Maverick Science mag 2013-14

MAVERICK SCIENCE
The College of Science Magazine The University of Texas at Arlington 2013-14
Sedimentary
Education
In the foothills of Wyoming, Majie Fan is
examining the geologic record to learn
what processes and climate changes
formed the Central Rocky Mountains
Lighting the way
Samarendra Mohanty uses innovative techniques
to create better ways to target and treat disease
Learning the secrets of the sea
Alumnus Robert Stewart reflects on a fascinating
50-year career in physical oceanography
Taking a wider view
Sophia Passy applies concepts of macroecology
to find solutions to micro-level problems

M e s s a g e f r o m t h e D e a n
Changing the status quo on women in science
Welcome to the 2013-14 edition of Maverick Science,
the magazine that puts a spotlight on what’s happening in
the UT Arlington College of Science.
We have a lot of exciting things going on in our College
and in the following pages, you’ll be able to read about
many of them. From the groundbreaking research being
done by our award-winning faculty and students, to the
top-notch teaching being done in our classrooms and labs,
to the positive impact being made by our alumni in a variety
of fields, the College of Science is making a difference
and is leading the way in finding solutions through science.
I’d like to take a few moments to touch on a topic that is
very important to me and, I’m sure, to all of us: Why aren’t
there more women in STEM (science, technology, engineering
and math) fields?
Eileen Pollack makes many good points regarding this
question in an article she wrote for the New York Times
Magazine last October. She knows the subject matter all
too well: She graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s
in physics from Yale in 1978 but said that not one of
her professors encouraged her to go to graduate school. Instead,
she went on to become an acclaimed novelist. In the
article, Pollack cites a 2013 Yale study which found that
“only one-fifth of physics Ph.D.s in this country are awarded to women, and
only about half of those women are American; of all the physics professors in
the United States, only 14 percent are women.” Women are also underrepresented
in chemistry, mathematics, geology and, to a lesser extent, biology.
The reasons for this are varied. Some are tied to cultural perceptions and
stereotypes, others to gender bias, and still others to marginalization of
women in the workplace. It all starts, however, in primary and secondary
school. Although girls fare just as well as boys in math and science through
fifth grade, by the time they reach high school, many girls are discouraged
from pursuing more advanced science and math classes by the persistent but
incorrect notion that girls aren’t able to comprehend these subjects as well as
boys. Their friends may tease them for wanting to be “nerds” or “geeks” and
in some cases their own counselors and advisors may try to steer them into
more socially oriented fields.
The single greatest reason most women who are interested in pursuing
degrees in math and science give when asked why they abandon those pursuits
is the same one Pollack said she experienced – a lack of encouragement
along the way. They simply didn’t have anyone telling them they were just as
capable as boys and in fact, in many cases, people told them they couldn’t
and wouldn’t succeed as scientists and mathematicians, simply because of
their gender. This is what we all as a society must find a way to change.
In the College of Science, we’re doing everything we can to overcome
these long-standing obstacles. We have outstanding female faculty in each
department, and through their hard work and dedication to their students in
the classroom and in the lab, they’re proving that the notion of women being
less capable in math and science is a myth. You’ll read about four of them in
this magazine: Majie Fan in earth and environmental science; Nicolette
Lopez in psychology; Sophia Passy in biology; and Michaela Vancliff in math.
They, along with their male colleagues, Subhrangsu Mandal in chemistry
and Samarendra Mohanty in physics, are representative of the great, innovative
work being done by our faculty and their students – male and female.
We also do a great deal of outreach in K-12 education, including a substantial
amount with young girls, who disproportionately move away from
science and math as they get older. Last October, our Department of Mathematics
hosted over 100 girls in fifth and sixth grades from Arlington schools
for a day of Mavericks in Math. The event was intended as a way to encourage
girls – particularly minorities and those from low-income households –
to study math, and to show these bright young ladies that they are limited in
Kevin Gaddis Jr.
Dean Jansma congratulates a member of the Class of 2013 during the Spring 2013 College of
Science commencement ceremony in May.
what they can accomplish only by their imagination.
There were fun games, workshops and a Q&A forum with four women
who have forged or are forging successful careers using math as their foundation.
The girls were able to ask questions and hear the truth straight from
women who have proved the point: Girls can succeed in science and math.
Much progress has been made in recent years, yet much remains to be
done. Issues such as unequal pay, lab space and resources for female faculty
persist nationwide. Worries about childcare options for female faculty who
want to start families are always present, as women are still by and large seen
as the primary caregivers for their families. The percentage of women science
faculty members at most universities is still very small. To change that, we
need more women master’s and Ph.D. graduates so that the job candidate
pool will include more women.
In the next decade, the number of STEM graduates that will be needed
for the United States to retain its long-held status as the world leader in the
science and technology fields is expected to be one million more than the
number the nation is on target to produce. This could have dire effects on
our economy. A 2012 report commissioned by the White House said that
members of the “underrepresented majority” – women and minorities –
now make up around 70 percent of college students while comprising
around 45 percent of students who receive undergraduate degrees in STEM
fields. The report notes that this “underrepresented majority” is a tremendous
potential source of STEM professionals.
Women make up roughly half the population in the United States. Now
more than ever, we truly cannot afford to accept the status quo when it
comes to women’s participation in science and math.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read this magazine, and please feel free
to let us know what you think. Alumni, we would love to hear from you and
reconnect with you. If you’re in the neighborhood, please drop by campus
and say hello. Thanks and best wishes to all of you.
Pamela Jansma,
Dean of the College of Science

MAVERICK SCIENCE
The University of Texas at Arlington
The College of Science Magazine 2013-14
C O N T E N T S
F e a t u r e s
20
Crunching the strata
Geologist Majie Fan and her students
study sedimentary rock to learn about
what the Earth was like millions of
years ago and how geologic processes
and changes in climate shaped the
world we live in today.
32
Shining a light
Samarendra Mohanty’s innovative approach
to biophysics research utilizes
the latest technology as he and his
students work on more effective ways
to find and treat disease.
24
Breaking it down
Biochemist Subhrangsu Mandal and
his students are examining genes and
DNA to discover ways to fight the formation
and spread of diseases such as
cancer.
