PHYSICS - The National Science Foundation has awarded a one-year, $1 million grant to a team led by University of Oregon researchers exploring practical applications for emerging quantum technologies and working to move discoveries beyond the lab. “Oregon has a small group of proficient researchers leading the way globally in quantum technology," said Brian Smith, a professor of physics and director of the Oregon Center for Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science.

PSYCHOLOGY - Brice Kuhl is the first faculty member awarded the Dr. Michael Posner Psychology Professorship in Cognition and Neuroscience. This brand-new professorship, awarded in honor of the Department of Psychology’s groundbreaking researcher Michael Posner, will help support Kuhl’s teaching, research and professional development.

BIOLOGY - In 1924, the University of Oregon began teaching marine biology classes in a ramshackle collection of tents in a cove along the southern Oregon Coast. But what started as a couple of professors bringing some students on a summer camp has now become a permanent, year-round marine field station with a hundred years of coastal research and education.

COMICS AND CARTOON STUDIES - The Science and Comics Initiative recently teamed up with the International NeuroAI Conference and hosted a satellite workshop for scholars who were attending the conference at the University of Washington. The Science and Comics Initiative works to make science more accessible for a general audience through the comics format.

BIOLOGY - Women with a harmful mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have a 60 percent chance of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives, and a many-fold increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. UO College of Arts and Sciences biologists have uncovered how BRCA1 gene influences fertility. “This is a breakthrough discovery that enables potential therapeutic avenues for understanding how to correct or treat fertility issues in BRCA1 patients,” said Diana Libuda, an associate professor in the Institute of Molecular Biology at the UO.

EARTH SCIENCES - Graduate student Annika Dechert at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences and a team of researchers are working on studying the eruption history of South Sister volcano in the Oregon Cascades. The results of the study will inform the way the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory draws up hazards maps for Central Oregon and help shape the way scientists think about other similar volcanoes. The research team published their latest findings in August in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

ECONOMICS - Wildfire smoke costs Oregon households $450 per day as they try to adapt by purchasing air purifiers, canceling trips and keeping children at home to minimize exposure. That’s just one of many economic impacts of climate change tallied up in a new report by a five-member nonpartisan group The Forum on Oregon Climate Economics, or FORCE. The group includes Keaton Miller, an associate professor of economics with the College of Arts and Sciences.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE PROGRAM - When Clark Honors College and CAS senior Erin Morrison set out to witness the historic launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in Florida in mid-October, she had no idea she’d also be facing a Category-5 hurricane. Morrison was there to be with Carol Paty, an earth sciences professor with the College of Arts and Sciences, who worked with a team of scientists to create some of the tools to help Europa Clipper study a moon 1.8 billion miles away.

COMPUTER SCIENCE - In a course where innovation meets real-world challenges, three computer science students took their classroom project beyond the grade book and put it into the hands of global travelers. Over the summer, computer science majors Adrian Heider, Raj Gill and Manu Shukla developed and launched a fully functional app: Constella, an iOS application aimed at reducing the cost of international phone plans.

LINGUISTICS – A group of students in the University of Oregon's Department of Linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences spent nine months in 2024 developing a unique set of open educational resources for language learning, available to the public for free. The book is in use in Linguistics 144 Learning How to Learn.