Seven sequenced surveys since October 2019 paint a comprehensive picture of Floridians’ climate resilience attitudes during a period of particularly dynamic political, economic and environmental events. Climate change has emerged as an abiding and cross-cutting issue in Florida.
FAU researchers and collaborators provide the most updated guidance to health care providers and urge how widespread vaccination with these boosters can now avoid the specter of future and more lethal variants becoming a reality.
Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine also ranked FAU as No. 17 for African Americans with bachelor’s degrees; No. 40 for Hispanics with bachelor’s degrees; No. 51 for African Americans with master’s degrees; No. 53 for Hispanics with master’s degrees; No. 44 for total minority students with bachelor’s degrees; and No. 60 for total minority students with master’s degrees.
A study of U.S. middle and high school students shows that about 17 percent were cyberbullied in 2016 and 2019, but that proportion rose to 23 percent in 2021. Notably, 19 percent of Asian American youth said they had been cyberbullied, and about 1 in 4 (23.5 percent) indicated they were victimized online because of their race/color. Asian American youth were the only racial group where the majority (59 percent) reported more cyberbullying since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. In 2019, Asian American youth were the least likely to have experienced cyberbullying.
From 1999 to 2020 there were 4,090 firearm fatalities among Texas school-age children 5 to 18 years. Following significant declines from 1999 to 2013, firearm fatality rates significantly increased. Homicide accounted for most deaths among black and Hispanic children while suicide predominated for white children.
A $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health will enable researchers to tackle chronic health disparities through the use of electronic health records (EHR), artificial intelligence, machine learning (AI/ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Stigmatized and ignored, pregnant women and mothers with substance use disorders often are voiceless. Researchers used documentary photography as platform to enable mothers in recovery to be heard. Results reveal a shared perception. For mothers with a substance use disorder involved with the child welfare system it is easy to fail and hard to succeed. The emotional jeopardy of child welfare system interactions was described by the mothers to result in feelings of defeat and an increased vulnerability to reoccurrence of substance use.
The Fulbright program is devoted to increasing mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Fulbright is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program.
Combining microbiology with engineering technologies, this novel 3D model uses a single microfluidic chip to study the complicated processes that take place in malaria-infected placenta as well as other placenta-related diseases and pathologies. The technology supports formation of microengineered placental barriers and mimics blood circulations, which provides alternative approaches for testing and screening.
Key differences in male and female mice brains provide new insights into how sex determines the mechanisms by which distinct synapses monitor and regulate dopamine signaling. The impact of sex differences is particularly pronounced when the mice express a human genetic variant found in boys with either ADHD or autism. Behavioral generalizations across the sexes may limit diagnosis of mental illness, especially if one sex translates alterations into outward signs such as hyperactivity and aggression vs. more internal manifestations such as learning, memory and mood, even when the same molecular pathology is at work.
With another grant from the Florida Department of Health, FAU researchers will continue a first-of-its-kind evaluation of both the short-term and potential long-term health effects of harmful algal blooms among Florida residents.
FAU ceremoniously broke ground on its future Kurt and Marilyn Wallach Holocaust and Jewish Studies Building at its Boca Raton campus. Thanks to a historic $20 million gift from the Wallachs in November 2020, FAU is an epicenter for intercultural dialogue and education in the greater South Florida region.
A study assessed resident physicians’ perceptions, coping strategies and self-reported levels of depression, anxiety and stress experienced during the early phase of the pandemic. Results showed that 88.1 percent felt they were likely or very likely to become infected with COVID-19. If infected, 28.8 percent felt that their illness would be serious or very serious. With respect to depression, anxiety and stress, all the mean scores were in the normal range. For depression, residents in emergency medicine and surgery reported higher levels. The top three coping strategies included acceptance, self-distraction, and use of emotional support. The three least used strategies included behavioral disengagement, substance use and denial.
FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine received a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch the first Florida Summer Institute in Biostatistics and Data Science in the Southeastern United States – and one of only 10 sites across the nation.
As a recipient of the annual HEED Award — a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion — FAU will be featured, along with 102 other recipients, in the November issue of the magazine. This is the second year that FAU has been named as a HEED Award recipient.
FAU was one of only eight institutions in the nation to be awarded NASA’s Minority University Research and Education (MUREP) award for the MUREP Aerospace Academy (MAA). Through cooperative agreement awards, MAA funding affords minority-serving institutions the opportunity to develop exciting new avenues to inspire local high school students in the STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) fields.