A half century
of making waves
38
Robert Stewart didn’t know what oceanography
was when he was attending Arlington State
College in the early 1960s. It quickly became his
passion thereaer, and the physics training he
received while at ASC served him well over the
course of a fascinating 50-year career studying
the physical properties of the ocean.
36
A win-win scenario
e UT Arlington I/O Psychology
Center matches master’s students with
area businesses, and Nicolette Lopez
has helped make the internship program
a smashing success.
28
e big picture
Sophia Passy and her students focus
on ecology of a large scale to address
more specific issues such as how watershed
wetlands can help remediate
the damage done by acidification to
streams in the Adirondacks.
Above, Robert
Stewart on campus
in November 2013,
and at right, in his
Army Corps uniform
as a freshman
at Arlington State
College in 1959.
42
Abstract artist
Michaela Vancliff is an expert in a
branch of algebra that even many
mathematicians find mystifying. Her
exacting standards help prepare her
students for successful careers in math
research and teaching.
D e p a r t m e n t s
2
4
Dean’s Message
Science Scene
6
10
Tributes
College News
44
45
Faculty News
Student and Alumni News

S c i e n c e S c e n e
A unique opportunity
e Shimadzu Institute
for Research Technologies
allows students to utilize
cutting-edge equipment
to conduct research
Groundbreaking research in a host of fields
will be the hallmark of UT Arlington’s Shimadzu
Institute for Research Technologies. Offering
students the chance to fully participate
in that research is something which will set the
University and the institute apart.
Students are already benefiting from access
to some of the most advanced scientific instrumentation
in the world. Two new teaching laboratories
– one in chemistry and one in biology
– opened in the Fall 2013 semester, and four of
the institute’s new centers are scheduled to
open in 2014. They will join four centers already
open or repurposed from earlier incarnations
to give UT Arlington students and
faculty access to eight diverse centers of excellence
in which to share instrumentation and innovations
across disciplines. The wealth of
technology also puts UT Arlington in a unique
position to support research and development
across the United States and attract outside investments.
“Our students will learn through experience
with instrumentation not available at universities
elsewhere in the world,” said Carolyn
Cason, UT Arlington vice
president for research.
“The Shimadzu Institute
is not only a resource for
private business, but is
also an educational hub
that will prepare our next
generation of researchers,
Cason
scientists and innovators.”
The Shimadzu Institute for Research Technologies
is the product of a $25.2 million investment
in research. UT Arlington established
the Institute in October 2012 with the support
of a $7.5 million gift from Shimadzu Scientific
Instruments, Shimadzu’s Maryland-based U.S.
subsidiary. UT Arlington is home to the widest
range of instruments from worldwide technology
leader Shimadzu Corp. in the United
States. Shimadzu Corp. has worldwide sales of
$3 billion annually.
Faculty members and research teams are
planning projects that will put Shimadzu instrumentation
in the hands of a variety of undergraduates
– from nursing and biology
students studying basic chemistry to future en-
Brandon Wade
Doctoral student and graduate
research assistant Doug
Carlton Jr., above, queues
samples with the autosampler
to separate and detect the
volatile compounds using gas
chromatography - tandem
mass spectrometry in the
Shimadzu Center for Advanced
Analytical Chemistry.
At left, Li Li, left and Jana
Chalupova flush the inlet of a
mass spectrometer.
4 Maverick Science 2013-14

S c i e n c e S c e n e
gineers and chemistry majors
headed toward careers in drug development,
epidemiology or food
science. In addition, a $50,000
portion of the Shimadzu gift was
designated to establish the Shimadzu
Undergraduate Research
Excellence (SURE) Fund. That
fund will be used to support innovative
models in undergraduate research.
“Our teaching labs are being
employed to involve students as
early as their freshman year,” said
Joe Barrera, director of the institute.
“This assures that all students,
regardless of their chosen
major, will train and learn on the
same cutting-edge instruments
that are found in the facilities. I feel
this quote by an outside observer
puts it into perspective: ‘UTA undergraduate
students are training
on instrumentation (teaching labs)
usually reserved for advanced
graduate students, while graduate
students use instrumentation (facilities)
usually reserved for experienced
industry researchers.’ ”
For students like Doug Carlton
Jr. – a doctoral student and graduate
research assistant whose research
utilizes the Shimadzu
Center for Advanced Analytical
Chemistry (SCAAC) – the institute
presents a unique opportunity to
work with instrumentation that places no limits
on what can be achieved.
A student conducts an experiment by infusing solutions
containing analytes into a mass spectrometer
inlet to observe the degree of ion formation.
“Our teaching labs are being employed to
involve students as early as their freshman year.
is assures that all students, regardless of their
chosen major, will train and learn on the same
cutting-edge instruments that are found in the
facilities.”
– Joe Barrera,
Shimadzu Institute for Research Technologies director
“The variety of instruments housed in the
SCAAC is unmatched by any other academic laboratory
and nearly unmatched by any industrial
research laboratory,” Carlton said. “The same instruments
that students are able to operate in the
SCAAC and teaching labs are being used in all
fields – environmental, energy, food and drug,
forensic, and others – around the globe.”
The SCAAC was the first component of the institute
to open, in Spring 2012. Last summer, research
conducted at the center by Shimadzu
Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry
Kevin Schug and his lab group on potential contamination
at private water wells near natural gas
drilling sites made national and international
headlines.
“The partnership with Shimadzu brings the
most cutting-edge technologies to UT Arlington
in chemistry, biology, material science and many
more,” Barrera said. “In addition, beyond having
the instrumentation, we are maximizing its impact
by (1) having an open-access policy and being
available to all researchers not only here at UTA,
but all North Texas researchers as well, and (2)
hiring our own research staff in order to provide
sample analysis to researchers across the world.”
The University’s Animal Care Facility was renovated
and upgraded in November 2013 and became
part of the institute. The Nanotechnology
Research Center, Center for Human Genomics
and the Center for Materials Genome – which
previously were operated by different
departments – have been
or are being transitioned to the
Institute’s domain this spring.
They will be joined this year by
the Shimadzu Center for Bio-
Molecular Imaging, the Shimadzu
Center for Environmental,
Forensics and Material Science,
and the Shimadzu Center for
Brain Imaging.
The innovative research being
done by UT Arlington faculty
members and their students,
combined with the technology
that the University’s partnership
with Shimadzu makes possible,
will give UT Arlington students a
distinct advantage in the job market
once they earn their degrees.
