University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Senior forward Ronjanae DeGray has received Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week honors for her stellar performances against ULM and Louisiana over the weekend. The senior is receiving this honor for the second time in her career at Little Rock and the first time this season. DeGray averaged 17.8 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting an incredibly efficient 53.6 percent from the floor in her last four games. The senior notched her first double-double of the season with an 11-point-10-rebound game against Missouri State. In Thursday's matchup against the Warhawks, the forward scored 23 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. She continued her hot shooting with a double-double against Louisiana as DeGray pulled down 11 rebounds to go along with her 25 points, which tied her career high. The senior's performance led the Trojans to two impressive wins to open their conference schedule.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is researching how places of worship in Little Rock work with nonprofit organizations to promote community engagement and provide social services to vulnerable populations. The Little Rock Congregations Study is part of an ongoing research project led by Dr. Rebecca Glazier, professor in the School of Public Affairs, stemming from research begun in 2012 to study the effects of religious organizations on community engagement in Little Rock. The interdisciplinary project brought together 59 student researchers from UA Little Rock who gained invaluable research experience. More than 110 clergy members from congregations across Little Rock completed the survey, while 24 clergy were interviewed. Additionally, students wrote 22 community spotlight stories.

A group of chemistry students at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock found out that book smarts alone were not enough to overcome an escape room final project. Inspired to build teamwork amongst his students and to make class more exciting, Dr. Anindya Ghosh devised a unique escape room group project to challenge the students in his Intro to Inorganic Chemistry class.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Community Orchestra presented its fall concert on Dec. 2 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UA Little Rock Fine Arts Building. The Community Orchestra, directed by Dr. Victor Ellsworth, performed "Overture to Rouslane and Ludmila" by Mikhail Glinka, Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, Sinfonia in D for two Horns and Strings by Leopold Mozart, Concerto Grosso No. 8 by Arangelo Corelli, and Symphony No. 104 by Joseph Haydin.

Student musicians at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock presented the Jazz Ensemble's fall concert on Nov. 28 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UA Little Rock Fine Arts Building. The Jazz Ensemble, directed by Dr. Michael Underwood, played "Follow Me," "Told You So," "Blue Bossa," and "Daddy's House Party."

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Wind Ensemble presented its fall concert, "Under Cover of Night," Nov. 30 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UA Little Rock Fine Arts Building. Dr. Ken Goff directs the Wind Ensemble, while David Burkhalter served as the concert's student conductor. The Wind Ensemble performed "Antithigram for Band" by Jack Stamp, "Salvation is Created" by Tschesnokoff, "The Thunderer" by John Philip Sousa, and "Under Cover of Night... Into the Light of Day" by Stephen Mtlillo.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock students competed in 3MT on Nov. 7. The competition for doctoral students, which is branded by the University of Queensland in Australia, challenges students to summarize and present their doctoral research in a short, three-minute "elevator speech." Competitions have been held at colleges and universities around the world. Winners receive scholarship awards, with cash values of $400 for first place, $300 for runner-up, and $200 for the people's choice award, awarded by audience vote. This year's competition was won by Ali Abdulhussein, with Diamond McGehee as the runner-up and Brian Keltch being awarded the people's choice award. Other students who participated were Sudha Shanmugam, Evan Xiaowei Liu, Wei Dai, Ujwani Nukala, and Dileen Abdulqader.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock students put on a successfull Dance Harvest 2018 show Nov. 8-11, which featured choreography by dance faculty member Robin Neveu Brown and eight undergraduate Bachelor of Fine Arts students who are completing the required two-year choreography sequence.

The United Soccer Coaches recently released their selections for their 2018 NCAA Division I All-Region Team. Senior forward Arola Aparicio Gili received Second-Team honors and senior defender Liesa Seifert received Third-Team honors for the Southeast Region.

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock student spent the summer at a prestigious study abroad program where he examined Argentina's films to determine the role they play in citizens' LGBTQ rights. Dylan Wright, a junior Spanish and political science double major from Little Rock, attended the School for International Training through the study abroad program, "Argentina: Human Rights and Social Media," from March through June.

UA Little Rock Senior Veronica Marin was named to the CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-District First-Team

UA Little Rock volleyball players senior Veronica Marin and junior Carol Barbosa represented Little Rock in the Sun Belt's announcement of the 2018 Sun Belt Volleyball Postseason Awards. Marin was named as Player of the Year along with being named First-Team All-Conference and Barbosa was elected Second-Team All-Conference.

UA Little Rock Senior Taylor Lindberg was named the Sun Belt's Setter of the Week after the Trojan's pair of victories in Louisiana this weekend. The Benton, Ark., native handed out 40 assists this weekend, 26 of them coming against ULM, to go along with an all-around effort of 16 kills, 14 digs and four blocks. The setter also showcased her serving skills against the Warhawks, dealing four services aces in the match, three of them coming consecutively. Lindberg has tallied 2,989 assists for the duration of her career, 723 coming this season, and recently moved to second on the all-time Trojan assist list. This is the first player of the week award for the Arkansas native.

