Professor Xinxin Li received the 2026 ISS Distinguished Fellow Award, recognizing her scholarly contributions, intellectual leadership and commitment to mentoring and developing the next generation.

Professor Wei Chen received the 2026 ISS Haim Mendelson Teaching Innovation Award in recognition of his GenAI teaching innovation and the creation of a textbook, Generative AI for Business (https://www.genai4all.org/), which is being widely adopted by business schools internationally.

Awards Recognize Commitment to Excellence

“Both awards reflect the department’s commitment to excellence in research and teaching,’’ said professor Cuihong Li, head of the department. “We are very proud to see Xinxin’s and Wei’s accomplishments recognized by the Information Systems Society.’’

“At UConn, Xinxin has played a pivotal role in fostering a strong research environment through a sustained record of high-quality scholarship, mentoring PhD students and junior faculty, and interdisciplinary collaboration,’’ Li said. “During six years as MSBAPM Academic Director, Xinxin guided the program through an important period of transition, including the establishment of concentrations across multiple domains and expansion into the AI space.

“Xinxin’s years of leadership as a senior editor at MIS Quarterly, with a strong commitment to scholarly rigor and quality, have also helped shape the field and earned the trust of peers,’’ she said.

Meanwhile Chen’s award reflects an innovative approach to teaching and a commitment to preparing students for a rapidly changing technology landscape, particularly in AI, she continued.

“Wei has been at the forefront of research and teaching on generative AI in the information systems field, including co-authoring two books and numerous papers on this rapidly evolving technology,’’ she said. “At UConn, Wei offered one of our earliest courses on generative AI and is developing a new course focused on AI workflows.’’

Recognitions Bring Greater Visibility to UConn Research Community

Both faculty members said they are extremely honored but also said their peers at UConn were instrumental in their success.

“I am truly humbled and deeply honored to be included among distinguished scholars recognized for their outstanding intellectual contributions to the information systems discipline,’’ (Xinxin) Li said. “I am grateful to UConn, my academic home for the past 21 years, and to my colleagues and students whose support has made this achievement possible.

“I hope this recognition will bring greater visibility to our research community and open doors to new collaborations and opportunities for our faculty and students,’’ she added.

Chen said he is proud that he and his colleagues are advancing business education.

“Generative AI is changing how business gets done. And business education needs to help students understand both its possibilities and the judgment it requires,’’ he said. “At UConn, my goal is to help students apply AI to business problems while critically evaluate its results.’’

“This award recognizes that work through my textbook and the teaching materials I share with fellow educators. I’m honored that this award brings national recognition to UConn’s work in generative AI business education,’’ he said.

A graduate of the UConn School of Business, Mayor Cantor has served as a board member since 2014 and is widely regarded as one of strongest advocates in Connecticut for UConn and its students. She was inducted in the UConn Business Hall of Fame in 2017.

“In selecting a board chair, I want someone who not only has extensive experience with UConn and knows its academic and administrative needs, but who also has strong connections to Connecticut’s business community and will actively work to strengthen the bonds between the university and our state’s employers so that our graduates are prepared with the resources they need to lead successful, long-lasting careers,” Governor Lamont said. “Shari Cantor is the right person to lead the board, and her input is going to significantly benefit the university and its mission to develop the graduates who will flourish in today’s rapidly evolving, modern economy. Shari bleeds Husky blue, and I look forward to having her serve in this leadership role.”

“As a proud UConn graduate, I am deeply honored to take on this responsibility,” Mayor Cantor said. “UConn has played an extraordinary role in my life and in the lives of so many Connecticut families. Public service has always been a deeply meaningful commitment for me, and I see this opportunity as another way to give back to a university and state that have given me so much. I thank Governor Lamont for his confidence and Dan Toscano for his many years of dedicated leadership, service, and commitment to UConn’s success. I look forward to working collaboratively with President Radenka Maric, my fellow trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni to build on UConn’s remarkable momentum, expand opportunities for our students, and strengthen the university’s impact on Connecticut and beyond.”

A native of West Hartford, Mayor Cantor attended Hall High School and graduated magna cum laude from UConn with a degree in accounting in 1981. Her family has deep roots in UConn. In addition to all three of her siblings graduating from the university, her husband Michael Cantor also attended UConn, graduating in 1980 with a degree in chemical engineering and earning a juris doctor degree from UConn School of Law in 1983. Michael taught courses at the School of Law for more than 20 years and now serves on advisory boards for the School of Engineering and the School of Law. Additionally, two of their four sons also went to UConn.

Upon graduation, Mayor Cantor began working as a certified public accountant, first at PwC and then at Cigna. An interest in public service led her to win election to the West Hartford Town Council in 2004, followed by becoming the town’s deputy mayor in 2012. She became mayor of West Hartford in 2016 and continues to serve in this unpaid, volunteer leadership position.

Together, Shari and Michael’s dedication to UConn and its future has led them to give back to the university in numerous ways. Working with the UConn Foundation, they helped create Build Hartford, a UConn course that matches undergraduate and graduate students with Hartford-area start-ups, local businesses, and community organizations, giving them hands-on experience while fostering economic development and encouraging the retention of university talent in the Greater Hartford region. They also have been active supporters of the university’s Students First program, which provides emergency financial assistance to UConn students facing unexpected hardships.

In addition to her service with UConn, Mayor Cantor has an extensive resume of volunteer and leadership experience with organizations such as the American Heart Association of Northeastern Connecticut, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, West Hartford Rotary, Foodshare, the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the West Hartford Art League, and the American School for the Deaf.

Mayor Cantor’s selection to serve as board chair takes effect immediately. She will succeed Dan Toscano as board chair. Toscano served in the leadership position since 2019 and stepped down from the role this week.

“Over the past seven years, Dan Toscano’s leadership on the board has helped strengthen UConn and elevate its reputation as one of the best universities in the country, contributing to a record-breaking surge in applications from aspiring Huskies across the nation,” Governor Lamont said. “I applaud Dan for his eighteen years of service on the UConn Board of Trustees and the UConn Foundation Board of Directors, and I am grateful for his commitment and dedication to the university.”

The UConn Board of Trustees is comprised of 21 members: twelve appointed by the governor; two elected by alumni; two elected by students; and five ex-officio, including the governor, the UConn Health Board of Directors chair, and the commissioners of Connecticut Department of Agriculture, Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, and Connecticut State Department of Education. All the members serve as unpaid volunteers.

“Scholarships have an immense impact on our students, who go on to impactful careers throughout Connecticut and New England, as well as throughout the nation and abroad,” Dean Jason G. Irizarry said as he opened the celebration. “We instill in our students our mission of improving educational and social systems to be more effective, equitable, and just for all.”

In the 2025-2026 academic year, the Neag School supported over 400 students with more than $580,000 in scholarships.

Following Irizarry’s remarks, guests were shown a video in which scholarship recipients Ashanty Gomez ’26 (ED) ’27 MA, JohnEthan Rivera ’27 (ED) and Tori Black ’27 (ED), ’28 MA discussed their journeys and their gratitude for the donors who made their scholarships possible.

“Receiving a scholarship means so much to me, not just financially,” said Black, a recipient of the Clark Family Foundation Fund and the Neag School of Education Undergraduate Scholarship Fund. “The fact that somebody believes in me personally — believes in me becoming a teacher — is really inspiring and inspires me to give back to my community in the same way.”

The afternoon’s student speaker, Fiona Armstrong ’27 (ED), a recipient of the Professor Emeritus William M. and Marjorie Servedio Scholarship, then spoke about her academic path and what the scholarship means to her. She entered UConn as a history major and had previously declared a second major in political science before enrolling in the Neag School’s sport management program.

“Discovering this program opened so many doors for me and helped me discover my passion for women’s sports and community engagement through sporting events,” Armstrong said. “Through sport management, I have learned so much about my interests and I have had incredible experiences that strengthened my professional skills both inside and outside of the classroom.”

Through her course of study, Armstrong has gained hands-on experience in her field as a revenue generation intern for UConn Athletics and a student manager at UConn Recreation. Beyond that, during UConn Gives in April, she also marketed the very scholarship she received as part of her sport venue event management course. She said that makes receiving this scholarship particularly meaningful.

“It connects me to a person whose dedication and hard work helped build this program into what it is today,” Armstrong said. “From what I have learned, Professor Servedio was someone who treated people with respect and led through an incredible work ethic.”

After lunch, Paula Singer ’76 (ED), a businesswoman, former teacher, first-generation college graduate and UConn Foundation board member, addressed attendees. In 2015, Singer established an endowed scholarship to support Neag School students, with priority consideration for those enrolled in the UConn honors program.

“I really felt when I graduated from UConn that I had a responsibility to make sure that I was paying it forward — that I was making a difference,” she said.

Singer said that, as the first person in her family to attend college, she wanted to be a positive role model for her younger relatives and make her parents proud, but she feared being unable to keep up with coursework and paying for school. However, she found the support she received from faculty and staff to be life-changing.

“I really felt when I graduated from UConn that I had a responsibility to make sure that I was paying it forward — that I was making a difference.” — Paula Singer ’76 (ED)

“Becoming a University Scholar at UConn, the support was pivotal — pivotal for my life, pivotal for my life’s work,” Singer said. “I’m so grateful to the University and it’s one of the reasons that I continue to support.”

She advised students to prioritize self-belief, hard work, and caring deeply about the people they work with and the community they build.

