Dr. Giovanni Piedimonte, vice president for research, is leading Tulane toward a new era of impactful research that makes lives better.

Last year, it took the entire season of 12 games to become bowl eligible. This year, Tulane clinched bowl eligibility with a Nov. 1 homecoming victory against Tulsa — it’s ninth game of the season.

The 2020 Commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 16, will be held in Yulman Stadium for the first time in Tulane history. Tulane commencements are among the country’s most memorable celebrations of academic achievement, featuring renowned speakers and honorary degree recipients such as the Dalai Lama, Tim Cook and Helen Mirren. The university plans to bring many of the beloved commencement traditions to the ceremony at Yulman. This year’s speaker has not been announced yet.

Viking Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, will publish a book by Amy Gajda, Tulane law professor, called The Secret History of the Right to Privacy. The book, set to publish in 2021, examines privacy’s path in the United States, its threats to press freedoms and what privacy reveals about current concerns in a digital age.

Newcomb Art Museum’s latest show NOT SUPPOSED 2 BE HERE by visual artist Brandan “BMike” Odums opens Jan. 18, 2020. It is the first solo exhibition for Odums in a museum setting. The display, which features brand new site-specific installations, as well as past work, is part retrospective and part futurescape. Audiences will be able to envision and engage with the bold histories — and futures — that Odums’ work encapsulates.

Liz Davey, director of the Office of Sustainability, has worked closely with students and administrators for 20 years on recycling efforts, energy efficiency and sustainable construction to get to this point, but there’s still more to do.

Tulane School of Medicine opened the Clinical Neuroscience Research Center, a new center aimed at improving care for patients with neurological diseases. Dr. Gregory Bix is the center’s director, and Dr. Xiaoying Wang is the center’s program director of brain injury and research. Bix’s goal is to build on the university’s existing stroke research and expand efforts in traumatic brain injury, aging and dementia.

A group of Tulanians competed in the APT/PBS reality show “Make 48,” a MakerSpace-inspired show in which student teams have 48 hours to plan, prototype and pitch a new commercial product idea to a panel of judges. The team, called The Big Easy, consisted of Kyra Rubinstein, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, Matthew Nice, a biomedical engineering graduate, Luke Artzt, an engineering physics graduate, and Jesse Williams, a School of Architecture graduate.

Howard Mielke, pharmacology research professor at the School of Medicine, found that long-term changes in soil lead levels in New Orleans have a corresponding impact on blood levels in children. Mielke’s research team collected rounds of soil samplings in the city over several years and compared them to children’s blood level data, which revealed decreasing lead in topsoil played a key factor in the children’s declining blood lead levels.

Tulane’s School of Architecture has launched a new Bachelor of Arts in Design. It offers a broad design education inclusive of multiple modes of practice and an understanding of the fundamental linkages between design, society and culture.