Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, who earned her MFA in playwriting at Iowa, was named one of two winners of an international playwriting competition.

The University of Iowa is leading a movement to change the way science is taught at K–12 schools statewide. With funding from the National Science Foundation, educators at the UI are revising the science curriculum and recruiting and training teachers to better educate Iowa children in the sciences.

The Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities is working with Mason City on roughly 20 projects throughout the community, ranging from updating the comprehensive plan to designing murals to developing an aging-in-place campaign. Several UI groups are focused exclusively on the North End, aiming to improve residents’ quality of life.

The Richard E. Kerber HeartSafe Initiative aims to train University of Iowa faculty and staff working in non-medical buildings in CPR and the use of AEDs. The initiative also will increase the number and visibility of AEDs on campus.

The search committee in charge of seeking the next vice president for research and economic development at the University of Iowa has been constituted. The committee is expected to begin its search this summer.

The UI will continue to participate in the MidAmerican Energy Company energy curtailment program and receive payment for reducing electricity demand, but all electrical offsets will be made by increasing on-campus electrical generation rather than reducing air conditioning in UI campus buildings.

University of Iowa alumna Jennifer Croft was named a recipient of the Man Booker International Prize for works of translated fiction on May 22 for her English-language translation of Flights, by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. Croft received an MFA in literary translation from the UI in 2003.

A new University of Iowa–led study reports educational opportunities and higher incomes may be key to closing the health gap between most black and white Americans. Researchers say socioeconomic factors, mainly wealth and education, influenced the differences in health behaviors between the groups more than other variables.

Natalia Reyes, an MFA student in the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has received a 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. The fellowship will allow Reyes to focus entirely on her writing while at Iowa. She is the second Workshop writer to receive the prestigious award.

Jessica Faselt of Iowa City is one of the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition winners, announced April 29. This is one of the most prestigious voice competitions in the world, offering singers the chance to be heard by leading industry professionals and to launch their international careers.

An event at the Levitt Center for University Advancement honored the work facilitated and supported by the Office of Outreach and Engagement over the past year, including 40,000 hours of work completed by UI students and faculty in community engagement projects.

The New York Times' Wesley Morris reviews the film Saving Brinton, a documentary about a collection of century-old films preserved with the help of the University of Iowa.