Discovery: Research at Princeton
Findings, feature articles, books and awards from Princeton University researchers
Menu
About
Dean’s welcome
Briefs
Princeton University-HBCU partnerships launch first research projects
Solar technology marks major milestone
Shark Week was every week for Megalodon
‘Fantastic giant tortoise,’ believed extinct, confirmed alive in the Galápagos
DNA barcoding advances nanoparticle self-assembly
Ben Bernanke, former Princeton professor and economics department chair, receives Nobel Prize in economic sciences
Scientists discover exotic quantum state at room temperature
Focus
Soaking up the sun
Bouncing back from adversity
Do today: find something new about the universe
Our fusion future
Features
Beyond guess and check
Fast-tracked adaptation
Art History (Hx)
Artificial intelligence enters a new era
Bridging the divide
Shariffa Ali, theater maker
Books
Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States
The Price of Slavery: Capitalism and Revolution in the Caribbean
A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021
India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today
The Matter of Black Living: The Aesthetic Experiment of Racial Data, 1880–1930
The Entrepreneurs: The Relentless Quest for Value
Awards
Breakthrough Prize goes to Cliff Brangwynne
Wolf Prize goes to Bonnie Bassler and Elizabeth Diller
Elliot Lieb wins American Physical Society’s highest honor, and mathematics’ Gauss Prize
Fields Medal and MacArthur Fellowship go to June Huh
Simon Gikandi and Chika Okeke-Agulu elected to British Academy for contributions to the humanities
Bhargava, Guenther, Schor and Weisenfeld receive 2022 Guggenheim Fellowships
Bryan Grenfell wins Kyoto Prize
Past issues
Discovery 2021-22
Audio version
Dean’s welcome
Annual Research Report
Briefs
Between living bodies and objects
Lasting impacts from early-life stress
Reaching for the stars
A NOBEL YEAR – Princeton scholars and alumni received an unprecedented five Nobel Prizes
Focus
Preventing the next pandemic
When cars no longer rule
Mystery on the moon
Features
Cancer connection
Race to the bottom
Climate in crisis
Age of intolerance?
Books
Cosmology’s Century: An Inside History of Our Modern Understanding of the Universe
Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace with Yiyun Li
Risk on the Table: Food Production, Health, and the Environment
Deep Life: The Hunt for the Hidden Biology of Earth, Mars, and Beyond
Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette
Magical Habits
Discovery 2020-21
Dean’s welcome
Annual Research Report
Briefs
Conversation spreads droplets more than six feet indoors
Magic Grant sparks interactive map of treasures
Public-private partnerships propel fusion research
Bacterial anti-infective defense systems could aid humans
Princeton to help lead new quantum science center
New “recycler” protein kicks cancer to the curb
Antarctic sea ice retreat spurs plankton blooms
Focus
Princeton COVID-19 research
Not JUST data
Tempest in a laptop
Features
Forecasting the next COVID-19
Race and policing in America
Of lava lamps and living cells
Deemed unfit for freedom
Books
Degenerative Realism: Novel and Nation in Twenty- First-Century France
Life Magazine and the Power of Photography
Einstein in Bohemia
The Little Book of Cosmology
Statistical Foundations of Data Science
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Discovery 2019-2020
Dean’s Introduction
Briefs
Princeton appoints first vice dean for innovation
Nobel Prize awarded for discoveries in cosmology
Motion-capture technology assists in neuroscience studies
Deep learning detects mutations behind autism
People adapt to societal diversity
AI accelerates fusion energy research
Finding the Lost Generation
News
How wetlands contribute to climate change
A small number of wells produce large emissions
Popping the ideological bubbles of social media users
Mallika Randeria captures images of the quantum world
Focus on undergraduate research
‘Fever’ and its meanings in English literature: Annabel Barry
Exploring free speech and corporate power: Sydney Jordan
Fracking and public health: Benjamin Jacobson
News Features
Deborah Vischak reveals the dynamics of ancient Egypt
Features
Quantum computing opens new realms of possibilities
The Torture Letters: Laurence Ralph explores Chicago’s dark history
Fragile Fragments: Marina Rustow unpacks daily life in medieval Egypt
Origin Story: Rewriting human history through our DNA
Books
BREATHE: A Letter to My Sons
Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know
The Prosthetic Tongue: Printing Technology and the Rise of the French Language
The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter
Cervantes’ Persiles and the Travails of Romance
Ornamentalism
Faculty Awards
Annual Research Report
Discovery 2018-2019
Dean’s introduction
Briefs
Crowdsourced brain mapping
Incubator for startups opens near campus
New supercomputer bolsters research
