Intellect

The BYU Museum of Art (MOA) recently unveiled restored gypsum cast panels of Italian sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti’s famous "Gates of Paradise." After decades in storage and years of student-powered restoration, the Gates are now ready for display. With fewer than a dozen of these replicas still intact and even fewer on display, this replica stands as an important addition to BYU.

Over the last 50 years, BYU has established itself as a top language university. According to the most recent MLA survey, BYU ranks #1 in both language course offerings and advanced language enrollments. In addition, students benefit from exceptional opportunities to earn language certificates, gain immersive language experiences and collaborate with professors on first-class research.

As video calls, online meetings, and digital messaging become the default for work and social life, new research from BYU psychology professor Dianne Tice shows that something important is lost —shared physical presence. Without co-presence, you lose subtle facial signs, synchronized timing and responses, as well as the spontaneous, informal moments that build relationships.

Biology professor Rick Gill is one of 16 faculty — one from each Big 12 school — to receive the Big 12 Conference Faculty of the Year honor, awarded for innovation and research on each faculty member’s respective campuses. The awards were started in 2024, and Gill is BYU’s second honoree (following Charles Graham), which goes to dedicated faculty who “represent and reflect all the best attributes that make a college campus a bastion for learning and growth."

“Faith and reason are hand-in-hand ways that we find answers.”

A new interdisciplinary study from BYU, opens an angle of neuroimmune research that could potentially lead to better medical treatments for individuals with alcohol use disorder. This collaborative research involved 13 students and four professors across three departments in the College of Life Sciences and the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences.

Sharks at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper, Utah, glide silently behind glass walls — but just how silent is their world? A team of BYU researchers set out to discover how much of the aquarium’s daily bustle filters into the shark tank, and whether that noise is affecting the animals who call it home.

BYU’s Sesquicentennial year started off with great momentum as BYU’s professional programs earned high rankings and the location for the BYU School of Medicine building was announced. Alongside breaking ground on major campus projects — including a brand new Creamery on Ninth — BYU also led groundbreaking research on sugar, generative AI, and wildfires. Here are the top ten BYU news stories of 2025.

Data recently released from the National Center for Education Statistics show that when it comes to yield rate — the percentage of admitted students who go on to enroll — BYU is elite. The Cougs’ 78% rate is good enough for No. 5 in the country, placing it just behind Harvard and Stanford and ahead of Princeton and Yale.

BYU Professor of Geology, Greg Carling, and his team are investigating possible groundwater contamination in the Great Salt Lake, a crucial ecosystem that supports thousands of migratory birds.

A new book, “Serpent in Eden,” authored by BYU history professor Tyson Reeder, recently received the George Washington Prize at a Union Club ceremony in New York City.

BYU students recently showcased fashion and makeup designs in a runway show at the Museum of Art. They each designed and modeled a look inspired by one of the paintings on exhibit from an art museum in Puerto Rico. On display until Jan. 3, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce showcases world-class art that reflects the innate beauty of the human experience.

The team of BYU engineers placed 86 Bluetooth devices throughout a 50-hectare field near Elberta, Utah, to measure water levels across every inch of the field. Placing this many sensors in a commercial field is unprecedented and allows researchers to see unique patterns that have never before been captured.

Today’s special forum featured a panel discussion with current BYU President C. Shane Reese and previous Presidents Kevin J Worthen, Cecil O. Samuelson and Merrill J. Bateman.

Two Brigham Young University professors have been named as two of the most influential researchers in the world, with one earning the distinction for the first time and another extending a years-long streak on the list.

BYU professor Sam St. Clair is the principal investigator on the first study to show positive impacts of megafires (fires greater than 100,000 acres) across different forest types. Megafires can help some forest communities thrive — especially in areas where chronic browsing by elk, deer, and livestock has hindered tree regeneration, a widespread issue that often leads to forest regeneration failure.

BYU plant and wildlife professors Rick Jellen and Jeff Maughan, together with an international consortium of researchers, have taken a major step toward unraveling the complexity of the oat genome. Their new research — published today in Nature and Nature Communications — ushers in a new era for oat genetics and breeding.

Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, a renowned economist and recipient of the Acton Institute's Novak Award, addressed the BYU campus community on Tuesday. She applied her expertise in economics to highlight a shift in the value of having children.