Invertebrates comprise roughly 97 percent of life on Earth and “ensure habitat quality, serve as the foundation for most food chains, and sustain both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.” Their rapid decline poses significant risk to this planet’s future. Jacquelyn Dale (JD) Whitman, an MFA candidate in art at the University of Iowa, combines art with marine ecology to educate the public on a decline in marine biodiversity due to human threats like habitat destruction, overfishing, invasive species, pollution, and climate change.

Whitman’s thesis project presents Ireland’s Blaschka Invertebrate Models—glass replicas of marine invertebrate species from our 19th-century oceans—through an interactive, sculptural installation made from recycled plastic and animated video projections. She intends for her installations to combat ecophobia – “a negative response or automatic desensitization to visual images of environmental disasters” – an issue she’s studied since her time as a student in Ireland. 

“This installation will positively educate viewers on the global decline in marine biodiversity due to the threat of plastic pollution,” says Whitman, a native of Philadelphia, Pa. “Almost every single food chain and ecosystem depends on invertebrates. If we eliminate the invertebrates, it is doubtful that we as a species will survive. If we remove just one of the human threats—if we work to resolve the plastic pollution crisis—that could help to reverse this potentially catastrophic, global decline.” To learn more about JD’s work, visit the University of Iowa website.

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Photo Credit: JD Whitman is pictured at the National Museum Ireland-Natural History.

According to the American Psychological Association, as many as 1 in 7 women experience postpartum depression. Adriana Dyurich, a recent doctoral recipient in counselor education from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, developed an innovative mobile application called VeedaMom to help combat this illness. The app was created to screen for and manage symptoms of perinatal depression and promote maternal wellness, and it’s designed to support and accompany women during their pregnancy and the first year after the birth of the baby.

Dr. Dyurich wrote her dissertation based on research collected from pregnant women who used VeedaMom. “The app features the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for the screening of depression, psycho-educational videos, and mindfulness exercises, plus a variety of other features designed to facilitate professional care and make the app fun and user friendly.”

Dr. Dyurich presented her research at TAMUCC’s Doctoral Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®) and won first place. She will be competing at the regional competition in Arkansas. To learn more about Adriana’s research, visit the Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi website.

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Aadeel Akhtar, a recent doctoral recipient in neuroscience from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, learned at a young age living in Pakistan that the availability and affordability of resources could greatly impact the course of someone’s life. He’s spent his adult life building an academic background that would help him make a difference. Akhtar recently co-founded Psyonic, a biointegrated technology company, and intends to develop highly functionable and affordable prosthetic devices for amputees around the world.

Psyonic’s first product is an advanced bionic hand that, “has more functionality than $30,000 prosthetic hands…is easy to control, provides touch feedback, and is robust to impacts.” Retired Sergeant Garrett Anderson, who lost his right arm in Iraq in 2005, helped Akhtar test and refine prototypes. The Psyonic product is unique because it incorporates sensory feedback and is priced at about a tenth the cost of commercially available devices.

Dr. Akhtar’s master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from UIUC provided him a strong technical background to build the protheses. He’s currently a medical student and an NIH National Research Service Award MD/PhD Fellow at Illlinois. To learn more about Aadeel’s past research, visit the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign website.

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Photo Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

Prosper Zongo, a recent master’s degree recipient in political science and international relations from the University of South Dakota, came to the U.S. from Burkina Faso on a Fulbright scholarship. Zongo established the Prosper Zongo Foundation an accredited non-profit organization on February 24, 2017, with the aim of providing clean drinking water to rural communities and accessible education to every child in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Providing cleaner water to poor, rural communities has been a dream of Prosper’s since childhood, when he remembers his mother walking several miles each day in order to provide the family with clean drinking water. The lack of access affects the health and well-being of people who live in these rural areas, because the consumption of unclean water increases the probability of waterborne diseases. The scarcity of clean water also impacts the ability of local children to go to school. They often dropout to help their parents search for new potable water sources.

The Foundation has built two wells in Burkina Faso and has plans to build more. Zongo intends to work for a year or two before returning to school to earn a doctorate in political science with a focus on the African continent. To learn more about Prosper’s research, visit the University of South Dakota website.

