Research

Featured research news

An image of the globe with lines indicating digital and trade connections across continents.

New edition of book updates changing world of international trade law in free, open-access format

A stamp with the word “audit” sits atop files labeled “financial statement” and “accounting records.”

PCAOB risk-based inspection consequences evaluated using new model

A group of young soccer players huddle on the field of play.

New work highlights physical, mental, social benefits of caring climate in sports

A KU researcher outlines the research-proven benefits of positive sporting environments in a chapter for new edition of a sports psychology book.

Science and Technology

With wobbling stars, astronomers gauge mass of 126 exoplanets and find 15 new ones

New findings from an astronomer at the University of Kansas offer new understanding of the makeup of exoplanets and their star systems generally.

KU Engineering professor wins NSF CAREER Award for research into wetlands’ water-quality benefits

Amy Hansen has won a five-year, $577,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for her work to understand the role of vegetation in nitrogen exchange and removal in riparian wetlands.
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Cardiac Health and Technology — hand gesturing to image of heart

I2S scientist receives NSF award for research focused on cardiac tissue ablations

A computational scientist with the School of Engineering and Institute for Information Sciences (I2S) is part of a team of researchers that received $283,686 from the National Science Foundation to develop a scientific computing platform for characterization and monitoring of cardiac tissue ablations.
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Health and Well-Being

Political anger seems to override inhibitions online, study finds

The desire to express political anger seems so strong that it overrides the instinct, found in older research, to control one’s anger in public, according to a new paper co-written by a University of Kansas professor of communication studies.

KU research center to host global audience for premier developmental disabilities research conference

The KU Life Span Institute will welcome hundreds of scientists, students and practitioners for a conference focused on research in the field of intellectual and developmental disability from April 17 to 19 in Kansas City, Missouri.
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Axonal growth cones in C. elegans worms.

Study reveals same genes that can drive cancer also guide neural-circuit growth

In new research appearing in PLOS ONE, Erik Lundquist and colleagues from his KU lab have added new specifics to the role oncogene Src plays in our biology, showing the gene is required for normal development of the nervous system.
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Teaching, Learning and Behavior

KU research examines why athletes use authenticity in personal branding, how personal life influences brand

A pair of studies examines why athletes feel authenticity is vital to their personal branding and how an athlete's personal life influences their brand, including aspects of their romantic life. The findings both better illustrate how athletes use branding to advance in their sport and the racial and gendered implications of personal life on athletes' perception by the public.

Well-Fit Center for Youth Wellness and Fitness will take STEM approach to help children thrive

The Achievement & Assessment Institute has announced the opening of Well-Fit | Center for Youth Wellness and Fitness. The center is based on the principle that youths should be provided knowledge and skills through STEM learning and in-person programming to improve physical wellness and fitness.
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Liz Langdon, standing among library shelves

Lifelong learner is intergenerational visual art educator, advocate

Liz Langdon joined the faculty of KU's Department of Visual Art when she was 65 after an extensive career in art education. She writes of the "long hill" she has climbed and vistas yet to conquer for a chapter in a new book titled "Art Education and Creative Aging: Older Adults as Learners, Makers, and Teachers of Art."
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Arts, Architecture and Humanities

KU Libraries announce 2024 Whayne Scholars; visiting researchers’ presentations set for June 26

Alyssa Cole, assistant professor of African American studies at the University of Florida, and Brooke Thomas, African American history postdoctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University, are the recipients of the 2024 Alyce Hunley Whayne Visiting Researchers Travel Award from KU Libraries. They will visit KU from June 24 to 27 with a joint public presentation at 3 p.m. June 26 in the Johnson Room.

Kevin Willmott's new film shines light on KC civil rights figure

For his next project, Academy Award winner Kevin Willmott, KU professor of film & media studies, turns his camera on a Kansas City civil rights icon, Alvin Brooks, in a documentary about one of the city's first Black police officers and its first Black department head.
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Stephen Leisring at center in March 2024 in Madrid, recording a fanfare for Spanish television Olympic coverage.

Globe-trotting trumpet professor featured in Spanish Olympics fanfare

Musical talent, hard work and networking take Stephen Leisring around the world — recently to Madrid, where he played first trumpet on a piece for Radio Television Española's upcoming coverage of the Paris Olympics.
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Business, Economics and Innovation

China’s ‘puzzling’ sanctions approach decoded using new data

Jack Zhang, assistant professor of political science, introduces both a new dataset on sanctions involving China and a research framework for expanding knowledge about non-Western economic sanctions more generally.

People underestimate AI capabilities due to ‘exponential growth bias,’ study finds

In a new paper, Nathan Meikle, a KU assistant professor of business, examines the human biases that impede assessment of AI’s potential threats to humanity. His experiments find that people are prone to underestimate AI capabilities due to exponential growth bias and that they reject the aversive implications of rapid technological progress even in cases in which they themselves predict the growth rate.
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A stamp with the word “audit” sits atop files labeled “financial statement” and “accounting records.”

PCAOB risk-based inspection consequences evaluated using new model

Mike Wilkins, the Larry D. Horner and KPMG Professor of Accounting at KU, examines the effects of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's decision to move to more random-based audit selection. The findings suggest there are more benefits than costs associated with auditors’ responses to a selection approach that is primarily risk-based.
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Law, Politics and Society

Study finds US does not have housing shortage, but shortage of affordable housing

New KU findings counter a common narrative that the United States is facing a housing shortage. The study analyzed Census survey data to determine how many cities had shortages of housing stock and compared it to median income for an area.

Frederick Douglass’ relationship with audiences illustrates ‘outsized impact’ of public speaking in politics, scholar says

Public speaking was among the vehicles the writer and reformer used to tell his story of enslavement, to call for abolition and to defend Black Americans’ rights. A KU scholar unravels how relationships with his audiences are context for his ideological transformation.
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An ambulance speeds through a city street.

Attorney marketing tactics compared to ‘corporate ambulance chasing’ in new study

New research examines how social media announcements of plaintiff’s attorneys’ corporate investigations strongly predict future litigation. It finds how these attorneys’ efforts to recruit additional plaintiffs after a lawsuit has been filed signal that the action is more likely to succeed and result in more severe damages.
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