Innovation
UNT student researchers are inspired by a long and growing list of faculty whose research is changing the world for the better and earning recognition at the highest levels.
Presidential Honors
Rada Mihalcea’s groundbreaking research into the semantic interpretation of text for specific language-processing applications earned her the presidential seal of approval. The associate professor of computer science and engineering was one of only 100 university researchers nationwide to earn the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, America’s highest honor for a beginning scientist or engineer. Rather than using just one resource to model the meanings of words for language-processing applications, Mihalcea finds ways to combine different monolingual and multilingual lexical resources, covering a large number of languages, to create rich, flexible word meaning representations. This means that information drawn from resources in other languages — for instance, the meanings of a word in Spanish or French — can contribute to understanding the meanings of the corresponding word in English.
NSF CAREER Award
Srinivasan Srivilliputhur, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, became the fifth UNT researcher to be awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award — the most prestigious recognition offered by the NSF for young researchers. His research focuses on the development of strong, ultra-light materials for automotive and other advanced applications. Such engineered materials could someday replace heavier ones like steel and result in significant cuts in fuel consumption. UNT’s other recent CAREER award recipients are Rada Mihalcea, associate professor of computer science and engineering; Mohammad Omary, professor of chemistry; Pamela Padilla, associate professor of biological sciences; and Angela Wilson, professor of chemistry.
Fulbright Specialists
Two professors strengthened UNT’s global connections when they taught abroad in 2009 as part of the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program. James Kennedy, professor of biological sciences and director of the Elm Fork Education Center and Natural Heritage Museum, co-taught a graduate course on sub-Antarctic ecology at the University of Magallanes in Punta Arenas, Chile. He has been a visiting professor in the graduate program in conservation and management of sub-Antarctic ecosystems there for the past two years and is leading efforts to develop a long-term dual degree master’s program in biocultural conservation between the university and UNT. He is a founding member of the UNT-Chile program. James Meernik, professor of political science and associate dean for administrative affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences, taught a course on post-conflict peace building at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México in Toluca. He also is establishing a partnership between the university and UNT that focuses on immigration research. Meernik was named an American Council on Education fellow for 2009-10, one of 38 selected nationwide and one of two from Texas.
Inaugural Chemistry Fellow
Wes Borden, the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry, was named to the inaugural class of fellows of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. He is among 162 chemists nationwide, from universities and academic institutions, industry and government, who were named ACS fellows for their contributions to chemical research and distinguished service to the field of chemistry. Borden’s research includes the use of computers to understand and predict the behavior of molecules. He is one of the principal investigators in the National Science Foundation’s Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society for 10 years.
International Recognition
Witold Brostow, Regents Professor of materials science and engineering, was elected a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Petroleum and Gas for his commitment to finding solutions to global energy issues. The academy has members across the world and is based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Brostow leads UNT’s Laboratory of Advanced Polymers and Optimized Materials. Under his direction, researchers work to discover new properties and uses for plastics. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Mexico and the Union for Polymer Research in Berlin. He also is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in London and winner of the Fred A. Schwab International Award of the Society for Plastics Engineers.
UNT is enhancing and expanding its innovative research efforts by investing in collaborative research clusters, building new facilities and acquiring better tools to support faculty projects. Newly hired faculty members include senior-level researchers with international reputations.
Newest Research Clusters
This image of a fiber grown by faculty member Kevin Stevens in the new plant materials research cluster was produced by graduate student Shailesh Vidhate using equipment at UNT’s Center for Advanced Research and Technology.
Two new collaborative research clusters focusing on sustainability and environmental issues will build on innovative research already under way at UNT, bringing the total number of research clusters to seven. Scientists from the materials science and engineering, biological sciences, chemistry and engineering technology departments will concentrate on the properties of plant materials and how they might be adapted to create new bioproducts. And researchers from the philosophy and religion studies, biological sciences, studio art, and library and information sciences departments will establish a long-term ecological research site in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Chile, building on UNT’s strength in sub-Antarctic biocultural conservation and environmental science. UNT’s collaborative research clusters are funded through the University’s $25 million commitment to support research, strengthen the state’s economy and develop technology vital to addressing today’s most pressing needs. New hires within the scope of the existing clusters include David Stout, a senior-level faculty member and multimedia artist; Qunfeng Dong, who specializes in bioinformatics; and Zhiqiang Wang, a computational materials scientist.
Research Strides
As an emerging research university, UNT has made important investments to reach the top tier and become a national research university. UNT awards nearly 200 doctoral degrees annually, and graduate student enrollment grew by 11 percent in fall 2009. To support graduate students and enhance the quality and competitiveness of graduate education, UNT has invested more than $6 million during the past four years, including $2.5 million last year. Also, a $2.2 million super computer now is part of the campus research infrastructure. This computational power increases researchers’ ability to do more complex calculations and work with large data sets, while improving visualization and rendering complex images in real time. UNT has even more traction to become a national research university thanks to a new matching funds program in Texas. Gifts such as the newly funded Mike Moses Chair in Educational Administration will help the University have an even bigger impact in the world.
Discovery Park
Dallas-Fort Worth is the nation’s fourth-largest metro area, producing one-third of all goods and services in Texas. To support that competitive edge, UNT’s commitment to research begins with space, which faculty researchers say is synonymous with creating opportunities. UNT’s Discovery Park, a nearly 290-acre research facility, is ensuring that the region is an economic hub by partnering with established corporations and start-up companies that need, and benefit from, the talent of faculty and students. The 500,000-square-foot facility is developing as a business incubator and research park, with a clean room and a unique combination of high-powered microscopes and other nanotechnology tools that give faculty members the ability to conduct research leading to the creation of stronger materials and smaller devices.
