Well Said

Michael Kosorok, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics and chair of the biostatistics department at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, believes that we are in the early stages of the precision medicine revolution This budding revolution, which involves biology, genetics and other aspects of the lifestyle of individual people, could seriously improve clinician’s ability to provide personalized care. One way the medical model can do that is by designing more effective clinical trials, like one Kosorok is helping with now. The Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma Network by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was designed with precision medicine as a goal. “In other studies, it’s often been an afterthought,” said Kosorok, who used his expertise in precision medicine to help design the study. The clinical trial, which was awarded to Carolina’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center in 2017, will enroll 800 adults and children

The term “fake news” skyrocketed in popularity in late 2016, and for many Americans, it’s most closely associated with politics. But according to Alice Marwick, assistant professor in the College of Arts & Science's communications department, the spread of false information isn’t limited to only political headlines. “You can make a lot of money just by spreading these kinds of viral stories through Facebook,” explained Marwick. High-traffic pages can sell advertisements to sponsors and reap the financial reward of a false headline. Marwick explained that sometimes, though, the fake news, which she defines as "problematic information," is created because the writer really believes it to be true. “They have a very strong ideological belief, and they're trying to persuade people to their point of view,” she said. Marwick and the team at Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life are analyzing fake news and other major problems surrounding the dissemination of information. On this week's e

Paul Cuadros has been coaching the soccer team at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City for so long that some former players have kids on the current team. “I feel like I’m sort of their grandfather coach,” said Cuadros, who is also an associate professor in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. When Cuadros first arrived in Siler City in 1999 to report on immigration, there was no soccer program at the school. After coaching in the local soccer league for a couple of years, he launched the high school's program in 2002 and won a state championship in 2004. Cuadros has used the lessons from creating that program and leading it to a championship in many ways. He wrote a book, “A Home on the Field,” which led to a documentary series produced by Jennifer Lopez. He’s also been able to see the impact that visibility, leadership and development can have on a community — lessons he’s brought back to campus by creating various organizations for Latinx faculty, staff and students. Those endeavors inc

In late September 2001, current Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matt Sullivan found himself sleeping on a cot in a fire station in Somers, New York — an hour north of Manhattan. He was there with about 20 other police officers, firefighters and medics from around the country who were providing support to first responders at the World Trade Center. To wind down every night after 14 hours walking around those city blocks and showing love, care and support to first responders, Sullivan wrote responses to hundreds of kids who wrote in letters to the responders. “Everybody was hurting,” said Matt Sullivan, who graduated from Carolina in 1989 with a degree in political science and received a master’s degree in social work eight years later. “It wasn’t just the folks who lost somebody in law enforcement and firefighters in New York City. The whole country was hurting.” Sullivan uses every anniversary of the attacks to ponder those who were and are hurting. Every Sept. 11, he begins this day by climbing the steps at Kenan

In a special episode of the University's official podcast, we celebrate a historic gift made by Carolina alumnus Walter Hussman Jr. and his family. Today, the family announced it was donating $25 million dollars to the University's journalism and media school. To recognize the contribution, the school has been renamed the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. With this, the largest single gift ever made to the school, the Hussman School will become the fifth named school at Carolina, joining Kenan-Flagler Business School, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Adams School of Dentistry. Ahead of the gift, Hussman and Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, discussed the future of the news industry for an episode of the school's Start Here/Never Stop podcast.

Finance professor Camelia Kuhnen from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School studies neuroeconomics — a field that combines neuroscience and economics to understand how people make financial decisions. “I realized that my two degrees – neuroscience and finance – were both about decision-making,” said Kuhnen. Her research indicates that it’s not only our brains that play a part in why some choose to invest and others do not. While it is easy to assume that some people may make more risky investments because they have a higher risk tolerance, Kuhnen discovered that there is another factor at play: the environment people grew up in. “If you experienced adversity growing up, your brain literally reacts differently to information than if you didn’t experience it,” Kuhnen said. Her research suggests that this causes people to view the world differently, possibly adopting a pessimistic lens around financial investment and ultimately choosing not to invest. Hear more from Kuhnen about this research as well as th

As a Chancellor’s Fellow in 2015, Carolina alumna Emily Auerbach turned her examination of the campus’ agricultural potential into reality. Since then, the Edible Campus initiative has grown to provide free and fresh produce through 11 satellite gardens. It also now provides educational outreach. “The goal of the program,” said Laura Mindlin, who coordinates Edible Campus through the North Carolina Botanical Garden, “is to foster critical thought, communication and community through food systems.” On this week’s episode, Mindlin shares how this program applies the growing trend of community gardens to a higher education setting.

