Discovery: Research at Princeton
Findings, feature articles, books and awards from Princeton University researchers
Memberships and Fellowships American Academy of Arts and Letters: Member Jeffrey Eugenides, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts (2018) American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Member Simon Gikandi, Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee Artificial intelligence is already a part of everyday life. It helps us answer questions like “Is this email spam?” It identifies friends in online photographs, selects news stories based on our politics Continue Reading →
By Liz Fuller-Wright How many Americans are forced to leave their homes each year? When Matthew Desmond began investigating evictions in America, it was impossible to answer that question. “Imagine if we didn’t know how Continue Reading →
By Scott Lyon If you have ever poured hot coffee into a cheap plastic cup, you may recall that sinking feeling as the cup seems to wilt. Not quite solid, not quite liquid, the cup Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee Only about 10 percent of the human genome are actually genes. The other 90 percent? Once called “junk DNA,” researchers now know that this genetic material contains on-off switches that can activate Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee At the end of a long underground hallway on the edge of campus, a door leads to a brightly lit room. Within looms an imposing 12-foot-tall machine, whose array of wires and Continue Reading →
By Catherine Zandonella Outside Eve Ostriker’s office door stretches the universe, dotted with orange galaxies against the black backdrop of space. The mural lines the hallway in Princeton’s astrophysical sciences building, where it inspires Ostriker Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee Thomas Conlan fiddled with a strange, brownish-black rock on his desk. For centuries, people had considered the piece of rubble worthless, but it is priceless to Conlan’s research. The lumpy rock is Continue Reading →
By Steve Runk A symposium and performances held in April 2018 at Princeton focused an overdue spotlight on one of the most influential but perhaps least-known American theater-makers of the 20th century, María Irene Fornés. Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee In 2001, off India’s coastal state of Goa, the shrimp catch dropped by 80 percent in just a few years. The die-off was later traced to a dip in the ocean’s oxygen Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee When it comes to green living, nobody does it better than plants. When plants convert light into fuel through photosynthesis, not a single particle of light is wasted. If we could unlock Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee When requesting a ride-hailing service, you may soon notice something missing: the driver. Fleets of autonomous electric vehicles could someday replace human-powered ride-sharing. Programming obstacles still stand in the way of this Continue Reading →
By Liz Fuller-Wright With the help of a quarter-million video game players, Princeton researchers created and shared detailed maps of more than 1,000 neurons — and they’re just getting started. By playing Eyewire, an online Continue Reading →
By Melissa Moss Princeton’s newest supercomputer, known as TIGER after the University’s mascot, began operating this May with nearly six times the computing power of its predecessor. The TIGER computing cluster, located in Princeton’s 47,000-square-foot Continue Reading →
By Denise Valenti Tera Hunter, the Edwards Professor of American History and a professor of history and African American studies, received three prizes for her 2017 book, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage Continue Reading →
By the Office of Communications Four Princeton faculty members, representing a range of subjects in the humanities, have received Guggenheim Fellowships. Brooke Holmes, the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities and professor of classics, Continue Reading →
By Jamie Saxon Paul Muldoon, the Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts and director of the Princeton Atelier, has received Her Continue Reading →
By Emily Aronson Gillian Knapp, an emeritus professor of astrophysical sciences and senior scholar, has received the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. Knapp taught at Princeton for Continue Reading →
Authors: Eli Berman, chair of economics at the University of California-San Diego; Joseph Felter, deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia; Jacob Shapiro, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson Continue Reading →
Author: Ken Steiglitz, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, and senior scholar Publisher: Princeton University Press, forthcoming February 2019 A few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog Continue Reading →
Author: Beth Lew-Williams, assistant professor of history Publisher: Harvard University Press, February 2018 The American West erupted in anti-Chinese violence in 1885. Following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and Continue Reading →
Author: Harriet Flower, the Andrew Fleming West Professor in Classics Publisher: Princeton University Press, September 2017 The most pervasive gods in ancient Rome had no traditional mythology attached to them, nor was their worship organized Continue Reading →
Author: Kinohi Nishikawa, assistant professor of English and African American studies Publisher: University of Chicago Press, November 2018 The uncontested center of the black pulp fiction universe for more than four decades was Los Angeles Continue Reading →
Author: Muhammad Qasim Zaman, the Robert H. Niehaus ’77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion Publisher: Princeton University Press, May 2018 The first modern state to be founded in the name of Islam, Pakistan Continue Reading →
If there is a theme to this year’s Discovery: Research at Princeton, it is the ascendancy of data science in aiding our quest for deeper understanding. We now have the computing power and resources to Continue Reading →
By Catherine Zandonella When landscape artist Thomas Cole visited New Hampshire’s White Mountains in the summer of 1839, he sketched the telling signs of deforestation and human encroachment on a once pristine wilderness. But his Continue Reading →
By Catherine Zandonella Albert Einstein’s desk can still be found on the second floor of Princeton’s physics department. Positioned in front of a floor-to-ceiling blackboard covered with equations, the desk seems to embody the spirit Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee “When the horns started to blow and we saw the Statue of Liberty, I thought I was in heaven. Really. She’s up there and saying, ‘Come on in. From now on you Continue Reading →
By Adam Hadhazy Clifford Brangwynne, whose research explores the hidden order within cellular liquid, has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Brangwynne, an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Princeton University, Continue Reading →
By John Sullivan Two engineering faculty members, Paul Prucnal and Jennifer Rexford, have been named as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, an honor that recognizes contributions that have an impact on quality of Continue Reading →
By Kevin McElwee Artemis Eyster spends more time than most students on the wooded paths near campus where Albert Einstein once cleared his mind. The Class of 2019 undergraduate, named after the Greek goddess of Continue Reading →
By B. Rose Kelly American adults of low socioeconomic status report increasing mental distress and worsening well-being, according to a study by Princeton University and Georgetown University. Between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, mental health Continue Reading →
By Liz Fuller-Wright In May 2018, Princeton officials and local representatives cut the ribbon on the Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs, a 31,000-square-foot co-working lab and office space for high-tech startup companies formed by Princeton faculty, Continue Reading →
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