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Leading the Dialogue RESEARCH AT BROWN 2021 IMPACTon Race P.14 The Big World of Tiny Nanocrystals P.40 Student Focus: Social Issues P.32 SPECIAL REPORT Responding to the Pandemic P.18 STARTING OFF CONTENTS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC is one digital media: Dr. Ashish Jha, the new dean of the School of RESEARCH BRIEFS of the most devastating Public Health, is informing the nation on public health matters; public health challenges of economist Emily Oster is providing data-driven advice for 2 Saving “God’s Little Acre” modern times, but it has parents of school-age children; and Dr. Megan Ranney rallied her 4 Take the Sting Out of Mosquitos also given the world the ER coworkers as she called for national health care changes and 5 Alumni Impact: Suzanne Rivera most remarkable validation became a regular contributor on a major national news network. 5 The Dean of Urban Politics of the importance of Our research community successfully resumed most 6 Immunotherapy Enhanced government-supported operations over the summer, with rigorous new safety 6 Innovation to Impact in Medicine university research that we protocols and double shifts to accommodate reduced staffing 6 Alumni Impact: Alina Moran have seen in our lifetimes. densities. Brown faculty, staff, and students have been working 7 A New Approach to Genetic Testing Across the United States with dedication and innovation throughout the pandemic. As a 8 Everything in Moderation, Even Sports and the world, university laboratories closed for all but result, we’ve garnered many highly competitive awards. As one 9 Natural Language for Computers essential activities as COVID-19 cases increased and hospitals example, the National Science Foundation awarded Brown 9 Alumni Impact: Nicole Alexander-Scott and health care workers were overwhelmed. Yet, despite the $23.7 million for renewal of the Institute for Computational 10 The Unique Identities of uncertainty and losses, we have made extraordinary advances and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM). Immigrant Activists 10 14 in research and in our understanding of the human experience. In this issue of Impact, you will find stories about Brown 10 Research Honors It has been an exceptional year for Brown research—one of research achievements in numerous fields, including a special 11 How Stimulants Really Work resilience and accomplishment. section devoted to COVID and a feature on the Center for the 11 Alumni Impact: Jonathan Karp In mid-March 2020, non-essential research ramped down at Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. Led by Tricia Rose, 12 Short Takes the same time most students left campus and the governor of CSREA is one of most highly regarded academic centers 13 Unpacking Lunar Ice Rhode Island issued a stay-at-home order. The emergency focused on scholarship on race and ethnicity—a topic brought reduction of laboratory research took only days to effect. into sharp relief as the nation grappled with anti-Black racism FOCUS Almost immediately, researchers galvanized to assist Rhode in 2020. This issue’s spotlight on undergraduate research Island’s health care system, with donations of PPE and other focuses on the work of our students in social issues. 36 Mathematics, Reimagined supplies to hospitals and frontline health care workers. It has been gratifying to see our University research 38 Books Born Digital Just as quickly, our researchers turned attention to urgent community respond to a challenging year so quickly, effectively, 40 The Big World of Tiny Nanocrystals questions related to the pandemic. The University’s COVID-19 and creatively. 41 School Discipline: The Race Gap Research Seed Fund, announced in April, accelerated innova- tive work of faculty and students on therapies, technology, and BROWN RESEARCH INDEX medical interventions. With this fund, 15 important projects launched, including a statewide Biobank providing patients’ 43 Books biological samples to researchers at Brown, as well as to Rhode 46 Selected Faculty Honors Island’s Lifespan and Care New England health systems. Jill Pipher Throughout this global crisis, many Brown researchers have Vice President for Research END NOTES 18 been prominent voices in newspapers and in broadcast and Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor of Mathematics 52 Ashish Jha and Megan Ranney: Speaking Out 14 A Community in Conversation A Brown center has carved out a critical role in racial research and dialogue. BY SARAH C. BALDWIN ’87 IMPACTRESEARCH AT BROWN 2021 18 Special Report: COVID-19 On the Cover: Amanda Jamieson, assistant Brown faculty have launched a wide range of research and Editor: Noel Rubinton Vice President for Research Office of Research Development Office of Foundation Relations professor of molecular microbiology and other projects to fight the pandemic. BY NOEL RUBINTON ’77 Designer: 2COMMUNIQUÉ [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] immunology at Brown, is working with 401-863-7408 Graphene Composites (GC), a nanomaterials Impact: Research at Brown is Brown University Brown Technology Innovations For ongoing