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Innovation

Dietrich School Faculty Member's Secret Pittsburgh Class Expands to Include Podcast

Pittsburgh skyline at dawn

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.

Dietrich School Team Will Play Key Role with NASA's Next Space Telescope

space telescope

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.

Dietrich School Biologist Shows Phage Attacks in New Light

Graham Hatfull looking at a test tube in a laboratory

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.