Well Said

Morganton, North Carolina, has historically been known for its strong manufacturing and textile industries, but those industries took a significant hit during the 2009 recession and companies moved much of their operations overseas. Unemployment in the town rocketed to 15%. Carolina alumna Sara Chester '07 saw that critical time as a chance to reshape the city's economy and build a better future by encouraging businesses to plant their roots in Morganton. She is now working to bring Morganton back to life as the co-executive director of the Industrial Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing an inclusive economy throughout western North Carolina and creating a culture of dignity for manufacturing workers. On this week's episode, Chester talks about how Industrial Commons is redefining Morganton and the industries it has relied on for decades by harnessing the power of local workers and small businesses.

There are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week and 366 days in 2020. “The Earth doesn't orbit the sun in exactly 365 days. There's a little bit extra,” said Jordan Sheely, a senior astrophysics major and science educator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center. “It's about .24 days, so just about a quarter of a day. Every year we're behind by just a little bit.” That means people like Carolina sophomore Lauren Stiller only get to celebrate their true birthday every four years. “Every year that passes is basically a fourth of a year for me,” Stiller said. “So, as a 19-year-old, I say, ‘I'm four and three fourths.’ So, I'll be turning 5 this year.” On this week’s episode, hear about the little struggles and big celebrations that come with having a rare birthday and the science behind it, too.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Negro Leagues — professional baseball leagues comprised mostly of African American players. The leagues were created in 1920 as a response to non-white players being kept out of major league baseball. “As long as there has been baseball, there have been African Americans playing baseball,” said Matthew Andrews, a teaching associate professor in the College of Arts & Sciences' history department. “But as baseball got organized, African Americans found themselves excluded from organized baseball.” Andrews and other historians study the Negro Leagues using primary sources like newspapers, but a large portion of the leagues’ history is actually unknown. On this week’s episode, Andrews shares the history of the Negro Leagues, tells some of the leagues’ stories that have survived the test of time and examines the true reasons that the leagues were created in the first place.

Love songs have the power to define big moments in our lives. “You have a proposal song or a wedding song or a prom song, and then people remember that moment and they remember that song,” Jocelyn Neal said. The Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor of Music in the College of Arts & Sciences, Neal specializes in Southern music studies, but she said love songs fulfill the same purpose in all genres. “They come in so many different layers,” she said. “There's been a number of people who've done great research on what songs are about, and without a doubt, three-quarters of songs in country music — and slightly higher in pop— are either about happy love or lost love, and that's the framing device.” No matter what state of love someone might find themself in, there’s a song out there to express it. On this week’s episode, Neal shares what makes a good love song.

“Each day, each event measured in hours, minutes, seconds and then lost to eternity. A precious few are not. They linger, committed to memory, treasured. This rivalry is just that, timeless.” Those are the words of Freddie Kiger ’74, ’77 (M.A.) describing Carolina’s rivalry with Duke. It’s a subject he knows well, having watched about 100 basketball games between them from courtside. While finalizing his master’s degree in history, Kiger began working with the men’s basketball team as a statistician. The first time he worked a Carolina-Duke game in Chapel Hill was on March 2, 1974. That game featured a Carolina comeback from eight points down with only 17 seconds to play. Walter Davis made a buzzer-beater to send the game to overtime, which the Tar Heels then won comfortably. “I thought Carmichael’s roof was going to collapse,” Kiger said. On Saturday, as Carolina hosts Duke in the latest installment of the rivalry, Kiger will be at the scorer’s table relaying statistics to the television broadcasters. He’s worked with ESPN, CBS, NBC and other networks for major events like the Olympics and the X-Games, but nothing, he said, compares to a Carolina game against Duke because of the success of both men’s basketball programs. “Let’s just talk NCAA titles,” Kiger said. “You’re talking about two schools eight miles apart who have won 11 national championships. That’s staggering.” On this week’s episode, Kiger will share the stories he’s accumulated over nearly 50 years of being involved with Carolina basketball and what he’s learned along that journey.

