
Rock history remembers David Bowie
David Bowie, who died Sunday at the age of 69, wasn’t the first performer to create an alter ego. But as music professor and director of the Institute for Popular Music John Covach explains, the difference with Bowie was how his personas would change over the years, sometimes shifting drastically.

More efficient way of converting ethanol leads to better alternative fuel
A research team led by chemistry professor William Jones has developed a series of reactions that results in the selective conversion of ethanol to butanol, without producing unwanted byproducts.

Defining the future of the School of Arts & Sciences
Gloria Culver was formally installed as dean of the School of Arts & Sciences during an investiture ceremony December 1 in the Interfaith Chapel. A professor of biology, Culver joined the Rochester faculty in 2007. During the ceremony, Culver talked about defining the School of Arts & Sciences—and charting its future.

December 1 is World AIDS Day
Michael Gottlieb ’73M (MD), examines AIDS awareness posters that are part of the AIDS Education Posters Collection, a collection of more than 6,500 AIDS education posters from around the world. Gottlieb, a graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, was the first to identify the disease that would come to be known as AIDS.

Discovery of classic pi formula a ‘cunning piece of magic’
When most people think about pi, they associate the mathematical constant with arcs and circles. Mathematicians, however, are accustomed to seeing it in a variety of fields. But two University physicists were still surprised to find it lurking in a quantum mechanics formula for the energy states of the hydrogen atom.

College social life can predict well-being at midlife
A new 30-year longitudinal study shows that the quantity of social interactions a person has in their 20s—and the quality of the social relationships they have in their 30s—can benefit his or her well-being later in life. The study participants, now in their 50s, took part in the Rochester-Interaction Record (RIR) study as college students in the 1970s and again as 30-year-olds in the 1980s.

Winners of inaugural Tibetan Innovation Challenge announced
A Simon Business School team placed third in the Tibetan Innovation Challenge, a new intercollegiate social entrepreneurship business plan competition that aims to develop self-sustaining and replicable business ideas to alleviate the economic difficulties Tibetan refugees are facing.

Stress in low-income families can affect children’s learning
Children living in low-income households who endure family instability and emotionally distant caregivers are at risk of having impaired cognitive abilities according to new research from Rochester’s Mt. Hope Family Center.

Summer carillon series brings internationally acclaimed performers to Rochester
The University will begin its annual summer carillon series on Monday, July 6, with a performance from award-winning carillonneur Joey Brink. The concert is the first of four free outdoor shows that will take place during the month of July on Monday evenings at 7 p.m. on the Eastman Quad on River Campus.

Danny Wegman elected University board chair-elect, four new trustees named at May meeting
The University Board of Trustees elected Rochester business and civic leader Danny Wegman as board chairman-elect at its May meeting, to begin a five-year term following the May 2016 Board meeting. Wegman, CEO of Rochester-based Wegmans Food Markets, Inc., has served as a University trustee for more than 15 years.