Research

Daniel Janies, the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics, discusses his efforts to better understand the Zika virus in this Inside UNC Charlotte webcast. Janies is looking to answer two very important questions: how is the virus changing, and where might it go next?

The Zika virus is spreading, and its worsening symptoms are causing serious public health concerns. More than a million people have been infected in Brazil alone, and the first American cases are now being reported in South Florida. As researchers and scientists scramble to understand this previously understudied organism, UNC Charlotte bioinformatics professor Daniel Janies is looking to answer two very important questions: how is the virus changing, and where might it go next? Janies explains his research on an Inside UNC Charlotte webcast, starting at 9 a.m., Friday, Aug. 19.

With hundreds of billions of neurons and thousands of trillions of synaptic connections between them, the human brain is considered the most complex system on earth. This complexity makes studying the brain an almost overwhelming challenge with nearly infinite research options.

Questions like “Why am I here?” and “What is the meaning of life?” are essential inquiries in many people’s lives. The intimacy and importance of such topics often leads their discussion to be limited.

Social work professor Jim Dudley is trying to change that. It is precisely because of their intimacy and power to heal that spirituality and religion must become more closely connected with the helping process, he stated.

Mirsad Hadzikadic, along with collaborators at N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill, are interviewed for the UNC ROI video “Building Big Data Infrastructure.”

Susan McCarter has one of those personalities that draws one in. Even when she’s giving an academic presentation, the School of Social Work professor is warm, engaging and almost relentlessly cheerful. Still, when she starts talking about her research, her audience — regardless of its size or composition — often becomes visibly uncomfortable. 

UNC Charlotte’s Women + Girls Research Alliance is featured as a case study in a new work on the practice of community-based research.

“Community-based Qualitative Research: Approaches for Education and the Social Sciences” was published by SAGE Publications; it was authored by Laura Ruth Johnson, associate professor, Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, College of Education, Northern Illinois University.

A quartet of UNC Charlotte music students will perform at two international conferences during the month of July: the International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), which will take place July 5-9 in San Francisco, and the International Society for Music Education (ISME) 32nd World Conference on Music Education, which will be July 24-29 in Glasgow, Scotland. The participating students are Mitchell Stokes, Faith Foster, Kelsey Sexton and Dawn Carpenter. The quartet will be the only ensemble to perform at the ICMPC in San Francisco.

Sheng-Guo Wang, a professor of electrical engineering technology in the Lee College of Engineering, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach and conduct research at Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the 2016-17 academic year.

Hong Kong Polytechnic University is a leading international research institution, most recently ranked 12th globally in structural engineering by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings; QS is a British company that specializes in education and study abroad.

One in every eight couples struggles to conceive or maintain a pregnancy. In Charlotte, at least 4,000 people seek infertility treatment every year. As such, the city has become a hub of knowledge and resources for patients diagnosed with infertility. A local chapter of the national infertility support group RESOLVE, embryo banks, follicle preservation and alternative health care are treatment options patients can locate in the Charlotte area.