The School of Architecture has announced that architect Tiffany Xu is the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2025–26. Xu will s쳮d current fellow, Erin Cuevas, and become the tenth fellow at the school.

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give emerging independent creatives the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

During the 2025-26 school year, Xu will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focused on researching North American contemporary construction culture—emphasizing architecture as a layered system consisting of a skeletal frame and built-up finishes, materials based on standardized dimensions and a product-like treatment of components. Students will explore conventional framing as an area of opportunity for codification and experimentation and study how medium specific tendencies and internal conflicts might yield new approaches to design.

“The composite character of today’s construction departs from traditional architecture’s valorization of permanence and mass, and the modernists’ penchant for transparency and truth,” says Xu. “Instead, this system finds its integrity in fulfilling a localized set of objectives and rules, anchored by pragmatism, vernacular references and supply chain constraints.”

Xu’s year-long investigation will foreground material and tectonic expression, with particular attention to patterns and transitions, positioning contemporary architecture as a new medium with a flexible set of values and objectives grounded in everyday practices.

Like the nine previous Boghosian Fellows, Xu will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges, while also continuing her research into Central New York’s relationships with modernity and material.

Prior to joining Syracuse Architecture, Xu was the 2024-25 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University of New York at Buffalo, where her work explored conventions of light timber framing, culminating in the spring installation, “.” Xu has taught architectural representation at Northeastern University and was a practicing architect at the offices of Spiegel Aihara Workshop, David Jaehning Architect, and Jim Jennings Architecture. Her designs and writing have been published in , San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CITE Journal and Architectural Record. She has held editorial positions at the and .

Xu received a Master of Architecture from Rice University where she was the recipient of the William D. Darden Thesis award, and a Bachelor of Science from University of California, Berkeley. She is a registered architect in the state of California.

“From this fellowship I hope to further develop my skills in pedagogy, whether at the fundamental and core curriculum level or a more experimental seminar setting, while maintaining a close relationship to building,” says Xu. “My intent is to contribute to a current discourse that strives to merge the gap between design thinking and construction and questions the polarity between everyday pragmatism and abstract study.”

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016-17), Linda Zhang (2017-18), James Leng (2018-19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019-20), Liang Wang (2020-21), Leen Katrib (2021-22), Lily Chishan Wong (2022-23), Christina Chi Zhang (2023-24) and Erin Cuevas (2024–25).

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, visit the .

Collin Capano ’05, G’11, director of the University’s new (OSPO), has been in the right place at the right time for breakthrough discoveries and innovative programming several times in his career.

His latest role is another opportunity to break new ground, and it’s also a homecoming for the double alumnus.

The OSPO is a multidisciplinary, cross-campus initiative intended to accelerate research and creative work by leveraging the use of open-source software code and adherence to open-source best practices. It is one of only about a dozen such offices operating at U.S. universities, so offers a chance to make high impact in that academic space and enhance the University’s research reputation through information and transparency, Capano says.

Also a physics research associate professor in the , Capano will continue his research in gravitational-wave astronomy while he directs OSPO, he says.

After earning bachelor’s and doctoral physics degrees at Syracuse, he gained more than a decade of experience in open-source code development and extensive experience in multi-messenger data analysis, statistics and high-performance computing. He has worked as a member of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland and as a high-performance computing facilitator and affiliate physics and math faculty member for the at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Perhaps his most distinctive “right place/right time” opportunity came in 2015 at the in Hannover, Germany, the largest research institute in the world specializing in general relativity, where he did postdoctoral research. Serendipitously, he was among the first scientists to observe the first from a long-ago collision of black holes in space. It was a monumental discovery that confirmed part of developed 100 years prior.

Capano, who grew up in the Adirondack town of Corinth, recently discussed plans for OSPO, his current research and what that breakthrough gravitational wave detection moment was like.

What led you back to Syracuse?

I was invited to apply for the OSPO director position and it sounded very interesting. It also presented a great opportunity to be closer to family again and for my daughter to grow up near her grandparents. And the things going on in Syracuse right now—Micron coming in and the Route 81 redevelopment—are exciting. The region is beginning a Renaissance, and the University is on an upswing too. ��I’m excited to be part of the changes and see how the investment and growth plays out. It seems like a once-in-a-century thing.

What has been accomplished at OSPO so far? What’s ahead?

Over the past year, I got the office up and running. Now, I’m promoting open-source culture across the University and encouraging faculty and researchers from all disciplines to make their source code and research data available beyond campus and to the public. That transparency helps instill confidence in their research results and can gain wider recognition for the work.

We’re now developing workshops for faculty, students and staff on coding processes and tools; campuswide seminars and speaker presentations; perhaps a student code hackathon. I’m also working to have open-source code development as part of the standard considered for faculty promotions.

How did you become interested in physics research? What drew you to astrophysics and gravitational wave research?

My dad, who had a master’s degree in physics and was an electronics engineer, used to tell me fascinating things about relativity and quantum mechanics, and that piqued my interest.

In my second year of graduate school, I needed to pick a research advisor. I was a teaching assistant for a course on electricity and magnetism, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It was also ’s first semester as a professor here, and one night we sat together as we graded exams. Duncan [now a world-renowned gravitational wave expert, the University’s vice president of research and Charles Brightman Endowed Professor of Physics] asked if I’d like to do an independent study. I did, and I’ve stayed with it.

I already knew of the gravitational wave group and the idea of doing experimental gravity appealed to me. If it weren’t for the two of us grading exams that night, I might have gone an entirely different route. I’m very glad I didn’t; I have been part of some once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

What do your two National Science Foundation research projects examine?

My research focuses on testing basic principles of gravity and nuclear physics using gravitational waves.

explores Einstein’s theory of relativity by testing it in extreme conditions near black holes using data from the to see whether the waves match Einstein’s predictions or if they reveal unexpected patterns. involves creating a cluster of Apple computers to accelerate the search for gravitational waves using LIGO data. That can help make gravitational wave research less costly, allowing for more ambitious searches, and making it possible for more researchers to contribute to the field.

What was it like at the front line of the first gravitational wave detection—one of the greatest physics discoveries of all time?

I was at , which was affiliated with LIGO and worked closely with the Syracuse gravitational wave analysis group. On that day a couple of colleagues in the office next to mine got an automated alert about a detection of the in space. They excitedly banged on my wall; I came over and they showed me a plot of the data that showed the characteristic “chirp” signal.

We were some of the , and the moment was surreal. My first reaction, and that for many others, was that it was a mistake. The lab could simulate those signals and did so regularly to test the infrastructure. When the control room confirmed that they hadn’t done a test, that’s when the reality sank in. The whole thing was a whirlwind! As co-chair of the LIGO subgroup devoted to exactly that type of signal, I was later in charge of compiling the data analysis on the event.

[Capano was one of 1,000 LIGO-affiliated scientists whose contributions were recognized for detection of the waves, earning them the and the . In 2017, three LIGO scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery.]

What next for gravitational wave research?

It’s a very bright and exciting future. Syracuse is a big part of it. We are laying the groundwork to build the next-generation detector, Cosmic Explorer, that will be able to detect every black hole merger occurring in the universe.

Pushing the frontiers of physics can lead to new, practical things in life—like how the discoveries surrounding magnetism and electricity affected the entire modern world. My hope is that future discoveries about gravitational waves will do the same and that over the next 20 years, we’ll uncover new fundamental findings about the universe.

More than 1,800 groups have collectively spent an estimated $15.3 million to pay for social media advertising that mentions President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump or other presidential candidates, according to a new report from Syracuse University’s (IDJC).��

Research from the project found that the millions paid for more than 24,000 ad buys and about 5,500 unique ads on Facebook and Instagram between Sept. 1, 2023, and Feb. 29, 2024. This amounts to an estimated 869 million impressions in the months leading up to, and during, the presidential primaries. The majority of ads involved Biden or Trump, the report found.����

The Biden and Trump campaigns spent another roughly $10 million on paid social media content, drawing 303 million impressions, though the incumbent outspent Trump about 7-to-1 on these platforms.����

This is the produced via by a $250,000 grant from , the world’s leading graph database and analytics company. The grant allows ElectionGraph researchers to use Neo4j’s graph database and analytics software to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election and other top 2024 contests.��

The research team’s efforts focus on dissecting misinformation themes—pinpointing origins of messages and tracing misinformation by collecting and algorithmically classifying ads run on Facebook and Instagram, as well as social media posts on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. The project will also gather input from journalists and the public about the 2024 presidential election, and races for U.S. Senate and key congressional districts.��

The first set of findings released today demonstrate the importance of requiring social media platforms to disclose details about election advertising and messaging, says Jennifer Stromer-Galley, senior associate dean and professor at the School of Information Studies. An expert in political campaigns and misinformation, Stromer-Galley leads the IDJC ElectionGraph research team. ��

“Revealing details about ads and messaging on social media platforms is vital to provide the public with transparency and context,” Stromer-Galley says. “Failure to do so can make voters more vulnerable to manipulation without any sort of accountability.”��

Organizations that ran ads ranged from well-known political action committees, political party groups or other candidates, to obscure players with harder-to-trace ties and agendas, the report found. The analysis identifies the top 30 spenders that each mention Biden and Trump, and examines patterns in how groups apply the honorific of “President” when referring to either candidate.��

The report captures a fraction of overall U.S. election-related content across all social media platforms. While Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, currently allows approved organizations to access ad data, it is not required to be made available—and not similarly trackable—on TikTok, Google, YouTube or Snapchat.��

“These findings give us a glimpse at the firehose of information and misinformation coming at voters from groups with a jumble of motives, ties and trustworthiness ahead of the 2024 elections,” says Margaret Talev, Kramer Director of the IDJC, professor of practice at the Newhouse School of Public Communications and a journalist.

The challenge faced by digital researchers and computational journalists in unearthing the consequences of AI-driven misinformation on democracy is enormous, says Jim Webber, chief scientist at Neo4j. ��

“Graph technology is an essential enabler to those seeking to uncover hidden patterns and networks of those looking to manipulate democratic populations,” Webber says.

“We at Neo4j are proud to support Syracuse University’s mission to help journalists and citizens separate fact from fake news so that the voting public can make informed decisions as they go to the polls.”��