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Not just child’s play

For nearly 30 years, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek has advocated for the power of joy to enrich early childhood education. Named a “scientific entrepreneur” by the American Association of Psychology, the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in the College of Liberal Arts has dedicated her career to discovering the most effective pedagogical approaches for young children.

In January, Hirsh-Pasek appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the new edition of her award-winning book Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn—and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less. Originally published in 2003, this groundbreaking evidence-based resource advocates for unstructured and guided play as a more effective way for children to develop critical, social and language skills than using flash cards or memorizing facts. The updated text includes the latest research findings on how play supports learning and a new chapter on navigating digital media.

“Play helps children learn so many valuable skills,” she says. “They learn what we call the six c’s: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence. In the business literature today, we see that these are the skills that are needed in a time of AI. Computers will be faster than us and will know more facts than us. But they’re not going to know how to think, discover, create and explore.”

Hirsh-Pasek is also the founder of the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN), which seeks to bring playful learning interventions to cities and transform everyday landscapes, such as bus stops, playgrounds, grocery stores and more, into rich, educational opportunities.

In partnership with Watchdog Real Estate Project Management and Masters Group Design, PLLAN has launched Live and Learn, an innovative Philadelphia-based pilot program that seeks to advance education equity by embedding playful learning installations into affordable housing developments. Last fall, Hirsh-Pasek presented this model to Philadelphia City Council.

“Live and Learn shows us what we can do with architectural design that goes beyond functionality and moves into intentionality,” shares Hirsh-Pasek. “We believe strongly that every child deserves to wake up each day surrounded by opportunities to learn, to grow and to flourish.”

Izzy Lopez and Katie DuBoff

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (secKathy Hirsh-Pasek and collaborator Roberta Michnick Golinkoff talking to George Stephanopolous about their new book.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (second from left) and collaborator Roberta Michnick Golinkoff joined George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America on Jan. 27, 2026, to talk about their new book.

Photo by ABC/Paula Lobo

“Every child deserves to wake up each day surrounded by opportunities to learn, to grow and to flourish.”

—Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology

An illustration of a scale with people on one side and books on the other
An illustration of a square cartoon face wearing headphones with a stressed out expression on its face

Justice reimagined

At the core of Rachel López’s work is a belief that justice cannot be fully realized unless those most affected by the legal system help shape it. Acting on that conviction, the professor of law launched Temple Law’s Participatory Law Fund, a first-of-its-kind initiative designed to support collaborative research between legal scholars and directly impacted community members—especially those who have experienced incarceration, violence or systemic injustice.

López has already demonstrated the potential of this approach in her own scholarship. In “Redeeming Justice,” published in the Northwestern University Law Review in 2021, she collaborated with currently and formerly incarcerated people in Pennsylvania to argue for a fundamental human right to redemption.

The publication spurred a campaign to end life sentences without parole before the United Nations and sparked dialogue across legal and advocacy communities about the role of mercy and rehabilitation in the justice system.

At Temple’s Beasley School of Law, López teaches courses on human rights advocacy, public interest law and criminal law, encouraging students to consider how legal systems operate across different cultural and political contexts. She was recently named Temple’s inaugural Leonard Barrack ’68 Chair in Law in recognition of her pioneering work.

Lina Chowdhury Duffy, KLN ʼ25

Stress less at the dentist

For many people, the sound of a dentist’s drill can evoke feelings of distress, fear and nervousness. Now, a group of Kornberg School of Dentistry researchers are exploring the origins of dental anxiety and identifying ways to alleviate it. After evaluating patient-reported experiences, the research team—including Laura H. Carnell Professor and Dean of Kornberg Amid Ismail, Assistant Professor Eugene M. Dunne, and Professor and Director of the Center for Public Health and Behavioral Science Research and Chair of the Department of Oral Health Sciences Marisol Tellez—found that a cognitive behavioral therapy-based dental anxiety intervention reduced the need for avoidant coping strategies such as listening to music, reading, fidgeting or squeezing something. Because patients were no longer relying on coping strategies, their fears may have been reduced as well. The project was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and the findings were published by Frontiers in Oral Health. 

Ayana Jones

Improving pharmaceutical training in a global context

When students from Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine and the School of Pharmacy travel to Tamale, Ghana—the capital of the country’s Northern region—they build partnerships and systems that strengthen healthcare delivery long after their visit.

Through the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare Ghana, Temple faculty and students work closely with students, pharmacists and healthcare educators from the University for Development Studies (UDS) and Tamale Teaching Hospital in Ghana to enhance a pharmacy training program that addresses gaps between classroom learning and clinical practice.

Last summer, two Katz students, Anastasia Velikovskaya and Austin Patrick Malloy, and one School of Pharmacy student, Gabrielle Stuart, joined three Ghanaian pharmacy students from UDS in Tamale to develop a hands-on curriculum that uses patient-actors for pharmacy education training.

