2021: The year in review

If 2020 was a 12 months of demise and despair, then 2021 was a 12 months of optimism and inspiration, when vaccine improvement and distribution provided hope that the world would start to emerge from the depths of the pandemic.

On the College of Miami, optimism and inspiration in 2021 got here within the type of groundbreaking analysis not solely into the virus however in different areas reminiscent of local weather change and Alzheimer’s. The launch of an formidable $2.5 million capital marketing campaign, a historic basketball win, a homecoming for a local son, and newly minted levels for hundreds of graduates additionally supplied momentum.

January

Miller Faculty of Medication researchers lead a singular and groundbreaking randomized controlled trial exhibiting that umbilical-cord derived mesenchymal stem cell infusions safely cut back danger of demise and quicken time to restoration for the severest COVID-19 sufferers.

The Cuban Heritage Assortment on the College of Miami Libraries acquires the works of award-winning Cuban-Jewish poet Jose Kozer, which incorporates his paperwork, papers, notebooks, journals, and printed works.

A gaggle of greater than 60 scientists, led by Lisa Beal, professor of ocean sciences on the Rosenstiel Faculty of Marine and Atmospheric Science, supplies recommendations to improve the Indian Ocean Observing System, a basin-wide monitoring system to raised perceive the impacts of human-caused local weather change in a area that has been warming sooner than every other ocean. 

Cindy Munro, dean of the Faculty of Nursing and Well being Research, is appointed to a four-year term to the Nationwide Institute of Nursing Analysis’s Nationwide Advisory Council for Nursing Analysis. 

February

A crew of genetics researchers with the Miller Faculty of Medication receives an $11.47 million grant from the Nationwide Institute on Growing old, a part of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, to steer a brand new collaborative study on Alzheimer’s disease risk in mixed-ancestry populations.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses and a number one member of President Joseph Biden’s COVID-19 response crew, speaks to college students and college members on the Miller Faculty of Medication as a part of Grand Rounds.

A College of Miami-led crew receives a two-year, $5 million grant from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being to review how wastewater can be utilized to assist predict coronavirus outbreaks.

Harold Long, founding father of United Black College students, passes away on Feb. 24. He was 73. A double College of Miami alumnus, Lengthy led a sit-in at then-President Henry King Stanford’s workplace in 1968 that helped pave the best way for the admission of extra Black college students on the establishment. 

March

Howard Schnellenberger, who led the Miami Hurricanes soccer program to its first nationwide championship in 1983 and laid the muse for an unprecedented run of success, passes away on March 27. He was 87.

A new study, led by scientists on the Rosenstiel Faculty of Marine and Atmospheric Science and printed within the journal npj Local weather and Atmospheric Science, supplies proof that people are influencing wind and climate patterns throughout the jap United States and western Europe by releasing CO₂ and different pollution into Earth’s environment.

To fulfill rising demand for complicated surgical procedures, UHealth Tower opens three new operating rooms equipped with state-of-the-art robotic surgical technology. The brand new 500-square-foot working rooms embody remote-controlled robotic surgical expertise for minimally invasive procedures, together with fastidiously designed anesthesiology gear, nurse and doctor stations, and huge show screens for observing procedures.

April

Jaelan Phillips and Greg Rousseau are selected in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, with Phillips going to the Miami Dolphins with the 18th general choose, and Rousseau to the Buffalo Payments with the thirtieth general choose. Their choices mark the primary time in Miami’s storied historical past that two defensive ends had been drafted within the first spherical.

Greater than 3,000 individuals end up to trip, stroll, run, or volunteer on the 11th annual Dolphins Challenge Cancer (DCC) event, which raised greater than $5.5 million for Sylvester Complete Most cancers Middle. A complete of 223 groups united as one to fundraise, together with College of Miami staff, college students, donors, and different proud members of the ’Canes household.

In a ceremony on the Foote College Inexperienced, Landon Coles, a Ronald A. Hammond Scholar majoring in political science; Ajiri Uzere, a political science and psychology double main; and Grace Tenke, a finance main, are sworn in as the University of Miami undergraduate Student Government president, vice president, and treasurer, respectively.

Two former U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies secretaries and a spread of influential leaders convene for the College’s 2021 The Business of Health Care digital convention to handle the sector’s restoration within the wake of the pandemic.

As a part of President Julio Frenk’s ongoing dedication to fight institutionalized and systemic anti-Black racism on campus and in South Florida, the Workplace of Civic and Group Engagement, Multicultural Pupil Affairs, and the Butler Middle for Service and Management launch the Racial Justice Pilot Grant Program. Groups of grant recipients, led by undergraduate and graduate college students, will collaborate with college, employees, and group companions to sort out a broad spectrum of points within the Black group on campus and all through South Florida.

