Water scarcity is one of the greatest challenges of our time, according to the United Nations. For the Dolan family of Philadelphia, water runs deep and personal. Almost 90 years ago, Philadelphia-area naturalist/adventurist, Brooke Dolan II, led expeditions to western China and Tibet and collected the Asian mammals on exhibit in the dioramas of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. He and his colleagues also brought back thousands of other specimens to study at a time when the world looked to natural history museums for information on countless little-known species.

The fires now ravaging North California have been particularly bad this year because years of drought have left the area much like a tinderbox. One way to combat this build-up of “fuel load” is a controlled burn.

Amanda Lough, PhD, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a geologist who focuses on seismology, the study of earthquakes. She explains that although there are some rare cases where one earthquake might lead to another, that is almost certainly not the case in Mexico.

Since Friday, Houston and its surrounding area has been hammered by more than 40 inches of rain, with more set to come. Flooding related to Hurricane Harvey has water cresting dams and forcing people to their rooftops all across the area.

Under a clear Australian sky, Michael Majok Kuch stood patiently waiting to reunite with his mother. It was July 2008, and it had been two decades since he had last seen her — since he fled his burning village in southern Sudan in the middle of the night as flashes of light pierced the clouded air, his childhood suspended by a civil war he was too young to understand. Just 5 years old, he dodged death on a harrowing journey through refugee camps and across borders, on a path that brought him to the United States and to a new life.

Jennie David, a 4th year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program, recently had a personal narrative published in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled "The Chair Grant."

Patrick Rafferty's company works with health care firms, nonprofits and other organizations to create award-winning commercials, public service announcements, documentaries, marketing videos and more. Over the years, he’s interviewed numerous celebrities — everyone from Wyclef Jean to Ross Perot, Bill Gates to Hillary Clinton, Val Kilmer to Quincy Jones — and counts among his clients Discovery Communications, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Georgetown University, the National Institutes of Health and Walt Disney Pictures.

From May 14 to May 27, 2017, Gwen Ottinger was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Risk Society and Policy Research Center (RSPRC) at National Taiwan University in Taipei. Her visit included academic talks at National Kaohsiung Marine University, National Chengchi University and National Yang-Ming University, as well as a presentation at RSPRC's "I Breathe, I Decide" forum on air pollution.

Zee Hakimoglu’s first laboratory was a rock under a makeshift fort that she and her sisters built alongside a small creek at her family’s home in New Jersey. Hakimoglu, then 11 or 12 years old, spent her days and evenings at the water’s edge, studying the spiders and wondering about the constellations. After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in physics from California State College, Sonoma, and her master’s in physics from Drexel, Hakimoglu accepted an associate engineering position at aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, in their Silicon Valley office.

“My life was forever changed by a man whose leg had been amputated,” says Elizabeth Lombardo, PhD, a clinical psychologist and national media consultant, recalling a former patient at the Baltimore Veterans Association Medical Center. At the time of their meeting, Lombardo had just graduated from Duke University with her master’s in physical therapy. “I knew if I could get him up on the parallel bars, he’d be able to walk,” she says, “and I could teach him how to transfer in and out of his wheelchair.” She considers that day a sign of her true purpose in life. Soon after, she applied to doctoral programs in clinical psychology and chose Drexel’s program (formerly part of Hahnemann University) because of its location and because of Arthur Nezu, PhD, one of the program’s directors, with whom she interviewed.

Monical Ilies, PhD, associate teaching professor in the Department of Chemistry has received the Evidence Based Teaching Award in STEM

Professor of English Miriam Kotzin, PhD, recently published a collection of fiction, Country Music, and poetry, Debris Field.

Meet Drexel Master of Science in Public Communication and Master of Public Health Alumni Juliane Mills.

The Eastern Sociological Society’s (ESS) Annual Meeting was held in Philadelphia, PA from February 23rd - 26th, 2017. ESS was founded in 1930 to support sociological research and networking in the northeast United States, and has about 1,200 members. There were approximately 1,450 registrants at this year’s annual meeting and approximately 200 undergraduates presented posters. Drexel was well represented at the annual meeting with both faculty and students presenting.

Hiding inside a hard shell that’s up to four feet long and resembles an elephant tusk, there’s a dark-colored earthworm-like creature. At one end, the creature’s body forms a slight bulb. At the other, claw-like appendages. It doesn’t really eat on its own, but ingests products made by bacteria that live within it.

Kayci Vickers and Jillian Tessier both recently received research awards from the Council on Brain Injury.

Evan Forman, PhD, Cara Dochat and Leah Schumacher were named the recipients of research awards at the ongoing Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in San Diego.

Graduate and undergraduate students in Drexel's Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science (BEES) received an impressive number of awards, scholarships, grants and fellowships for 2017-18. Their academic prowess also earned the department the record for the highest number of honorees for major scholarships/fellowships out of any department in the University!

Several Drexel Physics alumni recently received Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education.

Mary Godfrey and Jillian Tessier both received Psi Chi Research Grants.

Keisha April, Stephanie Singer, Alice Thornewill and Elizabeth Gale-Bentz were awarded 2017 American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) Student Presentation Awards.

Shoval Dorani has looked justice in the eye before. Rather than diving into college after high school, Dorani left her hometown of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, to fight in her father’s native country for the Israel Defense Forces. As a canine handler and commander in the IDF, Dorani — along with her trained military dog, a Belgian Malinois named Gula — came face-to-face with enemy soldiers in combat for three years. So, when she left the IDF to study in Drexel’s Criminology and Justice Studies program, Dorani had one goal in mind: she wanted to “lock up criminals.”

Somewhere in the ridges of Pennsylvania on the Appalachian Trail, a young Christopher Nielson decided that science was no longer his true passion. As he wandered, he thought of the overcrowded chemistry labs he frequented that never quite felt like home. He didn’t miss them. Instead, throughout his whole trip, whenever he had free time, all he really wanted to do was read Shakespeare. When he got back to school, he changed his major to English and he hasn’t looked back since.

Read a review of the second edition of "Thinking Parent, Thinking Child", Myrna Shure's updated book.

Eva Karasmanis receives the Ruth L. Kirschstein award courtesy of the National Cancer Institute (an agency of the National Institutes of Health).

Mona Elgohail, a clinical psychology PhD student mentored by Pamela Geller, PhD, has been awarded two travel grants.

For the approximately 8 million Americans who suffer from binge eating disorder, help could be just a download away. Psychologists in Drexel’s Laboratory for Innovations in Health-Related Behavior Change are developing a new smartphone application that aims to tackle binge eating, and they are seeking study volunteers to test it out. The app, called iCAT+, is for patients who suffer from binge eating disorder or bulimia nervosa.