houck2040/research_news huggingface dataset:
Teresa Wilcox, a professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, and Michael Madigan, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to support project titled, “Obesity, Stress, and Neuromuscular Function in the Elderly.”
Steve DiMarco, a professor in the Department of Oceanography, College of Geosciences, has received a grant from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to support a project titled, “Understanding how the complex topography of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico influences water-column mixing processes and the vertical and horizontal distribution of oil and gas after a blowout.”
Sarbajit Banerjee, professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University, has been awarded the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)’s Rosenhain Medal and Prize in recognition of his research in new materials design.
The prestigious annual award, presented to Banerjee in London on Nov. 11, is bestowed in recognition of distinguished achievement in any branch of materials science, with preference given to researchers under the age of 40. Instituted in 1951 to honor the memory of German-born Australian metallurgist Walter Rosenhain, it is the highest young researcher award presented by IOM3, the premier global network for professionals in materials science.
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. Specifically, he was cited for his early-career accomplishment in the area of phase transformations in complex oxides, in addition to powder metallurgy of light metals and the ability to bring together theory, measurement and applications.
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Tadhg P. Begley, the Robert A. Welch Chair and Derek Barton Professor in Chemistry at Texas A&M University, has been recognized with the American Chemical Society (ACS) 2016 Repligen Corporation Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes for his career contributions to the mechanistic enzymology of vitamin (cofactor) biosynthesis.
Established in 1985 and administered by the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry, the annual award honors select members “for outstanding contributions to the understanding of biological processes, with particular emphasis on structure, function and mechanism.”
Begley will be presented with the award, which includes a silver medal and an honorarium, at the 251st ACS National Meeting, to be held August 21-15 in Philadelphia.
Begley, a world-class chemist, joined the Texas A&M Department of Chemistry faculty in 2009 following a distinguished 23-year career at Cornell University. His research involves an innovative combination of molecular biology, protein biochemistry, organic synthesis and structural studies to explore the mechanistic enzymology of vitamin biosynthesis. He has made important contributions to our understanding of the biosynthesis of thiamin, NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a coenzyme found in all living cells), molybdopterin, menaquinone, pyridoxal, cobalamin, coenzyme A and the deazaflavin F420. In the course of this research he has uncovered a treasure trove of new chemistry demonstrating nature’s versatility in assembling these key metabolites.
Image: Michael Kellett Photography
The Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS) announced its Faculty Fellows for the 2015-16 academic year. TIAS will welcome 13 new Faculty Fellows, each of whom is recognized as a trailblazing scholar in chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, genetics, law, literature or physics.
Among the new Faculty Fellows are nine members of the nation’s National Academies, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of Germany’s National Academy of Sciences, a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of France’s Palmes Académiques.
Each Faculty Fellow will partner with one or more of the departments offering graduate degreeshoused in Texas A&M’s 16 colleges or schools, or the Texas A&M Health Science Center. Additional resources provide Texas A&M fellowships for graduate students, as well as funding to support visiting graduate students and post-doctoral researchers affiliated with the Faculty Fellows.
Chancellor John Sharp of The Texas A&M University System said, “Once again, TIAS has assembled an impressive class of Faculty Fellows – the institute’s largest so far – that will have a significant impact on our faculty-researchers and our students. This is another reminder of how Texas A&M continues to enjoy a substantial return on our investment in TIAS.” Chancellor Sharp is a long-time champion of the institute and provided the funds to launch TIAS in 2010.
“The Institute’s impact on research and education at Texas A&M is incalculable,” said Texas A&M President Michael K. Young. “The 35 scholars from around the world who have come here as TIAS Faculty Fellows in the last four years have actively engaged in the transformative intellectual experience we seek to provide all of our students, helped us take our land-grant mission of addressing today’s most pressing, grand, global challenges to the next level, and elevated the overall culture of excellence for which Texas A&M is known.”
Each year, TIAS selects its Faculty Fellows from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments or significant recognition, including 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, andan awardee of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
TIAS Founding Director John L. Junkins said, “Brilliant scholars are the foundation on which great universities are built. By fostering collaborations between the world’s leading scholars, the university’s outstanding faculty and its top-notch students, TIAS advances the university’s research enterprise and deepens its educational experiences.”
Texas A&M Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “When the institute opened four years ago, the consensus was that it would take many years for the Faculty Fellows’ efforts to show tangible results. The consensus was clearly wrong. The institute has performed at a stellar level from the start and again has topped itself by attracting a large and impressive class of Faculty Fellows for 2015-16.”
The institute will induct its Faculty Fellows Class of 2015-16 at its annual gala in early 2016:
David Arnett, Regents Professor of Astrophysics, University of Arizona – A pioneer in the scientific study of exploding stars, Arnett is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Arnett will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Science.
