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How would one even begin the task of adapting The Odyssey, Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old poem, to the big screen in 2026? We’re finding out as Academy Award-winning director Christopher Nolan brings the epic story of the hero Odysseus on his decade-long journey home after the Trojan War to modern audiences, including some who may never have read the classic story. As a professor of Great Texts at Baylor University, Sarah-Jane (SJ) Murray, Ph.D., has spent most of her life reading and analyzing ancient texts like The Odyssey and teaching a popular course in the Honors College on the “Intellectual Tradition of the Ancient World.” But she’s also a screenwriter and filmmaker who works with modern media and technologies to invite new audiences into the “Great Conversation” that spans millennia. Baylor Media & Public Relations spoke with SJ Murray about her approach to The Odyssey on the big screen, why this ancient story still resonates with readers – and now viewers – today and the creation of The Greats Story Lab that breathes new life into ancient wisdom from yesterday’s great books for today’s digital world. Q: You’ve described The Odyssey by Homer as “one of the greatest journeys ever told,” but it’s also a story that has us ponder some of life’s deepest questions. Why does The Odyssey, written nearly 3,000 years ago, continue to speak to us today? SJ Murray: This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. At the end of the day, there are stories that are here for now, maybe entertain us in the day-to-day, or distract us and provide a little bit of relief from the difficulties of life. But then there are these enduring tales that challenge us to ask about timeless questions that never go away. I watch my students go through this in the classroom all the time, even the ones who have encountered maybe parts of The Odyssey in high school, and they're thinking, why am I reading this again? And then I watched them fall in love with it for the first time. It's not just that the story endures; it's that we can revisit it at different times in our lives, and we find new answers. Or if we're lucky and we're curious, we find new questions to ask about who we are. So there's all kinds of themes that help us in this, but at the end of the day, this is a story about someone who can't go home. Q: That desire to “go home” is a universal theme we all can recognize, whether we’ve read the book or not. It's not that easy to come home from war and from great trial. You're no longer the same person you were when you left, so when we meet the great hero for the first time – and we don't meet him at the beginning of the book – he’s weeping. There are always a few students in the class who say, this is just not how I would think of Odysseus. And the Greeks wouldn't have either. This is the great hero of the battle of Troy, and yet when we meet him, he's a broken man, war has taken its toll on him and so has separation from his community, and he yearns to go home. The person holding him hostage has offered him immortality, and unlike, let's say the Interview with a Vampire interviewer, who wants that immortality more than anything else, Odysseus just wants to be human, knowing that he will die. The Odyssey is a book about challenging us to live well, because life is short, and there will be trials, there will be challenges, and as we see Odysseus wrestle with them, including his own great pride, we have a chance to learn lessons from him and to forge our own characters alongside him. There's the adventure, for sure, but there's an incredible part of the book that forms us as people who think about restraint, and what does a virtue like humility look like? What does a virtue like courage look like? All of these are questions that help us live more fruitful lives if we seek out the answers, and there's no easy answer, so we have to keep revisiting these questions, and a book like The Odyssey invites us into that same quest, so that we, too, can find the peace and rest of finally being home again. That really inspires me. Q: As a professor of Great Texts who also teaches in film & digital media, how should moviegoers who have never read The Odyssey engage with the story? SJ Murray: This is such a great thing to think about because there's a lot of noise right now on the internet. Read the book first, read the book after. And I think it's okay to approach it from many different ways. My advice would be to remember, and I say this as a positive thing, that a movie is a work of art in its own right, and it is an interpretation in its own right. So I do not presume to tell anybody what they should do, but I can tell you what I do, and that is I will be going in, and I will be excited to see how Christopher Nolan adapts it. My hope is that the truth and the spirit and the themes of The Odyssey are alive and well, and I expect to see some things that delight and surprise me. Q: You're a medieval scholar and a filmmaker, so you have an interesting perspective on film adaptations of ancient stories. During medieval times, stories were told to audiences – and they changed with each telling. And that was okay! SJ Murray: Maybe I have had many years on my side to train me to think about stories in this way, because in the Middle Ages, that I studied in graduate school, it was sort of insulting if somebody copied your story verbatim. Think about this. This is all pre-printing press, so people would expand dialogue, or add a little scene, or take something out that they didn't like, or add a love interest. This happened all the time in medieval storytelling, and the idea was that the story had to be alive, it had to breathe, it had to grow. So if we go in expecting the story I see play in my head, then we're more at risk of maybe being disappointed. I did this when I went in to watch “The Lord of the Rings.” I was like, I want to see what Peter Jackson did with one of my favorite books of all time. And I was delighted, and I wanted to read the book again. I think that if you go see The Odyssey and want to be surprised and delighted and to feel that Homer is alive, then that is a good thing. Q: Do audiences have to choose between the movie and the book? SJ Murray: I would not presume to say I watched the movie, therefore I have read the book because they are two different things. Nolan has to be allowed the freedom to create his work of art, and Homer's poem has to live on in its own right that deserves our attention today as well. The two things can be true. I can love the movie, and I can love the old book. I want to live in a world where we can enjoy both because the reality today is that the greatest gateway into reading a book for a young person is going to be a great movie or something that they come across on Instagram. I want them to find their way back into the book, and we have to find ways to issue that invitation today in new ways. Q: You recently published an essay in the Sunday New York Times about our modern crisis of attention and how advice from the Roman philosopher Seneca from 2,000 years ago can help us reclaim wisdom and avoid distraction today. Can ancient stories brought to life on the big screen ignite a reading journey in the classics like The Odyssey? I would just say that if you love a story and you love a book, a far more powerful way for people to read with joy and gusto again is to hear about it from another human being. If you and I were not here talking today about this, and I said to you, one of my favorite books of all time that really changed my life is Homer's Odyssey. I got you a copy, and no pressure, give it to somebody else if you don't want to read it, but I think you'd really enjoy it. It really speaks to something you're going through right now. The chance of your friend reading that book just went up astronomically. And that's what it means to steward bookish culture well in our digital age. We have to remember that books are things shared person to person, and stories are things shared person to person. So if you have a grandkid right now, and you love The Odyssey, they will love to receive it from you as a gift, and they will probably love it all the more because their grandfather or grandmother gave it to them. Don't underestimate the gift of your love of a book, sharing it verbally with somebody else. It might be the little spark they need to turn that page and start reading. Q: Director Christopher Nolan spoke recently to The New York Times about challenging himself with an ancient story like The Odyssey that resonates with our culture today. How do you foresee viewing the film yourself as both a filmmaker and Great Texts scholar? SJ Murray: I learned this from a late mentor, Robert Fagles, who was a great translator of Homer. In my first year or second year at Baylor, he came to Baylor to give a lecture on campus, and I asked him what he thought about the film, “Troy.” I expected him to be like, oh, they really should have worked harder on making that more exact or something. And I just remember this huge smile came over his face, and he was just sort of looking out in front of him, thinking, and he said, “Well, Sarah Jane, it's just… it's wonderful. The stories are alive. People are talking about them, they're watching them, people are reading them again. Homer would be so pleased.” And I remember in that moment, I told myself, when a movie comes out about a book I care about, I want to be like Bob Fagles. I want to be excited for the movie. How lucky are we that in our lifetime, an amazing director like Christopher Nolan has chosen to bring Homer back to life for us. That's amazing. It's wondrous. I'm so excited. The best advice I can give anyone, and this is what I do myself every time I start a movie and every time I start a book. I'm going to turn off my inner critic when I walk in. When the lights go down, that is a sign for me to be with the story and the journey and to turn off the little voice in my head that wants to analyze anything. When I go into the movie theater, I want to watch and enjoy and be part of that community experience of watching “The Odyssey” together. Looking to know more or arrange an interview? Simply contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin at Shelby_Cefaratti@baylor.edu today.