College students in science and engineering disciplines earn prestigious National Science Foundation scholarships that can assist fund graduate analysis on a spread of matters, from local weather change to endangered species to wi-fi energy switch gadgets.

College students and college and employees members are honored for his or her impactful contributions to the College and area people throughout the Celebration of Involvement Awards hosted by the Division of Pupil Affairs and the Butler Middle for Service and Management.

College of Miami Trustee Charles “Chuck” Cobb and Sofia Mesa, chair of Pupil Authorities’s ECO Company, had been named the winners of this 12 months’s Roberta “Bosey” Fulbright Foote Prize, which acknowledges members of the College group who’ve made a significant contribution to the sweetness, significance, and way forward for the campus. 

Might

Laurie Silvers, the two-time College alumna, profitable lawyer, media entrepreneur, and philanthropist who based the SyFy channel, takes the reins as chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, turning into solely the third lady to steer the entity that’s accountable for governing one of many prime non-public analysis establishments within the nation.

The Miami Hurricanes earn a berth within the 2021 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship, marking this system’s forty seventh journey to the postseason.

Practically 3,800 college students are awarded levels throughout the College’s first in-person commencement ceremonies since 2019, with many taking part within the occasions at Arduous Rock Stadium.

June

Researchers on the College of Miami Miller Faculty of Medication reported that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 91 percent effective in stopping COVID-19 infections in totally vaccinated firefighters, well being care employees, and different front-line/important employees. Of their analysis, performed in collaboration with specialists on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and reported within the New England Journal of Medication, in addition they discovered that the vaccines are 81 % efficient in partially vaccinated working-age adults.

The School of Engineering launches the Department of Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, which homes aerosol science and expertise, water high quality, artificial biology, and supplies synthesis packages.

Three Miller Faculty of Medication physicians deploy to Surfside, Florida, to help within the search and rescue efforts on the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South condominium. Brandon Parker, an assistant professor of surgical procedure within the Division of Trauma and Surgical Important Care, and pediatric vital care doctor G. Patricia Cantwell work as members of the South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team/Task Force 2, whereas trauma surgeon Howard Lieberman joins the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Urban Search and Rescue Team/Florida Task Force 1.

Apple Studios acquires the rights to historical past professor Donald Spivey’s nonfiction book “If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige” for drama improvement with an eye fixed towards a sequence that can discover the epic story of Negro Leagues Baseball utilizing the lifetime of Paige as a backdrop.

College of Miami girls’s tennis gamers Estela Perez-Somarriba and Isabella Pfennig earn 2021 ITA All-America standing.

Pitcher Carson Palmquist is named a first-team All-American by the Nationwide Collegiate Baseball Writers Affiliation. Palmquist completed the 2021 season with an Atlantic Coast Convention-leading 14 saves. He wrapped up the season with a 2.22 ERA, permitting simply 11 earned runs throughout 25 appearances.

Cuban-born composer Tania León, the 2021 Distinguished Composer-in-Residence for the Frost Faculty of Music, wins the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her orchestral work “Stride,” which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.

Girls’s tennis participant Estela Perez-Somarriba is called the ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year in her sport, turning into the fourth girls’s tennis participant in league historical past to twice declare the respect. She additionally gained the award in 2019.

As a part of Global City Sampling Day, groups of College of Miami college students fan out throughout Miami-Dade County to take microbial samples on surfaces at every of the 23 Metrorail stations. Their efforts will assist create a map of the group of microorganisms that inhabit town.

July

Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the UHealth–College of Miami Well being System is ranked once more because the nation’s best in ophthalmology by U.S. Information & World Report. It marks the twentieth time, and the 18th consecutive 12 months, that Bascom Palmer has obtained the No. 1 rating for the reason that publication started surveying U.S. physicians for its annual “Finest Hospitals” rankings 32 years in the past.

Mary Beth Calhoon, affiliate professor within the Faculty of Training and Human Growth, is awarded a five-year, $3.8 million grant by the Institute of Education Sciences to review the impression and implementation of a center faculty studying program for college kids with and at-risk for studying disabilities.

Historian Michael J. Bustamante, a specialist in fashionable Cuba and the Cuban American diaspora, joins the College of Miami because the Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Research.

August

The Biden administration appoints Caroline Bettinger-López, professor and director of the Human Rights Clinic on the Faculty of Regulation, as a special advisor on the White House Gender Policy Council, charging her with helping within the improvement of a Nationwide Motion Plan to Finish Gender-Primarily based Violence in the US.