“I truly believe, at this stage of life, that if you do these things, you will not only be personally successful and satisfied, but that you and your work will have lasting meaning,” Singer said. “So, please love your years at UConn and embrace your greatness to help the world.”

Guests viewed a slideshow presentation with testimonials from many scholarship recipients about what their scholarship means to them, before enjoying a performance by music education students MaKayla Barstow ’27 (ED) ’28 MA, Raven Dest ’26 (ED) ’27 MA, and Andrew Fox ’27 (ED) ’28 MA, who performed an arrangement of Lennon/McCartney’s “Blackbird” to round out the celebration.

Many donors attended the celebration to honor scholarship recipients and reflected on the indelible impact that financial support can have on college students, especially aspiring educators. Jim Degnan ’87 (CLAS) and Beth Degnan ’87 (CLAS) fund scholarships because they can support students who will then go on to change other lives as educators.

“Teachers make such a big difference in a child’s life,” Beth Degnan said. “Then, the child grows up, but always remembers some of their teachers. I think everybody’s got a special teacher, which is why it was just so easy to decide to fund a scholarship with the Neag School.”

The Degnans consider it a privilege to alleviate students of some financial burdens so they can focus on their education, skill development, and passions.

“We have been so impressed by their caliber and their desire to teach,” Beth Degnan said of the scholarship recipients. “We just want to help them follow their dreams to become exactly who they’re supposed to be.”

Jordan Velez ’27 (ED), ’28 MA, recipient of the Robert H. Hart Fellowship and the Neag School of Education Undergraduate Scholarship Fund, said she has always known she wanted to be an educator. She used to play as a teacher during pretend games with her siblings in early childhood and took notice in high school when other students struggled and fell behind.

“While I was never one of them, I always had amazing teachers that supported me whenever I needed them,” Velez said. “I knew that’s what I want to do; I want to be that person for my students.”

Velez said words alone cannot fully express her gratitude for those who fund her scholarship. It has inspired her to continue her hard work and seek to do the same when she is established in her career.

“I’m so appreciative that there are people like them that literally help pay for a stranger’s education,” Velez said. “It’s so inspirational. I hope that when I’m older and I’m established in my career, I could create a scholarship fund and support student that were just like me — that really relied on money from scholarships.”

Chereece Latoya Burrell ’22 (CLAS), ’27 MA, a recipient of the Peter J. Nicholls Scholarship in Educational Leadership, works at a Hartford-based nonprofit organization that helps high school students secure scholarships for college. For her, receiving a scholarship is a potent reminder of the importance of empowering students through financial help.

“It’s really a cycle of investment,” Burrell said. “Someone has invested in my education, and through the work I do, I have the opportunity to invest in the educational futures of other students. That support doesn’t end with one person. It continues to create opportunities for others.”

Burrell is grateful to those who perpetuate this cycle of empowerment by funding scholarships.

“I would just simply thank them for continuing to invest in students,” Burrell said regarding donors. “It truly does make a difference.”

Principal investigators (PIs), UConn staff, and graduate students packed into Room 204 to celebrate a year of achievement and look ahead to 2027. The annual meeting offers a chance for informal networking and a celebration of the past year’s achievements.

Tricia Leahey, InCHIP director and professor of allied health sciences, gave opening remarks.

“It was wonderful to see some new and familiar faces. The fantastic turnout demonstrates the strength of the InCHIP community and sense of connection we share. Despite the challenges of the past year, InCHIP researchers and staff have done a remarkable job navigating uncertainty while continuing to produce top-quality, high impact work,” says Leahey.

She praised InCHIP PIs’ adaptability and resilience through a year that was marked by persistent federal funding challenges. For example, there were disruptions to grant reviews and council meetings following a government shutdown in 2025. The delayed release of the NIH’s 2026 budget also created interruptions.

In response, InCHIP strengthened support for its research community by investing in pilot research, holding networking events to develop new grant ideas, and providing investigators with space to discuss the federal funding changes and strategize how best to respond.

In FY 26, PIs secured about $12.3 million in total new awards. InCHIP PIs’ active grant portfolio totals $101 million, and research expenditures are among the highest in InCHIP’s history at $18.4M.

A key component of this growth is InCHIP’s seed grants program, which funds innovative pilot work that will serve as the foundation for external grant proposals. For every $1 invested in InCHIP seed grants, more than $30 is recouped in external awards.

This year, InCHIP awarded $260,280 in seed grants. Funds went to projects that emerged from InCHIP’s Poverty and Health Networking event held earlier this year in January and the Community-Engaged Research Forum in May.

Leahey recognized recipients of seed grants, excellence awards, and graduate student funding.

InCHIP’s founding director Jeffrey Fisher, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychological Sciences, attended the meeting to present the Jeffrey D. Fisher Health Behavior Change Research Fellowship award to Lili Romann, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The Fisher Fellowship provides an outstanding graduate student with a paid assistantship to support dissertation research in the field of public health or health-related behavioral and social science research.

Romann’s dissertation focuses on algorithmic exposure, or when an individual is exposed to health information by a social media algorithm. She will focus on hazardous algorithmic exposure, a type of exposure to algorithmically-driven content that may be triggering or distressing. Her dissertation is a mixed methods study that will explain the mechanism of algorithmic exposure and test the effects of hazardous algorithmic exposure on youth with chronic health conditions.

InCHIP’s Dissertation Assistantship Awardee, Md Safaet Hossain Sujan, a Ph.D. candidate in Health Promotion Sciences, was recognized during the event. Sujan’s dissertation seeks to address the unmet needs of men who have sex with men (MSM) to address current gaps in HIV prevention.

Leahey also spotlighted InCHIP’s newest center, UConn’s Center for Research on Sexual Violence and Empowerment. This was a recommendation from UConn President Radenka Maric’s 2022 Task Force for Combatting Sexual Violence and Supporting Our Students.

Lisa Eaton, an InCHIP PI and professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, directs the center. Ryan Watson, InCHIP PI and associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, serves as the center’s associate director.

Since its launch, Eaton and Watson have secured external funding, established new research infrastructure aimed at preventing campus sexual violence, and have worked with students to shape its research priorities and mission.

A comprehensive summary of the 2026 fiscal year is available in InCHIP’s 2026 Annual Report.

Below is a look at all faculty and graduate students who were honored during the Annual Meeting:

InCHIP Seed Grants

• Faculty Seed Grant Awards

  • Mihai Duduta, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering
    • “Jellyfish-Inspired Heart Pumps for Cardiovascular Health”
  • Gio Iacono, School of Social Work
    • “Tuned in! In-Person Adaptation: A Community Pilot Study of an Affirmative Mindfulness Intervention to Improve Mental Health Outcomes Among Sexual and Gender Diverse Youth (SGDY)”
  • Baihai Jiao, UConn Health
    • “Targeting LSD1 Suppresses NLRP3 Inflammasome in Acute Kidney Injury”
  • Zexin “Marsha” Ma, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Communication
    • “Mitigating Defensive Reactions toward Alcohol-Cancer Risk Information Through a Fine-Tuned AI Chatbot”
  • Jiyoun Suk, Department of Communication
    • “AI-Driven Safety Judgements and Publicness Friction in Harm-Reporting, Support Seeking, and Counter-Speech Discourse”

• Poverty and Health Seed Grant Awards

  • Jessica Koslouski, Department of Education Psychology
    • “Exploring Use of Feel Your Best Self in Family Childcare Homes”
  • Anna-Michelle McSorley, Department of Allied Health Sciences
    • “Statistical Invisibility as a Structural Determinant of Health in Puerto Rico: Eliminating Data Voids to Combat Poverty and Chronic Disease”

• Community-Engaged Health Seed Grant Awards

  • Loneke Blackman Carr, Department of Nutritional Sciences
    • “Socially Networked for Improved Cardiovascular Health: Expanding and Empowering Communities of Black Girls Run!”
  • Tori Ann Woodruff-Gautherin, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
    • “Clinic-Based Measures of Pediatric Aural Habilitation”

• Human and Planetary Health Seed Grants

  • Dimitris Xygalatas, Department of Anthropology
    • “Sacred Ground, Healthier Minds: How Spiritual Meaning Shapes the Health Effects of Nature Exposure”

• Community-Engaged Health Research Rapid Pitch Seed Awards

  • Cristina Colón-Semenza, Department of Kinesiology
    • “Identifying the Needs of Individuals Living with Parkinson’s Disease in Connecticut Through the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model”
  • Mayte Restrepo, Department of Public Health Sciences
  • Camilo Ruiz, Department of Anthropology
    • “Elevating the Voices of Youth in Immigrant Families Using YPAR”
  • Roman Shrestha, Department of Allied Health Sciences
  • Kamal Gautam, Department of Allied Health Sciences
    • “SAFE-SSP Suicide Assessment and Facilitated Engagement in Syringe Service Programs”

InCHIP Excellence Awards

• Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award

  • Oh Sung Kwon, Department of Kinesiology

• Excellence Award for Research on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities and Racism’s Impact on Health Outcomes

  • Candi Nwakasi, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences

• Community-Engaged Health Research Excellence Award

  • Cristina Colón-Semenza, Department of Kinesiology

• Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award

  • Natalie Shook, School of Nursing

Graduate Student Awards

• InCHIP Dissertation Assistantship Award

  • Md Safaet Hossain Sujan, Health Promotion Sciences

• Jeffrey D. Fisher Health Behavior Change Research Fellowship

  • Lili Romann, Department of Communication

It’s a young man in profile, a deep red cap densely pinned with medals, coins, and small charms — a fish, a flag, what might be a passport stamp — a yellow bandana wrapped beneath the brim. He’s dressed in a deep blue satin jacket, a strap crossing his chest, a trumpet resting against his shoulder, its bell pointing skyward.

