Research News

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted thousands of jobs online, allowing employees to telework and avoid congested roadways. That’s good for slowing the spread of the virus, but new research from George Mason University also shows such habits could limit people’s exposure to harmful traffic pollution.

Around the world, environmental crises are making headlines, from the potential extinction of species and ecosystems to climate change. Students in George Mason University’s Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) are driven to make a change. This year five PhD students in the department received grants from the Cosmos Club Foundation to tackle a wide range of conservation efforts.

School of Business professor Mahesh P. Joshi created BiggieBills after searching for years for an interactive strategy game to use in his classes.

Saving an endangered species is possible, but it takes a village. Conservationists, including three George Mason University alumni working at the Smithsonian and a current student, are part of the team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC) working to ensure red pandas move off the endangered list.

More than 100 PhD students from electrical and bioengineering, data science, computer science, neuroscience and the social sciences, including some with disabilities, will be trained to use state-of-the-art data analytic methods and wearable computing technologies based on novel transdisciplinary competencies, applications and practice curriculum.

With a twist or shake of your wrist, your smartphone can interpret motion to take a picture, turn on a light, and more. Last year, George Mason University computer science professors Parth Pathak and Huzefa Rangwala were brainstorming how similar technology could help society in even greater ways. Their idea? To automatically translate sign language into text or speech.

Smithsonian Magazine’s editorial team was busy planning their January 2019 issue on America’s involvement in armed conflicts. They wanted to assess the current military and veteran communities’ opinions of hot-topic cultural, political and sexual issues—so they reached out to George Mason University for expertise in designing the poll and analyzing its results.

What would it take for one group in a conflict to be more compassionate toward their “enemy”? Researchers from George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) and the Department of Psychology are heading to Rondine—a two-year “laboratory for peace”—to find out.

There are a number of things you could be thinking about during your commute, from the day’s agenda to what podcast to listen to. For a few George Mason University professors and students from the College of Health and Human Services, the Volgenau School of Engineering and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, a less common topic is front of mind: the effects of traffic pollution on women’s health.

Across five continents, more than 100 Smithsonian research projects collect a continuous stream of data on wildlife using camera traps—motion-triggered cameras that clue scientists in on what’s happening when humans aren’t around. This semester, George Mason University senior Jamie Fetherolf is contributing to the network firsthand, by setting up camera traps in Washington, D.C., and analyzing the data with a Smithsonian conservation scientist at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation.

Horrified to learn about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, George Mason University professor A. Trevor Thrall was intrigued when he met John Fuisz, cofounder of SSR Industries, and learned that his company had developed a new strategy for finding social media attacks online.

George Mason University is now ranked among the highest research institutions in the country by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.