Experts Matter. Find Yours.

The ABCs of Joy: How Adversity, Belonging and Curiosity Lead to a Fuller Life

Young people today have more technology, more convenience and more connectivity than any generation before them. Yet many are struggling with anxiety, loneliness and a growing sense of dissatisfaction in their lives. The problem may be that most people have confused happiness with something deeper, and that’s joy, said Baylor University education researcher Jon Eckert, Ed.D. Data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that approximately one in two 12th-grade girls is not satisfied with herself, and one in three 12th-grade boys is not satisfied with himself. "We are in a happiness crisis. Kids are pursuing what they think is happiness, but they're doing it through ways that don't actually lead to happiness. Joy is different. It's deeper. It's this sense of enduring love and gratitude for others that will emerge through struggle." - Jon Eckert, Ed.D. Through years of research, Eckert identified what he calls the ABCs of Joy – Adversity, Belonging and Curiosity – finding that adversity builds belonging, and belonging cultivates curiosity. These ABCs of Joy, he said, can help people move beyond circumstantial happiness toward a more meaningful and enduring life. “I work with school leaders from all over the world and find that when people believe joy is durable and grounded in lives lived for and with others, those same people often realize the depth of their struggle determines the peak of their joy,” Eckert said. Adversity In a culture that often treats struggle as something to avoid, Eckert argues that adversity is essential to joy. "A lot of times the most joyful people we know have had really hard lives because life can be hard and joyful," Eckert said. "Oftentimes, the depth of our struggle will determine the peak of our joy." Eckert believes that when parents, teachers and coaches remove every obstacle from a young person's path, they may unintentionally prevent them from experiencing the growth that comes from overcoming challenges. "If we rob kids of the chance to struggle, then we also rob them of the chance to experience that kind of joy," Eckert said. “And I'm very clear, it's not trauma that we want for kids; it's adversity. We want them to do hard things and grow from the experience.” Belonging If adversity is where joy begins, belonging is where it grows. Drawing on flourishing research, Eckert said people may succeed independently, but they cannot truly flourish alone. Belonging is rooted in relationships where people know they are valued and supported. “Belonging is the knowledge that we matter to others, and they matter to us, which is knowledge we gain by going through hard things together,” Eckert said. “We may enjoy the fun-loving, carefree friend, but we need the person who shows up when things are hard.” At a time when much of life has moved online, that truth has become increasingly important. Social media and digital platforms offer constant connectivity, but they often fail to provide the deeper relationships people need. The strongest relationships are often forged through shared challenges, and those relationships not only provide support during difficult times, Eckert said, but also create opportunities for joy. Curiosity Eckert believes belonging and curiosity are closely connected. When people feel secure in who they are and in their relationships, they are more willing to engage those whose experiences, beliefs and backgrounds differ from their own. Because of online algorithms and digital echo chambers, many people limit meaningful engagement with people who hold different perspectives and tend to automatically dismiss those who hold ideas or opinions they disagree with. "We've become incurious as a society,” Eckert said. “How do we allow our joy and our love for others to overcome that incuriosity and seek out others? Those are the people that we should want to engage because that's what makes life more interesting." Curiosity is also essential to learning. While grades, degrees and career goals can motivate behavior, genuine learning begins with a desire to know more. "The only real form of intrinsic motivation for learning is curiosity," Eckert said. “Everything else is just delayed gratification.” Joy is more than happiness Eckert challenges the way many people, especially young people, think about happiness. Social media has fundamentally changed the way many young people evaluate their own lives by encouraging constant comparison with curated versions of others’ experiences. "If your happiness is normative and it's compared to other people, you're always going to lose on this," he said. Ultimately, Eckert believes the path forward is not found in comfort or convenience but in embracing the ABCs of Joy. When adversity is met with belonging and curiosity, young people can discover something far more durable than happiness: a joyful life marked by resilience, meaningful relationships and a deeper understanding of themselves and others. "Joy is not freedom from struggle," he said. "Joy is the fuel that allows us to struggle well.” ABOUT JON ECKERT, ED.D. Jon Eckert, Ed.D., is professor of educational leadership and The Lynda and Robert Copple Endowed Chair for Christians in School Leadership in Baylor University’s Moody School of Education. He leads the Baylor Center for School Leadership, and serves as program director of Baylor’s M.A. in School Leadership and assistant chair of the Department of Educational Leadership. Eckert’s research interests include collective leadership, teaching effectiveness, evaluation and strategic compensation to enhance that effectiveness, and science education. He has conducted research for the U.S. Department of Education, the Carnegie Foundation, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching and the Center for Teaching Quality, which he has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented around the world. Eckert is the author of several books, including “Just Teaching: Feedback, Engagement, and Well-being for Each Student,” “Leading Together: Teachers and Principals Improving Student Outcomes,” and the soon-to-be-released “The Happiness Crisis: How Adversity Can Build a Resilient and Joyful Next Generation.” More from Jon Eckert, Ed.D. WATCH/LISTEN: Baylor Connections Podcast: Leadership Catalysts: Baylor Center for School Leadership A New Chapter for Educators: Culture of Joy 2026 at Foster Pavilion Looking to know more or arrange an interview? Simply contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin at Shelby_Cefaratti@baylor.edu today.