John T. Brosnan, University Research Professor of Biochemistry, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada – Known for his groundbreaking research into kidney and inter-organ metabolism of amino acids and one-carbon units, Brosnan is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Brosnan will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the Departments of Animal Science, Poultry Science, and Nutrition and Food Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences; and the Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Robert A. Calderbank, Charles Sydnor Professor of Computer Science and director of the Information Futures Initiative, Duke University – The co-inventor of space-time codes, a key technology behind the Wireless Revolution, Calderbank is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Calderbank will collaborate on interdisciplinary research on big data with faculty and graduate students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering; the Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts; the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science; and the College of Medicine.
Richard Delgado, John J. Sparkman Chair of Law, The University of Alabama School of Law – Widely acknowledged as a founder of critical race theory, Delgado has received six Gustavus Myers Awards for outstanding books on human rights in North America, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and is among the most cited legal scholars in the United States with more than 5,000 citations. Delgado will collaborate with faculty-scholars and law students at the Texas A&M School of Law in Fort Worth. Additionally, he will interact with faculty and graduate students in the Colleges of Education and Liberal Arts on the main campus.
Richard A. Gibbs, professor and holder of the Wofford Cain Chair in Molecular & Human Genetics and director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine – Founder of the Human Genome Sequencing Center, one of the five worldwide sites selected to undertake and complete the Human Genome Project, Gibbs is best known for his work in whole genome sequencing for the discovery of genetic diseases. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, as well as the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science. Gibbs will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students in the College of Medicine.
J. Karl Hedrick, James Marshall Wells Academic Chair and professor of mechanical engineering, University of California, Berkeley – Recognized for his contributions to the development of automated transportation systems, Hedrick is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and received ASME’s Rufus Oldenburger Medal, which recognizes significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the field of automatic control. Hedrick will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering and with researchers in the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
Richard H. Holm, Higgins Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University – Acknowledged as a founder of bioinorganic chemistry, specifically for his approach to modeling active sites of enzymes, Holm is a member of National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences, the American Chemical Society Award in Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry, and the F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research from the American Chemical Society. Holm will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the Department of Chemistry in the College of Science.
Michael D. King, senior research scientist, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado – Known for his leadership on satellite projects that developed the ability of the U.S. space program to monitor Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land, King is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Meteorological Society. King will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in the College of Geosciences.
Stephen Polasky, Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics, University of Minnesota – Widely recognized as a leading economist in biodiversity and ecology, Polasky is member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Polasky will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the Department of Agricultural Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Department of Economics in the College of Liberal Arts.
John A. Rogers, Swanlund Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – A researcher who seeks to understand and exploit characteristics of polymers, liquid crystals and biological tissues, Rogers is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers and graduate students from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Electrical And Computer Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the colleges of Science and Engineering.
Manfred Schartl, professor and head, Department of Physiological Chemistry, University of Wurzburg, Germany – Known for explaining the molecular-genetic basis of cancer formation using non-mammalian models and for translating basic evolutionary research into discoveries with clear and direct impacts on human health, Schartl is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Germany and a recipient of the Heisenberg Award from the German Research Foundation. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers in the Department of Biology in the College of Science, the Health Science Center and the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
Kumares C. Sinha, Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, Purdue University – Recognized for his development of an integrated approach to managing highway systems and groundbreaking research on pavement and bridge performance, life cycle costing, and road safety, Sinha is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He will collaborate with faculty-researchers and students with the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the A&M System’s Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
Susan R. Suleiman, C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France, professor of comparative literature, Harvard University – Considered the leading U.S. scholar of 20th century French literature, Suleiman ranks among the world’s top scholars in her field, as well as a leading international scholar of gender and Holocaust studies. She received recognitionfrom the French government as an Officer of the Order of Academic Palms (Palmes Académiques), and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. Suleiman will collaborate with faculty-scholars and graduate students in the departments of International Studies, English and History, as well as the Gender and Ethnic Studies Program, in the College of Liberal Arts.
Image: The College of Science
In 2012, Texas A&M University chemist Hongcai Joe Zhou’s research resulted in a novel carbon-capture technique – in essence, a flypaper-like “trap” – poised to significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by power plants across the nation and world.
Three years later, Zhou’s latest proposal on carbon-capture research is one of 16 selected nationwide by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to advance new CO2 storage technologies.   The grants, announced earlier this month, are being awarded through the NETL’s Carbon Capture Program, which funds development and testing of transformational CO2 capture systems for new and existing coal-based power plants.
Research funded by this program is expected to help overcome limitations of singular, standard gas treatment systems, such as those based on solvents, sorbents or membranes alone.
Zhou will receive nearly $1.5 million from the DOE along with $361,000 in non-DOE funding for a total of $1.8 million in support of his proposal, “Evaluation of Amine-Incorporated Porous Polymer Networks as Sorbents for Post-Combustion CO2 Capture.”
In collaboration with Colorado-based Advanced Clean Energy Solutions, LLC, and College Station-headquartered framergy® Inc., Zhou will seek to develop highly porous materials with high CO2 affinity capable of capturing it from flue gases with low parasitic energy consumption.
Zhou, a professor in the Texas A&M Department of Chemistry since 2008 and holder of the Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry, is a world leader in the design of framework materials — precisely arranged and highly porous polymer-based structures that hold promise in a variety of energy and environment-related areas and applications. These framework materials include metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous polymer networks (PPNs).
