Climate expert to speak Feb. 1

CHAPEL HILL -- James Hansen, internationally recognized global climate change expert, will speak at UNC on Feb. 1.

Hansen comes to UNC as the Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. His lecture, "Global Climate Change: What Must We Do Now?" at 7 p.m. in Memorial Hall, is free to the public and no advanced tickets are required.

A public reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Hansen's new book is "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity."

In 2006, Time magazine named Hansen one of the world's most influential people. He is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute. His congressional testimony on climate change in the 1980s made him an early scientific voice that helped raise broad awareness of global warming. He created one of the first models of climate change about 30 years ago and has used it to predict much of what has happened since. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995, he has been an active researcher in planetary atmospheres and climate science for nearly 40 years, with the last 30 years focused on climate research.

Parking for the lecture is available in the Morehead Planetarium visitor's lot on Franklin Street and in commercial lots on Rosemary Street.

Anti-obesity grants awarded

CHAPEL HILL -- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded multi-year grants to 41 communities across the country as part of a landmark national program, based at UNC, which aims to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

The sites are funded through Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities, a foundation program housed at Active Living by Design, part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health. The program supports local efforts to improve access to affordable healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity for children and families.

Each of the 41 new communities will receive a four-year grant of up to $360,000 to craft innovative solutions aimed at helping children and families lead healthier lives. With nine communities named as leading sites in 2008, the program now encompasses 50 sites in more than half of the states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. With a total commitment of $33 million over five years, it is the foundation's single largest investment in community-based solutions to childhood obesity and a cornerstone of the foundation's $500 million commitment to reverse the epidemic.

2010-11 faculty scholars named

CHAPEL HILL -- The Carolina Women's Center at UNC has announced its faculty scholars for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Mimi Chapman, an associate professor in the School of Social Work, is the fall 2010 CWC Faculty Scholar, and Sahar Amer, professor of Asian studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the spring 2011 CWC Faculty Scholar. Both have been awarded funding under the CWC Faculty Scholars Program to pursue their research.

Chapman will study gang affiliation among middle school Latinas in nearby Siler City. Chapman's focus on young Latina immigrants will investigate the scope of this problem in the community and develop intervention models and strategies. Amer will explore the status of lesbianism in the contemporary Arab world, historical representations of alternative sexual practices in the Arab world and Western models of lesbianism/homosexuality. Her analysis of the emerging genre of Arab lesbian literature will be important to scholars and also has implications for gay and lesbian rights activists in the Middle East.