Family Reunion Month: Seven Simple Tips to Begin Recording Your Family’s Oral History

When families gather together for vacations and reunions, they are often regaled with tales about an older relative’s fascinating life story or firsthand experience as an eyewitness to history. So how do you capture and preserve those precious memories? Historians with Baylor University’s renowned Institute for Oral History, home of the national Oral History Association as well as its regional affiliate Texas Oral History Association, have recorded and preserved oral history memoirs of individuals since 1970. Stephen Sloan and Adrienne Cain Darough Stephen Sloan, Ph.D., IOH director, professor of history and executive director of the national OHA, and Adrienne Cain Darough, M.L.S., assistant director and clinical associate professor, share seven simple best practices to help family members begin oral history conversations that enrich recollections of the past. Seven best practices for family oral history conversations 1. Make sure your family member wants their story to be documented or recorded. That's a very important question to ask ahead of time, Cain said. “Many oral historians have run into the spot where, ‘Oh, my grandpa would be great,’ and you get there and it's like, ‘Grandpa does not want to talk to you.’ So first making sure that they want their story recorded.” 2. Determine the type of recording equipment you want to use. Decide if you want to record your interview with an audio recorder or using a video recording device. The Institute for Oral History offers a helpful resource on choosing the right digital recorder for your needs and comfort level. 3. Do some advance research about your family member’s life and their timeline to help you formulate your questions. You can't just put down a recorder in front of someone and say, "Talk." Are there specific things that you want to know? For example, would your family member recall a specific time in their life or a moment in history that affected them? What were they like in high school and what were things they enjoyed doing? Did they serve in the military? “Doing your research to try to form those questions will help you get around what I will say is the reluctance to talk sometimes,” Cain said. “The favorite thing that I love to hear is, ‘Oh, I don't have much to say,’ or ‘I'm not that important.’ And then you sit down with them, and you listen to their stories, and your mind is just blown by the things that they've seen and experienced.” 4. Ask open-ended questions without making any assumptions. With oral history, Sloan said it’s important not to go into the interview with a specific agenda and try to lead anyone to a certain conclusion. “We can do this very subtly by assuming information, but I can't assume that their experience with that topic is X. That could have been very far from how they encountered whatever event that may have been,” Sloan said. “I've got to allow them to relate to me the ways in which they lived these experiences.” 5. Start with the basics, such as “Where are you from?” When Sloan, Cain and their oral history colleagues conduct an interview on any given topic, they generally begin with some life history of the subject, providing important context for historians. “Ask questions early on that are easy for them to answer: a little bit of the backstory, a little bit of where they're from, where they grew up,” Sloan said. “I want to understand the lens through which they experienced events, and the only way I can do that is, who was this? What was formative in their life growing up? Who spoke into who they were? What did they learn? Where did they go? What did they do? Those are the sorts of things that I would be exploring early in the interview.” One of the questions Cain enjoys asking is, “What did you want to be when you grew up?” There is the standard answer, but she notes that there’s often something that happened that may have changed that trajectory. “You want to give them something that's very easy and comfortable to talk about,” Cain said. “What was your favorite subject, just to see if that was something that continued on in their life. If there's a certain hobby or something that you know they're affiliated with, when did you learn about that? Tell me more. What's your interest in this? And then they'll get to talking.” 6. Make sure you are listening, an important facet of gathering oral history. When conducting an oral history interview, you are not only listening for what they're saying, you're also listening for what they're not saying, Cain said. “Are there things that are being skipped around?” Cain said. “For example, sometimes when you're talking to veterans about their combat experience, they need time. There may be some things they have seen and that may be the first time they're reliving or retelling these stories. And you just have to be prepared for that.” 7. Be patient. It might take your subject some time to warm up to the conversation. Patience is a virtue in oral history interviewing. “If you're talking to someone who is 80, 90 or even 100, that's a lot of memories that they have to go through, so patience is important,” Cain said. Oral History Resources LISTEN: Dr. Stephen Sloan and Adrienne Cain Darough join the Baylor Connections Podcast to share more about preserving oral histories while offering tips for individuals seeking to preserve the stories of family or friends. FREE RESOURCES: Baylor’s Institute for Oral History provides free oral history resources on the IOH website. Get best practices on oral history interviewing, project planning and organization, transcribing interviews, protecting and preserving recordings and conducting phone or Zoom oral history interviews. Looking to know more or arrange an interview with the experts? Simply contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin at Shelby_Cefaratti@baylor.edu today.

