News
Newly Discovered Lake May Contain a History of Antarctic Ice Sheet
Scientists investigating the underside of the world’s largest ice sheet in East Antarctica have discovered a city-size lake whose sediments might contain a history of the ice sheet since its earliest beginnings.
Intersection of Accessibility and Computer Science Leads to Inclusive Tech
This semester UT Computer Science welcomed Amy Pavel as a new assistant professor. Amy’s work sits at the intersection of accessibility and computer science. Her research at UT Austin expands on these themes by …
Local Rituals May Hold the Key to Improving Public Health Interventions
The public health community often sees traditional medicine and associated health rituals as barriers to the acceptance of health interventions, but a new paper from an international team of researchers suggests …
Wastewater Testing for COVID-19 Resumes in Austin
A team of University of Texas at Austin researchers has resumed testing Austin’s wastewater for signals of COVID-19 after the Texas Division of Emergency Management gave new funding for the project.
Tropical Forests Benefit Less from Elevated Atmospheric CO2 Than Thought
According to a new international stud, the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has only a small influence on changes in tropical ecosystems.
When Good RNA Turns Bad
Biophysicist Dave Thirumalai and his team have developed a computer model that helps explain how certain kinds of RNA can clump together in a way that is correlated with neurological disorders.
Faculty Grant Awards and Achievements: May 2022
The College of Education is home to world-class faculty members conducting high-impact research year-round. Our faculty members are awarded grants and fellowships on a regular basis, and this monthly list of awards …
UT Austin Selected for EcoCAR EV Challenge to Make Next-Gen Vehicle
UT Austin is one of 13 university teams in North America set to participate in the EcoCAR EV Challenge, a prestigious collegiate competition to re-engineer state-of-the-art vehicles and prepare students for the future.
Supernova Reveals Secrets to Texas-led Team of Astronomers
An international group of astronomers led by Benjamin Thomas of UT Austin has used observations from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at the university's McDonald Observatory to unlock a puzzling mystery about a …
Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste
An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days.
Features
Akhil Surapaneni: Advancing Brain Tumor Treatments
Akhil Surapaneni is a part of a larger team of doctors, engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin conducting a study investigating how to move critical brain functions away from surgical sites.
A Lifelong Researcher - Robert van de Geijn
Pivotal figure at the Oden institute may have retired from UT Austin but still as busy as ever.
Gregory Rodin: The Intuitive Mathematician
To Gregory Rodin, intuition is everything. The newly retired Professor Emeritus of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at UT Austin and a core faculty member at the Oden Institute for …
Professor Layla Parast Aims to Improve Healthcare Using Biostatistics
Meet new statistics and data science professor, Layla Parast, whose work in biostatistics aims to improve medical treatments and trial outcomes.
Computer Science Researcher Aims to Automate Software Development
Isil Dillig is an associate professor of computer science who works to improve the security and reliability of software systems and automatically generate programs from high-level specifications.
Jeanne Kowalski-Muegge: Piecing Together the Puzzle of Cancer Genomics
Dell Medical School professor Jeanne Kowalski-Muegge is creating tools to empower care teams in using precision medicine, ensuring that every patient has every treatment option possible at their disposal.
Modeling A Global Pandemic - Profile Lauren Ancel Meyers
Over the last two years Lauren Ancel Meyers has become a household name across the United States. Her expertise in viral disease outbreak detection, forecasting, and control thrust her into the limelight as the world …
The Kids Are Not Alright
Youth mental health is in crisis across the U.S. In Central Texas, meeting the need requires tackling the problem from all sides.
Esther Melamed: Neurologist Dedicated to Autoimmune Research
Esther Melamed is an assistant professor at Dell Medical School’s Department of Neurology. Her research focuses on the neurological autoimmune diseases with the goal of improving prevention and treatment for patients.
John-Paul Clarke's Rules of Life: 'Do Fun and Challenging Things'
How John-Paul Clarke’s rules of life led him to become an aviation expert, entrepreneur, and track and field official.