The Biological Clock Nobody Talks About
Biology is ageist. There. I said it. Young people have a biological clock that ticks toward new life. It is loud and urgent, and it comes with its own well-funded industry of apps, doctors, and anxious dinner-party conversations. Ours ticks too, but more quietly. Less “the nursery won’t paint itself” and more “the knees are filing a formal complaint.” Same clock. Wildly different countdown. Young people race toward a beginning. We are racing toward… what, exactly? That is the part nobody warned us about in the brochure. I have been thinking about this clock a great deal lately, not in the abstract, philosophical, this-would-make-a-good-dinner-party-topic way. In the personal, slightly unsettling, why-am-I-like-this way. Because somewhere between turning seventy and watching my brother nearly run out of time entirely, I started to suspect that the clock is not just ticking quietly in the background of my life. It may be driving much of my behaviour, and not always in directions I am proud of. At seventy, I have become mildly obsessed with squeezing every drop out of life. Partly because of the birthday. Partly because 33-year-old entrepreneur Steven Bartlett recently declared that a couple of glasses of wine can derail several days of optimal living, causing poor sleep, missed workouts, reduced productivity, and full-scale biological chaos. The internet, predictably, exploded. One side applauded his discipline. The other suggested he put down the smartwatch and pick up a personality (Bartlett, 2025). Then broadcaster Greg James offered a counterpoint worth sitting with maybe measuring every step, calorie, and heartbeat is not making us happier. Maybe it is making us anxious (James, 2025). Let that idea marinate. It hit me harder than I expected. If I call balls and strikes here, I may have become a card-carrying member of Team Optimize. I teach fitness classes. I went back to school. I write books. I hike mountains. I track protein. I have voluntarily reached the age when discussing fibre intake is considered a contribution to the dinner conversation. Normal retirement behaviour, said no one ever. Apparently, I have a track record with this sort of thing. I have written before about my addiction to home improvement, the kind that finds a project the house did not actually need. Self-improvement, I am beginning to suspect, is the same compulsion wearing a different outfit. What I am exploring here is whether I am actually growing, or, as I am increasingly suspecting, just optimizing out of panic. So, I started asking myself an uncomfortable question, one that keeps circling back to that same clock. Am I pursuing excellence, or am I negotiating with my biological clock? Researchers studying aging have found something fascinating about how that clock changes us. As people become increasingly aware that time is finite, their priorities shift: less interested in accumulating and more interested in meaning, less interested in status and more interested in relationships, and less interested in “someday” and more interested in today. Psychologist Laura Carstensen’s landmark work on socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that it is not age itself that changes us. Rather, it is our perception of the time we have remaining (Carstensen, 2006; Carstensen et al., 1999). I am not sure I have made that shift. Not fully. If I am honest, I wonder whether all the doing, the relentless forward motion, is less about passion and more about outrunning something. Maybe I think that if I keep running, Father Time will not catch me. I can smell a fool’s errand a mile away, and yet here I am, lacing up my shoes … possibly while listening to a podcast on slowing down. I have a theory about this. I call it FORO, the Fear of Running Out. Most people assume it means Fear of Running Out of money, and money is certainly part of it. But lately I think money is just the socially acceptable thing we admit to worrying about. The less acceptable version is the fear of running out of time, energy, relevance, and chances to matter. FORO does not always show up as worry. Sometimes it shows up as motion. Another course. Another project. A new certification nobody asked for. A calendar so full it functions less as a planning tool and more as an alibi. If I cannot stop the running out, I can at least look busy while it happens. That is not ambition. That is panic, wearing a blazer and carrying a planner. Then something happened that stopped the clock cold … or at least kept me from ignoring it. Recently, one of my brothers suffered a massive heart attack. One moment, life was proceeding as planned. Next, he was in intensive care fighting for his life. Thankfully, he survived a quadruple bypass and is now on the long road to recovery. I am still processing it. Watching someone you love close to the edge clarifies things faster than any amount of journaling ever has. Suddenly, nobody is talking about productivity hacks or sleep scores. The conversation gets very simple. More time. More laughter. More family dinners. More life. His clock nearly ran out. Mine, presumably, has not. The question is what I plan to do with the difference. And I sat with that, quietly, for a while. Because his heart attack did not just scare me. It held up a mirror. If the people who matter most to me were sitting across the table right now, would they say I have been present, or would they say I have been busy? I am not sure I want to hear the answer. But I think I already know it, because my wife Bonnie and my dog Dottie have been telling me for a while now, in their own ways. Bonnie has not complained, not really, though I have noticed the particular quiet of someone who has learned not to wait up and has become quite good at saving me half a plate of dinner without asking what kept me. That quiet has nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. Dottie has taken a more direct approach. She has started leaving passive-aggressive stuffed toys outside my office door, which I choose to interpret as a formal grievance filed by a ten-pound dog with excellent comic timing. Both have been waiting for me while I try to sort this out. But patience, like biology, has its limits. Here is where I have landed, at least for now. Retirement, at its best, should be a contact sport: full-bodied, fully engaged, leaning into life with both hands. But there is a trade-off in the pursuit of optimization that no one puts on the inspirational poster. By filling every available hour with the next worthy initiative, I risk alienating the very people for whom “more life” was supposed to be. That is not ambition. That is a quietly self-sabotaging way of running out the clock on the wrong things. I do not have a tidy resolution. Maybe it means resisting the urge to add more simply because I can. What I keep coming back to is this: presence, being genuinely and unhurriedly present with the people I love, might be the optimization I have been overlooking all along. Not because it is hard to measure, but because it is hard to schedule, and even harder to admit I have been avoiding it. What I want, at the end of the day, is to be as present as humanly possible. Not present in the mindfulness app, remember-to-breathe sense. Actually present. Available. Unhurried. With Bonnie. With Dottie. With the people who have been waiting for me to look up. I am not