Spotlights

Attention music journalists: When there are developments in the music industry — whether it be the emergence of a new sound, a growing trend in experiencing and listening to music, or the death of an influential artist — John Covach lends valuable perspective to your stories.

Covach, a prominent rock and pop music historian who directs the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Rochester, is regularly sought out by news outlets around the world.

He recently helped The New York Times explain what made the album “Pet Sounds” a masterpiece for Beach Boys chief songwriter Brian Wilson. He has offered commentary to the New York Daily News on why artists might relinquish ownership of their music. Last year, he offered thoughts to The Boston Globe on the timeless appeal of aging rock ‘n’ rollers who are still packing arenas. “It doesn’t matter that they can’t sing the high notes anymore,” Covach told The Globe. “It doesn’t matter that they’re kind of stooped over. We’re seeing the person we remember from 40 or 50 years ago.”

Covach is a wealth of knowledge and an accessible expert. Connect with him by clicking on his profile.

A Trump administration proposal to use the federal tax code to offer vouchers that students could use to attend private secular or religious schools has reignited public debate over school choice.

David Figlio, a professor of economics and education at the University of Rochester whose research on vouchers has been widely cited, is available to offer insight on the matter.

A recent study he co-authored on a school choice program in Ohio showed that low-income children in the program were likely to realize significant and positive academic benefits.

Figlio warned in an interview with National Public Radio, though, that the results need to be taken “with a grain of salt.”

“This program was a highly targeted program that bears little resemblance to the statewide, universal vouchers that are being rolled out today,” he said.

Figlio’s research spans a wide range of education and health policy issues, from school accountability and standards to welfare policy and the intersection between education and health.

Contact Figlio by clicking on his profile.

News that Target’s sluggish first quarter earnings were partly due to consumers protesting the retail giant’s rollback on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, may have some people wondering why any company would take a position on a politically divisive issue.

David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester, says political polarization across the country has forced the hands of some corporate executives to take a stand.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Americans are split on whether they want big business wading into social and political minefields.

“It’s pretty straight forward to think that a corporation ought to be taking positions on issues related to its core business operations,” Primo says. “The challenge for an executive, who has a fiduciary responsibility to the company, is knowing where to draw the line.”

Primo regularly shares his insights on a variety of topics with business journalists and political reporters. Recently, he spoke to USA Today about consumers boycotting major retailers. Contact him by clicking on his profile.

A research team has uncovered what it believes is “the world’s most electrically conductive organic molecule,” a discovery that opens new possibilities for building smaller, more powerful, and more energy-efficient computers.

It could also allow computer chip manufacturers to eliminate their reliance on silicon and metal as conductors.

“Molecules are nature’s tiniest, mightiest, and most configurable building blocks and can be engineered to build ultra-compact, ultra-efficient technology for everything from computers to quantum devices,” said Ignacio Franco, who was part of the research team that was led by scientists at the University of Miami.

Their research was detailed in a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The molecule, which is composed of chemical elements found in nature, including carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen, can carry electrical current over record-breaking distances without losing efficiency.

Using molecular materials in electronic chips offers several advantages. They consume less power.
They can be more easily customized than silicon. They are more environmentally friendly. And, perhaps most importantly to manufacturers, they are potentially cheaper to produce.

“This molecular design overcomes many of the big issues that for decades have prevented the use of molecules in electronics,” Franco said.

To learn more about this ground-breaking research, read about it at the University of Rochester News Center, and contact Franco at ignacio.franco@rochester.edu.

The world is watching the Vatican as cardinals from across the globe gather for the papal conclave.

The monumental event, which involves cardinals closing themselves off in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, is steeped in history, mystery, and speculation. The new pontiff will be expected to make difficult decisions about the future direction of the Catholic church, which has almost 1.4 billion followers worldwide, and address the Vatican's strained finances and its sexual abuse scandals.

If you're a reporter looking for an expert who can provide valuable insight, perspective and opinion on any angle of the events unfolding in Vatican City, consider reaching out to Jack Downey, the John Henry Newman Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at the University of Rochester. 

Downey and his scholarship have been featured in media outlets such as The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and Time Magazine. Simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.