Bug Off: Why Some People Are More Attractive to Mosquitoes

Summer means mosquitoes, and with more of the pesky insects buzzing around, more people are grappling with mosquito bites and their consequences, ranging from an itchy inconvenience to serious health risks from vector-borne diseases. If it seems like mosquitoes bite you more than others, you may be right, according to Baylor University mosquito expert Jason Pitts, Ph.D. It simply may come down to how you smell. An associate professor of biology and director of Baylor’s Biology of Global Health 4+1 Program, Pitts focuses his research on mosquitoes and their complex odor-receptors, or sense of smell, to better understand how they locate food sources crucial to survival and reproduction. His impactful work is helping develop new mosquito control methods, which ultimately could lead to a decrease in vector-borne disease transmission around the world. “Many insects find their way around the world through their sense of smell, even more than vision,” Pitts said. “Mosquitoes and other insects really are adept at finding places to lay their eggs, finding flowers on which to feed or finding people on which to blood feed just by the sense of smell.” A mosquito’s strong sense of smell is critical to its survival. While all mosquitoes feed from nectar, only females bite humans and other mammals. They need the blood to support egg development in reproduction, and they rely heavily on scent to locate a host, Pitts said. “As we sweat, we emit volatile odors – or strong smells – which can be very attractive to mosquitoes,” Pitts said, adding that these odors include carboxylic acids, a key component in human sweat, which vary from person to person and can determine how appealing someone is to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes detect these chemicals in a similar way to how humans process smells. Humans have nerves in their nasal passages that, if tuned, will send signal receptors to the brain – the same process for mosquitoes, guiding them toward a potential meal, Pitts said. Because of their efficiency in locating human hosts, mosquitoes are considered to be the deadliest creatures in the world, responsible for more than 700,000 deaths each year from vector-borne diseases they transmit, including yellow fever, Zika, dengue, malaria and West Nile virus. Four D’s of mosquito prevention Whether you are a favorite meal among mosquitoes or not, Pitts recommends following the “Four D’s” of preventing mosquito breeding and bites – Dress, Drain, DEET and Dusk/Dawn. Dress Mosquitoes are attracted to darker colors, so wear light-colored, loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirts and long pants to protect yourself from potential bites. Drain The most important thing anyone can do is to reduce breeding sources for mosquitoes by draining stagnant water. If you have standing water in any kind of container in your yard, get in the habit of emptying those containers, including children’s swimming pools, which should be emptied at least once a week. Defend with DEET The most effective repellent is EPA-approved DEET (N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide). “Once a mosquito lands on the skin, they taste the skin to decide whether this is a good host or not,” Pitts said. “They can actually taste DEET, which is a long-range repellent. They can smell it and avoid it. When they taste it, they will also fly away.” Dusk / Dawn Mosquitoes are more active at dusk and at dawn, when the sun is rising or setting. Avoiding these times will help you avoid bites. If you like to take a morning run or walk at dusk, make sure to apply DEET repellent and wear light-colored clothing. Looking to know more or arrange an interview? Simply click on the icon below and connect with the expert.

