Well Said

When incoming first-year student Alex Longo begins taking classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall, he'll have something more on his mind than finding his classrooms. With a little more than two months until NASA announces the landing site of the Mars 2020 Rover, Longo will be anxiously waiting to see if his proposed site will be selected. The Gusev Crater site that he nominated as a 13-year-old is now among the final three locations in consideration. In this week's episode, we talk with Longo about the Mars 2020 Rover and the start of his Carolina journey, which he hopes will lead him to a walk on Mars. “I want to keep all my options open, because as I work with NASA I’ve learned you never really know what door is going to open to you," said Longo, who plans to study physics and astronomy. "It may be something you thought was absolutely impossible. The future isn’t something to fear. It’s something to look forward to.” This episode of Well Said includes music by Scott Holmes (

John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Mitch Prinstein always found himself interested how popularity influence the way we see the world and have relationships with those around us. On this episode of Well Said, Prinstein discusses his research and explains the different forms of popularity and why it doesn’t always pay to be the most popular. Prinstein’s book, “Popular: Finding Happiness and Success in a World that Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships” dives deeper into his research and was selected as the 2018 Summer Reading Program book for incoming first-year and transfer students.

Professor Gary Bishop was doing virtual reality before it was cool. Now he uses his computer science background to create books for children with visual impairments and developmental disabilities. Bishop created Tar Heel Reader, a user-generated collection of books for beginning readers with various needs created with enabling technology. In this episode of Well Said, we learn about what Bishop calls "computer science magic," and about how he found that magic here in Chapel Hill.

Carolina’s Spring Commencement will take place on May 13 in Kenan Stadium with more than 6,000 students graduating with bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral or professional degrees. Among those graduates will be Damian Walker, a senior who majored in political science and minored in the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship. The first-generation student and Carolina Covenant Scholar spent his four years at UNC-Chapel Hill exploring the possibilities of entrepreneurship. In this week’s episode, we talk with Walker about graduation, his plans after college and what Carolina means to him.

Are there other Earth-like worlds in the universe at the right size and with the right atmosphere to support life? That’s what astronomers are trying to figure 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 new questions about whether or not that planet could actually support life. In this week’s episode, assistant professor Nicholas Law from the physics and astronomy department discusses the Evryscope, how he and his team use it to monitor 50 million stars and what they’ve found so far.

Of the 3.5 million Americans living with autism, no two cases are exactly the same. And as they navigate life in school and the workplace in their own ways, their support services should reflect their particular needs. Today, Carolina researchers are working to create more comprehensive and personalized supports that will help people with autism spectrum disorder throughout their entire life course. In this week's podcast, we talk with Laura Klinger, an associate professor of psychiatry and the executive director of the UNC TEACCH Autism program, about Carolina’s world-leading autism research, the various intervention programs developed by TEACCH and new intervention techniques being implemented for people from 9 months old to 70 years old.

A century ago, the 1918 influenza outbreak wreaked havoc in Chapel Hill, across North Carolina and around the world. There were as many as 50 million deaths — about 3 percent of the world’s population at that time. In this week’s episode, UNC School of Medicine professor Ralph Baric discusses the impact of 1918 flu and the developments we’ve seen in 100 years to respond to the next outbreak. He also explains why this has been a particularly bad flu season. To mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 flu – and to assess the threat that an outbreak of this scale poses today – the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and its partners will host an interdisciplinary symposium from April 4-6 titled “Going Viral: Impact and Implications of the 1918 Influenza Flu Pandemic.”

In 1985, Carolina elected its first woman student body president, Patricia Wallace. It was a campaign and election that paved the way for future student leaders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But with unexpected media attention and naysayers, it wasn’t an easy path for Wallace. In this week’s episode, we talk to Wallace about her legacy as the University’s first woman student body president, leadership styles and those who have inspired her.

After a decorated career in Hollywood writing for “Carol & Company,” “JAG,” and “Bones,” Dana Coen came to Chapel Hill to teach the next generation of writers for television, film, stage and web. As the director of the Writing for the Screen and Stage minor in the communication department, Coen inspires students to find their voices and compels them to say something meaningful in everything they write. One way he does that is a production called, “Long Story Shorts,” an annual festival of short plays written by students in the program. In this week’s episode, we talk about how the writing for the screen and stage minor prepares Tar Heels for a career in Hollywood and briefly preview the upcoming Oscars with Coen, the director of the program.

