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On her way to the library, part-time marine science student Mary Abell stumbled upon the bustle of arrangements being made for a Marine Science Advisory Council meeting.  At that time, little did she know that she and her husband, Joe would go on to have a lasting connection to The University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) which would become as strong and lasting as the granite jetties that border the Institute.

Three world-changing alumni of the College of Natural Sciences have been selected for induction into the college's 2017 Hall of Honor. Two distinguished alumni, Gail Dianne Lewis and Alan Stern, have been excelling in their chosen fields for decades. Meanwhile, emerging leader Franziska Roesner has only just begun to make her mark. All are building a better world.

Before Elmo and Cookie Monster come alive on the small screen, childhood experts like Jennifer Kotler Clarke, Vice President of Content Research & Evaluation at Sesame Workshop, conduct experiments and review data to ensure these and other Sesame Street Muppets have the intended impact on children, parents and educators all over the world.

In the summer of 1980, Microsoft was a scrappy little company with about 40 employees known mostly for producing computer languages like BASIC and FORTRAN. Annual revenues were just a few million dollars a year. That was all about to change when they got a call from global computer giant IBM. Could they help with a top-secret project to build, in less than a year, an affordable personal computer for ordinary people?

With less than a month to go before spring commencement, we're launching "CNS Alumni Change the World," a series about some of the outstanding people who got their start in UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences and went on to transform the world. Follow the series online with the hashtag #CNSworldchangers. First up is a speaker at two CNS commencement ceremonies on May 20.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is awarding 30 prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships to University of Texas at Austin students, including eight College of Natural Sciences (CNS) graduate students and five current undergraduates, as well as eight CNS alumni.

Francis Su, a University of Texas at Austin alumnus and the outgoing President of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), recently gave his retiring presidential address in which he discussed why and how to bring about a more inclusive mathematical community. He also talked about how math can help us live the good life.

Two amazing scientific discoveries, both with ties to the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, were named the top 2 science stories of 2016 by Discover Magazine. Other major media outlets also included them in their year-end "best of" lists, including National Geographic, Science News, Science and the New York Times. A third story from the College of Liberal Arts and Jackson School of Geosciences, which solved the mystery of how the most famous human ancestor died, appears in Discover's top ten as well.

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.

Students graduating this December will hear from an accomplished and world-changing software architect who walked across a similar UT stage—twice.