THIS YEAR SO FAR
By Nat Levy
It was another big year in 2023 at the Cockrell School of Engineering. New partnerships, major accolades and exciting research breakthroughs were part of a litany of highlights for our Texas Engineers.
The new Gary L. Thomas Energy Engineering Building fosters even more multidisciplinary collaboration across Texas Engineering and further establishes the school as a world leader in energy education and research.
Amazon and UT Austin established a new Science Hub that will further understanding of video streaming, search and information retrieval and robotics.
Meet the Dean
Roger Bonnecaze became the dean of the Cockrell School after serving for nearly a year as the interim dean. He’s an internationally recognized expert in rheology and modeling and simulation for nanomanufacturing who has served as a faculty member at The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 30 years.
2023 Leadership Changes
Tyrone Porter, an accomplished imaging scientist, became the newest chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Jamie Warner, who joined the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering from Oxford University in January 2020 to lead the new Electron Microscopy Facility, took over as the new director of Texas Materials Institute.
Woodrow W. Winchester, III, an expert in engineering professional development and continuing education, was selected to lead Texas Engineering Executive Education.
Chemical engineering professor Lydia Contreras was named UT Austin’s new vice provost for faculty diversity, equity and inclusivity.
Civil engineering professor and construction engineering expert Fernanda Leite will be the next associate dean for research at the Cockrell School, succeeding John Ekerdt.
Matthew Balhoff, director of the Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment, has been named the next chair of the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering.
Emily Doran became the new chief development officer after serving as senior director of principal gifts for the Cockrell School.
Read more about Ezekoye’s work, and other Texas Engineers’ research on batteries, in our cover story.
Hundreds of K-8th Grade students took over the UT Austin campus for Girl Day.
Texas Engineers were part of a massive team that laid out the case for geothermal as the next big source of clean energy in Texas.
Faculty members piled up the awards and honors for the many achievements:
- Space environmentalist Moriba Jah was chosen for the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the “genius grant.” Jah and fellow aerospace engineering professor Karen Willcox were named to the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, one of the most influential Federal Advisory Committees in science and technology
- Chemical engineering professor Benny Freeman and civil engineering alumnus Fariborz Maseeh were elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
- Adding to his long list of accomplishments, Nicholas Peppas received the Professional Impact Award for Mentoring from The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomaterials Global Impact Award.
- Electrical and computer engineering professors Ray Chen and Al Bovik became fellows of the National Academy of Inventors.
- Diana Marculescu and Pengyu Ren were elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Professor Emeritus Bob Metcalfe received the ACM A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Computing,” for his work creating Ethernet.
The first class of Linford Scholars came to the Forty Acres. The program will provide need-based scholarship support for 100 high-potential students from low- and middle-income families per year.
The student-led Texas Rocket Engineering Lab got a boost from Lockheed Martin in its years-long quest to become the first student-led university team to launch a single-stage, bipropellant rocket to the edge of space.
For the first time, Texas Engineers flipped their tassels at the Moody Center, the site of the 2023 Cockrell School Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony. A few highlights:
- More than 1,400 Cockrell students got their degrees this year, and thousands of family and friends cheered them on.
- Ninety-nine-year-old Lew Griffith finally got his graduation moment, decades after earning three degrees, including a master’s.
- NASA Astronaut Stephanie Wilson shared some key skills that make a great engineer.
- Electrical and computing engineering graduate Neeley Pate was this year’s Outstanding Scholar-Leader Award winner.
The Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences
Battery pioneer John Goodenough celebrated his 100th birthday.
At the event, the Electrochemistry Society created a new award in his name, which was later won by his long-time colleague Arumugam Manthiram.
The new NSF-funded Center for Diversity and Equity and Inclusion launched and awarded its first round of DEI Seed Grants for staff and student-led projects.
A transformative gift resulted in the naming of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Read more about what this means for the future of the department amid a technological shift.
Maanas Gupta, a third-year biomedical engineering student was named a Goldwater Scholar, the preeminent award for undergraduate students who conduct research in the natural sciences, mathematics or engineering.
→ Read more of our stories and headlines from this year so far
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