Growing up, Lindsey James always loved solving problems and puzzles. She even majored in chemistry in college because it combines science with the problem-solving she liked about math. James liked chemistry so much, she earned her doctoral degree in it from Carolina in 2010, and she’s been here ever since. Now at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, her research into possible treatments for cancer, HIV and other diseases helps to add pieces to the puzzles of these diseases. In her lab, she creates molecules that target specific proteins that are believed to play roles in the development of those diseases. In December 2019, Pinnacle Hill, the medical innovation investment partnership between Carolina and Deerfield Management Company, awarded James with funding to continue trying to develop better treatments for multiple myeloma, the second most prevalent blood cancer in the country. “The Pinnacle Hill funding definitely takes everything to a new level,” James said. This project is trying to create a compound that inhibits a specific protein that research literature suggests plays a significant role in the progression of a specific subtype of multiple myeloma. If she’s successful, James’ research will lead to greater understanding about the diseases and might lead to more effective treatments. James knows that her success might reveal more problems about the disease that need solving, but that’s what she loves about her career. “There’s a lot of failure, but then those successes are really rewarding,” James said. “You tackle it one day at a time and solve problems.” On today’s episode, James explains how she tackles medical problems one day at a time and why she loves doing it at Carolina.

Daniel Wallace wasn’t a voracious reader growing up. “I was an average reader. I was an average writer. Nobody took me aside when I was a kid and said, ‘You’re one of the lucky ones, you’ve got that special spark,’” Wallace said. But Wallace had that spark after all. Today, he is Carolina’s J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English and the director of the College of Arts and Sciences' creative writing program. He’s also the author of "Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions." “All I wanted to do is a book,” Wallace said. “Once I got that published, or once I was told, ‘We are going to publish your book,’ I was so happy. I thought, and this is not an exaggeration, ‘I’m going to be happy forever.’” At Carolina, he shares with his students what being a writer is really like. “I feel like everything that I’m working on, when I’m working on it, is wonderful. It’s only the next day that I realize that it’s not,” Wallace said. “I have a lot of rejection. In other words, I understand the process.” On this week’s episode, Wallace shares his writing journey from the beginning — the good, the bad and the creative.

“It really does change your life and the trajectory that your life can take,” said Erin Hager, a senior psychology student from Wilmington who studied abroad in Santiago, Chile, for the fall semester in 2018. Those changes in trajectory come from the personal and social growth you experience while abroad. “A big realization was that I can do anything that I want to by myself,” she said. “That squashes a lot of fear because if you want to do something, you know you can do it by yourself.” And those changes affect academic and professional opportunities, too, with study abroad participants traditionally doing better in the classroom, said Heather Ward, the associate dean of UNC Study Abroad and International Exchanges. By 2023, Carolina wants more than half of its students to study abroad before graduation to give more students the opportunity to have those benefits. “It’s our obligation as a public university to make that opportunity available for every student and to not make it a privilege for some,” Ward said. Ahead of the Study Abroad Fair and the Feb. 10 application deadline for summer, fall and year-long programs, Hager shares what she learned in Chile and how those lessons shaped the rest of her Carolina career.

Today is the first day of classes of the spring semester, but before we jump into all the excitement it has in store for campus, we are revisiting some of our top stories from this past fall — the Tar Heel Bus Tour and FallFest. In October, Maria Estorino, the associate university librarian for special collections and director of Wilson Library, rode one of the three buses that together covered more than 1,600 miles across North Carolina. Jovan Sheshbaradaran is a first-year student from Gastonia, North Carolina, who began his time as a Tar Heel the same way as thousands of others — signing up for many Carolina student organizations at FallFest in August. On this week’s episode, Estorino shares the new perspective participating in the Tar Heel Bus Tour gave her regarding her role at Wilson Library, and Sheshbaradaran reflects on his experiences from his first semester at Carolina.

More than 1,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional students turned their tassels to signify their graduation Sunday at Winter Commencement. The celebration acknowledged more than just the students, as commencement speaker Bill Ferris reminded the graduates to consider the contributions they have received from friends and family. “When you see a turtle sitting on a fence post, you know he had some help getting there,” said Ferris, a two-time Grammy Award-winner and beloved Carolina professor. “Each of us are like that turtle, and the families and special friends who helped us arrive at this place, we are celebrating today.” Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz presided over the ceremony, which was his first as chancellor after he was named to the position Dec. 13. He called upon the words of Fred Rogers, who defined a hero as someone who responds to the needs of the world, to inspire the graduates to be heroes of whom their hometowns would be proud. On this week’s episode, we share the excitement surrounding the Winter Commencement ceremony and the thoughtful advice graduates received.

