America is facing a serious labor shortage. Expanding the TN visa — a pivotal pathway for Canadian and Mexican professionals originally created through NAFTA — can help the country close its growing workforce gaps, writes Tony Payan, director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico.
“Nearly one billion travelers pass through U.S. airports each year,” writes Alicia L. Johnson, civic science postdoctoral associate. In a new commentary, she outlines how the CDC’s genomic surveillance program, which monitors airport wastewater for traces of infectious disease, must balance public health and privacy concerns.
The work of Katalin Karikó, 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine recipient, laid a foundation for the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that saved close to 20 million lives worldwide. But her discoveries almost did not happen, writes Alicia L. Johnson, a civic science postdoctoral associate at the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences. Karikó’s story highlights the vital importance of supporting women in STEM.
In the fight against Mexican criminal cartels, social network analysis can predict and map out their alliances and subgroups — using algorithms to predict new connections. In this commentary, Nonresident Scholar in Drug Policy and Mexico Studies Nathan P. Jones and his co-authors outline their recent work in the field.
Nathan P. Jones, Oscar Contreras Velasco, John P. Sullivan, Chris Callaghan, Irina Chindea, Daniel Weisz ArgomedoOctober 18, 2023
Despite U.S. officials’ attempts to persuade Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to change course on his energy policy, which violates key provisions of the USMCA, his administration has not backed down, the authors write. They explain where the disputes between the U.S. and Mexico currently stand and what they mean for other aspects of the binational relationship.
The author reviews data on the growth of small businesses in Texas in the two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Read the post on the Baker Institute Blog here.
"Perhaps surprisingly, the latest national data published by the U.S. Department of Labor suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has not given small businesses greater cause for concern over the cost of health care benefits," writes McNair scholar Alisha Small. Read her post on the Baker Institute Blog.