribution to increasing understanding of the history, culture, society, politics, or economy of China.”

Dietrich School Students, Alumni Among Pitt's 2022-23 Fulbright Scholars
The University of Pittsburgh has been named a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for U.S. Students for the 2022-23 academic year by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Among this year's recipients are several from the Dietrich School.

Two Dietrich School Faculty Members Among Diversity in Curriculum Awardees
Dietrich School faculty members Megan Kappel and Olga Klimova were recently honored with the 2022 Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum. The award formally recognizes faculty’s efforts in integrating equity, diversity and inclusion concepts into their courses and curricula.

Dietrich School Africana Studies Department Launches New PhD Program
When the Dietrich School's 50-year-old Department of Africana Studies accepts its first graduate-level cohort this year, it will join such prestigious peer institutions as the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Berkeley, Emory and Northwestern universities in offering Ph.D.s focused on advanced Black studies.

Dietrich School Physicists Investigate Light Vortices in New Paper
Plasmonic vortices, which may have a role in formation of the structure of the universe, are the subject of an invited perspective published January 6 by Dietrich School physicists in the journal ACS Photonics. Led by Atreyie Ghosh, a graduate student in Professor Hrvoje Petek’s Laboratory of Ultrafast Dynamics, the paper looks at the current state of research and suggests a way to move forward and enhance the field’s understanding of fundamental physics of light.

Eight Dietrich School Students Named Humanities Center Fellows
Eight Dietrich School students were named Humanities Center undergraduate research fellows. The class of 2023-24 includes scholars in majors from classics to neuroscience. The Humanities Center fellowship consists of a spring seminar, when students will develop a research project; a summer research experience funded by a $5,000 stipend; and a second fall seminar, in which fellows craft their research outcome. Each fellow is also connected to a mentor with experience in their field of inquiry.

A Message from the Vice Provost for Student Affairs
The past few weeks have weighed heavily on the hearts and minds of many of us, particularly those in our API, Black, and other marginalized communities. Our social media and news feeds, inboxes, mobile devices, and televisions have been inundated with breaking news full of commentary and images of human violence. As of today, there have been more mass shootings in America so far this year than in any previous year.

Dietrich School Faculty Member, Students Collaborate on Book
Language Science Press has published a book that resulted from a collaboration between Shelome Gooden, professor in the Department of Linguistics, and a group of Pitt students. Gooden is also assistant vice chancellor for research in the humanities, arts, social sciences and related fields.

"Science Revealed" Program, February 6, Tackles Environmental Contaminants
In "Reaping What We Spill, Leak and Spew," our expert panelists from various schools at the University of Pittsburgh will discuss how researchers can measure levels of contaminants in the environment, how they can determine the health effects that result, and how these factors are or can be affected by policy and regulations. RSVP required--visit as.pitt.edu/sciencerevealed.