A partnership between the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages and the School of Engineering has culminated in the launch of UConn’s new International Engineering Program. This series of dual-degree programs give undergraduates pursuing engineering careers the chance to go abroad to pursue international internships in a setting of total cultural immersion. The program comprises four five-year programs that give students the ability to earn a BA in Chinese, French, German, or Spanish, and a BS in an engineering discipline. By adding an entire year abroad and total immersion in a foreign language and culture, the program graduates young engineers with hands-on global experience who are prepared for rewarding careers in a diverse array of fields around the world, says program co-director and Associate Professor of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages Jennifer Terni. “It really is a very organic program that prepares students at the highest levels professionally, and at the same time gives them a real-world stake in mastering another language and culture,” she says. Terni co-directs the International Engineering Program with Brian Schwarz, director of experiential engineering education initiatives in the School of Engineering. The initiative builds on the 25 years of success of the Eurotech program, which …

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Whether you love it or struggle with it, mathematics is the language of the universe. And, since all STEM students at UConn need to take calculus, both types of students come into the classroom. No matter what category they fall into, visualization tools can help in the learning process, says David Nichols, a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in UConn’s Department of Mathematics. Just not his own drawings. “I’m not really good at drawing things by hand,” Nichols says. Once, having spent several minutes at a chalkboard, carefully drawing a figure in multivariable and vector calculus, Nichols turned to his students and asked them if they recognized what he had drawn. They shook their heads ‘no.’ Since then, Nichols has been busy making visual aids to help convey mathematical concepts to students and improve their learning experience. Early on, he partnered with Amit Savkar, associate professor-in-residence in mathematics, and began experimenting with online software. Nichols says it was very much a learning experience, in which he would learn the skills and techniques necessary to prepare the interactive visualizations for the lectures he would be giving each week. The original visuals he created were mainly just to replace his own hand-drawn figures, but the project developed into something …

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The world’s oceans are an enormous, interconnected system. A piece of driftwood that breaks off in the Indian Ocean could eventually wash ashore halfway around the world along the North Pacific coast. The lack of natural barriers to divide ocean communities was formerly believed to prevent the development of localized genetic adaptations for specific habitats due to the ample opportunities for genetic mixing between populations. However, new research has shown that many marine species have evolved to have specific adaptations that allow each population to be best suited to its particular habitat. Yet, little is still known about the genomic mechanisms that enable divergent adaptations where organisms are still subject to ongoing mixing of populations. Hannes Baumann, an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut’s Department of Marine Sciences is the co-PI on a project which has received more than $325,000 from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative project to study this perplexing phenomenon with Nina Therkildsen, PI on this project and assistant professor of natural resources at Cornell University. The total funding for this project is $1.2 million over three years. Baumann and Therkildsen’s project will begin by characterizing genome-wide patterns of differentiation in silverside fish populations. The silverside exhibits a remarkable …

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In 2007, internationally acclaimed musician Joshua Bell, illustrated the role of context in the enjoyment of music when he played his Stradivarius violin in a Washington, D.C., subway, and commuters passed by without a second glance. A new study probing the role that expectations and biases play in our experiences has found that simply being told a performer is a professional or a student changes the way the brain responds to music, and that overcoming this bias takes a deliberate effort. The results of the study, by researchers at the University of Connecticut, the University of Arkansas, and Arizona State University, are published today in Scientific Reports.  The study involved 20 participants without formal training in music. Inside a functional magnetic imaging, or fMRI, machine at the Brain Imaging Research Center at the University of Connecticut, the participants listened to eight pairs of 70-second musical excerpts, presented in a random order. Each pair consisted of two different performances of the same excerpt. The participants were told that one of the pairs was played by a “conservatory student of piano” and the other was a “world-renowned professional pianist.” Although participants were actually listening to a student and professional performance, they heard each pair twice during …

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Regardless of political affiliation, people are more likely to believe facts about climate change when they come from Republicans speaking against what has become a partisan interest in this country, says a new University of Connecticut study. In fact, Republicans are even more persuasive than scientists when it comes to correcting misinformation about climate change, researchers found. “Unfortunately, correcting misinformation is much harder than simply providing ‘facts’,” says Lyle Scruggs, professor of political science at UConn, who co-authored the paper with Salil Benegal, a recent UConn Ph.D. graduate, now at DePauw University. The study is published in Climatic Change. “For science issues such as climate change, we might expect scientists to be a credible and neutral authority,” says Benegal. “However, partisanship increasingly influences perceptions of scientific credibility.” The study included 1,341 people, data collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and focused on a specific partisan issue on which scientific consensus has been widely adopted by Democrats but challenged by Republicans. Participants included those who self-identified as Republicans, Democrats, or Independents. As expected, study authors found a partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans in their stated opinions on climate change, with Democrats expressing the highest level of concern and scientific agreement. The partisan gap …

