BYU appointed as an R1 university according to revised Carnegie Classifications
BYU is one of many universities to transition from R2 to R1 status due to changes in the methodology of the Carnegie Classification system.
The Carnegie Classification system ranks universities of higher education as "R1," very high spending and doctorate production, "R2," high spending and doctorate production, or “research colleges and universities” based on research spending, doctoral publications and community involvement.
With the newly revised classification standards released in 2025, BYU is now recognized as one of the top institutions for research and study.
BYU engineers present new system for drone detection
To combat increasingly crowded airspace, Cammy Peterson and colleagues created an air traffic control system capable of tracking low-flying drones.
The design involves multiple ground computers connected to radar units, which can identify moving objects and report on their activity. This information then contributes to a larger coordinate frame shared among all ground stations, creating an extensive map of air traffic within an area.
Peterson recently published her research using funding from the National Science Foundation.
BYU statistics study analyzes fourth down risk tolerance in NFL coaches
BYU statistics professor Nate Sandholtz recently conducted a study examining why NFL coaches Andy Reid and Nick Sirianni tend to behave conservatively when making fourth down calls.
The method involved an inverse optimization approach assessing the risk tolerance of both coaches based on previous fourth-down behavior. The results indicate that risk tolerance may be associated with field position as coaches tend to be more daring when the ball is either in opponent territory or close to scoring territory.
The study was recently published in the Annals of Supplied Statistics.