going to pretend I have made this shift. I have not. But I have started doing something that feels different from doing nothing while thinking deeply about it, and I will take the small win. I dropped one school course this term. I have started leaving my phone in another room during dinner, which Dottie has not noticed, but Bonnie absolutely has. I am trying to ask myself, before I say yes to the next worthy thing, whether I want it or whether some part of me is still trying to outrun a clock that cannot be outrun. Some days I catch myself in time. Other days I sign up for the nine-week certificate anyway and figure it out later. Progress, not perfection. If you are reading this and recognize yourself, or someone you love, the invitation is not to overhaul your entire life by Tuesday, or to ask them to. It is to ask the same question I am still learning to ask. The next time your calendar fills with another worthy thing, pause and ask who benefits from that time. If the honest answer is mostly you, and mostly in a way that keeps you safely too busy to sit still with the people who love you, that might be worth a second look. Not guilt. Just a look. Which brings me back to the clock, because it always does. The biological clock of aging is not warning us that time is running out. It is reminding us that time is valuable, and that the people keeping time with us deserve more of it than the leftovers. Young people hear the clock and ask, “When should I start?” Older people hear the clock and ask, “What am I waiting for?” I think I finally know the answer. It is not another course. It is not another goal. It is them. Turns out the clock was never my enemy. It has been my alarm, going off for months while I kept hitting snooze and signing up for another nine-week certificate instead. The good news is I have finally found a project worth finishing. The bad news is it does not come with a certificate of completion, only my loved ones and whatever time the clock decides to give me to enjoy them. Biology may be ageist, but it is also, infuriatingly, right. Sue Don’t Retire…ReWire! My Book is Now Available for Pre-Order I hope you will consider pre-ordering a copy of Your Retirement Reset for you, a friend or loved one. It's available September 8, 2026 published by ECW Press - You can now order at Indigo or Amazon. And if you love supporting Canadian booksellers, please also check with your local independent bookstore. Most can easily order it for you.
Survey says: Senior leaders are using AI, but they could use more direction
Over the years, study upon study has shown that senior leaders are slower to adapt to new technology – email, the Internet and social media – than younger employees. That’s not necessarily so with AI, according to the University of Delaware’s Saleem Mistry. Mistry, associate professor of management at UD's Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics, recently conducted a survey of more than 200 university alumni, 75% of which had more than 16 years of professional experience. He found that senior leaders are actively adopting AI to solve their biggest challenges. However, they are doing so largely without structured support or guidance. Here are four findings from Mistry's survey that shows how AI is actually being used at the top. Senior Leaders Are Overwhelmingly Self-Taught Mistry said his most glaring finding is the gap between high AI adoption among senior leaders and the near-total absence of formal corporate support. Although a majority use these tools, they are almost entirely self-taught, which highlights visible opportunity that organizations aren’t really steering the AI conversation for leaders: • High usage. 62% of all senior leaders surveyed use AI tools "regularly" or "occasionally" in their work. • Training gap. Of those users, an overwhelming 80% report their organization provides "Never" or only "Sometimes" (mostly never) adequate training. Mistry said this shows that leaders from VP level down are using tools like ChatGPT and Copilot informally to keep up with heavy workloads, without any real organizational guidance. The stakes are high. In the survey, a vice president of legal was using AI for compliance tasks and a manager of three was using it for performance reviews, both with no formal training. “These are senior leaders handling sensitive work while essentially figuring it out on their own,” Mistry said. There is a clear ladder of AI use Leaders are not using AI randomly. There is a clear progression in how they use it, moving through three levels. • Tier 1 (The Drafters) This is the most common starting point. Leaders use AI to improve writing and communication. They draft emails, shape documents, and refine tone. As one Director of Product put it, it helps him "polish phrasing" and adjust tone and voice. • Tier 2 (The Synthesizers) At this stage, leaders use AI to manage information overload. They summarize meetings, condense documents, and pull together research so they can keep up with large volumes of input. As one leader managing a team of 200 said, "Being a leader requires attention in a variety of areas. AI helps me manage the vast amounts of information I need to consume." • Tier 3 (The Architects) Here, leaders move beyond writing and summarizing. They use AI to automate parts of their work. This includes building agents, creating custom GPTs, or designing tools that track work and performance. One leader managing 300 people said, "It will eliminate half or more of my overhead." Managers and individual contributors use AI for different reasons People managers and individual contributors (IC) are using AI for very different reasons based on their roles. • For people managers, their main challenge is scale. They are overloaded with communication and administration, so they use AI to reduce noise and keep up. They lean heavily on summarization and tone adjustment tools. • For project leads and ICs, their focus is output. They use AI to produce work faster, including drafting content, building decks, writing code, or generating ideas. This difference reflects their jobs. One group is trying to keep up, the other is trying to produce more. It also shows that AI is not a single-use tool. Its value depends on the problem it is being used to solve. This difference reflects their jobs. One group is trying to keep up, the other is trying to produce more. It also shows that AI is not a single-use tool. Its value depends on the problem it is being used to solve. Resistance to AI is mostly intentional Among the 38 percent of leaders who do not use AI, resistance is usually not based on lack of awareness. It falls into three groups: • The Ethical Objectors. Some avoid AI due to concerns about its broader impact. • The Quality Skeptics. Some do not trust the output and feel it is not reliable enough for important work. • The Blocked. Some are not allowed to use AI due to company policy. Mistry concludes that there is a clear overall pattern: Leaders are using AI in practical ways, but mostly without structured support or guidance. “If it feels like you are figuring this out as you go without much help from your organization, that is consistent with what most leaders are experiencing,” Mistry said. To connect directly with Mistry and arrange an interview, visit his profile page and click on the "connect" button. Interested reporters can also email MediaRelations@udel.edu.
