In our Nerdball era.
On the Stanford men’s basketball team, data drives decisions. When head coach Kyle Smith came to Stanford in 2024, he brought a reputation as one of college basketball’s most original thinkers—and quickly introduced what players and staff call Nerdball, an analytics-driven system that quantifies effort and winning actions. Smith’s coaching staff breaks down game and practice film to record dozens of actions for every player. A spreadsheet tracks 55 categories covering shooting, ballhandling, rebounding, and defense, providing more granular data than traditional box scores. “We really try to encourage unselfish play and try to quantify intangibles,” Smith said. By valuing “winning plays” that often don’t show up in standard statistics, he said, Nerdball helps build culture, deepen the rotation, and shape long-term competitiveness. For redshirt junior Ryan Agarwal, the system revealed strengths that weren’t obvious before. Coaches noticed his rebounding in the analytics and gave him more opportunities; he became a key contributor off the bench and emerged as one of the team’s top rebounders last season. “The numbers are what instilled that trust to take a chance on me,” Agarwal said.
Plants that fight back.
Snack time for insects can mean crop loss for the rest of us. To nix nibbles from pests, farmers spend billions of dollars each year on pesticides. But Jennifer Brophy, an assistant professor of bioengineering, has a greener idea: crops that can fend off pests on their own. Brophy increased the production of glucobrassicin (one of a plant’s natural defense compounds) in certain plant cells, making plants produce bitter, insect-deterring compounds without inhibiting the plant’s ability to grow. (Glucobrassicin has been tried before on genes across the whole plant, but that stunted growth.) Based on her conversations with people in the agriculture industry, Brophy is initially applying her research to cover crops, which support higher yields of cash crops—the ones we eat—by helping to control soil erosion and retaining moisture. Making cover crops more resilient could incentivize their use among farmers. Less water loss, fewer pesticides, and delicious fruits and veggies? That does not bug.
Cardinal on the podium.
On the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Eileen Gu and Zoe Atkin, both ’26, took gold and bronze, respectively, in the women’s freeski halfpipe. The medal was Gu’s third of these Games and sixth overall, making her the most decorated freeskier in Olympic history.
Good hacks.
TreeHacks, the largest collegiate hackathon in the world, took place on campus earlier this month. More than 1,000 students from around the world spent 36 hours chugging energy drinks and petting emotional support llamas between bouts of programming. The competition, now in its 12th year, awarded more than $500,000 in prizes across 14 categories, including most creative, most impactful, and most technically complex. “I feel like a lot of the ingenuity and change in the world happens when people are able to just work on random ideas they are excited about,” said TreeHacks technology director Thijs Simonian, ’28. “We put all these people into a room and give them 36 hours to do literally anything.” This year’s grand prize went to Anthony Chukhlov, ’28, Shane Mion and Arjun Oberoi, both ’26, and Tony Wang, ’27, for their team’s motorized smart cane for people with blindness or low vision. The device, which they call Shepherd, detects obstacles, recognizes people and changes in terrain, and can read street signs.
The Tahoe avalanche.
Sisters Lizabeth Clabaugh, ’95, and Caroline Clabaugh Sekar, ’03, were among six friends killed in last week’s Castle Peak avalanche in Tahoe National Forest. Their group of eight was wrapping up a professionally guided, two-night trip. A statement from the women’s families said that all six were experienced skiers who were trained and prepared for backcountry travel. “They were all mothers, wives, and friends, all of whom connected through the love of the outdoors,” the statement read.
Undergrad tuition holds steady.
Stanford will not increase undergraduate tuition for the 2026–2027 school year. The undergraduate financial aid system is designed to provide need-based scholarships rather than loans, and nearly 90 percent of students complete their degrees with no debt. Stanford is committed to generous undergrad financial aid, said university president Jonathan Levin, ’94. “We also recognize the value in controlling the growth of top-line tuition.” Stanford room and board rates will increase 3.5 percent based on rising expenses, and general graduate tuition will go up by 3 percent.
But wait, there’s more . . .
Malaria kills 600,000 people each year. Manu Prakash, an associate professor of bioengineering, has invented an affordable microscope that can diagnose the disease without electrical or internet infrastructure. The battery- or solar-powered autonomous device, called Octopi, uses AI to scan blood smears, and it’s 100 times more efficient than the most commonly used alternative—humans.
It may be winter on campus, but beauty is always in season. Let Sairus Patel, ’91, who manages the Trees of Stanford project, guide you through the Quad’s citrus courtyard.
Love-love. Roughly 1,600 people filed into Maples Pavilion to listen to tennis pro Roger Federer chat with university president Jonathan Levin about navigating career setbacks, handling pressure, and more.
Stanford researchers have created the first map of continental mantle earthquakes (which we typically don’t feel) around the globe. They’re gleaning insights from deep quakes that may help us better understand the surface shakers we experience.
New research shows that children who struggle with math have less neural activity in the brain regions involved with attention, decision making, and impulse control, which may help explain why they are less likely to detect their own mistakes or slow down after making an error.
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