“I just finished this last week,” says Jacob Rochester ’16 (SFA) from his downtown Los Angeles studio.

The young man is borrowed from a 19th-century French painter, Jean-Léon Gérôme, whose 1868 portrait of an Ottoman mercenary soldier hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rochester transformed it using his own process: painting it first in black and white, then building up layers of glazed color to give the finished work what he calls a “jewel-like quality.” He added the trumpet. The cap. His own contemporary point of view. It’s the piece he’s proudest of.

When Rochester was in kindergarten, his teacher called his mother, astonished that at five he’d sketched a drum set in three dimensions — cylinders carefully shaded into snares and toms — a technique his father had taught him at home. His mother wasn’t surprised. She’d watched her son draw since before he could talk in full sentences.

Read on for more.

October also marked the start of the cocoa harvesting season in Ghana, the third-largest cocoa producer in the world.

A new European Union regulation designed to combat deforestation is posing a challenge for small cocoa farmers in Ghana. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was adopted in 2023 and is set to take effect at the end of this year for large and medium operators, and later in 2027 for small operators. The EUDR prohibits the sale or import of products linked to deforestation occurring after 2020. The regulation applies to six agricultural commodities that have been linked to significant deforestation, including cocoa.

“This means that any company buying cocoa from Ghana has to be able to guarantee that the specific properties they sourced from have not had deforestation happening on them,” says Erik Katovich, assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR).

While many of Ghana’s cocoa farms are compliant with the new regulation, they may have a hard time proving this. Most cocoa producers in Ghana work on small farms and lack the capacity that large plantations, like those found Indonesia or Brazil, have to map and track their properties.

“It’s much harder in lower-income countries with small-holder agriculture,” Katovich says. “It raises a whole bunch of challenges. How do you map these properties? How do you monitor them? How do you actually track where the cocoa is coming from?”

This led Katovich and Ph.D. student George Akandinge to work on developing an app-based system for tracking cocoa production in Ghana.

Katovich began this work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva through a grant from the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program. At this time, Katovich established a collaboration with the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union (KKFU), a cocoa farmer cooperative in Ghana with over 100,000 members.

“The origin of this project was to work with this organization to see if we could actually implement this property level deforestation-free certification system on the ground and then monitor it in a randomized field experiment to understand the impacts,” Katovich says.

The researchers have developed a tablet-based app for purchasing clerks to use. When a farmer comes to sell their cocoa at the buying shed in their village, the clerk looks up the farmer’s name and checks if their property is compliant. Compliance is based on comparing maps of a property’s boundaries, provided by KKFU, against weekly deforestation alerts based on satellite data from Global Forest Watch.

Then, the clerk prints out a QR code to place on each bag that, when scanned further up the supply chain, provides information on whether the cocoa comes from a compliant or noncompliant farm.

In addition to helping farmers prove compliance with the EUDR, this technology will help modernize KKFU’s work more generally. Previously, clerks relied on paper records.

“Part of our goal is evaluating this deforestation-free certification,” Katovich says. “But another part is digitizing the whole operation and supply chain of the organization, which will, hopefully, help them in other ways as well.”

Katovich spent part of this past summer in Ghana. Akandinge, who grew up on a cocoa farm in Ghana, has played a key role as translator and liaison between farmers, clerks, and the app developers.

“I grew up with people who grow cocoa and depend on it,” Akandinge says. “Asking these small-scale farmers to individually prove their deforestation status would be rather difficult for them. So, it’s important that a cooperative like KKFU and researchers can independently verify this for them.”

The researchers are running an experiment this cocoa season. In the control group, the app is only used to collect survey data from farmers; in one experimental group the app tracks deforestation compliance; and in the second experimental group, deforestation-free farmers receive a $5 premium for each bag.

“We’re basically testing if this system works purely through monitoring, which could happen if there’s social pressure to avoid deforestation,” Katovich says. “Or, maybe the farmers are not going to participate without financial compensation.”

They will also assess if the clerks find the technology usable and helpful.

Following the harvest season, the researchers will analyze the data they receive. This work has been pre-accepted for publication in the Journal of Development Economics.

“This is very important research to me,” Akandinge says. “It has a real-world impact. It’s something that’s going to be published and that meets the needs of farmers.”

This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Ensuring a Vibrant and Sustainable Agricultural Industry and Food Supply.

Follow UConn CAHNR on social media

Among the key individuals helping to plan and promote Don’t Mess with Mansfield is Brenny Alcantara ’27 (CLAS), an environmental science major and intern with UConn’s Office of Sustainability. After successfully coordinating similar events at UConn Waterbury, Alcantara took on a larger role in planning and organizing Don’t Mess with Mansfield.

This event grew out of complaints about litter being found on and around the UConn Storrs campus and in the Mansfield community. However, according to Alcantara, “It was to address an issue, but at the same time foster a deeper relationship between UConn’s Office of Sustainability and the town of Mansfield.”

In this way, the event mobilizes students and members of UConn Greek life, departments within the University, local schools, and the community of Mansfield. Local businesses have also expressed a desire to support the event by providing necessary resources to volunteers. According to Alcantara, more than 100 volunteers have attended previous clean-up events.

For those who wish to participate, there is an easy way to do so. They may sign up alone, with friends or even through various organizations and clubs. Volunteers report at specific check-in locations on campus where they are provided with gloves and trash bags to start the cleaning process. Students may choose any location they think needs cleaning and then bring their litter back to their respective check-in spots. Students may also earn community service hours by participating in such events.

“You can get volunteer hours for it. You can meet some people. People have historically met some friends during the event,” Alcantara says.

Even though collecting litter makes campus and nearby areas look cleaner, Alcantara thinks the event teaches students something more than that. “I think the biggest reason as to why is, once again, the ability to organize and show people that through collective effort, things can get done,” Alcantara says.

As he explains, it is great to make a difference, but even better when several people work together and achieve much more in a short time. Based on his firsthand experience with cleanups at UConn Waterbury, Alcantara is also aware that environmental activities can motivate students to engage with other problems in their communities. In his opinion, the reason behind such events is not limited to getting rid of the garbage. It is meant to get students involved in community work and inspire them to engage in other activities they care about. “We are very focused on the collective effort,” says Alcantara.

Cleanup activities are scheduled for various locations within UConn and Mansfield this year, involving the cleaning of streets around the campus and in residential areas nearby. The cleanup activity will occur on Saturday, November 14, from 12 to 4 pm. Those interested in volunteering can find additional information through the Office of Sustainability or register through UConntact.

If you notice more mustachioed men than usual this month, it could be some of them are taking part in Movember, a movement in which men grow a moustache for the month of November as a way of calling attention to men’s health, including mental health, prostate cancer and testicular cancer. Dr. Marques Johnson, internal medicine physician who recently joined UConn Health and is seeing patients in Southington, shares his observations about men’s health.

Why do you think this movement is important? 

This movement is important because historically men utilize health care at a lower rate in comparison to women. Often these health issues, when identified earlier, are associated with decreased morbidity.

There seems to be a perception that men don’t do a great job when it comes to taking preventive health steps. What do you find in your practice?

I find that this is not the case in my practice, it is more that men have less of an understanding regarding their health risks due to lack of public awareness.

How do you encourage your male patients to take a more active role in their health, specifically in relation to screenings? 

I try to have them advocate for themselves more when something feels off, listen to their body, and empower them with the information necessary to prevent what we screen for.

When it comes to unhealthy lifestyle choices or avoidable health risks among your male patients, what would you say are the biggest offenses?

Often in my clinic, younger men are drinking more alcohol and not considering cardio when exercising, preferring to lift weights more so.

Can men do better with being forthcoming with their doctor when discussing behaviors such as smoking, drinking, sexual activity, etc.? What would you say to patients who find these conversations uncomfortable? 

Yes, I believe it comes down to being honest with yourself regarding your lifestyle and habits. I’d tell patients that being forthcoming during uncomfortable conversations is how we identify risks that can save lives down the road.

Which aspects of men’s health do you find your patients historically don’t worry about enough, and which, relatively, might they worry about more than they should?

Men worry more about testosterone levels and muscle mass more than cholesterol, blood pressure, and prostate health.

There is a lot of misleading information out there, especially on social media, about what men should or shouldn’t be doing in terms of diet and exercise. What is your basic advice on these trends and how a patient can find the right routine for themselves? 

I’d start with trying to only take advice from medical professionals that are actively taking care of them; these providers can utilize all their personal risk factors when making medical recommendations.

By morning, Pereira often had a headache. She would sit down on the couch after dinner and fall asleep in the middle of a conversation. At work, where she supports students in special education, she worried about staying alert and found herself reaching for another cup of coffee to get through the day.

She had wondered whether the changes she was feeling might have something to do with approaching menopause. But the headaches kept coming, and she was tired no matter how much time she spent in bed. She wanted to know what was happening while she slept.