A new academic year is upon us at Carolina and the community is welcoming a new group of Tar Heels to campus. The first official week of the year is called the Week of Welcome, which helps make the transition to college easier for new students. The week began Aug. 16 when students moved into their new homes in campus residence halls, and it will continue through Aug. 25 with events throughout campus. On this week’s podcast, we highlight some of the biggest events from the Week of Welcome, including move-in day, New Student Convocation, Sunset Serenade and the first sip at the Old Well

Founded in 1795, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies are the oldest organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At 7:30 p.m. every Monday of the academic year, you’ll hear laughter along with serious debate from the Dialectic Chamber of New West Hall. This is the location of the weekly joint senate meetings between the once-feuding Dialectic and Philanthropic societies. Once a requirement for all Carolina students, the societies have maintained a tradition of lively debate over current issues that span from politics to pop culture. “We have people talking about political concepts,” said George Gildehaus, former president pro tempore.  “What they're thinking about current events, and we even have people talking about bad Tinder dates and other things of a more relatable nature.” On this episode of Carolina’s Well Said podcast, Gildehaus and former Joint Senate President Katrina Smith reflect on the evolution of these historical societies since their founding, and how current DiP

David Braudt, a recent graduate student affiliated with the Carolina Population Center, defended his dissertation in July, and he will start as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Before leaving Chapel Hill, though, he also published research about the social influences of early life mortality, or dying between the ages of 1 and 24. Braudt’s research was the first such investigation in 22 years. It updates that study and offers a multidimensional approach to family resources. He examined four aspects of family resources, the mother’s education, the father’s education, household income and whether or not each parent was present in the household. On this week’s episode, Braudt explains the personal connection that drove him to study early life mortality and how he hopes this research will save the lives of children across the country.

While sharks are often cast as the villain in movies, sharks on the coast of North Carolina aren’t ill-intended — they’re just trying to find food while avoiding risk. With 50 species of sharks visiting the North Carolina coast throughout the year, they're typically foraging for meals in the same areas that tourists spend their summers in. But Joel Fodrie, an associate professor and researcher at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, explains that the likelihood of a shark encounter is incredibly low. Swimmers can be within 10 or 20 yards of a shark more often than they think, and while movies will tell us that this can spell disaster, Fodrie disagrees.“Sharks are highly evolved,” he explained. They can smell blood in the water much farther away than humans ever could, and also use electric fields and sound waves to sense injured animals closeby, but humans don’t put out the same cues as what sharks are foraging for, and these underwater visitors stay away from what they aren’t familiar with. On this epi

When Katrina Morgan explains to people that she studies math as a doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences, they often respond unfavorably, saying they just “aren’t a math person.” “You wouldn’t just say, "Oh, I’m not a history person,’” Morgan said. She argues that mathematics is a field where people decide whether they “are” or “are not” fit for the field very early in their academic careers. This is especially true for girls because there is less representation of women in mathematics, Morgan explained. In 2016, Morgan, along with fellow doctoral student Francesca Bernardi, set out to change that by founding Girls Talk Math, which invites high school girls from North Carolina to UNC-Chapel Hill to participate in a two-week day camp that explores mathematical concepts. The campers are given problem sets to solve as groups, with topics that span from quantum mechanics to computer engineering. But the camp also teaches the importance of communication skills. Aside from working on math problems

Are there other Earth-like worlds in the universe at the right size and with the right atmosphere to support life? Carolina astronomers are trying to figure that out right now. One candidate for such a planet is Proxima b, an exoplanet that orbits the closest star to our sun. Carolina researchers recently conducted a study using a first-of-its-kind telescope that sheds new light and poses questions about whether or not that planet could support life. Currently, Amy Glazier of the physics and astronomy department has been using the Evryscope to find the nearest “Tatooine”-type worlds to Earth. With the Evryscope imaging the entire sky every two minutes, she can measure the small variation in the time taken for one star of a binary system to eclipse the other due to the gravitational influence of circumbinary planets perturbing the stars’ motion. In this week’s episode, assistant professor Nicholas Law from the physics and astronomy department discusses his Evryscope, how researchers use it to monitor 50 mi

Before enrolling at Carolina as an incoming first-year or transfer student, Tar Heels first complete an orientation program that acclimates them to Chapel Hill. Each summer, current Tar Heels help guide these new students as orientation leaders. Rising junior Excellence Perry is one of those students leading others. The public relations and advertising and management and society double major is helping welcome new students in this role for the second time. He says the key to being a good orientation leader is going beyond simple logistics. “Obviously, I want them to know where their classes are going to be, but those things come after the feeling of, ‘I can be here. I can do great things here. I can succeed here. I belong here,’” Perry said. On this week’s episode, Perry shares how he empowers these new students to come to Carolina ready to pursue their passions — through answering questions, listening to students and dancing on stage.

