Paul Romer, a former assistant professor of economics at the University and currently a professor at New York University, has been named a recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

He and William Nordhaus, a professor of economics at Yale University, will share the 2018 prize, which was announced this week by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

The 12th Rochester Nobelist, Romer is the third 2018 laureate with ties to Rochester. Also among the 2018 laureates were Donna Strickland, who received her doctorate in optics from Rochester in 1989 and is now a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and Gérard Mourou, a former engineering professor and scientist at Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics and currently a professor at the École Polytechnique in France. They were awarded a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Nobel Committee recognized Romer for his work on the economics of technological change. “Previous macroeconomic research had emphasized technological innovation as the primary driver of economic growth, but had not modeled how economic decisions and market conditions determine the creation of new technologies. Paul Romer solved this problem by demonstrating how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations.”

The committee also cited Romer’s work to develop what is now known as the “endogenous growth theory.” First outlined in a 1990 paper, the theory tries to account the influence of new technology on economic growth and the economic forces that influence the adoption of new technologies.

George Alessandria, the chair of Rochester’s Department of Economics, says the members of the department are thrilled that Romer is being recognized with the Nobel Prize.

“Paul’s first job was at Rochester, where he did path-breaking work to figure out how firms’ decisions to invest in research and development lead to economic growth.” Read more here.

Former provost Chuck Phelps initiated “Lunch with the Provost” in April 2014 as a relaxed setting in which faculty and academic leaders from across the University could learn about interesting research and scholarship and interact with colleagues outside their normal spheres.

Such cross-campus mingling would engender more multi-disciplinary collaborations, he believed. At the very least, this series of talks, now named the Phelps Colloquium, has developed a reputation for fascinating topics and high quality speakers. One faculty member has described them as “routinely the best, most interesting and engaging talks I go to.”

One change this year: most dates feature two speakers rather than one, so that more faculty members will have an opportunity to present their research.

The talks begin with a reception at 4 p.m. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.

Here’s the schedule:

OCT. 17: P. Amino Alio, associate professor of public health sciences, “Religion, Homosexuality and HIV in Muslim Communities in Niger.”  Judith Baumhauer, professor and associate chair of orthopaedic surgery, “Patient-reported Outcomes: How They Influence the Care We Provide to Our Patients.” Evarts Lounge, Helen Wood Hall, School of Nursing.

DEC. 5: Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor of ophthalmology, “The Bionic Eye, Computer Vision, and Drug Discovery: The Gamut of Retina Research.” Kara Bren, professor of chemistry, “Making Fuel and Fertilizer from Sun, Air, and Water.” Feldman Ballroom, Douglass Commons.

JAN. 31: Donald Hall, the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Engineering, “Looking Beyond Our Horizons: Interdisciplinary Education and Civic Responsibility.” Pablo Sierra Silva, assistant professor of history, “Pirates, Captives, and the Digital Archive: Researching Afro-Mexican History in the 21st Century.” Feldman Ballroom, Douglass Commons.

FEB. 27: Elizabeth West Marvin, professor of music theory, “Experiencing Absolute Pitch: Insights from AP Possessors in the United States and Asia.” Gilbert “Rip” Collins, professor of mechanical engineering and of physics and astronomy, “Extreme Matters: A Laboratory Exploration of Planets, Stars, and Quantum Materials.” Max at Eastman.

MARCH 27: Huaxia Rui, associate professor at the Simon School, “Open Voice or Private Message? The Hidden Tug-of-War on Social Media Customer Service.” Maria Marconi, assistant professor of clinical nursing and the  specialty director of the master’s program in education at the School of Nursing, “Leveraging Generational Diversity in Our Classrooms.” Location to be determined.

APRIL 25: Bette London, professor of English, “Imagining the Great War in the Age of Post Memory.”  Second presentation by incoming dean of the Warner School. Location to be determined.

After two rounds of voting by faculty affiliates, the Humanities Center theme for next year will be “Communities.”

“I am using the plural form of the noun to suggest the multiple meanings and varieties of community across time and place,” writes Joan Shelley Rubin, the Ani and Mark Gabrellian director of the center, in her weekly newsletter. “In our call for fellows, we will include that language, along with a reference to ‘the forces that have challenged or disrupted communal affiliations.’”