From “Covfefe” to commanding the algorithm: How Trump turned memes into political power
A recent analysis by CNN traces how Donald Trump’s relationship with internet culture has evolved from accidental viral moments into a deliberate, highly effective communications strategy. The article highlights how memes, once unpredictable and grassroots, have become a central tool in shaping political narratives, driving engagement and bypassing traditional media channels. Some of the great insight and perspective in the article comes from Dannagal Young, whose insights help explain why this strategy resonates so strongly. Young emphasizes that memes act as powerful emotional and cultural signals, allowing political messages to travel quickly while reinforcing identity and belief among audiences. What began with moments of internet spontaneity has matured into a calculated approach that blends humor, provocation and simplicity to dominate attention in a crowded digital landscape. “The entire ethos and aesthetic of this administration is spectacle and subversion of norms,” Young said. “You don’t do that through deliberation or argument, but through symbols.” Her perspective, as presented in the CNN article, underscores a broader shift: political influence is increasingly shaped by content that feels native to the internet, where relatability, repetition and shareability often matter more than traditional policy-driven messaging. ABOUT DANNAGAL G. YOUNG Dannagal G. Young is a Professor of Communication and Political Science at the University of Delaware where she studies the content, audience and effects of nontraditional political information. She has published over sixty academic articles and book chapters on the content, psychology and effects of political information, satire and misinformation.
Ninety-three percent of patients with a new cancer diagnosis were exposed to at least one type of misinformation about cancer treatments, a UF Health Cancer Center study has found. Most patients encountered the misinformation — defined as unproven or disproven cancer treatments and myths or misconceptions — even when they weren’t looking for it. The findings have major implications for cancer treatment decision-making. Specifically, doctors should assume the patient has seen or heard misinformation. “Clinicians should assume when their patients are coming to them for a treatment discussion that they have been exposed to different types of information about cancer treatment, whether or not they went online and looked it up themselves,” said senior author Carma Bylund, Ph.D., a professor and associate chair of education in the UF Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics. “One way or another, people are being exposed to a lot of misinformation.” Working with oncologists, Bylund and study first author Naomi Parker, Ph.D., an assistant scientist in the UF Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, are piloting an “information prescription” to steer patients to sources of evidence-based information like the American Cancer Society. The study paves the way for other similar strategies. Most notably, the study found the most common way patients were exposed to misinformation was second hand. “Your algorithms pick up on your diagnosis, your friends and family pick up on it, and then you’re on Facebook and you become exposed to this media,” Parker said. “You’re not necessarily seeking out if vitamin C may be a cure for cancer, but you start being fed that content.” And no, vitamin C does not cure cancer. Health misinformation can prevent people from getting treatment that has evidence behind it, negatively affect relationships between patients and physicians, and increase the risk of death, research has shown. People with cancer are particularly vulnerable to misinformation because of the anxiety and fear that comes with a serious diagnosis, not to mention the overwhelming amount of new information they have to suddenly absorb. While past research has studied misinformation by going directly to the source — for instance, studying what percentage of content on a platform like TikTok is nonsense — little research has looked at its prevalence or how it affects people. The team first developed a way to identify the percentage of cancer patients exposed to misinformation. UF researchers collaborated with Skyler Johnson, M.D., at Huntsman Cancer Institute, an internationally known researcher in the field. The survey questions were based on five categories of unproven or disproven cancer treatments — vitamins and minerals, herbs and supplements, special diets, mind-body interventions and miscellaneous treatments — and treatment misconceptions. The myths and misconceptions were adapted from National Cancer Institute materials and included statements like “Will eating sugar make my cancer worse?” The team surveyed 110 UF Health patients diagnosed with prostate, breast, colorectal or lung cancer within the past six months, a time when patients typically make initial treatment decisions. Most had heard of a potential cancer treatment beyond the standard of care, and most reported they had heard of at least one myth or misconception. The most common sources were close friends or family and websites, distant friends/associates or relatives, social media and news media. The findings mark a shift in misinformation research, with major implications for the doctor-patient relationship, said Bylund, a member of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences research program at the UF Health Cancer Center. “I still think media and the internet are the source and why misinformation can spread so rapidly, but it might come to a cancer patient interpersonally, from family or friends,” she said. Most patients rarely discussed the potential cancer treatments they had heard about with an oncologist, the study also found. Next, the researchers plan to survey a wider pool of patients, then study the outcomes of interventions designed to decrease misinformation exposure, like the information prescription.
Seniors and AI: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Let’s be honest: we’ve weathered every tech wave they’ve thrown our way. Rotary phones. Dial-up internet. The BlackBerry. And somehow, we’ve made it to AI. The robots know more about our shopping habits than our spouses do—and honestly, they’re better listeners. We’ve Survived Every Tech Wave. AI Is Just the Next One. Remember when the internet first emerged, and everyone claimed it would never take off? Shopping online was considered silly ("Who would buy shoes without trying them on?"), And email sounded like something only NASA engineers would use. Fast forward a few decades, and now you can't even renew a driver's licence without the internet. So much for "it'll never last." It all began innocently enough. The first cordless phone was freedom on a frequency—you could step outside, yell "Can you hear me now?" and feel unstoppable. Then came remote controls, launching the golden era of couch-based cardio: jumping up every five minutes to find the one that actually worked. (Still missing: one VCR remote, circa 1987.) Next came AOL. "You've got mail!" was our first digital dopamine hit. Then the BlackBerry arrived—part phone, part pager, part fashion statement. It was heavy, expensive, and glorious. Until, like a hot potato, we all dropped it for the iPhone—sleeker, lighter, and small enough to fit in yoga pants. The iPod Nano followed. Goodbye radios, hello playlists! From there came Google, streaming, apps, and clouds (the digital kind, not the ones that ruin golf). And now… drumroll, please… Artificial Intelligence. The "It'll Never Last" File: Greatest Misses Edition We've encountered the skeptics before: • The Internet: "No one will use it." • Online Shopping: "People won't buy shoes sight unseen." • Email: "Who needs digital letters?" • Voice Assistants: "Talking to a speaker will freak people out." • AI: "It's just hype—like the Segway for brains." Well, the Segway is still technically around, but you're not riding one to the golf course. Meanwhile, AI is everywhere—and yes, seniors are joining the party. AI: The Latest "Fad" That Isn't If you think AI is a passing craze, you probably also dismissed