Spotlights

As interest in cryptocurrencies move from the fringes to mainstream conversation and public policy debate, Derek Mohr, clinical associate professor of finance at the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, offers a clear-eyed voice on the subject.

Mohr specializes in financial innovation and digital assets, and he’s been in demand with reporters looking to understand the economics behind everything from “Bitcoin-powered” home heaters to gas stations offering discounts for crypto purchases.

His message? Not everything that markets itself as a breakthrough actually adds up.

For instance, some companies have pitched devices that promise to heat a home using excess energy generated from bitcoin mining. Mohr recently told CNBC the idea might sound clever, but that its practicality collapses under basic financial and engineering realities.

“The bitcoin heat devices I have seen appear to be simple space heaters that use your own electricity to heat the room . . . which is not an efficient way to heat a house,” Mohr said. “Yes, bitcoin mining generates a lot of heat, but the only way to get that to your house is to use your own electricity.”

Bitcoin mining, he explained, has become so specialized that home computers have virtually zero chance of earning a mining reward. Industrial mining farms operate on custom-built chips far more powerful than any consumer device.

In other words, consumers who think they’re heating their homes and earning crypto are, in reality, just paying for electricity and getting no real mining benefit.

A pragmatic voice in a volatile space Mohr’s research and commentary help explain not just what is happening in the crypto world, but why it matters for consumers, businesses, and regulators. Whether evaluating the economics of mining or the viability of crypto payments, he brings a steady, analytical perspective to a domain dominated by hype and fast-moving news cycles.

For journalists covering cryptocurrency, fintech, and the future of financial transactions, Mohr is available for interviews on digital payments, bitcoin mining economics, crypto regulation, and emerging trends in financial technologies.

Top contact him, reach out to University of Rochester media relations liaison David Andreatta at david.andreatta@rochester.edu.

As families around the world prepare to celebrate Hanukkah, University of Rochester professor Nora Rubel can expound on the deeper stories behind the holiday’s foods, rituals, and evolving traditions.

Rubel, a scholar of Jewish studies and chair of the Department of Religion and Classics, specializes in how Jewish identity is expressed through everyday practices and food. For instance, her work explores how dishes like latkes and sufganiyot (fried jelly donuts) carry meanings beyond the kitchen.

“Food is one of the most powerful ways communities tell their stories,” Rubel says. “During Hanukkah, the foods we make and share help us remember the past, celebrate resilience, and connect with one another.”

Hanukkah runs from Dec. 14 through Dec. 22 this year.

Oil at the Heart of Hanukkah: Why Fried Foods Matter Many people recognize the holiday through its signature fried foods. But Rubel notes that these traditions developed over centuries and vary widely across cultures.

• Ashkenazi Jews typically serve potato latkes.
• Sephardic and Mizrahi communities prepare sufganiyot, bimuelos, zalabiya, and other fried sweets.
• Some families incorporate dairy dishes, drawing on medieval interpretations of the Hanukkah story.

What unites these foods, Rubel explains, is the symbolism of oil, which commemorates the miracle at the heart of the Hanukkah story.

Many Ways to Celebrate Rubel emphasizes that Hanukkah is not a monolithic holiday. Its rituals, from lighting the menorah to singing blessings and exchanging gifts, vary across communities and generations.

Some families add new traditions such as:

• Hosting “latke tasting” gatherings
• Experimenting with global Jewish recipes
• Incorporating social justice themes into nightly candle-lighting
• Sharing stories of family immigration and heritage

“Hanukkah is a living tradition,” Rubel says. “It continues to evolve, and food is one of the ways people reinterpret what the holiday means for them today.”

A Resource for Understanding Jewish Life Rubel’s broader scholarship focuses on American Jewish life, cultural memory, and how religious identities are shaped in the home as much as in the synagogue.

She is a go-to resource for journalists covering holiday practices, regional Jewish cuisines, and the meaning behind rituals that shape the season, and is featured in “Family Recipe: Jewish American Style,” a new documentary now airing on PBS stations across the United States.

Rubel is available for interviews throughout the Hanukkah period and beyond, and can speak to how traditions differ in Jewish communities around the world, the evolution of Hanukkah in American culture, and contemporary interpretations of rituals and identity.

Click on Rubel's profile to connect with her.