FAU moved up in the U.S. News & World Report list of “Top Public Schools,” to No. 132 from No. 140 in this year’s ranking of the nation’s best universities. This marks the largest rise out of all public universities in the state of Florida.
A national survey of 2,000 employed and student nurses showed that nurses remain passionate about patient care despite ongoing industry challenges. Areas of dissatisfaction include pay rates/ compensation (86 percent), staff shortages (53 percent), stress (39 percent) and burnout (35 percent). Results also showed that 28 percent of nurses indicated their desire to leave the profession had increased dramatically since the pandemic, while those who said their desire to stay had increased since the pandemic dropped from 24 percent last year to 4 percent this year.
FAU has been ranked No. 72 overall among the nation’s best public and private universities by Washington Monthly’s annual College Guide.
The rankings were based on social mobility, research, as well as community and national service.
Teens engaged in digital self-harm (online posting, sending or sharing of hurtful content about oneself anonymously) were between five and seven times more likely to have considered suicide and between nine and 15 times more likely to have attempted to end their life. Approximately 9 percent reported that they had anonymously posted something online about themselves that was mean, while about 5 percent said they had anonymously cyberbullied themselves.
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, have received a two-year, $379,177 grant from the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes for Health, on a collaborative project to study mood-disorders changes in Alzheimer’s disease.
A study measuring mild depression, number of mental unhealthy days and number of anxious days in 10,359 adults 18 and older found those who consumed the most ultra-processed foods as compared with those who consumed the least amount had statistically significant increases in the adverse mental health symptoms of mild depression, “mentally unhealthy days” and “anxious days.” They also had significantly lower rates of reporting zero “mentally unhealthy days” and zero “anxious days.” Findings are generalizable to the entire U.S. as well as other Western countries with similar ultra-processed food intakes.
Researchers found a lack of preparedness, specifically to evacuate carless and vulnerable populations. Only seven cities had strong plans, including Charlotte, North Carolina; Cleveland; Jacksonville; Miami; New Orleans; New York; and Philadelphia. Twenty cities achieved a moderate rating, six cities had a weak rating and 17 plans were not available or do not exist. Among the cities with plans not found include Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
A study is the first to link the use of the herbicide Roundup® to convulsions in animals. Glyphosate, the weed killer component in Roundup®, is the world’s most commonly used herbicide. Results showed that glyphosate and Roundup® increased seizure-like behavior in soil-dwelling roundworms and provides significant evidence that glyphosate targets GABA-A receptors. These communication points are essential for locomotion and are heavily involved in regulating sleep and mood in humans. What truly sets this research apart is that it was done at significantly less levels than recommended by the EPA and those used in past studies.
A newly-discovered walking shark that breaks all of the rules for survival is the focus of a first-of-its-kind study that examined differences in walking and swimming in neonate (newly-hatched) and juvenile walking sharks. Despite dissimilarities in body shapes – neonates have bulging bellies and juveniles are slender – the three aquatic gaits they use (slow-to-medium walking, fast-walking and swimming) did not differ. Kinematics between neonate and juvenile epaulette sharks did not alter during development.
FAU has landed a major NSF Engineering Research Center with Columbia University, Rutgers University, the University of Central Florida, and Lehman College.
From fecal bacteria to blue-green algae to red tides, Southwest Florida’s water quality has declined as its population has increased. Multiple lines of evidence from a multi-year microbial source tracking study points to septic systems as a contributing source for this decline. The study is one of few to connect downstream harmful algal blooms with nutrient loading from upstream septic systems. These water quality issues are caused by aging septic systems installed in high densities in areas with shallow water tables. Septic systems may actually be sitting in groundwater during certain times of the year, which means that they cannot function properly.
Little is known about cyberbullying and empathy, especially as it relates harming or abusing others because of race or religion. A study is the first to examine general cyberbullying, race-based cyberbullying, and religion-based cyberbullying in young adolescents. Results show that the higher a youth scored on empathy, the lower the likelihood that they cyberbullied others. When it came to bias-based cyberbullying, higher levels of total empathy were associated with lower odds of cyberbullying others based on their race or religion.
The entire virus detection process is executed inside a uniquely designed, portable, inexpensive, disposable, and self-driven microfluidic chip. The fully automated sample-in–answer-out molecular diagnostic set-up rapidly detects Hepatitis C virus in about 45 minutes and uses relatively inexpensive and reusable equipment costing about $50 for sample processing and disease detection. The disposable microfluidic chip also offers shorter times for a reliable diagnosis and costs about $2.
