houck2040/research_news huggingface dataset:
About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $892 million in fiscal year 2016. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2015), based on expenditures of more than $866 million in fiscal year 2015. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit https://research.tamu.edu.
The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) on Tuesday named John L. Junkins among its 175 NAI Fellows for 2016. Induction ceremonies are set for April 6, 2017, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
Junkins is the founding director of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study in the Division of Research as well as a Distinguished Professor, a Regents Professor, and holder of the Royce E. Wisenbaker Chair in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering. In addition, Junkins is the director of the Land, Air and Space Robotics Laboratory and of the Center for Mechanics and Control, both at Texas A&M.
Over a career that spans five decades, Junkins has made significant contributions to the navigation, mechanics and control of aerospace systems, which are documented in more than 400 articles and eight books. Early in his career, Junkins worked on concepts and inventions to support U.S. space missions. From laser range measurements made during Apollo missions 15, 16 and 17 in 1971-72, Junkins developed a precise model for the shape of the moon. He later developed the first finite element representation of the Earth’s gravity anomalies, which supported early inertial guidance methods for Polaris missiles. In more recent years, in collaboration with his students, Junkins developed the laser-scanning electric whiteboard; the StarNav II, a split field-of-view star camera designed to enhance spacecraft navigation; the VisNav, a navigation sensor designed to improve the capability of spacecraft to rendezvous and dock; and a robot that mimics spacecraft proximity operations for research in Earth-bound laboratories, among other inventions. He has developed many algorithms for spacecraft control, including a novel way to use the Earth’s magnetic field to maneuver spinning satellites; this was implemented successfully for the NOVA spacecraft.
Junkins earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University in 1965, followed by a master’s degree in 1967 and a doctoral degree in 1969, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining Texas A&M in 1985, he held academic appointments at the University of Virginia (1970-1977) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1977-1985), following four years as an engineering scientist with McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company. His current research interests include the dynamics and control of spacecraft; guidance, navigation and astronautics; analytical and numerical methods; and smart sensor technology. His research has received significant funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, among others.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the International Academy of Astronautics, and is an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Honors include the Martin Summerfield Award for the best book published by AIAA in 2013; the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Award in 2006; the Tycho Brahe Medal from the Institute of Navigation in 2004; the Frank Malina Medal from the International Academy of Astronautics and the Theodore von Karman Medal and Lectureship from AIAA, both in 1997; and the AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award in 1990.
Junkins is the fifth Texas A&M faculty-researcher to be selected since the NAI named its charter fellows in 2012. The others are R. Bowen Loftin, former president of Texas A&M; B. Don Russell, Distinguished Professor and holder of the Harry E. Bovay, Jr. Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering; Marlan Scully, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science; and the late Christodoulos A. Floudas, formerly the director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute and holder of the Erle Nye ’59 Chair for Engineering Excellence in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering.
Today’s announcement brings the total of NAI Fellows to 757, representing more than 229 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions. The 2016 Fellows account for more than 5,437 issued U.S. patents, bringing the patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 25,000. Election to NAI Fellow status is accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.
Video: Research Communications and Public Relations
COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M University now ranks 16th overall in the latest survey from the National Science Foundation (NSF), based on annual expenditures in research and development.
Released on Nov. 17, the NSF’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey ranked Texas A&M on fiscal year 2015 reported research and development expenditures of more than $866 million. Previously, fiscal year 2014 expenditures of $854 million ranked Texas A&M 17th overall in the survey.
Among other Texas-based universities in the top 50, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center ranked 19th on the latest survey with $833 million; The University of Texas at Austin ranked 30th with $651 million; the Baylor College of Medicine came in at 39th with $520 million; and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center placed 50th with $438.8 million.
In addition, Texas A&M ranks ninth overall among the top-10 public research universities cited by the survey (see chart).
“As Texas A&M rises in the national rankings, we are seeing our investments in recruiting top tier researchers, state-of-the-art facilities and academics pay off,” said Chancellor John Sharp of The Texas A&M University System. “Providing resources is one thing, but I congratulate the faculty, students and administrators for their hard work and focus on groundbreaking discoveries that will change lives and make for a better future.”
Texas A&M President Michael K. Young said, “Texas A&M is owning its seat at the national table in terms of academic excellence and innovation, as reflected in the rankings. We conduct research that changes the course of people’s lives, of their communities, of the world.”
Karan L. Watson, provost and executive vice president, said, “Thanks to our outstanding faculty and their research teams, Texas A&M continues to advance steadily among the top institutions in the nation. Texas A&M conducts research that is vast and deep, cutting across disciplines, engaging in surprising collaborations, and generating results that benefit our state, our nation and the world at-large.”
Glen A. Laine, vice president for research, said, “Every day, our faculty members take on many of society’s most important challenges and produce amazing solutions. Congratulations must go to them, as well as to Chancellor Sharp and President Young for their strong leadership in advancing the Texas A&M research enterprise.”
The NSF survey provides a census of 906 degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States, with a minimum budget of at least $150,000 in research and development expenditures. The latest survey found that U.S. universities recorded $68.8 billion in research and development expenditures in fiscal 2015, an increase of 2.2 percent from fiscal year 2014’s total of $67.4 billion.
