Faculty

Manuel Rausch, an assistant professor with appointments in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health in the amount of $3.9 million. He will use the funding to lead a study of the heart’s tricuspid valve to better understand functional tricuspid valve regurgitation (FTR) – a condition that causes leakage of the valve located between the right atrium and the right ventricle of the heart.

John Goodenough has been a part of rarified air for decades now. And this week he joined another exclusive club. The lithium-ion battery pioneer and Nobel Prize winner turned 100. To celebrate, battery leaders from around the globe, many of whom have been influenced by Goodenough's breakthroughs, gathered virtually and in person at a symposium at The University of Texas at Austin to share stories and discuss the next generation of battery research.

Jamie Warner, the Hayden Head Centennial Professor in Mechanical Engineering, has been appointed as the new director of the Texas Materials Institute, effective July 1, 2022. The Texas Materials Institute is a joint research center of the Cockrell School and the College of Natural Sciences that also administers the materials science and engineering graduate program.

John-Paul Clarke’s rules of life led him to become an aviation expert and track and field official — and one of the newest faculty members in the Cockrell School, joining at the beginning of 2021. He brings with him an expertise in mathematics, applied to aircraft trajectory prediction and optimization, particularly as it relates to improving flight procedures that reduce the environmental impact of aviation. He is also an expert in the development and use of stochastic models and optimization algorithms to improve the efficiency and robustness of airline, airport and air traffic operations. Clarke’s work has influenced air transportation theory, policy and practice both at the national and international level.

Woodrow W. Winchester, III, an expert in engineering professional development and continuing education, has been named the new executive director of Texas Engineering Executive Education (TxEEE) in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. TxEEE provides for-credit graduate degrees and continuing education programs for working professionals. Winchester begins on July 1, 2022.

The University of Texas at Austin has named Lydia Contreras as its new vice provost for faculty diversity, equity and inclusivity, effective immediately. Contreras, who currently holds the Jim and Barbara Miller Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Chemical Engineering, has served for the past two years as the managing director of diversity in the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

Three faculty members of The University of Texas at Austin, including Mitchell Pryor from the Cockrell School of Engineering, have received 2022-2023 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program awards from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Pryor, Paola Canova and Catherine Weaver will conduct research and/or teach abroad during the 2022-2023 academic year, thanks to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Annually, more than 800 U.S. scholars, artists and professionals from all backgrounds teach or conduct research overseas through the program.

What do you get when you cross a geologist and a mathematician? A rock physicist of course. No that's not some kind of cheesy joke that flew over your head; it's the background of Zoya Heidari. She grew up hiking with her family, and her geologist dad had a habit of picking up random rocks off the trail and listing off everything he knew about them, which was a lot.

A pair of professors from The University of Texas at Austin were selected as finalists for the 2022 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Guihua Yu, a professor of materials science and mechanical engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering, was chosen as a finalist in the physical science and engineering category. And Jason McLellan, a molecular sciences professor in the College of Natural Sciences, was chosen as a finalist in the chemistry category.

Roger Bonnecaze, an internationally recognized expert in rheology and modeling and simulation for nanomanufacturing who has served as a faculty member at The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 30 years, has been named dean of the university’s Cockrell School of Engineering after a national search.

Tanya Hutter, assistant professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas, has been selected as a 2022 Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry. Hutter is being recognized for her work with molecular interactions at interfaces, nanomaterials and molecular spectroscopy. Some of the ongoing projects at the Hutter Research Group include optical nanoporous waveguides, fiber probes for in vivo applications, electrochemical sensors, photocatalysis, sensors for batteries and development of new gas sensor technologies.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced today that Al Bovik, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Karen Willcox, professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas of Austin, have been elected to the prestigious academy for 2022. In addition, alumni Michael Watkins and Ahmad Abdelrazaq have also been elected.

Professor Maruthi Akella of the Cockrell School's Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics has been elected a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The world’s largest aerospace engineering society, AIAA has been the torchbearer for professional leadership in the field for more than 80 years.

Two Cockrell School of Engineering faculty members have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. The honor recognizes important contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics—including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations, and advancing public understanding of science.

David Z. Pan, professor in the Cockrell School's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for 2021. He is being recognized for "contributions to electronic design automation, including design for manufacturing and physical design." Pan becomes the fifth ACM fellow among current Texas ECE faculty.

Cockrell School of Engineering professor Guihua Yu, a materials scientist and engineer in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and in UT’s Texas Materials Institute and Energy Institute, has received the 2022 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research from The Welch Foundation. He is being honored for his pioneering work in nanomaterials science that will have far-reaching applications in renewable energy and environmental and water sustainability.

Ashley James (A.J.) Welch, a leading biophotonics researcher and one of the founding faculty members of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UT, died at the age of 88 on January 1, 2022. Welch leaves a legacy of fundamental research and influence that carry on in the students he mentored and colleagues with whom he worked. Known for his patience, kindness, and ability to teach, the UT community mourns his loss.

Researchers across the Cockrell School of Engineering were among the most frequently cited in their fields in 2021. A total of 11 Texas Engineers made the list of the top 1% most highly cited researchers in the world, as determined by the Institute for Scientific Information at London-based analytics firm Clarivate.

Alan Bovik, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2022 Edison Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for "pioneering high-impact scientific and engineering contributions leading to the perceptually optimized global streaming and sharing of visual media.”

Five engineers and scientists from The University of Texas at Austin have been selected as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, a prestigious distinction awarded to a select group of 164 academic innovators around the world for 2021. The new UT Austin fellows include four from the Cockrell School of Engineering and one from the College of Natural Sciences. They join 16 previous inductees from UT Austin.