Mental health declining among disadvantaged adults
News
Campus as Lab: Tracking campus ecology
Eviction Lab examines the intersection of poverty and housing
An overdue spotlight on an avant-garde playwright
When driverless ride-hailing services come to a curb near you
Turning up the heat on the search for better plastics
Finding meaning among the junk
News Features
Bold and cold: A new faculty member and a new microscope explore life’s essential molecules
Breathing life into the Indian Ocean by predicting ‘dead zones’
Treasure in ancient trash
Going quantum to unlock plants’ secrets
Engine of cosmic evolution: Eve Ostriker looks under the hood
Features
From Math to Meaning. Artificial intelligence blends algorithms and applications
Nature’s Nation. How American art shaped our environmental perspectives
Beyond Einstein: Physicists find surprising connections in the cosmos
Fact-checking Immigration: Professor Leah Boustan uses big data to explore myths about the past
Books
The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America
The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner
The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digital
Islam in Pakistan: A History
Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict
Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground
Faculty Honors
Selected Faculty Honors
Four Princeton faculty members win Guggenheim Fellowships
Tera Hunter earns awards for scholarship on slave marriage
Gillian Knapp receives presidential award for STEM mentorship
Paul Muldoon receives Her Majesty’s Gold Medal for Poetry
Clifford Brangwynne selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Engineering professors named fellows of National Academy of Inventors
Annual report
Discovery 2017
Dean’s Welcome
Briefs
A challenge to help kids
New arts complex opens
New journal highlights student research
Self-powered system makes smart windows smarter
Probing the genetic basis for dog-human relationships
News
Better decision-making for the planet
How cancer stem cells evade the immune system
Historian and neuroscientist team up for podcast
Egyptian translation highlights the beauty of hieroglyphs
Discovery provides a path to safe, clean, plentiful energy
Professor reflects on growing up undocumented and the power of books
News Features
Money matters: An economist on the Fed, the banks and the future
Jane Cox on LEDs, lighting design and the role of light in storytelling
John Pardon on math’s power to distract and divert
Diamonds’ flaws hold promise for new technologies
Lights, camera, action – of genes in development
Features
Going green: What we can learn from a little alga
Coming home to document a rapidly changing China
Princeton project explores past ties to slavery
Bound in wedlock: Professor of history explores slavery’s shackles on black families
Let it flow: The ideas, the creativity, the findings, the impacts, the benefits to society
Books
At Home in the World: Women Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present
Designing San Francisco: Art, Land and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay
New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration
Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy and Security
Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation
The Little Book of Black Holes
Faculty Honors
Faculty Honors 2017-2018
Emily Carter awarded Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics
Peter and Rosemary Grant receive Royal Medal in Biology
Historian of religion Elaine Pagels awarded National Humanities Medal
Eight win Guggenheim Fellowships
Tracy K. Smith named U.S. Poet Laureate
Charles Fefferman awarded 2017 Wolf Prize in Mathematics
Annual Report
Discovery 2016
Dean’s Welcome
Briefs
F. Duncan Haldane receives Nobel Prize in Physics
Princeton part of $40 million Simons Observatory
Princeton Research Day highlights student and early-career work
Students explore sustainable building with bamboo
News
Researcher probes the secret life of electrons
Exploring collective interactions of matter and antimatter
In cells, self-destructive behavior suggests strategy for fighting cancer
Cuban literature and culture are focus of Planet/Cuba
Exploring the emergence of Cuban consumerism
Bias in the machine: Internet algorithms reinforce harmful stereotypes
The literature of madness and how it shaped modern psychiatry
News Features
Big answers from small creatures
Atom catcher: With lasers and magnets, Waseem Bakr traps atoms for study under the microscope
Students create exotic state of matter
Behind the curtain: Scandal, tragedy, art and politics at the Bolshoi
Features
Bright future: Princeton researchers unlock the potential of light to perform previously impossible feats
Of swords, stars and superconductors
CITIES: Resilient • Adaptable • Livable • Smart
Better living through behavioral science
Race for profits
Books
Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction
Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria
Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
The Euro and the Battle of Ideas
The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
Faculty Honors
All Faculty Honors
ROBERTO CAR receives American Chemistry Society national award
JANE COX receives the Ruth Morley Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women
PAUL CHIRIK receives Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award
GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS awarded
MARINA RUSTOW, historian of the medieval Middle East, wins MacArthur Fellowship
SIMON LEVIN wins National Medal of Science for unraveling ecological complexity
Annual Report
Discovery 2015
Dean’s Welcome
Briefs
Princeton-Fung Global Forum focuses on global health
Elusive particles found
Energy and environment center opens its doors
Measles may weaken immune system up to three years
Son-o-MERMAID takes to the waters
News
Unconscious bias: Research helps break down barriers
Listening in on bacterial communications
New chemistry aids drug development
Baby steps: Inside the developing brain
Taming the network: Finding relationships in complex data sets
Hero explores Vietnam War experiences
Life among strangers: Exile in the Middle Ages
Energy boost: Study sheds light on mitochondrial disease
Student identifies difference between the dinosaur sexes
Nobel Prize in economics goes to Angus Deaton
Imaging system tracks brain activity of a freely moving worm
News Features
Cosmic background: 51 years ago, an accidental discovery sparked a big bang in astrophysics
The Hub: A new center opens its doors … to student entrepreneurship
Wild birds: A trip to the market reveals species imperiled
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory: The quest for clean energy continues
Features
Bioengineering: Unlocking the secrets of human health
Engineering health solutions for all
Computer chip for point-of-care diagnosis
Tiny delivery capsules for new drugs
Beautiful minds
Ashes, images and the survival of democracy
Janet Currie investigates the building blocks of children’s success
Books
Poetic Trespass: Writing Between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine
Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy
Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature
The Cosmic Web: Mysterious Architecture of the Universe
Sound Rising from the Paper: Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction and the Chinese Acoustic Imagination
Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights
Faculty Honors
Faculty Honors 2015-2016
JHUMPA LAHIRI awarded National Humanities Medal
MANJUL BHARGAVA awarded Fields Medal in mathematics
ROBERT KEOHANE receives James Madison Award in American political science
JEREMIAH OSTRIKER and LYMAN PAGE receive Gruber Cosmology Prize
BONNIE BASSLER receives Shaw Prize in life science and medicine
DAVID TANK receives Brain Prize for advance in microscopy
Annual Report
Discovery 2014
Dean’s Welcome 2014
Briefs 2014
New mineral: Steinhardtite
A farewell to arms? New technique could aid nuclear disarmament
Captured on video: Virus-sized particle trying to enter cell
Laser device may end pin pricks, improve health for diabetics
Star formation, black holes focus of new research
Princeton-born play makes off-Broadway debut
News 2014
No more mirrors: a new way of making molecules for tracking disease
Light-splitting crystals from inexpensive ingredients
New technology enables computing with the wave of a hand
Entrepreneurship at Princeton: An interview with Mung Chiang
Focus on undergraduate research: Power grid solutions in Nigeria
Math and music spark student’s research interests
Emotional map illuminates an iconic rock song
How to train your worm to explore the circuits involved in learning
Study casts doubt on fairness of U.S. democracy
News Features 2014
Wetlands provide solutions for agricultural runoff
The City Lost and Found: Exhibition examines creative responses to urban changes in ’60s, ’70s America
Striking resemblance: A physical law may govern very different biological activities
Africa’s poison ‘apple’ provides common ground for elephants and livestock
Features 2014
RESILIENT SHORES: After Sandy, climate scientists and architects explore how to co-exist with rising tides
Poetry in Silico: Bringing digital tools to the study of poetry
Computer visions: A selection of research projects in Computer Science
COMPUTER SCIENCE: Armchair victory: Computers that recognize everyday objects
COMPUTER SCIENCE: Tools for the artist in all of us
COMPUTER SCIENCE: Fierce, Fiercer, Fiercest: Software enables rapid creations
COMPUTER SCIENCE: Internet traffic moves smoothly with Pyretic
COMPUTER SCIENCE: Security check: A strategy for verifying software could prevent bugs
A RISKY PROPOSITION: Has global interdependence made us vulnerable?
