Innovation

Gurudev Dutt, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences has received a $2M grant from the Templeton Foundation and $470K from the Sloan Foundation to better understand the fundamental nature of gravity.

Elise Lonich Ryan, a faculty member in the Dietrich School's Department of English, has expanded her popular "Secrets of Pittsburgh" class to include a podcast.

The Secret Pittsburgh class combines reading with exploring the landscape and communities where local events took place and locally famous people grew up, from August Wilson’s Hill District to the Carrie Blast Furnaces, from Rodef Shalom’s Biblical Botanical Garden to the three rivers. In the earlier years of the class, students created their own guidebook. Now the guidebook is taking the shape of a podcast.

Pitt people helped get the Hubble telescope into space. We were among the first to use the James Webb Space Telescope when it launched in 2021. Now, four Dietrich School researchers will play an integral role in developing the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, which aims to better understand the nature of dark energy and of the dark matter that shapes the structures we see in it.

Sophia Choukas-Bradley, assistant professor in the Dietrich School's Department of Psychology, served on an American Psychological Association presidential panel that created the first advisory of its kind for adolescent social media use.