Ben Bernanke, former Princeton professor and economics department chair, receives Nobel Prize in economic sciences

By Denise Valenti Ben Bernanke, a Princeton professor of economics and public affairs from 1985 to 2002, chairman of the economics department from 1996 to 2002, and founder of the Bendheim Center for Finance, is Continue Reading →

India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today

Stanford University Press, Feb. 2023 Ashoka Mody, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy When Indian leaders first took control of their government in 1947, they proclaimed the ideals of national unity Continue Reading →

A NOBEL YEAR – Princeton scholars and alumni received an unprecedented five Nobel Prizes

Nobel medal
David MacMillan

NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY

‘This idea took off’

By Liz Fuller-Wright

David MacMillan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his role in inventing the field of organocatalysis, which finds revolutionary ways to design and build small organic molecules to drive chemical reactions.

Organocatalysts, which are greener than traditional metal catalysts, are used to construct new drugs and materials, and their impact ranges from industrial applications to pharmaceuticals to everyday products like clothing, shampoo, carpet fibers and more.

“All scientists have so many ideas along the way,” MacMillan said. “We have way more ideas than ever succeed — but this one took off, and it took off like gangbusters.”

Princeton University senior meteorologist Syukuro “Suki” Manabe

NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS

‘Following my curiosity’

By Liz Fuller-Wright

Princeton University senior meteorologist Syukuro “Suki” Manabe received the Nobel Prize in physics for his climate science research, which laid the foundation for the development of current climate models.

Manabe has been on the Princeton faculty since 1968. During a press conference on the day of the announcement, Manabe repeatedly cited the “great fun” to be had in modeling Earth’s climate and urged students to follow their curiosity and their joy, rather than trying to predict what research may prove impactful in future decades. “I never imagined that this thing I was beginning to study [would have] such huge consequences,” he said. “I was doing it just because of my curiosity.”

Maria Ressa, Joshua Angrist and David Card

NOBEL PRIZES FOR PEACE, ECONOMICS

Safeguarding freedom, insights on the labor market

By Denise Valenti

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Princeton graduate Maria Ressa of the Class of 1986 for her efforts to “safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Ressa has been a journalist in Asia for more than 30 years, serving as CNN’s bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta and founding the online news site Rappler.com.

Princeton alumni David Card and Joshua Angrist were awarded the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences for providing new insights about the labor market. Card (Ph.D. ’83) taught at Princeton from 1983-96 and is now at the University of California-Berkeley. Angrist (Ph.D. ’89) is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Princeton pivots toward COVID-19

People walking with masks on

By Catherine Zandonella

Within days of shutting down their laboratories in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Princeton researchers were asking how they could help.

“Many members of the Princeton faculty reached out with requests for opportunities to use their knowledge, ideas and skills to assist in combating the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dean for Research Pablo Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science and a professor of chemical and biological engineering.

In response, the University created a fund of over half a million dollars to support research on COVID-19. The projects, which are still ongoing, range from vaccines and treatments to policy, social and economic topics.

The manual of physical distancing

In the early months of 2020, professors of architecture Paul Lewis and Guy Nordenson realized that the COVID-19 pandemic would make a significant and long-lived impact on cities. New strategies would be needed to rework the design of cities during peak infection and after restrictions are eased.

“The city’s density, historically its greatest asset, is now perceived to be at odds with the realities of the pandemic, and is now a crippling vulnerability,” Lewis said.

Lewis and Nordenson teamed with David Lewis of the Parsons School of Design, Marc Tsurumaki of Columbia University, and a team of architects and designers to create the Manual of Physical Distancing, an online visual tour of how the virus affects the areas where we live, learn, play and work. The manual distills information from universities, institutes and governments into easily understandable graphical explanations.

“We sought to negotiate the incompatibility between the functional density of urban spaces and the protection of health,” Nordenson said.

Domestic violence and the pandemic

As unemployment rose and large numbers of people began working from home, Maria Micaela Sviatschi, assistant professor of economics and public affairs in Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, recognized the potential for an increase in domestic violence. Roughly 12 million people in America report experiencing domestic violence annually and 35% of the worldwide population has reported at least one incident.

