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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.”

Dietrich School professor featured on American Geophysical Union

Dr. Ian Flynn, a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology and Environmental Science at the Dietrich School, recently published a paper titled “The Usefulness of NotebookLM's Audio Overview for Planetary Scientists.”  The paper has now been selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU)  Perspectives editorial board and is featured on AGU's social media platforms. This is an outstanding achievement as fewer than two percent of AGU papers are selected to be featured in this way.

This newly discovered, 11.5-billion-year-old galaxy shares a striking feature with our own

Research led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at Pitt, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar, a sometimes-striking visual feature that can play an important role in a galaxy’s evolution.

This finding helps astronomers get a better handle on when such bars could have first emerged in the universe. Analysis of light from the galaxy, called COSMOS-74706, places it on the cosmic timeline at about 11.5 billion years ago.

This fearless senior is the definition of ‘cool under pressure’

As a Pitt athlete, Ellie Breech had been required to take CPR classes after Pitt alum Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest in 2023 while playing an NFL game. So, when her father’s heart suddenly stopped later that year on Christmas Day, Breech was ready to save his life.

Since then, she’s made it her mission to ensure others are ready, too.

Graham Hatfull reflected on 25 years of research in a special PNAS paper

In the late 1990s, Graham Hatfull and colleagues reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their findings about genetic connections between distantly related bacteriophages, viruses that kill bacteria, in a paper titled “Evolutionary relationships among diverse bacteriophages and prophages: All the world’s a phage.”

OdysseyNow: More Than a Game

Gaming’s popularity has surpassed all other forms of narrative media, including books and movies. Zachary Horton wants everyone to understand that video games are more than just diversions. 

“To understand ourselves as a culture, we have to understand our stories, the media we use to tell them and how those things have changed over time,” says the associate professor of film and media studies in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

Research and Innovation Live with Nature at Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology

Pitt’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology is only one hundred miles north of the University’s bustling Oakland campus, but for some it seems like a different world. Surrounded by quiet forest on the shore of a fishing lake that straddles the Pennsylvania-Ohio state line, Pitt students and researchers have enjoyed field and laboratory experiences here for generations. Known informally as PLE, the facility has space for large-scale research and ecosystems studies where students and researchers can get their hands on plants and animals in their natural environments.

Dietrich School professor awarded honors at 2026 Yeast Genetics Meeting

Karen Ardnt, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been awarded the Lee Hartwell Lecture for the 2026 Yeast Genetics Meeting. This honor is awarded to researchers whose work has had a significant impact in other fields of research. Ardnt’s research has focused on chromatin remodeling and transcription regulation. She has been published over 40 times for her outstanding work in the field.