A laser therapy study, supported by UD’s Big Ideas Challenge, is being administered by DSI affiliated faculty member Roxana Burciu (left), assistant professor of kinesiology and applied physiology, and DSI affiliated faculty member John Jeka, professor of kinesiology and applied physiology (not pictured) whose research focuses on Parkinson’s disease (PD).  The goal is to improve symptoms by targeting brain regions affected by Parkinson’s, such as the frontal cortex, which supports executive function and memory and helps control motor behavior.

DSI affiliated faculty members Tarang Parekh and Daniel Harris recently published a cross-sectional analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey. The findings, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, underscore the urgent need for disability-inclusive reforms as the nation looks beyond the pandemic.

In a first-of-its-kind analysis recently published in the journal JAAC: Advances, DSI affiliated faculty member Tarang Parekh, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences, and colleagues at Houston Methodist Hospital and Harvard Medical School, examined the state-level prevalence of CKM syndrome, using self-reported data from the Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System from 2011 to 2023.

A new study led by DSI resident faculty member Kyle Davis examined survey data from more than 9,000 rural communities comprising more than 70,000 households in 26 countries in the Global South, a designation given to 134 states from Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. They then combined that data with global georeferenced datasets on irrigation infrastructure changes and found that dietary improvements vary depending on several factors, and the areas where irrigation expansion occurs do not automatically see an increase in food security simply because that area is growing more crops. This picture was taken during their dry season fieldwork in central Nigeria last March.

DSI faculty council member Allison Karpyn, professor in the College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences and co-director of its Center for Research in Education and Social Policy, has been appointed to Delaware’s Food is Medicine Committee.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory stands atop a mountain peak in Chile, from which its telescope and camera will capture extraordinary information about our universe over the next 10 years as part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). University of Delaware researchers and students, including DSI Associate Director John Gizis and DSI resident faculty members Federica Bianco and David Hong, have had leading roles in this project and anticipate many discoveries as scientists from around the world analyze the images and enormous amounts of data that will be available.  The Rubin Observatory’s telescope is equipped with the world’s largest digital camera, about the size of a small car. In this February 2025 photo, a team member helps to position the camera after it was moved from the clean room and attached to the camera’s rotator for the first time.