online shopping and email. (Confession: I once thought, "Who would ever enter their credit card number online?") But AI isn't a gadget—it's the next era. As permanent as gravity, and just as invisible until it knocks something over. Use of generative AI among older adults throughout North America is growing. A Leger Research study revealed that 1 in 3 Canadians 55+ have tried an AI tool. We can ignore it, "poo-poo" it, or embrace it. But always remember: Resisting progress will not slow it down one byte. Why This Time Is Different Here's the twist: today's seniors aren't like our parents' generation. We're Boomers with bandwidth. We were the first to type with our thumbs, track our steps before it was trendy, and FaceTime the grandkids instead of mailing Polaroids. We've earned our tech credentials. Now it's time to flex them in the AI era. Seniors Meet AI: A Beautiful Disaster AI promised to make life easier. Instead, for many seniors, it's like adopting a mischievous grandchild who never listens and occasionally orders you twelve pineapples by accident. Let's be honest—we've all had those moments. Voice Assistants: The Frenemies "Alexa, play Staying Alive." "Calling 911. You appear to be in distress." "Siri, remind me to take my pill at 8." "Texting Phil at 8." "Hey Siri, stop listening." Silence. "Hey Siri, play jazz music." Still silence. (Give it a minute… you'll get it.) These so-called "assistants" are like toddlers with Wi-Fi—they only hear half of what you say, and always the half that causes chaos. The Sitcom Nobody Asked For Seniors using AI might just be the world's best sitcom waiting to happen: • Episode 1: ChatGPT Writes My Will (and Leaves Everything to Wi-Fi) • Episode 2: Siri Joins My Book Club and Never Stops Talking • Episode 3: I Asked Alexa to Play Jazz, and She Ordered a Jacuzzi Coming soon to streaming services everywhere—as soon as we find the remote. Texting While Senior: A New Dialect Emerges If you think AI is confusing, try texting with seniors. Somewhere between autocorrect and abbreviations, a new language has evolved—part English, part comedy special: BTW – Bring The Wheelchair ROFL... CGU – Rolling On The Floor Laughing... Can't Get Up LOL – Living On Lipitor BYOT – Bring Your Own Teeth TGIF – Thank Goodness It's Four (Early Bird Special) FWB – Friend With Beta-Blockers TTYL – Talk To You Louder LMDO – Laughing My Dentures Out GOML – Get Off My Lawn Honestly, AI could spend years decoding that list and still ask, "Did you mean BYOB?" "But What About Privacy?" (Spoiler: That Ship Has Sailed) Ah yes, the Privacy Protectors—those well-meaning friends who whisper, "Don't use AI, they're stealing your identity!" Spoiler alert: that ship already sailed. Siri and Alexa have been eavesdropping for years. Google knows where you've been, what you've read, and that you googled "how to delete Google history." Uber keeps a record of every trip you've ever taken—yes, even that midnight McDonald's run—and there's no "forget" button. Most of us have already traded privacy for utility. And honestly? It's not always a bad deal. I'm happy to share a few megabytes of data if Apple can tell me where I parked in the underground garage with seventeen identical "P2" levels. That's not a conspiracy—that's a lifesaver. AI saves time, surfaces better options we didn't know existed, and delivers instant answers. No more hunting for the manual to your smoke detector—just snap a photo, and AI tells you exactly which button to push (and which one to avoid). We're not losing control; we're gaining convenience. And at this stage of life, that's worth more than a few anonymous data points. Ways Seniors Can Actually Use AI (and Enjoy It) AI tools are making daily life easier for older adults in practical, accessible ways. Here's how you can put them to work: The “Start Here” Ladder: Build Your AI Confidence One Rung at a Time Nobody learns to swim by jumping into the deep end. AI is the same. The trick isn’t to master everything at once—it’s to start somewhere low-stakes, build a little confidence, and move up when you’re ready. Here’s a simple progression that works: Level 1: Voice Assistants Risk Level: Minimal Fun Level: Surprisingly High ------------------- Start here if you haven’t already. Ask Alexa or Siri to set a timer, play music, check the weather, or settle a dinner-table argument. No typing required. Level 2: AI Chat Tools Risk Level: Low (with privacy settings activated) Usefulness Level: Eye-Opening ------------------- This is the “brilliant friend who knows everything” rung. Tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini are free to use and can answer any question—no judgment, no wait times, no office hours. Try drafting a birthday message. Ask it to explain a medical term your doctor used. Get it to suggest a one-week meal plan. You type, it answers. Think of it as Google, but one that actually understands your question. A Note of Caution (Read This): Before you type anything personal into an AI app, go into the app’s privacy settings and switch off chat history/training so you don’t expose personal information. ChatGPT users can navigate to Settings > Data Controls and turn off "Improve the model for everyone". This prevents your conversations from being used to train future models. For extra privacy, disable "Chat History & Training," turn off memory features, or use the temporary chat feature. Level 3: Health and Wellness Wearables Risk Level: Low Payoff : Potentially Life-Saving ------------------- An Apple Watch or Fitbit isn’t simply a fancy step counter. These devices now detect irregular heart rhythms, monitor blood oxygen levels, track sleep quality, and—crucially—detect falls and automatically alert emergency contacts. For anyone living independently, that last feature alone makes it a worthwhile investment. You don’t need to know exactly how it works; just wear it. Level 4: Smart Home Tools Risk Level: Medium Payoff: You’ll Wonder How You Managed ------------------- Smart thermostats, video doorbells, voice-controlled lighting—these are AI tools you set up once and forget. The real win here is independence. Being able to control your home environment with your voice, check who’s at the door from your phone, or have the heat adjust automatically before you wake up: these aren’t luxuries. For many of us, they’re what make staying in our own homes longer a real and practical option. Level 5: AI-Assisted Financial Tools Risk Level: Higher. Stakes Level: Real. So Tread Carefully and Deliberately ------------------- This level is for when you’re comfortable and curious—not before. AI can now help you understand tax documents, summarize financial statements, compare mortgage products, and even flag unusual account activity. These tools are genuinely powerful. But they work best alongside a trusted human advisor, not instead of one. Think of AI as the research assistant who preps the questions. Your financial advisor is still the one who answers them. The key is this: you don’t have to climb the whole ladder today. Pick one level. Try it for a week. Laugh when it goes sideways. Then decide if you want to go higher. Writing & Editing: Draft emails, thank-you notes, or letters with the right tone—ChatGPT handles over 1 million daily health-related queries from seniors, including help preparing questions for doctor visits Travel Planning: Find flights, plan itineraries, and even pack your suitcase virtually Financial Education: Ask about investments or taxes—AI explains without the jargon Health & Fitness: Wearable devices like Apple Watch and Fitbit track exercise, monitor heart rate, detect falls, and can notify help if you're in an accident Smart Home Control: Voice-activated systems can adjust temperature, turn lights on and off, unlock doors, and control security—all with simple voice commands Cooking: "AI, make a meal with tuna, yogurt, and hope" Entertainment: Jokes, playlists, stories, or party ideas Learning: Teach yourself a language, an instrument, or how to fix the Wi-Fi (again) Want to get started? OATS published "AI for Older Adults," a comprehensive guide covering health, finance, and lifestyle applications specifically for seniors. It's available at oats.org. The Serious Bit: AI and Your Portfolio Here’s where I put on