Tensions with China give Japanese PM an opening for snap elections
Prof. Kristin Roebuck comments on the plans of Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to dissolve parliament next week and call a snap election.
Yaddo residency shapes long-term dance research
During her Yaddo residency, Danielle Russo developed a dance piece, enriching the work by drawing on ideas of ritual movement, personal memories and family history, and more.
Pandora satellite launches for exoplanet observation
Tasked with studying exoplanet systems around small stars, the refrigerator-sized satellite is the first in NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program – small-scale missions designed to train early-career scientists, including Trevor Foote, Ph.D. ’24, a former member of the research group led by faculty member Nikole Lewis.
Trade expert discusses misconceptions about trade Jan. 29
Scott Lincicome will talk about imports, tariffs and globalization during his talk, “What You Think You Know About Trade is Probably Wrong."
Cornell astronomer honored for achievement in observational research
With the 2026 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, the American Astronomical Society recognizes Anna Y. Q. Ho’s pioneering investigations of extreme explosions powered by stellar death.
Women in exile shaped South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement
Women played a major role in debates surrounding the fight against apartheid in South Africa, Rachel Sandwell writes in a new book, “National Liberation and the Political Life of Exile: Sex, Gender, and Nation in the Struggle against Apartheid.”
Europe has little leverage to push back if Trump moves to take Greenland
A Cornell historian and military expert doubts a NATO military response to the US annexation of Greenland would not happen, Despite tough talk from European leaders.
'Remember they’re playing for the love of the game’
A former Big Red star himself, women’s ice hockey coach and A&S alum Doug Derraugh ’91 has led the squad to five ECAC championships.
The people behind the telescope: How specialized expertise is supporting science at the edge of the universe
Behind a world-leading telescope bound for Chile is a team of engineers, machinists, electronics specialists and riggers at Cornell. Meet the specialized staff whose expertise is helping push cosmology to new frontiers.
Power play: Arts & Sciences alum is a long drive golfing champ
After competing in track and field for the Big Red, Troy Mullins ’09 parlayed her athleticism into success at smashing the ball.
Mészáros elected to American Mathematical Society
Mészáros’ research focuses on algebraic and geometric combinatorics.
Unexpected allies: DNA packaging aids gene expression
Researchers discovered that DNA packaging structures called nucleosomes, which have been traditionally seen as roadblocks for gene expression, actually help reduce torsional stress in DNA strands and facilitate genetic information decoding.
2025 Year in Review
In 2025, Cornell produced cutting-edge AI research, inaugurated a president and advanced agriculture and sustainability. The university’s faculty, staff, students and alumni made the world a better place, welcomed back two Nobel laureate alumni and conducted research that matters.
AI gives scientists a boost, but at the cost of too many mediocre papers
A new study shows that using large language models like ChatGPT boosts paper production, especially for non-native English speakers, but the overall increase in AI-written papers is making it harder to separate the valuable contributions from the AI slop.
TikTok user long-term experience will ‘depend’ on regulators in new framework
Tiktok has signed a deal to spin off its U.S. business, but it remains unclear how effectively the new framework will address the initial national security threat concerns, says government professor Sarah Kreps.
In Bukovina, European empires built new worlds out of inherited materials
The region never fit easily among its neighbors, as regimes including the Habsburg Empire and the Soviet Union tried to remake it in their image.
‘Songs In Flight,’ inspired by Cornell-based project, earns Grammy nod
Based on poems by A&S alumna Tsitsi Ella Jaji, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’08, the songs by Shawn Okpebholo bring to life individual stories preserved by the Cornell-based Freedom on the Move project.
Quantum mechanical molecular ‘fingerprints’ solve machine learning mystery
The new method can predict molecular properties with up to 100 times more accuracy than the current method.
Book explores ‘modernity and malevolence’ in Indian clinical care
The book shows how patterns of psycho-social stress combined with modernity’s pressures can influence psychiatric practice.
Astronomer paints vivid history of Arecibo Observatory
In a new book, Donald Campbell, Ph.D. ’71, professor emeritus of astronomy, recounts the history of Arecibo from construction to its last days under Cornell’s management in 2011.
In lab mice rehomed to fields, anxiety is reversed
When postdoctoral researcher Matthew Zipple releases lab mice into a large, enclosed field just off Cornell’s campus, something remarkable happens.
The mystery of the Seneca Drums persists
Researchers are plumbing the depths of the largest and deepest of New York’s Finger Lakes to explain the source of its famous booming sounds.
From better sleep to stronger communities: The benefits of gratitude
Gratitude not only makes you feel good, but it helps you live up to your best self and be a better member of society, psychology professor Thomas Gilovich has found.
Nick Salvatore, ‘one of our foremost historians,’ dies at 82
Salvatore taught at the ILR School and in the American Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences for 36 years, retiring in 2017 as the Maurice and Hinda Neufeld Founders Emeritus Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Your December 2025 reads
This month’s featured titles include fiction from A&S alum Thomas Pynchon ’59, an award-winning poetry collection and a study of a small town.
