News

New faculty in Natural Sciences conduct compelling research and inspire new generations, right out of the gate. As the 2019-20 academic year begins, we are introducing faculty members whose compelling work is worth learning about. Here meet Kami Hull. Within months of joining the faculty, she won a prestigious Novartis Early Career Award in Chemistry in recognition of her research, which involves developing more efficient processes for synthetic organic chemistry.

This summer the Department of Physics welcomed an astrophysicist whom Global Citizen put on a list of the "17 Top Female Scientists who have Changed the World," alongside names like Jane Goodall and Marie Curie.

As a new academic year approaches, we aim to introduce you to some of the scientists and mathematicians in our community, especially faculty who joined our UT community recently. First up: Corwin Zigler, associate professor in UT Austin's Department of Statistics and Data Sciences and in the Dell Medical School's Department of Women's Health.

Each year, Texas Parents honors a male and female Outstanding Student recipient and four Outstanding Student finalists who demonstrate exceptional leadership, scholarship, character and service. This year, all six are pursuing majors in the College of Natural Sciences, including the two award winners, Colton Becker and Jacqueline Gibson.

Kate Calder, currently a professor of statistics and co-director of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State University, will be the new chair of UT Austin's Department of Statistics and Data Sciences (SDS), beginning in the fall. Calder, who will be on campus this month for an in-depth public conversation about computational health April 30th, is an award-winning statistician.

Graduate students at UT Austin have been sharing their work with the public at the successful and popular program Science Under the Stars for ten years. Now, with a new offshoot offering called Neighborhood Science, the students, primarily from the top-ranked ecology, evolution and behavior program, are working to connect even more of the Austin community to science by bringing their informative and entertaining talks––on topics ranging from superheroes to singing mice––right into Austin Public Libraries.

University of Texas at Austin computer science professor Kristen Grauman was elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a lifetime honor.

Caitlin Casey, UT Austin astronomy assistant professor, has been named a 2019 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA).

Before she was winning awards at UT Austin, computer science sophomore Chineye Emeghara was teaching herself to code in high school with resources she discovered online. Later, on a trip to Nigeria, where her mother lived before immigrating to the U.S., she realized that she could apply her interest in technology to improve the lives of others.

This summer, Texas Science students will travel the world to tackle challenges in public health, poverty and sustainability, thanks to UT Austin's inaugural President's Award for Global Learning.