Winter Commencement is a time to celebrate the graduating Tar Heels. But, Bryan Hernandez, a graduating UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School business administration major, knows the day is about more than him. It’s a day to celebrate all of the people who have helped him get to this moment, like classmates, professors, mentors and, especially, his parents. “They gave up everything, so we had the chance to go to college,” he said. “It’ll definitely feel like their hard work paid off, too.” Hernandez has certainly put in some hard work of his own, though, to get to this day. He applied to Carolina as a high school senior in Sanford, North Carolina, but he was not offered admission. Instead of attending another university, Hernandez decided to take advantage of the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program. He completed his general education requirements during two years at Sandhills Community College. Then, he transferred to Carolina in the fall of 2017 as a junior. On this week’s episode, Hernandez explains how he took advantage of every opportunity available at Carolina and why he feels so prepared for his next journey in life — a position at Cisco.

Everyone gets stressed. It’s a natural part of life. We all face many stressors every day. Stressors can take many forms — jobs, relationships, children. For college students, final exams are one of the stressors they face throughout the semester. Final exams begin Dec. 6 at Carolina. To appropriately deal with stress, Anthony Zannas said, you don’t want to avoid it. “There are certain things in life that we have to come to terms with,” said Zannas, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine who studies how stress interacts with our bodies. “There are many studies showing that the more you avoid a stressful situation, the more stressful it will become when you actually face it.” Zannas researches epigenetics and examines how stressors influence the chemicals on top of DNA that determine whether genes will be active or not. His research can help identify people with stress-related disorders earlier. “If we can detect these epigenetic changes that happen in response to stress early on,” he said, “then we might have a chance of targeting those individuals earlier.” On this week’s episode, Zannas explains the differences between good and bad stress and shares some tips on how we can better deal with the stressors we face every day.

What’s your favorite food? How you answer that question probably isn’t only about how the food tastes but also the memories you associate with the food. For Andrew Hardaway, a research assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine, his favorite food is mashed potatoes. Specifically, his mother’s mashed potatoes. He’ll make sure to go back for a second — or even a third — helping of them on Thanksgiving. As a member of Thomas Kash’s lab, Hardaway researches how food interacts with the brain. He recently found that cells in the central amygdala — the area of the brain associated with memory, decision-making and emotional responses — drive the consumption of food after basic needs are met. “At Thanksgiving, when you sit down and you think about your favorite food, think about how your amygdala is being activated in that moment,” Hardaway said. It’s not something that most of us need to think about, but it’s crucial for helping treat people with binge eating disorders. In addition to eating a large amount of food in a short amount of time, binge eating is also associated with a loss of control. People with binge eating disorders cannot control their eating behavior, which can lead to other problems, like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular issues. Although there are some treatments and medications available, understanding what’s going on in the brain can help treat people with binge eating and other food disorders. “For those people, it’s very difficult to just flip a switch in their brain and change behaviors,” Hardaway said. “They need another tool in the toolbox, and that’s what we’re going to provide.” On this week’s episode, Hardaway shares his favorite Thanksgiving traditions, defines comfort foods and explains the differences between binge eating and the overeating we all might do to celebrate the holiday.

It’s hard to describe a “typical” classroom experience at Carolina. From makerspaces to research labs, learning spaces are designed to provide hands-on experiences. On this episode of Well Said, Katz shares what drew him to research and teach hip-hop and discusses the culture of DJing. The room is decorated with graffiti Katz commissioned from alumni artists and filled with turntables, recorders and CD players for his Art and Culture of the DJ and Rap Lab classes. On this episode, Katz shares what drew him to research and teach this hip-hop and discusses the culture of DJing.

