Natural Sciences & Mathematics - College of Arts and Sciences

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View a list of departments in natural sciences & mathematics.

Graduate student Liah McPherson has used drones to record the lives of dolphins and whales — and her time as an undergraduate researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill helped set her on her way. (photo courtesy of Liah McPherson)

Capturing the Lives of Sea Creatures

Liah McPherson records the lives of dolphins and whales — from Hawaiʻi to Antarctica. She’s now a master’s student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; she graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019 with a dual degree in biology and animal behavior and a minor in marine science.

Jared Richards holds a Eurypterus lacustris — a prehistoric, marine arthropod similar to a scorpion — specimen in the invertebrate paleontology collection at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. (photo by Melissa Aja, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University)

Bewitched by Invertebrates

Jared Richards studies bizarre and beautiful sea creatures over 480 million years old. At UNC, he studied quantitative biology, combining his love of science and statistics, as a Chancellor’s Science Scholar. He’s now a graduate student at Harvard University.

Carolina senior Shara He shows part of a data analysis group project she worked on this semester. She is one of the first students to graduate with a new minor in data science. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Data science minor graduates first students

More than 60 graduates of Carolina’s Class of 2022 will accept diplomas this weekend that include the innovative new data science minor introduced in the fall of 2021.

Thidar Aye -- in the lab -- smiles at the camera. (photo by Donn Young)

From Myanmar to Chapel Hill

Carolina Covenant Scholar Thidar Aye’s journey to Chapel Hill began in Myanmar. At UNC, she fell in love with research and hopes to one day enter a Ph.D. program in biology.

Daniel Wood as Ramses sits in the football stands.

Behind the horns

Senior Daniel Wood has spent the past four years as one of the most recognizable Tar Heels on campus without anybody knowing it was him. Ahead of his graduation this weekend, get to know the student behind Rameses.

Old Well in spring surrounded by flowers. By Donn Young.

Celebrated chemist Frank Ivy Carroll committed to ‘doing something good’

Frank Ivy Carroll (Ph.D. ’61), has more than 500 publications and 50 patents to his name ranging from treating addiction to the diagnosis of debilitating diseases, and yet — he calls his greatest achievement supporting graduate students.

Collage of different UNC classrooms after the COVID-19 pandemic

Cutting-edge classrooms emerge from pandemic

In overcoming challenges caused by COVID-19, faculty and staff have added and adapted technology to improve learning flexibility in classrooms across campus.