Yelena Yesha is appointed the first Knight Chair of the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) on the College of Miami. Yesha directs the substitute intelligence and machine studying program at IDSC and continues to function its innovation officer—a task she started in January 2020, when she joined IDSC as a distinguished visiting professor from the College of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Seven Miller Faculty of Medication students receive Dean’s Research Excellence Award in Medicine (DREAM) scholarships to have interaction in groundbreaking medical analysis throughout the educational 12 months. This system integrates the Miller Faculty’s excellent preclinical and medical coaching, rigorous analysis coaching, {and professional} improvement parts to reinforce the physician-scientist coaching expertise.

The College holds a series of town halls with the College group to debate the state of the pandemic, rising variants of the COVID-19 virus, the significance of getting vaccinated to guard oneself and others, and steps the establishment is taking to make sure a secure and fruitful fall semester.

September

In his third State of the University Town Hall, President Julio Frenk touted the College’s successes in coping with the pandemic, honored “unsung heroes’’ on the entrance traces who helped handle the disaster, and outlined main endeavors that can gasoline the long run.

The 12-acre scholar housing complicated Lakeside Village turns into one of many recipients of the coveted International Architecture Awards. Introduced by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Structure and Design and the European Middle for Structure Artwork Design and City Research, the award honors new and cutting-edge structure designs from around the globe.

Ali Habashi, award-winning filmmaker and assistant professor {of professional} observe on the Faculty of Communication, receives second place at the 2021 PIEoneer Awards in London for his Ocean Well being Voyage undertaking—a worldwide on-line instructional platform devoted to oceans and marine conservation that he produced, above and underwater, in 10 worldwide areas around the globe.

Two college members affiliated with the Faculty of Nursing and Well being Research are chosen for induction by the American Academy of Nursing (Academy). Internationally famend well being economist Felicia Marie Knaul is acknowledged as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy, and Mary E. Mckay, affiliate professor of medical and Wallace Gilroy Endowed Chair, is inducted as a Fellow of the Academy.

October

NewsVision, UMTV’s half-hour reside campus information present, wins Best All-Around Television News Magazine throughout the tv class of the distinguished Mark of Excellence Awards. The award-winning present covers native, state, nationwide, and worldwide information with supplies produced by College of Miami college students.

Forbes ranks the University of Miami among the top employers in Florida for 2021, marking the third time the College has been included on the listing, which is predicated on impartial surveys of staff. 

Throughout Zeta Tau Alpha’s annual pink fountain lighting in honor of Breast Most cancers Consciousness Month, Felicia Marie Knaul, a member of the Most cancers Management Program at Sylvester Complete Most cancers Middle, director of the College of Miami Institute for Superior Research of the Americas, and breast most cancers survivor, is welcomed into the sorority as an alumna provoke.

Guillermo “Willy” Prado, professor of nursing and well being research, public well being sciences, and psychology, is elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine for his scholarship in prevention science, and for his efficient youth- and family-focused HIV and substance-use prevention interventions, which have been scaled all through faculty programs and medical settings in the US and Latin America.

Scientists on the College of Miami Rosenstiel Faculty of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Shedd Aquarium publish the results of a first-of-its-kind study that exhibits which of Florida’s critically endangered staghorn corals can higher stand up to future heatwaves within the ocean. The collaborative research helps organizations which are working to revive climate-resilient reefs in Florida and supplies a blueprint for the success of restoration initiatives globally.

Wrongfully convicted of armed theft in a court docket of regulation eight years in the past, Dustin Obligation walks out of jail a free man, due to the efforts of the College of Miami School of Law’s Innocence Clinic.

November

The College of Miami publicly proclaims its most formidable fundraising marketing campaign, the $2.5 billion Ever Brighter: The Campaign for Our Next Century. The biggest of any non-public establishment in Florida, the marketing campaign is already accelerating the College’s drive to form a brighter future for college kids, the group, and the well being of the planet. It can conclude in 2025 when the College celebrates its centennial.

With the theme of “Convey the Beat Again,” the University returns to a traditional homecoming scene with totally in-person occasions from Nov. 1 to Nov. 6.

In an effort to additional place the College of Miami Leonard M. Miller Faculty of Medication as a worldwide chief within the area of urology, the Desai Sethi Household Basis makes a unprecedented commitment of $20 million to the Miller School’s Department of Urology. The Basis’s generosity will assist set up a premier Urology Institute throughout the Miller Faculty, which is able to speed up breakthrough advances in analysis, increase medical care, and practice future generations of urologists.

