William & Mary’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students put together an impressive slate of fun and educational activities for 2019-2020, and when a pandemic hit, they went virtual, barely breaking stride.

The W&M Middle Eastern Music Ensemble presents a small offering from Fall 2020

Four community builders will be honored by the university during its 2021 Charter Day ceremony.

With local schools closed for much of the fall semester due to the pandemic, Olwen Herron, superintendent of Williamsburg-James City County Schools, knew that partnering with William & Mary was one way the division could better support their K-5 students during virtual learning.

Melissa J. Moore ’84 is the chief scientific officer of platform research at Massachusetts-based Moderna Inc.. She is a key part of the biotech company’s effort to produce 200 million COVID-19 vaccines for the U.S. government to distribute to Americans across the country.

To better understand how politics play out online, W&M News spoke with Jaime Settle, associate professor of government at William & Mary. She is the director of the Social Networks and Political Psychology Lab and her book, Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

When the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the first coronavirus vaccine, Operation Warp Speed’s distribution plans sprang into action — and so did two William & Mary alumni.

A bird that since John James Audubon’s time has scurried under the radar of all but the most attentive ornithologists, conservationists and naturalists has received protection from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Growing up, George Monroe Jr. avoided the historical site that was just a few miles from his family’s property in Virginia, James Monroe’s Highland. “To be honest with you, the old folks, the family back in the day, they frowned on it,” he said. “Who really wants to go visit a plantation, knowing your family members were enslaved there?”

A new two-year grant from the Hewlett Foundation will help AidData bolster engagement with policy makers and influencers in Africa

Read about our 2020 virtual homecoming event "Untangling the Train Wreck Government Faculty Discuss the Presidential Election."

The William & Mary Green Fee, established in 2008 by student request, has provided over $1.6 million in funding for sustainability-related projects. This fall, the W&M Committee on Sustainability (COS) awarded Green Fee proposals for seven sustainability-related projects, totaling $24,038.

The idea seems to be gaining momentum among alumni for such reasons as: the opportunity to return to a familiar setting filled with treasured memories from the dawning of adulthood; to enjoy the cultural, recreational and intellectual benefits of living close to a university; and to strengthen bonds with others in the W&M community.

In its first public instruction opportunity, the university’s history writing center will guide middle school and high school teachers and students on the elements of effective historical writing.

When he started at W&M as a freshman with an interest in government, Aidan Gosset ’22 had no idea he’d end up creating his own major focused on education. It soon became his goal as he began taking classes within the interdisciplinary Minor in Educational Studies offered by the W&M School of Education.

William & Mary alumna Jen Psaki '00 has been named the next White House press secretary by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office in January.

Versatile and interactive, the GIS-driven storymap may become the quintessential communication medium of the 21st century.

Along with peers across the country, Anna Laws ’18 helped launch The FarmLink Project, a nonprofit that transports surplus produce from farms to food banks in need while restoring the jobs of farmers and truckers.

As we head into the holidays, W&M News spoke with Carrie Dolan, an epidemiologist, an assistant professor in health sciences and a member of William & Mary’s Public Health Advisory Board, about ways to enjoy the season safely.

A team of undergraduates at William & Mary has earned high honors in the world’s largest synthetic biology competition for engineering a potential COVID-19 therapeutic.

At a time when social interactions are limited because of the COVID-19 pandemic, one-on-one sessions between students and peer consultants through the Writing Resources Center provide a valuable human connection.

As part of the sociology department’s Social Justice Policy Initiative at William & Mary, six students are doing internships this semester with three local organizations working in the areas of voter registration, legal redress, educational equity and African-American history.

Shantá D. Hinton was a pioneer in the study of a group of enzymes known as pseudophosphatases, particularly one known as MK-STYX. Pseudophosphatases were long considered a research dead-end, but Hinton and a handful of other labs discovered that there was nothing pseudo about these proteins.

Mullen was recently quoted in Sputnik International, in an article discussing the Indian-American community and its impact on elections in the United States.

Matthew Allar, associate professor of theatre at William & Mary, completely reworked his Fundamentals of Theatrical Design course for this fall using digital elements

The human brain is hardwired for resilience, to adapt and make sense of the incomprehensible. For members of the military who have served in combat zones, that cognitive plasticity is tested to the limit – and sometimes beyond.

The following books by William & Mary faculty members were published in 2020.

Tanu Kumar joins Government as a Faculty Affiliate this fall, read on to learn about her research and experience.

Bryan Watts, the director of William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology, and Fletcher Smith, a research associate at the CCB, are part of an effort to share animal-tracking data to get a handle on what is ahead for the diverse animal populations of the changing Arctic and near-Arctic habitats.

On Wednesday, October 28, the Schroeder Center for Health Policy concluded its multidisciplinary speaker series on the COVID-19 pandemic with a virtual talk from Dr. Eric Pedersen, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and adjunct behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Pedersen’s research focuses on the areas of young adult/adolescent substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders.

The Piney Grove Preserve has shifted from receiving red-cockaded woodpeckers from other populations to donating woodpeckers. The movement marks a milestone in the recovery of the species and is a testament to the valuable work of W&M’s Center for Conservation Biology.

W&M’s Teaching, Research and International Policy Project works overtime to inform public about critical international relations topics in lead up to election.

When people think of the Colonial National Historical Park, they think of, well…history. But it has a feature that goes back even farther than the landing at Jamestown: fossils.

The American Physical Society has named William & Mary physicist Patricia Vahle as a 2020 APS Fellow. Vahle, a professor in the university’s Department of Physics, was nominated by the APS Division of Particles and Fields.

