News

By now you’ve probably heard that a total solar eclipse is coming to North American skies on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, and the Carolinas have a front row seat. UNC Charlotte Observatory director and astrophysicist Catherine Qualtrough of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences shares the basics of this historic event.

More than 100 undergraduate students competed in the 2017 Summer Research Symposium, with three College of Liberal Arts & Sciences students named the winners. “These are the agile minds that will advance understanding in many areas that affect our lives,” distinguished researcher Pinku Mukherjee said of the participants in the university’s research programs.

The hushed tones of UNC Charlotte students add another note to the song in the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, as faculty turn to the Gardens to study subjects ranging from graphic design to ecological interactions. They and their students embrace nature and gain inspiration from the natural world.

In recognition of their exceptional teaching, Ashley Bryan, Nishi Bryska and Ian Marriott have received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2017. Dean Nancy A. Gutierrez and the awards committee chairs commended the honorees and award finalists for their innovation, creativity and focus on engaging students in scholarship and research.

Erica Cherian, a junior at UNC Charlotte who is devoted to addressing issues of healthcare access and utilization by Charlotte’s most vulnerable citizens, has been named a Newman Civic Fellow. Newman Civic Fellows are student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions to challenges that face their communities.

Undergraduate students Mary (Tess) Overton and Nemah-Allah Saleh have received Goldwater Scholarships, as only the second and third students at the University ever to receive this award. The scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.

When a treasured topiary tree was scooped from the soil and stolen from the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens the first weekend of April, hundreds of people turned to social media to spread the word. Upon the plant’s return one day after the community learned it was missing, the outpouring continued.

UNC Charlotte’s Master of Science in Mathematical Finance program again has been named among the top 20 programs in the nation, ranking No. 18 in the TFE Times’ 2017 Master of Financial Engineering Program Rankings. program is a joint program of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the Departments of Finance and Economics in the Belk College of Business.

Beneath the surface of the sea exists a vast world that UNC Charlotte student researcher Tyler Carrier seeks to explore through research at the intersection of evolutionary ecology, oceanography, and microbiology. “The questions I am attempting to answer are deeply rooted in fundamental evolutionary and ecological processes, and are also vastly unexplored,” Carrier says.

Squeezing years of work and thousands of words into a three-minute talk, graduate students Shayan Nazari and Danny Yonto earned first and second place in UNC Charlotte’s inaugural Three-Minute Thesis competition.