Sorry I’m Late … Traffic
About seven years ago, my wife and I took a cross-country road trip. We traveled almost 7,000 miles and passed through four of the country’s largest cities by population. We left New York before sunrise to avoid the city’s notorious traffic, spent…
Ballad of an Engineer
Sharing her ideas with a room full of students is not unusual for professor Alexandra Clarà Saracho. However, the civil engineering professor is doing something she’s never done before—she’s writing a song. And she’s not in the classroom; she’s on…
Siddharth’s Spark
May 31, 2013, was the deadliest day in the history of the Houston Fire Department. On this day, four firefighters died in a hotel structure fire. It was a tragedy across the firefighting community, and it broke the heart of 10-year-old Siddharth…
We Built This
As the live music capital of the world, it’s fair to say we built this city (Austin) on rock and roll. But it’s also built on a foundation of innovation developed at the Cockrell School. When our Texas Engineers go into the world with their degrees…
Engineering a Better Athlete
Ella Small knows how to make a big impression, at the doctor’s office and on the balance beam. She won a national championship for UT’s gymnastics team for that event in 2023. She came close to a repeat win in 2024, just a few months before she…
Chips Ahoy
In a small lab, surrounded by fellow students, Young He equips a second layer of protective equipment. A blue plastic smock and a face shield cover his clean suit and booties. Standing over a large sink, He grabs a large plastic bottle and begins…
Engineering Around the World
The refugee camp stood at the foot of the wooded Greek hills. Just inside the gate, along one of the high concrete walls, lay a long, narrow strip of gravel that Thomas Eichelberger and other Cockrell School students had traveled more than 6,000…
Making a Moon Mission
For the first time in over 50 years, an American spacecraft has landed on the Moon. Overnight, the lunar lander Odysseus—called Odie for short—became a household name. Just hours away from landing on the moon, Odie experienced a cabling issue on one…
Big Texas Energy
Twenty-five years from now, nearly 10 billion humans will populate the earth. Their houses, offices, factories, cars, trains, planes, and other modern-day infrastructure and transportation will require as much as 57 percent more energy than today.…
Engineering of the Big
It’s another hot, “fall” day with the semester in full swing, and hundreds of students, faculty and staff pack the stairs and floor of the Engineering Education and Research Center. Burnt orange fans with THANK YOU plastered on them in white text…