Willamette University alumni and faculty experts discuss the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and how digital economies may be quietly revolutionizing the business world.

Since 2009, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and thousands more digital currencies have used blockchain technology to build volatile but exciting trading markets, untethered from the analog world of banks and national economies. While many are skeptical that digital currencies will democratize money, there is little doubt that blockchain has massive business potential.

Photo by David McBee from Pexels.

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The Procko lab applies big data tools to molecular biochemistry. Their goal: a better understanding of how we might fight HIV-1. 

According to Erik Procko, HIV is “a tricky little beast.” Research into this potentially deadly virus, which has infected nearly 38 million people worldwide, accounts for half of the Procko lab’s work at the University of Illinois’ School of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Photo: MCB Magazine

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This February, newspaper headlines around the world proclaimed it one of the biggest discoveries in physics for decades: the first observation of gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime. 

The discovery was made by the LIGO Project, based jointly at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, and in Livingston, Louisiana. Since 2006, Assistant Professor of Physics Greg Ogin has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

Photo: Matt Z. Banderas

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