During an overnight sleep study at UConn Health, Pereira remembers looking at the wires attached to her and wondering how she would fall asleep at all. She did, only to wake up gasping for air. A technician came in and fitted her with a mask connected to a machine that delivered pressurized air. After she fell asleep again, she dreamed vividly for the first time in a long while.

The study gave her an answer. She had obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr. Jennifer Langstengel, director of UConn Health’s Sleep Disorders Center, asks patients to imagine breathing through a straw. When the muscles in the throat relax during sleep, the airway can narrow and the tissue around it can vibrate, producing the sound of snoring. In obstructive sleep apnea, the airway narrows enough to restrict airflow or closes entirely. Oxygen levels can fall, and the body briefly rouses to reopen the airway. That cycle can happen over and over without someone remembering waking up.

That helps explain how someone can spend a full night in bed and still wake up exhausted. Langstengel talks with patients about how disrupted sleep follows them into the day. It can be harder to concentrate, stay alert and react quickly. For Pereira, that meant wondering whether she could make it through the workday without nodding off.

Langstengel also talks with patients about what good sleep means for their health as they age. Many tell her they want to stay active and independent. She explains that treating sleep apnea can help them feel more alert during the day while addressing the repeated drops in oxygen that put strain on the body at night. Over time, untreated sleep apnea can make blood pressure harder to control and is linked to heart rhythm problems such as atrial fibrillation.

A sleep study measures how often breathing is interrupted and helps determine whether the apnea falls in the mild, moderate or severe range. Langstengel weighs those results alongside what patients tell her about their days. Even someone whose results fall in the mild range can feel exhausted or have trouble getting through a shift at work. A diagnosis helps connect those daytime symptoms to what’s happening overnight and gives the care team a starting point for treatment.

Pereira’s children heard two of the most recognizable signs of sleep apnea: loud snoring and pauses in breathing. Women may also wake frequently, have trouble falling back asleep or start the day with a headache. Some of those symptoms overlap with changes that occur around menopause, when the risk of sleep apnea also rises. Langstengel says details such as how often someone wakes up, how they feel in the morning and what a family member hears at night can help guide an evaluation.

For Pereira, the treatment she tried during the sleep study became part of her bedtime routine. Continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, delivers air through a mask that covers the nose, or the nose and mouth. By holding the airway open, CPAP can prevent breathing pauses and brief awakenings that interrupt sleep. Langstengel’s team helps patients try different masks in the clinic. Finding one that feels comfortable can make it easier to use the machine every night.

Some patients may benefit from a custom oral appliance that fits over the teeth and brings the lower jaw forward, creating more room for air to pass. A dentist trained in sleep medicine fits the device. For some patients who have difficulty using CPAP, an implanted device that stimulates the nerve controlling tongue movement may be an option. Surgery can also help selected patients, depending on where and why the airway closes. When discussing those choices, Langstengel considers the sleep study results, the patient’s anatomy and what they can use consistently.

Pereira’s plan also includes a prescription weight-management medication. For some patients, losing weight can reduce the severity of obstructive sleep apnea. Langstengel explains that weight loss takes time, and some people still have sleep apnea afterward because of the shape of their airway. She may recommend a repeat sleep study after substantial weight loss to see whether treatment needs to change.

Since starting treatment, Pereira says she has fewer headaches and gets out of bed more easily. At work, she can give her attention to her students without worrying that she’ll nod off. And her children, who once woke up to check whether she was breathing, now have a different reason to speak up. If she dozes off without her mask, they remind her to put it on.

When friends tell Pereira they’re exhausted despite spending a full night in bed, she encourages them to ask about a sleep study. She remembers how daunting it looked to spend the night with all those wires attached. She also remembers how much she wanted to get through an ordinary day without fighting to stay awake.

Learn more about sleep medicine at UConn Health or call 860-679-8300.

The researchers, including UConn researcher co-first author of the study Mia Maltz and University of California Riverside researchers including co-first author Talyssa Topacio and senior co-author Emma Aronson detail how dust from a rapidly drying, heavily polluted body of water is contributing to widespread lung disease in communities living nearest to the shore. The researchers also demonstrate how chronic inhalation of the toxic dust causes changes in the gut microbiomes of mice.

California’s largest inland lake, the Salton Sea has a fascinating history. The sea originally formed when an irrigation canal from the Colorado River overflowed in the early 20^th century and the resulting body of water became a popular resort.

This has changed drastically over the years, Maltz explains. Water from the Colorado River has been diverted and the sea is now largely fed by agricultural runoff where excessive salts and nutrients contribute to increasing salinity and poor water quality. Now, the sea is highly polluted, resulting in frequent fish and bird die offs and the area’s characteristic sulfurous odor.

“It was a thriving destination for recreation and then in the last several decades it has turned into a barren wasteland,” says Maltz. “People who live near it are those who can’t afford to live elsewhere. It feels like a sacrifice zone.”

Besides poor water quality, as the climate warms the lake is drying fast and shrinking, the playa or muddy shoreline which Maltz describes as being almost like quicksand, is a source of easily aerosolized dust. Despite the community’s attempts to avoid the dust, rates of lung disease for those living around the sea are extremely high. Aronson adds that there may also be harmful compounds in the sea spray that is released as seasonal winds whip up the top of the Sea.

This project seeks to dig deeper into the drivers behind these high lung disease rates and builds on previous research where Maltz and her collaborators demonstrated that the microbial community within our lungs is shaped by what we are exposed to in the environment.

For this work, the researchers collected dust from three sites around the Salton Sea, at varying distances from the shore, in the fall months for the years of 2020, 2021, and 2022. The samples were analyzed for the amounts of toxins, organic matter, and microbial composition they contained, and using an environmental chamber that Maltz and colleagues designed, mice were exposed to the samples. The researchers then studied the lung and fecal microbiomes of the mice, where they found a surprising connection.

“The dust closest to the sea caused inflammatory responses in the lung and since there is a gut-lung axis it caused opposing effects in the gut microbiome,” says Maltz. “The dust closest to the Sea decreased the microbial diversity in the gut, and increased diversity in the lung. Along with the increased lung microbial diversity, there were also enrichments in the relative abundance of certain microbes in the sea. The dust collected from close to the Sea yielded systemic responses which impacted mouse gut microbiomes by reducing microbial diversity.”

Topacio adds that these findings are unique in that they position the gut-lung axis as a potential driver of systemic consequences to environmental exposures.

“Here, we showed first how much the lung microbiome is impacted by toxic dust exposure, then subsequently, how fecal microbiome diversity is also significantly reflective of systemic dysbiosis,” says Topacio.

The observed increase in microbial diversity in the lungs was in gram negative bacteria containing an endotoxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which elicited an inflammatory immune response and non-allergic asthma in the mice.

In allergic responses, Maltz explains they would see an uptick in immune cells called eosinophils, but instead they see an inflammatory response with an increase in another class of immune cells called neutrophils. This type of response can be more severe and does not really respond to common asthma treatments like corticosteroid inhalers.

These experimental results reflect observations in the community and Maltz explains that asthma rates in children close to the Salton Sea are high, while the rates decrease for those living further from the sea. The team recently submitted a proposal for a National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH’s NIEHS) grant to study the asthma phenotype in children living in the area which has high rates of misdiagnoses of allergic asthma. The grant is led by Ann Cheney ’10 Ph.D., now a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

“This is all happening because this polluted sea is eliciting a different type of non-allergic, neutrophilic asthma. It is leading to systemic responses, most profound in the dust closest to the sea,” says Maltz.

Since medical treatments are limited for non-allergic asthma, the researchers are collaborating with medical doctors and community health practitioners to create bilingual fact sheets to inform the Salton Sea-area residents of things they can do, such as support different lifestyle changes, breathing exercises, and use air purifiers. The team is also working to collect household dust samples, and Maltz is testing the samples to see if it is similarly enriched with the neutrophil-recruiting LPS as the dust found outdoors around the sea.

“A lot of these homes are manufactured and not shored up against the dust and weather. Many of these families are immigrant and migrant farmworkers, some speak in indigenous dialects like Purépecha, or speak solely Spanish,” says Maltz.

The Salton Sea presents a clear example of marginalized communities and the need for environmental justice, but this is further complicated by the fact that it is also home to one of the largest lithium deposits known, earmarked for California’s Lithium Valley Vision.

“There is potential for mitigation but instead there is a push for more mining and more environmental disturbance at the sea due to critical minerals,” says Maltz. “We want to empower the people in the area with the social and political capital to enact change, but we are talking about a sea that is drying due to water diversion decisions that were made outside of the community members hands, and then we have climate change impacts. It all leads to the snowball effect as the sea continues to shrink.”

This research shows the interconnections and importance of considering environmental, social, and health impacts on a community, but also demonstrates ways to work with a community to collaboratively seek solutions.

“When you’re there, you see the families and feel the love. These people live there. They’re exposed and air pollution is one of the hardest things to control,” says Maltz. “I am excited to work with the families to teach them about what is in the dust and translate the science into useful facts and interpretations that they can understand to enact positive change.”

In 2022, the farm had expanded to approximately 1.5 acres of vegetable production using no-till and regenerative growing practices. In 2023, Steven and his family added Katahdin sheep to the operation and have since built a flock of approximately 120 breeding ewes. Today, the sheep are rotationally grazed on local solar installations, creating a successful partnership between renewable energy and agriculture through solar grazing.

Over the years, Thompson has participated in numerous UConn Extension educational and training opportunities as he expanded his knowledge and farm.