my serious hat for a moment. The U.S. stock market is currently top-heavy with AI darlings—Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta. Great companies. Exciting times. But retirement portfolios are not the place for a single-themed bet. If your retirement savings are overloaded with AI stocks, a correction could make your portfolio look like your Fitbit step count on a February long weekend. Diversify. Always. Love tech. Just don’t go steady with it. For more on this topic, check out Part 1 of my post: The Retirees' Guide to Market Volatility: Building Your Financial Safety Net Embrace AI, Don't Fear It AI is here to stay. Think of it as your digital assistant, not your replacement. Our generation has lived through it all: dial-up, disco, dot-com booms, and Bitcoin. If anyone can handle the rise of the machines, it's us. We figured out VCRs (eventually), navigated online banking, and mastered Zoom backgrounds (some better than others). And no, blurred does not count as a background. So fire up your curiosity. Try ChatGPT to plan your next vacation, use Google Gemini to get thoughtful answers to complex questions, or tell Alexa to crack a joke. (She's still learning… but she's improving.) We’ve adapted before. We’ll adapt again. That’s actually what we do. One baffling software update at a time. And here’s what no algorithm will ever replicate: Us. Our humour. Our resilience. The comedy gold of a pocket-dial to our X at 1am. The triumph of finding our reading glasses—while wearing them. AI is smart. But we’re wiser. And that still counts for a lot. So, here's the deal: AI can predict the stock market, diagnose your rash, and write a sonnet in seventeen seconds. But It still can't find your car keys, remember why it walked into the kitchen, or laugh until it snorts at its own joke. We've survived disco, dial-up, the dot-com crash, and that one Zoom call where someone didn't realize their camera was on in the bathroom. We will absolutely survive this, too. AI isn’t here to replace us; it’s here to keep up with us. And frankly, after decades of dealing with actual humans, a very smart, endlessly patient, never-hangry assistant sounds like an upgrade. So, when the robots eventually do take over, they'll need someone to tell them to slow down, dress properly, and call their mother. That's where we come in. Same as it ever was. One baffling software update at a time. Need more guidance? Here are some helpful resources: • AARP's 2025 Tech Trends Report – Research on how older adults are using technology • Bethesda Health Group's AI Guide for Seniors – Practical everyday applications • Ultimate Senior Resource: Top 10 AI Tools – Detailed reviews of the best AI tools for older adults Don't Retire...ReWire! Sue Want more of this? Subscribe for weekly doses of retirement reality—no golf-cart clichés, no sunset stock photos, just straight talk about staying Hip, Fit & Financially Free.
Expert Q and A: Understanding "Punch," The Baby Monkey That Captured The World's Heart
A tiny Japanese macaque named Punch has unexpectedly become one of the internet’s most talked-about animals. Born at a zoo in Japan and rejected by his mother shortly after birth, the young monkey was hand-raised by staff and given a stuffed toy for comfort—an image that quickly ricocheted across social media worldwide. Videos showing Punch tentatively approaching other macaques, sometimes being pushed away or corrected as he tried to socialize, struck an emotional chord. What began as a local zoo update rapidly turned into international headlines, with audiences from North America to Europe weighing in on what they saw as loneliness, resilience and the universal need for belonging. But experts say the story is more nuanced than a viral clip suggests. The interactions that many viewers interpreted as bullying are, in fact, typical components of macaque social development, part of how young primates learn boundaries, hierarchy and group norms. While Punch’s early maternal separation makes his integration more delicate, gradual acceptance into the troop is a positive sign. As internet users continue to share and comment, the moment has sparked broader conversations about animal emotion, anthropomorphism and the realities of wildlife behavior in managed care settings. Florida Tech's Catherine Talbot offered insight into the complexities of animal behavior. Catherine F. Talbot is an assistant professor in the School of Psychology at Florida Tech and co-director of the Animal Cognitive Research Center at Brevard Zoo. Her overarching research goal has been to study the ultimate (evolutionary) and proximate (behavioral, biological, and developmental) mechanisms underlying sociality. Q: Is it normal for mother macaques to abandon their babies, or is this an unusual occurrence? What circumstances can cause this to happen? It’s not necessarily normal, but also not that uncommon in primates, unfortunately. It’s more common in first time mothers that are inexperienced and sometimes lower ranking mothers. A number of factors can increase the likelihood of abandonment including stress on the mother and unfavorable conditions such as limited resources. Q: How does abandonment affect development in young macaques? Early maternal contact is critical for normal behavioral and emotional development. Infants rely on their mothers for nutrition, warmth, protection and learning how to navigate social dynamics. When infants do not have their mothers during critical developmental periods like infancy, in the short term, they tend to have elevated stress responses and difficulty with emotional regulation. In the long-term, it depends on whether the infant is able to form other types of attachment. In the worst-case scenario, they may have increased aggression, abnormal and/or self-injurious behavior, digestive issues and may lack social skills. But primates are resilient, and with social support and gradual integration into a troop, Punch can form new attachments, learn socially appropriate behavior and ultimately live a fairly normal monkey life. Q: Is it obvious to the rest of the troop when a young macaque has no mother? How does this affect integration? Japanese macaques have really complex social worlds, so they are really in tune with the relationships they have with one another and recognize the relationships between other individuals. That can certainly make it more difficult for Punch to be accepted back into the troop – he needs to find some friends and possibly even a surrogate parent. With social support, he should be able to recover from the absence of a mother. It’s really great to see that the care staff stepped in to support Punch as he begins to recovery from the stress of this experience. It’s even more important that Punch is around other monkeys of the same species so that he can continue to learn from them and respond appropriately to social communication cues. I’m thrilled to see that Punch is now making friends. Q: Punch is obviously attached to his stuffed orangutan. We can understand how this happens from our own human experience, but can you explain, on a biological level, how he bonded with this stuffed animal? Primates, including humans, are neurobiologically wired to form strong social bonds with a caregiver very early in life. In many primate species, infants are born highly dependent on their mother. Punch’s attachment to the stuffed orangutan reflects this need for attachment. That physical touch – warmth, softness, graspable limbs, a stable physical presence – can partially activate those same calming biological pathways, including the release of oxytocin which regulates stress and promotes feelings of safety. Without activation in those pathways, Punch would likely experience stronger feelings of separation or loneliness and ultimately social withdrawal. These biological pathways are crucial to proper social and emotional development of any primate species. Any way we can help mitigate those effects for Punch is crucial for successful integration back into his troop. Q: How does sociality among Japanese macaques compare to that of similar species? Japanese macaques live in large multi-male, multi-female social groups that can range from roughly 50 to 150 individuals. Like many macaques