The Odyssey on the Big Screen

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.

James Sample Authors Guest Essay in The New York Times

Professor James Sample of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law has published a guest essay in The New York Times examining a U.S. Supreme Court case that could reshape how courts interpret the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. In the essay, Sample analyzes Jouppi v. Alaska, a case involving an Alaska pilot whose $95,000 airplane was ordered forfeited after a passenger transported a six-pack of beer to a dry village. He argues that the case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to clarify when government-imposed financial penalties become so disproportionate that they violate the Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines, reinforcing an important constitutional safeguard against excessive government power. The essay is the latest example of Sample’s national thought leadership on constitutional law, the Supreme Court, and the rule of law. Throughout the month, he has been a frequent legal analyst for leading national and regional media outlets, offering insight on major Supreme Court decisions, executive power, freedom of the press, immigration, election law, judicial ethics, and other pressing constitutional issues.

Twin earthquakes in Venezuela raise serious concerns over humanitarian, health and infrastructure impacts

Dr Komal Raj Aryal, lecturer in crisis and disaster management at Aston Business School, has expressed serious concern following the powerful twin earthquakes that struck northern Venezuela on 24 June 2026. "The back-to-back earthquakes, measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 and occurring within less than a minute of each other at an approximate depth of 22 km, represent an exceptionally severe seismic event," said Dr Aryal, who has more than 26 years of international research experience in earthquakes, landslides, extreme weather events and disaster risk governance. "The combination of two major earthquakes occurring in rapid succession, their relatively shallow depths, and the repeated strong ground shaking is likely to have substantially increased damage to buildings, transport networks and other critical infrastructure. Scientifically, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake releases approximately three times more energy than a magnitude 7.2 event. Experiencing both events within seconds creates an extremely complex emergency response situation." Dr Aryal highlighted particular concern for San Felipe, an important industrial, commercial and transportation centre with a population of more than 300,000 people. Built across hilly terrain, with steep streets and dense urban development, the city could face significant challenges for emergency access, search and rescue operations, evacuation and humanitarian assistance. Around 10% of the city's population is aged 65 or older, making older adults particularly vulnerable during prolonged emergency situations. "If widespread power outages occur while temperatures remain between 32°C and 35°C, communities will face compounded risks including heat stress, disruption to healthcare services, shortages of clean water, communication failures and interruptions to essential public services. These cascading impacts often become as significant as the direct earthquake damage itself." Based on the available seismic information and preliminary footage shared on social media, Dr Aryal noted that it will likely take days or even weeks before authorities fully understand the extent of structural damage across northern Venezuela. "Initial seismic information suggests a rupture along a major fault system parallel to Venezuela's northern coastline, with areas experiencing extremely intense ground shaking. If confirmed, significant cascading impacts may extend well beyond the epicentral area, affecting multiple urban centres, transport corridors and regional supply chains." Dr Aryal also expressed concern about the resilience of Venezuela's healthcare system. "Northern Venezuela contains a large concentration of hospitals and healthcare facilities. At present, it remains unclear how many medical facilities have been affected by the earthquakes. Any disruption to hospitals, combined with existing pressures on healthcare capacity, medicine supplies and emergency logistics, could significantly affect the delivery of healthcare services for both acute injuries and patients with chronic illnesses." He added that damage to airports, major highways, bridges and other transport infrastructure could delay humanitarian assistance, emergency logistics and economic recovery. "The humanitarian consequences of this disaster will depend not only on the severity of the ground shaking, but also on the resilience of critical infrastructure, the effectiveness of emergency coordination, the availability of healthcare services and the country's broader socioeconomic capacity to recover." Dr Aryal further warned that the immediate earthquake sequence is unlikely to mark the end of the crisis. "Strong aftershocks are highly likely following earthquakes of this magnitude. These may continue for months, and some could themselves be damaging. They increase risks to already weakened buildings, complicate search and rescue operations, trigger additional landslides in mountainous areas, and prolong humanitarian needs." He concluded that while casualty figures and the full extent of the damage remain uncertain, the event has the potential to become one of the most significant seismic disasters in the region in recent years, requiring sustained national and international humanitarian support.

