“We all want to feel safe, to be heard, to have people recognize our dignity. … Whatever level of society you’re in, we are all suffering to some degree.”

Ian Morrison is the new vice president for university communications and marketing, overseeing Tulanian magazine, media relations, marketing, web communications, graphic design, photography, videography, social media and the digital newsletter Tulane Today. Morrison left the position of associate chancellor of strategic communications at Vanderbilt University to join Tulane.

As part of a $2.27 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the School of Social Work plans to address issues of alarming levels of burnout, low job satisfaction and compassion fatigue among healthcare workers that lead to poor behavioral health outcomes for themselves and contribute to increased health disparities for the communities they serve.

A challenge in treating military veterans is finding those who may be suffering from invisible wounds and getting them to seek treatment, said Dr. Greg Stewart. There is, however, a new, successful treatment concept to help veterans heal and lower their risk for suicide. Stewart is the W. Kennon McWilliams Professor in Sports Medicine and the medical director for the Tulane University Center for Brain Health, whose central mission is to provide care for military veterans regardless of discharge status.

The Newcomb Art Museum has received a $500,000, three-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish three interrelated initiatives to make the museum more inclusive and accessible. The funding comes from the philanthropic foundation’s Art Museum Futures Fund, launched in 2020 as part of its emergency grantmaking in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on arts and cultural institutions around the nation.

Professor of English Zachary Lazar has published a new book, The Apartment on Calle Uruguay: A Novel (Penguin Random House, 2022). It’s the story of a complicated romance between an artist and a journalist.

Nick Mattei, assistant professor of computer science, is part of a National Science Foundation study to design more equitable algorithm recommender systems for all types of products and services.

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who had a combination of high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes or other conditions associated with metabolic syndrome were at much higher risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome and death, according to a study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open. Dr. Joshua Denson, assistant professor of medicine, was the study’s lead author.

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a $1.24 million grant to a research team to come up with standards for measuring viruses and other pathogens in treated wastewater for water re-use projects. Samendra Sherchan, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and director of the Water Quality Lab at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, is part of the team.

Chad Roy, professor of microbiology and immunology and director of infectious disease aerobiology at the Tulane National Primate Research Center, and Dr. Gregory Bix, professor and vice chair of neurosurgery and neurology, director of COBALT (COVID-19 Biobank and Library at Tulane), and director of the clinical neuroscience research center, were among a team of scientists who co-authored a review of 115 peer-reviewed studies in Clinical Infectious Diseases.