USC Media and Public Relations

Featured Stories

The Wall Street Journal featured research by Valter Longo of the USC Davis School finding that short periods of fasting could help cancer patients better tolerate chemotherapy, and may even make treatment more effective. The study focused on a group of mice with cancer, finding that those who underwent fasting before chemotherapy had tumors that were less than half the size of those in controls.

Los Angeles Times ran two stories (second link here) featuring research by Dowell Myers of the USC Price School finding that Southern Californian cities are growing more multiracial. The study found that nearly two-thirds of cities in L.A., Orange, Riverside, Ventura and San Bernadino counties were multiracial, versus just more than half the region's cities in 1990. "In our society, in this era, diversity is a norm," Myers said. "It's an advantage the Los Angeles area holds over places that are becoming diverse but aren't there yet." KPCC-FM reported that racial balance will continue to shift in the future, though Southern California is in "a sweet spot for racial balance," according to Myers. The study found a decline in the white population and growth among Latinos and Asians. The story was also reported by The Huffington Post, CBS News Los Angeles affiliate KCAL-TV, Los Angeles Wave (in a City News Service story), LAist, The Glendale News-Press, The Burbank Leader, and Central News Agency (Taiwan).

NPR ran a column by Brian Lauritzen, on-air host for KUSC's L.A. Philharmonic broadcasts, who traveled with the orchestra to Caracas, Venezuela to perform Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony.

Business Insider ran a column by Morley Winograd, senior fellow of the USC Annenberg School, and scholar Michael Hais about millennial women having more opportunity for leadership roles. They cited Warren Bennis of the USC Marshall School, who co-authored a 1964 article predicting that future corporate success would be driven by a more democratic culture. "In the intervening fifty years, Boomer parents have raised a generation of women whose attitudes and beliefs are best suited to exercising the style of leadership Bennis accurately predicted would come to dominate organizations in the future," Winograd wrote.

Bloomberg Businessweek highlighted a master's of medical management course designed in part by Dave Logan of the USC Marshall School. The course has students find a jazz band in their classroom that performs poorly because all its members are bad leaders. Students discuss the organizational dysfunction within the band.

New Scientist featured research by Costas Synolakis of the USC Viterbi School and colleagues analyzing video of the 2011 Japanese tsunami in order to learn more about how to prevent tsunami deaths. The research team is now calling for cameras to be deployed routinely for tsunami monitoring. Synolakis has suggested an automated tsunami-monitoring system that could be built using existing harbor security cameras. "All we have to do is point them in the right direction," Synolakis said.

Computerworld highlighted a private cloud that supports the USC Digital Repository, storing more than 8 petabytes of data and hosted by Nirvanix. The cloud has the ability to grow to 40 petabytes of storage. Sam Gustman, executive director of the Digital Repository and chief technology officer for the USC Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education, said the cloud gives USC a cost-effective, safe way to store and move content. "The hardest part of this [cloud endeavor] is security policy; making sure that the service company matches our own security policies," Gustman said.

Live Science featured a study by Nathanael Fast of the USC Marshall School finding that the more power a business leader thinks they have, the worse they are at making decisions. "The overall sense of control that comes with power tends to make people feel overconfident in their ability to make good decisions," Fast said.

OC Metro featured Jody Agius Vallejo of the USC Dornsife College in their list of 20 Women to Watch, noting that the Orange County resident has a new book coming out called "Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class." Vallejo said what she likes best about her job is "Conducting research about social issues, such as the ways in which immigrants and their descendants are assimilating into American society."

The Union featured Gillian Sorensen, a member of the USC Annenberg School's USC Center on Public Diplomacy's Advisory Board, who will be presenting a lecture called "Women and Men Changing the World Together" for International Women's Day. The lecture will focus on her experience seeing both genders working in harmony internationally.