news about engineering company, to develop and test a published annually by the Office of the Box 1937 [email protected] Brown research, follow graphene and silver nanoparticle ink that has 32 Independent Inquiries Vice President for Research and the 350 Eddy Street us on Twitter @BrownUResearch. the potential to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Many undergraduates are succeeding in research related Office of University Communications Providence, R.I. 02912 Image by Graphene Composites to pressing social issues. BY MAURA SULLIVAN HILL PHOTOGRAPH BY NICK DENTAMARO/BROWN UNIVERSITY IMPACT 2021 1 RESEARCH A COMPENDIUM OF RECENT HIGHLIGHTS BRIEFS OF BROWN RESEARCH Saving “God’s Little Acre” Archaeology students are reviving the history of one of the oldest African-American cemeteries. FOR YEARS, STORIES of those buried in cans, many of whom were enslaved. Few God’s Little Acre in Newport, Rhode stories of people buried were preserved, Island, one of the oldest United States and the only known cemetery map dated cemeteries for Africans and African back to 1903 and was incomplete. Americans, had been slipping away Using three-dimensional images and despite a dedicated team of descendants aerial drone footage, graduate students and volunteers. Alex Marko, Dan Plekhov, and Miriam Stories like that of Charity “Dutchess” Rothenberg undertook an intense Quamino—who was brought to the investigation, recording the extensive United States from West Africa as a slave details on grave markers. They created in the 1700s and eventually became a an interactive map and database they pastry chef and caterer, later serving intend to make available to researchers George Washington for at least one and tourists. event—have been in danger of disap- “We know the bigger picture of the pearing as gravestones weather or recede slave trade and how inhumane it was,” into the Earth. Plekhov said. “You learn even more when Then three Brown archaeology you focus on individual people and graduate students were drawn into the individual experiences.” project by a volunteer at Newport’s Soon, Rothenberg said, “people can Historic Cemetery Advisory Commis- use a map on their phone or tablet to sion, and they became a key part of identify specific graves and interact with efforts to preserve and revive the history this site and its history more personally.” through a long-needed site map. Said Plekhov, “Making people aware Brown graduate The cemetery, founded in the late 17th of this lesser-known history, telling these students surveyed hundreds of grave century, is the final resting place of at stories . could drive us all toward a markers on the site. least 500 Africans and African Ameri- more inclusive future.” —jill kimball 2 IMPACT 2021 PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX MARKO IMPACT 2021 3 RESEARCH BRIEFS Marion Orr specializes in urban, racial, and ALUMNI ethnic politics. IMPACT SUZANNE RIVERA ’91 became president of Experiments showed Macalester College in June graphene, a carbon 2020, the school’s first nanomaterial, could be a potent defense female and Latinx president. against mosquitos. She concentrated in American Civilization at Brown. “The best research experience I had at Brown was a summer fellowship with Professor Greg Elliott in The Dean of sociology, developing a new course on poverty in the Urban Politics United States. That research experience demystified the A veteran scholar brings the “hidden” work of academia and into the open in his examinations of fostered in me the joy of discovery. I’d never have been race and ethnicity. capable of serving in this role at Macalester College WHEN HE WAS AN UNDERGRADUATE student at Savannah State University, without the excellent Marion Orr was inspired by a professor who “made political science come preparation and the courage to life.” Thirty-five years after he graduated, the American Political Science Take the Sting Out of Mosquitos of convictions I got at Brown.” Association (APSA) made Orr, a Brown professor, the recipient of the 2019 Engineering researchers find a promising new tool to stop bites: graphene. Hanes Walton Award, which honors political scientists who have made significant contributions to the study of racial and ethnic politics—named after the man who compelled Orr to pursue his field of study. SOMETIMES, SCIENTIFIC breakthroughs are graphene can provide a two-fold defense cheesecloth. Cintia Castillho PhD ’20, Orr has authored or edited seven books, and his pioneering research made when researchers are looking for against mosquito bites. The ultra-thin the study’s lead author, said the graphene in urban politics and racial and ethnic politics has been widely recog- something else. material acts as a barrier that mosqui- material “was a chemical barrier that nized by experts in his field. His book The Color of School Reform: Race, Robert Hurt, professor in Brown’s toes are unable to bite through. prevents mosquitoes from sensing that Politics, and the Challenge of Urban Education was named the best book School of Engineering and leader of the Experiments also showed that graphene someone is there.” in the ASPA’s Urban Politics Section.