CLAS School of Art, History, and Design alumn Gary Freeburg (MFA ’78) finds beauty and stillness in Alaska’s volcanic landscapes. The renowned landscape photographer, who earned his MFA in photography at the University of Iowa, has spent decades documenting dramatic terrain shaped by powerful eruptions, including the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park. Freeburg sees serenity in places others might call desolate, capturing stark volcanic features in striking black-and-white and color images that evoke the calm of a Zen garden.

Voss, a faculty member in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, collaborates with researchers across the University of Iowa to study how lifestyle choices shape brain health.

Bin Z. HE, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, has been awarded the James Van Allen Natural Sciences Fellowship for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. This fellowship, which provides $15,000 to support a scholarly project, is a competitive award designed to encourage and support scholarly work in the physical, natural, and mathematical sciences.

As one of the first classes required for Iowa undergraduate students, the general education Rhetoric course requirement paves the way for students to enhance important transferable skills.

University of Iowa alum Kurt Smith brings Thomas Jefferson to life at Colonial Williamsburg, using his theatre background and historical scholarship to explore the complexities of America’s founding era.