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Photo Credit: University of South Dakota

Joseph Daniels, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering at the University of Arkansas, was recently awarded the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Recognizing Aviation and Aerospace Innovation in Science and Engineering (RAISE) award. This annual award recognizes innovative scientific and engineering achievements that will have a significant impact on the future of the aerospace or aviation.

Daniels is creating an anti-icing pavement system that will improve safety on airfields during winter weather. The system he’s developed, “aims to use renewable solar energy to lower operational costs of heating surfaces to prevent flight delays, cancellations and potential accidents. The idea is to incorporate wiring into concrete, then use solar energy to power the transfer of heat through the wires to warm the pavement.”

Daniels received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from North Carolina A&T State University and plans to complete his doctorate this summer. He was awarded the Department of Transportation’s Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Daniels also presented at a TEDx event in 2016. To learn more about Joseph’s research, visit the University of Arkansas website.

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Photo Credit: University of Arkansas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

CONTACT: Katherine Hazelrigg / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu / 202.461.3888

Majority of Decline in Master’s and Certificate Programs

Washington, DC —New data from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) reveal that for the first time since Fall 2003, international graduate application and first-time enrollment rates declined at U.S. universities. For Fall 2017, the final application counts from prospective international students declined by 3%, while the first-time enrollment of international graduate students declined by 1%.

The overall decline is primarily in master’s and certificate programs, with responding institutions reporting a 4.8% decrease in applications and a 2.8% decrease in first-time enrollment. In contrast, first-time international doctoral enrollment grew by 1.8%. Given that 77% of first-time international graduate enrollment was in master’s and certificate programs and 23% was in doctoral programs, the discrepancy by degree objective is notable.

Recent changes in immigration policy, including the executive order barring entry or return of U.S. visa holders from specific countries, are being closely watched by members of the graduate education community. While students directly affected by the ban constitute a relatively small percentage of international graduate students, there has been significant concern that new immigration policies will tarnish the U.S.’s image as a welcoming destination for international students and scholars.

CGS President Suzanne Ortega noted, “While the declines we see this year are concerning, the good news is that the application acceptance rates and admission yield rates are comparable to last year. This suggests that prospective international graduate students remain highly likely to accept offers of admission to U.S. graduate schools. This may be due to increased efforts on the part of graduate schools and universities to assure international students that they will be welcomed and supported.”

Application and enrollment numbers saw wide variations by sending country. The 2016-2017 admissions cycle marks the second year in a row that applications and first-time enrollment of international graduate students from the Middle East and North Africa declined. In aggregate, responding institutions reported a greater decline in applications between Fall 2016 and Fall 2017 (-17%) than was seen in the prior admission cycle (-5%). However, first-time graduate enrollment declined at a slower rate (-5%) compared to the prior year (-11%). Iran and Saudi Arabia historically represent the largest share of international graduate students from the Middle East and North Africa region, and applications from the two countries dropped by 18% and 21% respectively.

China and India continue to represent the largest shares of international graduate applications, first-time international graduate enrollment, and total international graduate enrollment. However, the final application and first-time graduate enrollment of Indian students decreased (-15%, -13% respectively) during the Fall 2016 to Fall 2017 admission cycle. This is the first decline in applications from India since Fall 2012.

Application counts for prospective European graduate students to U.S. institutions grew by 18%. However, first-time enrollment of European graduate students at U.S. institutions in Fall 2017 only increased by 1%. In Fall 2016, first-time enrollment rates for European graduate students rose by 8%.

The report also includes data trends by field of study. By total application and first-time enrollment counts, the most popular fields of study continue to be Business (15% and 19% respectively), Engineering (28% and 26% respectively), and Mathematics and Computer Sciences (22% and 19% respectively). By contrast, U.S. institutions that participated in the study reported a 10% decline in graduate applications and first-time enrollment to engineering programs.

As the only report of its kind to offer data on the current academic year, International Graduate Applications and Enrollment: Fall 2017 reports applications, admissions, and enrollments of international master’s, certificate, and doctoral students at U.S. colleges and universities.

About the survey and report

Conducted since 2004, the CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey tracks the applications and enrollments of international students seeking U.S. master’s and doctoral degrees. In Fall 2016 the survey was redesigned to collect data by degree objective (master’s and graduate certificate vs. doctorate), and for all seven regions of origin, eight countries of origin, and all eleven broad fields of study, yielding the only degree-level data currently available for graduate admissions and enrollments. 377 U.S. graduate institutions who are members of CGS or its regional affiliates responded to the 2017 survey.