“For students, being able to
discuss this unique, hands-on experience
is quite reassuring for
future employers,” Carlton said.
“In many university research
labs, a student is hampered by
the question, ‘How can I make
my research work with the instrument
that I have?’ At UT Arlington,
we are now challenged with
the question, ‘How can I make
the research phenomenal with all
the instruments that I have?’ ”
That’s just the kind of challenge
that scientists love, and because
of the Shimadzu Institute
for Research Technologies, it’s going to be a common
one at UT Arlington.
A student uses a pipette, or chemical dropper, to
transport liquid from a vial into a microwell plate
for use in analytical research.
Maverick Science 2013-14
5

Tribute w Na’il Fazleev (1948-2013)
Scholar with a noble heart loved physics, the outdoors
Na’il Fazleev will be remembered as a brilliant physicist whose
research in condensed matter theory, surface physics, nanomagnetism,
and positron physics earned him international acclaim.
But to those close to him, he will also be remembered as a hardworking
professor who cared for his colleagues and students, and
a gifted musician and athlete.
Dr. Fazleev, an associate professor in the Department of
Physics, died October 9 at age 65 from complications of a stroke
suffered two days earlier. A celebration of life service was held on
October 11 at Moore Memorial Gardens followed by a reception
and memorial at UT Arlington in the University Club in Davis
Hall.
“Na’il was a key person in the history of our department,” said
Alex Weiss, professor and chair of the UT Arlington physics department,
and also a good friend and frequent collaborator of Dr.
Na’il Fazleev
Fazleev. “He made tremendous contributions to our department in increasing the
number of graduate students. He was always upbeat, always enthusiastic and always
encouraging. I’ve heard from many faculty and staff telling me how much he had
touched their lives, how he was a true gentleman and of how he will be sorely missed.”
John Fry, a professor emeritus in physics who retired in 2009 after 39 years at UT
Arlington, also collaborated with Dr. Fazleev and formed a close friendship with him.
Fry said that Dr. Fazleev and his wife, Rezeda, were like a brother and sister to him
and his wife, Marilyn.
“He was a true scholar and lover of life, and he will be missed by UTA and all his
friends in Texas,” Fry said at the celebration of life service. “Na’il was an important
part of the graduate program in physics in both teaching and research. He brought
millions of dollars of funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department
of Education to support graduate students and research at UTA.”
Dr. Fazleev’s involvement with UT Arlington began in 1982, when he spent a year
studying physics with Fry on an International Research and Exchange Board scholarship.
He returned in 1992 on a Senior Fulbright Lectureship and never left, serving
as a visiting professor and associate professor. In 2004, he was hired as a full-time
assistant professor, and he was promoted to associate professor in 2009.
Tribute w Asok Kumar Ray (1948-2013)
6 Maverick Science 2013-14
He was the driving force behind the department’s push to receive
a Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN)
grant from the Department of Education, heading the grant proposal
committee. The department has received the research grant
twice, providing critical financial support for graduate students.
Suresh Sharma, a professor of physics who met Dr. Fazleev in
1982 and wrote numerous papers with him, recalled his late friend
as an extremely hard worker who had a penchant for procrastination.
“We once had a grant proposal that was due at 5 p.m., and he
came in my office at 4:30 asking to read over the proposal again,”
Sharma said. “He had already read it a million times and made as
many changes, but he wanted to check everything one last time.
He took it in his office and came back 10 minutes later and said it
was OK. He cared about details.”
James Rejcek, a former Ph.D. student of Dr. Fazleev’s who earned B.S., M.S. and
doctoral degrees at UT Arlington, said his mentor was passionate about physics and
saw it as a noble profession.
“He always thought physicists should never stop looking for problems to solve. He
worked hard and studied hard, and he expected the same of his students,” Rejcek said.
“He was a deep and caring man. He really helped me when I was having a hard time
in my life.
“He’s gone too soon.”
Dr. Fazleev’s research interests included magnetic properties of solids, electron
paramagnetic resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance, nonequilibrium statistical thermodynamics,
surface physics and positron physics, among others. He was a member
of the department’s Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics Group.
Dr. Fazleev was born on January 25, 1948 in Kazan, Russia to the late Gregor Fazleev
and Katherine Fazleev, who were well-known academicians themselves. As a
student he focused on science, math and English and excelled, completing the Russian
standard 11 year curriculum as the top student in his class and receiving scholarships
Fazleev continued on page 8
Mentor demanded much but gave even more in return
Asok Ray was known as a strict, demanding professor, but he
never expected any more from his students than he did from himself.
Dr. Ray, a longtime UT Arlington physics professor, took a personal
interest in his students’ lives and wanted the best for them.
For that to happen, he knew they had to give their best in the classroom
and in the lab – and he would accept nothing less.
“Asok was a rigorous teacher, demanding high levels of performance
in all his classes,” said John Fry, professor emeritus in
physics and a good friend of Dr. Ray. “Students complained about
the difficulty of his courses but continued to enroll in large numbers
at undergraduate and graduate levels because they knew that
their training in his classes would be rigorous and complete.”
Dr. Ray died on October 11 at age 65 of complications from Asok Ray
cardiac issues he had been dealing with for months. A private burial
ceremony was held October 16 at Moore Memorial Gardens in Arlington. The loss
was particularly difficult for the Department of Physics since it came just two days
after the passing of another longtime faculty member, Na’il Fazleev.
Dr. Ray came to UT Arlington in 1982 and spent the next 31 years making a huge
impact on the department, the College and the University. He was instrumental in
developing the department’s doctoral program and served as the physics graduate advisor
for over 10 years. He also worked tirelessly on the graduate studies committee
and graduate admissions committee.
“He played a very important role in building our doctoral program,” said Alex
Weiss, professor and chair of the physics department. “He helped get it off the ground,
going literally from one student up to the 50 or more that we have now.”
He was mentor to 24 master’s and 11 doctoral students, as well as six master’s and
two doctoral students at the time of his death. He also directed 15 post-doctoral fellows.
“He really cared for his students,” Weiss said. “Many of them looked at him as a
kind of father figure, because many of them were here from India or elsewhere and
had no family here. He was very devoted to helping them however he could. He was
demanding of his students, but he was also very giving of his time
and knowledge.”
