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

A team of researchers led by the University of Rochester, with the aid of a $4.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, will investigate the science behind the capacity of living things to generate and pursue goals. By understanding life and its ability to act as what scientists call “an autonomous agent,” the new grant also seeks to understand if there are limits to agency in artificial intelligence.

The three-year award will establish the Virtual Institute for the Physics of Agentic Intelligence (VIPAI), an international collaboration led by URochester physicist and computer scientist Gourab Ghoshal. Physicists, philosophers, biologists, and computer scientists from the Santa Fe Institute, Dartmouth College, the University of British Columbia, the University of Auckland, and the Basque Foundation for Science will join the effort, with URochester serving as the institute’s coordinating hub.

“Today’s AI is extraordinarily capable, but capability isn’t the same thing as agency and acting on one’s own behalf,” said Ghoshal.

Read more about the new research project

 

Congratulations to faculty members who recently secured funding for new research projects:

• Shin-yi Chao, associate professor of religion, received $35,000 from Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange for the project “Daoist Immortal, Vernacular Goddess: The Making of Wei Huacun (251–334) Worship in Local Religion.”
• Travis Baseler, assistant professor of economics, received $93,200 from Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics for the project “The Effects of Integrating Refugees into Thai Local Labor Markets.”

 

Andrew Elliot, a professor of psychology, received the Distinguished Contribution to Motivation Science Award from the Society for the Science of Motivation.

The award is given to a senior scientist who has made a major theoretical and/or empirical contribution to motivation science. Elliot conducts research on approach and avoidance motivation, especially in the achievement domain. His most cited work links different types of achievement goals to performance and well-being outcomes.

 

The National Academy of Education (NAEd) has named Cameron Hecht, assistant professor of psychology, a 2026 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. The NAEd fellowship supports early career scholars working in critical areas of education research.

Hecht was among 25 fellows selected from a highly competitive pool of nearly 500 scholars.

Learn more about the fellowship and Hecht’s research

 

James Druckman, the Martin Brewer Anderson Professor of Political Science, has been elected the American Academy of Political and Social Science’s 2026 Harold Lasswell Fellow.  He is one of three to receive a 2026 fellowship from AAPSS.

Each year, the APSS selects a small group of scholars and public intellectuals as fellows, in recognition of their contributions to social research and public policy.

Read recent news about faculty achievements

 

Nora Rubel’s book Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The Settlement Cook Book (Columbia University Press, 2026) tells the story of The Settlement Cook Book and how it shaped Jewish American identity.

Rubel, the Elizabeth Denio Professor in the Department of Religion and Classics, traces the cookbook’s evolution across forty editions over several decades, through waves of immigration, shifting gender roles, upward mobility, suburbanization, and rapid changes in Jewish life.

Learn more about Recipes for the Melting Pot

 

The recently reported death of the Major Oak in England’s Sherwood Forest is the starting point for a larger article on cnn.com about legend of Robin Hood in popular culture.

“Hunting a ghost through Sherwood Forest: On the elusive train of the real Robin Hood”  includes extensive comments from Tom Hahn, professor emeritus in English literature.

Read the CNN article about Robin Hood

 

Big news: The School of Arts & Sciences has launched a new LinkedIn page.

We’re excited to start sharing school updates, faculty and staff highlights, alumni news, department spotlights, and more. Head over to our new page and hit follow to stay connected.

Follow SAS on LinkedIn

 

Send your SAS in Focus news tips to School of Arts & Sciences 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.