species, they form stable, female-bonded societies. Females remain in their natal group (or the group they were born into) for life, inherit their mother’s rank, and form strong kin- based alliances whereas males emigrate to a new group at adolescence. Their societies are organized around matrilines or extended female family lines in which rank is very important. They have strong dominance hierarchies and generally high levels of aggression, but levels of aggression and tolerance can vary a good amount from group to group. Entire matrilines can outrank others, which dictates access to food, grooming partners, and coalitions. Within a single troop, you often see multiple matrilines with long-standing dominance competitions. I sometimes compare it to a Romeo and Juliet-style Montague and Capulet dynamic, where beneath the surface of daily grooming and foraging is a complex political landscape structured by kinship and status. Q: What behaviors can Punch expect from the rest of the monkeys as he continues to integrate with the troop? What behaviors can the troop expect to see from him? As Punch continues to integrate into his troop, I would expect to see some social testing by other members of the group to see how Punch responds- they may use mild aggression like open mouth threats or direct stares (which arethreatening is macaques), brief chases, and displacement from resources like food/resting spots. These will help clarify Punch’s rank and help form and maintain a stable hierarchy. Therefore, I hope to see Punch make at least a few strong social bonds (friends), to help defend him against more intense aggression. As long as he makes a few friends, he should begin to receive more affiliative behavior. Integration is usually gradual as these bonds form and strengthen and these skills develop. I would expect to see more play and grooming with conspecifics and less reliance on his stuffed orangutan as real social bonds start to form. Grooming is especially important for forming and maintaining social bonds and there are already videos showing Punch receiving some grooming from older monkeys, which bodes well for him. He also needs to respond in socially appropriate ways, like grooming others and showing submission to higher ranking individuals. Essentially, he needs to understand and follow the rules of Japanese macaque society. Q: What message do you have as people continue to root for Punch? It's uplifting to see how much support Punch has gained across the world. And while Punch is clearly adorable and so vulnerable that you just want to love him and give him (or other monkeys like him) a home, it’s important to remember that more than anything else, he needs to live with other monkeys so that he can live a life that is true to his species and nature. Unfortunately, many people still have monkeys as pets. The illegal wildlife trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry, ranking as the fourth largest illegal trade after drugs, arms, and human trafficking. Within the United States, it is estimated that there are more than 15,000 nonhuman primates living in unsuitable conditions. Primates are intelligent, sentient beings that need complex communities and relationships to thrive. There currently is no federal legislation that protects primates from private ownership, but the Captive Primate Safety Act (H.R.3199/ S.1594) has been proposed to prohibit the private possession of nonhuman primates and the sale or transportation of nonhuman primates for the wild pet trade. If you're interested in connecting with Catherine and learning more about animal behavior, let us help. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Assistant Vice President for External Affairs at Florida Institute of Technology, at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.
The AI Journal: UF and other research universities will fuel AI. Here’s why
In the global AI race between small and major competitors, established companies versus new players, and ubiquitous versus niche uses, the next giant leap isn’t about faster chips or improved algorithms. Where AI agents have already vacuumed up so much of the information on the internet, the next great uncertainty is where they’ll find the next trove of big data. The answer is not in Silicon Valley. It’s all across the nation at our major research universities, which are key to maintaining global competitiveness against China. To teach an AI system to “think” requires it to draw on massive amounts of data to build models. At a recent conference, Ilya Sutskever, the former chief scientist at OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — called data the “fossil fuel of AI.” Just as we will use up fossil fuels because they are not renewable, he said we are running out of new data to mine to keep fueling the gains in AI. However, so much of this thinking assumes AI was created by private Silicon Valley start-ups and the like. AI’s history is actually deeply rooted in U.S. universities dating back to the 1940s, when early research laid the groundwork for the algorithms and tools used today. While the computing power to use those tools was created only recently, the foundation was laid after World War II, not in the private sector but at our universities. Contrary to a “fossil fuel problem,” I believe AI has its own renewable fuel source: the data and expertise generated from our comprehensive public academic institutions. In fact, at the major AI conferences driving the field, most papers come from academic institutions. Our AI systems learn about our world only from the data we offer them. Current AI models like ChatGPT are scraping information from some academic journal articles in open-access repositories, but there are enormous troves of untapped academic data that could be used to make all these models more meaningful. A way past data scarcity is to develop new AI methods that leverage all of our knowledge in all of its forms. Our research institutions have the varied expertise in all aspects of our society to do this. Here’s just one example: We are creating the next generation of “digital twin” technology. Digital twins are virtual recreations of places or systems in our world. Using AI, we can develop digital twins that gather all of our data and knowledge about a system — whether a city, a community or even a person — in one place and allow users to ask “what if” questions. The University of Florida, for example, is building a digital twin for the city of Jacksonville, which contains the profile of each building, elevation data throughout the city and even septic tank locations. The twin also embeds detailed state-of-the-art waterflow models. In that virtual world, we can test all sorts of ideas for improving Jacksonville’s hurricane evacuation planning and water quality before implementing them in the actual city. As we continue to layer more data into the twin — real-time traffic information, scans of road conditions and more — our ability to deploy city resources will be more informed and driven by real-time actionable data and modeling. Using an AI system backed by this digital twin, city leaders could ask, “How would a new road in downtown Jacksonville impact evacuation times? How would the added road modify water runoff?” and so on. The possibilities for this emerging area of AI are endless. We could create digital twins of humans to layer human biology knowledge with personalized medical histories and imaging scans to understand how individuals may respond to particular treatments. Universities are also acquiring increasingly powerful supercomputers that are supercharging their innovations, such as the University of Florida’s HiPerGator, recently acquired from NVIDIA, which is being used for problems across all disciplines. Oregon State University and the University of Missouri, for example, are using their own access to supercomputers to advance marine science discoveries and improve elder care. In short, to see the next big leap in AI, don’t immediately look to Silicon Valley. Start scanning the horizon for those research universities that have the computing horsepower and the unique ability to continually renew the data and knowledge that will supercharge the next big thing in AI. Read more...