When Nikole Hannah-Jones ’03 (MA) was in high school, she became obsessed with one year: 1619 — the year African slaves were first transported to an English-speaking colony in the Americas. As the 400th anniversary of that voyage was approaching, Hannah-Jones found herself at the New York Times Magazine, where she works as an investigative reporter. She pitched a project to re-examine the legacy of slavery in this country tied to that event. “I feel like my whole career and, in some ways, my whole life was geared toward this moment,” said Hannah-Jones, who received her graduate degree from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Her 1619 Project debuted in August with essays, poems, short fiction, a photo essay and an audio series, and they all work together to build a case that slavery is one of the foundational elements of the country’s development. “We can’t understand why things are like they are in the country until we grapple with the fact that slavery is at our foundations,” she said. Significant amounts of research, investigation and fact-checking went into this project, and Hannah-Jones learned those skills at Carolina. “I think you see what I learned here in my work every day,” said Hannah-Jones, who was a Roy H. Park Fellow at the journalism school. And she’ll be returning to Carolina on Nov. 16 to officially kick off a collaborative relationship between Carolina and the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a national organization she co-founded to train investigative journalists of color. On this week’s episode, Hannah-Jones will explain how Carolina helped prepare her for that pivotal moment to lead the 1619 Project and why she’s returning to Carolina to train more journalists.

Do you remember what the internet was like back in the early ‘90s? It wasn't at all like what it is now. There were about 1,000 websites then. Today, there are more than a billion, and that's growing every second. “The coming of the World Wide Web set a different expectation about how the internet would be used,” said Paul Jones, a clinical professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science. The internet was initially mostly used to share files, like email, audio or software. Now, we use it for nearly everything, including streaming media. Jones was instrumental in creating the internet as we know it today. Jones led a group of students to work with emerging technology and archive the digital world in 1994. The archive was called SunSITE, but is now known as ibiblio.org. One of those students was working as a student DJ at WXYC — Carolina’s student radio station — and asked a groundbreaking question, “Why can’t we broadcast the radio everywhere?” That question led Jones and Michael Shoffner, the student DJ, to organize the first radio broadcast streamed over the internet on Nov. 7, 1994. On this week’s episode, Jones and Shoffner, who is also a faculty member at the School of Information and Library Science, explain the challenges they had to overcome to make history.

With more than two centuries of history, Carolina is bound to have ghost stories. The campus has legends filled with duels gone awry, top-secret student societies and friendly, pranking ghosts. In this episode of Well Said, the UNC Visitors Center staff shares spooky stories from some of Carolina’s most famous ghosts and legends.

When you think of critical moments in American history, what do you think of? The Mayflower, the Declaration of Independence, Pearl Harbor? This year is the 400th anniversary of another seminal moment in American history — when African slaves were first brought to an English-speaking colony in the Americas. “This anniversary is an important moment to go back and interrogate the meanings in different ways, from different perspectives and with a new eye,” said Joseph Jordan, the director of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. The Stone Center will investigate the meanings of this moment with its 1619 Collective Memory(ies) Project, which will feature a conversation among a panel of experts engaged with their audience. “We want to have a multi-vocal conversation where different voices are able to talk about their interpretation of the events,” Jordan said. “It opens up so many possibilities for new discoveries.” On this week’s episode, Jordan shares details behind the collective memories project, explains why it’s so important to remember this moment in American history and examines how this project fits in Carolina as a place for intellectual discoveries.

On this week’s podcast, Lynn Blanchard, the director of the Carolina Center for Public Service, explains why 90 faculty members and administrators are spending fall break on buses touring the state.

On Oct. 12, 1793, the cornerstone of Old East was laid, making Carolina the first public university in the nation. To mark that occasion and to celebrate Carolina’s future, we celebrate University Day on Oct. 12 every year. “Our history as the nation’s first public university gives us a unique opportunity to celebrate what makes us uniquely Carolina,” said Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz. What makes Carolina unique is its commitment to serving the state of North Carolina, which is this year’s University Day theme. “We’re celebrating the fact that we are passionately public, that we are the leading global public research university that has stayed true to its mission,” Guskiewicz said. As a member of the faculty since 1995 and the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Exercise and Sport Science, Guskiewicz knows how fundamental serving the state is to Carolina’s identity. Before serving as interim chancellor, Guskiewicz led the Department of Exercise and Sport Science and was dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. What keeps him committed to Carolina is the faculty, staff and students who are devoted to serving our state. “I stepped foot on this campus 24 years ago and felt something special. It just felt right, and it’s felt right for 24 years,” he said. “It comes back to the people and the mission.” On this week’s episode, Guskiewicz explains what he thinks differentiates Carolina from its peers.