Sviatschi and collaborators quickly assembled a survey of 8,000 women to assess their attitudes and access to information about domestic partner violence, including interventions such as hotlines and counseling. The research team included economist Sofia Amaral of the ifo Institute at the University of Munich, as well as graduate student Lindsey Buck and Associate Professor of Economics Nishith Prakash of the University of Connecticut.

Although the study is not yet complete, some women reported abusive behaviors such as having their phone constantly checked, being isolated from their friends and family, and being told what they can or cannot wear. A small number of women reported physical abuse, and a high proportion of the women reported self-blaming.

COVID-19’s economic impact

To study the effect of business shutdowns and government stimulus on consumer behavior, assistant professors of economics Natalie Cox and Arlene Wong, with coauthors at the University of Chicago, examined credit card and bank account data from millions of customers. They found that household spending plunged similarly across all income levels in March and April, and that government payments appear to have benefited low-income households, which despite job losses, showed faster rebounds in spending than higher-income households.

The uniform spending cuts across all income levels suggest that the economic shutdown, rather than job losses, were likely the primary driver of spending declines.

“Overall declines in spending were much larger than what could be explained by the rise in unemployment,” the authors wrote in a paper published in the summer 2020 special edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

The team also concluded that stimulus programs likely played a sizable role in helping to stabilize spending and savings, especially for low-income households.

Therapeutics and vaccines

To make SARS-CoV-2 safer for handling in the laboratory, Alexander Ploss, associate professor of molecular biology, and his team are developing a less virulent version of the virus. The strain, developed by reverse engineering the virus, lacks components needed to infect cells. Researchers can use this non-infectious version to test new therapies.

To search for treatments for SARS-CoV-2 acute respiratory distress syndrome, the team collaborated with scientists at Boston University to develop new mouse models that contain human lung tissue. The Ploss lab and their collaborators in Boston are working on a vaccine against the virus modeled on a successful vaccine against yellow fever.

“In addition to these lines of experiments, we have been able to establish very productive collaborations with others at Princeton to identify components that are essential for SARS-CoV-2 entry and replication,” Ploss said.

Closing the door on COVID-19

When the virus SARS-CoV-2 attacks the body, the virus’s spike proteins must latch onto the human protein ACE2 on the surface of cells to open the door for the virus to enter. Clifford Brangwynne, the June K. Wu ’92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and colleagues are testing small molecules to see if they can block this process.

The researchers’ first step was to develop a way to identify small molecules that thwart the fusion of the virus spike protein with ACE2. The test involves labeling the proteins with colorful fluorescent markers that light up when a molecule successfully stymies spike-ACE2 fusion.

The team is collaborating with colleagues on campus, and around the country, to understand the biophysics of how ACE2 and spike proteins interact, and to study promising small-molecule candidates as treatments for COVID-19. “We are also excited about the potential broader application of this drug-screening approach for other types of common viral infections, particularly those that affect children,” Brangwynne said.





Forecasting the next COVID-19

Princeton disease ecologist C. Jessica Metcalf and Harvard physician and epidemiologist Michael Mina say that predicting disease could become as commonplace as predicting the weather. Continue Reading →

Eviction Lab examines the intersection of poverty and housing

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 →

Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict

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 →

Mental health declining among disadvantaged adults

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 →

Money matters: An economist on the Fed, the banks and the future

By Catherine Zandonella IT’S BEEN NINE YEARS since the start of the Great Recession, and economies are still recovering worldwide. Economists are still debating — not about the causes of the crisis, which involved shoddy Continue Reading →

Coming home to document a rapidly changing China

By Catherine Zandonella SOCIOLOGIST Yu Xie is the director of Princeton’s Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China, which aims to conduct research on Chinese society through an interdisciplinary approach.  ON A VISIT TO CHINA in Continue Reading →

A challenge to help kids

By Yasemin Saplakoglu A collaborative approach to sociology aims to target fundamental and perhaps overlooked issues to improve policies that affect the lives of disadvantaged children. The effort, called the Fragile Families Challenge, brings together Continue Reading →