One year ago, after a campaign that toppled Bashar al-Assad's repressive dictatorship, Ahmed al-Sharaa assumed the Syrian presidency. Since then, the former rebel commander has worked to establish his credentials as a statesman, winning the support of regional powers like Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—as well as recognition from the White House. Yet al-Sharaa and his transitional government have not been immune from criticism, particularly over their handling of domestic affairs. Samer Abboud, PhD, director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova University, is an expert on modern Syria and the wider Middle East. A year into al-Sharaa's presidency, he believes the provisional government has made incredible strides in some areas, like international diplomacy, while struggling to find its footing in others. "There's no doubt that Syria's external image is becoming more positive. We see this kind of charm offensive, with President al-Sharaa taking to the world stage," says Dr. Abboud. "Also, most of the regional actors are very fond of al-Sharaa and were very happy for the Assad regime to have fallen. So, there's this external presentation of a transition government that is legitimate and has support, and I think that's largely true. "The problem in Syria right now, of course, is what's happening internally. To begin, across the country, you have completely collapsed infrastructure—limited electricity, restricted access to running water and unreliable internet." Much has been made of economic sanctions' role in contributing to these internal issues, with Western governments having historically limited the amount of aid and investment that could enter Syria. However, while Dr. Abboud sees these measures' elimination as crucial to the nation's progress, he also contends that ending restrictions alone is not enough to ensure the country's long-term stability and prosperity. Of particular concern, according to the professor, is the al-Sharaa administration's persistent claim "that 'free markets' could and would be a cure-all." As he explains, "The problem is that there's literally no evidence to demonstrate that private enterprise is interested in social betterment in reconstruction cases. You can't rebuild a state and a society on the profit logic. When you look at Lebanon, after all the wars Lebanon endured, what did free markets—without a strong public sector—do for that country? Roughly 80 percent of Lebanese people live in poverty." Beyond the troubles surrounding economic growth and infrastructural development, there also exist a series of fractures along ethnic and ideological lines. Wide swaths of Syria are currently controlled by militias with agendas at odds with that of the provisional government, and despite making inroads with one significant bloc of dissent (the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces), tensions are exceedingly high. Furthermore, a number of groups remain suspicious of the president and his intentions due to his past affiliation with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist group that traces its roots to al-Qaeda. Navigating this delicate situation with poise and precision is something that al-Sharaa needs to master, contends Dr. Abboud. And, over the course of the past several months, it seems Syria's new leader has started to refine the skill. "To illustrate, last year, at least 25 people were killed in a bombing at the Mar Elias Church in Damascus, and President al-Sharaa did not go to the site. In addressing the incident, he also didn't use the language of martyrdom, which is what you would typically do for any person—Christian or Muslim—who died in this context," says Dr. Abboud. "In June, however, they arrested the culprits, and he went and met the patriarch and went inside the church, and they publicized it. "The first time, he was too worried about these internal influences—of being perceived by his base as having moderated his views. Right now, he very much finds himself caught in a balancing act, working to temper the forces that are compelling him to possibly do something that could worsen an unstable situation. But I do think that the two contrasts [represented in the Mar Elias Church episode] suggest that the president is learning and gradually figuring out how to do politics a bit differently." In this vein, Dr. Abboud feels the next phase in al-Sharaa's evolution should center on reckoning with the history of the country's late civil war and encouraging a dialogue between those who supported the Assad regime and those who sought to overthrow it. In the professor's estimation, this step is essential to achieving a lasting peace in Syria. "Currently, there are some memory projects and knowledge projects that are happening, but those are not led or facilitated by the state. And that's troublesome, given what we've seen in other conflict contexts," he says. "In Lebanon, for instance, the state has amnesia. The civil war is not in the textbooks, officials don't talk about it, and it's not commemorated nationally. But then, in many ways, the narrative of how it happened—who are the victims, who are the perpetrators—can totally shape people's lives." Still, while much economic, social and humanitarian work remains to be done, Syria today finds itself in a position unlike any it's occupied in decades' time: one marked by possibility. "In general, I envision an extended period of grace for the government and an extended period of hope," concludes Dr. Abboud. "Syria did not have a future under the Assad regime. Or it had a future, but one characterized by generations of isolation. Today, people, both inside and outside Syria, have an entirely different outlook."
Kamran Kardel, Ph.D., associate professor of manufacturing engineering in the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing, is leading a multidisciplinary research team to help regional logistics companies increase efficiency. Funded through the college’s Remotely Operated Warehouse Services (ROWS) Laboratory, with seed money from Crider Foods Inc., the team is composed of Kardel, Ryan Florin, Ph.D, assistant professor of computer science and students. Kardel and his team are using the software to build simulations, known as “digital twins,” that replicate warehouse operations like picking, packing and shipping. The ROWS Laboratory will serve as a development site, allowing the simulations to be thoroughly tested and validated before being presented to third parties. The ultimate goal is to provide industry partners with simulation capabilities using AnyLogic Software and Internet of Things (IoT) integration. The IoT refers to a network of physical devices located within and around the warehouse, such as mobile robots, sensors and cameras, that collect and share real-time data over the internet. That ensures optimal accuracy and responsiveness. The ultimate goal is to provide industry partners with simulation capabilities using AnyLogic Software and Internet of Things (IoT) integration. This industry collaboration also provides important professional development for the students working on the project. “I have a few students, both undergraduate and graduate, who are going to be involved in this project from beginning to end,” said Kardel. “Several of them have mentioned to me that this is their first time with direct access to the industry and potential employers.” Continuing the theme of collaboration, the project could result in shared postdoctoral positions with Ireland’s South East Technological University in its Lean Industry 4.0 Lab. While still in its early stages, Kardel hopes this partnership will give this research an even larger scope. “The Lean Industry 4.0 Lab has a lot of experience in IoT,” Kardel explained. “By joining Ph.D. programs, hopefully we can work together and improve logistics here in our region and in Ireland.” Ultimately, Kardel says this research can give companies a leg up in an increasingly digitized world. “As far as automation, for companies in southeast Georgia and South Carolina, I would say it’s becoming more common,” he said. “It’s still a mixed bag, though some warehouses are fully automated, some are not. The work we are doing can help companies remain competitive.” Looking to know more about Georgia Southern University or connect with Kamran Kardel? Simply contact Georgia Southern's Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.