Amid the chaos of the pandemic, Mark Richard finds stability as William & Mary’s Class of 1939 Artist in Residence

A healthy diet means a healthier you, which also means a healthier planet, right? Well, it’s complicated.

As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine presses on throughout the globe, a team of budding synthetic biologists at William & Mary are researching another equally critical tool in the fight against the novel coronavirus – therapeutics.

Norfolk Delegate Jay Jones, the Fall 2020 Baxter/Ward Fellow in Government at William & Mary, will present a virtual public lecture on “Inside Virginia’s Voter Rights Revolution: How the General Assembly Increased Access to the Ballot.”

The Virginia Department of Health has five contact tracers working out of an office just off campus.

The Department of Anthropology honors the passing of Mary Beaudry '73.

William & Mary Libraries is adding a new space with people who love the outdoors in mind. The Libraries announced it will begin constructing a patio outside of Swem in December.

This fall’s pandemic conditions have brought new challenges as well as discoveries for students participating in the COLL 100 photography class, which Lecturer of Art Eliot Dudik teaches.

Minnesota Nice is about Lucy and Cumar—two teenagers who represent radically different corners of the same small town outside Minneapolis.

On Wednesday, October 14, William & Mary’s Schroeder Center for Health Policy continued its multidisciplinary speaker series on the COVID-19 pandemic with a virtual talk by Rashida Dorsey, Ph.D., M.P.H., the founder and principal of WisdomBuilds, LLC

Virtual Homecoming event, Untangling the Train Wreck: Govt. Faculty Discuss the Presidential Election.

William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe discussed leadership during a pandemic during her latest virtual community conversation Oct. 20 as she hosted Education Dean Rob Knoeppel, Law School Dean A. Benjamin Spencer and Arts & Sciences Dean Maria Donoghue Velleca.

Dr. Chinua Akimaro Thelwell has always found college classrooms to be one of the “few spaces in American society where people could have honest and informed conversations around race and racism.” When entering the higher education space as a professor, Thelwell wanted to incorporate those ideas and conversations into his teaching.

South Sawtooth Lake on Canada’s Ellsmere Island is deep, cold and filled with answers for climate-change scientists.

This fall, as new students began classes at William & Mary for the first time and returning students adjusted to a semester unlike any other, they were joined by three new faces — William & Mary’s new deans of the Arts & Sciences, Law School and School of Education.

Newly hired Assistant Professor James Skelton's research subjects often involve the quirky organisms people usually don’t notice or even realize exist. Read on to find out what a Quantitative Symbiologist does.

Every October, Virginia celebrates archaeology at libraries, museums, historical societies, clubs, and at active archaeological sites.

From professional football to board game design, William & Mary faculty partake in a wide array of pastimes to get away from the daily grind.

All three of William & Mary Professor Joan Gavaler’s dance classes this semester have a mix of in-person and remote students. This has made for challenging, but refreshing, turns in adapting her teaching.

John Swaddle, faculty director at William & Mary’s Institute for Integrative Conservation, and a group of graduate students have published a paper evaluating a new window-film product designed to reduce bird-window collisions.

A rash of deer deaths in the College Woods is likely the result in an overabundance of biting midges, according to Randy Chambers, director of William & Mary’s Keck Environmental Laboratory.

Dr. Lisa A. Jackson ’84 has conducted numerous vaccine studies, but the task before her in March was different — the timing compressed, the stakes higher — when her team launched one of the first human clinical trials for a vaccine to block infection from the virus that causes COVID-19.

On Monday, September 28, the Schroeder Center for Health Policy hosted a virtual panel for 30 students interested in pursuing a health policy career.

Ever since COVID-19 forced their voices and instruments apart in March, William & Mary musicians have been finding ways to bring them back together for virtual audiences.

Dan Cristol is the co-editor of a special issue of the journal Ecotoxicology, along with David Evers of the Biodiversity Research Institute.

The 2020 Art History majors' student-curated the exhibition, SCALES OF CHAOS - The Dance of Art and Contemporary Science now online!

Construction on William & Mary’s new performing arts facilities is continuing this fall after being delayed early in the calendar year due to unforeseen increases in construction costs.

On Wednesday, September 23, the Schroeder Center for Health Policy continued its multidisciplinary speaker series on the COVID-19 pandemic with a virtual talk from Virginia’s Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Resources, Marvin Figueroa.

In her article, “A Brief Guide to 21st-Century Blackface,” published on September 25th, New York Times writer Aisha Harris explores numerous cases in which Hollywood has utilized blackface, quoting Professor Arthur Knight's book, "Disintegrating the Musical: Black Performance and American Musical Film."

This past summer, four students from Professor Melanie Dawson’s Twentieth Century Women Authors class were given the opportunity to work with her on a Definitive Edition Lab focused on Edith Wharton’s 1925 novel The Mother’s Recompense. The authors of this piece were lucky enough to be two of those students. While Professor Dawson has been working on this edition for the Oxford University Press for four years, we only joined for five weeks. Though the pandemic created more challenges than expected, we were determined to make the most of our short time together. So, what is a Definitive Edition Lab and how does one work in one? And how does a pandemic complicate that work?

Government Professors Peterson, Tierney & Maliniak publish a new book called Bridging the Theory-Practice Divide in International Relations. Book published by Georgetown University Press.

As we sheltered in place and at home, we kept our ensemble humming and our instruments in tune

Professor Mackenzie Israel-Trummel joins the Government Department faculty in time for the Fall 2020 semester.