Michael Kosorok, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics and chair of the biostatistics department at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, believes that we are in the early stages of the precision medicine revolution This budding revolution, which involves biology, genetics and other aspects of the lifestyle of individual people, could seriously improve clinician’s ability to provide personalized care. One way the medical model can do that is by designing more effective clinical trials, like one Kosorok is helping with now. The Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma Network by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was designed with precision medicine as a goal. “In other studies, it’s often been an afterthought,” said Kosorok, who used his expertise in precision medicine to help design the study. The clinical trial, which was awarded to Carolina’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center in 2017, will enroll 800 adults and children with severe asthma in the coming months. On this week’s episode, Kosorok explains why he’s excited about precision medicine and how it applies to the PrecISE study on severe asthma.

The term “fake news” skyrocketed in popularity in late 2016, and for many Americans, it’s most closely associated with politics. But according to Alice Marwick, assistant professor in the College of Arts & Science's communications department, the spread of false information isn’t limited to only political headlines. “You can make a lot of money just by spreading these kinds of viral stories through Facebook,” explained Marwick. High-traffic pages can sell advertisements to sponsors and reap the financial reward of a false headline. Marwick explained that sometimes, though, the fake news, which she defines as "problematic information," is created because the writer really believes it to be true. “They have a very strong ideological belief, and they're trying to persuade people to their point of view,” she said. Marwick and the team at Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life are analyzing fake news and other major problems surrounding the dissemination of information. On this week's episode of Well Said, Marwick’s discusses her research on fake news and shares her tips on how to determine if information is true.

Paul Cuadros has been coaching the soccer team at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City for so long that some former players have kids on the current team. “I feel like I’m sort of their grandfather coach,” said Cuadros, who is also an associate professor in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. When Cuadros first arrived in Siler City in 1999 to report on immigration, there was no soccer program at the school. After coaching in the local soccer league for a couple of years, he launched the high school's program in 2002 and won a state championship in 2004. Cuadros has used the lessons from creating that program and leading it to a championship in many ways. He wrote a book, “A Home on the Field,” which led to a documentary series produced by Jennifer Lopez. He’s also been able to see the impact that visibility, leadership and development can have on a community — lessons he’s brought back to campus by creating various organizations for Latinx faculty, staff and students. Those endeavors include the Carolina Latinx Center, which will be opened this year and will hold its official ribbon-cutting on Oct. 4. “I’m going to feel elated,” Cuadros said of the upcoming ceremony. “We need to have these sorts of institutions to establish ourselves, to have a presence and to develop leadership.” On this week’s episode, Cuadros explains why he got involved in Siler City and how his involvement there has had an impact on campus.

In late September 2001, current Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matt Sullivan found himself sleeping on a cot in a fire station in Somers, New York — an hour north of Manhattan. He was there with about 20 other police officers, firefighters and medics from around the country who were providing support to first responders at the World Trade Center. To wind down every night after 14 hours walking around those city blocks and showing love, care and support to first responders, Sullivan wrote responses to hundreds of kids who wrote in letters to the responders. “Everybody was hurting,” said Matt Sullivan, who graduated from Carolina in 1989 with a degree in political science and received a master’s degree in social work eight years later. “It wasn’t just the folks who lost somebody in law enforcement and firefighters in New York City. The whole country was hurting.” Sullivan uses every anniversary of the attacks to ponder those who were and are hurting. Every Sept. 11, he begins this day by climbing the steps at Kenan Stadium. Climbing 2,076 steps — the same number that were in each of the towers — honors the efforts of first responders to fight fires at the World Trade Center and rescue people there. On this week’s podcast episode, we remember the 9/11 attacks, and Sullivan reflects on his service in New York City. He shares the lessons he learned from the first responders at the World Trade Center and how those lessons apply to his service to the Town of Chapel Hill.

