The Academy in the Public Square
Our Doors Are Open
The world needs new ways of thinking about complex problems. Yet, the unmatched potential for university researchers to generate solutions is often overlooked.
The Academy in the Public Square initiative encourages engagement between USC Dornsife faculty and communities beyond our institution. We’re swinging open our doors — becoming the go-to source for expertise. We’re offering new ways of thinking about complex issues affecting people and communities today. We’re communicating scholarship in ways that non-experts can actually understand. And, working with leaders across the public and private sectors, we are emphasizing the enormous value of research universities as society’s most productive and prolific driver of innovation.
Public Exchange
If your organization had a dedicated research arm with experts in just about any subject you could imagine, what problems would you be able to solve?
As the centerpiece of the Academy in the Public Square, Public Exchange amplifies social impact by making academic expertise more easily accessible than ever before. The first-of-its-kind hub connects leaders in the public and private sectors with the right team of USC researchers and streamlines the collaborative process, providing project management from start to finish.
Shaping the Conversation
USC Dornsife experts provide insights that shape and expand public discourse on complex issues of the day.
USC Dornsife Research in the News
Beyond Disney: A 1616 portrait of Pocahontas shows how English colonizers saw Indigenous Americans
The English assumed people they colonized would convert to their way of life, including Protestant Christianity — an assumption reflected in Pocahontas’ portrait.
Is AI really ‘writing’? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said ‘no’
What should we call the words that this ultramodern technology produces? For clues, a USC Dornsife professor looks to some of the world’s earliest authors.
‘Dad brain’ is real. It’s reshaping our understanding of fatherhood.
We’ve known that having a child changes women’s brains. Now, research is finding it changes men’s brains, too.
Rare documents from National Archives’ Freedom Plane tour draw history buffs and more to USC
USC Dornsife professor Peter Mancall and his class toured the exhibit, which runs through May 3 at the Fisher Museum and features founding-era documents in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.
How AI and advanced computing are accelerating Alzheimer’s research
Cutting-edge technologies developed by USC researchers, including USC Dornsife faculty, are changing the pace and nature of Alzheimer’s disease discoveries.
Natalia Molina awarded 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship
The prestigious honor will advance Molina’s book project on the untold stories of laborers who helped to build the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Academic Honors Convocation celebrates USC scholars for innovative research and achievements
Several USC Dornsife faculty were honored for their research and contributions to the university including Kenneth Nealson, Emily Hodgson Anderson and Anna Krylov.
USC Dornsife Public Exchange welcomes climate leader with deep LA policy experience
Michelle Barton has led major environmental initiatives and will help guide work on shade, heat resilience and the L.A. River.
US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare
Some major events in the history of U.S.-Iran relations highlight differences between the countries’ views, but others have presented real opportunities for reconciliation.
If using ChatGPT is cheating, what about ghostwriting? The old debate behind a new panic
Has our culture’s begrudging acceptance of ghostwriting paved the way for everyone — not just the rich and famous — to offload the hard work of writing?
How the National Security Council typically functions to plan and fully assess risks when presidents consider going to war
The national intelligence community has seemingly been sidelined from Trump’s Iran war decisions — a far cry from previous administrations, writes a former National Security Council member.
Dornsife Dialogues
Check out our series of stimulating online forums in which leading experts and distinguished alumni from USC Dornsife share new perspectives and research-based findings on timely topics. Now available in podcast form!
Complex Insights into Identity
USC Dornsife’s Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Sympathizer, contributes frequently to the public discourse about American culture — including pieces for The Atlantic, Time, The New York Times, and more. With his bestselling novel recently adapted into an HBO series, whole new audiences are engaging with his distinct voice.
The Guggenheim Fellow Shaping the Public Discourse
In any given year, Natalia Molina can be seen in dozens of national media outlets making her expertise accessible to a wide audience. The Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Dean’s Professor of American Study and Ethnicity’s expertise explores current issues affecting communities representing many different backgrounds.
Molina’s work has earned her a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026 and a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2020. The Los Angeles Times called her book, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community — which chronicles how immigrant workers shaped the neighborhood of Echo Park — an “essential Los Angeles book.” She was also part of the L.A. Civic Memory Working Group, a group convened by the mayor of Los Angeles’s mayor to make recommendations on how to preserve the city’s history.
Sought-Out Source
Ian Anderson, who recently earned his doctorate in psychology, explains how to navigate information on social media in published news articles and as a speaker at the Nobel Prize Summit. It’s work that earned him a USC Dornsife Communicator of the Year award.
Contact Us
USC Dornsife Office of Communication
1150 S. Olive St, 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: (213) 821-6797
Fax: (213) 821-6057
communication@dornsife.usc.edu