Even simple cell phone conversations can cause distracted driving. Researchers have found listening on the phone while driving creates a lag in the mind as it extracts itself from one task before fixing attention on another.

Fifty years ago, the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which many consider the greatest rock and roll album. UI faculty members Donna Parsons and Kembrew McLeod discuss the landmark work, one they both use in their courses.

UI alumni Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have been writing scripts and making films for years, even as students. They recently signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for what will be their biggest project yet.

Since the 1950s, the University of Iowa has given undergraduates the opportunity to work with top space scientists to build instruments that have travelled throughout our solar system and beyond. That hands-on experience has landed Hawkeyes jobs with NASA and prepared them for success in many other important industries.

A group of 26 students from seven high schools across Iowa got to study with faculty and graduate students in the UI’s Nonfiction Writing Program through the Lloyd-Jones Residency for Versatile Writing. “I thought this only happened in the movies,” said one participant after attending a graduate student reading.

UI earth and environmental sciences professor David Peate is participating in an international expedition to study how Earth’s continents and oceans evolved. The shipboard team is drilling cores in the seabed of the South China Sea, and some of those samples will come to Iowa for analysis.

UI graduates celebrated a series of commencements May 11–14. From the Carver College of Medicine to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Hawkeyes cheered and shed some tears at the closing of an important chapter in their lives. Read a recap and check out some photos of the festivities.

Trowbridge Hall has a new, permanent home for its meteorite collection. Professor Ingrid Ukstins worked with UI sophomore Zachary Luppen to organize the nearly 100 meteorites into a single exhibit. The collection includes a 110-pound chunk of the Tilden Meteorite, pieces of which landed in Tilden, Illinois, in 1927.

Sydney Hofferber is graduating from the UI equipped to help people get the care and assistance they need. The Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native is receiving a degree in health and human physiology and engaged social innovation, and she’s already designed a successful educational video about the value of breastfeeding.

“The Iowa Review,” one of the most respected literary magazines in the country, is bringing veterans’ work to a wider audience through the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans writing contest. The contest honors Jeff Sharlet, a Vietnam veteran, anti-war activist, and founder of “Vietnam GI.”

In her first year at the University of Iowa, Erin Maier took an astronomy class on a whim. Now, after receiving numerous grants and assembling a UI telescope in the Arizona desert, she’s graduating with a Bachelor of Science in physics and astronomy and will soon pursue a doctorate.

Mousa Abuissa first saw the UI campus when he was on a vacation with his parents and sister, who had traveled from Syria to visit his uncle in Iowa City. Nearly eight years later, and after also completing a BA in music, he’s receiving a Doctor of Pharmacy degree.