Category: UVA

In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Fariss Samarrai, senior news officer for UVa’s Office of Public Affairs, we discuss the research of Jessica Voorhees Norris, a Ph.D. candidate in forensic chemistry at UVa, who has developed a method for handling rape kit evidence that reduces part of the DNA analysis time from 24 hours to as little as 30 to 45 minutes.

With approximately 250,000 items of sexual assault evidence mired in three- to 12-month backlogs as they await analysis in U.S. forensic laboratories, there is an alarming nationwide need for a time-efficient way to get this work done. And according to Jessica Voorhees Norris, a Ph.D. candidate in forensic chemistry, she has found a better way. She developed a method for handling rape kit evidence that reduces part of the DNA analysis time from 24 hours to as little as 30 to 45 minutes and improves the sperm cell recovery rate by 100 percent. If her method is adopted by forensic labs – and the results accepted by courts – the backlog could potentially be reduced within months.

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog.

In today’s show, adapted from an article written by David Foreman, writer for UVa’s Health System Media Relations Department, we look at University of Virginia researcher; Richard J. Price, who has received a three-year grant from The Hartwell Foundation to further his research on an innovative method to treat pediatric brain tumors.

Technical advancements in the past decade have made it possible to extend the basic principles of non-invasive, high-intensity, focused ultrasound for destroying organ-confined tumors. However, ultrasound beam aberrations and localized non-specific heating created by the skull are impediments to brain tumor treatment, which could be especially profound in developing children…

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog.

In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Anne Bromley, senior writer and editor for UVa Media Relations, we look at well-known writer, scholar and editor of African-American literature for both academic and general audiences, Deborah E. McDowell who was recently named director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at UVa.

Well-known writer, scholar and editor of African-American literature for both academic and general audiences, Deborah E. McDowell, was recently named director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at UVa.

The Woodson Institute, an interdisciplinary teaching and research center, was established in 1981 in response to student and faculty requests for a more coherent African-American and African Studies program and a more aggressive program of minority recruitment at the University. It is named after Carter Woodson, the “father of African-American history,” to honor the Virginia-born founder of African and African-American Studies who also inaugurated Black History Week (now Black History Month).

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog.

Kathy Thornton is Associate Dean in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. Thornton took four trips aboard the space shuttle, and has been in Charlottesville since 1996. She was a guest on the July 7 edition of WINA’s “Charlottesville-Right Now!” with Coy Barefoot. Topics include how she became an astronaut, how to encourage kids to study math and science, and what her first flight was like in 1989.

In today’s show, written by Karen Doss Bowman is a freelance writer living in Bridgewater, VA, we look at Rachael Beaton, a first year grad student at the University of Virginia, whose galactic discoveries have earned her international attention.

First-year graduate students aren’t usually given historic research assignments. But after years of waiting for the opportunity to make their first observation on the Large Binocular Telescope or LBT, in Tucson, Ariz., UVa’s astronomy faculty voted last fall to bestow the honor on first-year graduate student Rachael Beaton (Astronomy-Physics, Mathematics ’07, MS Astronomy ’10).

Beaton used the LBT, whose construction was completed last fall and is the world’s largest optical telescope in which the University shares ownership, to take images of one of the breakthrough discoveries she had made before receiving her undergraduate degree, a dwarf galaxy she had discovered in 2006…

For more information about the show or to see the full text, visit the Oscar Show’s blog.