The nation’s top three research institutions retained their rankings from the previous NSF survey. Johns Hopkins University led the survey with $2.306 billion in expenditures, followed by University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with $1.369 billion, and the University of Washington at Seattle with $1.181 billion.
Link to Higher Education R&D Expenditures, ranked by all R&D expenditures, by R&D field: FY 2015: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17303/
About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $866 million in fiscal year 2015, ranking Texas A&M in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2015). Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit https://research.tamu.edu.
Image: Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study
In a public ceremony held Sept. 20 inside the Great Hall of the Jack K. Williams Administration Building, the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS) revealed its class of Faculty Fellows for the 2016-17 academic year. TIAS welcomed 10 new Faculty Fellows, each of whom is renowned for conducting groundbreaking research in chemistry, mathematics, engineering, medicine, astronomy, atmospheric science, marketing or law.
The latest class of Faculty Fellows includes members of the nation’s National Academies as well as representatives from major scientific or professional organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom,  Canada and Germany.
Each Faculty Fellow will partner with one or more of the departments offering graduate degrees housed in Texas A&M’s 16 colleges or schools or at Texas A&M’s branch campus in Galveston. The Institute provides fellowships for graduate students to work with Faculty Fellows, as well as funding to support visiting graduate students and post-doctoral researchers affiliated with the Faculty Fellows.
A long-time champion of the Institute, Chancellor John Sharp of The Texas A&M University System provided the funds that launched TIAS in 2010. “The talent that the TIAS program brings to Texas A&M is causing everyone else in higher education to take notice,” Chancellor Sharp said. “It was money well spent to enrich the academic experience with such world-class scholars and researchers.”
President Michael K. Young of Texas A&M University said, “This fifth class of TIAS Faculty Fellows offers truly outstanding credentials. In collaboration with our exemplary faculty, these Fellows will sustain the extraordinary trajectory of TIAS, inspire truly transformative intellectual experiences among our students, and advance the international reputation of the Texas A&M research enterprise.”
Provost and Executive Vice President Karan Watson said, “Each of these remarkable individuals offers a strong portfolio of world-class accomplishments in their fields. As we have seen with the previous four classes of Faculty Fellows, the research that will emerge from their collaborations with our own outstanding faculty and students will be exciting and extraordinary.”
Each year, the Institute selects its Faculty Fellows from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments or significant recognition. Former classes have included two Nobel laureates, a Wolf Prize recipient, a recipient of the Hubble Medal in Literature for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the National Medal of Science, an awardee of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, a recipient of the highest award in Architecture and a two-time recipient of the State Prize of Russia.
TIAS Founding Director John L. Junkins said, “This fifth class of ten outstanding scholars have intellectual strengths centered in six colleges, however their scholarship impacts many disciplines.   These Fellows being in residence afford our faculty and students extraordinary opportunities to collaborate one-on-one with top people in their fields. We expect game-changing and life-changing outcomes as a consequence.”
The Institute will induct the Faculty Fellows Class of 2016-17 at its annual gala in early 2017:
Christopher C. Cummins, Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Among the most innovative synthetic chemists of his generation, known for his impact on small molecule activation, Cummins is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding member of Germany’s Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Cummins will collaborate with faculty-researchers from the College of Science and the Dwight Look College of Engineering.
Ingrid Daubechies, James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University – One of the world’s most cited mathematicians recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance image-compression technology, Daubechies is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Daubechies will collaborate with faculty-researchers from the College of Science and the Dwight Look College of Engineering.
Gerald Galloway, Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, University of Maryland – Regarded as the leading flood-management expert in the United States, he is known for his work on the Galloway Report, a federal study that focused on the Great Flood of 1993 along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Galloway is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Public Administration. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers at Texas A&M University at Galveston.
Huajian Gao, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Engineering, Brown University – Known for his research into micromechanics, the basic principles that control mechanical properties and behaviors of materials in both engineering and biology, Gao is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the Dwight Look College of Engineering.
Maryellen Giger, A.N. Pritzker Professor of Radiology and College Vice-Chair for Basic Science Research, The University of Chicago – An expert in computer-aided diagnosis as well as digital signal and image processing, Giger is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the Dwight Look College of Engineering as well as with scientists and clinicians in the Texas A&M Health Science Center, the Houston Medical Center and local hospitals.
Robert Kennicutt Jr., Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, University of Cambridge – Best known for his work on the Kennicutt-Schmidt law, which relates gas density to star-formation rates, Kennicutt is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom. Kennicutt will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the College of Science.
Charles E. Kolb, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aerodyne Research Inc. – A leader of one of the world’s most prominent research institutions specializing in atmospheric chemistry, air quality and climate, Kolb is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. Kolb will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the College of Geosciences.
V. Kumar, Regents’ Professor and the Richard and Susan Lenny Distinguished Chair Professor of Marketing, Georgia State University – An acknowledged expert on marketing research methods and customer relationship management strategy, Kumar has been recognized with eight lifetime achievement awards. Kumar will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the Mays Business School.