Many people find themselves driving away from their house in the morning and thinking, “Did I leave the garage door open?" It may bother them for a few minutes — even enough to turn around and check. Then, they get on with their day. But people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Carolina psychology and neuroscience professor Jon Abramowitz explains, get “stuck” checking if that the door is really closed over and over again. Abramowitz has researched anxiety disorders for over two decades and works with patients who display several different types of OCD behavior, which can include obsessive or intrusive thoughts and habits like the ritual of washing their hands several times or trying to “undo” an odd number with an even one. He recently released the second edition of his workbook, “Getting Over OCD: a 10-Step Workbook for Taking Back Your Life," which includes a new method of treatment. On this episode of Well Said, Abramowitz describes what OCD is, what it's not and explains how exposure and response

With more than 300,000 maternal deaths throughout the world each year, Carolina researchers are working to help pregnant women avoid becoming part of a startling statistic. Dr. Jeffrey Stringer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the UNC School of Medicine, is leading two studies that address the role of technology in predicting and revealing key risk factors associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery, with the goal of ultimately lowering the staggering rate of mortality during childbirth. After receiving a $14 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in May, Stringer teamed up with experts from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC School of Medicine to use common technology to reach their goal. One study leverages small sensors, similar to a Fitbit, to monitor pregnant women and develop new algorithms that could predict the risk of complications during and after pregnancy. “We can use the information from that [technology] to know which women are going to ha

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup is underway in France, and the United States is looking to defend its title from 2015. With three World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals, the American team is certainly a dynasty in international women’s soccer. The foundations for that dynasty were laid by Carolina’s legendary women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance, who coached the national team from 1986-1994 and led the United States to victory in the first Women’s World Cup in 1991. Throughout that time, he was still coaching the Tar Heels, too. His Carolina team is another women’s soccer dynasty. More than half of the national titles awarded in women’s soccer history have been won by the Tar Heels. On this week’s episode, Dorrance discusses how his two dynasties come together at the World Cup — when former Carolina student-athletes represent their countries on the world’s biggest stage. He also shares what excites him about this upcoming Carolina season, when the Tar Heels will return to Chapel Hill after playing th

On average, children are diagnosed with autism between 4 and 6 years old, but assistant professor of psychiatry Mark Shen says that’s too late. “The earlier you detect it, the earlier you can intervene and start treatment,” said Shen, who is also a researcher at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. He’s seen those implications firsthand having spent six years training in behavioral treatment for children and adults with autism before returning to graduate school. Now, he’s on a mission to identify the signs of autism in the first year of life. On this week’s episode, Shen shares what clues he’s been able to find and explains why they’re so important.

It’s hot outside, and you want to cool off with a dip in the water. Before diving in, you know you need to protect your skin by putting on sunscreen. But you also need to protect your ears after you get out of the water. As an assistant professor of otolaryngology in the UNC School of Medicine and an eye, ear, nose and throat doctor, Dr. Christine DeMason treats a lot of common issues, like ear infections, tonsil issues and thyroid nodules. During the summer, though, she sees a spike in cases of a specific type of ear infection called swimmer’s ear. On this week’s episode, DeMason will explain what swimmer’s ear is, who is most at risk and some things you can do to protect yourself from this painful ear infection.

With video streaming services such as Netflix becoming more and more popular, associate professors of economics Brian McManus and Jon Williams are researching the economic implications of these services and the impacts of net neutrality laws on consumers’ wallets. The increase in Americans’ reliance on video streaming services has, according to McManus and Williams, also forced internet service providers to provide faster speeds, leaving cord-cutting consumers with internet and streaming services costs equaling their original cable bill.  Despite the popularity of video streaming services in the United States, McManus and Williams explained that there is little research on the economic impact of this new trend. On this episode of Well Said, McManus and Williams describe their preliminary research and explain other interesting hypotheses they plan to investigate.