In a special episode of the University's official podcast, we celebrate a historic gift made by Carolina alumnus Walter Hussman Jr. and his family. Today, the family announced it was donating $25 million dollars to the University's journalism and media school. To recognize the contribution, the school has been renamed the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. With this, the largest single gift ever made to the school, the Hussman School will become the fifth named school at Carolina, joining Kenan-Flagler Business School, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Adams School of Dentistry. Ahead of the gift, Hussman and Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, discussed the future of the news industry for an episode of the school's Start Here/Never Stop podcast.

Finance professor Camelia Kuhnen from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School studies neuroeconomics — a field that combines neuroscience and economics to understand how people make financial decisions. “I realized that my two degrees – neuroscience and finance – were both about decision-making,” said Kuhnen. Her research indicates that it’s not only our brains that play a part in why some choose to invest and others do not. While it is easy to assume that some people may make more risky investments because they have a higher risk tolerance, Kuhnen discovered that there is another factor at play: the environment people grew up in. “If you experienced adversity growing up, your brain literally reacts differently to information than if you didn’t experience it,” Kuhnen said. Her research suggests that this causes people to view the world differently, possibly adopting a pessimistic lens around financial investment and ultimately choosing not to invest. Hear more from Kuhnen about this research as well as the impact it could have on the economy on this week's episode.

As a Chancellor’s Fellow in 2015, Carolina alumna Emily Auerbach turned her examination of the campus’ agricultural potential into reality. Since then, the Edible Campus initiative has grown to provide free and fresh produce through 11 satellite gardens. It also now provides educational outreach. “The goal of the program,” said Laura Mindlin, who coordinates Edible Campus through the North Carolina Botanical Garden, “is to foster critical thought, communication and community through food systems.” On this week’s episode, Mindlin shares how this program applies the growing trend of community gardens to a higher education setting.

A new academic year is upon us at Carolina and the community is welcoming a new group of Tar Heels to campus. The first official week of the year is called the Week of Welcome, which helps make the transition to college easier for new students. The week began Aug. 16 when students moved into their new homes in campus residence halls, and it will continue through Aug. 25 with events throughout campus. On this week’s podcast, we highlight some of the biggest events from the Week of Welcome, including move-in day, New Student Convocation, Sunset Serenade and the first sip at the Old Well

Founded in 1795, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies are the oldest organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At 7:30 p.m. every Monday of the academic year, you’ll hear laughter along with serious debate from the Dialectic Chamber of New West Hall. This is the location of the weekly joint senate meetings between the once-feuding Dialectic and Philanthropic societies. Once a requirement for all Carolina students, the societies have maintained a tradition of lively debate over current issues that span from politics to pop culture. “We have people talking about political concepts,” said George Gildehaus, former president pro tempore.  “What they're thinking about current events, and we even have people talking about bad Tinder dates and other things of a more relatable nature.” On this episode of Carolina’s Well Said podcast, Gildehaus and former Joint Senate President Katrina Smith reflect on the evolution of these historical societies since their founding, and how current DiPhi senators maintain the tradition of debate today.

David Braudt, a recent graduate student affiliated with the Carolina Population Center, defended his dissertation in July, and he will start as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Before leaving Chapel Hill, though, he also published research about the social influences of early life mortality, or dying between the ages of 1 and 24. Braudt’s research was the first such investigation in 22 years. It updates that study and offers a multidimensional approach to family resources. He examined four aspects of family resources, the mother’s education, the father’s education, household income and whether or not each parent was present in the household. On this week’s episode, Braudt explains the personal connection that drove him to study early life mortality and how he hopes this research will save the lives of children across the country.

While sharks are often cast as the villain in movies, sharks on the coast of North Carolina aren’t ill-intended — they’re just trying to find food while avoiding risk. With 50 species of sharks visiting the North Carolina coast throughout the year, they're typically foraging for meals in the same areas that tourists spend their summers in. But Joel Fodrie, an associate professor and researcher at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, explains that the likelihood of a shark encounter is incredibly low. Swimmers can be within 10 or 20 yards of a shark more often than they think, and while movies will tell us that this can spell disaster, Fodrie disagrees.“Sharks are highly evolved,” he explained. They can smell blood in the water much farther away than humans ever could, and also use electric fields and sound waves to sense injured animals closeby, but humans don’t put out the same cues as what sharks are foraging for, and these underwater visitors stay away from what they aren’t familiar with. On this episode of Well Said, Fodrie discusses the ongoing shark survey performed by IMS researchers, as well as shares what any beachgoer should understand about sharing the water with sharks this summer.

