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Dean Paul Goldbart reached out to the College of Natural Sciences community as Stony Brook University announced he would be that campus's next provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. 

UTeach Executive Director and physics professor Michael Marder has been selected as the recipient of The University of Texas at Austin's 2020 Civitatis Award.

Elizabeth Sauer, BBA '66, known to all as Betsy, was a Houston native. She referred to Austin as "her place" and was known to say "hook 'em!" rather than hello or goodbye. She considered the four years she spent at The University of Texas at Austin to be the best years of her life. When Betsy wrote her estate plan, she wanted to help others experience their own life-defining moments at UT.

At the age of four Amir Husain fell in love with computers — in his words, he "became obsessed" with them. In his teens he began writing to his heroes, computer scientists like Niklaus Wirth, who created the Pascal programming language, and Nicholas Negroponte, a pioneer in the study of how humans interact with computers. They all wrote back. Amir left his home of Lahore, Pakistan to attend The University of Texas at Austin 8,000 miles away, drawn by the work of one of UT's computer science labs. While at UT, he found a kindred spirit in his wife Zaib, who was also from Lahore and a student at the McCombs School of Business.

In 1953, Billie Lee Turner began his career at The University of Texas at Austin with a dream to make significant contributions to the study of plant life. He was eager to elevate UT's botany program to world-class stature, and his heart was set on further developing UT's herbarium, a scientific library of dried plant specimens used in research. Throughout Billie's lifelong career at UT, he supported this passion and ultimately established generous gifts through his estate to ensure it would thrive for future generations.

Dean Goldbart sent a message to all faculty, staff and students in the College of Natural Sciences about how the college, with guidance from a community-led Action Team, is moving forward to improve inclusion and equity in Texas Science, including for members of our community who are Black, indigenous or people of color.

A methodical voice tells the watching crowd, "I am going to remove the lid." Everyone is quiet as a robot using artificial intelligence (AI) opens a trash can and lifts out a bag. Students and researchers hold their breath as it navigates across the floor of a mock house, avoiding obstacles to its destination. "Mission accomplished," it says. The trash has been taken out and the audience applauds. This is a huge achievement for the robot designed by a Texas Robotics team for the 2019 RoboCup competition.

We live in an increasingly digital era. Research shows that the average American checks their phone about 58 times daily, and spends an average of 4.5 hours a day on their phone. Without a doubt the amount of time the modern-day person spends on their phones has changed many aspects of how our society functions. For example, in the past decade we have seen a dramatic shift in forms of advertising. Companies are able to take note of people's patterns online and create personalized ads through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Amid a challenging semester for everyone and leading up to the national elections, Dean Paul Goldbart, joined by Senior Associate Dean David Vanden Bout and Associate Dean Dan Knopf, sent a message to all faculty.

​To calculate the true value of a forest, we need to know how people benefit from it, according to new research published in Nature Sustainability. A healthy forest holds a treasure trove of benefits for people — it can filter water for downstream communities, supply timber for building, and provide a place for people to connect with nature. But a forest — or any other ecosystem — won't necessarily provide the same things to everyone.