Texas Parents present Outstanding Student Awards

Texas Parents named Cecilia Lopez and Liam O'Rourke recipients of its 2009 Outstanding Student Awards. The four Outstanding Student finalists were Mykel Estes, Sarah Lawson, Keshav Rajagopalan and Lauren Ratliff. The Mike Wacker Award recipients were Lindsey Carmichael and Spencer Cook. The Staff Merit Award winners were Rosielinda Almaguer, Jim Bollas, Bob Childress, Benjamin Grall [...]

Barnes receives Outstanding Woman in Science Award

The Geological Society of America, in partnership with Subaru, has awarded Jaime Barnes, assistant professor at the Jackson School of Geosciences, its annual Outstanding Woman in Science Award. The award honors women who have "impacted the field of the geosciences in a major way based on their Ph.D. research."

Six receive Robert C. Jeffrey Benefactor Award from College of Communication

Six people have been recognized by the College of Communication with the Robert C. Jeffrey Benefactor Award for their contributions of time, labor and philanthropy. The honorees include Isabella Cunningham, chair of the Department of Advertising; Kevin Hegarty, vice president and chief financial officer; Chris Mattson, director of the Mattsson-McHale Foundation and a member of [...]

Andrew Whinston named Distinguished Fellow at INFORMS

Andrew Whinston, professor in the Department of Information, Risk and Operations Management, has been named a Distinguished Fellow at the annual meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). INFORMS is the largest professional society in the world for the field of operations research. Whinston was named Distinguished Fellow in the [...]

Six faculty members receive President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award

Six faculty members have been selected to receive the President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award for 2009-2010 for demonstrating a consistent level of excellence in teaching. The award recipients will be recognized during an academic awards dinner during the spring semester and each will receive a $5,000 honorarium provided through contributions from university supporters of the [...]

Health Affairs vice provost named to Institute of Medicine

William M. Sage, vice provost for health affairs and the James R. Dougherty Chair for Faculty Excellence in Law, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Sage is among 65 new members and five foreign associates whose elections to the IOM were announced in conjunction with the institute's 39th annual meeting. Election to [...]

Robert Koons elected to Phi Beta Kappa Society senate

Robert C. Koons, professor of philosophy, has been elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society senate. Koons, who has taught at the university for 22 years, will serve a six-year term. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1978 at Michigan State University. Koons earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles.

UT Receives $6 Million to Study Carbon Storage

The university will use $6 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Texas General Land Office to identify state-owned areas underlying the Gulf of Mexico where carbon dioxide can be stored safely and economically. This study is the first in the U.S. to investigate the potential for permanent underground storage of [...]

Professor Joins Center for Politics and Governance as Fellow

LBJ School of Public Affairs Professor Benjamin Sasse has joined the Center for Politics and Governance as a Center for Politics and Governance Fellow. Sasse, who recently was assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services, will teach a number of courses for the center and help develop new [...]

Cynthia Buckley Awarded a $960,345 National Science Foundation Grant

Cynthia Buckley, chair of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and associate professor in the Department of Sociology, has been awarded a $960,345 grant from the National Science Foundation for her project titled "People, Power and Conflict in the Eurasian Migration System." The project will assess how international migration affects human security and patterns [...]

Hogg Foundation's Frost Promoted, Appointed to Academic Position

Attorney, educator and executive Dr. Lynda Frost has been named director of planning and programs at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and appointed as a clinical associate professor in the Department of Educational Administration. As a clinical associate professor, Frost will work with doctoral students in the department's educational policy and planning program. She [...]

Professor Wins "Ig Nobel" for Study of Pregnant Women

Anthropologist Liza Shapiro and two fellow researchers won an Ig Nobel Prize — dedicated to "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think" — for a 2007 study on the evolutionary reasons pregnant women don't tip over. By studying 19 pregnant women, they discovered that a woman's lumbar, or lower back, curve [...]

Presidential historian named director of the LBJ Library and Museum

Presidential historian Mark K. Updegrove has been named the new director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, effective Oct. 11. Updegrove is the author of two major works on the presidency, “Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House,” which won the Book of the Year Silver Medal Award for Political [...]

Three professors awarded $2.5 million for hydrogen fuel research

Chemical engineering Professor Charles Mullins, chemistry Professor Allen Bard and mathematics Professor Irene M. Gamba have received about $2.5 million to identify new materials that will efficiently absorb sunlight and split water into clean hydrogen fuel that could power cars and be used to generate electricity.

Assistant Pharmacy Dean named president-elect of pharmacy society

Diane Ginsburg, assistant dean and clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy, has been elected president-elect of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, effective June 2010. Ginsburg specializes in ethics and the legal and regulatory aspects of pharmacy and health care.

Ethan Kapstein joins the faculty in the LBJ School

Ethan Kapstein, one of the world's foremost scholars in international economic relations, is joining the faculty of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Kapstein will hold a Tom Slick Professorship in International Affairs and offer two seminars in the spring 2010 semester, one on economic development and the other on the economics of [...]

Kedra Ishop named vice provost and director of admissions

Kedra Ishop has been appointed vice provost and director of admissions. Provost Steven Leslie said the appointment of Ishop, who has been interim vice provost and director of admissions since July 15, became effective Sept. 1. Ishop succeeds Bruce Walker, who had held the position since 1996. Walker accepted a new role as the university's [...]

Professor wins presidential honor for work on lithium-ion batteries

Engineering Professor John Goodenough, developer of the materials critical to the creation of lightweight and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, has been awarded the Enrico Fermi Award, one of the most distinguished science and technology honors given by the White House. Goodenough shares the presidential honor with Stanford University's Siegfried S. Hecker. Each will receive a gold [...]

Professor receives $1.5 million from U.S. Department of Education

Randall Parker, the Melissa Elizabeth Stuart Centennial Professor in Education in the College of Education, has been awarded $1.5 million from the Rehabilitation Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Education. The two grants will help to support graduate students in the College of Education’s rehabilitation counseling program. The grants are in effect from September [...]

Award fund totaling $150,000 created to encourage humanities research

To promote research in the humanities, 10 liberal arts tenured or tenure-track faculty will receive Humanities Research Awards totaling $150,000 from the College of Liberal Arts. The college is accepting applications now and will announce the award winners for the 2009-10 academic year in December.