William M. Sage, James R. Dougherty Chair for Faculty Excellence in Law and Vice Provost for Health Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin – Nationally known as an expert in national health care reform including market principles driving access to health care, Sage is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Sage will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the School of Public Health, the College of Medicine, the Bush School of Government and Public Service and the School of Law.
Thomas S. Ulen, Swanlund Chair Emeritus at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law – Author of pioneering textbooks and journal articles that examine a variety of issues related to economics, legal scholarship and legal education. Ulen serves on the Board of Directors and is a founding member of the American Law and Economics Association. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the School of Law and the College of Liberal Arts.
News coverage: Texas A&M faculty fellows program ends startup phase with fifth class, The Eagle (Bryan-College Station), Sept. 21, 2016
Image: College of Science
Sarbajit Banerjee, professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University, has been awarded the 2016 Beilby Medal and Prize in recognition of his early career accomplishment in novel materials design and application.
The prestigious award, presented to Banerjee in London last week, is jointly conferred once every three years by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Society of Chemical Industry in recognition of significant contributions to chemical engineering, applied materials science or energy efficiency by a researcher under 40 years of age. The medal is a memorial to Sir George Thomas Beilby, who served as president of all three bodies. Founded after his death in 1924, it was first awarded in 1930.
Banerjee, 37, joined the Texas A&M Department of Chemistry faculty in 2014 and is also an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Previously in November, he also received the Rosenhain Medal and Prize recognizing distinguished achievement in materials science — the highest young researcher award presented by IOM3 as the premier global network for professionals in materials science.
Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) will lead the new Gulf Coast Regional Manufacturing Center, one of five regional centers located across the country as part of the $140 million Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) announced June 20 by the White House.
The Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition, headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., will lead CESMII, in partnership with the Department of Energy. The coalition brings together a consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia, industry and non-profits—hailing from more than 30 states—to spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of advanced manufacturing in the United States.
The five regional manufacturing centers are each focused on local technology transfer and workforce development. TEES and the Texas A&M Energy Institute will lead the Gulf Coast center, assisted by industry partners and The University of Texas at Austin and Tulane University, and focus on the chemical, oil and gas sectors.
Image: High Performance Research Computing, Division of Research, Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University’s High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) center was recently named an Intel® Parallel Computing Center, or Intel® PCC.
The Intel PCC program provides funding to universities, institutions and research labs to modernize key community codes used across a wide range of disciplines to run on current state-of-the-art parallel architectures. The primary focus is to modernize applications to increase parallelism and scalability through optimizations that leverage cores, caches, threads, and vector capabilities of microprocessors and coprocessors.
HPRC will work to develop open-source software focusing on simulation of flows through micropores, such as those found in rocks involved in oil and gas extraction, by extending OpenFOAM, a popular open-source simulation software.
Texas A&M Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “Working with Intel not only benefits Texas A&M by giving us access to Intel’s vast expertise, but it also benefits our researchers involved in the project, the entire research enterprise at Texas A&M, as well as future users of the enhancements that HPRC works to develop.”
In becoming an IPCC, Texas A&M joins other universities in the country including Stanford University, Princeton University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University, Indiana University, and The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, among others.
“HPRC is proud to be recognized as an Intel Parallel Computing Center,” said Honggao Liu, director of High Performance Research Computing. “At HPRC we use high-performance computing to unite experts in numerous fields of study. This grant and multi-disciplinary project will allow us to better understand and solve issues within this critical software.”
“Code modernization for scientific and industrial research is critical to advancing the pace of discovery and innovation,” said Charles Wuischpard, vice president and general manager of High Performance Computing Platforms Group at Intel.  “Texas A&M joining the Intel® Parallel Computing Center program will have significant impact on modernizing OpenFOAM codes for Intel architecture with broad and lasting influence on the community for years to come”
Xiaoning Qian, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering, received the Faculty Early Career Development Award sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
The National Science Foundation’s Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future program awarded a grant to Michael J. Demkowicz, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering, to speed up the development and application of nanometallic materials.
Kenneth Bowman, the David Bullock Harris Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, College of Geosciences, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support a project titled, “Dynamics and Kinematics of the Monsoon Anticyclones.”
Dickson Varner, professor and holder of the Pin Oak Stud Chair of Stallion Reproductive Studies in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, has been named the recipient of the David E. Bartlett Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Theriogenology and the American College of Theriogenologists.
Established in 1971, the award honors excellence in theriogenology, or animal reproduction, and is presented to one person annually. Varner will receive the award at the joint annual conference this July in Asheville, North Carolina.
The award honors Varner’s work in equine theriogenology, which includes assisted reproduction, stallion fertility, and in-vitro preservation of stallion sperm.
Bani Mallick, a Distinguished Professor and holder of the Susan M. Arseven `75 Chair in Data Science and Computational Statistics, and Raymond Carroll, a Distinguished Professor and holder of the Jill and Stuart A. Harlin ’83 Chair in Statistics, both in the Department of Statistics, College of Science, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund a project titled, “Graph-based Bayesian analysis of Genomics and Proteomics Data.”