University of Arizona in the News

The presidents of the three Arizona public universities said that their institutions flourished during the pandemic, but the post-COVID changes in the economy will require more support from the business community and the Arizona Legislature. The three leaders spoke at an event sponsored by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix on Thursday. University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins said that investment in early childhood education is vital for the success of the universities.

University of Arizona Distinguished Laureate Professor of Public Health and 17th U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona writes this guest column to encourage Arizonans to get a COVID-19 booster shot.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will swing by Earth to deliver a sample from asteroid Bennu on Sept. 24, 2023. But it won't clock out after that. NASA has extended the University of Arizona-led mission, which will be renamed OSIRIS-APEX, to study near-Earth asteroid Apophis for 18 months. Apophis will make a close approach to Earth in 2029. Planetary sciences assistant professor and OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator Dani DellaGiustina will become principal investigator of OSIRIS-APEX.

Alain-Philippe Durand, dean of the University of Arizona College of Humanities, and UArizona alumnus Bennett Dorrance write the humanities offer tools to approach topics with openness, tolerance and curiosity during a time of increasing political partisanship.

In celebration of Earth Day, University of Arizona professor, oceanographer and climate scientist Joellen Russell from Science Moms shares three things everyone can do to help combat climate change.

On May 5, Jessica Tierney will be the first climatologist to win the Alan T. Waterman Award since Congress established it in 1975. She is also the first from the University of Arizona to ever receive the honor.

A collaboration between the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree Ring Research and U.S. Forest Service will track how a changing climate affects America's forests. Assistant professor of dendrochronology Margaret Evans estimates forests in the U.S. offset about 12% of emissions, meaning a decline in forest area directly impacts the level of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. As the forests become less able to absorb carbon dioxide, that then feeds the planet's warming. "We need to do something about it right now," Evans added.

University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins appears as a guest to discuss the state of the COVID-19 pandemic on campus and UArizona's place among the nation's top public research universities with $761 million in total research activity in fiscal year 2020.

An uncontained springtime wildfire north of Flagstaff, along with smaller blazes in New Mexico and Colorado, has been a harsh reminder fire season might now be year-round. "We used to have the fire season," said Don Falk, a professor in the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment. "That's an obsolete concept. Fire season is 12 months."

In a study of Swedish trees in the 18th century, the summer of a major volcanic eruption had yielded confusing results, meriting a second look by Julie Edwards, a graduate student in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Her study finds that volcanic fog lowered summer tree ring density despite the heat.