a set of model teeth with blue plastic gums

UNLV Newsmakers 2023: April

News highlights featuring UNLV faculty and students who made local and national headlines.

UNLV's School of Dental Medicine offers free clinics that UNLV offers to underserved rural residents. (Josh Hawkins/UNLV)

Winter’s chilly grasp on Southern Nevada extended into April, making for one of the soggiest seasons in recent memory – and with that came a deluge of insight from our researchers at UNLV. 

Will the extra snowpack poke a hole in our climate crisis? Was Lake Mead doomed from the beginning? Will the wet weather cause an influx of insects? Our experts helped news outlets find the answers, but were not limited to weather. 

Current events tend to heat things up, including a potential move to Las Vegas for the Oakland Athletics baseball franchise, a potentially drug-resistant fungus, and a bill that would relocate residents of a sinking neighborhood in North Las Vegas.

It’s only fitting that in the lead-up to graduation, UNLV buckled down and enhanced our understanding of the biggest stories:

Community Impact

  • Rian Satterwhite, director of the Office of Service Learning and Leadership, talked to the Associated Press about navigating some of the biggest barriers for people who are new to volunteering.
     
  • Clark County School District teachers can now earn a microcredential in economics from UNLV via an eight-week course that supports new legislative requirements for enhanced financial and economics literacy in Nevada schools, KTNV-TV: ABC 13 reported.
     
  • The Las Vegas Review-Journal, KSNV-TV: News 3, KLAS-TV: 8 News Now, and KVVU-TV: Fox 5 highlighted the unveiling of two new free clinics for CCSD students offered by UNLV Health.
     
  • The Las Vegas Sun chatted with UNLV School of Dental Medicine professor Jay Morgenstern about free clinics that UNLV offers to underserved rural residents.
     
  • KLAS-TV: 8 News Now highlighted GenCyber Camp, a National Security Agency and National Science Foundation-funded training program for CCSD high school students led by UNLV College of Engineering professors Yoohwan Kim and Juyeon Jo.
     
  • UNLV is one of the few universities in the nation offering a course to help military veterans adjust to being college students, reported KLAS-TV: 8 News Now.
     
  • A Nevada lawmaker has proposed a bill seeking to relocate 90 residents of Windsor Park — a predominately Black North Las Vegas neighborhood that’s sinking — and a documentary by UNLV’s Department of Film and William S. Boyd School of Law highlighting the homeowners’ plights was used in testimony: KSNV-TV: News 3, KVVU-TV: Fox 5, Nevada Current
     
  • The Nevada Independent, Las Vegas Review-Journal, KVVU-TV: Fox 5, and KTNV-TV: ABC 13 reported on the UNLV Immigration Clinic’s push for state funding that would allow it to stay open and continue offering free services.

Sports

  • If the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas, they’d join a rising tide of migrating sports teams, tech workers, and conventions to Southern Nevada. The San Francisco Chronicle tapped UNLV College of Hospitality professor Amanda Belarmino for insight.
     
  • Economist Nicholas Irwin also spoke to multiple outlets about the proposed relocation. KTNV-TV: ABC 13 interviewed him about the potential impact of a new A’s stadium on Las Vegas housing inventory and property values. He also chatted with the San Jose Mercury News about the true odds of the sports deal details being worked out, and the story was picked up by multiple Bay Area News Group sister publications.

Health and Medicine

  • As cases of C. auris — a potentially deadly, drug-resistant fungus — spiked, a UNLV-led team of Southern Nevada scientists released a new wastewater surveillance study that shows promise for helping health officials around the world get a step ahead of the emerging global public health threat. School of Public Health doctoral student Casey Barber and epidemiologist Brian Labus chatted with outlets including KVVU-TV: Fox 5, KSNV-TV: News 3 (twice), KTNV-TV: ABC 13, and the Las Vegas Sun. Labus also chatted with Medical News Today about Arcturus, a new strain of COVID-19.
     
  • Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine dean Marc J. Kahn and professor Lisa Durette participated in a KLAS-TV: 8 News Now special broadcast about the deadly impact of fentanyl on the Las Vegas Valley. Kahn also chatted with KLAS-TV: 8 News Now about rising C. auris cases and with WSFA 12 about the Alabama medical workforce shortage.
     
  • As summer drew closer, outlets turned to UNLV for help with heat-related stories.
    • KVVU-TV: Fox 5 interviewed Steffen Lehmann, a sustainable architecture expert, about the ways design can contribute to rising temperatures and deaths by creating an urban heat island effect. He also talked to Inside Climate News about car dependency and greenhouse gas emissions. 
    • Meanwhile, social work professor and homelessness expert Nicholas Barr participated in a KNPR panel about the heat threat for Las Vegas’ unhoused populations.

General Expert Roundup

  • For the second year in a row, the UNLV Rebel Girls & Company dance team finished first at the International Cheer Union World Championships: KSNV-TV: News 3 and Las Vegas Review-Journal
     
  • In the age of inflation, many travelers are bewildered by how much to tip, especially in foreign countries. Hospitality professor and tourism expert Amanda Belarmino shed light via The New York Times.
     
  • William S. Boyd School of Law professor Benjamin Edwards talked to Reuters and MarketWatch about a TripAdvisor lawsuit. He also spoke with the Wall Street Journal and New York Post about Twitter and other companies moving operations to Nevada.
     
  • Neuro Rehab Times interviewed psychology professor Dustin Hines about the dangers of Power Slap, a combat sport where competitors deliver open-handed hits to opponents’ faces. He and fellow neuroscientist Rochelle Hines also participated in a KNPR panel discussion examining the latest efforts to legalize hallucinogens in Nevada.
     
  • Aviation history expert and Honors College professor Dan Bubb talked to Travel + Leisure (twice) (thrice) about semi-private air travel, the best time of day to travel based on mode of transportation, and why planes are the safest option.
     
  • Historian Michael Green sat down with The History Channel regarding the casualty tally from World War I, as well as with Casino.org (twice) to bust myths about Strip casino revenue and a dead Nevada senator running for reelection.
     
  • Retail Dive turned to law professor Nancy B. Rapoport for insight on the Bed Bath & Beyond bankruptcy.
     
  • Political scientist Austin Horng-En Wang chatted with CNN, The New American, Epoch Times, and World Journal about Taiwanese politics.
     
  • Astrophysicist Jason Steffen talked to New Scientist about exoplanets.
     
  • School of Public Health researcher Louisa Messenger explained to the Las Vegas Sun, KVVU-TV: Fox 5, and KLAS-TV: 8 News Now how the Las Vegas Valley’s extended wet season might affect the potential for mosquito-borne diseases.
     
  • Was Lake Mead a mistake? UNLV hydrology professor David Kreamer talked to City Cast Las Vegas about the errors made when damming the river first started, the salty agricultural mayhem the dam created downriver, and what needs to change if we’re going to keep Lake Mead. He also recounted for KLAS-TV: 8 News Now a historic event when the Colorado River raged and shared comments about the Mount Charleston snowpack with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Topics:

newsmakers

Campus Units:

Service Learning & Leadership,  Division of Student Affairs,  Lee Business School,  Center for Business and Economic Research,  Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV,  School of Dental Medicine,  Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering,  Department of Computer Science,  Military and Veterans Services,  College of Fine Arts,  Department of Film,  William S. Boyd School of Law,  William F. Harrah College of Hospitality,  Department of Economics,  School of Public Health,  Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics,  Graduate College,  School of Architecture,  School of Social Work,  Greenspun College of Urban Affairs,  Intercollegiate Athletics,  Department of Psychology,  College of Liberal Arts,  Honors College,  Department of History,  Department of Political Science,  College of Sciences,  Department of Physics and Astronomy,  Department of Environmental and Global Health,  Department of Geoscience

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