TAMEST Member News Roundup – October 2023
TAMEST loves to share the accolades of our membership. If you have been nominated for an award, been interviewed by the media or otherwise have a reason to celebrate, please share your news with TAMEST.
TAMEST In The News
The Dallas Morning News:How Dallas Licked Partisan Politics and Regional Rivalries to Land a Coveted Biotech Hub, TAMEST Hill Prizes Funder Lyda Hill Philanthropies
National Academy of Medicine: David and Beatrix Hamburg Award for Advances in Biomedical Research and Clinical Medicine, TAMEST Member Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM) and 2020 TAMEST Protégé Maria Elena Bottazzi, Ph.D., Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine
The Daily Texan: Researchers Find Link Between Social Factors, Water Quality Risks, TAMEST Member Bridget R. Scanlon, Ph.D. (NAE), The University of Texas at Austin
Forbes: Yes, AMD Believes AI on the PC is Important. And They Already Have it, TAMEST Member Lisa T. Su, Ph.D. (NAE), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Innovation Map: Rice Researchers Score $45M from NIH for Cancer-Fighting Tech, TAMEST Member Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D. (NAE), Rice University
ASBMB Today: Mechanisms of a Gut Bacterium – and How to Stop Them, TAMEST Board Member Kim Orth, Ph.D. (NAS), UT Southwestern Medical Center
Member Briefs
Regional Energy Hub Will Expand Clean Hydrogen Production and Provide New Jobs
One of the world’s largest concentrations of hydrogen production, pipelines and users is based in Texas and southwest Louisiana. The Department of Energy’s new HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub will leverage these assets to deliver the benefits of clean hydrogen and good-paying jobs to local communities. The regional energy hub is part of the DOE’s $7 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law investment, with The University of Texas at Austin as the leading academic organization and a founding member. “By advancing the global clean hydrogen market, we will help to decarbonize multiple sectors of the economy and support equitable economic development across the region,” said TAMEST Member Brian A. Korgel, Ph.D. (NAE). Read More
UT Southwestern Biochemist Zhijian ‘James’ Chen to Receive Prestigious Horwitz Prize
TAMEST Member Zhijian “James” Chen, Ph.D. (NAM, NAS), UT Southwestern Medical Center, has been awarded the 2023 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in recognition of his groundbreaking work on innate immunity. The Horwitz Prize is presented by Columbia University in recognition of outstanding contributions in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry. Nearly half of the scientists who have received the Horwitz Prize over the past 56 years subsequently were awarded the Nobel Prize. Read More
Robert Ambrose Recognized for Decades of Outstanding Achievement
TAMEST Member Robert O. Ambrose, Ph.D. (NAE), Texas A&M University, is the 2023 recipient of the Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award recognizes an engineer who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in the two decades or more since graduating with their degree. It was established in 1944 as a partnership with the national mechanical engineering honor society, Pi Tau Sigma. Read More
Stratos Pistikopoulos Honored with Chemical Engineering Service Award
For his contributions to process systems engineering and his service to the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) community, TAMEST Member Stratos Pistikopoulos, Ph.D. (FREng), Texas A&M University, has been bestowed with the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the CAST Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Read More
Dereje Agonafer Named Honorary Member of ASME
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has named TAMEST Member Dereje Agonafer, Ph.D. (NAE), The University of Texas at Arlington, as an honorary member. Honorary membership is awarded by the ASME Board of Governors to as many as five corporate members of the society each year for a lifetime of “distinguished service that contributes significantly to the attainment of goals of the engineering profession.” Read More
Hagler Institute Reveals Newest Class of Fellows and Lecturers
TAMEST Members Mae C. Jemison, M.D. (NAM), The Jemison Group and George Georgiou, Ph.D. (NAM, NAE), The University of Texas at Austin, are among 14 new Hagler Fellows and two new Distinguished Lecturers announced by the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University. The Class of 2023-24 is the Hagler Institute’s largest in its 13-year history. Each fellow or lecturer belongs to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering or Medicine, or holds recognitions of equal stature in their field. The newest class includes scientists, engineers and scholars who are recognized internationally for their achievements and scholarship. Read More
Oden Institute Celebrates 50 Years in Interdisciplinary Leadership
The Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin celebrated its 50th anniversary, led by TAMEST Member and TAMEST 2024 Annual Conference Co-Chair Karen E. Willcox, Ph.D. (NAE). The event hosted a full day of events, which featured two keynote addresses and afternoon panels looking at the future of computational science and engineering (CSE). Read More
Peter Hotez Receives Inaugural IDSA Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award
TAMEST Member Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM), Baylor College of Medicine, has been awarded the inaugural Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award for his efforts to uphold and speak to scientific truths. The Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award is given in recognition of the values and attributes that Dr. Fauci has exhibited throughout his career, courage in leadership in speaking scientific truth, perseverance in the face of opposition, and serving as a change agent for healthcare and patients around the world. Read More (No longer available)
UT Establishes the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin will reimagine its approach to training civil, architectural and environmental engineering students as society’s designers, with a renewed emphasis on leadership and service needed to solve global challenges. A transformational investment from a UT alumnus will galvanize this approach, which he calls “engineering the big.” Preparing future engineers for this new environment requires innovative research and educational approaches that department chair TAMEST Member Robert B. Gilbert, Ph.D. (NAE), The University of Texas at Austin, believes can become a model not just at UT, but at universities around the world. Read More
UTA Creating $6.2 Million Clinical Research Imaging Center
The University of Texas at Arlington has given the green light to build a $6.2 million Clinical Research Imaging Center on its main campus. Featuring a new 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, the new center will be led by Michael D. Nelson, Associate Professor of Kinesiology. Officials estimate the new facility will be operational within 12 to 15 months. Currently, UTA faculty, staff and students needing an MRI for research must travel to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Read More
UTRGV Signs MOU with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Foster STEM Education and Research Opportunities
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Oct. 5 with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to establish a collaborative agreement aimed at enhancing undergraduate education and research opportunities in STEM fields while strengthening UTRGV’s academic programs. Read More
PARMESAN: An AI-Based Predictive Tool to Find New Treatments for Genetic Disorders
Researchers at Texas Children’s Hospital including TAMEST Member Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D. (NAM, NAS), Baylor College of Medicine, led a study to generate a natural language processing (NLP) tool called PARsing ModifiErS via Article aNnotations (PARMESAN). This new tool can search for up-to-date information, assemble it into a central knowledge base and even predict likely drugs that could correct specific protein imbalances. Read More
A New Fruit Fly Model to Probe an Epileptic Brain Disorder
TAMEST Member Hugo J. Bellen, D.V.M., Ph.D. (NAS), and his team at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital generated a new fruit fly model to assess the severity of symptoms caused by UBA5 variants. This systematic analysis lays the foundation for better evaluation of the variants, which is important for the DEE44 patients in the future and for the development of drugs and gene therapy to treat this rare disorder. Read More
A Research Collaboration Between the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at Austin
The Energize Program, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin (through the Energy Institute and the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering) and Southwest Research Institute (through the Office of the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer) is a grant opportunity offered to enhance greater scientific collaboration between the two institutions with the expectation that the teams will jointly respond to future external funding opportunities. Read More
National Academy of Medicine Announces 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) announced the 2023 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars. These individuals are early- to mid-career professionals from a wide range of health-related fields, including internal medicine, psychiatry, radiology, biomedical engineering and journalism. Among the scholars include The University of Texas at Austin researcher Adewole S. Adamson, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Dermatology, Dell Medical School. Read more
