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.

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."

“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.

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.

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.

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.