Zhou’s group currently holds the world record in surface area for a porous organic polymer.
Video and featured image: BBC
While most people see roaches as filthy insects, a research team at Texas A&M led by Dr. Hong Liang, has proven that these roaches, when outfitted with small sensors, can have their movements controlled.
“The future technology is at work today,” said Liang.
Unlike previous technology that manipulated the roach’s movement through stimulating antennae, this study inserts electrodes directly into the roach’s nervous system. In the study the overall success rate of initiating and maintaining a turn averaged around 60 percent.
Carlos Sanchez, a doctoral student in the Texas A&M University’s mechanical engineering department was interviewed by BBC Click‘s Jen Copestake about the results of a 10-year research project, and the question of whether cyborg cockroaches can help in nuclear disasters was raised.
View at the BBC and the Look College of Engineering
Image: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Meigan C. Aronson, a professor of physics and astronomy at Stony Brook University in New York and a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory with a strong track record of experimental research and professional service at key national levels, has been named Dean of Science at Texas A&M University, effective October 1.
Aronson’s appointment was announced Wednesday (June 24) by Texas A&M Provost and Executive Vice President Karan L. Watson.
Since 2007, Aronson has jointly served as a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook and as group leader of correlated electron materials in the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department at Brookhaven Lab. Her research focuses on the discovery and characterization of quantum materials with particular interest in uncovering new superconductors.
Aronson earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bryn Mawr College in 1980 and both a master’s (1982) and Ph.D. (1988) in physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. After completing postdoctoral work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, she became an assistant professor of physics at the University of Michigan in 1990, earning promotion to full professor in 2002. In addition, Aronson served as associate dean for natural sciences in the College of Literature, Science and Arts at Michigan from 2004 to 2007.
A Fellow of the American Physical Society since 2001, Aronson also is a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow (2010-2015), a General Electric Junior Faculty Fellow (1992-1993) and a Committee on Institutional Cooperation Academic Leadership Fellow (2003-2004). Among her many professional activities, she is the current chair of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Neutron Advisory Board and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory External Advisory Committee and is a member of the Board of Governors for the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) at the University of California and the Board of Trustees of the Gordon Research Conferences. In addition, Aronson has been a member of several advisory committees for the National Academy Board on Physics and Astronomy, including the Committees on Opportunities in High Magnetic Field Science and the Future Direction of High Magnetic Field Science. She also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
A doctoral student and a senior undergraduate at Texas A&M University were chosen as winners of the Vice President for Research: Excellence in Research Award, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Division of Research have announced. The award honors one undergraduate and one graduate student for significant research achievements.
The winners were selected from students who were nominated during Student Research Week in late March. The nominees submitted essays describing their research to a panel of judges. Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “The process for making these awards was extensive. The winners demonstrated the excellence of their research through the complexity and originality of their topics, the precision of their research methods, the accuracy of their data, their expertise in the subject area, and their ability to communicate clearly the implications and impacts they anticipate for their field or for the future.”
The graduate student award went to Aashwin Mishra, a doctoral student in the Dwight Look College of Engineering who applies data science and statistical modeling to analyze systems and predict their responses to real-world conditions. His work examines large amounts of data to discover physics-based relationships and to develop statistical models. Mishra previously attended the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The undergraduate award was presented to Taylor Strange, a biomedical science major in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, from Montgomery, Texas. As a member of the Undergraduate Research Scholars program, Strange helped to develop sustainable, automated enrichment programs for Quaker parakeets. These programs are designed to engage research animals with interactive gaming while also collecting data about their interactions for further study.
Each winner received a $1,000 award funded by the Division of Research.
Six Texas A&M faculty members accept awards as 2015 Arts & Humanities Fellows. From left: Glen A. Laine, vice president for research, who presented the awards; Peter Lieuwen, professor of performance studies and composer-in-residence; Galen D. Newman, assistant professor of landscape architecture and urban planning; Kristan A. Poirot, assistant professor of communications and Women’s Gender Studies Program; Olga Dror, associate professor of history; Brian Rouleau, assistant professor of history; and Daniel L. Schwartz, assistant professor of history. (Photo by Michael Kellett)
Six faculty members at Texas A&M University received 2015 Arts & Humanities Fellows’ awards during a lunch ceremony held on May 5  at the University Club. Each fellowship includes $15,000 in funding over three years to support a specific scholarly or creative project.
A peer-review panel selected the recipients based on five criteria: merit and originality, professional qualifications, clarity, benefit to the public and the quality of the overall presentation. Application was open to all tenured or tenure-track Texas A&M faculty who are engaged in scholarship in the humanities or in creative work in the arts.
Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “The Arts & Humanities Fellows Program recognizes extraordinary scholarship and creativity, provides our faculty with a supportive environment to advance their scholarship and creative work and rewards scholarly and artistic merit among Texas A&M’s outstanding faculty-researchers.”
Arts & Humanities Fellowships for 2015 went to the following: