The University of Pittsburgh was one of 22 institutions with at least one subject ranked at No. 1 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018. The University’s philosophy program was recognized with a No. 1 ranking for the third consecutive year. Pitt was also featured in the new ranking for the library and information management subject (No. 9). Academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per paper and h-index — a calculation that reflects most-cited papers and citation totals — are among the factors that may contribute to a specific ranking. To see the University’s entire performance in these rankings, visit the rankings webpage.

David Beck, an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Physician Assistant Studies Program, has been recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Physician Assistants for exemplary achievement in service to the profession, the advancement of health care and in dedication to the community. This honor is bestowed upon an elite group of less than one percent of practicing PAs.

Beck studies the application and evaluation of transformative learning in educating health professionals, among other topics.

Medical students and their families and well-wishers gathered in the Petersen Events Center Friday, March 16, for the ceremonial opening of the envelopes at Match Day — a national event where fourth-year medical students simultaneously learn where they will be completing their residencies.

Of the 146 Pitt students who matched, 37 will be staying in Pittsburgh. Two Pitt records were also broken: 10 students matched in orthopedics and nine matched in psychiatry — the highest ever for those specialties.

57 students, or almost 40 percent, matched in primary care fields, which is close to the 42 percent of last year’s class.

Pitt Department of Music Chair Deane Root has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of American Music, which is a member of the Council of Learned Societies and a group of which Root was a founding member. At the society’s international conference in March, Root was lauded for his accomplishments — his deep and wide-ranging contributions to the study of American music; preserving and growing the Foster Hall Collection at the Stephen Foster Memorial and the archives of Pitt’s Center for American Music, of which he is director; and his successful initiative Voices Across Time, in which teachers from across the country come to Pitt’s main campus to learn how to integrate American music into social studies and language arts classes.

Root is an author, editor in chief of Grove Music Online, an educator, a mentor of young scholars and a past president of the Society of American Music. As its representative said when Root received the award, “Deane has exercised consistent leadership ... and has been at the forefront of musical discovery in a broad range of areas.”

Sharon L. McDaniel (GSPIA ‘91) will receive the 2018 Social Work Day on the Hill Outstanding Individual in the Nonprofit Sector Award. The award is presented by the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy and the 2018 Social Work Day on the Hill Planning Committee. McDaniel will be recognized for demonstrating a commitment to promoting the principles and values of the social work profession in the pursuit of social and economic justice.

McDaniel is the president and CEO of A Second Chance, Inc., a licensed foster care agency that meets the unique needs of kinship families in Allegheny and Philadelphia counties. She founded A Second Chance in 1994, about three years after obtaining her Master of Public Administration degree from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

She will be honored during a reception at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., on March 21.

The writers, photographers, videographers and editors at The Pitt News, Pitt's student newspaper, cleaned up in the 2018 Keystone Awards contest for student journalists in Pennsylvania. The newspaper won four first-place awards, four second-place awards and three honorable mentions.

First-place awards went to Christian Snyder for column writing, John Hamilton for photography, Raka Sarkar for illustrations and Janine Faust for a personality profile. 

Stephen Caruso, Zoe Pawliczek and Ashwini Sivaganesh won second place in the news category for their collaboration on a story, as did James Evan Bowen-Gaddy and Amber Montgomery for a personality profile and Elaina Zachos for a photograph. Hamilton, Sivaganesh and Rachel Glasser secured an honorable mention in the general news category, Garrett Aguilar earned an honorable mention for his basketball preview cover illustration, and Li Yi earned an honorable mention for the photograph.

The University in 2017 posted its lowest-ever employee injury rate of 1.0, calculated in incidents per 100 full-time workers. 

Jay Frerotte, director of Pitt’s Department of Environmental Health and Safety, attributed the downward trend to ongoing efforts to enhance the University’s longstanding culture of workplace safety.

National figures have yet to be posted for 2017, but the University’s employee injury rate consistently has been below the national average for colleges and universities since the start of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ current industry classification system in 2003. That year, the Pittsburgh campus rate was 1.8 compared to a national average of 2.7.

By 2016, Pitt’s rate declined to less than 1.2 — a campus low at that time  — compared with a national average of 1.9.

The 2018 Pitt Innovation Challenge — or PInCh for short — launches March 12. Created and hosted by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, the challenge is designed to generate innovative solutions to difficult health problems. This year's competition focuses on addressing problems associated with human performance — from helping shift workers and soldiers perform at their best, to giving athletes a boost.

Teams must include at least one University faculty member, but can otherwise be made up of individuals from other educational institutions or non-academic organizations, such as community groups or businesses.

Winning teams will receive an award for direct costs and project management support to help execute a 12-month plan to take the team’s solution one step farther along the path of development. Applications for this year's challenge are due Monday, April 23 at 5 p.m.

Raymond M. Davis, a major gifts officer who focuses on the Florida region, has been named to Who’s Next: Philanthropy by local new organization The Incline.

Davis is a graduate of Walsh University and began his work in donor relations there. He joined Pitt’s Institutional Advancement staff in 2015 and is pursuing a master of studies in law degree at Pitt Law.

Who’s Next: Philanthropy recognized 17 individuals under age 40 who are making a difference in philanthropy in Pittsburgh.

Also named to the list were Pitt alumni Zack Block (LAW ’05), executive director of Repair the World: Pittsburgh; Sloane Davidson (GSPIA ’17), founder and CEO of Hello Neighbor; Pam Eichenbaum (A&S ’08), business development associate at Innovation Works; and Ryan Gayman (A&S ’12), accelerator manager at Social Venture Partners Pittsburgh and partner at CitizenCity.