Muhammad Huda, a UT Arlington assistant professor of
physics, met Dr. Ray when he came to UT Arlington as a master’s
student in 1999 and went on to earn his Ph.D. under Dr. Ray’s
mentorship.
“As a mentor, he had a very caring personality,” Muhammad
said. “He was very keen and strict on doing meaningful research
and getting it published. I learned so much from him.”
Dr. Ray’s research interests included computational condensed
matter physics, electronic structures of the actinides, material
sciences, nanoscience, nanotechnology, supercomputing
and parallel computing. He was an integral part of the department’s
Condensed Matter Theory group and he received numerous
honors and awards during his career, including the UT
Arlington College of Science Research Excellence Award in 2005 and the UT Arlington
Award for Distinguished Record of Research or Creative Activity in 2011.
“Asok was a real scholar,” Fry said. “He wrote many papers and was able to get
funding for his research, a difficult task for many theoretical physicists. He performed
fundamental research on clusters of molecules of all kinds, doing chemistry on a computer
instead of in a test tube. He received recognition for his research at UT Arlington
and also served as an editor on international journals. His style of writing papers was
elegant and rigorous. He learned his trade well.”
He authored or co-authored nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications, presented 170
research papers at national and international conferences, and served as referee for
45 publications and departments. He received over $3 million in grants for his research
which was continuously funded over the course of his career. He also had a
long record of service on dozens of department and University committees.
Dr. Ray was born in Kolkata, India, on Sept. 11, 1948. He earned a B.S. in Physics
from the University of Calcutta in 1967. He also earned a bachelor of technology degree
Ray continued on page 9

Tribute w Roy S. Rubins (1935-2013)
Physicist, gied athlete cared deeply for his students
Roy Rubins had a distinguished reputation as a superb researcher,
aided greatly by his meticulous and analytical nature.
Research didn’t consume him though. He loved teaching every
bit as much as he did research, and it showed.
Dr. Rubins, professor emeritus in physics who retired in 2011
following a 42-year career at UT Arlington, won numerous
awards for his teaching. His mastery of the subject matter and
thorough preparation for his classes certainly played a part in
earning those accolades. But the main reason he was such a favorite
of physics students for decades was simple. He cared
deeply for them.
Dr. Rubins died on November 19 in Arlington following a long
illness. He was 78. A graveside service was held November 21 at
Moore Memorial Gardens in Arlington. Friends and colleagues Roy Rubins
noted his keen eye for observation, his intellect and his wisdom.
He loved the outdoors and was an accomplished athlete, particularly
in soccer.
“He could explain complicated ideas in a way that students at all levels could understand,”
said John Fry, professor emeritus in physics and a longtime colleague of
Dr. Rubins. “He loved teaching and interacting with students. He just loved the collegial
atmosphere.”
Dr. Rubins came to UT Arlington in 1969, at a time when little research was being
done in the department. He had spent the previous eight years working with highly
esteemed physicists, including future Nobel Prize winner K.A. Muller, in postdoctoral
research in Europe and the United States. He was well on the way to becoming internationally
known for his work in electron paramagnetic resonance
(EPR) of organic and inorganic crystals and compounds. Many of
his publications in top journals would become recognized as classics
in the field due to their fundamental nature.
“Roy was the first physics faculty member hired by the department
who already had an international reputation in physics and
a significant publication record,” Fry said.
A big reason why Dr. Rubins decided to come to UT Arlington
was Truman Black, who had joined the faculty four years earlier
and was the first department member to do experimental physics
research. He and Dr. Rubins became frequent collaborators and
great friends. (Dr. Black died in 2012).
“While I had planned to continue my career in the west, I was
won over by the warmth of my reception at UTA, especially by Dr.
Truman Black, in whom I had a genial colleague who worked in
EPR, and whose special experimental and theoretical insights
dovetailed with my own strengths,” Dr. Rubins said in 2011. “Dr. Black would design
and build specialized equipment for our proposed experiments, and as soon as the
equipment was working, I would do the crucial experiments before letting him refine
his designs.”
Fry said Dr. Rubins and Dr. Black were a perfect team, though in many respects
they were complete opposites.
“Truman could build anything and loved making special spectrometers to probe
Rubins continued on page 8
Tribute w Derek J. Main (1971-2013)
Dinosaur dig director’s passion
for paleontology was inspiring
Of all the things people will remember
about Derek Main, the one that will
probably stand out above all others is his
passion for science – paleontology in
particular – and how he loved to share
it with others.
That enthusiasm was contagious to
friends, colleagues, the students he
taught at UT Arlington and elsewhere,
and to the small army of volunteers who
carefully sifted the soil for traces of prehistoric
fossils at the Arlington Archosaur
Site (AAS), where Dr. Main led
an ongoing excavation project.
All were shocked and saddened by
Dr. Main’s passing on June 4, 2013 at
age 41. He had received his Ph.D. in Environmental
& Earth Sciences from UT
Arlington less than a month before. He
was engaged to his longtime girlfriend
and was looking forward to starting the
next chapter of his life.
That chapter undoubtedly would
have included more “dino digs” at the
AAS, the remote spot in far north Arlington
which has yielded 95 million
year old fossils of plants, crocodiles, fish,
turtles, sharks, and a new species of
duck-billed, herbivorous dinosaur, Protohadras
– a vital transitional species of
hadrosaur. Dr. Main called the site the
Lost World of the Metroplex, and he coordinated
and led digs at the site since
being named AAS director in 2008.
Dr. Main, in trademark t-shirt, cargo
shorts and sunglasses and his long hair
Derek Main was a fixture at the Arlington
Archosaur Site, which he led from
2008 until his death.
tied in a ponytail, was a fixture at the
site. Digs began in early spring and extended
through late fall. The workers at
the site were almost exclusively volunteers,
most with no background in paleontology.
Many came to check the site
out after seeing one of the flyers Dr.
Main often posted all over the Metroplex
asking for volunteers. They gladly
endured the extreme heat of summer
digs and the painstakingly slow work because
they fed off of Dr. Main’s enthusiasm.
Angela Osen, who earned a B.S. in
Geology from UT Arlington in 2009 and
is working on a Ph.D. in Earth and En-
Main continued on page 9
Tribute w Chad Ryan Watkins (1975-2013)
Doctoral student was a ‘natural
teacher’ and was always learning
Chad Ryan
Watkins, a UT Arlington
doctoral
student and graduate
research assistant
in biology,
died in a one-vehicle
accident on October
7 in Arlington.
