Research

When Alaina Roberts, associate professor in the Dietrich School's Department of History, was a sophomore at University of California, Santa Barbara, a professor’s assignment on race and creating a family tree sent her on a quest that ultimately resulted in, “I’ve Been Here All the While,” a book that has been described as a “lovingly personal narrative” by the Journal of Southern History and “a well-timed and welcome read [that is] hard to put down” by the Journal of African American Studies.

Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences alumnus, Zhen Liu has received the 2024 Sloan Research Fellowship. Zhen graduated from Pitt in 2015 with his PhD. There are 126 researchers who are awarded this fellowship each year. It includes a 2-year $75,000 fellowship to advance research. Liu is now an assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota.

Fernando Tormos-Aponte, an associate professor of Sociology in the Dietrich School had his research on the growth of science advocacy, specifically with climate change, referenced in a recent Nature article.

You can read the article here.

He and his colleagues work was also reported in Scientific American in 2020.

Lorraine Blatt, a Graduate Student Researcher with the University’s Psychology Department was recently published in the American Academy of Pediatrics for her study on structural racism. Blatt used Allegheny County as her research grounds to see how structural racism leads to fewer opportunities for children today. The study explored how these systems of racism often lead to higher accounts of poverty, poor healthcare, and fewer resources for education as well as other detrimental outcomes.