Dietrich School professor awarded honors at 2026 Yeast Genetics Meeting
 
   
   
  Alumni of Graham Hatfull’s SEA-Phages Lab are still playing in the dirt even years after graduating. The SEA-Phages program, which stands for Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science program, is taught over the course of two semesters and was created by Hatfull under the Howard Hughes Medical Institute program.
 
  Pitt also ranked as one of the top schools for veterans, one of its only non-academic recognitions. John Christman, director of the Office for Veteran Services at Pitt, described the ranking as an “honor” to the Pitt military community.
 
  The Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory (PEEL) celebrated its grand reopening last week following substantial renovation. Led by PEEL Director Lise Vesterlund, the renovations allow Pitt to continue to lead as one of the preeminent experimental economics research universities in the country.
 
  The Dietrich School's Office of the Dean has been honored with the Pitt Green Office, Sapling designation by the University of Pittsburgh's Office of Sustainability.
 
  The macabre is all around us, monsters lurking in every corner, and not all of them are fictional. Just ask English and Film and Media Studies professor Adam Lowenstein.
Horror is the intersection of many areas of study, and Lowenstein aims to connect them all, which is why he has been working like the living dead for years, alongside numerous collaborators across Pitt and beyond, to establish a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary Horror Studies Center.
 
  A new, first-of-its-kind Horror Studies Center has just been launched at the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Adam Lowenstein, a professor in the Department of English and the Film and Media Studies Program, leads the project, with collaborators across the university and the world in support. The center consists of five pillars:
 
  Pitt’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology is only one hundred miles north of the University’s bustling Oakland campus, but for some it seems like a different world. Surrounded by quiet forest on the shore of a fishing lake that straddles the Pennsylvania-Ohio state line, Pitt students and researchers have enjoyed field and laboratory experiences here for generations. Known informally as PLE, the facility has space for large-scale research and ecosystems studies where students and researchers can get their hands on plants and animals in their natural environments.
 
  The Department of Mathematics at the Dietrich School hosted its second annual Girls Summer Math Camp last month.
 
  On a clear night in Pittsburgh, it can be hard to find more than a dozen stars. But Diane Turnshek, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has dedicated her career to changing that. A longtime advocate for reducing light pollution, Turnshek is working to restore the brilliance of the night sky: one community, one policy, and one story at a time.