Eight win Guggenheim Fellowships

PHOTO CREDITS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: TOP ROW: JOHN LUCAS, RICHARD SODEN, PETER HURLEY, HANNAH DUNPHY BOTTOM ROW: DAVID BROWN, NINA KATCHADOURIAN, DENISE APPLEWHITE, JILL DOLAN Eight Princeton faculty members have received 2017 Guggenheim Fellowships Continue Reading →

Better decision-making for the planet

By Yasemin Saplakoglu We might think we have control of the mix of decisions we make during the day. But it turns out that our brain gives us subconscious nudges, preferring some choices over others. Continue Reading →

Historian and neuroscientist team up for podcast

By Yasemin Saplakoglu When history professor Julian Zelizer and neuroscientist Sam Wang started the podcast Politics and Polls prior to last year’s presidential election, they never dreamed it would still be going a year later. Continue Reading →

Better living through behavioral science

How the psychology of human behavior is helping tackle society’s biggest problems By Wendy Plump SUPPOSE someone approaches you on the street with the following proposition: You can receive either cash on the spot or Continue Reading →

Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy

Authors: Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2015 When engaging with other countries, the U.S. government has a number of different policy instruments at its disposal, including foreign aid, international trade Continue Reading →

Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights

Author: Alan Patten Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2015 Conflicting claims about culture are a familiar refrain of political life in the contemporary world. On one side, majorities seek to fashion the state in their own Continue Reading →

ROBERT KEOHANE receives James Madison Award in American political science

Robert Keohane, professor of public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, received the 2014 James Madison Award from the American Political Science Association (APSA). The award, given once every three years, “recognizes an Continue Reading →

Wild birds: A trip to the market reveals species imperiled

THE SIGHT OF A SOUTHEAST ASIAN BIRD market rivals the din of one for being overwhelming. Thousands of wild-caught birds are packed into cages that hang from eaves and fill market stalls to the ceiling, Continue Reading →

Unconscious bias: Research helps break down barriers

STACEY SINCLAIR WAS AWARE OF INEQUALITY AT A YOUNG AGE. ”On some level I was always interested in injustice,” said Sinclair, an associate professor of psychology and African American studies. “As a 7-year-old, I wanted Continue Reading →

Measles may weaken immune system up to three years

THE MEASLES VIRUS can lead to serious disease in children by suppressing their immune systems for up to three years, according to a study published in the journal Science on May 8, 2015. The study Continue Reading →

Princeton-Fung Global Forum focuses on global health

IN NOVEMBER, the annual Princeton-Fung Global Forum brought health experts together in Dublin to address the emergence of new diseases and challenges in an increasingly connected world. Case studies of “modern plagues,” including the Ebola Continue Reading →

Janet Currie investigates the building blocks of children’s success

By Michael Hotchkiss TRAINED AS A LABOR ECONOMIST, Janet Currie earned her doctorate at Princeton by studying strikes and arbitration. But as she began her academic career in the late 1980s, she shifted her focus Continue Reading →

A RISKY PROPOSITION: Has global interdependence made us vulnerable?

RISK IS EVERYWHERE. There’s a risk, for example, that volcanic ash will damage aircraft engines. So when a volcano erupted in Iceland in April 2010, concerns about the plume of volcanic ash disrupted air travel Continue Reading →

DANIEL KAHNEMAN Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

Daniel Kahneman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of psychology, emeritus, and a Nobel laureate in economics, is one of 16 people who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest civilian honor in the United Continue Reading →

House of Debt: How they (and you) caused the great recession, and how we can prevent it from happening again

Authors: Atif Mian and Amir Sufi Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2014 The Great American Recession resulted in the loss of 8 million jobs between 2007 and 2009. More than 4 million homes were lost Continue Reading →

Study casts doubt on fairness of U.S. democracy

AFFLUENT INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESS CORPORATIONS have vastly more influence on federal government policy than average citizens, according to research by Princeton University and Northwestern University. The researchers used a data set comprised of 1,779 policy Continue Reading →

A farewell to arms? New technique could aid nuclear disarmament

SCIENTISTS at Princeton University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are developing a system to verify the presence of nuclear warheads without collecting classified information, as a step toward the Continue Reading →

Fragile families, fragile children

Relationships are complicated in the best of times, but even more so for unmarried parents and their children. Children born to unmarried parents encounter considerable instability in their family life when their biological parents end Continue Reading →