Research

Research in CHESS
CHESS embraces research as a major activity at all levels, including undergraduate research experiences, graduate work, and faculty scholarship. In keeping with this focus, the college’s research activities are diverse, connected to the world and its concerns, and contribute significantly to UNC Charlotte’s status as a top-tier research university.
Our award-winning faculty create a collaborative culture with researchers from across the UNC Charlotte campus and around the world to discover new ways of thinking and to deliver solutions in areas of greatest need. Students benefit from taking classes and conducting research with innovative, dynamic faculty members who mentor and challenge students to stretch themselves. Students gain the confidence to take risks and learn to act compassionately by working alongside their professors and fellow students in the classroom, in research settings, and in the broader community.
Interdisciplinary Research Highlights in CHESS

Students and faculty in CHESS learn from and examine the physical world around us, traveling for field research to dig into the past while using advanced technologies to build models for the future.
Watch a video about the Charlotte Heat Mappers.

From classrooms to labs, text to artifacts, and qualitative to big data, CHESS analyzes language, society, policy, cultures and populations to learn from and inform communities.
Read more about CHESS research into the cost of elections and the impact on voting after Helene.
CHESS Research News
As chimney swift populations decline, conservationists in Charlotte are working to protect the older brick chimneys that have become important…
A TEDx talk by UNC Charlotte’s Alyssa McGonagle is gaining national attention after being selected as a TEDx Editor’s Pick. …
E.E. Hussey, assistant professor of English, celebrated her 2026 spring session in the artist‑in‑residence program at Goodyear Arts with a…
UNC Charlotte has awarded Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Ph.D., a globally recognized scholar of pragmatics, conflict and digital discourse, the esteemed…
UNC Charlotte has received $2 million from a new $5 million National Science Foundation grant to expand a regional partnership…
Ryan Grant, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychological science, has published a new study, “What’s your 5 to 9? Antecedents and…
Two faculty from the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences have been named to the 2026 class of…
Boyd H. Davis, Ph.D., professor emerita of English and gerontology, was recognized as one of Southminster’s inaugural 8 Over 80…
