Student holding test tubes and examining their content

College of Sciences News

The School of Life Sciences offers programs that meet the needs of students intending to enter the workforce or pursue advanced training in the sciences, medicine, and other professional and technical fields. We provide a well-rounded foundation in natural, physical, and mathematical sciences that can set students up for successful careers and professional programs.

Current Sciences News

Eric Chronister
People |

From early influences to defining academic choices, the College of Sciences dean's nonlinear journey highlights the power of mentorship.

Campus landscape
Campus News |

Some of the hottest headlines featuring UNLV faculty, staff, and students.

laboratory samples on back lit table
Research |

UNLV mechanical engineering lab creates 3D-printed synthetic sea lion pelvis, enhancing veterinary capabilities and countering ongoing beaching crisis.

Wendee Johns in front of wall of student caricatures
People |

Clearing obstacles and keeping complex research moving defines leadership for UNLV’s radiochemistry Ph.D. program manager.

Sznajder working in his lab.
People |

UNLV geneticist recognized as an emerging leader shaping the future of neuromuscular research.

woman in blue jacket leads group of student volunteers at water conservation center in north las vegas valley
Campus News |

Student-volunteers connect with nature and community during Service Day at UNLV's Center for Urban Water Conservation.

Sciences In The News

Las Vegas Review Journal

Throughout the nation, communities are divided on the rapid development of AI data centers that threaten to suck rivers dry and raise utility bills with enormous energy demands. In Boulder City, a short drive southeast from Henderson, voters will get to decide whether data centers are an acceptable use for a specific portion of city-owned land known as the Eldorado Valley Transfer Area.

Metro UK

Confusing calls for ‘priority boarders’ and numbered groups can make the process drag on — so it might surprise travelers to learn that there’s actually a tried and tested boarding system proven to make the process quicker.

KVVU-TV: Fox 5

Congresswoman Dina Titus is set to announce a new grant of more than $1 million supporting UNLV’s Instrumentation for Pathogen Detection in Water project on Thursday. The funding will be used to purchase new equipment that can measure pathogen levels in water and strengthen public health and water security efforts across Nevada.

USA Today

Airlines use slower boarding methods because they help sell perks like priority boarding and seat upgrades.

The Northern Miner

The hunger for uranium won’t abate anytime soon as the heavy metal’s spot price hovers near two-year-highs, but some geologists warn easy-to-mine reserves are shrinking. Enter what may sound unusual: mining uranium from ocean water.

Gizmodo

After decades of chasing after a rare hexagonal diamond, a Chinese team says their iteration of the elusive material is the most important yet.

Sciences Experts

An expert on the evolution of bird, bat, and insect species.
An expert in Mars geochemistry, astrobiology, water-rock interactions, and snow dynamics.
Brian Hedlund in an expert in microbial ecology at high temperatures, biofuels and genomics. 
An expert in earthquakes, structural geology, tectonics, and neotectonics.
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An expert on math, scientific computing, and deep learning.
An expert in geology, paleoecology, paleontology, and the history of geology.

Recent Sciences Accomplishments

Satish C. Bhatnagar (Mathematical Sciences) presented a paper, "A confluence of Hinduism and Judaism," during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion - Western Region, which was held (both live and on Zoom) on the UNLV campus March 13-15, 2026.
Mohammed Kaabar (Mathematical Sciences), has been selected as one of the 25 recipients of the 2026 Peer Reviewers Extraordinaire Award by MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching), a program of California State University, Long Beach. The recognition was announced during the OLC Innovate 2026 Conference, an…
Monika Karney, alumna Taylor Gerson, and Helen Wing (Life Sciences) published a paper in Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford University Press). Gerson completed her Ph.D. in December and is a post-doc at Scripps Research, San Diego, Calif. Karney is a self-funded MS student who works as a lab manager on Wing's team. 
Published in Nature Communications, a new study from Prasun Guha’s (Life Sciences) laboratory, led by Sujan Chatterjee (Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine) et al., discovered that the small molecule IP6 (phytic acid) acts within the nucleus and is essential and sufficient for activating the HDAC3 epigenetic axis. The study further…
Mohammed K. A. Kaabar (Mathematical Sciences) has co-authored a new research article titled “On Martínez-Kaabar fractal-fractional double Laplace transformation,” published in the Ain Shams Engineering Journal, an Elsevier journal ranked in the top 25% (Q1) of engineering journals with an Impact Factor of 5.9. The paper presents a significant…
Yan Zhou (Physics and Astronomy) received a five-year Early Career Award from the Department of Energy in the amount of $875,000. By integrating techniques from trapped-ion quantum information processing with the exceptional sensitivity of molecules, Zhou’s team will develop a tabletop experiment capable of probing combined Charge and Parity (CP)…