From the Media

A new book co-written by a soon-to-be College of Arts and Sciences faculty member explores the political divide that has emerged between rural and urban geographies over the past 30 years. "We are certainly concerned, but we do not think we have reached a point of no return," said co-writer Trevor Brown, a postdoctoral associate at Johns Hopkins University who will join the University of Oregon's Department of Political Science in 2026. "Just as politics helped make the rural-urban divide, political activity can help bridge it."

In the latest episode of Deep Green, created in partnership with Momentum, Avi Rajagopal sits down with University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor, whose research underpins our understanding of fractal patterns’ impact, and Anastasia and Martin Lesjak of 13&9, who apply this research in their designs—including a new wallcovering collection for Momentum called Renaturation.

Dr. Christopher Hendon, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon and co-author of the book Water for Coffee: Science Story Manual, talks with Serious Eats about coffee. He says that the specific compounds you lose over time depend on the coffee itself, but you're generally losing aromatics (the things that make coffee smell good): "If you like the smell of the coffee when you grind it, that's what you're losing [when you allow it to cool]."

A Newport, Oregon resident accidentally became interested in fossil hunting; now, he likely holds the largest private fossil collection in the state. Kent Gibson’s dog, Bart, found a rock while hunting in the late ‘90s that turned out to be a porpoise skull. Now, Gibson’s amassed thousands of fossils, a treasure trove of significant importance to the state. “Kent is an excellent Oregonian and deserves respect and admiration for the work he has done to conserve our fossil history,” said Edward Davis, an associate professor of earth sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. “A lot of times, people who approach me like that are mistaken, and they have rocks that look kind of like fossils,” Davis told The Statesman Journal. “(Gibson) showed me the back of the truck and there was just skull, skull, skull, skull.”

The US has recently begun to lead the way in sustainable metal-making. Green steel firms have found environmentally-friendly ways to produce steel, including removing contaminants from iron ore itself. Companies are also using electric arc furnaces, which allow scrap steel to be melted and recycled. However, there have been some setbacks in the growing green-steel business, pointing towards the niche that these firms fit in. Paul Kempler, an expert in electrochemistry and electrochemical engineering in the College of Arts and Sciences, told BBC that “it looks a lot like how we make iron and steel today – it's a lot easier to conceive how that would get to scale [as a result].”

The Libre Initiative was a powerful voice during the 2024 presidential election. Libre empowered conservative Latino voices to share their beliefs and values, something they hadn’t been asked to do before. Libre was founded and funded by the Koch brothers and is part of their libertarian advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity. Despite the Koch brothers’ history of aiding right-wing candidates and projects, Libre maintains that it is “party agnostic” and welcoming to anybody. Laura Pulido, a professor of geography and Indigenous, race and ethnic studies, disagreed. She shared with Prism, “They are very, very disciplined” about sticking to the Koch brothers’ libertarian ideologies.

PSYCHOLOGY - Adolescence isn’t a time of dysfunction; it’s a peak period of brain development, adaptability, and growth. Jennifer Pfeifer, a psychology professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, discusses at the 2025 TEDxPortland that it’s time to flip the script and recognize that young people are acting exactly as they’re wired to, and are capable of far more than we’ve been led to believe.

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, Oregon immigrant communities have faced increased fears of deportation. Recently, a study done by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences sociology professor Isabel Garcia Valdivia found that immigrants over 50 don’t experience as much fear as the younger members of their communities. Why is there less stress among older community members? “It’s always present, but they also have other fears and day-to-day responsibilities,” Valdivia told KGW8. “One of their biggest fears with deportation was what will happen to my children?"

In Skagway, Alaska, many tourists and community members have faced frustrations due to concerns over rockslides impacting cruise docks. These worries have not only inconvenienced cruise-goers, but have caused economic damage as well. However, research performed by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences geologist Josh Roering might provide answers to a concerned community. How? “We identify that there are parts of this valley that are much more susceptible to rockfall runout than others,” Roering told Alaska Public Media. “The more wiggly these rocks are, the more sort of decoupled they are from the underlying mountain, so that is a relative measure of how potentially unstable they may be.”

Trump’s public call for Tan’s resignation is similar to how he’s treated political rivals, according to Chandler James, an associate political science professor at the University of Oregon. Trump is taking a more aggressive approach to interacting with businesses — and most organizations — than is often seen from the highest office, James said. “This is not an isolated incident of Trump pressuring this one individual,” James said, “but a part of a pattern of activity that seeks to use the power of the presidency — and all the resources of the government to — bring pressure on individuals and businesses, and groups such as universities or law firms, to change their policies in a way that Trump sees fit.”

Early Wednesday morning, a powerful earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded, struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. Tsunami centers along the Pacific coastline quickly sprung into action, issuing warnings for the potential of colossal ocean waves that are often generated by big earthquakes. Why wasn't it a larger tsunami? “Not all earthquakes are created equal,” University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences geophysicist Diego Melgar told the New York Times. “We’re still untangling the details. It’s going to take weeks to months of research to figure out exactly what happened.”

For the past several months, the Trump administration has been trying to deport immigrants to countries they are not from – despite an April 2025 federal ruling that had blocked the White House from doing so. In a brief emergency order, a divided Supreme Court decided on June 23 that the Trump administration can, for now, legally deport immigrants to countries they were not born in. Eleanor Paynter, assistant professor of Italian, migration, and global media studies, explains the legal case in The Conversation.

Brad Wilkins, a human physiologist at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences, who led the Breaking2 “Science Team”, says they tested potential marathoners for VO2 max, running economy (how efficiently they use oxygen) and critical/sustainable speed, which is the highest pace that can be sustained for long periods without fatigue. They also looked for something more “squishy”, as Wilkins describes it — the capacity to show psychological resilience when suffering physically.

An investigative report by ProPublica about the loss of federal funding for research includes Lauren Forrest, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences. Last year, Forrest received a multi-year grant to focus on LGBTQ+ people who live in rural areas where access to specialized care may be more limited. She was planning to recruit dozens of participants. But on March 21, she received a notification from the NIH that her grant was terminated because it did not “effectuate” the agency’s priorities, citing its connection to “gender identity.”

A HuffPost article about the White House press secretary's response to a question about whether President Donald Trump plans to sign a proclamation in June included comment from Alison Gash, professor and head of the department of political science at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences. Gash told HuffPost that she doesn’t think it’s “surprising” that businesses have scaled back since “we have seen backlash among louder factions of anti-LGBTQ communities for a few years.”