NSF Center
UNT is leading a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center to create cutting-edge software that will enable complex networks to aid in critical decisions that must be made quickly. The Net-Centric Software and Systems Center — which also includes two other universities and about a dozen high-tech companies — is pioneering research that aims to revolutionize how complex information is gathered, shared and used. Its applications are far-reaching, from the military, aerospace and emergency management to health care and telecommunications. The center, directed by Krishna Kavi, professor of computer science and engineering, is one of about 40 NSF centers nationwide that develop long-term partnerships among industry, academia and government to focus on a variety of issues.
Research Solutions
Continuing its legacy of excellence as a center for artistic expression and education, UNT launched the Institute for the Advancement of the Arts in fall 2009 and welcomed the institute’s first artist-in-residence — Guillermo Arriaga, whose films include the Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-winning Babel. The institute is designed to support accomplished professionals in the visual, performing and creative literary arts. It is housed in the newly opened UNT on the Square, an exhibition and event space that extends UNT’s presence and provides another avenue for community partnerships. Inaugural faculty fellows Dornith Doherty, professor of studio art, and Cindy McTee, Regents Professor of music, were granted release from other faculty duties to work on creative projects full time this spring. Doherty is taking X-ray images of seeds and cloned plants at international seed banks and incorporating them into digital collages to be featured in several major exhibitions. McTee, who won the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers, is composing a nine-minute piece the orchestra will perform in June and creating a transcription for UNT’s Wind Symphony.
Gauri Khandekar and Uvaraj Radhakrishnan, molecular biology graduate students, are at work in a develop-mental physiology and genetics research lab at UNT.
Faculty and students continue to break new ground in innovative research that is broad-based and far-reaching. Incorporating projects in the humanities, social sciences, arts and sciences, UNT’s research and creative activities are making a difference in numerous disciplines.
Immigrant Research
Since 2002, UNT faculty members have received almost $3 million in external funding to support immigrant-related research. In fall 2009, the University founded the Immigrant Research and Policy Center in an effort to encourage interdisciplinary research in this field. The center’s primary goal is to become a nationally recognized source and repository of immigrant-related research. Initially, faculty from arts and sciences, business, education, public affairs and community service, and visual arts and design are participating.
Energy-efficient Chips
Dhruva Ghai (’09 Ph.D.) chose UNT to pursue his doctorate in computer engineering and to join Saraju Mohanty, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, in his research to make electronic chips faster and more energy-efficient. This could mean that cell phones, laptops and digital cameras would be charged less frequently and last for weeks. Well-known and well-cited in his field, Mohanty earned nearly $1 million in funding, including a new three-year grant of $250,000 from the National Science Foundation that he is sharing with Elias Kougianos, assistant professor of engineering technology.
Glass Formation Modeling
Zhibing Hu, Regents Professor of physics, is helping to develop a new way to model the formation of glass in his work with researchers from Harvard and Columbia. The November 2009 issue of Nature describes the research team’s method to enhance the basic understanding of glass formation using a suspension of soft colloids as a model. This work will further the understanding of glass formation and lead to improvements in its design and manufacturing.
Better Crops
Farmers across the globe spend an estimated $33 billion annually to protect their crops against disease and pests, but they still lose an estimated $100 billion each year. Research conducted by Jyoti Shah, associate professor of biological sciences, could minimize these losses by arming plants with more effective natural defenses. Shah recently received more than $1 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to improve the understanding of plant responses to stress. He is part of UNT’s cluster focusing on signaling mechanisms in plants.
Mobile Shopping
Through the research of Kiseol Yang, an assistant professor who teaches e-merchanding courses in the School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management, mobile shopping services designed with consumers’ perceptions of mobile shopping capabilities in mind could revolutionize the industry. The use of iPhones or BlackBerry functions for shopping is popular in Japan and Korea but relatively new to the U.S. The applications Yang is studying include a digital wallet for product purchases, a mobile community site on social media, and increased multisensory and expert recommendation features.
Infectious Disease Tracking
The research of Aldo Aviña (’08) could help stop the spread of infectious disease, not through medicine, but through geography. The master’s student in applied geography and Ronald E. McNair Scholar is collaborating on a project with the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth and the Texas Department of State Health Services. He is helping to calculate the risk of exposure to Lyme disease and certain Rickettsial diseases through an environmental public health surveillance study, led by Sam Atkinson of UNT’s Institute of Applied Science and Phillip Williamson of the Institute of Investigative Genetics at the Health Science Center at Fort Worth. Two-thirds of UNT’s McNair scholars attend graduate school. A first-generation college graduate, Aviña plans to pursue a Ph.D.
Mental Well-being
A stable and rewarding job can be instrumental in helping individuals with mental disabilities. UNT’s Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions received a $112,000 grant from the Meadows Foundation to create Job Fit, a program that will help individuals with mental health disabilities find and maintain employment by working with the business community and mental health organizations. The program also will serve as a training ground for rehabilitation students. Job Fit will be housed at UNT’s new disability and well-being lab, which will help individuals with disabilities remain healthy, productive and active through research related to psychological, physical and environmental issues. The lab is being created in collaboration with the Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion and Recreation.
