Anita Raj is the new executive director of the Newcomb Institute. Prior to joining Tulane, Raj was at the University of California–San Diego, where she was the inaugural Tata Chancellor Professor of Society and Health, founding director of the Center on Gender, Equity and Health, and holder of faculty appointments in the schools of Medicine and Social Sciences.

Marcia Walker-McWilliams will lead the Tulane History Project and its effort to develop a detailed history of Tulane with respect to its racial history and founding, including the impacts from slavery and segregation. Walker-McWilliams previously served as executive director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium at the University of Chicago, taught American history and African American studies courses at several universities, and served as associate director in the Center for Civic Leadership at Rice University.

“If ChatGPT eliminates rote work, freeing academic minds to pursue new possibilities and apply their time and energy to solve novel problems, it could multiply academic potential and lead to more breakthroughs more quickly. In fields such as biomedical research, the result could be lifesaving.”

The Tulane Innovation Institute, in collaboration with Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Robin Forman, has launched the Provost’s Proof of Concept Fund to provide competitive grants of up to $50,000 to help university faculty, graduate students or staff get promising ideas and technologies ready for the market.

Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed racial and ethnic health disparities nationwide, those disparities continue to exist in American communities of color.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs named Tulane a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for U.S. Students, a recognition given to the U.S. colleges and universities that received the highest number of applicants selected in the program last year. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the government’s flagship international educational exchange program.

Katherine Mills, associate professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said in U.S. News and World Report, “If we meet people where they are, we may be able to have an impact on cardiovascular health in this population.” Mills co-authored a preliminary study that indicates religious beliefs of Black churchgoers in New Orleans may influence health behaviors.

“The bottom line is, I don’t see how the government can actually get away with banning all of TikTok from everyone.”

In a CNN Wonder article about the NASA Magellan spacecraft’s capture of imagery of Venus in the 1990s, Jennifer Whitten, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said, “Now that we’re very sure the planet experienced a volcanic eruption only 30 years ago, this is a small preview for the incredible discoveries VERITAS will make.” Whitten is associate deputy principal investigator of VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy), a new mission that will head for Venus within a decade.

A research partnership between Tulane and Rice universities has developed gelatin-like patches of fake skin — called hydrogels — to assist in the study of how mosquitoes transmit deadly diseases and which repellents are most effective. The hydrogels eliminate the need for human and animal testing.