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Press Releases

Envisioning the campus future

Campus data: Academic connections matter

Ties that bind: A depiction of undergraduate enrollments makes the point: Brown students choose courses that connect them to many different departments even in their junior and senior years. The figure, animated by course registration data, shows that no single academic unit can stand apart from the others.
A strategic planning committee charged with reimagining the University’s campus is using a powerful animated visualization tool based on data that describe campus use. Bottom line: Programs of research and instruction across 40 academic departments at Brown are tightly integrated and collaborative. No department can stand apart. (Distributed April 10, 2013)

Athletes visit schools for Reading Week

What’s college like? Is it hard? Do you get recess?: Fourth-graders asked a few questions about the book, but they peppered junior Sarah Presant, a member of the water polo team, with questions about college sports and life at Brown.
Nearly 100 Brown student-athletes and coaches are taking part for the first time in Providence Public Schools' Reading Week activities, stopping by schools throughout the city this week to read books to elementary-age children. The annual event coincides with a nationwide initiative aimed at getting children more interested in reading. (Distributed April 10, 2013)
A student encounter

Brown campus, Brown curriculum

The atypical class schedule is typical: “I had a friend who was in religious studies, public health, and pre-med — and he was a varsity athlete,” Ramos said. “He just felt like there was no reason not to take everything that he wanted to take.”
“We don’t just search one department and say, ‘What are the classes here?’,” says Brown junior Jacob Ramos. “We go through all the departments and see what’s there.” That’s academic life at Brown, where pre-med studies in the open curriculum can include history, photography, and Velazquez. (See “Reimagining campus”) (Distributed April 9, 2013)

A new approach to spinal muscular atrophy?

Spinal muscular atrophy is a debilitating neuromuscular disease that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death. By experimenting with an ALS drug in two very different animal models, researchers at Brown University and Boston Children’s Hospital have identified a new potential mechanism for developing an SMA treatment. (Distributed April 9, 2013)

Carbon’s role in atmosphere formation

Greenhouse effect on the Red Planet?: Early on, Mars had giant active volcanoes, which would have released significant methane. Because of methane’s high greenhouse potential, even a thin atmosphere might have supported liquid water.
A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the way carbon moves from within a planet to the surface plays a big role in the evolution of a planet's atmosphere. If Mars released much of its carbon as methane, for example, it might have been warm enough to support liquid water. (Distributed April 8, 2013)
Inaugural Recipients 2013-14

Paxson presents Presidential Faculty Awards

At the monthly faculty meeting Tuesday, April 2, President Christina Paxson announced the Brown University Presidential Faculty Award inaugural recipients: Poet C.D. Wright (fall 2013) and Charles Larmore, professor of philosophy (spring 2014). Recipients will receive a research stipend and will present their work to faculty colleagues in other disciplines. (Distributed April 5, 2013)
Teaching and Research for Impact

Brown launches TRI-Lab community initiative

Teaching, Research, Impact: President Christina Paxson chats with Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, center, and inaugural lab co-chair Elizabeth Burke Bryant of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT at a gathering to celebrate the new TRILab program.
Brown University announced today the launch of a new initiative that will bring together students, faculty and community organizations to tackle pressing social issues. TRI-Lab — Teaching, Research and Impact — will be piloted beginning in the fall of the 2013-14 academic year with a focus on healthy early childhood development. The inaugural lab will be co-chaired by Stephen Buka, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology, and Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT. (Distributed April 3, 2013)

Invasive crabs help Cape Cod marshes

Conquering hero: Just the sight of Carcinus maenas, the invasive green crab, sends marsh grass-eating Sesarma reticulatum crabs running for their lives. The marshes and their grasses slowly recover.
Ecologists are wary of non-native species, but along the shores of Cape Cod where grass-eating crabs have been running amok and destroying the marsh, an invasion of a predatory green crabs has helped turn back the tide in favor of the grass. The counter-intuitive conclusions appear in a new paper in the journal Ecology. (Distributed April 3, 2013)
Questions for John Donoghue

Obama announces the BRAIN Initiative

The BRAIN Initiative: John Donoghue, professor of neuroscience, and Arto Nurmikko, professor of engineering, were at the White House Tuesday morning, April 2, as participants in President Barack Obama's “Grand Challenge” initiative called BRAIN.
At 10 a.m. April 2, President Barack Obama spoke in the East Room of the White House about a new research “Grand Challenge” called the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Because of their work to shape the ideas, Professors John Donoghue and Arto Nurmikko were there. (Distributed April 2, 2013)
Survivor

Pre-existing mineralogy may survive lunar impacts

Large impacts on the Moon can form wide craters and turn surface rock liquid. Geophysicists once assumed that liquid rock would be homogenous when it cooled. Now researchers have found  evidence that pre-existing mineralogy can survive impact melt. (Distributed April 2, 2013)
Spring Break

Student NGO assists Zanzibari hospitals

Lesson One: Start with what’s needed: Jayson Marwaha and hospital staff take inventory of neonatal equiment at a hospital in Zanzibar. It’s not a matter of finding donated equipment; it’s a matter of delivering what is needed and what can be managed effectively.
The ad hoc donations of salvaged medical equipment that Jayson Marwaha began to organize in high school have evolved into a full partnership with the ministry of health in Zanzibar, an island region of Tanzania. During spring break this year, Marwaha launched two new programs of his Brown University-supported group MED International: a software system to manage medical equipment inventory and repairs and new courses to train local technicians. Back at Brown, MED International plans an event April 5 to engage greater support. (Distributed April 1, 2013)

Brown admits Class of 2017

Walking the walk: Every fall the Van Wickle Gates open inward to receive new students. About 1,515 members of the Class of 2017 will take the walk in September.
Today at 5 p.m., 2,649 students from across the country and around the world learned that they have been accepted into Brown’s Class of 2017. They represent 9.2 percent of a 28,919-applicant pool and constitute the most diverse admitted class in University history. (Distributed March 28, 2013)
Alpert Medical School

Brown, JWU discuss health care collaboration

A team-based approach to health care: Johnson & Wales University’s new  Center for Physician Assistant Studies will be a mere 1,000 feet away from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
Brown University and Johnson & Wales University have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore collaborations between the Alpert Medical School and the new physician assistant program at JWU. The agreement could expand inter-professional education in line with emerging trends in how health care is delivered. (Distributed March 27, 2013)
Casey Shearer Memorial Lecture

Filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist is Shearer lecturer

Jeff Zimbalist, a 2000 Brown graduate and filmmaker who won international acclaim for his films The Two Escobars and Favela Rising, will deliver the 13th annual Casey Shearer Memorial Lecture at Brown University on Friday, April 5, 2013. His talk begins at 7 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, De Ciccio Family Auditorium. (Distributed March 27, 2013)
Media Advisory

Brown to launch community impact initiative

Brown will celebrate the launch of TRI-Lab: Teaching, Research, and Impact, a new initiative that will bring together students, faculty and community organizations to tackle pressing social issues. The launch is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 3, 2013, at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, 154 Angell St. Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Brown President Christina Paxson, and others will make brief remarks.  (Distributed March 27, 2013)