He was 38.
Mr. Watkins, a
Grapevine resident,
began working
toward a Ph.D. Chad Watkins
in biology in 2011,
joining the lab of former assistant professor
André Pires da Silva. He taught
several classes at UT Arlington while
conducting research in genomics, focusing
on the anole, a small lizard
found throughout the southeastern
United States.
“Chad was a ‘scientist’ from the
time he was a small child,” said his
stepfather, Dan Driscoll. “He asked me
for a copy of A Brief History of Time by
Steven Hawking for his 13th Christmas.
If there was a bug in the house
and his mom asked him to ‘get it,’ he
would capture it and let it go outside,
taking care not to harm it. He always
had insects, snakes or mice in his
room. When I saw his lab at UTA, I realized
that was a dream come true for
him.”
John Fondon, assistant professor of
biology and a co-advisor of Mr.
Watkins, described him as “independent,
capable,
good-natured and
friendly,” and said
Mr. Watkins was a
“natural teacher.”
“He was passionate
about science
and truly
loved teaching
and mentoring,”
Fondon said. “He
was incredibly
technically skilled,
and very serious
about science but
was also the most light-hearted and
fun-loving member of the lab.”
Mr. Watkins was born on April 25,
1975 in Aberdeen, S.D. His family
moved to Texas in 1984 and he graduated
from Grapevine High School in
1993. While there, he was instrumental
in the creation of an ecology and nature
center, which will be renamed in his
honor.
He attended Texas A&M University,
studying biochemistry and genetics.
He later transferred to UT
Arlington, where he earned a B.S. in biology
in 2002. He taught science
classes in the Grapevine-Colleyville
school district before beginning graduate
studies at UT Arlington.
In addition to being a big fan of
Texas A&M athletics, Mr. Watkins enjoyed
looking for fossils, hunting and
Watkins continued on page 9
Maverick Science 2013-14
7

Fazleev continued from page 6
for university studies. A gifted athlete, he enjoyed
swimming, rowing and track, and also attended
music school where he learned to play piano and
violin. He also enjoyed playing chess.
His father convinced him to focus on academics
over music in college, and he enrolled at Kazan
State University, a prestigious Russian college
founded in 1804. He studied theoretical physics
and mathematics, earning B.S. and M.S. degrees
and graduating summa cum laude. In 1978 he became
an assistant professor at Kazan, and in 1981,
he completed work on his Ph.D. in Theoretical and
Mathematical Physics.
After spending a year at UT Arlington he returned
to Kazan, where he rose through the academic
ranks to the position of professor and
associate dean of the physics department, which
consisted of 500 faculty members. He also became
a leading authority in the dynamics of magnetic
systems. In addition, it was at Kazan where he met
his wife, Rezeda. They were married in 1988.
Dr. Fazleev might have spent the rest of his career
at Kazan, but momentous events intervened
and changed the course of his future. In the midto-late
1980s, the Soviet Union’s economy was in
bad shape, and many citizens of its member republics
began demanding greater freedom. Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev instituted a policy of
glasnost, or political liberalization, emboldening
many who sought change and helping pave the way
for the eventual dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in December
1991.
At the time, Dr. Fazleev was in the United States
on a Senior Fulbright Lectureship studying theoretical
physics at UCLA. With his homeland in political
turmoil and economic crisis, he made the
decision to move permanently to the United States.
His wife joined him and in 1992 he returned to UT
Arlington, where he became an internationally recognized
expert in the theory of positrons at the surfaces
of solids – knowledge important to
understanding electronic properties of metals and
semiconductors.
Fry recalled Dr. Fazleev’s love of the outdoors
and of traveling. The Frys and Fazleevs spent many
summer vacations together in the Rocky Mountains
in Colorado.
“He loved trout fishing in the streams and backpacking
up high in the mountains,” Fry said. “He
was exceptionally strong at high altitude. He also
loved eating freshly caught trout. Na’il also enjoyed
sitting around the campfire and absorbing our culture
through the tall tales told there.”
Weiss treasures the times he spent with Dr. Fazleev
attending conferences in places like Japan
and England. At Dr. Fazleev’s encouragement, they
took in the local sights on hikes when time allowed.
“I remember we were in Australia and went hiking,
and we saw koala bears and wallabies and all
kinds of things,” Weiss said. “It was a fantastic trip.
We often shared hotel rooms and we were a bit like
the characters in ‘The Odd Couple’ - Na’il was the
neat one.”
Dr. Fazleev wrote over 120 peer-reviewed journal
articles and two books, and gave over 80 invited
talks at international conferences, universities and
national labs. He supervised six doctoral and 11
master’s students.
His wife, Rezeda Fazleeva, 54, died in a plane
crash on November 17 in Kazan, Russia, where she
had been traveling to visit with family following her
husband’s death. She was born July 12, 1959, in
Kazan and earned a B.S. from Kazan Trade and
Economy College; a master’s in economics and
management from Moscow State University of
Trade and Economics; and an M.S. in education
from Kazan State University.
Dr. Fazleev and his wife are survived by a son,
Kamil Fazleev, of Moscow, Russia. Dr. Fazleev is
also survived by a sister, Raviya Denisov, of St. Petersburg,
Russia. Mrs. Fazleev is survived by her
mother, Risalia Kaiumova.
A scholarship is being established in memory of
Dr. Fazleev. Donations may be sent to the UT Arlington
College of Science, c/o Na’il Fazleev Scholarship
Fund, P.O. Box 19047, Arlington, TX
76019-0047.
Tribute w Frank N. Huggins (1926-2013)
Math professor was proud
of his roots in West Texas
Frank Norris Huggins, a former UT Arlington professor of
mathematics, died on July 10, 2013 at Beacon Hill Care Facility
in Denison. He was 86.
A funeral service was held July 15 in Zephyr, Texas.
Dr. Huggins was born on October 25, 1926 in Zephyr. He
served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Following the
war, he married Caroline Bradshaw on
December 16, 1946 in Brownwood. He
earned a bachelor’s degree from
Howard Payne University, a master’s
from the University of North Texas
and a Ph.D. from UT Austin in 1967.
