The Academy in the Public Square
Our Doors Are Open
The world needs new ways of thinking about complex problems. Yet, the unmatched potential for university researchers to generate solutions is often overlooked.
The Academy in the Public Square initiative encourages engagement between USC Dornsife faculty and communities beyond our institution. We’re swinging open our doors — becoming the go-to source for expertise. We’re offering new ways of thinking about complex issues affecting people and communities today. We’re communicating scholarship in ways that non-experts can actually understand. And, working with leaders across the public and private sectors, we are emphasizing the enormous value of research universities as society’s most productive and prolific driver of innovation.
Public Exchange
If your organization had a dedicated research arm with experts in just about any subject you could imagine, what problems would you be able to solve?
As the centerpiece of the Academy in the Public Square, Public Exchange amplifies social impact by making academic expertise more easily accessible than ever before. The first-of-its-kind hub connects leaders in the public and private sectors with the right team of USC researchers and streamlines the collaborative process, providing project management from start to finish.
Shaping the Conversation
USC Dornsife experts provide insights that shape and expand public discourse on complex issues of the day.
USC Dornsife Research in the News
USC Dornsife study reveals how protein droplets help cells master difficult DNA repair
Research uncovers a mechanism that protects the genome by avoiding catastrophic errors when repairing breaks in tightly packed DNA, a finding with implications for cancer and aging.
Why forests aren’t coming back after gold mining in the Amazon
While gold mining’s environmental toll is well known, a team led by USC Dornsife researchers has uncovered a hidden culprit behind the Amazon rainforest’s slow recovery: water loss caused by reshaped terrain.
USC launches $12 million Institute on Ethics & Trust in Computing
The institute, supported by funds from the Lord Foundation of California, is the next step in the university’s effort to enhance research and education under the Frontiers of Computing “moonshot.”
USC Dornsife’s Percival Everett Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The English professor’s novel James offers a searing retelling of a Mark Twain classic — and has now earned fiction’s highest honor.
Using environmental science to affect policy management: Karla Heidelberg
The USC Sea Grant director brings more than 25 years of experience as a scientist, educator and leader in ocean research, education, policy and public engagement.
How pro-immigration policies can win public support in an era of populism
A USC Dornsife political science professor explores how immigration policy design — not simply messaging — can win support across political divides.
USC Dornsife researchers develop tool to break brain circuits with molecular precision
The reversible method targets specific synapses without harming neurons, offering a powerful tool for studying — and potentially treating — conditions such as addiction, epilepsy and PTSD.
Breakthrough procedure opens new opportunities in quantum research
A new USC-developed technique enhances quantum sensing by counteracting the limitation of decoherence, unpredictable behavior caused by environmental noise.
What’s in a book? Often, a good friend
Reading offers unexpected forms of connection, as English professor Emily Anderson uncovers in her latest, Shadow Work: Loneliness and Literary Life.
Working on a problematic plastic: Megan Fieser
Megan Fieser, the Gabilan Assistant Professor of Chemistry at USC Dornsife, is working to resolve the vexing problem of plastic accumulating in our environment.
In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran – could a new nuclear deal be next?
Nuclear experts from the US and Iran are due to meet in Oman. The turn to diplomacy indicates Trump is erring against reviving a maximum pressure strategy with Tehran.
Attempt to conquer Greenland at your peril
President Donald Trump is interested in purchasing Greenland and annexing Canada, but would-be expansionists should consider the North’s past before making a costly mistake.
Q&A with Andrew Lakoff: Why planetary health is the first step to a sustainable future
An expert on how societies prepare for and respond to emergencies — from pandemics to climate change — USC’s Andrew Lakoff explores how our well-being depends on the health of Earth’s ecosystems.
Economist explains impact of Trump’s tariff plans
After recent tariff news from President Donald Trump’s administration, USC Dornsife economist Monica Morlacco discusses who the import taxes will affect and when — and what the long-term effects may be.
Dornsife Dialogues
Check out our series of stimulating online forums in which leading experts and distinguished alumni from USC Dornsife share new perspectives and research-based findings on timely topics. Now available in podcast form!
Complex Insights into Identity
USC Dornsife’s Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Sympathizer, contributes frequently to the public discourse about American culture — including pieces for The Atlantic, Time, The New York Times, and more. With his bestselling novel recently adapted into an HBO series, whole new audiences are engaging with his distinct voice.
The MacArthur Fellow Shaping the Public Discourse
In any given year, Natalia Molina can be seen in dozens of national media outlets making her expertise accessible to a wide audience. The Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Dean’s Professor of American Study and Ethnicity’s expertise explores current issues affecting communities representing many different backgrounds.
Molina’s work has earned her a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2020. The Los Angeles Times called her recent book, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community — which chronicles how immigrant workers shaped the neighborhood of Echo Park — an “essential Los Angeles book.” She was also part of the L.A. Civic Memory Working Group, a group convened by the mayor of Los Angeles’s mayor to make recommendations on how to preserve the city’s history.
Sought-Out Source
Ian Anderson, who recently earned his doctorate in psychology, explains how to navigate information on social media in published news articles and as a speaker at the Nobel Prize Summit. It’s work that earned him a USC Dornsife Communicator of the Year award.
Contact Us
USC Dornsife Office of Communication
1150 S. Olive St, 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: (213) 821-6797
Fax: (213) 821-6057
[email protected]