Their research study, “In situ simulation in pharmacy education to improve pharmacists’ patient care process,” demonstrated the success of the curriculum. Specifically, more than 90% of students perceived that the training program was relevant to their education and their future pharmacy practice, more than 80% of students reported feeling more competent in medication management skills, and more than 80% of students felt that they gained confidence in applying their pharmacotherapy skills and communication.

“Equitable global health research requires a context-driven and collaborative approach for bi-directional learning and long-term sustainability,” says Tina Tran, assistant professor of pharmacy practice. “The participatory nature of our research fostered ownership, built consensus, and ensured relevance to both local realities and global standards.”

Amanda Bednar and Amanda Hill

An illustration of the globe with a red dot marking the location of Africa

Turn down that racket

Pop ... pop ... pop ...

The ball bounces back and forth as players take turns serving in a friendly pickleball match.

But it’s not all fun and games.

A few years ago, a pickleball court in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia made headlines in The Philadelphia Inquirer when people living nearby began complaining about the incessant noisiness of the ball hitting the racket. It was then that researchers in Temple’s College of Engineering began investigating sound at the facility.

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Haijun Liu and PhD candidate Subhrodeep Ray are on the cusp of a solution in the form of an absorptive sound barrier.

Liu and Ray measured the decibel and frequency levels of the sound from the court while also conducting

interviews with pickleball court neighbors across the country.

“In talking to people not only in Philadelphia but in Arizona and California, we learned that the continuous popping sound is a big issue,” says Ray. “Some compared it to a form of torture.”

While current noise reduction products exist, Liu and Ray found they aren’t optimized for the unique problem of pickleball noise.  

The two worked to solve the problem for both parties: a new type of barrier that effectively absorbs noise without compromising aesthetics or safety.

Their sound barrier, made of acrylic plastic, consists of a perforated front panel and a solid back panel with an air gap between the two.

The perforation size and spacing, in addition to the spacing between

the two panels, has been optimized to reduce the sound of the specific frequency emitted by a pickleball hitting the racket.

As pickleball approaches 14 million players in the United States according to the USA Pickleball Association—more than double from the time the Chestnut Hill dispute began in 2022—Liu and Ray’s sound barrier may ease tensions between players and court neighbors across the nation.

Jonny Hart, KLN ’18

A comic illustration of a pickleball raquet and ball, with the word Pop! for the sound effect

More than meets the eye

As AI rapidly grows—a recent U.N. Trade and Development report projects the global AI market soaring to $4.8 trillion by 2033—the technology seems equipped to handle any task. Driving cars. Analyzing medical images. Making music. Having a conversation.

A professional image of College of Liberal Arts assistant professor Vlad Ayzenberg

Assistant Professor Vlad Ayzenberg found visual object recognition to be stronger in young children than in state-of-the-art AI models.

But a new study from Vlad Ayzenberg, CLA ’12, assistant professor in Temple’s Psychology and Neuroscience Department in the College of Liberal Arts, highlights a notable limitation of the technology and stark contrast between AI and humans as young as 3 years old.

Ayzenberg and researchers from Emory University compared the visual perceptual abilities of preschoolers and state-of-the-art AI models and found that these children outperformed the best computer vision models currently available. The only models that performed better were those with more visual experience than humans are capable of experiencing. The study, “Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children,” was published in July in Science Advances.

For the study, 3- to 5-year-olds were asked to identify objects from images presented at speeds of 100 milliseconds while their attention was disrupted by factors such as noise.

According to Ayzenberg, the study illustrates how cognitive and neural insights from children can be used to improve current AI models and inversely how AI models can eventually be used to gain insights into the functioning of the human mind.

“AI models are useful, but they make mistakes that no human would,” he says. “If we can understand how young children are able to visually perceive objects, we can then make the models more efficient.”

Maria Klecko

A concrete solution

Concrete is everywhere. As the world’s most widely used construction material, it forms bridges, buildings, roads and other infrastructure. But cement, concrete’s primary ingredient, accounts for up to 90% of the material’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Recent scholarly research from Mehdi Khanzadeh Moradllo, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering, could help expand the use of a more eco-friendly concrete alternative—carbonatable concrete.

Current methods for producing carbonatable concrete make it difficult to achieve high strength and durability, which is why carbonatable concrete is primarily used to produce CMU blocks (also known as cinder blocks) and other small-scale building materials that are non-load bearing.

In his latest research, Khanzadeh presents breakthrough findings that could one day lead to the sustainable material being more widely used in construction.

“I try to keep in mind, even if this is successful, is it going to be applicable?” Khanzadeh says. “Is this material going to be scalable? This is especially important for something like concrete.”

Jonny Hart, KLN ’18

A close up image of a concrete wall

Media matters

Lead with play. That’s advice from Klein College of Media and Communication Professor of Instruction Sherri Hope Culver, who outlines what children’s media creators should consider when producing content.

Her guidance comes at a time when the rise of streaming platforms has made more content available for children and parents than ever before.

“Other than family, what is the biggest influence in a child’s life? The thing that they probably spend the most time with is media,” says Culver.