When Katrina Morgan explains to people that she studies math as a doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences, they often respond unfavorably, saying they just “aren’t a math person.” “You wouldn’t just say, "Oh, I’m not a history person,’” Morgan said. She argues that mathematics is a field where people decide whether they “are” or “are not” fit for the field very early in their academic careers. This is especially true for girls because there is less representation of women in mathematics, Morgan explained. In 2016, Morgan, along with fellow doctoral student Francesca Bernardi, set out to change that by founding Girls Talk Math, which invites high school girls from North Carolina to UNC-Chapel Hill to participate in a two-week day camp that explores mathematical concepts. The campers are given problem sets to solve as groups, with topics that span from quantum mechanics to computer engineering. But the camp also teaches the importance of communication skills. Aside from working on math problems, participants can record podcasts, research female mathematicians and write blog posts. On this week's episode of Well Said, Morgan discusses Girls Talk Math and how the program has been giving local high school girls a new outlook on mathematics.

Are there other Earth-like worlds in the universe at the right size and with the right atmosphere to support life? Carolina astronomers are trying to figure that out right now. One candidate for such a planet is Proxima b, an exoplanet that orbits the closest star to our sun. Carolina researchers recently conducted a study using a first-of-its-kind telescope that sheds new light and poses questions about whether or not that planet could support life. Currently, Amy Glazier of the physics and astronomy department has been using the Evryscope to find the nearest “Tatooine”-type worlds to Earth. With the Evryscope imaging the entire sky every two minutes, she can measure the small variation in the time taken for one star of a binary system to eclipse the other due to the gravitational influence of circumbinary planets perturbing the stars’ motion. In this week’s episode, assistant professor Nicholas Law from the physics and astronomy department discusses his Evryscope, how researchers use it to monitor 50 million stars and what they’ve found so far.

Before enrolling at Carolina as an incoming first-year or transfer student, Tar Heels first complete an orientation program that acclimates them to Chapel Hill. Each summer, current Tar Heels help guide these new students as orientation leaders. Rising junior Excellence Perry is one of those students leading others. The public relations and advertising and management and society double major is helping welcome new students in this role for the second time. He says the key to being a good orientation leader is going beyond simple logistics. “Obviously, I want them to know where their classes are going to be, but those things come after the feeling of, ‘I can be here. I can do great things here. I can succeed here. I belong here,’” Perry said. On this week’s episode, Perry shares how he empowers these new students to come to Carolina ready to pursue their passions — through answering questions, listening to students and dancing on stage.

Many people find themselves driving away from their house in the morning and thinking, “Did I leave the garage door open?" It may bother them for a few minutes — even enough to turn around and check. Then, they get on with their day. But people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Carolina psychology and neuroscience professor Jon Abramowitz explains, get “stuck” checking if that the door is really closed over and over again. Abramowitz has researched anxiety disorders for over two decades and works with patients who display several different types of OCD behavior, which can include obsessive or intrusive thoughts and habits like the ritual of washing their hands several times or trying to “undo” an odd number with an even one. He recently released the second edition of his workbook, “Getting Over OCD: a 10-Step Workbook for Taking Back Your Life," which includes a new method of treatment. On this episode of Well Said, Abramowitz describes what OCD is, what it's not and explains how exposure and response prevention combined with a new method of treatment called "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" can be beneficial for some patients with OCD.