Ho-ho-ho and a bottle of Tums? From feeding a crowd to juggling travel and schedules and managing finances during a challenging economic time, the holidays can feel like a pressure cooker.

But University of Rochester psychologist Jeremy Jamieson, one of the country’s leading researchers on stress, says the pressures of the season of giving (and giving and giving and giving some more) can be mitigated by mentally reframing the stress we feel. In other words, what matters is how we interpret our stress.

Jamieson’s Social Stress Lab studies a technique called "stress reappraisal": the practice of reframing stress responses as helpful rather than harmful. According to researchers, people can learn to treat their signs of stress — the racing heart, the sweaty palms, the mental sense of urgency — as tools that prepare them to meet a challenge rather than a sign that they’re falling apart.

“Stress reappraisal isn’t about calming down or shutting stress off,” Jamieson says. “It’s about changing the meaning of your stress response. If you view the demands as something you can handle, your body shifts into a challenge state, which is a more adaptive, productive kind of stress.”

The research behind this approach has grown considerably.

In one of Jamieson’s studies, published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, the Social Stress Lab trained community college students to reinterpret stress as a resource. The results were striking: students experienced less anxiety, performed better on exams, procrastinated less, were more likely to stay enrolled, and approached academic challenges with healthier physiological responses.

Newer findings from the lab also suggest that stress reframing can support people facing workplace pressures, caregiving responsibilities, and major life transitions.

In short, stress isn’t the enemy of our well-being during the holidays. The real culprit is believing stress is dangerous.

Jamieson is available for interviews and can explain how people can use stress reappraisal strategies to navigate holiday pressures — and other high-demand moments — with more confidence, better health, and better outcomes.

Click on his profile to connect with him.

For decades, talk of UFOs has thrived on fuzzy photos and personal anecdotes—never the kind of hard data scientists can actually test. But new peer-reviewed studies have changed the conversation, says Adam Frank, a University of Rochester astrophysicist who studies life in the universe and the nature of scientific discovery.

Two recent papers, published in reputable astronomy journals, claim to have found evidence of “non-terrestrial artifacts” in astronomical photographs from the 1950s — objects that appear to be  orbiting Earth before the Space Age began.

“That’s an extraordinary claim,” Frank says, “and, as Carl Sagan famously said, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.'

“The good news is that, finally, there’s something associated with UFOs that science can work with.”

Led by astronomer Beatriz Villarroel and her VASCO project (Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations), the studies passed the first test of scientific credibility: rigorous peer review. Now, Frank says, comes the harder part — the “call-and-response” that defines real science.

“Getting a paper published doesn’t make the claim right,” he explains. “It just means the debate can begin. Other scientists will now dig into the data, test the methods, and try to tear the claim apart. That’s how science works.”

Frank is a frequent on-air commentator for live interviews and segments in national media outlets and the author of The Little Book of Aliens (Harper Collins, 2023). He also regularly contributes to written publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Scientific American. In 2021 he received the Carl Sagan Medal, which recognizes and honors outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public. It is awarded to scientists whose efforts have significantly contributed to a public understanding of, and enthusiasm for, planetary science.

Connect with him by clicking on his profile. 

A “brain-on-a-chip” technology might sound like science fiction, but it’s real-world hope.

James McGrath, a biomedical engineer at the University of Rochester, leads a team that develops micro-scale tissue chips to study diseases in lieu of conducting animal experiments. The team’s “brain-on-a-chip” model replicates the blood-brain barrier — the critical membrane separating the brain from the bloodstream — to mimic how the barrier functions under healthy conditions and the duress of infections, toxins, and immune responses that can weaken it.

Recent findings from McGrath’s team show how systemic inflammation, such as that caused by sepsis, can compromise the barrier and harm brain cells. The researchers also demonstrated how pericytes — supportive vascular cells — can help repair barrier damage, an insight that could guide new therapies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The research culminated in a pair of recent studies published in Advanced Science and Materials Today Bio. “We hope that by building these tissue models in chip format, we can arrange many brain models in a high-density array to screen candidates for neuroprotective drugs and develop brain models with diverse genetic backgrounds,” McGrath says.

McGrath aims to transform how scientists test drugs and predict neurological side effects before they occur — helping rewrite how we study, and one day safeguard, the brain.

