As Clark conferred 1,376 degrees to the Class of 2024 on Monday, May 20, at the DCU Center in Downtown Worcester, student speakers recalled the compassion and community found among peers on campus. "Being a part of a diverse community has taught me so much because it has allowed me to see the world through the lens of other people," graduate student speaker Gabe Spindel ’23, MBA ’24, told the thousands in the arena. Undergraduate student speaker Laila El-Samra ’24 encouraged her peers to think about the impact they can have on others. "Start small, maybe just one good deed a d ..read more

Below the surface of the soil, a diverse community of microbes — living organisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa — interact and play a significant role in breaking down organic matter and cycling nutrients. These microbial interactions can improve or, in some cases, impair the health and growth of plants. Although they cannot be seen with the naked eye, microbes could help solve a vexing problem exacerbated by climate change: By 2050, scientists and policymakers fear, farmers may not be able to produce enough food to feed the world’s growing population. “Even if we could feed the ..read more

Tools help us save time, freeing up mental space so we can accomplish more. But, the assistance of technological tools can become problematic, suggests Professor Eduard Arriaga-Arango, chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture. We expect devices like Alexa and Siri to respond to our every command, which can replicate slavery. “Slavery is a structure that considers human beings machines, or less than human,” says Arriaga, who cautions people to think intentionally about their use of technology. “We think we’re just inputting prompts, getting the results, and nothing more. But ..read more

Sometimes app developers create sneaky strategies to keep you on your phone longer. Other times, they create tools meant to help consumers protect their data or accomplish tasks. These mechanisms are at the heart of research by computer science Professor Peter Story and Becker School of Design & Technology Professor Kat Andler. The tools developers use to hook consumers are called dark patterns and can include tactics to keep a person playing a game longer, therefore seeing more advertisements and making the developers more money. “It brings out the passi ..read more

A moment of serendipity led Brian Woos ’16 to his career. During a student internship at a film company in New York, Woos walked into a room and saw a panel replete with buttons and wheels. Sitting at the panel was a colorist, finessing with shadows, highlights, and luminosity to ensure everything looked seamless on the big screen.  At the time, Woos didn’t know the colorist role existed. Now, he’s the one sitting at the panel, carefully tweaking elements like brightness and texture. “One of the most underrated parts of the job is seeing the creative changes,” says Woos, who works as a co ..read more

Sculpture Professor James Maurelle doesn’t work on one project and then move on to the next. His process flows freely. “I surround myself with materials and objects and work on them all at the same time. I’m like the eye of the hurricane. That's how I've developed over the years,” he says. “It's the closest thing to freedom that I've embodied in my entire life.” Maurelle, Clark’s first full-time sculpture professor, explains why he’s passionate about using recycled objects and the magic of keeping child-like play in artistry.  Challenge. Change. is produced by Andrew Hart and Melissa Hans ..read more

Award season is upon us, and three screen studies professors are sharing their favorite films of 2023 ahead of the Oscars.  “The Killer,” “Bottoms,” and “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” were last year’s cinematic standouts for professors Hugh Manon, Jed Samer, and Soren Sorensen. The three are hosts of the Clark podcast “Recommended For You,” and bring their film expertise — and opinions — to this episode of Challenge. Change. “I was coming into this call being like ‘Bottoms’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ are the same movie,” says Samer. “Maybe the truth of 2023 is that we are not going to ..read more

When English Professor Dianne Berg read news about a Duxbury, Massachusetts, mother accused of killing her three children, she thought immediately of two cases from her research. Berg studies representations of domestic violence and the literary appropriation of real stories about death, murder, and infanticide.  She’s analyzed the discourse and press coverage of Margaret Vincent, a mother of three who killed two of her children in 1616 because she believed that if the family didn't convert to Catholicism, they would all be damned, and of Andrea Yates, a Hous ..read more

Max De Faria ’20 can remember what it was like to not have enough food at home as a child, an experience that has empowered them to dedicate their life to anti-hunger work. De Faria strives to create an equitable food system — the process from which food starts as a seed, ends up on your plate, and returns to the ground. This mission steered De Faria’s work last summer, when they interned at Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic and helped prepare a brief for the White House Conference on Hunger and Nutrition. “I draw on my own experiences of hunger and poverty to encourage other fol ..read more

Determining whether extractive industries are an opportunity or area of concern requires a social and political discussion. Anthony Bebbington, the Higgins Professor of Environment and Society at Clark’s Graduate School of Geography and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has spent years researching the gains and losses that come with extractives, and the impact on communities across the globe. Though Bebbington grew up in a mining community, his path to researching extractives was indirect. Bebbington also acts as the ..read more