“Working with UConn Extension through so many different ways has been such a huge blessing and boost to our farm,” Thompson says. “We recently had a huge milestone for us, as I made our first ever farm-to-school delivery of hydroponically grown lettuce.”

Thy Neighbors Farm now produces a wide variety of vegetables, hydroponically grown lettuce, pasture-raised lamb and chicken, among other farm products using sustainable growing methods. The farm is certified as CT Grown and participates in the Homegrown by Heroes program, which recognizes veteran-owned farms.

Community service remains at the heart of the farm’s mission. Thy Neighbors Farm regularly donates to local families in need, as well as organizations such as Friendly Hands Food Bank, FISH NWCT, the Community Kitchen of Torrington, veterans’ support organizations, and homeless assistance programs to help improve local food access. The farm’s name reflects its guiding principle: loving one’s neighbor through action.

UConn Extension helps Connecticut farmers succeed by providing research-based education, technical assistance, and practical solutions in areas such as crop production, livestock management, business development, environmental stewardship, and food safety, among other programs. Thompson completed the Climate Smart Adaptation Strategies Certificate Course in 2024 and subsequently received a microgrant to expand a portable solar-powered fencing battery system he designed and built to support multi-special rotational grazing. In 2023, he was selected by UConn Extension from a highly competitive applicant pool to receive a Solid Ground Tool and Equipment Stipend, funded through USDA pandemic assistance, which enabled the purchase of specialized equipment including a Jang Seeder and flame weeder. Thompson has also completed UConn Extension’s Produce Safety for Agriculture Producers course and the Vegetable Production Certificate Course. His commitment to continuous learning exemplifies the spirit of many successful Connecticut farmers.

“Steven has been an enthusiastic participant in so many of our Extension programs designed for farmers,” says Jiff Martin, extension educator and director of the Solid Ground Program. “Whenever we design and develop agriculture training programs, it’s ambitious farmers with an appetite for learning like Steven that we hope will show up.”

Thompson’s involvement with Extension programs has also led to innovative problem solving on the farm. Over the past year, he participated in the Small Farm Innovations Grant facilitated by Connecticut Resource Conservation and Development and UConn Extension. He collaborated with a team of student engineers to design, prototype, build, and test a remote winter livestock watering system. This will allow Thy Neighbors Farm to graze remote sites while reducing the need to haul water daily and helping prevent on-site livestock water sources from freezing during winter months.

One of Thompson’s most significant recent milestones was making his first farm-to-school delivery of hydroponically grown lettuce after participating in the Farm to School Ready to Sell Cohort led by UConn Extension professionals. He credits the program, the Connecticut Farm to School Conference, and ongoing support from UConn Extension staff with helping him build relationships with school food service directors and expand his customer base.

Beyond his own farm, Thompson is an active participant and supporter of agricultural education programs across Connecticut, sharing his knowledge on solar grazing and farm innovations. His idea helped inspire the creation of Connecticut’s Livestock Directory, facilitated by UConn Extension. The impact of these programs extends beyond production practices. Steven regularly receives inquiries from prospective buyers who discover his operation through the Connecticut Livestock Directory, helping him expand markets for his Katahdin sheep and supporting plans for future growth, including a cow-calf operation.

Thanks to the efforts of the UConn Extension’s Livestock Team, Thompson was also able to recently attend a course and receive certification in Artificial Insemination and Reproductive Management. This was a critical future need for Thy Neighbors Farm, and after requesting this type of training, Mackenzie White with the UConn Livestock Program was able to set up two courses, one on each side of the state, for livestock farmers all over Connecticut to attend.

“My overall experience with UConn Extension has been a 100 out of 10,” Thompson says. “The programs and people have helped us all along the way.”

From a backyard garden serving local food pantries to a diversified regenerative farm pioneering solar grazing and farm-to-school sales, Thy Neighbors Farm demonstrates how education, innovation, and community partnerships can help farmers build resilient businesses while strengthening local food systems.

Learn more about UConn Extension’s agriculture program.

Attendees – a mix of students, faculty, and staff – had come to hear McElya talk about her latest book, “Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women’s Movement and The Future of American Politics.” Published in July, it is rooted in the stories of three women on the Atlantic City boardwalk on Sept. 7, 1968, during the Miss America Pageant. As a gifted storyteller with a keen eye for historical detail, McElya deftly traces how the chance convergence that day sparked a debate about beauty, race, religion, and power that persists to the present day.

“This is how I begin to talk about the politics of the era, leading right up Donald Trump,” McElya explains. “It’s from here you can trace the through line to what is going on today.”

McElya opens the book by introducing Sandra Williams, the soon-to-be-crowned and first-ever Miss Black America cruising toward the Atlantic City Convention Hall in an open convertible with four elegantly dressed fellow contestants. At the same time, the Miss America Pageant is winding down and two competing groups of protesters led by two other women – Carol Hanisch and Terry Meeuwsen – are on the boardwalk voicing their opposition to and support for the pageant.

Hanisch, a women’s liberation activist, was among the organizers of protest against the pageant. Meeuwsen, a Wisconsin pageant contestant and supporter of President Richard Nixon, led a small group of counterprotesters defending traditional gender roles and ideals of feminine beauty. Williams, meanwhile, saw no connection to either spectacle as she rolled by in the car. Her pageant – a first for the country – was about showing that Black women are beautiful and talented too.

During a question-and-answer period following the talk, McElya described her writing process, calling it “a painful exercise” that took longer than she planned. The book began as a project for an academic press but gradually morphed into something else when she learned about the protests and the Miss Black America pageant while reading “Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race”, a 2002 book written by sociologist Maxine Leeds Craig.

McElya has written two other books, one of which – “The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery” – was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Liberation Summer is her first attempt at non-academic non-fiction, she said, a process that was “kind of like writing a comprehensive first take on American history.”

“It was definitely a new kind of book that I hadn’t really prepared for,” she explained. “I wanted to try and reach popular audiences, but I also wanted to write a scholarly book. Trying to make these things work together was really difficult. How do you plot a story that people will actually want to read?”

If her presentation is any indication, McElya more than met that goal.

While the three women are the nutshell of the story, the book encompasses a span of history dating back to origins of the women’s movement. Set against the backdrop of three political spectacles in 1968 – the Democratic and GOP national conventions, and the Miss America Pageant – it weaves a cast of feminist influencers and events into a sweeping exploration of a moment in American history that laid the groundwork for the cultural and political moment we are in.

Some of the characters – like Norma Smallwood, Miss America 1926; and Jesse Jim, an indigenous American beauty queen crowned by the National Indian Council in 1926 – may be new to readers. Others – like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and conservative newsmakers Anita Bryant and Phyillis Schlafly – will be familiar, but are rendered by McElya in a new and fuller light. The journalists covering the event also get their due, including Charlotte Curtis, the editor of the women’s section at the New York Times and a pioneering feminist in her own right.

McElya spent four years writing the book with the support of National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars award and a UConn Humanities Institute Faculty fellowship. In addition to books, her source material included letters, transcripts, interviews, and coverage of the events by journalists who were there at the time or who later interviewed the people who were.

The talk was laced with historical nuggets and pictures gleaned from McElya’s research. One that stood out was the midnight start time of the Miss Black America pageant, and 3 a.m. crowning of the winner, an accommodation that allowed journalists covering the Miss America Pageant to cover the Miss Black America pageant too.

McElya had not previously heard of Curtis, the only woman among the 40 reporters the NYT sent to cover the 1968 Republican National Convention and who went on to become the editor of the Times’ opinion section. Nor did she know the daughter-in-law of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey had participated in the Miss America Pageant system as a judge. Or that the blonde, pictured in a later group shot of pageant finalists with Donald Trump on his yacht in Atlantic City, is Gretchen Carlson, a future Miss America and the original blonde “Fox & Friends” news host whose sexual harassment suit against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes helped launch the #MeToo movement.

“I just kept being really surprised,” McElya said of the facts she uncovered. “Politics is beauty standards and beauty standards are politics. If you want a history of Mar-A-Lago face, this is it.”

The concert program will include “Beethoven String Quartet op. 127,” “Jessie Montgomery Strum,” and “Chausson Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21,” a unique sextet composition with four movements.

The Chausson work will feature Solomiya Ivakhiv, professor of violin and viola and coordinator of strings in the School of Fine Arts at UConn and an internationally performing classical violinist, and Melvin Chen, professor in the practice of piano at Yale School of Music, who is acclaimed for solo and chamber performances throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia.

“It is a very unusual piece and format,” Ivakhiv told WHUS about the Chausson work. “I cannot think of another work that is written for solo violin, solo piano and a string group. It’s not unusual for the pianist to join the string quartet; then we would call it a piano quintet. But to have another violinist have a solo part, a solo piano part and for the quartet to basically act like an orchestra and support the two solos, that’s an unusual format. I don’t think any other composer has done it.”

Praised for their “tremendous variety of color” (The Strad), the American-Canadian-Taiwanese Callisto Quartet has quickly risen to international acclaim as one of the most accomplished quartets of their generation. Since their inception in 2016, the quartet has garnered top prizes in nearly every major international chamber music competition. Grand Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and Second Prize Winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the quartet was also recently named Bowers Program artists at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, beginning a three-season residency in 2027-2028.

