ECONOMICS - Those who are strongly skeptical about climate change are unlikely to change their minds for many years to come, according to a new study by University of Oregon environmental economist Grant McDermott.

ECONOMICS, BIOLOGY - Around the O is revisiting a story from a year ago, where UO experts weighed in on COVID-19 through the lens of their research expertise. Now they’re providing insights into what surprised them during the pandemic, what’s currently happening in their field and what they are watching as things reopen.

ENGLISH - Mat Johnson, a professor in the Creative Writing Program in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the UO’s newest Philip H. Knight Chair. Johnson joined the UO faculty in 2018 after a decade teaching at the University of Houston’s creative writing program.

BIOLOGY - A group of UO biologists has developed a promising new model to study how underlying conditions exacerbate the health issues caused by COVID-19. The key to the model’s potential is the use of zebrafish, because they have the same cellular components that the virus uses to infect humans.

PHYSICS, WOMEN'S, GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES - Five UO researchers-scholars and two research teams that have made significant impacts on society and on their respective fields will receive 2021 Outstanding Research Awards.

INDIGENOUS, RACE & ETHNIC STUDIES - A changing climate, aging infrastructure and lack of sustained investment have resulted in stress on Oregon’s water systems, with communities of color disproportionately affected, according to a recent report by the Oregon Water Futures Project. The report’s lead author is Alaí Reyes-Santos, associate professor of Indigenous, race and ethnic studies at the UO.

Sixteen UO faculty members are being honored with the Presidential Fellowships in Humanistic Studies for their contributions to the arts and humanities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the College of Arts and Sciences is recognizing and celebrating both the 2020 and 2021 fellows together.

The College of Arts and Sciences will introduce the new School of Global Studies and Languages this fall. The University Senate approved the school at the end of April. The school will bring together roughly 100 core faculty members across four language and literature departments, five area studies programs, the Yamada Language Center, and the Global Studies department.

BIOLOGY, LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, GLOBAL STUDIES - Two UO students have been awarded prestigious Udall Undergraduate Scholarships, a first for the university and all the more rare because it is the second award for one of the Ducks.

CHEMISTRY & BIOCHEMISTRY - Ultrahigh resolution, high-speed imaging of fruit fly brains has allowed University of Oregon scientists to capture mechanical motions that stem cells use to make neurons, the cells that make up the brain.

THEATRE ARTS - When Ty Burrell, the award-winning actor and die-hard Duck fan, addresses the UO’s class of 2021 at next month’s commencement, he will have plenty of pearls of wisdom to dispense to the graduates.

ANTHROPOLOGY, INDIGENOUS, RACE, AND ETHNIC STUDIES, WOMEN'S, GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES - Caribbean Women Healers is a University of Oregon digital humanities project featuring elders who currently live and work in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the US Pacific Northwest.

BIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY - Home is where the microbes are. That’s one takeaway from newly published research by an interdisciplinary University of Oregon team that found a shared home environment to be the strongest predictor of human microbiome similarity.

ANTHROPOLOGY - One of the world’s largest ancient cities lay in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the greater Angkor region located in contemporary Cambodia. This medieval site was home to the Angkor or Khmer Empire from the ninth to 15th centuries.

POLITICAL SCIENCE - On April 6, 2021, despite Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto, Arkansas became the first state to prohibit physicians from providing gender-affirming medical care like hormone treatments designed to delay puberty in transgender youth.