The Conversation

Protesters marching in Elizabeth City, N.C., over Andrew Brown's killing are walking in the footsteps of centuries of fighters for Black rights

Written by Melissa N. Stuckey, Assistant Professor of History, Elizabeth City State University

A march along historic South Road Street in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, protesting the police shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. AP Photo/Steve Helber

Protests have been taking place in a small North Carolina city for the past two months, sparked by the early morning report on April 21, 2021, that Andrew Brown Jr., a local African American man, had...

Vacuna contra VIH/SIDA: ¿Por qué no hay una después de 37 años, pero ya tenemos varias para COVID en solo unos meses?

Written by Ronald C. Desrosiers, Professor of Pathology, Vice-chair for Research, University of Miami

Las propiedades biológicas que ha desarrollado el VIH hacen que el desarrollo de una vacuna exitosa sea muy difícil. Chris Hondros/Getty Images

La viruela ha sido erradicada de la faz de la Tierra después de una campaña de vacunación mundial altamente efectiva. La poliomielitis paralítica ya no es un...

Supreme Court weighs voting rights in a pivotal Arizona case

Written by Cornell William Clayton, C.O. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Washington State University

The Maricopa County Election Department counts ballots in Phoenix on Nov. 5, 2020. Arizona's election laws are the subject of a pending Supreme Court decision.Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

Would you vote by mail if you had to drive hours to a post office to mail your ballot? That question confronts the United States Supreme Court this session...

Restoring land around abandoned oil and gas wells would free up millions of acres of forests, farmlands and grasslands

Written by Matthew D. Moran, Professor of Biology, Hendrix College

A drilling pad for oil and gas in Robinson Township, Penn.Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

CC BY-ND

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan proposes to spend US$16 billion plugging old oil and gas wells and cleaning up abandoned mines. But there’s no authoritative measure of how many of these sites exist across the nation.

In a recent...

Bringing tech innovation to wildfires: 4 recommendations for smarter firefighting as megafires menace the US

Written by Natasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub, University of Colorado Boulder

Satellites can quickly detect and monitor wildfires from space, like this 2017 fire that encroached on Ventura, California.NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens

Record-breaking fires over the past decade suggest the western U.S. has entered a new era of megafires.

Fire itself is not the problem – it has been characteristic of the North...

3 ways schools can improve STEM learning for Black students

Written by James Holly Jr., Assistant Professor of Urban STEM Education, Wayne State University

Pro-Black STEM classes can lead to more Black scientists.Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision via Getty Images Plus

Black people make up just 9% of the STEM workforce in the U.S. As a scholar who studies how STEM educators can more effectively reach Black students, I want to help all people develop an understanding of how anti-Black racism is a significant...

Intensive tutoring, longer school days and summer sessions may be needed to catch students up after the pandemic

Written by Thomas Goldring, Director of Research at Georgia Policy Labs, Georgia State University

Some students were 7-8 months behind on average in math and reading.Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to substantial reductions in student learning in metro-Atlanta public elementary and middle schools. What’s...

As more climate migrants cross borders seeking refuge, laws will need to adapt

Written by Katharine M. Donato, Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration, and Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University

Migrants hoping to reach the distant U.S. border walk along a highway in Guatemala in January 2021.AP Photo/Sandra Sebastian

Climate change is upending people’s lives around the world, but when droughts, floods or sea level rise force them to leave their countries, people often find closed borders and little assistance.

Part of the problem is...

Emily Wilder and journalism's longstanding Achilles' heel – partisans who cry bias

Written by Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn State

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley – shown yelling – cried bias in the media's coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.Library of Congress

When the Associated Press fired Emily Wilder for violating its social media policy, it caused a firestorm in the media industry. Critics noted that the firing came only days after GOP activists...

Mexican president suffers setback in country's deadliest election in decades

Written by Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station in Ayahualtempa, Mexico, on June 6, 2021. Hector Vivas/Getty Images

Mexicans turned away from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s party in the country’s June 6, 2021, midterm election, widely seen as a referendum on his administration’s self-proclaimed...