Research

The UNC Charlotte College of Education is officially home to one of the nation’s top foreign language teacher educators. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has selected Scott Kissau to receive the Anthony Papilia Award, an honor presented to one person annually for excellence in teacher education. The award recognizes a teacher, educator or author who has significantly influenced the lives of countless students and practicing teachers.

Even before Flipper, dolphins fascinated many people. They loved that the mammals were friendly and intelligent. Dolphins seem to enjoy interacting with swimmers and have been known to protect people under attack by sharks. Despite humans’ familiarity, most people are not well informed about how dolphins evolved, how they function and how they have interacted with humans for millennia.

The North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (NC-LSAMP) will hold its 2016 annual undergraduate research conference at UNC Charlotte on Friday, Oct. 14.

The Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company is on campus through Friday, Sept. 30, for the company’s first-ever “reconstruction residency” in the Department of Dance. Capping an 18-month research project led by Associate Professor of Dance Kim Jones, the residency brings the Taylor 2 dancers from New York City to Charlotte to teach students in master classes and to bring back to life a work not seen in more than 50 years. That dance, “Tracer,” will be performed in a concert scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Sept. 30, in the Anne Belk Theater of the Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts.

A team of four UNC Charlotte students was recognized with the People’s Choice Award in the 2016 Teradata University Network (TUN) Data Challenge, an international data analytics competition.

Laxmi Narayana Atluri, Sri Harsha Degala, Vrushali Sawant and Freddy Cabrera, all graduate students in data science and business analytics, demonstrated their findings at the 2016 Teradata PARTNERS Conference and Expo, and won the support of 3,500 of the world’s most advanced data and analytics experts and business leaders.

UNC Charlotte’s team that has conducted archaeological excavations on Mount Zion in Jerusalem announced the discovery of a rare gold coin bearing the image of the Roman Emperor Nero.

“The coin is exceptional, because this is the first time that a coin of this kind has turned up in Jerusalem in a scientific dig. Coins of this type are usually only found in private collections, where we don’t have clear evidence as to place of origin,” said Shimon Gibson, co-director of the excavation and a visiting professor at UNC Charlotte.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $4 million grant to UNC Charlotte researchers to develop a multidisciplinary research program called Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI) that will create new ways to manage, use and share Big Data and analytic results

Is the economic forecast partly sunny or partly cloudy? Both, said UNC Charlotte economist John Connaughton. On the bright side, North Carolina’s unemployment rate is now lower than the U.S. rate, and the economy continues to grow. However, the economic expansion is slowing down, Connaughton stated during the Babson Capital Management/UNC Charlotte Economic Forecast.

A recently published work by history professor Gregory Mixon analyzes one state’s process of freedom, citizenship and the incorporation of African Americans within the political and economic structure of the United States after the Civil War.

Historian Mark Wilson studies the business and politics of the American industrial mobilization for World War II in the new book “Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II.”

Wilson spent 10 years researching the archives of companies that made weapons for the war as well as military and government archives. His search led him to the records of Boeing Aircraft and Manufacturing, Ford Motor and DuPont U.S.