Briante Najev, a first-year graduate student in Department of Biology at the University of Iowa, has won an award to create outreach activities explaining climate issues. She will lead a climate-oriented activity, called EcoStax, for populations primarily in Muscatine and Davenport.

James Shepherd, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been selected to receive $750,000 in funding as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Early Career Research Program. Shepherd will use the funding to advance the field of finite-temperature electronic structure theory.

Kristine L. Munoz, a professor in the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and communication studies, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to Colombia for the 2020-21 academic year. Munoz is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research, or provide expertise abroad for the 2020-2021 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

Philip Kaaret, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of an international team that has observed a black hole, located in the Milky Way galaxy, hurling hot material into space at close to the speed of light. The findings are reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez is playing a prominent role in bringing to light the work and legacy of women writers during Spain's "Golden Age," a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. The associate professor of Spanish literature in the University of Iowa Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and interim chair of the Department of French and Italian...

Assistant Professor Christopher-Rasheem McMillan of the Departments of Dance and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, has been appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. McMillan's Yale project will take two interdependent approaches: completion of a book titled Performance Criticism: Scripture, Sex, and the Sacred, and an evening-length performance called Sacred/...

The National Science Foundation announced that University of Iowa Computer Science researcher Zubair Shafiq is part of a team receiving a $10 million grant. The grant is part of NSF's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which supports cybersecurity research. Shafiq's team's project is titled "ProperData: Protecting Personal Data Flow on the Internet."

Christopher Harris has been named a 2020–2021 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, joining an impressive class whose work will span the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts. Harris is head of Film and Video Production in the Department of Cinematic Arts. For his Radcliffe project, Harris will continue researching, writing, and re-photographing...

Two University of Iowa physicists are helping chart the future for fusion energy and plasma science in the United States. Scott Baalrud, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Fred Skiff, chair and professor, are outlining a 10-year vision for fusion energy.

A $115 million space mission awarded by NASA to the University of Iowa can now proceed in earnest. Called TRACERS, it will study interactions between the sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields. NASA also approved an extra $7.6 million for a magnetic field instrument to be designed and built at Iowa.

David Thayer, longtime UI design and performing arts faculty member, was a true visionary who dedicated his career to the creation of innovative work, exploring the possibilities of lighting design and mentoring countless artists – always with incredible fidelity, always with tremendous heart.

Inside homes across the country and around the world, friends and family of more than 5,400 graduates celebrated a historic virtual commencement for the University of Iowa class of 2020.