The following people recently were initiated into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock history professor and his graduate students are making headway into a mystery 99 years in the making. Dr. Brian Mitchell and his graduate students in the Intro to Public History Class have followed a trail of clues through cemeteries, public records, and databases as part of their search to discover what happened to a dozen black men wrongfully sentenced to death in a time of great racial turmoil in the aftermath of the 1919 Elaine Massacre.

Three University of Arkansas at Little Rock student journalists were recognized for their outstanding work with Diamond Journalism Awards, a regional competition sponsored by the Arkansas Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The awards, which were presented Oct. 25 at Little Rock's Flying Saucer, recognize outstanding journalism by professionals and students from Arkansas and bordering media markets in Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. The awards honor work published or broadcast between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018.

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor and doctoral student have received a $20,000 Google AI research grant for their research in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Dr. Xiaowei Xu, professor of information science, and Tolgahan Cakaloglu, a doctoral candidate in computer science, received the grant for their project, "Contextual Advanced Text Representation via Improved Deep Language Model by Utilizing Side Information." This advanced artificial intelligence technique can be successfully applied to many areas, including natural language processing, information retrieval, and search engines. Xu and Cakaloglu are currently researching how to improve a computer's understanding of natural language to improve people's experiences with search engines.

The Trojans had four players named to the All-Sun Belt First Team as well as one player named Second-Team All-Sun Belt. Arola Aparicio Gili, Doro Greulich, Liesa Seifert and Fanney Einarsdottir received first team honors for their excellent play to lead the Trojans to a historic season, tying the school-record for wins in season with 12. Jaclyn Purvine received second team honors after her stellar season as the first Little Rock player to score double-digit goals in a season since 2008.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock are joining the ranks of technology companies and universities like Google, Intel, Stanford University, and Harvard University to create the next generation benchmark suite for machine learning. Wei "David" Dai, a doctoral candidate in information science, is pursuing dissertation research on evaluating machine learning with imperfect data. Machine learning is a field of computer science that uses statistical techniques to give computer systems the ability to learn from data.

New research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock digs into assumptions about the influence of bots on people's opinions. Some people often assume that disinformation campaigns carried out on social media by bots (a computer program that can automate social media messaging and content engagement) were highly effective in changing people's opinions through repetition tactics. However, Zachary Stine, a UA Little Rock doctoral student in computer and information science, tested this theory through an experiment to determine how easily a group of artificial agents could be influenced under three computation models. Artificial agents are simulated objects in a computer program that represent simplified versions of things, people in this case, in the real world.

Rajat Emanuel Singh, a doctoral systems engineering student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, earned a scholarship to present his research on muscle synergy adaptation at the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference. Singh traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 17-19, to present his paper, "Muscle Synergy Adaptation During A Complex Postural Stabilization Task." Rajat was one of a select group of students internationally who won a $750 competitive scholarship from the conference organizers to present his research.

Tori Lasker was elected to the All-Sun Belt Third Team as voted on by the conference's coaches in the 2018-19 Sun Belt Conference Women's Basketball Coaches' Preseason Poll.

Senior forward Arola Aparicio Gili has received Sun Belt Conference Offensive Player of the Week honors for her impressive performances over the weekend, announced today by league officials. The senior is receiving this honor for the second time this season, as she has been an offensive force all season long.

Little Rock senior Ronjanae DeGray was named Preseason Sun Belt Player of the Year, in addition to being selected to the conference's First Team.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock students put on a successfull production of William Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It" Oct. 10-14 in the Center for Performing Arts' Haislip Theatre.

A group of student from Edma Delgado-Solozano's Spanish Introduction to Literature and Cultural Studies Class gave a presentation describing their development of materials for an open educational resource textbook, the Antologia abierta de literatura hispana. Students who participated in this project include Heather Rodriguez, Daisy Vasquez, Nallely Lopez, and Bryana Herrara.

Little Rock senior middle blocker Veronica Marin has been named the Sun Belt Conference's Defensive Player of the Week for the fourth time this season.

Little Rock's Shanieke Watson has been named the Sun Belt Conference Women's Cross Country Runner of the Week. This the second weekly award for Watson this season and the fifth time she's earned the distinction in her career.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is proud to announce UA Little Rock students who have enrolled for the fall 2018 semester.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock student teams took two of the nine final spots at the UA BlockChain Hackathon at the University of Arkansas held Sept. 28-29. The hackathon featured 21 teams from Arkansas colleges and universities and was sponsored by nine large businesses such as IBM, Tyson, Heifer International, and J.B. Hunt, who provided challenges focused on using BlockChain technology for teams to present during the competition. Each of the nine sponsors chose a team to advance to the finals where they presented their results against the winners of other challenges.