Researchers evaluated a remotely supervised online chair yoga intervention targeted at older adults with dementia and measured clinical outcomes virtually via Zoom under the remote guidance. Results showed that remotely supervised online chair yoga is a feasible approach for managing physical and psychological symptoms in socially isolated older adults with dementia based on retention (70 percent) and adherence (87.5 percent), with no injury or other adverse events.
Hari Kalva, in FAU’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is a named inventor on more than 18 standard essential patents that are used in virtually all modern video distribution and streaming products and services.
FAU Schmidt College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Consortium leaders recently met to strategize and outline the next phase for graduate medical education and residency programs in Palm Beach County, which they will launch in the fall.
FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborator conducted a study that provides an assessment of the potential effects of climate warming and water management of the West Florida Shelf dynamics during two particular events that affect its hydrology through the lens of a very high-resolution model.
FAU was awarded more than $800,000 by the state of Florida as part of a $15.6 million initiative to prepare students and mid-career professionals for jobs in the burgeoning fields of cybersecurity and information technology.
The Florida Atlantic University Foundation raised more than $81.24 million from more than 5,332 donors at the end of the 2022 fiscal year – the largest amount raised in the University’s history. This total breaks the record of $57 million from the previous year and demonstrates a continued trajectory for growth.
Dr. Ortega’s newest role as associate dean of clinical practice now places her at the helm of clinical care for both the Green Memory and Wellness Center and the FAU and Northwest Community Health Alliance's Community Health Center (FAU/NCHA CHC), operated by the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing. She will collaborate with FAU/NCHA CHC executive director Karethy Edwards, Dr.PH, APRN, professor and associate dean for academic programs; and clinical director Desiree’ T. Weems, APRN, a certified nurse practitioner.
State governments varied widely in COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures and how they addressed immediate and long-standing health disparities and associated inequities.
Most teachers focus on academic considerations when assigning seats. A new study is the first to show that these classroom seat assignments also have important implications for children’s friendships and the enormous influence that teachers wield over the interpersonal lives of children.
An innovative tool will holistically examine and diagnose key processes with numerical simulations and experiments and predict changes in responses to water management, ecological restoration and climate change. It is designed to provide a suite of environmental and ecological information on the state of the greater Florida Bay ecosystem as well as potential future changes. Importantly, this model could potentially predict underwater aquatic vegetation coverage, harmful algal blooms, and fisheries resources under climate change and/or Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program management scenarios.
The newly formed FAU Health Network is a collaboration that brings together the region’s already robust health care infrastructure to serve Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties’ 3.2 million residents.
FAU was awarded for its novel approach of using “team-based analytics” to break down organizational barriers so that students can progress toward timely completion of their degree programs.
Phillip A. Hough, Ph.D., was selected for a Fulbright Global Scholar Award, based on his important sociological research in rural Colombia. The award will provide him with the opportunity to study the plight of coffee-producing farmers living across the “global coffee belt” regions of Latin America, Africa and East Asia.
Researchers conducted an original research study utilizing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) to compare trends in mortality from alcoholic cirrhosis in the U.S. in 1999 with those 20 years later in 2019.
Three South Florida counties that collectively are home to the largest metropolitan population in the state will soon be served by an academic health network that is a true collaboration of the region’s leading public and private academic and medical leaders.
FAU's Reza Azarderakhsh, Ph.D., was among 34 investigators nationwide selected by the NSF for RINGS, which is short for Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems. His project is the only one working on taking post-quantum cryptography to next generation systems.
Every second, an older person in the U.S. falls and injures themselves, and every 20 minutes one of them dies from the fall. The Geriatric Emergency Department Fall Injury Prevention Project will investigate several emergency department-based prevention strategies in older patients at high risk for recurrent falls and injury. The tailored multicomponent intervention will identify effective fall prevention strategies that target limited resources to high-risk individuals who come to the emergency department to improve patient outcomes, improve safety, and reduce overall costs of health care.
With the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season forecast to be above average activity with a higher probability of major hurricanes making landfall along the continental U.S. coastline, several FAU faculty experts are available to discuss various issues surrounding hurricane preparedness, evacuation and aftermath.
About 41 million people live in U.S. Atlantic coastline counties. There isn’t an effective way to identify the impact of urban growth on tidal flats – the guardians of beachfront communities. Researchers have developed a new way to quantify these impacts from a geographic lens focused on place and space using data over three decades.
Researchers are developing the nation’s first drone-based, mobile quantum network for unhackable wireless communication. The network includes drones, a ground station, lasers and fiber optics. In war, these drones would provide one-time crypto-keys to exchange critical information, which spies and enemies would not be able to intercept. Quantum protects information using the laws of nature and not just by a clever manmade code.