Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of Saint Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. Villanova prepares students to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them.


The strength of the Villanova experience comes in part from the University’s welcoming community. All members are bonded together by a shared responsibility to uphold the ideals of Saint Augustine and let the principles of truth, unity and love guide their lives. The Villanova community helps students grow intellectually, professionally and spiritually, and challenges them to reach their full potential.


The University’s rigorous academic experience, rooted in the liberal arts, forms an environment in which students and professors are partners in learning. The Villanova community is dedicated to providing a personalized experience that fosters every student’s intellectual and spiritual well-being. As part of their education, students are encouraged to enrich their own lives by working for those in need. Through academic and service programs, students use their knowledge, skills and compassion to better the world around them.


There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges—the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Villanova School of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Nursing, the College of Professional Studies and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. These colleges are the setting for an experience that develops both the heart and the mind, and creates the atmosphere where students are called to ignite change.


Villanova University is located in a suburban community 12 miles west of Philadelphia, Pa.

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Through a unique internship program, Villanova University students are helping change the ways in which the Vatican communicates with the rest of the world -- using the internet, multi-media technology and social media. Villanova began this program in 2003, sending computer science students to the Internet Office of the Holy See.

Since then, communication majors have joined these students in Rome. In 2008, Villanova began sending students to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, where they have been integral in helping add to the Papal presence on YouTube and Facebook. Villanova students also intern in the Rome bureau of Catholic News Service.

In 2010, a team from Villanova University designed 3-D Virtual Reality Tours for the Vatican, making Rome's most historic cathedrals easily accessible on-line.

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Villanova Astrophysicist Joey Neilsen, PhD, Plays Prominent Role in Groundbreaking XRISM Collaboration Study

Associate Professor of Physics

A global team of researchers using the new X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) telescope, launched in fall 2023, discovered something unexpected while observing a well-studied neutron star system called GX13+1. Instead of simply capturing a clearer view of its usual, predictable activity, their February 2024 observation revealed a surprisingly slow cosmic wind, the cause of which could offer new insights into the fundamental physics of how matter accumulates, or “accretes,” in certain types of binary systems.

The study was one of the first from XRISM looking at wind from an X-ray binary system, and its results were published in Nature—the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal—in September 2025. Spectral analysis indicated GX13+1 was at that very moment undergoing a luminous super-Eddington phase, meaning the neutron star was shining so brightly that the radiation pressure from its surface overcame gravity, leading to a powerful ejection of any infalling material (hence the slow cosmic wind). Further comparison to previous data implied that such phases may be part of a cycle, and could “change the way we think about the behavior of these systems,” according to Joey Neilsen, PhD, associate professor of Physics at Villanova University.

 
Dr. Neilsen played a prominent role as a co-investigator and one of the corresponding authors of the project, along with colleagues at the University of Durham (United Kingdom), Osaka University (Japan), and the University of Teacher Education Fukuoka (Japan). Overall, the collaboration featured researchers from dozens of institutions across the world.

GX13+1 is a binary system consisting of a neutron star orbiting a K5 III companion star—a cooler giant star nearing the end of its life. Neutron stars are small, incredibly dense cores of supergiant stars that have undergone supernovae explosions. They are so dense, Dr. Neilsen says, that one teaspoon of its material would weigh about the same as Mount Everest. Because of this, they yield an incredibly strong gravitational field.

 
When these highly compact neutron stars orbit companion stars, they can pull in, or accrete, material from that companion. That inflowing material forms a visible rotating disk of gas and dust called an accretion disk, which is extremely hot and shines brightly in X-rays. It’s so bright that sometimes it can actually drive matter away from the neutron star.

“Imagine putting a giant lightbulb in a lake,” Dr. Neilsen said. “If it’s bright enough, it will start to boil that lake and then you would get steam, which flows away like a wind. It’s the same concept; the light can heat up and exert pressure on the accretion disk, launching a wind.”

 The original purpose of the study was to use XRISM to observe an accretion disk wind, with GX13+1 targeted specifically because its disk is persistently bright, it reliably produces winds, and it has been well studied using Chandra— NASA’s flagship X-ray observatory—and other telescopes for comparison.

