The University of Iowa eclipsed $400 million in external funding for research for the fourth consecutive year. The UI's total share of external funding for fiscal 2012 was $438 million, up 3.2 percent compared to fiscal 2011, when excluding short-term stimulus funding. The UI also landed a record number of grant awards.

The Advanced Leadership Seminar—part of the UI Belin-Blank Center's National Scholars Institute—connects high school students with experienced leaders, builds skills like listening and negotiation, and helps participants create plans to improve their communities.

The university has named an executive director at the UI Research Foundation. Zev Sunleaf was promoted from interim executive director. He's been with the foundation since 2001.

UI researchers presented their latest findings on creating 3D heart "maps" for children at an American Heart Association meeting this week. The technique would allow cardiologists to more rapidly identify and correct irregular heart rhythms in children. It's also radiation free.

Representatives from the Office of the State Archaeologist will pedal the entire 400-plus mile RAGBRAI route, while colleagues will hand out brochures to riders about the archaeological sites they will see along the way.

Pigeons with iPads, olfactory functions and Alzheimer’s disease, smoking behaviors of stroke patients, and Ralph Ellison and The New York Times are all areas of research being pursued by students involved in the Summer Research Opportunities Program and the McNair Scholars program (SROP/McNair Scholars) through the University of Iowa Graduate College.

University of Iowa and University of Iowa Health Care units will participate in the Johnson County Fair this week, Monday through Thursday, July 23-26. Both booths will be in Building C at the Johnson County Fairgrounds.

Brian Farrell admits Bulgaria wasn’t on the top of his list of places to visit, but when the opportunity arose to teach law at the University of Sofia as a Fulbright Scholar, it quickly moved to the top.

University of Iowa professor emerita Alicia Brown accomplished a great deal throughout her career in dance. Now her art dances not on a stage but rather on paper in the form of dynamic, abstract collages.

What Olympic sport owes its origins to the University of Iowa?

A $25 million pledge by the Fraternal Order of Eagles guaranteeing that one floor of the university's under-construction Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building be devoted to diabetes research has at least one member of the UI community feeling optimistic.

University of Iowa senior quarterback James Vandenberg has been named to the 2012 Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award Watch List, the Davey O'Brien Foundation announced.