Contact McGrath by clicking on his profile

The Senate returned to Capitol Hill on the first day of a government shutdown to vote on two funding bills aimed at getting the government up and running amid an ongoing blame game among congressional leaders.

University of Rochester political scientist Gerald Gamm is watching the deliberations and political maneuverings closely and is in a unique position to lend insight on the negotiations and gamesmanship.

Gamm is a co-author of Steering the Senate (Cambridge University Press, June 2025). The book has received high praise from a multitude of sources, and has been called "essential reading for all who care — or worry — about the past and future of institutional leadership and capacity on Capitol Hill," "the best book we have about the organizational development of the Senate," and "a masterpiece . . . that unearths new information on the emergence of leadership institutions and the role of parties and showing their relevance for the Senate of today."

Gamm is available for interviews and can be contacted by clicking on his profile.

"What's the number one parent behavior that will hurt a child's chance of admission?" 

The question was posed to Robert Alexander, the University of Rochester vice provost and dean of enrollment management, on the podcast "College Knowledge." He was quick to answer.

"Parents needs to be empowering the student and not driving the conversation" when it comes to choosing a college and engaging with college admissions professionals, Alexander replied.

He explained that too many parents have a narrow view of what they deem as "acceptable" institutions of higher education for their child. They come by it honestly, he said, with most of their knowledge derived from their own college searches and dreams a generation ago. 

They tend to home in on 20 or 30 schools when, in reality, the universe of quality colleges and universities has expanded exponentially since the days these parents were considering where to study, Alexander said.

"Widening that lends and thinking beyond the 20 or 30 schools they know a lot about or think they know a lot about or see a lot of bumper stickers for, that's really important," Alexander said. "There are many more really great institutions and what's important is not your child getting into 'the best college' that they can, but instead their child finding the best fit at one or maybe a range of different institutions."

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications.

Click his profile to reach him.

Why do some rebellious teenagers shun parental warnings about their behavior while others take them to heart?

University of Rochester psychologist Judith Smetana has devoted her career to unpacking that question. Her research reveals that parents who live out their values — and take the time to understand the perspective of their teenagers — have the most success at positively shaping adolescent behavior.

Smetana’s latest study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, shows that when parents “walk the walk” and model their values consistently, teens perceive rules and warnings as supportive guidance rather than controlling commands.

But that alone won’t stop all risky teenage behavior. What really works, Smetana’s research finds, is “perspective-taking”: when parents try to understand their child’s feelings and the reasons for them.

Smetana is widely cited for her expertise on moral development, autonomy, and parent-teen conflict — and how these dynamics shape young people’s lives.

Connect with her by clicking on her profile.

The National Football League season kicks off this week and that means millions of fantasy football coaches are already overthinking their lineups.

But before they blame a bad draft slot or a fluke injury for bombing from one week to the next, they might want to look in the mirror and give their head a shake.

Renee Miller, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, studies cognitive biases and literally wrote the book on bias in fantasy sports. She plays fantasy football, too.

She warns that our brains are wired to interpret fantasy football results in ways that are suboptimal and illogical.

“Biased thinking occurs in everyday life and work, and in fantasy sports,” Miller says. “Through the course of a season, you can see a full range of the ways cognitive bias affects a person’s weekly fantasy matchups.”

Here’s the good news: Miller says we can untangle those wires if we know what to look for.

Among the biggest culprits are what Miller calls “the endowment effect” (overvaluing and clinging to players you drafted high), “recency bias” (falling in love with last week’s star), and “confirmation bias” (cherry-picking stats that support what you already believe).

But especially beware of Week One. Thanks to the “primacy effect,” those games early in the season loom larger in memory than later ones. One hot debut or a disappointing flop can warp a coach’s thinking for weeks.

The result? Lineups driven more by emotion than logic — and possibly a lot of pick sixes.

Biases aren’t all bad, though. Sometimes instincts pay off. First impressions and recent performances sometimes hold fast.

But the best fantasy players, Miller says, know when to slow down and think systematically. They stay skeptical, challenge their gut reactions, and accept that they’ll be wrong sometimes.

So before you rage-drop that underperforming wide receiver or crown your Week One sleeper a superstar, remember, the smartest move might be to take a look in the mirror and give your head a shake.

Miller is available for interviews for journalists covering fantasy sports. Connect with her by clicking on her profile.