Growing up, Quad Cities native Aundrea Watkins bounced between almost a dozen different homes between the ages of 3 and 18. School was her "sanctuary and true stability." The University of Iowa elementary education major is graduating this December and plans to become a teacher to help other students succeed.

There are far more women than men in theater audiences and theater degree programs. Yet men's roles outnumber women's by half, and men write most of the plays that get produced. The UI is collaborating with other Big Ten schools on a program that will support female playwrights and provide female actors with strong roles.

Visitors to the University of Iowa campus will soon be able to enjoy free guest wireless service without having to track down a guest ID to log in, courtesy of a partnership between Information Technology Services (ITS) and AT&T.

"Iowa Now," the University of Iowa's central news and storytelling platform, will publish on a lighter schedule Dec. 23-Jan. 3.

Eliot Shearer used advances in DNA sequencing to develop a single test to screen for all known deafness-causing genes, making diagnostic testing more cost-effective. Shearer is the 2013 Montgomery Dissertation Prize winner in biomedical and health sciences.

A new study by a University of Iowa researcher has found that the tone of a governor’s state of the state address has an immediate impact on the stock prices of firms based in that state, and in those firms' later investment behavior.

A campus construction boom. The threat of an Iowa River flood. New initiatives to support students, and notable awards and appointments. Research findings and creative work that captured the public imagination. Highlights from a big year in the life of the University of Iowa.

The numbers, of course, tell only part of the story. But by just about any measure—research funding and donations, enrollment and employment, economic activity in the form of tech transfer—the University of Iowa is wrapping up a strong year.

Some moments you can't miss, but others might slip by unnoticed. University of Iowa photographers caught thousands of moments, big and small, during 2013.

Two University of Iowa faculty members, Matthew Nonnenmann and Dan Shane, have been awarded 2014 College of Public Health New Faculty Research Awards. Their research projects will investigate flu transmission and use of emergency departments.

University of Iowa alumna Melissa Moreton's research documents an exhaustive list of manuscripts produced by Italian Renaissance nuns, finding that the women were surprisingly connected to the humanist revival of the arts and scholarship of the time. Moreton is the 2013 Spriestersbach Prize winner in the humanities and fine arts.

UI’s art collection over the past few years has been seen by more eyes annually than it ever was when housed in the now largely empty building along the Iowa River.