Welcome to the latest SAS in Focus, a newsletter that reports what’s happening in the School of Arts and Sciences.

In this edition, we’ll spotlight student engagement, faculty accolades, Nobel Prize connections and more.

 

A two-year effort led by students and researchers in the Department of Biology culminated with the unveiling of the Martha Chase Commemorative Plaque in Hutchison Hall on Sept. 26. The plaque can be viewed on the second-floor vestibule in Hutch Hall.

Chase worked as a research associate in the biology department from 1953 to 1958. Prior to joining the University of Rochester, the landmark “Hershey-Chase Experiment” conducted by Chase and Alfred Hersey settled the debate on DNA’s role in heredity. Their groundbreaking work was published in 1952.

The plaque lauds Chase as a “pioneering geneticist and an inspiration for women pursuing careers in STEM.”

 

Karl Glastad, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, has been named a 2025 Packard Fellow by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The fellowship annually honors 20 science and engineering professors across the United States who are pursuing research early in their careers. Each fellowship is accompanied by an individual grant of $875,000, distributed over five years.

Glastad’s research focuses on using ants as models to understand aging. At the cellular level, aging is characterized by an accumulation of damage and dysfunction in multiple dimensions that are thought to precipitate the decline in health as an organism approaches end of life. While this process and these forms of damage are highly consistent across the animal kingdom, the complexity of the process has stymied our understanding of the aging process.

In many ant species, the non-reproductive individuals (workers) live six to eight months, but their reproductive sisters (queens) live for decades, outliving most mammals. The Glastad lab is using modern genomic, molecular, and transgenic techniques to understand the aging process, and how ants have hacked this process more than essentially any other organism on the planet.

Read more about Karl Glastad’s research.

 

Three scientists received the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating that quantum effects—specifically, quantum tunneling—can appear in larger, visible systems, not just tiny particles. They achieved this using superconducting circuits, which are large enough to be seen by the naked eye yet still exhibit quantum behavior.

At the University of Rochester, researchers are exploring the same quantum phenomena highlighted by the Nobel Prize–winning work.  The lab of Machiel Blok, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, creates superconducting circuits with qudits, which are quantum computing units that can exist in multiple states at once. In these circuits, electrons can “tunnel” through barriers, allowing qudits to occupy two or more states simultaneously, a key property for building quantum computers.

Read more about quantum tunneling and URochester’s research.

 

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hungarian novelist, essayist, and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art,” according to the Nobel committee.

Alumnus Declan Spring ’87 is executive vice president and senior editor at the legendary literary press New Directions, which has edited Krasznahorkai in English for decades. Chad Post, who heads up Open Letter, the University’s nonprofit literary translation press, has met the author.

“It was only a matter of time until he won,” Post says.

Read more reaction about the 2025 selection of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

A transdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Rochester are working to better understand stress and why some people recover from stress more easily than others—an ability known as resilience.

Everyone is affected by stress,” says Jennie Noll, a professor in the Department of Psychology and executive director of the Mt. Hope Family Center. “Stress is an adaptive response. It is a basic human condition.”

Noll and  Kathi Heffner, a professor at the University’s School of Nursing and the departments of psychiatry and medicine, and the associate chief of research in the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Division of Geriatrics and Aging are co-leaders of the University of Rochester Resilience Research Center. The Resilience Center examines stress and resilience on many levels, including physiological, psychological, and societal.

View the video and read more about understanding stress and resilience.

 

Drop by the Academic Open House scheduled for October 20, from noon to 2 p.m. in the Feldman Ballroom in Douglass Commons.

The open house will provide a great opportunity for students to connect with faculty and staff and explore the Spring 2026 course offerings. Faculty and college advisors will be available to answer questions.

For more information, email sasschool@ur.rochester.edu.

 

The University publicly launched For Ever Better: The Campaign for the University of Rochester—its largest and most ambitious fundraising and engagement initiative ever—during Meliora Weekend and now President Sarah Mangelsdorf is taking the campaign on the road.

The University is hosting regional campaign launch events across the country this fall and spring. Registration is now available for events in Chicago on October 16 and Philadelphia on November 20. Registration for 2026 events will be opening soon.

 

What if the late 1600s had been a turning point against European domination of the Americas? An upcoming discussion will examine how four uprisings revealed a more complex history than the one we usually hear.

Peter C. Mancall, Distinguished Professor and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the University of Southern California, will be the featured speaker during the 2025 Ferrari Humanities Symposium Keynote Lecture at 5 p.m. on October 23.

Mancall will share the stories of uprisings and resistance that challenged colonial power.

Learn more about the lecture and register to attend.

 

Faculty, staff and students can register for free tickets to the inaugural Soundtrax Film Music Festival, Oct. 16-18 at Eastman School of Music performance spaces. Anyone interested in music, movies, video games, and emerging audio technology will enjoy this event.

The festival’s daytime sessions are free to attend with University of Rochester ID and range from conversations with Emmy-winning composers to technology-focused talks about AI in music production with speakers from SONY, Yamaha, and Adobe. The festival’s ticketed evenings feature film-music concerts including Terrence Blanchard ($5 student tickets), The Music from Interstellar ($5 student tickets), and John Williams Reimagined ($5 student tickets).

To register for free events and purchase tickets to individual Soundtrax concerts, visit Eastman’s Box Office online, in person (433 East Main Street), or by calling (585) 274-3000.

 

Send your SAS in Focus news tips to Director of Marketing and Communications Sheila Rayam at sheila.rayam@rochester.edu. Let her know about unique research, awards, publications, community collaborations and other interesting news. Please put “SAS in Focus” in the subject heading.