Sandra Knispel

Sandra Knispel

Sandra Knispel

Communications Specialist

sknispel@ur.rochester.edu

RECENT POSTS

Video still showing Harry Reis with the University of Rochester shield and the text "ever wonder" near a thought bubble that reads "how is AI changing the way we love?"

Society & Culture

The secret to happiness? Feeling loved

February 11, 2026

Two psychologists—one a happiness researcher and the other a relationship expert—say love isn’t found. It’s created, one mindset at a time.

Close-up of a hand holding a water hose while spraying a green lawn to illustrate water conservation efforts aimed at water guzzlers.

Society & Culture

How to entice water guzzlers to conserve

February 5, 2026

A California field experiment shows why targeting high water users with the right incentives outperforms years of public messaging.

Sign on a glass door showing a NO symbol over an firearm icon with words that read "firearms prohibited", which includes gun kits (aka ghost guns), according to the Supreme Court.

Society & Culture

From semantics to SCOTUS: The linguistics research behind the ghost gun ruling

December 22, 2025

URochester’s Scott Grimm describes how language science helped the Supreme Court decide that gun kits should be treated like firearms.

Illustration of a Human head covered by smoke from factory chimneys to illustrate how socially responsible investors may do more harm than good.

Society & Culture

When socially responsible investing backfires

December 10, 2025

A new study finds that investors may unintentionally give polluting companies a reason to delay going green.

Overhead view of young business professionals tightly grouped and staring ahead, except for one man looking up in dismay to illustrate employee turnover at top firms.

Society & Culture

Why top firms paradoxically fire good workers

November 18, 2025

Elite firms’ notorious ‘revolving door’ culture isn’t arbitrary but rather a way to signal talent and boost profits, a new study finds.

Low angle view of a young group of people in a circle holding cellphones to illustrate crowdsourced fact-checking on social media, including Community Notes on X.

Society & Culture

The most effective online fact-checkers? Your peers

November 17, 2025

Research shows being called out by peers, not algorithms or experts, makes online authors think twice about spreading misinformation.

Political science professor Gretchen Helmke stands in her office with whiteboards and notes behind her.

From the Magazine

Office hours with Gretchen Helmke

November 14, 2025

The 2025 Guggenheim Fellow on turning a passion for reading and writing into a career solving our most vexing political puzzles.

Kathryn Cowdrick holding a model of a human throat next to an illustration that reads "ever wonder what happens when an opera singer gets a cold."

Health & Medicine

What happens when an opera singer gets a cold?

November 14, 2025

When illness threatens a performance, singers rely on science, technique, and tough judgment calls.

Archival photo of two water fountains next to each other. The larger one has a plaque above it reading "white" and the smaller fountain has a sign that reads "colored," illustrating American illiberalism.

Society & Culture

Steven Hahn ’73 on America’s illiberal past and present

October 31, 2025

From eugenics to segregation, the Pulitzer Prize winner says America’s ‘darker impulses’ run deep.

Emblem of United Nations with UN member country flags and Secretariat Building in the background.

Society & Culture

After 80 years, is the United Nations past its prime?

October 20, 2025

Randall Stone, an expert on international institutions, explains the UN’s enduring influence—and its limits.

László Krasznahorkai photographed looking outside with his arms crossed through paned windows.

On Nobelist László Krasznahorkai, the apocalypse, and the art of literary translation

October 10, 2025

Alumnus Declan Spring ’87 and Open Letter’s Chad Post reflect on the vision and voice of the newly minted Nobel laureate.

A vise tool holding a coin that says United States of America one dollar.

Society & Culture

When Washington tried to starve industries of loans—and failed

September 26, 2025

Federal regulators pressured banks to withdraw from controversial industries. A new study finds companies simply borrowed elsewhere.