He taught mathematics at Texas A&M,
UT Austin and UT Arlington. He published
numerous papers and a book,
and was an expert in bounded slope
variation.
Huggins
“He was a West Texan through and through,” said Larry
Heath, a professor emeritus in math who had an office next
to Dr. Huggins in Hammond Hall in the 1970s. “He wore his
ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, and a black suit with a tie
(generally a string tie) every day. He had a big, booming
West Texas voice and wanted to talk about Texas history and
the UT Austin math department.”
Dr. Huggins was of the Baptist faith and was an ordained
deacon since 1963. He was an avid reader and had an extensive
book collection among other valued collections.
His wife of 66 years, Caroline Bradshaw Huggins, of Arlington,
died Nov. 10, 2013 at age 86. He was preceded in
death by his parents, Oscar and Ida Oma Huggins; and siblings,
Oscar James Flurnoy, Gwendola Pearl and Rector
Howard.
He is survived by his extended family: sister-in-law,
Dorothy Bradshaw of Edmond, Okla.; and sister-in-law, Mary
Loyce Bradshaw McWilliams and her husband, Willis, of
Kingston, Okla.; as well as numerous nieces, nephews, great
nieces and nephews, and great-great nieces and nephews.
Rubins continued from page 7
new realms of research,” Fry said. “Roy knew what parameters
should be set, and how to analyze the obtained
data. He was part experimentalist and part theoretician.
Roy could also write very definitive papers in excellent
English, while Truman struggled to put down his
thoughts in an orderly fashion.”
The pair collaborated on numerous electron magnetic
resonance (EMR) papers on transition metal ions
in both inorganic and organic crystals, and on linearchain
magnetic compounds. Alex Weiss, professor and
department chair, said that the duo’s individual
strengths combined to allow them to produce important
and influential work.
“They had a long record of highly productive collaboration,”
Weiss said. “Their characteristics and contributions
were truly unique and truly complementary —
making for perhaps the optimum in true collaboration
where the whole is much greater than just the sum of
the parts.”
Dr. Rubins was born in Manchester, England, on
Nov. 11, 1935. During World War II, he and his family
often had to take refuge in air-raid shelters due to intense
bombing of industrial Manchester by the German
Luftwaffe. He scored high enough on his college entrance
exams to be admitted to Oxford University,
where he received a scholarship to study physics and
earned a B.A. in 1957. He remained at Oxford for graduate
studies, doing research in electron paramagnetic
8 Maverick Science 2013-14
resonance and earning a master’s degree and a Ph.D.
in physics from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, in 1961.
After finishing his doctoral studies, Dr. Rubins traveled
and did postdoctoral research at Hebrew University
in Jerusalem; the Battelle Institute in Geneva,
Switzerland; Syracuse University in New York; and
UCLA. He interviewed for a faculty position at UT Arlington
in 1969 and joined the physics department as
an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate
professor in 1971 and to professor in 1982.
He put as much if not more effort into his teaching
as he did research. He was named the 1998 College of
Science Teacher of the Year and that same year was
elected to UT Arlington’s Academy of Distinguished
Teachers, where he served through 2003.
Weiss said that Dr. Rubins constantly worked to update
and improve his courses and prepared material for
them well in advance. “I remember Roy working on his
notes for a graduate thermodynamics course in the
physics library while we were waiting for a meeting to
start, and being amazed that he was working almost a
year ahead on his notes,” Weiss said. “I was usually
working on the next day’s lecture, and here he was
working a year ahead.”
He served at different times both as graduate and
undergraduate advisor and was a longtime chair of the
department’s undergraduate curriculum committee.
Religion and family were also very important to Dr.
Rubins. He was a member of Congregation Beth
Shalom in Arlington – his parents emigrated from
Poland to England, where their surname, Rubinski, was
anglicized to Rubins. He and his wife, Patricia, celebrated
their 50th wedding anniversary on September 8,
2013, and he was a doting grandfather. He had various
hobbies which he savored, including folk dancing and
making amateur films. He was very active and enjoyed
sports, including tennis, volleyball and his great passion,
soccer, which he played from an early age.
“Roy was an excellent athlete. In his prime he would
jog 10 miles in one day,” said Fry, who was his frequent
tennis partner. “I don’t think he ever ran a marathon,
but he could have. He stayed in shape.”
He coached the UT Arlington soccer team along with
fellow Englishman Ed Bellion, now a professor emeritus
in chemistry. Dr. Rubins also played on various club
and physics department teams and served as faculty
sponsor of the university’s Soccer Club from 1970-78.
His love of dancing led him to serve as faculty sponsor
of the UTA International Folkdance Club from 1971-76.
The club, composed of UTA faculty and students, gave
workshops and performed at events around the Metroplex.
“Roy had a mellow personality, was self-secure, and
enjoyed people,” Fry said. “I never heard him say anything
bad about anybody, even when they deserved it.
He was a jewel in the department that was not admired
nearly often enough.”
Survivors include his wife, Patricia; son, Daniel and
daughter-in-law, Rita; and grandchildren, Rachel and
Amy Rubins of Lansdale, Pa.

Watkins continued from page 7
fishing. He traveled as far as Florida in
search of anole specimens for his research.
He loved animals and adopted several dogs
from area shelters over the years.
“He was possibly the gentlest soul I
have ever known,” Driscoll said.
A funeral service was held October 12 at
Living Word Lutheran Church in
Grapevine. Memorials may be made to the
Humane Society of North Texas or The
Perot Museum of Nature and Science in
Dallas.
Mr. Watkins was preceded in death by
his father, Chester Watkins, in 2006.
Survivors include his mother, Cheryl,
and stepfather, Dan Driscoll; sister, Elizabeth
Driscoll; and uncles, aunts and
cousins.
Mr. Watkins’ family has created a website
where friends can post their thoughts
and memories of him. The site is http://rememberingchad.com.
Correction
In an obituary about Eddie Warren in the
2011 edition of Maverick Science, his first
name was listed as Edward. He is survived
by a son, Brenton Warren, of Hurst, and
daughters, Meredith Powell, of Sacramento,
Calif., and Sara Johnson, of Grand
Prairie.
Tribute w Thomas R. Hellier Jr. (1928-2013)
Biology professor was a true friend of UT Arlington
Thomas R. Hellier, Jr., a longtime UT Arlington professor
of biology who retired in 2006, died on Dec. 1, 2013, after
a long illness. He was 84.