Celebrating the journey with our December A&S grads
December graduates walk the stage this month, so we sat down for a talk with three A&S grads who’ve taken different pathways through Cornell.
Brain stimulation during sleep boosts weak memories in mice
The mice could remember new experiences that would normally be forgotten – a finding with important implications for treating Alzheimer’s disease.
Cake-pan telescope searches the sky for fast radio bursts
One of the world's smallest telescopes, it is part of a series of eight terminals installed around the globe.
Undergrads launch magazine featuring in-depth stories
A new student-run magazine focuses on long-form journalism that reflects the culture of Cornell and Ithaca.
At age 90, a singer, collector, and scholar of folk music goes digital
After a long career onstage and off, Ellen Stekert ’57 is focused on preservation—releasing songs from her vast archive on Bandcamp.
Domestic politics driving Thailand-Cambodia border tensions says Cornell Southeast Asia expert
Thailand and Cambodia have long had fraught relations, professor Tom Pepinsky says after Thailand’s military launched air strikes along the Thailand-Cambodia border.
Campana wins MLA’s Scaglione Prize for book on Japanese poetry
“Expanding Verse: Japanese Poetry at the Edge of Media" is study of work by poets who push the genre in unexpected directions.
Workshop, talk focused on applying lessons learned from COVID
Scholars converged at Cornell to talk about lessons policymakers and elected officials could glean from their research into the COVID pandemic to help deal with the next public health emergency.
Cornell-China trip celebrates 20 years of Levinson Program
Leaders celebrated the Levinson Program and joined other Cornell delegates at the Cornell-China Forum.
Electrons stay put in layers of mismatched ‘quantum Legos’
Electrons can be elusive, but Cornell researchers using a new computational method can now account for where they go – or don’t go – in certain layered materials.
Cornell Center for Social Sciences awards fall grants targeting $50M in external research support
The Cornell Center for Social Sciences offers multiple grants to help Cornell faculty maximize their research impact. These awards help seed ambitious projects and provide support to teams of faculty applying to major external funding and collaboration opportunities.
Chile latest test case in South America’s far right shift
“Chile's vibrant democracy faces a new challenge in a highly polarized second-round presidential election" Dec. 14, says Ken Roberts, professor of government.
Forever young? Extracellular vesicles may be key to halt aging
Scientists have outlined exactly how embryonic stem cells protect other cells from the effects of oxidative stress, thus preventing cellular aging.
CTI grants enable faculty to research how students think and learn
With a 2024-2025 Innovative Teaching & Learning Grant, A&S professors collaborated with others to develope an AI tool to foster student metacognitive skills around teamwork in STEM classes.
‘Households in Context’ wins Wiseman Book Award
Based on a 2018 conference co-organized by Caitie Barrett, professor of classics, and Jennifer Carrington, Ph.D. ’19, the book focuses on houses and households during a period when Egypt was ruled by Greeks and then by Romans.
Is Silicon Valley driving Trump’s policy on Honduras?
Trump’s interest in Honduras is more about U.S. business interests, than democracy, says professor Raymond Craib, a historian of modern Latin America.
Cornell Navy ROTC midshipman earns top honor
Kylie Williamson ’26 has been named Navy/Marines Student of the Year by Navy Federal Credit Union, a top honor in the Reserve Officers Training Corps system. Williamson is the first Cornell student to win the award.
Spaceflight-tested menstrual cup offers choice on long missions
To equip astronauts with health choices for future missions, a Cornell postdoctoral fellow is leading research with AstroCup, a group that recently tested two menstrual cups in spaceflight as payload on an uncrewed rocket flight.
As higher ed looks to the future, it's vital to understand the past
Praveen Sethupathy ’03, an A&S computer sciences alum who co-chairs a faculty task force exploring Cornell’s role in a changing educational, research, and social landscape, serves as co-chair of the Committee on the Future of the American University, a group of 18 faculty appointed by the provost to explore how Cornell can evolve to best serve future generations while pursuing its core mission of education, scholarship, public impact, and community engagement.
Ancient dirty dishes reveal decades of questionable findings
An interdisciplinary team of researchers determined that organic residues of plant oils are poorly preserved in calcareous soils from the Mediterranean, leading decades of archaeologists to likely misidentify olive oil in ceramic artifacts.
Grants to support research at nexus of AI, climate science
New grant funding will support eight research projects seeking to reduce AI’s energy use and integrate AI in environmental research.
Your November 2025 reads
This month’s titles featured in Cornellians include poetry, a famed restaurateur’s memoir, and a chronicle of the 1929 stock market crash
Talk examines Civil Rights Act’s unintended consequences
Legal scholar Gail Heriot will describe a chain of unintended consequences of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 in her talk "Why We Walk on Eggshells," Dec. 8.
Professor emerita Stephanie Vaughn, ‘writer’s writer,’ dies at 81
Vaughn taught creative writing and literature at Cornell for 39 years, retiring in 2022 as professor of literatures in English emerita.
Career Development targets resources for students in tech fields
Tech students need to target specific organizations that match their interests, skills and values.