Recognition
Professor Anthony Di Fiore Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS) announced that Anthony Di Fiore, professor of anthropology at UT, has been elected as a member. AAAS is one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious scientific societies.
NSF Awards Graduate Research Fellowships to 22 CNS Students
This year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship program awarded 22 fellowships to four undergraduate and eighteen graduate students in the College of Natural Sciences.
Sessler Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Jonathan Sessler, a professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
UT Professor Beili Liu named 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow
Professor Beili Liu has been named a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for her project Dreams of the High North: Between Survival and Belonging, Sculptural Exploration of Environmental Challenges Facing the Circumpolar North.
Two Students Win NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Awards
Zoelle Wong and Benjamin Diaz Villa in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics have received 2022 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.
History Professor Yoav Di-Capua awarded 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship
The grant will support Di-Capua’s work on his upcoming book, The First Arabs: An Intimate History of Their Struggle for Dignity and the Aftermath of Defeat.
Professor Guihua Yu Elected as 2022 MRS Fellow
Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Professor Guihua Yu, has been elected for the 2022 Class of MRS Fellows by the Materials Research Society (MRS).
CSEM Student Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Casey Stowers, a second year CSEM student at the Oden Institute, has just been awarded a coveted National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) that will provide three years of funding.
JSG Students Win AGU’s 2021 Outstanding Student Presentation Award
Once again, Jackson School of Geosciences students were among the top student presenters at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting.
Outstanding Dissertation Award Winner 2022 - Gopal Yalla
Gopal Yalla began his thesis, “Numerical Discretization Effects in Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulence,” with the superbly terrible pun, “The journey through graduate school is often a turbulent one.” For this Yalla …
Undergraduates
Graduating Senior David Sarabia Found Passion for Research in FRI
A first-generation undergraduate student from Mexia, Texas, David Sarabia is among the seniors graduating this month. On his way to receiving his bachelor of science degree in chemistry, Sarabia participated in the …
Students Collaborate on Aircraft Systems Design
Lift and Drag Queens and Assuming Incompressible – for those familiar with senior aircraft design at UT Austin’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (ASE/EM), these clever team names …
Three Undergraduate Students Named 2022 Goldwater Scholars
Three undergraduate students from the College of Natural Sciences have been awarded the 2022 Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious national scholarship given to students pursuing careers in the natural sciences …
Two UT Austin Students Receive Prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship
Isabel Ayala, an Asian studies and government senior, and Brendon Mak, a mechanical engineering senior, will pursue one-year master’s degrees in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
All That Jazz: Improving Automated Piano Note Transcription
Any fan of jazz music can attest to the beauty of musical improvisation. However, many famous improvisational piano pieces aren't recorded in sheet music. “There's a lot of music that exists in the world that doesn't …
Art History Students Examine "Mystery Objects" from Leo Steinberg Prints
Art History students come into the major hoping and expecting to learn more about, well, art and its history. But what does it mean to actually get your hands on different works of art, conduct research and make your …
This First-Year Student Invented a Fire-Fighting Robot
Every once in a while, a young person already so accomplished comes along and makes you wonder aloud “what am I doing with my life?” Siddharth Thakur is one of those young people.
Key NASA Mission Gives Undergrads a Jumpstart into Research
NASA is gearing up for a mission to land on Jupiter's moon Europa. This mission is one of a kind, and it's also created a unique opportunity for students in the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin.
Natural Sciences Researchers Win President’s Award for Global Learning
Five teams with College of Natural Sciences students were honored this year with the President's Award for Global Learning, which aims to highlight innovative solutions to global problems.
Sketchbook-Themed Amusement Park Design Sets Student Team Apart
A team of Texas Engineering undergraduate students took a colorful approach to the 2021 Cornell Theme Park Design Competition and won two out of five competition categories, placing second overall.