The Virginia Tech media relations office has the following experts available for interviews this week surrounding issues in the news. To schedule an interview, please contact mediarelations@vt.edu.

Still no House speaker in Washington

Lawmakers return to Washington this week without a House speaker. Currently, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is serving as the acting speaker, though he has little power.  Republicans will need to reach a consensus on a candidate in a timely manner as Washington looks to push through support for Israel amid the fighting there. The two candidates on the table are House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio. Virginia Tech political experts Karen Hult, Chad Hankinson, and Nicholas Goedert are available for interviews as this develops.

Bankman-Fried trial shines light on the rise and fall of cryptocurrency and concerns about its use in white-collar crime

The second week of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial is underway. The 31-year-old former crypto mogul is charged with orchestrating a conspiracy to divert $10 billion that FTX’s customers had entrusted to him into venture capital investments, political donations and luxury real estate purchases. Some are calling his crimes one of the biggest financial frauds in decades. Virginia Tech criminology expert Thomas Dearden is available to discuss the trial and concerns of criminal activity in cryptocurrency adoption and investment. More here.

The Spooky Shutdown Strategy of Spirit Halloween

Every year, as the leaves turn and a chill creeps into the air, what were once vacant storefronts suddenly come back to life. Pop-up shops, like Spirit Halloween, seemingly appear overnight and are generally open only 8-10 weeks out of the year. While landlords may prefer long-term tenets, some revenue is better than no revenue. As Virginia Tech economist Jadrian Wooten explains, Spirit Halloween recognizes the opportunity cost of letting those spaces sit empty, but their business model goes beyond that. Wooten is available to discuss the economics of this business model – including concepts like average costs, demand, and shutdown rule. More in his weekly blog Monday Morning Economist.  

New Netflix series based on Edgar Allan Poe stories drops this week

Virginia author Edgar Allan Poe accomplished astonishing things during his short, troubled life. Providing evidence of Poe’s continuing appeal, this week streaming giant Netflix will drop “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a miniseries based on Poe’s works. “I think Poe’s stories make us shiver because they remind us how very thin the line between ‘normalcy’ and ‘madness’ can be,” says Virginia Tech English professor Ashley Reed, explaining why Poe still captivates. “Many of the narrators of his stories sound entirely rational even as they’re committing heinous acts or engaging in self-destructive behaviors.” Read more here.

New Podcast Feature

Bimal Viswanath joined Virginia Tech’s “Curious Conversations” to chat about how the rise in artificial intelligence and large language models has changed the online threat landscape. He explained how this technology works and shared about a current project he’s involved with that aims to mitigate toxic language in chatbots. Viswanath is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, and a Commonwealth Cyber Initiative researcher. His research broadly covers security and privacy aspects of large online services and he has a particular interest in the emerging intersection of machine learning and security.

"Curious Conversations" is a series of free-flowing conversations with Virginia Tech researchers that take place at the intersection of world-class research and everyday life. Produced and hosted by Virginia Tech writer and editor Travis Williams, university researchers share their expertise and motivations as well as the practical applications of their work in a format that more closely resembles chats at a cookout than classroom lectures. 

New episodes will debut each Tuesday throughout the fall. Expert researchers are also available for media interviews.To listen and learn more, click here.  

Research Highlight

Record $80 million grant to fund pilot program encouraging the implementation of climate-smart practices on farms

Virginia Tech received a record $80 million grant to help farmers implement climate-smart practices that could significantly reduce greenhouse gasses. Through the Alliance to Advance Climate-Smart Agriculture, which is now underway, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will distribute more than $57 million of the largest grant in the university’s history to producers to enact climate-friendly practices and serve as a pilot program for a national model. The $80 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture will pilot a program that pays producers to implement climate-smart practices on farms of all sizes and commodities, an initiative that could have significant impacts on curbing climate-changing gasses. More here.

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