Although he’s researched sports marketing and the Olympics in particular for years, Carolina assistant professor of sport administration Jonathan Jensen is attending the Winter Olympics for the first time ever this month to do more than just cheer on Team USA. With the help of the Jim and Judy Cox Asia Initiative Faculty Research Travel Award from the Carolina Asia Center, which funds trips to Asia for faculty to learn more about Asian culture and to integrate what they learn into their teachings, Jensen will be conducting research on how brands leverage their sponsorships at the Olympics. In this week’s episode, we talk with Jensen about his trip to South Korea and how brands tap into exclusive Olympic sponsorships.

Despite being a Carolina faculty member for the past five years, actually being in Chapel Hill has become a rarity for Satish Gopal. Normally he's halfway across the world treating cancer patients in Malawi, where he is the only board-certified medical oncologist in the country of 18 million people. As the cancer program director for UNC Project-Malawi, Gopal is working to build the care infrastructure that will both help Malawi address its rising cancer burden and serve as a model for effective cancer care in low-resource settings across the globe. This weekend, however, Gopal will be returning to Carolina to deliver the commencement address at the Winter Commencement on Dec. 17 at 2 p.m. in the Dean E. Smith Center. In this week's episode, we talk about UNC-Project Mawali and the upcoming Winter Commencement with Gopal, UNC Project-Malawi’s cancer program director.

The first five years of a child's life is a crucial period where they learn the skills they'll need to navigate life. And for most, that education no longer happens primarily at home — it comes from childcare and preschool teachers. In this week's episode, we're talking about the importance of high-quality early childhood education and research done at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute with Margaret Burchinal, a research scientist at the institute and a research professor in developmental psychology.

With 1.1 million Americans already living with HIV and another 40,000 new cases every year, Carolina researchers have been working to hone treatments and find a cure for the virus for decades. Through partnerships with pharmaceutical and collaborations with units across campus, the University's HIV researchers are getting closer to discovering a cure. In this week's episode, we're talking about Carolina HIV research and the next step toward a cure with Nancie Archin, an assistant professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine.

For the past decade, artists and performers from across the country have been coming to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to participate in the Process Series and work on the final pieces of their performances. As Carolina’s Process Series celebrates its 10th anniversary, we talk about the series and how it’s been helping artists finish their work with Joseph Megel, an artist-in-residence in the College of Arts and Sciences’ communication department and the artistic director of the Process Series.

Genetic testing has changed the way doctors can treat their patients. By sequencing sections of a person's DNA, medical professionals can determine if a person is at a higher risk of getting a specific disease or disorder. But is our health care system — and the patients — ready to handle this new generation of medical care? In this week's episode, we talk about predictive genetic testing and how it's impacting doctors and paitents with James Evans, the Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, and the editor-in-chief of Genetics in Medicine.

Throughout his three-decade career as a professional artist, Patrick Dougherty has designed and constructed more than 300 stickwork sculptures across the world. Now, the world-renowned Carolina alumnus has brought his talents back to Chapel Hill with his recently finished "Step Right Up" sculpture, which will be on display outside the Ackland Art Museum for the next year. In this week's episode, we talk with Doughtery about his artistic process and his most recent sculpture on Carolina's campus.

As hospitals in rural communities around the country continue to close due to financial problems, thousands of people are being left without the medical care they need. With both medical and economic consequences surrounding the closures, the UNC Sheps Center for Health Services Research's North Carolina Rural Health Research Center is working to keep rural hospitals open and help those rural communities thrive. In this week's episode, we talk about rural health care and how hospital closures are impacting the communities with Mark Holmes and George Pink, the director and deputy director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research Center.

This week, Carolina will celebrate its 224th birthday at University Day. In this week's episode, we look back on the founding of the University with Jim Leloudis, the Peter T. Grauer associate dean for Honors Carolina, a professor of history and the co-chair of the Chancellor's History Task Force. Join Carolina in celebrating University Day on Oct. 12 at 11 a.m. in Memorial Hall. Governor Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s 75th Governor, will deliver the keynote address.

Consumers and investors aren't always totally rational when it comes to making financial decisions. When emotion seeps into the equation, all bets are off. To find out why our emotions tend to lead us away from making more calculated decisions, Camelia Kuhnen is combining neuroscience, psychology and economics to better understand how people use their brain to make financial decisions. In this week's episode, we talk about neuroeconomics with Kuhnen, an associate professor of finance at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about learning filling classrooms today. Is it better to cram a topic into one class period or space out the learning process over several days? Should teachers be focusing on student's learning styles? In this week's episode, we talk about some keys to better learning with Brian Cartiff, a doctoral student in the learning sciences and psychological studies program at UNC School of Education.