Who Owns the World Cup?

A plan to sell minority stakes in the commercial business surrounding FIFA competitions has triggered a major confrontation with European soccer. UEFA and its 55 national associations have reportedly agreed to boycott FIFA competitions while the proposal remains active. The dispute touches on sports governance, private investment, legal authority, media rights and the growing commercialization of the World Cup. Writing a story around this unprecedented event?  Connect with leading experts below for insight and commentary. Matthew Robinson — University of Delaware Robinson specializes in international sports governance, sport diplomacy and global sport development. His work is particularly relevant to the power struggle between FIFA, UEFA and national associations—and what a coordinated European boycott could mean for FIFA’s authority. Thomas Smith — Emory University’s Goizueta Business School Smith studies sports economics, finance and the business of entertainment. He can provide insight into the financial thinking behind FIFA’s proposal, including the trade-off between receiving capital now and sharing future World Cup revenues. Tim Derdenger — Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business Derdenger studies sports markets, sponsorship and the commercialization of major sporting events. His research is relevant to the potential effects on broadcast value, sponsors, fan interest and the overall World Cup brand. Klaas Baks — Emory University’s Goizueta Business School Baks specializes in private equity, alternative investments, mergers and acquisitions and business valuation. His expertise can help explain how investors might value FIFA’s commercial assets and what they would typically expect from a minority investment. Andrew Brandt — Villanova University Brandt’s expertise spans sports law and sports business. That experience is relevant to questions about FIFA’s authority over its members, the legal consequences of a boycott and the potential impact on players, sponsors, broadcasters and host countries. Tim DeSchriver — University of Delaware DeSchriver researches sport finance, economics and marketing. His work can help frame the broader financial question: Is FIFA unlocking the value of its competitions, or giving up a share of long-term revenue in exchange for immediate funding? Reach out to these experts now for your next story.  All inquiries are monitored to ensure time-sensitive request and deadlines are met. For more FIFA and WorldCup information visit our World Cup Expert Hubs.

The Truth About “Negative-Calorie” Cucumbers

As summer temperatures climb, so does interest in cucumbers — crunchy, hydrating, and long rumored to be a “negative-calorie food” that burns more energy to digest than it provides. It's a claim that circulates every year in diet culture, but it isn't true. The New York Times recently set out to separate the nutrition science from the myth, and turned to registered dietitians for a clear-eyed answer. Dr. Gina Jarman Hill is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Texas Christian University. A Registered and Licensed Dietitian, she has worked as a clinical and consultant dietitian and is a member of the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (HEN) and Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine dietetic practice groups. Her teaching and research center on food and sustainability, nutrition ecology, community nutrition, and public health — with particular expertise in food security, urban agriculture, and hunger. She earned her BS, MS, and PhD in Food and Nutrition from Texas Tech University and was named the Texas Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' Outstanding Nutrition Educator in 2017. Dr. Hill was recently featured in The New York Times article “How Healthy Are Cucumbers?” by Amanda Schupak (July 13, 2026), which examines what cucumbers do — and don't — offer nutritionally. Read the full article here. A 10.5-ounce unpeeled garden cucumber, for instance, contains just over one cup of water and 45 calories. Gina Jarman Hill, a professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Christian University, said there is a common misconception that cucumbers are “negative-calorie foods” — meaning they contain fewer calories than it takes to burn digesting them. “There’s no such thing as a ‘negative-calorie food,’” she said, but because the number of calories in cucumbers is so low, they’re about as close as you will get to one. As long as you’re mindful of what you pair them with, Dr. Hill said, there is no reason to curb your cucumber consumption. Dr. Hill is available to speak with media on nutrition myths, food security, sustainable and urban agriculture, community nutrition education, and healthy eating on a budget — timely topics as outlets continue to cover diet trends, food waste, and seasonal eating. To arrange an interview or request a comment, click through to Dr. Hill's profile below.