News
UT Austin No. 1 in NSF Funding in United States
UT Austin is ranked No. 1 among U.S. universities in research financed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in fiscal year 2020, according to the annual Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey.
Moczygemba and Wash Earn 2022 Kloesel Grant
Leticia "Tish" Moczygemba, Pharm.D., Ph.D. and Andrew Wash, Pharm.D. were selected as the recipients of the 2022 grant award from the Arlyn Kloesel Endowment for Excellence in Pharmacy Practice.
Racial Demographics Influence School Choices
White, Asian and Latino parents in New York City all express strong racial/ethnic preferences in where to send their kids to high school, according to a study just published in Sociology of Education.
Cities Boosted Rain, Sent Storms to the Suburbs During Europe’s Floods
When it comes to extreme weather, climate change usually gets all the attention. But according to a study from UT Austin and two universities in China, the unique effects of cities need to be accounted for as well.
2021-22 Issue of PLATFORM Explores Sustainable Design
UT Austin School of Architecture’s 2021-2022 issue of PLATFORM explores the importance of rethinking disciplinary boundaries, embracing complexity, and navigating the spaces in-between.
New Method Reveals How Businesses Can Run Better Experiments
Many companies today use experiments to gather the data that drives their strategies. That’s how Facebook knows whether a newsfeed change increased user engagement, or how a bank knows whether its new promotional …
UT Austin’s 2021 Research in the News Highlights
National and international media outlets widely reported on an array of research from UT Austin this year. Here are a few highlights from 2021 media coverage of UT Austin research.
2021 Research Highlights
It was another great year for research at the Jackson School of Geosciences! Let’s look back on some highlights.
UT Austin Aids Army in Test of Drone Defenses in Downtown Austin
On a recent Wednesday morning, Ph.D. student Ryan Farell was climbing to the top floor of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at The University of Texas at Austin — he was on a mission to detect drones that were …
Getting Math and Physics on the Same Page
A new international collaboration involving 16 principal investigators aims to apply new mathematical tools to symmetry in quantum field theory (QFT) and to further develop the underlying mathematics.
Features
Ancient Cousins, New AI Could Reveal Clues About Causes of Birth Defects
Learn how UT Austin scientists are using the AlphaFold and RoseTTA-fold—artificial intelligence software to solve longstanding questions in human health.
Citizen Science, Supercomputers and AI
TACC is supporting a number of projects — from identifying fake news to pinpointing structures in danger during natural hazards — that use citizen science to train AI models and enable new scientific successes.
Texas Science Stories that Wowed Us in 2021
See 16 examples of how UT Austin scientists, mathematicians and technologists used 2021 to usher in new knowledge and innovations to help change the world.
Probing the Secrets of Dead Stars from McDonald Observatory
McDonald Observatory provides UT Austin astronomy graduate students with valuable and unprecedented access to research facilities needed to complete their research.
UT Austin Harnesses Power of Biology in Partnership with Army Research Lab
Fighting biological threats is a high priority of the U.S. military. It's one of four main focus areas in a partnership in synthetic biology research that began when the Army Research Laboratory South was established in 2017.
Math for Poets
Heather Wilber is an NSF postdoctoral fellow who has just joined the Oden Institute from Cornell University where she completed her PhD in Applied Mathematics in May 2021.
A High Performance History - TACC Celebrates 20 Years
As TACC marks its 20th anniversary, let’s pause and reflect upon the center’s success thus far. Because the TACC story is only getting started.
5 Questions with Graduate Student and Entrepreneur, Hailey Nichols
Aerospace engineering graduate student Hailey Nichols recently won first place in UT Austin’s inaugural Female Founder Pitch Competition for her company, Locus Lock.
Small Is The New Big - Dr. Narayana Aluru
Computational science is an effective tool to better understand phenomena on the macroscale. But as new Oden Institute faculty member, Dr. Narayana Aluru, illustrates, it’s just as effective for understanding all …
Dashboards for Disasters
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and Louisiana, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. Harvey ranks as the second most costly hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since 1900, resulting …
Recognition
Guihua Yu Receives Prestigious Hackerman Award
Cockrell School of Engineering professor Guihua Yu has received the 2022 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research from The Welch Foundation for his pioneering work in nanomaterials science.
Palliative & Long-term Care Leadership Leads to Prestigious National Award
Jung Kwak, associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing, was awarded a Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program award by the Cambia Health Foundation.
11 Texas Engineers Among 1% Most-Cited Researchers
Researchers across the Cockrell School of Engineering were among the most frequently cited in their fields in 2021. A total of 11 Texas Engineers made the list of the top 1% most highly cited researchers in the world.
Two Faculty Members Named to RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings
The College of Education congratulates faculty members Angela Valenzuela and Stella Flores for being named to the 2022 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings list.
Keiko Torii Receives Asahi Prize
UT Austin professor of molecular biosciences Keiko Torii has won the Asahi Prize from the Asahi Shimbun Foundation in recognition of "her breakthroughs on growth control of plants and the development mechanism of stomata."
Geography Lecturer Elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society
Troy Kimmel, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and the Environment, has been elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) for 2022.
English Professor Wins Award for Best Scholarly Book in Animation Studies
Donna Kornhaber, Associate Professor of English, has won the 2021 Norman McLaren/Evelyn Lambart Award for Best Scholarly Book in Animation for her book Nightmares in the Dream Sanctuary: War and the Animated Film.
UT Austin's McLellan Receives O'Donnell Award in Medicine
UT Austin structural biologist Jason McLellan is the recipient of the 2022 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine from TAMEST (The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas).
Texas Engineers and Scientists Honored Among Top Inventors
Five engineers and scientists from UT Austin have been selected as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, a prestigious distinction awarded to a select group of 164 academic innovators around the world for 2021.
Noel Clemens Wins 2022 AIAA Aerodynamic Measurement Technology Award
Professor Noel Clemens has been selected to receive the 2022 AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Aerodynamic Measurement Technology Award.
Undergraduates
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.
Forget Mars; Venus is the Planet All the Kids Want to Study
A group of students from the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin won a NASA design contest for a Venus lander with an ambitious project that could someday, if realized, teach us a lot more about the planet.
Carey Scholarship 2021 Marcos Botto Tornielli
This year’s Carey Scholar is Marcos Botto Tornielli, a 22-year-old Computational Engineering student at UT’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics.
Beyond the Weather Report
UT student reporters tell climate change stories in a new podcast.