Recognizing Sylvester Complete Most cancers Middle’s enduring dedication to addressing the inequities that perpetuate cervical most cancers in South Florida and past, the World Well being Group (WHO) designates the College of Miami establishment because the first WHO Collaborating Centre for Cervical Cancer Elimination.

Dr. C. Ola Landgren—chief of the Myeloma Program and Riney Household A number of Myeloma Analysis Program, chief of the Experimental Therapies Program, and co-leader of the Tumor Biology Program at Sylvester Complete Most cancers Middle on the Miller Faculty of Medication—is awarded the Paul J. DiMare Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy, which is able to permit him to proceed his groundbreaking analysis.

Scott C. Brown, analysis affiliate professor; José Szapocznik, professor and chair emeritus, each of the Division of Public Well being Sciences; and Tatjana Rundek, professor and vice chair of medical analysis within the Division of Neurology, obtain a four-year, $3 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to find out if a excessive diploma of block-level greenness slows the age-related cognitive decline and danger for stroke and different vascular outcomes.

The Carmen and Joe Unanue Household Basis, led by alumnus Andy Unanue, donates $3.3 million to the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School in honor of Unanue’s late dad and mom, who led philanthropic initiatives in schooling and well being care via the muse that carries their names. The donation, matched by the Herbert Problem Endowment Present Match for a complete of $5 million, will strengthen the college’s capabilities to organize graduate college students to efficiently enter the workforce or advance their careers upon commencement.

The ladies’s basketball crew defeats the Jackson State Tigers 72-67 on Nov. 9 on the Watsco Middle to provide Katie Meier her 304th win as the top coach of the Hurricanes and making her the all-time winningest coach in Miami basketball history.

The College of Miami volleyball team earns a berth within the 2021 NCAA Division I Girls’s Volleyball Championship, marking this system’s tenth look, and the primary since 2017, within the event.

Nelson Dellis, a double alumnus and lecturer within the Division of Laptop Science within the School of Arts and Sciences, breaks the world record for the quickest time to rearrange a deck of taking part in playing cards memorized underwater. Dellis achieved feat on the College Middle Pool on Nov. 13.

December

Mario Cristobal, a double College of Miami alumnus who helped lead the Hurricanes soccer crew to 2 nationwide championships as a standout offensive lineman, is called the University’s 26th football head coach. A second-generation Cuban American, Cristobal involves the College after 4 years as head coach on the College of Oregon, the place he led the Geese to back-to-back Pac-12 Convention Championships and a Rose Bowl victory. 

Laurie Silvers, a double College of Miami alumna and chair of the Board of Trustees, and her husband, Mitchell Rubenstein, donate $2.5 million to the School of Law, persevering with their lengthy historical past of philanthropy to the establishment. The present is a part of the brand new fundraising initiative Ever Brighter: The Campaign for Our Next Century. 

Dan Radakovich, who excelled as director of athletics at Clemson College for 9 years and is likely one of the nation’s most well-respected athletics directors, is named vice president and director of athletics at the University of Miami. President Julio Frenk mentioned Radakovich’s “confirmed success, and the success that Dan has helped allow for student-athletes within the classroom and in competitors, is reflective of our values.” 

Erin Kobetz, vice provost for analysis and scholarship, professor of drugs and public well being sciences, and affiliate director for inhabitants sciences and most cancers disparity at Sylvester Complete Most cancers Middle, is called the John K. and Judy H. Schulte Senior Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. The endowment will permit Kobetz to proceed her analysis, which has dramatically lowered most cancers disparities in Miami’s underserved communities and led to Sylvester being named the primary World Well being Group collaborating Centre for Cervical Most cancers Elimination. 

Quarterback Tyler Van Dyke, who stepped up amid adversity to ship a standout freshman season for the Hurricanes, is voted the 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference Football Rookie of the Year. He’s additionally voted the ACC Offensive Rookie of the 12 months. Van Dyke appeared in 10 video games general, finishing 62.3 % of his passes for two,931 yards and 25 touchdowns. 

Gerard Schwarz, an internationally acclaimed composer and conductor who joined the College college in 2019; Marilyn Holifield, a trailblazing lawyer who has spent her life paving the trail to equality, tolerance, and alternative for all; and John Sexton, president emeritus of New York College, whose daring management expanded the establishment’s stature and attain throughout the globe, every share their recommendation on the University of Miami’s fall commencement ceremonies on Dec. 17, when greater than 1,100 college students had been conferred levels at three ceremonies on the Watsco Middle.