XRISM can measure the X-ray energies from these systems a factor of 10 more precisely than Chandra, allowing researchers to both demonstrate the capabilities of the new instrument and study the motion of outflowing gas around the neutron star. This can provide new insights into accretion processes.

“It's like comparing a blurry image to a much sharper one,” Dr. Neilsen said. “The atomic physics hasn't changed, but you can see it much more clearly.”

The researchers uncovered an exciting surprise when the higher-resolution spectrum showed much deeper absorption lines than expected. They determined that the wind was nearly opaque to X-rays and slow at “only” 1.4 million miles per hour—surprisingly leisurely for such a bright source.
Based on the data, the team was able to infer that GX13+1 must have been even brighter than usual and undergoing a super-Eddington phase. So much material was ejected that it made GX13+1 appear fainter to the instrument.

“There's a theoretical maximum luminosity that you can get out of an accreting object, called the Eddington limit. At that point, the radiation pressure from the light of the infalling gas is so large that it can actually hold the matter away,” Dr. Neilsen said, equating it to standing at the bottom of a waterfall and shining light so brightly that the waterfall stops. “What we saw was that GX13+1 had to have been near, or maybe even above, the Eddington limit.”

The team compared their XRISM data from this super-Eddington phase to a set of previous observations without the resolution to measure the absorption lines directly. They found several older observations with faint, unusually shaped X-ray spectra similar to the one seen by XRISM.

 
“XRISM explained these periods with funny-shaped spectra as not just anomalies, but the result of this phenomenally strong accretion disk wind in all its glory,” Dr. Neilsen said. “If we hadn’t caught this exact period with XRISM, we would never have understood those earlier data.”

 
The connection suggests that this system spends roughly 10 percent of its time in a super-Eddington phase, which means super-Eddington accretion may be more common than previously understood—perhaps even following cycles—in neutron star or black hole binary systems.

“Temporary super-Eddington phases might actually be a thing that accreting systems do, not just something unique to this system,” Dr. Neilsen said. “And if neutron stars and black holes are doing it, what about supermassive black holes? Perhaps this could pave the way for a deeper understanding of all these systems.”



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Villanova Professor Investigates Impacts of Hurricanes on Florida Coast

Jonathan Hubler, PhD, and graduate student Sarah Burghardt lead Villanova research effort to study storm impacts and improve hurricane preparedness

In October 2024, during the height of hurricane season, Hurricanes Milton and Helene swept across the southeastern United States. Their impact on Florida was severe, with damages totaling tens of billions of dollars. While communities in affected states continue to rebuild, a team of researchers mobilized to assess the damage caused in the hopes of better understanding the impacts of hurricane activity in the future.

Jonathan Hubler, PhD, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Villanova University, along with Villanova civil engineering graduate student Sarah Burghardt, traveled to Florida with a joint team from the Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance (NEER) Association and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association to investigate the immediate aftereffects of Hurricanes Milton and Helene. The National Science Foundation-sponsored trip gathered natural hazards research experts and practitioners from across the country, who quickly jumped at the opportunity to examine the impacts of two tropical storms that occurred in quick succession of each other.

A few main areas of study were identified by the team so they could hit the ground running once they touched down in Florida. The researchers wanted to focus primarily on the effects of storm surge, waves, sediment erosion and deposition, and debris transport and accumulation from both hurricanes through pre-storm, during-storm, and post-storm data collection. Over 750 miles were covered across just a few days as data was surveyed and collected from Cedar Key, Horseshoe Beach, Venice, Port Charlotte, Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach and other coastal towns.

 “This was a unique opportunity for our team of scientists because our team collected data before the storms so we will be able to analyze the direct impacts of the storms utilizing the post-storm data that we collected,” said Dr. Hubler. “Although the destruction was difficult to witness firsthand, we are hopeful that our findings will help to mitigate the impact of these major storms in the future.”

The data set collected from these storm sites is expected to improve the understanding, prediction, and mitigation of erosion as well as assess the performance of different shoreline protection systems during severe tropical storm events. Findings from the trip will be shared publicly through the NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) DesignSafe-CI, a nationwide network tailored for data sharing among the natural hazards engineering research community. Local Florida communities will also be notified of relevant findings to increase awareness and understanding of risk assessments when preparing for tropical storm events.

