Money magazine ranks U-M as 5th-best public school on 2015 ‘Best Colleges’ list
(The Ann Arbor News, July 14, 2015)
Maine Maritime Academy, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of California-Irvine, and the University of Virginia were the only public institutes in America to be ranked higher than the University of Michigan in Money Magazine’s annual “Best Colleges” ranking. Overall, U-M was ranked No. 18 on the list, four spots better than the No. 22 ranking it garnered in 2014. The list took into account graduation rates, affordability, educational quality, return on investment, and alumni earnings, among other factors. More

U-M to test driverless 3-D printed carts
(The Detroit News, July 9, 2015)
The University of Michigan plans to test low-speed, 3-D printed driverless carts within the year and eventually deploy them on its North Campus. The University on Thursday received a custom, 3-D printed “SmartCart” from Local Motors, a Phoenix-based manufacturing company that built a working 3-D car at the 2015 North American International Auto Show. U-M plans to study three such vehicles at its Mcity test site, a 32-acre autonomous and connected-vehicle proving grounds that’s operated by the Mobility Transformation Center public/private partnership. More

Rethinking exercise as a source of immediate rewards
(The New York Times, July 20, 2015)
Michelle Segar, who directs the Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center at the University of Michigan is a psychologist who specializes in helping people adopt and maintain regular exercise habits. She is the author of No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. Her research has shown that even people who say they hate to exercise or have repeatedly fallen off the exercise wagon can learn to enjoy it and stick with it. More

U.S. News names best hospitals: 7 in Michigan, 4 in metro Detroit
(Crain’s Detroit Business, July 21, 2015)
Seven hospitals in Michigan won top hospital recognition — led by the University of Michigan Hospitals and Beaumont Hospital — in U.S. News and World Report’s 26th “Best Hospitals” report. The nation’s No. 1 hospital was Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Besides Ann Arbor-based U-M and Beaumont, Michigan hospitals included the following national ranking: Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids; Munson Medical Center, Traverse City; Mercy Health St. Mary’s Hospital, Grand Rapids; Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit; and DMC Harper University Hospital, Detroit. More

Obama picks Michigan professor for Fed board
(New York Times, July 20, 2015)
President Obama said Monday that he would nominate Kathryn M. Dominguez, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, to a seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Ms. Dominguez, an expert on the behavior of currency markets, fits the mold of a modern central banker. These days the Fed is dominated by academic economists, including its chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen. As a member of the Fed’s seven-seat board, Ms. Dominguez would help to oversee its role as the nation’s most important financial regulator, and to set monetary policy in conjunction with the presidents of the Fed’s 12 regional banks. More

Inside the fake town in Michigan where self-driving cars are being tested
(The Washington Post, July 20, 2015)
Later this year a Michigan pedestrian named Sebastian will spend his days throwing himself in the path of speeding cars. It’s all in the name of research. Fortunately, despite the human name, Sebastian is just a mechanized pedestrian that the University of Michigan is building as part of MCity, its 32-acre environment for testing self-driving cars. The “city,” built on the U-M campus in Ann Arbor, is designed to recreate the situations self-driving cars would encounter on the road. More