The call will welcome projects that “investigate ‘imagined’ and ‘interpretive’ communities as well as social institutions.  Some of the many possibilities include the role of communities in the formation of ethnic, gender, class, racial, religious, national, and cosmopolitan identities; artists’ colonies; utopian experiments; book clubs; community music-making; professional and scientific networks; community ties in rural and urban settings; communal ideals and narratives of decline; and the sense of community as source and goal of political activism,”  Rubin writes.

The application guidelines for internal fellows will be announced shortly, but in the meantime, Rubin welcomes suggestions for the Humanities Center’s four-part speakers’ series.

Medical Center researchers have been awarded a $2.16 million grant to study disproportionately high HIV infection rates affecting women of color.

Women account for 20 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. each year, with the vast majority of those infections occurring in black and Hispanic women. Although they make up 30 percent of the female population, black and Hispanic women comprise 77 percent of all new HIV cases among women.

Gender-based social inequalities and men’s control over prevention methods, such as condoms, have traditionally limited the HIV protective options available to women. The development of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which can be taken as a once-daily pill under the brand name Truvada, provided a commercially available and highly effective prevention method that can be independently controlled by women. Yet, only 4 percent of females at high risk of HIV take the drug.

Despite being at the highest risk, black and Hispanic women are statistically the least likely to take PrEP.

“Women of color confront dual HIV-related health disparities: They have disproportionately high rates of HIV infection but disproportionately low rates of PrEP use for HIV prevention,” said the study’s lead investigator, James McMahon, associate professor and endowed chair for innovation in health care at the School of Nursing.

“Our study, conducted in New York City and Rochester, will help to understand the multitude of reasons underlying these disparities and provide evidence to develop tailored HIV prevention interventions and services for women at risk.”

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will enroll more than 300 women who either take or are eligible for PrEP and assess survey and health data quarterly over a 12-month period. Researchers will also conduct interviews with more than a dozen clinical providers to explore how providers’ attitudes, practices, and environments shape PrEP adherence and patient interactions.

The inaugural Biomedical Ultrasound Symposium Day on November 6 will include special lectures, graduate student presentations, a poster session, lunch, and networking.

The symposium, hosted by the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU), will be from 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Feldman Ballroom in Douglass Commons.

Frederick W. Kremkau, professor of radiologic sciences and director of the Program for Medical Ultrasound at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, will deliver the Distinguished Edwin and Pam Carstensen Family Lecture. Edwin Carstensen was the founding director of the RCBU and the Arthur Gould Yates Professor Emeritus of Engineering.

Theresa Tuthill ’84, ’87 (MS), ’91 (PhD), senior director of clinical and translational imaging at Pfizer Inc., will deliver the RCBU Distinguished Alumni Lecture.

RSVP to carlalboff@rochester.edu. Include your name, affiliation, any dietary restrictions, and whether you will be presenting a poster.

Judith Campisi, professor of biogerontology at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, will deliver the Underberg Lecture at the 23rd annual WCI scientific symposium on November 13.

The purpose of the symposium, which will be held from 9 a.m. 3 p.m. in the Class of ’62 Auditorium and Flaum Atrium, is to bring together scientists working in basic, translational, and clinical cancer research.

The symposium will also include oral presentations and a poster session.

Poster prizes for $100 each will be awarded to the best poster in each of these categories:

• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Blood Cancers/Blood/Tumor Microenvironment/Immunotherapy
• Solid Tumor Biology and Therapy
• Cancer Control/Epidemiology

In addition, a single grand prize of $500 will be awarded to an individual out of the group of winners.

Questions about submitting a poster or about the symposium in general can be emailed to Chelsea Costanzo or call 585-273-1447. The deadline for poster registration submission is 4 p.m., Wednesday, October 31.

The NSF I-Corps Upstate New York (UNY) Node is offering a short course program for researchers interested in exploring the market potential of their work and learning entrepreneurial skills.

Short Courses—geared toward faculty, doctoral candidates, and postdocs—are offered at no cost to participants and consist of both in-person and remote meetings over a two-week period. Short Course graduates are able to apply to other NSF grant awards, including the National I-Corps Teams program, which carries an award up to $50,000.

The next Short Course will kick off on Friday, Oct. 26, followed by web conference meetings on Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 from 2 to 3:30 p.m., and will conclude on Friday, Nov. 9. Candidates must apply online by Oct. 22. Contact senior program manager Matthew Spielmann at the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship with questions or to learn more.

