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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).

Bubacarr Bah, a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the prestigious German Chair in Mathematics, valued at $700,000. The Humboldt Foundation gives the award to researchers wishing to work in the renowned African Institute for Mathematical Science in South Africa (AIMS - South Africa).

Nancy Lee, M.D., (Math, '71) is a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health and Director of the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In honor of National Women's Health Week, we talked to her about her journey from math student to national advocate for women's health.

Philip 'Uri' Treisman, founder and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, has been honored with two major education awards nationally: the Ross Taylor/Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics and a Piper Professorship from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation.

Philip 'Uri' Treisman, founder and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, has been named a Distinguished Teaching Fellow by the Education Commission of the States, an education policy think tank.

​Ronny Hadani, associate professor of mathematics in the College of Natural Sciences and co-founder of Cohere Technologies, is developing technologies to make wireless communications faster and more reliable.

Leaders and policymakers in five states will develop state mathematics task forces and work to improve college student success through a new initiative from The University of Texas at Austin's Charles A. Dana Center. The three-year project is funded by a $2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

​As part of a continuing tradition, we invited faculty, staff and students in the College of Natural Sciences community to send us images this past spring that celebrated the magnificent beauty of science and the scientific process. Our goal was to find those moments where science and art become one and the same.

The College of Natural Sciences welcomes 11 new faculty this fall. Whether searching for evidence of exotic new physics, enabling the creation of personal robots, or addressing critical problems in cancer research, these industrious and innovative faculty members build on the college's reputation for pioneering research and research-based teaching.