Dr. Hellier, who was an expert in ichthyology (the study
of fish), joined the faculty of what was then Arlington State
College in 1960. In his 46-year tenure, he developed and
taught various courses and was instrumental in the development
of the department’s master’s
program and supervised the thesis of
its first graduate. He served on numerous
committees and sponsored many
student organizations.
He received B.A. (1955) and M.S.
(1957) degrees in Biology from the University
of Florida and a Ph.D. from the
UT Austin Marine Science Institute in
Port Aransas in 1961. He was a found-
Hellier
ing member of the TXU (now Luminant) Environmental Research
Committee, through which many graduate students
have received fellowship support for their research.
He will be remembered by his students for the extraordinary
field trips he led to study the biology of North Texas
lakes and the Texas Gulf Coast. Among his published research
was an environmental impact study of the Elm Fork
region of the Trinity River.
He continued to be involved with UT Arlington long after
his retirement. He was a member of the Nedderman Society
and the Friends of the UT Arlington Libraries. He and his
wife endowed a scholarship for UT Arlington undergraduate
biology majors or graduate students.
He was a lifelong member of Phi Sigma, the biological
honor society, and founded UTA’s chapter in 1976.
Dr. Hellier was born in Ft. Pierce, Fla., on Dec. 24, 1928,
to Tommy and Sybil Hellier and grew up in Jensen Beach,
Fla. He served in the Air Force from 1948-52. While stationed
in Kansas, he met and married Evelyn Farris; they
celebrated their 61st anniversary on June 8. As a couple, they
enjoyed traveling and visited 85 countries and all seven continents.
He was also very active in the Boy Scouts of America,
serving as a scoutmaster for many years. He, his son and
grandson, all Eagle Scouts, were grand marshals of the Arlington
Fourth of July Parade in 2010. He was a longtime
member of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Arlington and he
received the St. George Award for his service to the church’s
youth.
Dr. Hellier was preceded in death by his parents and his
sister, Mary Ann.
Survivors include his wife, Evelyn; children and their
spouses, Clark and Beth Hellier of Arlington; Lisa and
Richard Lee of Brock; and Jana and Tom Dolbear of Austin;
four grandchildren, and three nieces.
Memorials may be made to the Dr. Thomas R. Jr. and
Mrs. Evelyn F. Hellier Biology Scholarship Fund at UT Arlington,
Box 19047, Arlington, Texas 76019. Donations may
also be made in his name to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Main continued from page 7
vironmental Science, became involved with the AAS in 2008
when she heard Dr. Main was looking for volunteers. She was
soon a regular at the site.
“I have to say, between Derek's enthusiasm and the thrill of
possibly finding a 94 million year old dinosaur bone, I was
hooked,” she said. “Derek was a motivator; how else could you
talk people into spending their weekends digging in the dirt
when it is over 100 degrees out in the summer and then, the following
weekend, come out and cheerfully do it again!”
Christopher Scotese, an earth and environmental science
professor who retired from UT Arlington in 2011, was Dr.
Main’s doctoral advisor. He remembers Dr. Main’s energy and
how he could use it to energize others.
“Derek was passionate about science. He lived it every day,”
Scotese said. “He was a people person. He really got everyone
interested in science. He got people out in the hot sun digging
in the dirt, but he also made them feel important.”
The work started by Dr. Main at the AAS will continue, with
his friend and collaborator Christopher Noto, an assistant professor
at University of Wisconsin-Parkside, taking over as director.
Specimens from the site had been stored temporarily at
UT Arlington, but the university didn’t have the budget or the
space necessary to house the fossils permanently. In October,
an agreement was reached with the Perot Museum of Nature
and Science, which has assumed ownership of the fossils.
Dr. Main was born on August 8, 1971 in Irving. He graduated
from MacArthur High School in Irving in 1989 and then decided
to pursue the first great passion of his life – music. He had
learned how to play guitar in high school, spending countless
hours practicing. Over the next few years he formed several
hard rock and metal bands with friends, playing area clubs and
working a variety of other jobs by day to help make ends meet.
After several years of trying to make a go of it as a musician, he
decided to enroll in college.
In 1997, while studying geology at UT Dallas, he volunteered
at a fossil excavation site in Big Bend National Park, helping to
unearth an Alamosaurus, a long-necked dinosaur. The dig
sparked an interest in paleontology, and the study of prehistoric
life was soon Dr. Main’s new passion. He began volunteering
Derek Main, right, received his Ph.D. from Merlynd Nestell
during the Spring 2013 commencement ceremony in May.
and working at area museums, including the Dallas Museum of
Natural History and the Shuler Museum of Paleontology at
SMU, gaining firsthand experience with fossil preparation and
preservation.
He earned a B.S. in Geology from UT Dallas in 2001 and a
master’s degree in geology from UT Arlington in 2005. While
working on his Ph.D. he taught courses on earth history, dinosaurs
and earth systems at UT Arlington. He also taught
classes at North Lake College in Irving and Tarrant County College.
The AAS became the focus of his dissertation, and he wrote
several papers reporting on the fossil findings from the site. One
paper, co-written with Noto and Stephanie Drumheller, was the
cover story of the February 2012 edition of the geology journal
Palaios.
A funeral was held on June 9 at Our Redeemer Lutheran
Church in Irving. Burial was at Oak Grove Memorial Gardens
in Irving. Dr. Main was preceded in death by his father, Norman
Main Jr.
Survivors include his mother, Jannie Davis Main of Irving;
brother, Darren Main of Fort Worth; fiancée, Deborah Nixon
of Dallas; and several cousins.
Ray continued from page 6
in radio-physics and electronics from the
University of Calcutta in 1969. He received
an M.S. in Physics from Oklahoma
State University in 1973 and an
M.S. in Mathematics from Texas Tech
University in 1975. In 1977, he earned his
Ph.D. in Physics from Texas Tech, where
he was also an instructor, research assistant
and visiting assistant professor.
He was a postdoctoral research associate
at the University of Florida from
1979-81, then an assistant professor at
Michigan Technological University from
1981-82. In 1982, he interviewed for a
position at UT Arlington as a visiting assistant
professor.
