cameron county/matamoros - blue - The University of Texas at ...

UTB-CBIRD Report: “At The Crossroads” Education & Training 75
In 1996 UTB received approval for a new degree in Physics which started with
the appointment of two faculty members, and has grown to eight. Each faculty
member added is the result of aggressive faculty grant writing to provide funds
for students to receive stipends to assist the faculty with research and begin
their own research careers. Last year, five members of the UTB/TSC physics
faculty were chosen to be part of a research grant from the National Science
Foundation that allowed them to work with researchers from 10 other
universities. Since then this growing group of young physics professors has
received a $5.79 million dollar grant award from NASA to create the Center for
Gravitational Wave Astronomy at UTB/TSC.
Figure 4.24 examines the dramatic increase in Federal funds to the UTB/TSC
Partnership over the last decade. Major strides have been made in securing
Federal funds for special programs and research but more needs to be
accomplished.
Figure 4.24. UTB/TSC Federal Funds 1992-2002
Source UTB-CBIRD
In Section 5, this report suggests that the South Texas Border Region has
potentially globally competitive industry clusters in:
⇒ Leading-edge manufacturing and supply chain management linked to the
Maquiladoras in Northern Mexico
⇒ Transportation and logistics linked to cross-border security and multi-modal
efficiencies
⇒ Life sciences linked to border healthcare needs and challenges
Accelerated development of such industry sectors could “help close the gaps” by
providing the tax revenue and corporate gifts to fund quality research and
education programs focused on the Border Region’s most critical challenges.
These Texas -- indeed global -- challenges are most pronounced at the
international border between Cameron County, Texas and Matamoros,
Tamaulipas. A key to such accelerated regional economic development is
private and seed investment in quality PhD and MA research programs at
UTB/TSC where centers of research excellence could be based on each of the
regionally-based and globally unique living/learning laboratories centered on
manufacturing/maquiladoras, transportation & logistics, and life sciences each
One Region -- One Future
If we look to the future
education and research
needs for Texas in
general and the Border
Region in particular and
we are concerned with
“Closing The Gaps” it
could be argued that the
State needs (and would
benefit from) more top
tier research universities.