As dedicated educators, the Callisto Quartet has taught masterclasses at universities including Rice University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington, and the University of California Santa Barbara, among others. The Callisto Quartet serves as returning faculty at summer festivals including the Bravo Workshop, Hudson Montessori Conservatory Chamber Music Intensive, and Rocky Ridge Music, where Callisto serves as Faculty Quartet in Residence. From 2022-2024, the Callisto Quartet taught The Performance of Chamber Music at Yale University, and they currently serve as Associated Faculty at Chamber Music Connection in Columbus, Ohio.

For information go to Jorgensen.uconn.edu

Ivakhiv spoke about the Callisto Quartet and the string quartet format with WHUS on the Good Music show (Wednesdays from 3 to 5:30 p.m.) hosted by Ken Best:

For Charlotte Warren, a social worker, policy consultant, and former Maine state representative, the announcement raised immediate concerns about what those investments would mean for people receiving social services.

Her reaction, she recalled, was “danger, danger, danger.”

Warren shared those concerns at “Social Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Symposium Exploring Research, Practice, and Policy,” hosted by the UConn School of Social Work at the UConn School of Law on Nov. 6.

The half-day symposium brought together researchers, practitioners, nonprofit leaders, and policy experts to examine how AI could affect behavioral health care, community services, and vulnerable populations. More than 125 registered guests attended the symposium in-person and another 398 participated virtually.

For Warren, those questions had already prompted action. Following the funding announcement, she and fellow advocates in Maine began working on legislation to establish safeguards for AI in behavioral health care.

“It’s our job to protect people,” she said.

As they worked with partners on the legislation, Warren said, they challenged a proposed exception involving government use of AI. They feared it could create a two-tier system in which people with private insurance continued seeing human therapists while those covered by MaineCare or Medicare were directed to chatbots.

Warren outlined safeguards addressing administrative uses of AI, clinician oversight, written client consent, and enforcement through professional licensing boards. Practitioners, she emphasized, must have a voice in developing policies governing the technology.

“The clinicians in our state are the experts,” Warren said. “The clinicians in our state are the ones who should be listened to.”

That question—who helps shape AI and whose interests it serves—ran throughout the symposium’s keynote address and panels on research, community practice, and policy.

Keynote Address

Keynote speaker Meredith Broussard spoke about “technochauvinism”— a biased belief that computers, algorithms, and digital technology are inherently superior to human efforts and always represent the best solution to complex social problems.

“Technochauvinists say AI is keeps getting better. It is getting better, actually and I say, yes they are right. It does keep getting better, but it’s never going to become good. It’s not going to achieve human level. It’s not. Because it’s a computer. It’s a machine,” she said. “We need to have a more nuanced view.”

Broussard, a professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology, studies AI ethics and the use of data analysis for social good. She is the author of More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech and Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World.

“Sometimes, the right tool for the task is something simple, like a book in the hands of a child, sitting on his parent’s lap,” she said.

Broussard also cautioned against assuming that AI can replace professional expertise or operate indefinitely without human attention. She discussed model drift—the potential for a model’s performance to deteriorate as circumstances change—and the ongoing work required to maintain reliable systems.

In health care, she pointed to AI assisting radiologists as a promising application, emphasizing the importance of keeping clinicians involved in interpreting results. She encouraged social work researchers to consider how the technology could support their own expertise.

“Don’t expect it to replace humans, but do think about the ways that AI can augment your analysis,” she said.

Her closing message emphasized that people have choices about whether, where, and how to adopt the technology.

“AI is not inevitable,” Broussard said. “No technology is inevitable. So let’s use AI as a tool, not as a human replacement. Let’s engage in some of the fantastic, critical work out there about AI and let’s go forward and try to make the world a little bit better using technology as opposed to a little worse.”

Research Panel

The Research Panel, moderated by Jennifer Manuel, professor and associate dean for research at UConn’s School of Social Work, explored how AI is being adopted in social service and behavioral health settings, what implementation can teach the field, and how researchers address bias, safety, and confidentiality.

Panelists included Eric Rice, Distinguished Professor, the Gordon Berg and Martha Beach Chair in Community Social Work, and associate dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work; Shaddy Saba, LCSW, assistant professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work; and Dr. Manu Sharma, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) for Hartford HealthCare’s Behavioral Health Network.

Sharma said the questions surrounding AI should prompt social service organizations to examine how they evaluate any new intervention: whether it works, how it protects sensitive information, and whether they have the training and resources to use it effectively. He also emphasized the need to consider AI’s role in supporting care while preserving human judgment and critical thinking.

Rice, who co-founded a university-based center bringing together AI and social work at the University of Southern California, has spent the past decade collaborating with computer scientists on challenges including homelessness. At the symposium, Rice described research conducted with community partners in Los Angeles to improve assessment tools used to prioritize people experiencing homelessness for housing resources.

“There was a lot of concern by practitioners and community members that the existing paper-and-pencil assessment tools were biased,” he said.

Using machine learning, Rice and his colleagues found that the tools were more accurate for white people than for other racial groups. They then used fair machine learning methods to help redesign the assessments to counteract that bias.

But their research also revealed a significant risk: Applying an off-the-shelf machine learning algorithm to a decade of administrative data would have made the racial bias worse.

The difference was human judgment and community involvement. Practitioners and community members recognized the potential inequity, and researchers deliberately worked to address it. Without those insights and interventions, an algorithm could reproduce discriminatory patterns reflected in historical data. Rice reported that Los Angeles had used the revised tool to assess more than 19,000 people for housing resources.

For social workers, his message was to question both when and why they use AI and what biases may be embedded in the data driving it.

“The computer isn’t going to do that thinking for you,” he said. “You, as the critical thinkers, have to do that.”

Community Practice Panel

Agency leaders brought those questions into the workplace during the community practice panel, moderated by Milagros Marrero-Johnson, senior director of strategic initiatives and community engagement at the UConn School of Social Work.

Panelists included Sabrina Trocchi, president and CEO of Wheeler Health; Sarah MacDonald, clinical director of the Behavioral Health Department at Community Health Services in Hartford; and Hector Glynn, president and CEO of The Village for Families & Children.

Trocchi pointed out how AI is affecting outpatient services. In a recent YouGov’s survey, researchers found 6% of U.S. adults said they had used AI for therapy, and one in five young adults ages 18 to 20 have used it.

“So there are concerns within the field about how unregulated this is, and [there’s] no oversight,” she said. “There are a number of other issues too, so this is a concern we are hearing from our staff who want us to take a stand and want to understand what we can do to to protect our patients.”

Glynn emphasized that adopting AI does not diminish practitioners’ responsibility to exercise professional judgment and cautioned against portraying AI as acting independently of the people using it, emphasizing that practitioners and organizations remain accountable for decisions made with its assistance.

“In no way is AI going to replace your judgment, your decision,” he said.

McDonald agreed, especially when working with patients. “I use AI myself … it spans a lot of different areas in the professional role that I work in, but it will spit out decisions for you,” she said. “We should never be looking at AI to make a decision. We can use AI to help inform practice, but not take over practice for us. Ethically speaking, it should be utilized but not counted on.”

Policy Panel

The Policy Panel was moderated by Shannon Lane, director of the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work and professor-in-residence at the UConn School of Social Work, the panel included Warren; UConn law professor Sachin Pandya; Dawn Brown, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers; and Ben Shaiken ’10 (CLAS), director of public policy and advocacy at the Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance.

Since AI data centers require extraordinary amounts of electricity for use and water for cooling, their environmental impact is a pressing concern for both users and opponents of AI technology. During a Q&A session, a student participant asked how providers weigh potential improvements in client care against the harms that AI data centers can cause surrounding communities across the U.S.

“We can’t start with, ‘well, it already exists. I guess we’re going to live with it right?’ We have to start by asking more questions,” Lane advised.

Brown immediately responded. “We don’t have to accept anything at the end of the day, and I think that’s the part we get stuck in, is that yes, [AI] has already moved this far.”

Brown said there isn’t a right or wrong answer concerning AI use, and it’s important to think about the greater good.

“How do we decrease [AI] use that causes harm, and increase use that causes good,” she asked. “I think that’s the conversation that doesn’t always happen, because it’s one side versus the other, but we really need to be mindful of that.”

Warren acknowledged young people’s concerns about climate change and AI and encouraged them to bring those concerns into policy discussions. She described how promises of jobs and economic investment can place particular pressure on communities struggling with unemployment and the loss of industry. Those competing needs, she said, make it essential for social workers to speak up about environmental protection and social justice.

“I’m sure it resonates for so many young people in this room, what you have to go through. And we have to recognize it, right? This fear of climate change, this fear of AI, it’s real. So, where you are need to help us is to keep using your voices.“Bring up your values, be in the conversation,” she said. “Money isn’t everything. iIt should not be the value we base all these decisions on.”

View additional photos of the AI Symposium below (Olivia Drake/UConn):

Today, Doncel has taken on the hosting role of CT Public’s Generation: Baby-Sitters Club podcast. This season of the Generation podcast travels back in time to look at the past 40 years of the Baby-Sitters Club and its success and impact on children’s publishing, girlhood media, entrepreneurship and tweenhood.

The Baby-Sitters Club has grown to include over 200 titles, two television shows, and a feature film. After recommending the books to her chief content officer’s children, her staff at CT Public knew Doncel would be the perfect host for this season of Generation.

“As we started in the early stages of production, we also realized that now was a perfect time to talk about The Baby-Sitters Club because of a lot of conversations that are happening right now tie into themes of the series and align with our vision for the podcast,” says Doncel.