Early colonialism in the Americas tends to conjure images of Jamestown and Plymouth Colony. But long before settlers there acclimated to the New World’s growing conditions and overcame starvation conditions, an English settlement established in Bermuda in 1612 was wealthy and prosperous.

University of Rochester historian and archaeologist Michael Jarvis has been uncovering the hidden history of Smith’s Island in Bermuda and its pivotal role in reshaping the understanding of colonial America.

Nicknamed “Chainsaw Mike” by his students, he has spent 14 years excavating Smith’s Island and one of the first English settlements in the New World.

Jarvis argues that Bermuda’s role in supplying Jamestown with food and influencing early colonists make it a cornerstone of America’s origin story rather than the historical footnote to which it has largely been relegated.

His research on Smith’s Island was recently the cover story of Smithsonian magazine and was featured on the History Unplugged podcast.

Jarvis is an expert on colonial America, the international and intercolonial networks of trade at the time, and settlement patterns in eastern North America, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the communities surrounding European gold- and slave-trade forts in West Africa.

He can be reached at 585-275-4558 and michael.jarvis@rochester.edu.

A growing number of clinical trials gauging the effects of inhibiting transposons, so-called “jumping genes,” have yielded encouraging results for treating Alzheimer’s and a wide range of other conditions.

Vera Gorbunova, a molecular biologist at the University of Rochester whose research on the causes of aging and cancer is widely regarded as pioneering, says researchers tackling aging “need something new, and inhibiting transposons shows great promise.”

Gorbunova’s comments were recently featured in Science magazine, a leading news outlet for
cutting-edge research in all areas of science.

Researchers say clinical trials of transposon inhibitors are important not just to identify potential treatments, but also to test whether jumping genes do, in fact, drive human diseases, as many suspect.

Transposon genes are found in a diverse variety of organisms, from miniscule bacteria to humans, and they are known in biological terms as “transposable elements” because they literally jump around the genome. Their vagrancy has been implicated in illnesses such as lupus, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, and aging.

Gorbunova is a recognized expert in aging and cancer whose research has been featured in high-profile publications ranging from Nature to The New York Times. Reach out to Gorbunova by clicking on her profile.

University of Rochester scientists have discovered that twisting together two atom-thin flakes of molybdenum diselenide at high angles produces artificial atoms that can act as quantum information bits, or qubits.

The discovery was made in the laboratory of Nickolas Vamivakas, the Marie C. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Optical Physics, who says he hopes the artificial atoms can be used like memory or nodes in a quantum network.

“These could be the backbone for devices like the next generation of lasers or even tools to stimulate quantum physics,” Vamivakas says.

The revelations built on experiments that found twisting a pair of one-atom-thick layers of graphene at the “magic” angle of 1.1 degrees created a superconductive material.

Molybdenum diselenide, like graphene, is a 2D material. When monolayers of it are twisted at angles up to 40 degrees, they produce excitons, or artificial atoms, that retain information when activated by light.

The discovery was recently published in Nano Letters. To learn more about Vamivakas’s research, read about it at the University of Rochester News Center and contact him at nick.vamivakas@rochester.edu.

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence tools such as generative pre-trained transformers, or GPTs, high school students may be tempted to use the tools to perfect their college applications, particularly their entrance essay.

Robert Alexander, a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management at the University of Rochester, cautions prospective college students from relying too heavily on AI tools in their applications.

“The sentiment among college admissions professionals is that while AI tools may be helpful in generating essay topics and refining or editing students’ writing, we discourage their use to compose application essays or short answers because AI stifles an applicant’s authentic voice,” Alexander says.

That personal voice becomes paramount when admissions officers are sifting through applications and considering how each student will contribute to the campus community and fit into the incoming class.

“No college or university is trying to admit perfectly identical automaton students,” Alexander says. “At the University of Rochester, for instance, we’re not looking for 1,300 perfect students. We’re trying to craft the perfect class of 1,300 very different and highly-imperfect, but great-fit students.”

The goal, he says, is to invite great students, inclusive of their imperfections, and guide them on a transformative journey through their next four years.

“Colleges want students to come in with a growth mindset and potential,” Alexander says. “So, if students think they can use AI to help make their application ‘perfect,’ I think they’re chasing the wrong brass ring.”

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.