Red Carpet Research

Pluck six random examples of research happening at the U and you may come up with topics as varied as drug safety, color theory, and the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Those, in fact, were just some of the subjects at the U’s inaugural RED Talks. Part of the university’s 175th anniversary celebrations, this evening of faculty lectures honored the U’s legacy of discovery and knowledge-sharing since 1850. Hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations, the event featured presentations by six U professors, who explained their research in the accessible, entertaining style of TED Talks. Check out these excerpts from each presentation.

“ ‘But where did York sleep?’ This question asked by my then 10-year-old son has changed the way I research and think about American history. York, an enslaved black man owned by William Clark, was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, yet his presence is either completely erased or grossly misrepresented in historical accounts. ‘Where did York sleep?’ isn't simply rhetorical—it’s a question about who counts and who matters in American history.”

WANDA PILLOW
BS'86 MS'90, Dean of the College of Humanities and School for Cultural & Social Transformation, Professor of Gender Studies

“Our minds love contrast so much that they enhance it when different colors are placed next to each other. Complementary colors—opposites on the color wheel—have the most contrast. I’ve looked at 400 years of art and found consistent patterns of complementary colors. This isn’t just an art rule; it’s the way our minds work.”

EDWARD BATEMAN BFA'85 MFA'03
Associate Professor of Art & Art History

“People increasingly see those with opposing views not just as political rivals, but as enemies. Yet we all hold misperceptions about the other side that largely cloud our judgments and affect how we see other people. When we truly engage with the other side, we begin to see that we care about many of the same things.”

SAMANTHA MOORE-BERG
Assistant Professor of Psychology

“We should be able to architect video game worlds like we architect bridges. We rely on scientific principles to predict how the bridge will withstand loads, behavioral principles to understand how the bridge will shape traffic, and aesthetic principles to make judgments about the beauty of these edifices. At the University of Utah, we are committed to using similar principles when we architect virtual worlds.”

ROGELIO E. CARDONA-RIVERA
Assistant Professor of Games

“The porous microstructure of sea ice is very similar to the porous microstructure of human bone. We’re using the mathematics that we developed for understanding how electromagnetic waves travel through sea ice to develop a totally new method of monitoring the onset and progress of osteoporosis.”

KEN GOLDEN
Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering

“Over 90% of drug interaction warnings given to physicians are overridden because the alerts are so common, and they consider all medications in the same class to have the same risk. We must do better. At the University of Utah, we’ve developed a dynamic tool that changes the paradigm on drug safety.”

DAN MALONE
Research Professor of Pharmacotherapy