News

​The University of Texas at Austin's public-facing programs on campus and at museums, schools and science centers are currently suspended to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, the agent causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

College of Natural Sciences faculty members Michael Drew, Janice Fischer, Marci Gleason and Vernita Gordon each received a 2020 President's Associate Teaching Excellence Award, among seven total recipients.

This semester, the College of Natural Sciences is checking in with faculty experts about developments related to their fields of study that may well affect how we live, work and interact with one another and the world around us over the next 50 years. For this installment, we hear from Professor Adron Harris, M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Chair in Molecular Biology, a professor of neuroscience, pharmacology and psychiatry, and the associate director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research.

Every student has their own style of studying for exams. Some hold marathon study sessions, others endlessly review their notes. But scientists right here on campus say there are right ways and wrong ways to study, according to neuroscience.

As a young boy, Prem Mahendroo loved to fly kites near the Ganges River in his hometown of Haridwar, India. He has a vivid memory of climbing up the side of his house to free one that had been trapped. A fall could have been deadly, but he was determined to grasp what was just beyond reach.

That moment provides a glimpse of Mahendroo's life and work. Throughout his career as a physicist, he reached beyond. He would become a pioneer in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research and is admired by Nobel Prize winners in the field.

Textbook descriptions of brain cells make neurons look simple: a long spine-like central axon with branching dendrites. Taken individually, these might be easy to identify and map, but in an actual brain, they're more like a knotty pile of octopi, with hundreds of limbs intertwined. This makes understanding how they behave and interact a major challenge for neuroscientists.

As we look back on 2019, it's been a year filled with fascinating discoveries and big developments in the College of Natural Sciences and beyond. Read on to see some of the highlights from this year in Texas Science.

As the year draws to a close, we're looking back on highlights of 2019, including the arrival and hiring of dozens of new tenured and tenure-track faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences. Below are some of the stellar scientists and mathematicians new to our college community.

The Society for Neuroscience honored two University of Texas at Austin researchers at its annual conference, Neuroscience 2019. The conference is an opportunity for neuroscientists to present research findings, connect with experts and explore new technologies.

Dean's Honored Graduate is the highest honor awarded to graduating seniors in the College of Natural Sciences. Honorees exhibit excellence in the classroom as well as substantial achievement in scientific research, an independent intellectual pursuit, or exceptional service and leadership to the college and university. These outstanding students are among the graduating seniors also receiving College of Natural Sciences Distinctions this year.