Books 2014
Chigusa and the Art of Tea
House of Debt: How they (and you) caused the great recession, and how we can prevent it from happening again
Shell Structures for Architecture: Form Finding and Optimization
The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America
Evening News: Optics, Astronomy, and Journalism in Early Modern Europe
Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878 – 1928
Awards 2014
Faculty Honors 2014-2015
FOUR PROFESSORS Receive Presidential Science Awards
SIMON LEVIN Receives Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement
YING-SHIH YU Receives Inaugural Tang Prize in Sinology
DANIEL KAHNEMAN Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom
JILL DOLAN Receives Distinguished Scholar Award for Theater Research
PETER SARNAK Receives Wolf Prize in Mathematics
Annual Report
Discovery 2013
Dean’s Welcome
Briefs
Planck mission brings universe into sharp focus
First Princeton-Fung Global Forum held in Shanghai
Big hair brings to life a 17th-century satire
Princeton role in federal BRAIN initiative
Immigration policy is ripe for reform
Quantum computing moves forward
Princeton establishes strategic partnerships with three universities
Fragile families, fragile children
Globalization raises new ethical questions
Small RNAs fight cancer’s spread
News
Italian Master Drawings: Exhibition goes beneath the surface
Site-specific shades offer sun protection
Far from random, evolution follows a predictable pattern
The rising cost of health care: Students examine policy solutions
Explain me something: How we learn what not to say
Collective behavior could help animals survive a changing environment
Found in translation: Scholar locates source of 18th-century Quran
Telescopes take the universe’s temperature
Manuscripts spark dialogue on authorship
The social network: Program combats bullying
Race and incarceration rates: Student researcher explores solutions
Green roofs’ energy savings hinge on climate
Features
Secrets of the Southern Ocean
The Planet Hunters
Inventions Bridge the Gap between lab and marketplace
Activism Shapes Africa Scholar
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory: Blazing a path to fusion energy
Books
Kripke by John Burgess
Meme by Susan Wheeler
360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story by Sean Wilentz
After the Music Stopped: The financial crisis, the response, and the work ahead by Alan Blinder
Small-town American: Finding community, shaping the future by Robert Wuthnow
Afterlives of Confinement: Spatial transition in post-dictatorship Latin America by Susana Draper
Faculty Honors
All Faculty Honors
William G. Bowen and Natalie Davis receive National Humanities Medal
David Botstein wins Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
Mung Chiang wins National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award
Jeremiah Ostriker named White House Champion of Change
Three win Guggenheim Fellowships
American Mathematical Society awards Steele Prizes to Yakov Sinai, Philip Holmes
A. M. Homes wins Women’s Prize for Fiction
Alexander Polyakov wins Fundamental Physics Prize
Annual Report
Annual Report
Discovery 2012
Discovery 2011
Discovery 2008
Blog
Discovery 2019-20
PDF version
Tablet version
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