Two months ago,Yale economist Pinelopi Goldberg wasn’t working on anything related to global health.But like many scholars,she has recently shifted her research focus to questions bearing on the COVID-19 pandemic.The former chief economist at the World Bank Group is now studying policy responses to the crisis in developing countries and collaborating with colleagues at Yale’s Center for Economic Growth to collect data on COVID-19’s effects on low-income populations.Goldberg,the Elihu Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,recently spoke to YaleNews about contrasts between rich and poor nations,the risks of lockdowns,and scholarship in atime of crisis. 查看详细>>

Yale University is pleased that Congress is providing support for higher education in the face of COVID-19,including its establishment of the$14 billion Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund,which is being allocated largely on the basis of enrollment of students who qualify for Pell Grants.Yale is eligible for an allocation of$6.9 million from this fund toward support for students and university operations.Though Yale is experiencing great budgetary pressure as aresult of the pandemic,the university has decided not to seek these emergency funds.Instead,we hope that the Department of Education will use Yale’s portion of the funding to support colleges and universities in Connecticut whose continued existence is threatened by the current crisis.We wish to reassure Yale students that this decision will in no way diminish our financial support for them at this critical time.Yale considers affordability and access to be core values.Due to our significant investments in financial aid,there are more than 1,000 Pell Grant recipients enrolled in Yale College—nearly 300 more than were enrolled just three years ago.Over half of Yale’s undergraduates receive financial aid,and the university remains committed to supporting them through this crisis.Since the outbreak of the pandemic,Yale has provided emergency funds to travel home for undergraduates on financial aid and emergency assistance for those who were studying abroad and had an interruption of their program.The university has continued to pay student employees for expected work schedules through the end of the term. 查看详细>>

Years from now,scholars studying Yale’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic will seek firsthand accounts,official records,and other primary sources as they interpret this turbulent period in world and university history.The University Archives—Yale’s official repository for its records of historical and institutional significance—is working to provide tomorrow’s historians arobust record of today’s unprecedented events,including atrove of perspectives from current undergraduates.“When the students in the class of 2070 are writing their senior essays on the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on Yale,I want them to have source material from undergraduates who experienced the pandemic as it unfolded,”said Michael Lotstein,the university archivist.“What did they experience?Were they scared or angry or optimistic?It is important to record these perspectives.”The Yale University Library,which manages the University Archives within its Manuscript and Archives Department,is distributing an online survey to all undergraduates,inviting them to anonymously document their academic and personal experiences.Among its questions,the survey asks students to describe how the pandemic has affected their lives—what most concerns them about the present situation and what aspects of daily campus life they miss most,as well as their thoughts on remote learning.They’re also invited to share astory from their experiences—funny,serious,or otherwise. 查看详细>>

Yale medical student Juliana Lawrence and recent graduates Clara Ma’19 and Nicolas Wicaksono’19 have been selected as Schwarzman Scholars,one of the world’s most prestigious graduate fellowships.The three Yale affiliates will study at Tsinghua University in Beijing as members of the fifth class of Schwarzman Scholars.This year’s class of 145 Schwarzman Scholars was selected from more than 4,700 applicants and includes students from 41 countries and 108 universities.The scholars will enroll in August 2020 and will study and reside at Schwarzman College,a LEED Gold,state-of-the-art building at Tsinghua University designed by Robert A.M.Stern Associates to encourage cross-cultural connections and intellectual exchange.Schwarzman Scholars are selected through arigorous application process on the basis of their academic ability as well as their leadership potential and strength of character.More than 400 candidates were invited to interview in Beijing,London,New York,or Bangkok,where they went before panels comprised of CEOs,government officials,university presidents,journalists,and nonprofit executives,among others. 查看详细>>

Yale University has joined forces with more than 100 other colleges and universities to bolster the legal defense of apair of federal programs allowing international students in the United States to gain practical workplace training.On Nov.21,the schools filed ajoint legal brief supporting the programs,arguing that they help make the United States an attractive place for international students.Weakening or abandoning them will make it harder to attract talented students from abroad,harming students,higher education and the U.S.economy,the universities said.The Presidents’Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration and NAFSA:Association of International Educators coordinated the schools’amicus,or friend-of-the-court,brief,filed in federal court in Washington.The related litigation is Washington Alliance of Technology Workers Union v.U.S.Department of Homeland Security.The technology workers’alliance challenges the training programs’legality.The programs—Optional Practical Training(OPT)and STEM OPT—allow international students studying at U.S.colleges and universities on F-1 visas to work temporarily for aU.S.employer in aposition directly related to their studies.Hundreds of thousands of international students and graduates participate in them annually. 查看详细>>

