Research

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $4 million grant to UNC Charlotte researchers to develop a multidisciplinary research program called Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI) that will create new ways to manage, use and share Big Data and analytic results

Is the economic forecast partly sunny or partly cloudy? Both, said UNC Charlotte economist John Connaughton. On the bright side, North Carolina’s unemployment rate is now lower than the U.S. rate, and the economy continues to grow. However, the economic expansion is slowing down, Connaughton stated during the Babson Capital Management/UNC Charlotte Economic Forecast.

A recently published work by history professor Gregory Mixon analyzes one state’s process of freedom, citizenship and the incorporation of African Americans within the political and economic structure of the United States after the Civil War.

Historian Mark Wilson studies the business and politics of the American industrial mobilization for World War II in the new book “Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II.”

Wilson spent 10 years researching the archives of companies that made weapons for the war as well as military and government archives. His search led him to the records of Boeing Aircraft and Manufacturing, Ford Motor and DuPont U.S.

Yokohama Tire Corporation has announced plans to locate a research and development center in Concord’s International Business Park. Until that facility is ready, the company will house up to 22 workers on UNC Charlotte’s campus in the PORTAL Building.

Traditional age-based grade levels may be hampering the progress of millions of K-12 students in the United States and should be a target for reform, according to a new study co-authored by a UNC Charlotte education professor.

Using data from a sample of state and national assessments, Michael Matthews, associate professor of special education and child development, and colleagues found that between 15 and 45 percent of students enter upper elementary school classrooms already performing at least one year above grade level.

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.