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In the last few years, we’ve seen an increasing number of stories about traumatic brain injuries (TBI), particularly around professional sports and concussion rates. We’re hearing more and more about research projects to better understand the risks and long-term effects, but this topic isn’t new to Kim Gorgens, a neuropsychologist and clinical associate professor at the University of Denver. She’s spent her professional career studying the brain’s response to injury, giving a TEDx talk on the subject back in 2010 focused on the effects of concussions in student athletes. Within a few years, Gorgens was focused on a new segment of the population.

Gorgens and her team of professionals and graduate students at DU’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology are working with 28 justice sites from jails to specialty courts and Division of Youth Corrections (with plans to expand) to better understand inmates living with traumatic brain injury (TBI). According to Gorgens, this is an understudied, vulnerable population, and overrepresented in correctional facilities. TBI has been linked to poor impulse control, aggressive behaviors, deficits in attention span, and higher risks for substance use disorders. The pilot data from one facility show that up to 96% of those inmates have experience at least one TBI.

“This work is really about identifying problems and keeping them from getting worse,” Gorgens says. “Many of these folks fall through the cracks of society for reasons related to their brain injury.” Dr. Gorgens’ work has been featured in Newsweek magazine, and she hopes to continue to raise awareness for her research. To learn more about Kim’s research, visit the University of Denver website.

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Anne Hilborn, a doctoral student in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech, studies the interactions between predators and prey, “focusing on cheetahs because they hunt by day on open plains, are affected by lions, and impact several species of herbivores that serve as prey.” She discovered the value of using social media during field research in 2014. She realized that chronicling her experiences on Twitter and her blog would give her the opportunity to share her photos, data, and research with the whole world.

Hilborn and her graduate student colleague, Chris Rowe, learned just how effective Twitter can be in 2015. They began posting a series of tweets using the hashtag #fieldworkfail and received thousands of responses from scientists and scholars, who in turn shared their own #fieldworkfail experiences. The hashtag is still used today.

Hilborn’s successful use of social media demonstrates one way to address the challenge of communicating research effectively to broad audiences. To learn more about Anne’s work, visit the Virginia Tech website.

Visit the GradImpact Feature Gallery to learn more about the amazing, innovative research being done by graduate students and alumni across the world.

**Photo Credit: Virginia Tech News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

CONTACT: Katherine Hazelrigg / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu / 202.461.3888

“Over the past few weeks, the Council of Graduate Schools joined a coalition of organizations raising serious concerns about the proposed tax legislation and its effects on higher education, particularly on graduate education and graduate students. We were pleased to see our community join forces to raise awareness about the consequences of the proposed tax reforms. As a result, many proposals that would have negatively impacted graduate education were defeated. This is an excellent example of what we can achieve when we work together. Our efforts will help ensure that graduate students are able to pursue and achieve their educational goals.”

“The bill passed by the House and Senate remains far from perfect, and we continue to have serious reservations about its overall impact on institutions of higher education. We maintain our belief that master’s and doctoral education are the backbone of America’s national security and greatly contribute to our economic standing in a global economy. Any tax provisions that affect the financial stability and accessibility of institutions of higher education could negatively impact our nation’s future.”

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Anna Rogulina, a doctoral candidate in Art History at Rutgers University, moved to the U.S. from Russia when she was ten. As an undergraduate at Vassar College, she developed an interest in art history and Russian studies. After graduation and time working as an assistant curator, Rogulina realized a graduate degree would help her achieve her long-term professional goals.

Recently, Rogulina curated an acclaimed art exhibition, A Vibrant Field: Nature and Landscape in Soviet Nonconformist Art, 1970s-1980s, drawing from the renowned Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, currently housed at Rutgers’ Zimmerli Art Museum. Rogulina aimed to, “shed new light on the work of artists who risked their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives in challenging the limits set on artistic expression by the Soviet Union.”

Rogulina’s project highlights the importance of art in repressive societies. “These artists and their communities relied on this work for their survival—and their sanity,” Rogulina says. “It really made me reflect on the social experience created through the arts and how it sustains these networks and communities.” To learn more about Anna’s work, visit the Rutgers University website.

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**Photo Credit: Peter Jacobs