Culver’s recent scholarly report “The Quality Question: Why Children’s Media Must Aim High” provides a thorough overview of 15 specific guidelines for global children’s media leaders as they work to create all types of media, from TV to podcasts to video games. 

She conducted the research during fall 2022 after being named one of 16 Fulbright global scholars. For the report, she traveled to England, Brazil and Australia, where she interviewed 80 media executives, TV producers and academic thought leaders to help inform these new guidelines.

“As a society, we always say how children are our future, and we want to do right by them, yet we create children’s media that we know is not the best for kids,” says Culver. “This report is meant to inspire us to aim to be better.”

Stephen Orbanek

Klein professor Sherri Hope Culver speaking during a Temple Talks event.

A recent report from Sherri Hope Culver of the Klein College of Media and Communication provides a detailed overview of 15 specific guidelines for global children’s media leaders.

Healing mode: on

A type of immune cells called macrophages, found throughout the body’s tissues, are often referred to as the body’s clean-up crew. That’s because they can switch between two modes: one that finds and destroys germs and clears the dead cells after injury and the other that helps with wound healing. How the switch is activated is not fully understood.

An illustration of RNA and a broom

Now, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine in the lab of Raj Kishore have discovered that a new type of genetic material, called circular RNAs, specifically circ-cdr1as, may play a role.

Their study revealed that this circular RNA regulated macrophages—keeping them in the anti-inflammatory mode after a heart attack, helping the heart recover.

“We are one of the very first to understand this new mechanism of how this cell switched into healing mode,” says Kishore, Vera J. Goodfriend Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Research, professor and chair in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, and professor in the Aging + Cardiovascular Discovery Center at Katz.

The research team investigated how much circ-cdr1as was present in heart cells after a heart attack. The researchers then overexpressed—or boosted—the circ-cdr1as in immune cells, injected them into the damaged part of the heart and viewed them using a fluorescent marker.  

In addition, they tested what happened when they delivered circ-cdr1as more broadly through a virus that can carry this genetic material into cells. Finally, they explored how circ-cdr1as work by turning certain related genes on and off.

Kishore found that circ-cdr1as levels dropped in macrophages and heart muscle cells after a heart attack. When they restored circ-cdr1as in macrophages and put those cells back into the heart, the macrophages stayed in their healing, anti-inflammatory mode. This improved heart function and reduced the size of the damage.

“This study is exciting because it shows we are heading in the right direction,” says Kishore.

Katie DuBoff

A cartoon laptop with a smiling robot face on the screen

AI won’t take your job; it will make you better at it

As AI advances and becomes more common in everyday life, employees in nearly every industry grow fearful that the technology will come for their jobs.

But, according to research from Xueming Luo, Charles Gilliland Distinguished Chair Professor of Marketing in the Fox School of Business, AI may instead enhance employee creativity, particularly among higher-skilled employees. And AI collaboration can help higher-skilled employees develop positive emotions in the workplace.

“In a nutshell, the myth is that AI will literally destroy all human jobs. But we try to demonstrate that this is not the case,” Luo says. “I think industries are going to find a new equilibrium. They will look to see where AI fits the most, not that AI can do everything.”

In their study, “When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity,” published in the Academy of Management Journal, Luo and his co-authors analyzed whether call center employees might benefit from AI collaboration.

But call centers aren’t the only industry where human-AI collaboration could thrive. Any job involving repetitive, codifiable tasks could benefit from AI assistance, Luo says. Healthcare is another industry that’s primed for AI assistance.

Luo even sees AI collaboration making its way into leadership roles in the near future. He believes managers will soon use AI assistance to handle the analytical, fact-based parts of their jobs, leaving the interpersonal and trust-building tasks to humans.

Jonny Hart, KLN ’18

An illustration of musical notes

Striking a chord

If you’ve ever wept to a sad song or spent hours dancing at a concert, you know how powerful music can be.

Temple Professor of Music Therapy Wendy Magee at the Boyer College of Music and Dance is tapping into that power by using music to assess consciousness in children and youth with brain injuries.

In a recent paper titled “The development and face validity of the music therapy sensory instrument for cognition, consciousness, and awareness (MuSICCA),” Magee and her collaborators demonstrate the face validity of a consciousness assessment tool known as MuSICCA. Face validity is the degree to which a test appears to measure what it is intended to measure.

The tool uses music to assess consciousness in children and youth aged 2–18 who have experienced massive brain injuries and disorders of consciousness, usually as the result of an accident. Relying on live music that is meaningful to the child, including their name and sounds that excite them, the MuSICCA gauges the child’s reaction and responsiveness to their environment.

This study demonstrates sufficient face validity for the MuSICCA to be considered an assessment of consciousness and awareness that seems appropriate for use with children and young people.

Since children in this population often have cognitive or sensory issues, motor disorders, and no verbal communication, it can be challenging to assess their levels of consciousness.

“Having a music-based assessment is really going to bring something to the team’s understanding of how a young person can potentially respond, how we might engage them, how we can get the family involved,” says Magee.

Kiki Volkert

Two Temple researchers in lab coats work with a syringe and test tube

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