The Tulane Innovation Institute hired Clay Christian as its first director of commercialization intelligence and assessment and Matt Koenig as the executive director of intellectual property management. Christian was previously responsible for cultivating relationships between the School of Medicine’s research enterprise and outside collaborators. Koenig served as the director of intellectual property management for the University of Kansas.

“It’s humbling ... it makes all the hard work, and the late nights, and the trials and tribulations of the startup life, all worth it to know the impact that it’s making.” — Billy Heim (SSE ’07, B ’12), discusses the development of a graft that can regenerate a nipple and areola for breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors. The graft was developed by NICHOLAS PASHOS (SSE ’17), alumnus of Tulane’s Bioinnovation PhD program.

The School of Professional Advancement (SoPA) public administration program has been named in honor of the late U.S. Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis. The program reached a milestone in May when its first cohort of graduates was awarded the Master of Public Administration degree. The online program also offers graduate certificates.

The School of Professional Advancement has received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to expand and enhance teacher recruitment efforts in New Orleans. Funding will support the launch of a Master of Teaching degree and fund mentor stipends and an induction program for graduates of the school’s teacher preparation programs.

Tulane Law Professor Amy Gajda’s book “Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy” was named to the The New York Times’ annual “100 Notable Books of 2022” list. The Times writes, “Gajda, who was a journalist before becoming a law professor, is a nimble storyteller; even if some of her conclusions are bound to be contentious, she’s an insightful guide to a rich and textured history that gets easily caricatured, especially when a culture war is raging.”

Award-winning neuroscientist Matthew Dalva has been appointed as director of the Tulane Brain Institute and the university’s newest Presidential Chair. Dalva, whose research focuses on how the connections of the brain form and are changed by experience, will succeed Professor Jill Daniel, who has served as director of the institute since its inception in 2016.

Roxanne Dávila, senior professor of practice of Spanish and Portuguese, is the new associate dean for language pedagogy and initiatives in the School of Liberal Arts. Dávila oversees all aspects relating to language learning and pedagogy and leads the school’s strategic vision for advancing language learning at Tulane.

Researchers at the Tulane National Primate Research Center co-authored a study that shows a new COVID-19 vaccine offers protection against Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 for at least six months. The trial tested a vaccine, which is currently in use in South Korea, on nonhuman primates.

An interdisciplinary team of engineers and doctors are researching the development of new technology designed to detect severe COVID-19 complications. The goal is to develop a diagnostic test that uses a drop of blood from a finger prick and could be performed at a hospital, in a clinic or at home.

A study co-authored by Emily Cook, assistant professor of economics, shows that colleges that required COVID-19 vaccinations averted an average of 339 cases per 100,000 residents and almost 7,300 deaths within their surrounding communities in fall 2021. The research group used data on colleges’ vaccination policies, semester start dates and county-level public health outcomes.