TAMEST Member Roundup

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.

Member News Roundup

TAMEST publishes awards, publications and other member accolades in its digital newsletter and on its website. Below is an archive of TAMEST Member News Roundups:

Member Profiles

TAMEST profiles one of its members in each issue of its digital newsletter to find out more about their careers and what they value about TAMEST.

Thomas Overbye

Thomas Overbye, Ph.D. (NAE)

For nearly four decades, TAMEST Member Thomas Overbye, Ph.D. (NAE), Professor and Director of Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEES) Smart Grid Center (SGC), has made a career out of providing cutting-edge innovation to the electric power grid industry. TAMEST connected with Dr. Overbye to learn more about Texas’ recent grid problems and how his work aims to modernize how electricity is delivered from suppliers to consumers and to enable new electricity products, services, and markets.

Vivian Ho

Vivian Ho, Ph.D. (NAM)

When the pandemic hit, TAMEST Member Vivian Ho, Ph.D. (NAM), Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, pivoted her research examining the effects of economic incentives and regulations on the quality and costs of health care to focus on how lockdowns early in a pandemic can impact related deaths months later. She says her career in big data and health outcomes prepared her to look at the spread of disease in populations and understand the economic incentives involved. 

Mary Pat Moyer, Ph.D. (NAE), INCELL

Mary Pat Moyer, Ph.D. (NAE)

When the pandemic hit, Mary Pat Moyer, Ph.D. (NAE), Founder, CEO and Chief Science Officer of INCELL, immediately knew her biomedical product manufacturing business in San Antonio had to pivot to develop new COVID-19 related products. Though a definite risk, she says her blue-collar upbringing instilled her with a moral compass to do what is right and help people when and how you can.

Helen and David Piwnica-Worms

David R. Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., (NAM) and Helen Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D. (NAM)

TAMEST Member David R. Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., (NAM) first met his wife, TAMEST Board Secretary Helen Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D. (NAM) back in high school in their home state of Minnesota. Since then, the couple has moved across the country in pursuit of academics and biomedical research. In 2013, the couple made Texas their home to continue their careers at The University of Texas at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson).

Kenneth Ramos, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM)

Kenneth Ramos, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM)

Kenneth Ramos, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM), an internationally recognized leader in genomics, toxicology and precision medicine, moved back to Texas in 2019 to lead the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) Institute of Biosciences and Technology (IBT) in Houston and to serve as assistant vice chancellor for health services for the Texas A&M University System. 

Reginald DesRoches

Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D. (NAE)

Prior to his transition to Howard Hughes Provost at Rice University, Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D. (NAE)  was the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering for Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering. As a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the society’s Structural Engineering Institute, Dr. DesRoches served as the key technical leader in the United States’ response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, taking a team of 28 engineers, architects, city planners, and social scientists to study the impact of the earthquake.

Ann Salamone

Ann Beal Salamone (NAE)

Although Ann Beal Salamone (NAE) got her start as a polymer chemist in the electronics industry, a 1980s recession in the Boston area would change her career trajectory forever. Along with a group of fellow scientists, Mrs. Salamone left the electronics industry and instead utilized her polymer expertise to develop products in beauty care and wound care. She co-founded Rochal Industries in 1986 and she now holds more than 25 U.S. patents/applications.

Kim Orth

Kim Orth, Ph.D. (NAS)

Growing up in the South, Kim Orth, Ph.D. (NAS) spent the first part of her career overcoming the stigma that scientific research wasn’t necessarily seen as a job for a wife and mother. The recipient of the 2011 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Science found the field of molecular biology by accident when she signed up for it as an elective in college. She described the mixture of biology, chemistry and genetics as “awe inspiring” .

Florence Haseltine

Florence P. Haseltine, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM)

Florence P. Haseltine, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM), came out of retirement last year to join the faculty at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) as a Presidential Distinguished Professor after a successful career at the forefront of health technology. She is an innovator and inventor who holds numerous patents and has tirelessly promoted the advancement of women throughout her more than thirty-year career.

Nancy Dickey

Nancy W. Dickey, M.D. (NAM)

Nancy W. Dickey, M.D. (NAM), credits early exposure to the health care environment as a nurse’s aide in high school and a desire to prove wrong those who said she couldn’t become a doctor for pushing her toward her dreams. Born in South Dakota, Dr. Dickey married a Texan and has dedicated her career to the issues of rural health and team science in Texas.

Kishor Mehta

Kishor C. Mehta, Ph.D. (NAE)

As a civil and structural engineer, it was the extreme winds of Texas’ High Plains region that first interested TAMEST member Kishor C. Mehta, Ph.D., P.E. (NAE) in the design of buildings to withstand severe winds during natural disasters. In fact, he says, it was a chance tornado that tore through and devastated much of Lubbock in 1970 that solidified his future researching the effects high winds have on buildings and communities.

Eric Olson

Eric Olson, Ph.D. (NAM, NAS)

Dr. Eric Olson is a man of many talents. The professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center is equal parts award-winning molecular biologist, rock band front man and family man mountaineer. From stem cells, muscle development and transcriptional regulation, Dr. Olson has dedicated his career to deciphering the mechanism that controls development of the heart, cardiovascular system and skeletal muscle tissue.

Selda Gunsel

Selda Gunsel, Ph.D. (NAE)

A passion for problem solving and mathematics are what first convinced Shell’s Vice President of Global Commercial Technology Selda Gunsel, Ph.D. (NAE), to pursue a degree in chemical engineering. Looking back after a long, successful career in the industry, she says she loves the foundation and the flexibility the chemical engineering education provided her at the beginning of her career.

Huda Zoghbi

Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D. (NAM, NAS)

It was thanks to her clinical training as a pediatric neurologist that Dr. Huda Zoghbi first unveiled a passion for researching neurogenetics. Early in her career, Dr. Zoghbi says learning how devastating neurological disorders are for patients was tough. However, she says it was even harder to not know what caused the disorders she saw in her young patients in the first place. From there, Dr. Zoghbi decided to study molecular biology and genetics to identify the underlying causes of certain diseases in hopes of improving their management.

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