 
“It was a productive few days spent in Florida as we collected a significant amount of data and covered a lot of ground in a short span of time. I’m grateful to have been included on this research team and that I had the chance to bring one of my students along. This real-world experience in the field will help further her learning as she completes her studies,” said Dr. Hubler.

 Dr. Hubler traveled with the NEER and GEER team again in November for another data collection effort.

 
Although the 2024 hurricane season has come to a close, researchers like Dr. Hubler continue to study their impact year-round to discover new mitigation strategies for next year’s season.



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Villanova Professor Releases Study on Gender Dynamics in the Beer-Drinking Community

Earlier this month, thousands of revelers donned dirndls and lederhosen to mark Oktoberfest, the annual celebration of Bavarian fare, oompah music and, above all else, beer.

The fall festival is just one of many occasions, including happy hours, brewery tours and sporting events, where Americans enjoy the beverage. In fact, based on a recent report by the Pew Research Center, the U.S. population consumes approximately 6.6 billion gallons of beer each year, which averages out to about 26.5 gallons per adult of legal drinking age.

However, while ales, lagers and stouts remain popular choices that bring people together, not everyone feels equally included. A new study by Shelly Rathee, PhD, the Diana and James Yacobucci '73 Assistant Professor of Marketing and Business Law, highlights a gender-based divide within the beer-drinking community, with female consumers often feeling overlooked and left out.

 
"Due to the structure of the beer industry and marketplace, there is reason to believe that firms overproduce products that appeal to male audiences and overly communicate masculine aspects of beer consumption," says Dr. Rathee. "As a result, female consumers are made to feel (and may continue to feel) excluded by beer culture, on average. From a business standpoint, the beer industry may be limiting its total market potential in the process."

As Dr. Rathee explains, the beer industry and marketplace are predominately populated by men, and academic literature has long indicated that male dominance in a social or business setting can alter the behaviors of women in myriad ways. In her project, "The Female Consumer Response Implications of Male Dominance in a Product’s Online Community," the professor sought to understand how this trend might manifest itself in an internet forum for beer aficionados, hobbyists and critics.

 
By examining customer review data from the online community BeerAdvocate and conducting tests aimed at assessing gender-based differences in contributions, Dr. Rathee found that female consumers are inclined to defer to the male majority in such settings. In general, women either refrain from sharing their perspectives on products or adopt language characterized by what are commonly referred to as "masculinity themes."

"Masculinity and femininity themes were drawn from the text of the online reviews and were identified using dictionaries derived from previous research on these topics," shares Dr. Rathee. "For example, if the consumer liked the taste of the beer, a more feminine way of describing this might be 'pleasant,' while a more masculine way might be 'strong.'"

In these terms, the difference in expression might seem subtle. However, as Dr. Rathee contends, the prevalence of tens of thousands of reviews that lean toward a more masculine tone, with few offering a counterbalance, can have noticeable effects. A quick look at the beer aisle in your local supermarket reveals its impact, with bottles and cans featuring images of axe-wielding warriors, dinosaurs and gargoyles.

"We found in our research that male dominance in a marketplace leads to lower trial intentions [plans to try or buy something] and brand attitudes among women," elaborates Dr. Rathee. "Therefore, we can argue that companies are likely to produce products, and marketing appeals, that are more targeted at male audiences."

Although men are currently more than twice as likely as women to name beer as their preferred alcoholic beverage, Dr. Rathee suggests that there is potential to create opportunities that encourage more female drinkers to engage with beer culture. By fostering environments where women can express their preferences and perspectives, she believes the beer industry can become more inclusive and representative, ultimately enriching the community as a whole.

"When featuring reviews on websites, an effort to balance out the presentation of ideas from male and female voices could be helpful," Dr. Rathee says. "Special categories could also be created to drive interest based on demographic characteristics that may include gender, among other factors. A more extreme measure would be to simply avoid including gender as a reviewer characteristic that is publicly viewable."

Much like opening tents beside a beer hall, these steps could provide the necessary space and conditions for a more open and robust discussion of products to take place—to the benefit of both consumers and the industry. In the event they're increasingly pursued, that's something to which we can all raise a toast.



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