News: Statistics and Data Sciences

Read the latest news from the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin

Research

Scientists Use Ancient DNA to Shed Light on Adaptation of Early Europeans

By using ancient samples, the scientists managed to look back in time to uncover novel signatures of adaptation at the dawn of the agricultural revolution.

An excavation of a human burial site.

Features

Insider Insights: Meet Statistics & Data Science Major Parul Gupta

From organizing hackathons to tackling big data sets, one student finds inspiration in the college’s newest major.

SDS major Parul Gupta smiles at a recent hackathon.

Computer and Data Science Online

Five Years Strong, UT’s Online Master’s Programs Shape the Next Generation in Computer and Data Science

Across three degrees, the online computing master's offerings now serve about a third of UT's graduate students.

The face of a clock on the UT Tower with the sky int he background

Features

Preparing for Future Outbreaks, Experts Use Disease Simulation Exercise

Public health officials and researchers gathered this month for a gamified version of an outbreak investigation.

Two men at a table in a conference room setting peer down at pieces of a game, with network details and information sheets.

Announcements

New AI Institute Led by UT Researchers Will Accelerate Cosmic Discovery

Stella Offner and Arya Farahi are among the leads of a new multi-institution institute focused on AI and astronomy.

Four quadrants of scientific-images come together, with webs showing bright spots for star formation, galaxy clustering, identifications of galaxies that are labeled and a futuristic network.

Announcements

Natural Sciences Welcomes New Faculty Across the College

Familiar faces and newcomers alike are among the 13 newest tenured and tenure-track faculty members joining the college.

New faculty members 2024-2025

Research

Newly Discovered Antimicrobial Could Prevent or Treat Cholera

Natural antimicrobials called microcins are produced by bacteria in the gut and show promise in fighting infection.

There are two images side-by-side. In the image on the left, a dark ring separates a blue disk in the middle from a field of grey surrounding the disk. The image on the right is similar, except there is no dark ring.

Research

AI Opens Door to Safe, Effective New Antibiotics to Combat Resistant Bacteria

Protein large language models identify ways to make antibiotics better at targeting dangerous bacteria, without being toxic to humans.

A green bacteria-shaped object with a red arrow piercing through its center. The bacteria is surrounded by concentric circles and smaller, blue, bacteria-like shapes. The background is a light blue grid with a pattern of binary code.

Accolades

College of Natural Sciences Faculty Receive NSF CAREER Awards

The awards from the National Science Foundation support innovative work by earlier-career faculty.

Photos of five faculty members around the logo of the National Science Foundation

Features

What Will Extreme Weather Events Mean for Texas’s Favorite Bugs?

The answer matters for people, too, given how insects affect whole ecosystems.

A photo of a monarch butterfly on a yellow flower