Anything is possible at Carolina.
We see that every day. From finding new cures to providing new scholarships, at Carolina we know that the best is yet to come. And we hope you see it, too.
This site is a resource and playground. It is a place where you can learn about some of the incredible stories that happen here. Or perhaps you have a story to share? Help us create this site by sharing something bold, innovative or inspirational that you experienced at Carolina, particularly because a private donation made it possible. Anything is possible here, but it isn’t free. Thankfully we have generous donors who see the potential and help make it happen.
We know there are many more to tell, maybe even yours.
We want to hear them. We need your help to collect them.
Click here to share your stories or the ones you’ve heard. This is your site, so help us fill it with all the ways Carolina is making a difference in the world.
Three UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members received the 2023 Faculty Awards for Global Excellence in a ceremony at the FedEx Global Education Center on May 2, 2023. The annual awards, administered by the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs, recognize faculty contributions to advancing the University’s global vision.
Gina Chowa, associate dean for global engagement and the Johnson-Howard-Adair Distinguished Professor at the School of Social Work, was honored as the founding director of the School of Social Work’s Global Social Development Innovations (GSDI), a research center focused on tackling youth economic security, workforce development and financial inclusion in the Global South. She also works with World View, a UNC-Chapel Hill outreach program that engages with North Carolina’s educators to support integration of global perspectives in classrooms.
Robert Jenkins, teaching professor in the political science department, was recognized for his development of several study abroad programs, chairing the Study Abroad Advisory Board of the College of Arts and Sciences for 15 years and playing an integral role in UNC-Chapel Hill's Diplomacy Initiative, a program that equips Carolina students with the practical skills needed for solving global problems.
Tori Smith Ekstrand, associate professor in the Hussman School of Media and Journalism and the Caroline H. and Thomas S. Royster Distinguished Professor for Graduate Education, was recognized for her efforts in growing collaborations with Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and organizing the 2022 Royster Global Conference.
The conventional wisdom — backed by research — is that women, on average, achieve worse outcomes than men when negotiating. But Angelica Leigh ’20 (PhD) found that stereotype didn’t match her experiences as a Black woman.
Leigh, assistant professor of management and organization at Duke University, decided to explore the intersection of gender and race with Sreedhari Desai, associate professor of organizational behavior and Crist W. Blackwell Scholar at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Does being a member of two social groups that have experienced discrimination — Black and female — lead to worse outcomes, overall, in negotiations, with the double identity leading to greater disparities?
To find out, Leigh and Desai conducted three negotiation studies where they teased out differences based on race and gender, and they explored how different traits influence those results.
The results? The studies showed better outcomes, at least in some negotiations, for Black women compared to Black men and white women. On some social measures, such as wages, women of color still experience worse outcomes than white women and men of all races, Desai said, so there are still puzzling gaps.
“Oftentimes the generic advice given to women is that they will face backlash if they behave in assertive ways,” Desai said. “This backlash might not apply to Black women.”
She warns Black women “not to be derailed by such messages and to go play to your own strengths.”
In adult human brains, the hippocampus generates new neurons (adult-born neurons, or ABNs) throughout life, helping us maintain memories and regulate emotions. Scientists call this process “adult hippocampus neurogenesis.” In people with Alzheimer’s disease, this process is impaired, leading to reduced production of ABNs with poorer qualities.
Given that Alzheimer’s patients often develop both cognitive symptoms (such as memory loss) and non-cognitive symptoms (such as anxiety and depression) for which new neuron generation plays a critical role, one way to help Alzheimer’s patients achieve symptom relief could be to restore this function.
Published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, research from UNC School of Medicine scientists demonstrated that stimulating a brain region called the supramammillary nucleus effectively enhanced adult-born neurons in the otherwise impaired Alzheimer’s brains of mice.
After patterned stimulation of the supramammillary nucleus, Alzheimer’s brains developed more ABNs with improved qualities. Importantly, activation of these ABNs restored both cognitive and affective deficits in the mouse models.
“Ultimately, the hope is to develop first-in-class, highly targeted therapies to treat AD and related dementia,” said senior author Juan Song, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology and Jeffrey Houpt Distinguished Investigator at the UNC School of Medicine.
