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In July, professor of Romance Studies Oswaldo Estrada began his term as the director of the Faculty Fellows Program at the Institute for Arts & Humanities. As a three-time fellow at the institute, Estrada recognizes the importance of “the exchange of ideas” that the program offers participants.
Lindsey James came to Carolina to get her PhD in 2005 and never left.
Eighteen years later the chemist runs a lab in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy exploring medicinal chemistry and epigenetics with the goal of making strides in cancer care and treatment. It’s a method of research defined as translational — bridging the gap between promising early-stage science and the development of products and services that benefit society.
James and her team develop small molecules that target specific proteins believed to play roles in the development of cancers. These small-molecule tools could be useful against an array of cancers.
The continuous development of new molecules requires funding and resources. This part of project development diverts time and energy from conducting the research itself. Grant writing and editing along with back-and-forth communications with funding agencies can take months, even years.
James has found great success in internal Carolina grants, built to reduce the struggle in obtaining funds to advance research. She has secured funding and support from multiple other research translation resources at Carolina, all the while receiving support and guidance from AdvanTx, an initiative to advance therapeutics research from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
While James currently has two major National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants that sustain her work, these additional Carolina resources have given her a break from applying for more federal funding.
“The research space I’m in is competitive,” James said. “I was worried that if I only focused on securing NIH funding then I may lose my window of discovery because it takes a long time for NIH grants to get reviewed, approved and funded.”
Organizational experts at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School emphasize four pillars of teamwork: identification with group and mission, trust, distributed expertise and shared leadership.
Building these pillars takes time and lots of positive interactions as a team. For the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, also known as DigitalNC, that means dedication to their mission as well as time for taste-testing Oreos and sharing pet photos. The team — eight University Libraries employees in the Wilson Special Collections Library in Chapel Hill plus three Elizabeth City State University employees in a satellite office — are there for the work and for each other.
They work hard to preserve the state’s heritage. They have digitized more than 630,000 newspapers, yearbooks, photos and other items from 320 partners in all 100 counties. Nearly half a million people visited the online DigitalNC archive last year alone.
“It’s such a great team,” said Kristen Merryman, digital projects librarian. “You can be transparent about what’s going on, and you know you’re going to receive empathy and support.”
That mutual respect radiates out to the center’s relationship with its partners statewide, team members said. In April, the Office of the Provost recognized their partnership with the State Library of North Carolina with an Engaged Scholarship Award.
Nominator Judy Panitch, director of library communications, praised the staff’s generosity, openness and inclusion. “No partner is too small; no document too minor; no user unimportant,” she wrote. “NCDHC’s values include the belief that ‘community history and culture have the power to enrich the lives of all North Carolinians.’ Every aspect of the program enables and promotes these encounters.”
“Our mission is to support cultural heritage organizations around the state in their goals for access to their collections,” said Lisa Gregory, the program coordinator who supervises the team. “Everyone who works for the center has a passion for access to information and the cultural heritage mission. That helps make us a strong team.”
Patricia Rosenmeyer was named the Seymour and Carol Levin Distinguished Term Professor in Jewish Studies and director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies in fall 2022. Although her Ph.D. from Princeton University is in comparative literature, her new position is helping her explore a deeper understanding of Jewish history, culture and thought.
The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023. Rosenmeyer was quick to credit her predecessors, the late Jonathan M. Hess and Ruth von Bernuth, for creating such a solid foundation.
Recent events at the center have included topics as wide-ranging as Yiddish culture in Ukraine, Southern Jews and the Lost Cause, and Jewish perceptions of justice during and after the Holocaust. The center has hosted more than 200 events since its founding in 2003.
Rosenmeyer is particularly grateful for the fellowships and research grants for students that have been made possible through private support, including gifts made during the Campaign for Carolina.
Rosenmeyer’s professorship was established in 2010 by Seymour Levin ’48 and Carol Levin, providing her with support for directing the center.
“We really are keen on supporting the next generation of scholars, and they don’t have to be academic scholars,” said Rosenmeyer. “They can find a career that they love, and it doesn’t have to be teaching at the university level. But we want to give them the foundation and experience in Jewish studies that they can combine with whatever other interests they have.”