The 40th anniversary celebrations of this bestselling novel series reignited public interest and inspired the podcast, but as Doncel dug deeper, she wanted to explore themes such as literacy and childcare.

Doncel emphasizes that media like The Baby-Sitters Club continue to resonate because of their generational impact. Classic series, television shows and books have transcended generations, driven by a sense of nostalgia and a shared generational love that passes down.

“The podcast was very attractive as a project because it encompassed a lot of what I care about as a person,” says Doncel, who shared that working on the podcast brought her back to many of the writing courses she took at UConn. “Hosting a podcast had its learning curve, but I don’t know if I would’ve said yes if I didn’t have all of the experiences I gained at UConn.”

Doncel started her undergraduate career as a French major, before adding journalism as a second major. Her passion and talent for writing led her to the major, but it was through extracurriculars that helped her find her footing.

She recalls a period where she still felt disconnected with her major but decided to give radio a try at WHUS. Despite making it to the first meeting and not walking into the room but instead turning around, something led her back to WHUS.

WHUS just became a second home, and it became a space to experiment with different types of storytelling, says Doncel.

“UConn just has so many different opportunities that allows you to really stretch, essentially your toolkit and lets you learn everything that you possibly can within a specific field, which in my case was just writing,” says Doncel.

As she expanded her writing craft, the journalism department encouraged opportunities to try various disciplines. One of her favorite classes ended up being broadcasting.

In this course, Doncel learned how to anchor, create a TV spot, film and audio record.

“Podcasting is very different from my day to day in the sense that every day I go and I cover a news story, so I know how to talk to people and do interviews and collect audio, but for podcasting, you have to dive deeper into so many more interviews and learn how to analyze everything that you’ve discovered and tell a story through that,” says Doncel. “Through the experiences that I had with that broadcasting class, I was able to create scripts that told a full narrative through the various episodes and themes that we had that we wanted to touch on.”

The themes conveyed in the podcast series tie into national conversations that The Baby-Sitters Club touch upon.

“We have a whole episode on babysitting and what it looks like as a rite of passage. Throughout the episodes, we’d have these little excerpts from the books to kind of support what we’re talking about,” explains Doncel, who has enjoyed looking back at these texts. “We wanted to take it a step further and look at how we take girlhood and girl media seriously. It became this very important conversation about how media targets these young tween girls with all these different ‘girly things.'”

From entrepreneurship and girlhood, Doncel explored these themes through research and interviews, one of those being with Ann Martin, the creator of The Baby-Sitters Club.

Speaking with Martin proved to Doncel the way in which she gave tweens and teens a voice through these books.

“Ann wanted to steer clear of this writing style that looks down to kids and tells them what to do. She wanted to write in a way where she recognized this is a vulnerable age for girls where they’re learning who they are and going through growing pains,” says Doncel. “She recalled wanting to be taken seriously as a kid, and chose to write in a way that respected kids and takes them seriously.”

In the last episode of the podcast, Doncel looks at the Smith Archives that have documents from when Martin created the series, highlighting that her work is always there as a reference and to inspire people to do more for girls’ media, centering back to the goal of the podcast.

To travel back to the fictional town of Stonybrook, CT listen to Generation: The Baby-Sitters Club at CT Public.

UConn is one of only 15 universities nationwide with a Pepper Center, whose namesake was a Florida congressman who advocated for seniors’ rights to healthcare and independence. The Center was founded in 2021 through an initial $7 million NIH grant and opened at UConn Health in Farmington. It partners with the Jackson Laboratory, also located on the UConn Health campus.

“The renewal of the Pepper Center award demonstrates UConn Health and UConn’s outstanding commitment to supporting and promoting the mechanisms of aging and effective interventions to facilitate health throughout life,” says Lindsay DiStefano, UConn’s vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. “Studying the mechanisms of aging provides incredible opportunities to better understand disease evolution, key markers for diagnostics, and new targets for treatments. This new award will allow us to expand the reach of the Pepper Center across the institution to the Storrs campus and beyond.”

Each Pepper Center conducts a broad range of research to better understand the aging process and help older adults live independently. Specifically, UConn’s Center focuses on the heterogeneity of aging, using research strategies including basic bench research, observational human subject studies including clinical trials, and analysis of large population-level datasets, as ways to help design and carry out interventions that are more effective by being better targeted.

“How we age varies tremendously,” says Dr. George Kuchel, co-director of the Pepper Center and the Travelers Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology at UConn School of Medicine. “We see this within our families, our neighbors, and our friends. Some people seem to age much more quickly, where in their 40s or 50s they look like someone in their 60s, whereas someone in their 80s or 90s might look like they are in their 50s or 60s and remain highly functional and independent. So, we have become extremely interested in this heterogeneity in aging in all its dimensions.”

The science is highly multidisciplinary given the broad range of factors that influence the nature and pace of aging in each individual. Beyond inherited factors, biological aging and its influences on various chronic diseases of aging are affected by potentially modifiable factors ranging from diet, physical activity, sleep and varied medications to behavioral and socio-economic considerations.

“The UConn Pepper Center’s theme of precision gerontology applies a multidisciplinary approach to better understand the heterogeneity of aging in all its dimensions and use this information to guide the design and application of interventions promoting function and independence in older adults,” says Kuchel. “The UConn Center on Aging, where the UConn Pepper Center is based, is also a leader in geroscience research, focused on efforts to delay the onset and progression of multiple chronic diseases by targeting biological aging. Our Pepper Center’s focus on precision gerontology very much includes our work in geroscience. Nonetheless, it is much broader by also encompassing a range of social, behavioral, implementation and health policy aspects required to ensure increasing health and independence in older Americans.”

Dr. Richard Fortinsky, Health Net Inc. Endowed Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology at the UConn School of Medicine and co-Director of the UConn Pepper Center, adds that the Center provides meaningful opportunities for early-career researchers.

“Another important feature of the UConn Pepper Center is to provide research support and career development guidance to early-career faculty members at UConn conducting state-of-the-art research in the aging field,” says Fortinsky. “We are very proud that several faculty members who have received Pepper Center support have gone on to secure competitive research grants as independent investigators from the NIH and other funding agencies. We look forward to supporting many new faculty members over the next five years.”

A New Chapter for the UConn Pepper Center

With extended funding in place, the UConn Pepper Center will move forward with plans to make the Center a more interdisciplinary effort, extending research and clinical care beyond Farmington to include Storrs and regional campuses.

For a small state, there is significant distance between UConn Health in Farmington, home to the School of Medicine and related clinical practices, and UConn Storrs in northeastern Connecticut. Kuchel says that is notable since numerous disciplines with importance to gerontology research – such as kinesiology, physical therapy, psychology, pharmacy, nutritional sciences, statistics, engineering and nursing – are based in Storrs.

By adding parallel research programs at both locations, and eventually to regional campuses such as Hartford and Waterbury, UConn opens new possibilities to patients in different regions. Interdisciplinary opportunities will expand as programs welcome more patients and participants into research on aging.

For the next phase of the grant, Kuchel will continue as the co-lead PI, along with Dr. Fortinsky as well as Dr. Lisa Barry, a professor of psychiatry and chronic disease epidemiologist.

“I am excited to take on this leadership role as the UConn Pepper Center expands interdisciplinary partnerships across the university,” says Barry. “In addition to advancing innovative aging research, we also have a tremendous opportunity to foster the next generation of investigators committed to improving the health, function, and independence of older adults.”

To expand disciplines, the Center is adding Dr. Nancy Redeker of the Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing to the steering committee, along with professor of gerontology Keith Bellizzi of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. Kuchel says the new leaders will help strategically plan research and services in Storrs to parallel those offered in Farmington, opening opportunities for different populations and improving the ability to serve more individuals across a broader range of communities within our state.

The Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing is nearing completion of a brand-new building in Storrs, expected to open in early 2027. The Pepper Center will have new space within the building to conduct research and clinical trials.

Redeker, the nursing school’s senior associate dean for research and scholarship, is joining the Pepper Center as an expert in sleep and sleep disorders. She says she looks forward to supporting scientific advances in aging and supporting the development of emerging scholars.

“My 30-year program of research has focused on understanding and addressing sleep health among people with heart failure, stroke, opioid use disorder, and cancer — all of which have implications for the health of older people and may also accelerate the process of aging beginning early in life,” says Redeker.

The NIH issued the following disclaimer regarding the award:

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute On Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30AG067988. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

During the 2026–27 academic year, CAHNR awarded more than $800,000 to 275 students through 300 different scholarships. Seventy-five student scholarship recipients attended the celebration.

Maryann Morris, speaker and scholarship donor

Dean Venkitanarayanan handed out awards to scholars

Associate Dean Kristen Govoni served as master of ceremonies

Vice Provost Taddaryl Starke

Student speaker Abigail Abraham '28

Student speaker Andie Napolitano '27

Kristen Govoni, associate dean for academic programs in CAHNR and director of the Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture, served as master of ceremonies and welcomed the scholars, their families and friends, faculty and staff, and the donors whose generosity supports students.

CAHNR Dean Kumar Venkitanarayanan congratulated the scholars and emphasized that their UConn education is intended to prepare them not only for their next step, but also for the contributions they can make throughout their careers and communities.