The National Institutes of Health(NIH)through the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Consortia(RDCRC)has awarded aresearch team from Yale University,George Washington University,and Duke University$7.8 million to establish arare disease network for myasthenia gravis(MGNet).Myasthenia is characterized by weakness and rapid fatigue of any of the muscles under your voluntary control.Symptoms vary but can include weakness of arm or leg muscles,double vision,drooping eyelids,and difficulties with speech,chewing,swallowing and breathing.Yale’s Kevin C.O’Connor and Richard J.Nowak are core program leaders on the team,which is led by Henry J.Kaminski of George Washington University.Other team members include Linda Kusner of George Washington University,and Jeffery T.Guptill of Duke University.The network,which will include seven study sites,will be part of 25 established NIH RDCRC.It will include basic and clinical investigators,patient advocacy groups,and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies working together to enhance therapeutic development for this rare disease.The grant will fund research into the underlying pathophysiology of the disease,provide fellowships for young investigators,and fund pilot grants. 查看详细>>

Phyllis Mugadza’21 B.S.says she wasn’t entirely familiar with the U.S.college experience when attending high school in Zimbabwe,but when she learned about the Yale Young African Scholars(YYAS)program,she applied and was accepted.“It was the first time Iheard about the liberal arts,”Mugadza says.“It began my journey into American education.”What started as an introduction to college-level courses by Yale professors in her home country led to matriculation at Yale—bringing her closer,each step of the way,to her dream of becoming an entrepreneur.Following her experience with the YYAS,Mugadza applied for the Yale Young Global Scholars(YYGS)program,an intensive,competitive summer enrichment program for promising high school students from over 125 countries.It was her first time traveling to the United States,and she says:“I fell in love with Yale,and the program.It was very diverse—there were people there from all over the world.They were very active in their communities,and they were very accomplished.”She chose atrack in innovation and entrepreneurship,and over the course of the two-week program learned the language of entrepreneurship and was able to simulate building and running astartup. 查看详细>>

A group of Yale scientists have devised away to leverage artificial neural networks to reveal larger patterns of activity of individual cells that come from amultitude of individuals.In apaper published Oct.7 in the journal Nature Methods,researchers from the lab of Smita Krishnaswamy,assistant professor of genetics and computer science,describe how the AI neural network they created,called SAUCIE(Sparse Autoencoder for Clustering,Imputation,and Embedding),can reveal crucial cellular differences within individuals as well as broader patterns that tell the story of how the body functions.For instance,in acollaboration with Ruth Montgomery,director of the university’s CyTOF Facility,Yale researchers used SAUCIE to analyze 20 million cells from 60 patients and identify rare Gamma-Delta Tcell types that regulate how the body responds to the virus that causes Dengue fever.“With SAUCIE,we were able to find the proverbial needle in the haystack,and 20 million cells is avery big haystack,”said first author Matt Amodio,a graduate student in computer science.The method,which can accommodate alarger volume of patient data than other techniques,will also allow researchers to identify larger clusters of cellular activity that could shed light on the basis of ahost’s pathologies. 查看详细>>

Dean Takahashi,the longtime senior director of the Yale Investments Office,will spearhead anew multidisciplinary Yale laboratory that will develop and support innovative solutions to the challenge of climate change.The Yale Carbon Offset Laboratory(COLab)will engage faculty and students from across campus—as well as innovators and scientists from outside the university—who are developing technologies that sequester and store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.It will focus on methods designed to succeed on alarge scale and that can be tested and validated quickly and inexpensively.The COLab’s administrative home will be the Yale School of Forestry&Environmental Studies(F&ES),but it will seek participation from across campus,taking advantage of the university’s strength in natural and social sciences.(Learn about the broad range of climate-change research at Yale.)The lab will aim to offset more than 1billion tons of global carbon dioxide emissions over the long term,and it will target more than 10 million tons in emissions offsets by 2030—or about 50 times Yale’s current net emissions.By demonstrating the value of the technologies essential to this endeavor,Takahashi hopes the COLab will also strengthen the global market for carbon offsets,promoting further innovation. 查看详细>>

cine been designated as one of four Parkinson’s Foundation Research Centers,the foundation announced July 30.The Parkinson’s Foundation awarded each center$2 million over five years“to drive innovative research developments and advance Parkinson’s disease(PD)research towards acure.”The Yale School of Medicine was one of 66 institutions to apply for the designation in 2019.The other newly designated centers are Columbia University Irving Medical Center,University of Florida in collaboration with Emory University,and the University of Michigan in collaboration with The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.Grant recipients were chosen based on the novelty of their research,their ability to address unmet needs in PD research,the synergy of their team members,and the programs’potential to drive innovative change.“These recipients represent the very best and brightest and we look forward to their major innovations in PD research and care,”said John L.Lehr,chief executive officer and president of the Parkinson’s Foundation. 查看详细>>