Martin Gallardo wanted to make dietary changes, and he wanted to stick to them. Through liveWELL’s health coach service, he found what he was looking for, and he wants to share his experiences with fellow UI faculty and staff.

The University of Iowa has a new sandbox—and it’s used to explain gravity. Undergraduates in the Department of Physics and Astronomy designed and built an augmented-reality sandbox where users can design their own universe and then watch how gravity affects an object as it travels through the imagined environment.

UI archivist David McCartney discusses the significance of papers donated to the University of Iowa by civil rights advocate Eric Morton who, along with a UI student, worked to register African Americans to vote in the 1960s. Several documents from the collections are on display at the Coralville Public Library.

The 45-year-old former Marine decided six years ago to get a college degree. After transferring from a community college to the University of Iowa, the Iowa native is on track to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in geosciences in May 2019.

The University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business announced Jan. 9 that it is introducing a new full-time Master of Business Analytics (MSBA) degree at its Iowa City campus. The new program starts in fall 2018. Applications are being accepted on the college’s website.

A University of Iowa initiative called Tiny Trash encourages recycling and reduces waste on campus. More than 2,000 faculty and staff in 18 buildings have joined the effort, which ties into the UI’s goal to divert 60 percent of campus-generated waste to recycling by the year 2020.

Mark Wiesner has spent decades studying the potentially harmful effects of manufactured nanomaterials on the environment. His passion for protecting the planet was nurtured at the University of Iowa College of Engineering, where he worked alongside mentors who introduced him to environmental fieldwork and research.

Kerry Howley, assistant professor in the Nonfiction Writing Program, wrote about former NSA contractor and leaker Reality Winner in an essay for New York Magazine. The piece is generating buzz, with Howley making media appearances to discuss it, including on The Today Show.

Death notices for current and retired UI employees. Links to online obituaries provided when available.

The University of Iowa College of Education’s Yareli Mendoza has been appointed to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs advisory committee on women veterans.

Research by Tippie College of Business doctoral student Kristina Bigsby finds a link between a high school football recruit's Twitter activity and they college program for which they decide to play.

A high school student with autism in Hamilton, Ohio, received a $1,000 grant from the University of Iowa's Jacobson Center for Youth Entrepreneurship for his business, Turn Autistic To Artistic, that offers his insight to teachers using customized comic strip illustrations to teach life lessons to students with special needs.