“At CAHNR, we want your time with us to be a launch pad,” Venkitanarayanan says. “The knowledge you gain in the classroom is part of that. So are the experiences that allow you to put that knowledge into practice, the mentors who help you see possibilities you may not have considered, and the opportunities that prepare you to take the next step with confidence.”

He also thanked the families, faculty, staff, and donors who help students succeed, noting the lasting impact of scholarship support.

“A scholarship is an investment in a student today, but its impact can carry forward throughout a career and into the communities that student will one day serve,” Venkitanarayanan says.

Tadarrayl Starke, UConn’s vice provost for student success, also addressed the scholars. He emphasized the value of the experiences students pursue outside the classroom and how scholarships can give them greater freedom to take advantage of those opportunities.

“You may already have a clear picture of what you want to do with your life after UConn. Or you may be discovering an interest you didn’t even know you had when you arrived here. That’s part of what college should make possible,” Starke says. “Scholarship support helps create that room and open up those possibilities.”

The celebration also featured remarks from donor Maryann Morris, who spent 28 years working at UConn, including 14 years as a lecturer and advisor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences. Drawing on her experiences with undergraduate students, Morris spoke about scholarships as both financial support and a powerful expression of confidence in a student’s potential.

“A scholarship is when one person’s generosity meets another person’s potential,” Morris says. “And just as important, a scholarship sends a very personal message to the student receiving it: Someone believes in me. Someone sees potential in me.”

Two allied health sciences students who received the Maryann Morris Allied Health Scholarship shared how that support is helping shape their UConn experiences and plans for the future.

Andie Napolitano ’28 (CAHNR), an undergraduate honors student from Orange, Connecticut, described how studying allied health sciences introduced her to research, experiential learning, and new career possibilities. Her experiences include a biostatistics training program at NYU, research in Sherry Pagoto’s mHealth and Social Media Lab, and an Injury Prevention fellowship at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. She plans to study abroad in Italy and pursue graduate education and a career in health-related research.

“Through receiving scholarships like the Maryann Morris Allied Health Scholarship, I have the flexibility to be able to study abroad in Italy next semester,” Napolitano says, “and when I return to UConn next fall for my senior year, I will start working on graduate school applications with hopes of eventually pursuing a career in health-related research.”

Abigail Abraham ’27 (CAHNR), an honors senior from Danbury, Connecticut majoring in Allied Health Sciences, spoke about her parents’ influence on her education and her goal of attending a physician associate school. She also described how receiving the scholarship has helped ease financial stress while strengthening her motivation to continue pursuing her education and community service.

“This scholarship not only relieves financial stress, but motivates me to keep working hard to reach this goal for my family,” Abraham says.

The celebration concluded by recognizing the scholarship recipients in attendance, underscoring the connection between donor generosity and the students whose education and experiences it supports.

“As University Professor and CEO of The Cato T. Laurencin Institute at UConn, Dr. Laurencin has dedicated his career to advancing medicine, addressing racial and ethnic health disparities, and creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders,” Intercommunity Health Care said in a social media post. “His extraordinary contributions have earned numerous national and international honors, including the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. His remarkable efforts and achievements illustrate his commitment to creating a healthier, more just future for all.”

InterCommunity Health Care is a nationally recognized community health center offering comprehensive care. InterCommunity provides whole-person and whole-family care through more than 20 community-based services.

Sir Cato T. Laurencin has worked to improve the human condition and address racial and ethnic health disparities in the areas of inclusion and equity throughout his career. He created the community health and wellness initiative, Just Us Moving Program (JUMP), and created and established educational programs for students including A Scientific Program in Regenerative Engineering (ASPIRE) for high school students in the Waterbury and Hartford school districts; the Research Experience and Mentoring (REM/REU), an NSF funded program for college students, the Young Innovative Investigator Program (YIIP) for post-graduate students; The T32 Doctoral Training Program for graduate students, and the Pre-K Junior Faculty Career Development Award Program for junior faculty. He created and established the M-1 Mentoring Program at UConn with funding from the CT Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus which provides protected time for faculty mentoring those underrepresented in STEM. His work has addressed disparities in care for patients with conditions including diabetes, HIV, COVID, and substance use disorder. For his work, he was named a Connecticut Health Care Hero by Connecticut Magazine and has been honored by organizations including the Urban League, the YMCA, the West Indian Foundation, the City of Hartford School System, and the Connecticut State Legislature.

A national force for justice, he received the Herbert W. Nickens Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for promoting social justice and fairness, the William Montague Cobb National Award from the NAACP, recognizing his leadership in health advocacy and promotion of health equity, and he was rated the number one individual in America in Health Equity by Scholar GPS over the past five years. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, the leading journal of its kind in the world. Laurencin has received Inclusion/Impact awards from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Society for Biomaterials. Laurencin created the IDEAL Pathway, which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Anti-racism, and Learning, as a plan to achieve justice and equity. Various organizations are looking to adopt the IDEAL Pathway as they work to create and enhance systems to promote a more just society. He will receive the 2026 IDEAL Impact Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

In medicine, Dr. Laurencin has been named to America’s Top Doctors for 20 years and has been named a Connecticut Top Doctor and is a renowned shoulder and knee surgery specialist. In orthopaedic surgery, he is the first to receive the Nicolas Andry Award from the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons, the Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Marshall Urist Award from the Orthopaedic Research Society, and the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) Distinguished Contributions to Orthopaedics Award, with induction into the AOA Awards Hall of Fame.

In science, Dr. Laurencin is the father of the field of Regenerative Engineering. He is the first surgeon in history elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences. He received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama in ceremonies at the White House. He received the Spingarn Medal, where he was named the world’s foremost engineer-physician-scientist.

Sir Cato T. Laurencin is the University Professor at the University of Connecticut (one of only two at the school). He is the CEO of The Cato T. Laurencin Institute, named and created in his honor, He is the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is the former Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Laurencin received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, his M.D., Magna Cum Laude, from the Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology from M.I.T.

Internationally, Sir Cato T. Laurencin received Knighthood under the auspices of King Charles III of England by the Governor-General of St. Lucia. He has been honored for his work in medicine and science throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe.

The One Health approach, which acknowledges the connection between humans, animals, and the environment, has become increasingly important as the interactions between the components of health have changed. One Health encompasses ideas including zoonotic diseases, climate change, food security, and sustainable agriculture.

Shuresh Ghimire, vegetable crops associate Extension educator, is one member of the CAHNR community who implements a One Health approach in his daily work. Ghimire evaluates biodegradable plastic mulches that support food systems while mitigating environmental impact, and works with farmers to implement this technology.

“Everything is connected,” Ghimire says. “If we increase crop yield, it may help humans in the short term. But if we’re degrading the environment, that would ultimately, in the long term, harm humanity. Everything we do should be in the One Health framework.”

For decades, farmers around the world have been using plastic mulch to control weed growth and conserve moisture in dry regions.

“Plastic mulch has been integral to crop production systems in commercial settings,” Ghimire says. “Without plastic mulch, it is very difficult to grow crops. You would have to use a lot of chemicals, herbicides, and still, you would not achieve the same level of weed management. It increases crop yield, crop quality, and nutrient use efficiency.”

While there are benefits to plastic mulch, because they are plastic, over time, they degrade soil health, reduce crop yields, and introduce micro- and macroplastics into the environment.

“Because it is so durable, on the flip side, that’s a problem,” Ghimire says. “It’s never going to go away. It fragments in the soil and remains in the soil. It has the potential to be taken up by plant roots and move up the food chain impacting human health, getting into our bodies and brains.”

In recent years, researchers have found that long-term use of plastic mulch reduces crop yields by up to 40% due to declines in soil quality.

“If the yields are reduced even 20%, because farmers, in general, are living off of such a slim margin, such a reduction could force them out of business,” Ghimire says.

Biodegradable plastic mulches have emerged as a promising alternative. Biodegradable options offer all the benefits of plastic mulch, but they are decomposed by microbes in the soil, leaving only water and carbon dioxide behind. Ghimire’s research focuses on how the mulch performs in the field and how it impacts crop yield and quality.

The mulch is made of a combination of bio-based materials like corn, potato, or cassava and petroleum. Even though they still contain petroleum, biodegradable mulches are bonded in such a way that microbes in the soil can recognize them and break them down. The covalent bonds in traditional plastic mulch are too strong for the bacteria to break.

“It’s all the chemistry that does the trick here,” Ghimire says.

Within two years, at least 90% of the mulch is fully decomposed.

“One might say, does that 10% accumulate over time?” Ghimire says. “That’s not the case. The standard is 90% because existing methodologies are not 100% accurate. There is some margin for error in terms of methodology. Some of the carbon also gets incorporated into microbial biomass, and there is no way to measure that.”

Biodegradable mulch can help Connecticut farmers save time when they plant cover crops at the end of the fall harvest. Cover crops protect fields from erosion and improve soil health over the winter months. Plastic mulch must be removed before cover crops are planted, but biodegradable mulch can just be tilled into the ground.

As an Extension professional, Ghimire works directly with growers to help them incorporate the right biodegradable mulch for their farm’s needs. Ghimire also works to make farmers aware of programs such as those through the Natural Resources Conservation Service that offer incentives for farmers to use biodegradable plastic mulch and implement other sustainability initiatives.

“There is hope,” Ghimire says. “The technology is promising. There has been great advancement in the technology and government policies to align with the current state of what industry can offer and what growers are looking for.”

This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Ensuring a Vibrant and Sustainable Agricultural Industry and Food Supply.

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