Oct. 15: Deadline to submit letters of intent to apply for Center for AIDS Research funding to facilitate the design, conduct and completion of clinical trials aimed at preventing HPV-related cancers in HIV-infected individuals. Click here for more information.

Oct. 15: Pre-proposals due for University Technology Development Fund awards of up to $100,000 for development of a technology to a commercial endpoint. Open to all faculty, staff, and students.  Submit to omar.bakht@rochester.edu. More information can be found at Rochester.edu/tdf.

Oct. 15: Deadline to apply for AS&E PumpPrimer II awards for innovative and high-risk research projects. Click here for guidelines. Faculty in Arts & Sciences should refer questions to debra.haring@rochester.edu and those in engineering to cindy.gary@rochester.edu. PumpPrimer I and Research Mobility funds are also available and applications are accepted any time.

Oct. 15: Deadline for Central New York Humanities Corridor proposals. Learn more here.

Oct. 16: “Funding Opportunities at the National Science Foundation: An International Perspective.” Talk by NSF program officer Charles Estabrook on various NSF international funding programs. 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Goergen 101. Sponsored by the AS&E Dean for Research Office. RSVP at https://urceis.wufoo.com/forms/s10qt7360vbqaq2/ by October 14. For further information, contact Debra Haring.

Oct. 17: Phelps Colloquium series: P. Amino Alio, associate professor of public health sciences, “Religion, Homosexuality and HIV in Muslim Communities in Niger.”  Judith Baumhauer, professor and associate chair of orthopaedics surgery, “Patient-reported Outcomes: How They Influence the Care We Provide to Our Patients.” 4 p.m. Evarts Lounge, Helen Wood Hall, School of Nursing. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.

Oct. 26: Deadline to apply for the 2018 World Universities Network (WUN) Research Development Fund. If you are interested in leading a proposal effort, contact the University’s WUN coordinator, Ruth Levenkron.

Oct. 29: “The Future is Today: Transforming the Care of Childhood Onset Chronic Health Conditions.” UR Complex Care Center’s Second Annual Conference, co-sponsored by UR CTSI’s UNYTE Translational Research Network. 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium. Click here to register.

Nov. 3: 4^th Annual Immune Imaging Symposium, a forum to share the newest developments in understanding immune function through visualizing immunity “in action.” featuring a distinguished group of international speakers, an interactive poster session, and opportunities for oral presentations from students and postdoctoral fellows. Saunder’s Research Building. Registration is free but closes on October 22. Hosted by the Program for Advanced Immune Bioimaging.

Nov. 5: Deadline for collaborative biomedical research teams to apply to the Center for Leading Innovation & Collaboration for funding to write a Synergy Paper. Questions can be directed to synergy_papers@clic-ctsa.org. Click here for the RFA.

Nov. 5: Annual Medical Student Research Poster session, noon to 1 p.m. Flaum Atrium, Medical Center. Medical students present their summer and year-out research projects. Contact omecached@urmc.rochester.edu with questions.

Nov. 6: Inaugural Biomedical Ultrasound Symposium Day. Lectures by Frederick W. Kremkau, professor of radiologic sciences and director of the Program for Medical Ultrasound at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Theresa Tuthill ’84, ’87 (MS), ’91 (PhD), senior director of clinical and translational imaging at Pfizer Inc. Also includes graduate student presentations, a poster session, lunch, and networking. 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m., Feldman Ballroom in Douglass Commons. RSVP to carlalboff@rochester.edu. Include your name, affiliation, any dietary restrictions, and whether you will be presenting a poster. Hosted by the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU).

Nov. 12: Initial abstracts due for the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Scientific Advisory Committee’s (SAC) Incubator Program. See details and application instructions. Contact Anne Reed for more information.

Nov. 13: Wilmot Cancer Institute annual scientific symposium. Keynote speaker is Judith Campisi, professor of biogerontology at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Oral presentations and poster session. 9 a.m. 3 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium and Flaum Atrium. Questions about submitting a poster or about the symposium in general can be emailed to Chelsea Costanzo or call 585-273-1447. The deadline for poster registration submission is 4 p.m., Wednesday, October 31.

Dec. 5:  Phelps Colloquium series: Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor of ophthalmology, “The Bionic Eye, Computer Vision, and Drug Discovery: The Gamut of Retina Research.” Kara Bren, professor of chemistry, “Making Fuel and Fertilizer from Sun, Air, and Water.” 4 p.m. Feldman Ballroom Douglass Commons. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.