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We all know that you cannot dig a hole to China. This is true for lots of reasons. For starters, your shovel would melt as you began to reach the Earth’s molten core. Earth has a liquid outer core and solid inner core of iron and nickel. Professor Vernon F. Cormier from the University of Connecticut has received $334,000 from the National Science Foundation to study the transition from liquid to solid in the Earth’s core using seismic wave measurements. Cormier’s project will determine the structure of the Earth’s inner core in relation to the processes that affect its cooling, solidification and connection with the flowing liquid metals of the outer core. Transitions in the elastic structure of the inner core have been favored as the mechanism responsible for Earth’s magnetic field. This occurs because lighter elements released by the solidifying solid inner core help stir the electrically conducting fluid metal of the outer core. Dynamo theory states that the magnetic field of a planet or star is created by the fluid-like movements of its core. Lateral variations in the elastic structure of the inner core can be linked to variations in heat transport across the outer core boundary. This in turn impacts the …

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Tomoyasu Mani, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Connecticut, has received award funding from Japan Science Technology Agency for a three and a half year project-to study the potential to control the emission of molecular optical probes and develop new imaging technology based on magnetic sensitivity to such probes. Optical imaging has become a powerful technique in biomedical research; optical probes allow researchers to observe cell-level events in real time and track molecular processes noninvasively. However, currently emissivity, a measure of thermal radiation, in optical molecular probes is difficult to control with weak external stimuli. With the ability to control emissivity, researchers could potentially create new imaging technologies with higher sensitivity, selectivity and resolution. Mani tests the hypothesis of using a small external magnetic field as a switch to control one type of molecular emission. These magnetic fields are “transparent,” meaning they do not depend on biological environments, thus allowing researchers to control molecular emissivity in deep tissue. Mani and his team will develop a single molecule that is responsive to magnetic emissions. The UConn researchers will use the molecule they develop to create a new technology to address the problem of poor resolution of optical tomography, a 3D imaging …

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Two new leaders have been named in the UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Edith Barrett, professor of public policy at UConn Hartford, will serve as associate dean for social sciences and regional campuses; and Cathy Schlund-Vials, professor of English, will serve as associate dean for humanities and diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Professors Barrett and Schlund-Vials both have a track record of innovation in scholarship and teaching and successful administrative experience,” says Interim Dean Davita Silfen Glasberg. “I very much look forward to the new perspectives they will bring to the Dean’s Office.” In her role, Barrett will oversee the departments of anthropology, communication, economics, political Science, public policy, and sociology; and the Urban and Community Studies Program. She will also serve as the CLAS liaison to UConn’s four regional campuses. Barrett has been director of Urban and Community Studies since 2011. Before coming to UConn, she was director of the master’s in urban affairs at the School of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Arlington. Central to Barrett’s research is how public policy shapes the lives of urban residents, especially the lives of youth. Her projects addressing urban issues include a study for the city of Fort Worth, Tex., evaluating …

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UConn’s student-athletes are often lauded for their on-field or on-court achievements, but there’s an equally important – often unseen – dimension to the student-athlete. UConn Today’s Student-Athlete Strong series highlights the academic prowess of selected high-achieving student-athletes and provides an inside look at their lives beyond their sport. Kiera Dalmass ’18 (CLAS) Hometown and high school: Moorestown, New Jersey; Moorestown High School Sport: Women’s lacrosse Area of study: Statistics, with minors in Mathematics and Spanish Anticipated graduation: May 2018; MS May 2019 How did you decide on your major? I decided on my major because I enjoy statistics. It combines math with language and is very useful in solving problems across many different fields. It’s also a growing field and provides many opportunities for what I want to do. I’ve enjoyed math since I was a kid, but statistics, at least in my opinion, is different than math. It involves a lot of interpretation, testing, and analysis. What motivated you to take advantage of the UConn Honors Program? The Honors Program is an incredible program. Even though there are extra events, assignments, etc. and the honors thesis, every piece is worth being part of such a program. I’ve already started my honors thesis, which is due April 26. The work for my thesis is …

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UConn researcher Angran Li, a doctoral student in sociology, has found that one size does not fit all students when it comes to parents helping with homework, and that parental involvement in homework can be particularly beneficial among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. His findings, along with research collaborator Daniel Hamlin, a former doctoral student at the University of Toronto who is now at Harvard University, upend the conclusion of a 2014 study that found parents who help their children with homework hurt their performance at school. Li will present their research at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) this week in New York City. The earlier study out of the University of Texas-Austin and Duke University, was the largest ever at the time on how parental involvement affects student achievement. It was the subject of several stories and opinion pieces in news outlets in the U.S. and Canada, including The Atlantic and New York Times. Li and Hamlin challenged those findings by adding another, more rigorous layer of analysis that showed the impact of parental involvement in homework is more nuanced than the earlier study suggests and can actually be beneficial among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. The researchers sensed …

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