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Innovation

A service dog opened doors for this senior

For Emma Levick, a dog made all the difference; in this case, a service dog named Zia.

In 2022, just a week before starting classes her first year at Pitt, Levick was paired with a golden retriever-Labrador mix from Canine Companions, a national nonprofit that trains and supplies service dogs at no cost to people with disabilities. Levick, who uses a wheelchair, described getting her first service dog as “life-changing” and the key to living independently from her family.

His PhD thesis solved a mystery — and may help turn a lake blue again

Growing up, Eli Hall’s family often visited the Allegheny Reservoir, a man-made lake that straddles the border between Pennsylvania and New York. Driving north along the shores, they’d see blue waters, boaters, swimmers, everything you’d expect from a summer lakeshore. But following that road into the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Allegheny Reservation, they’d see the reservoir change. Gone were the boaters and swimmers and gone were the blue waters. In their place was a mess of green algae. But why?

Pitt Celebrates Opening of Federal Statistical Research Data Center on Campus

In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, Pitt has opened the Pittsburgh Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC), a flagship federal program overseen by the U.S. Census Bureau, in the Cathedral of Learning. The FSRDC program consists of 37 centers nationwide, which provide access to detailed federal data in a secure environment, enabling researchers to investigate questions that cannot be answered with publicly available datasets. 

Picksburgh: The story of how Pittsburgh saved the NFL

When Rob Ruck moved to Pittsburgh in 1960, Pittsburgh was still the Steel City. But not for long. By the late 1970s, the city was struggling to maintain its identity as the mills began shutting down. Steel production and morale were at an all-time low, but during the 1970s, a transformation took place that would redefine Pittsburgh for generations to come.
 

This rural Pennsylvania field station is an ecologist’s dream

​It’s autumn at the Pymatuning Reservoir. The water lies flat and blue; color is beginning to tinge the trees; and the summer’s cohort of students and researchers has mostly left Pitt’s lakeside biological field station, the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (PLE). 

But the students have left a little reminder of their presence on the lab’s white boards: whimsical sketches of the semi-aquatic, croaking creatures they study. There are frogs eating ice cream. Frogs dressed as princesses. Frogs with pouting lips.

GES worked alongside the Frick Environmental Center to help clean up our parks

The Department of Geology and Environmental Science, in partnership with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, hosted an impactful volunteer day at the Frick Environmental Center in Frick Park. Participants worked alongside Parks Conservancy staff to manage invasive plants and maintain ecological restoration sites, which directly contribute to the care and stewardship of Pittsburgh’s treasured park system.

Beth Shaaban Studies the Social and Biological Forces Shaping Brain Health

As a child, Beth Shaaban watched her mother, a nurse, open one of the first memory units in a long-term care facility in Sun City, Arizona. The compassionate care she witnessed there later catalyzed her own career in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia research.

“Sometimes I would go with her to work as a kid and meet the folks who were there, and it felt very natural to me,” Shaaban said. “I’ve always had an affinity for helping people that way.”