With more than 300,000 maternal deaths throughout the world each year, Carolina researchers are working to help pregnant women avoid becoming part of a startling statistic. Dr. Jeffrey Stringer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the UNC School of Medicine, is leading two studies that address the role of technology in predicting and revealing key risk factors associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery, with the goal of ultimately lowering the staggering rate of mortality during childbirth. After receiving a $14 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in May, Stringer teamed up with experts from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC School of Medicine to use common technology to reach their goal. One study leverages small sensors, similar to a Fitbit, to monitor pregnant women and develop new algorithms that could predict the risk of complications during and after pregnancy. “We can use the information from that [technology] to know which women are going to have a complication before they have it, and also make diagnoses earlier so that we can intervene earlier,” Stringer explained. The second study considers another way to predict future complications for the mother or child using portable sonograms that plug directly into a smartphone. While this seems to provide significantly more access, Stringer explains there is one problem. “Sonography is a very specific skill,” Stringer said. “Our sonographers here go to school for several years to get those skills. We’re trying to leapfrog that and teach computers to make these interpretations.” The study would create data for artificial intelligence to read and analyze the sonograms. On this episode of Well Said, Stringer explains the methods and reasons behind these two studies and how it can change childbirth worldwide.

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup is underway in France, and the United States is looking to defend its title from 2015. With three World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals, the American team is certainly a dynasty in international women’s soccer. The foundations for that dynasty were laid by Carolina’s legendary women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance, who coached the national team from 1986-1994 and led the United States to victory in the first Women’s World Cup in 1991. Throughout that time, he was still coaching the Tar Heels, too. His Carolina team is another women’s soccer dynasty. More than half of the national titles awarded in women’s soccer history have been won by the Tar Heels. On this week’s episode, Dorrance discusses how his two dynasties come together at the World Cup — when former Carolina student-athletes represent their countries on the world’s biggest stage. He also shares what excites him about this upcoming Carolina season, when the Tar Heels will return to Chapel Hill after playing their home games off campus for two years while a new stadium was under construction.

On average, children are diagnosed with autism between 4 and 6 years old, but assistant professor of psychiatry Mark Shen says that’s too late. “The earlier you detect it, the earlier you can intervene and start treatment,” said Shen, who is also a researcher at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. He’s seen those implications firsthand having spent six years training in behavioral treatment for children and adults with autism before returning to graduate school. Now, he’s on a mission to identify the signs of autism in the first year of life. On this week’s episode, Shen shares what clues he’s been able to find and explains why they’re so important.

It’s hot outside, and you want to cool off with a dip in the water. Before diving in, you know you need to protect your skin by putting on sunscreen. But you also need to protect your ears after you get out of the water. As an assistant professor of otolaryngology in the UNC School of Medicine and an eye, ear, nose and throat doctor, Dr. Christine DeMason treats a lot of common issues, like ear infections, tonsil issues and thyroid nodules. During the summer, though, she sees a spike in cases of a specific type of ear infection called swimmer’s ear. On this week’s episode, DeMason will explain what swimmer’s ear is, who is most at risk and some things you can do to protect yourself from this painful ear infection.

With video streaming services such as Netflix becoming more and more popular, associate professors of economics Brian McManus and Jon Williams are researching the economic implications of these services and the impacts of net neutrality laws on consumers’ wallets. The increase in Americans’ reliance on video streaming services has, according to McManus and Williams, also forced internet service providers to provide faster speeds, leaving cord-cutting consumers with internet and streaming services costs equaling their original cable bill.  Despite the popularity of video streaming services in the United States, McManus and Williams explained that there is little research on the economic impact of this new trend. On this episode of Well Said, McManus and Williams describe their preliminary research and explain other interesting hypotheses they plan to investigate.

Summer School is already underway in Chapel Hill, but before we move on to the summer, we want to revisit some stories from the previous semester. In this episode, Bill Ferris, the Joel R. Williamson eminent professor emeritus of history, tells us what it’s like to win a Grammy and Sarah Birken, an assistant professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, shares how difficult it is to start a new podcast.

Chapel Hill was bustling with graduates and their supporters over the weekend as Carolina celebrated more than 6,000 students who are prepared to take on the biggest problems around the world. With words of advice from Interim Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz and alumni Ramesh Raskar and Jonathan Reckford, the graduates turned their tassels and became Carolina alumni at Doctoral Hooding and Spring Commencement. This episode of Well Said captures the excitement of Commencement weekend and the thoughtful advice graduates received before heading out on their next adventures.