In the News
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May 12, 2026
“Companies in industries ranging from finance and tech to logistics and legal are rapidly embracing the promise of AI agents,” wrote Nigel Melville, associate professor of technology and operations. “But the flesh-and-blood workers they’re meant to assist — and sometimes replace — are struggling to adapt, hurting morale and productivity in the process. The result is a growing climate of fear about AI job insecurity.”
The Conversation -
May 12, 2026
New Labor Department data shows that 1 in 3 American men were not working or looking for a job in April. “It’s not all retirement and education. … There are guys just dropping off the planet. They’re not looking after their kids. They’re not in school. They’re not in the labor force,” said economist Betsey Stevenson, professor of public policy. “Across the board when we look at men, we see challenges that they face that leave too many men disconnected.”
The Washington Post -
May 8, 2026
“The current ham-handed approaches of federal and state governments and foundations to fund increased viewpoint diversity will do nothing for this problem because they fail to understand it in the first place. And they drive research-active faculty in the disciplines away from thinking about the solution,” wrote Terrence McDonald, professor of history. “But discipline-based faculty members are actually allies in the project of viewpoint diversity—because they live it in their own work.”
Inside Higher Ed -
May 8, 2026
“In science, as in life, progress depends on our interconnectedness. What affects one researcher, one project, or one community reverberates through all of us. Today, with global challenges and shrinking research budgets, our unity and advocacy have never been more important,” said Nisha D’Silva, professor of dentistry, who noted that the growing interdisciplinary nature of scientific work makes such partnerships essential for advancing evidence-based progress.
MLive -
May 8, 2026
Research shows excessive or unstructured screen time can have detrimental effects on children — harming language development, weakening social skills, triggering anxiety and depression. But the effects of school-issued devices and in-school usage on kids’ development are less understood, said Tiffany Munzer, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics: “These one-to-one laptops just, unfortunately, create a lot of temptation for students.”
The Washington Post -
May 7, 2026
Timothy Chupp, professor of physics, and a team of current and former doctoral researchers at U-M, are among a collaboration of scientists sharing a $3 million physics prize for their work measuring a fundamental property of subatomic particles with unprecedented precision. “Recognizing that it takes a village, in contrast to solitary genius, to do fundamental, cutting-edge, breakthrough science is a crucial and commendable message of this selection,” he said.
MLive -
May 7, 2026
“The negotiation with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have — and most people don’t even realize it’s happening. Before you ever open your mouth, you’ve already decided what you’re worth, what’s reasonable to ask for, and whether the conversation is even worth having. That internal dialogue is where most negotiations are lost. Not at the table. In the shower at 6 a.m., talking yourself out of it,” said Attia Qureshi, lecturer at the Ford School of Public Policy and Ross School of Business.
Quartz -
May 7, 2026
The western Lake Erie basin has experienced two minor earthquakes in the past couple of weeks, but they don’t signal a major risk for Michigan. “We do have these kinds of earthquakes in the region, but they are not occurring every year,” said Yihe Huang, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences. “We don’t really have major plate boundaries close to Michigan; it’s a more quiet space of tectonic motion.”
Detroit Free Press -
May 6, 2026
Plants better suited to cooler temperatures are slowly losing ground as the climate warms — and the change in many plant communities is being pushed by just a small number of species, according to researchers at the School for Environment and Sustainability. “We think this information will be very relevant for land managers and conservationists, especially looking into the future if they want to preempt climate change,” said postdoctoral fellow Kara Dobson. Associate professor Kai Zhu said, “it means you don’t have to give every species in an ecosystem the same amount of attention. You can zoom in on the species that really drive change in the community.”
Earth.com -
May 6, 2026
“Medical schools are vulnerable to financial pressures. They depend on federal money in a profound sense. It’s been quite effective for the federal government to threaten that funding to get medical schools to say, ‘OK, we’ll do whatever you want,'” said psychiatrist Laura Hirshbein, professor of the history of medicine, on the Trump administration’s crackdown on medical schools over race-based admissions, DEI initiatives, gender-affirming care, nutrition education, and more.
Inside Higher Ed
