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A new initiative from the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin aims to drastically improve students' college readiness and success in mathematics. The new initiative, called Launch Years, looks to align K-12 schools and higher education and is supported by a $6.68 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sam Payne, professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded one of this year's two Max Planck-Humboldt Medals. The medal is financed by the German government and awarded jointly by the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

At a conference of the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Taipei, Taiwan in July, Matthew Rosenzweig was awarded second place and Ioakeim Ampatzoglou received an honorable mention in the Student Paper Competition, which named ten finalists. Both are graduate students of UT Austin mathematics professor Nataša Pavlović.

Mathematician Mark Daniels is one of 27 University of Texas faculty members chosen to receive prestigious 2018 Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards. The awards recognize innovative teaching and commitment to student success. They each will receive $25,000 in recognition of their commitment to student success.

Jacob Van Geffen started coding early. He loved the feeling of creating something from scratch. Before he came to The University of Texas at Austin, he knew that he wanted others to be able to experience that feeling as well. He was passionate about making programming easier and more accessible for all people.

Luis Caffarelli, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Mathematics #1 at The University of Texas at Austin, is a recipient of one of the world's biggest prizes for mathematics, the 2018 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences, which comes with a monetary award of $1.2 million. Awarded by the Hong Kong-based Shaw Foundation, the Shaw Prize honors recent breakthroughs by researchers in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and life science and medicine.

Thanks to a Department of Defense grant, researchers are planning for a future when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have the ability to fly themselves in emergency situations.

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has elected two professors in the Department of Mathematics to the 2018 Class of SIAM Fellows.

From baseball to financial investing, from elections to oil drilling, analyzing data quickly to predict future outcomes is transforming industries and activities around the world.

Using a novel imaging technique, a team of U.S. and German researchers found that wiggling the walls of a box packed with sand-sized glass spheres causes the spheres to form crystal structures similar to those formed when liquids freeze. By increasing the order among grains, the grains took up less space. One possible application would be to pack sand or other granular material more densely to save on shipping costs.

Mathematician Philip 'Uri' Treisman is one of seven University of Texas at Austin faculty members chosen to receive prestigious 2017 Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards. The awards are the Board of Regents' highest honor and recognize faculty members who have demonstrated extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in undergraduate instruction.

Juan Lozano is a second-year math student at The University of Texas at Austin who participates in the Directed Reading Program, an experiential learning program that matches undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics for projects that deepen students' understanding of high-level mathematical concepts. UT Austin's is the nation's largest and most diverse Directed Reading Program in the country.

A faculty member at The University of Texas at Austin whose research combines applied mathematics and theoretical neuroscience has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship for 2017.

Charles Fraser is Surgeon-in-Chief at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from UT Austin in 1980.

Three UT Austin mathematicians have recently garnered recognition for their contributions to mathematics and education. The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota has awarded associate professor Rachel Ward the IMA Prize in Mathematics and its Applications. The International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians' (ICCM) has awarded professor Björn Engquist its International Cooperation Award. And professor Inderjit Dhillon has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).