The southeastern states have seen a record-breaking number of hurricanes already make landfall in a year when the nation is also grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. When researchers wanted to know how people would balance the danger of contracting the virus with the need to evacuate their homes, they turned to UNI professor Mark Welford for help. Welford, who heads UNI’s geography department, is also an expert on global pandemics like the medieval Black Death.
The UNI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has welcomed a new addition to their department: baby “Paul.”
Weighing just under two and a half pounds, “Paul” is a preterm infant born at 27 weeks. He has a pulse, real hair, and can breathe and cry.
Paul is not a real infant, though, but rather a top-of-the-line high emotion simulator that students in the department will soon begin using for classwork.
New UNI Opera Director Richard Gammon aims to help students become “whole artists” — “fully fledged human beings co-existing on stage” — as he puts it, and his experience creating and directing modern, dance-accompanied operas offers the perfect vehicle to do just that.
Orchestral music has been around for centuries, and Erik Rohde is working to be sure it is around for many more.
As the next step in a career that has seen him perform in recitals and festivals throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as well as lead several well-renowned performing groups, Rohde became UNI’s new orchestra director earlier this year after hearing glowing reviews about the university.
Speech and communication are some of the most basic functions in our everyday lives – and they come so naturally to most, it’s easy to take them for granted.
But what if you weren’t able to communicate, or express your thoughts and ideas effectively? It would be frustrating, and even frightening – and that’s an everyday reality for the millions of people living with neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's and dementia.
A joint art project by students at the University of Northern Iowa and Holmes Junior High School persevered through a global pandemic to convey a message of inclusivity and creativity.
The Iowa Energy Center announced more than $800,000 in grant funding to two University of Northern Iowa projects working to boost energy efficiency in underserved rural areas and educate the next generation about career opportunities in an ever-evolving energy market.
The IEC awarded $418,696 to the Developing an Iowa Energy Curriculum for Secondary Classrooms project proposed by UNI’s Earth and Environmental Sciences department, which will develop and disseminate an energy curriculum for Iowa middle and high school students that incorporates career connections into each topic.
They may not be marching this year, but the Panther Marching Band will play on.
Like just about every other aspect of life on campus, COVID-19 has drastically altered marching band. This wasn’t the 120th season the nearly 300 members anticipated, but the group is pressing on, finding creative ways to stay safe, socialize and continue doing what they love even during a pandemic that has delayed the fall football season. They have performances scheduled throughout the semester, beginning on September 11th.
What if you could locate a cancer cell, and use the cell’s natural repair process to destroy it? You’d be one step closer to a cure for cancer.
And that’s exactly what students in the UNI Department of Physics are working on.
This summer, a group of three undergraduate students in the department have partnered with the University of Iowa Department of Biochemistry in a unique, collaborative research effort to study cells, and their natural self-repairing mechanisms.
UNI professor and linguist Juan Carlos Castillo has been in love with languages since his childhood growing up in Spain. The pandemic has ushered in a host of new or revived words and phrases from “flattening the curve” to “social distancing” to “coronabeard.” In this conversation, Castillo discusses how new words are born (think the power of Cardi B), the growth of gender-neutral language and how advancements in machine learning are changing how we all communicate.
What new words have entered our lexicon since the pandemic began?