“He couldn’t stand the brutal winters
in Houghton, a college town on the
Northern Peninsula of Michigan,” Fry
said. “He said they had six feet or more
of snow on the ground all winter.”
Dr. Ray joined the faculty as an assistant
professor in 1984. He was promoted
to associate professor in 1988 and to
professor in 1992.
He enjoyed novels, poetry, music,
movies and nature – especially birds and
bodies of water. Although his work was
in highly complex areas, he enjoyed a
good laugh as much as anyone. One of
his favorite TV shows was Three's Company,
a popular 1970s-era sitcom.
Dr. Ray was preceded in death by his
parents, Chittaranjan and Anita Roy;
and by sisters, Tripti Sengupta and
Bharati Gupta. Survivors include his
wife, Swati Ray; brother, Tapan and
wife; nephews and nieces and other relatives.
Maverick Science 2013-14
9

COLLEGE NEWS | PHYSICS | BIOLOGY
New physics scholarship named in honor of Fry
The distinguished record of service to the
UT Arlington Department of Physics that John
Fry compiled is unsurpassed. For 39 years, Fry
was a professor, researcher and department
chair, and a leading proponent for the growth
and improvement of the program.
In addition, Fry is a beloved figure on campus,
popular with colleagues and students and
always ready with a joke. In 2013, with Fry’s
75th birthday approaching, friends and former
students decided to do something to honor him
in a lasting way. They raised funds and created
the John L. Fry Physics Scholarship which will
help deserving students pay for their education.
The scholarship was announced at a special
birthday reception given in Fry’s honor on November
9. More than 100 attended the party,
and Fry was stunned by the news.
“I felt honored and a little embarrassed that
it was done for me, but I was very pleased that
it will benefit future students,” he said. “Besides,
I always enjoy parties. The party was special.
Many people worked hard to achieve
matching fund status and round up old friends and students for the party. I am
glad that UT Arlington means as much to those who contributed to the fund as it
has to me.”
Fry, who came to UT Arlington in 1971, was instrumental in the creation of the
department’s doctoral program, and he was the department's first faculty member
to direct a Ph.D. dissertation. He brought the first federal grant funds to the department,
and his research was externally funded for most of his career. His own
research group was active for over 30 years. He was relentless in his efforts to take
the department from one focused almost exclusively on teaching to one with a robust
research profile, with millions in external funding and state-of-the-art technology
which is utilized by faculty and students.
Liu named fellow by APS
J. Ping Liu, a professor of physics who is working to develop stronger
magnets for sustainable energy applications, was named a fellow of the
American Physical Society in December.
Liu joined the UT Arlington Department of Physics in 2002 and researches
the development of advanced nanocomposite magnets that
have high performance while containing fewer
expensive rare-earth materials. The advanced
magnets can be used in nearly every industry and
consumer device from computers to cars to medical
imaging systems and cell phones.
In his tenure at UT Arlington, Liu has been a
leader in nanocomposite magnet research and,
through his Nanostructured Magnetic Materials
Group, has carried out world-class work that has
led to recognition from the American Physical Society.
A citation accompanying the honor noted Liu’s “pioneering work in
research on advanced permanent-magnet materials, including innovative
work on bottom-up approaches to fabrication of nanocomposite
magnets with reduced rare-earth content via novel techniques."
Pamela Jansma, dean of the College of Science, said Liu’s latest
honor is well deserved.
“Dr. Liu has been producing outstanding research in his field while
mentoring students for more than a decade at UT Arlington, and he has
remained continuously funded by grants that are a testament to his
laboratory success,” Jansma said.
Liu’s total research funds have exceeded $10 million, including those
of nearly $1 million received last fall from the U.S. Department of Energy,
U.S. Department of Defense and an industrial sponsor.
10 Maverick Science 2013-14
John Fry, left, with Margie Black and Dan Dahlberg at Fry’s 75th
birthday party on November 9. Black is the widow of late UT Arlington
physics professor Truman Black, and Dahlberg is a professor
of physics at the University of Minnesota and a UT Arlington physics
alumnus who received the UT Arlington Distinguished Alumni Award
in 1998.
Liu
“John set a very high standard for the department,"
said Alex Weiss, professor and department
chair. "More than anyone else, he
managed to help the department become a full
university department that does important research
and great teaching. He pioneered a lot
of things here and has had a huge impact on the
department. He was an excellent mentor for
young faculty, myself included."
Fry retired as a faculty member in 2009 and
was named professor emeritus in 2010. Despite
his “retirement,” he remains very active in the
department. He still has much he’d like to do.
“Time gets away,” he said. “At 75, I don't
have many years left to accomplish the discoveries
in physics which I set out to make with
our research group when I stepped down as
chair of physics years ago. My ideas are still
flowing, but my short-term memory requires
computers, note pads and colleagues to keep
things in order.”
Fry said the scholarship – the third for the
Department of Physics – is a sign that the University
“is growing up,” and he is hopeful that more endowments will follow.
"This scholarship is a wonderful tribute to Dr. Fry, who provided outstanding
leadership for the Department of Physics during his almost four decades of service
at UT Arlington,” said College of Science Dean Pamela Jansma. “His commitment
to excellence was critical for the growth and development that led to the strong department
we have today. Many of the things happening in the department now in
which we take such pride are a result of Dr. Fry's hard work, vision, and stewardship.
It’s very fitting that this scholarship was created to help students in physics,
because Dr. Fry did so much for students throughout his career."
To contribute to the John L. Fry Physics Scholarship fund, please contact Shelly
Frank at 817-272-1497 or shellyfrank@uta.edu.
Hurdle named to serve on NIH
drug discovery study section
The National Institutes of Health Center
for Scientific Review selected UT Arlington
assistant professor of biology Julian
Hurdle to serve on a prestigious study section,
one of the bodies that reviews grant
applications, makes recommendations and
surveys the status of research in a particular
field.
Hurdle, a specialist in molecular microbiology
and bacterial infectious diseases,
will serve on the Drug Discovery and Mechanisms
of Antimicrobial Resistance Study
Section through June 30, 2017.
“Dr. Hurdle is an accomplished researcher
who is working hard to build a
better understanding of the role bacteria
play in disease,” said Pamela Jansma, dean
of the College of Science. “We are pleased
to see him recognized by his colleagues and
take on this active role in helping to determine
where important research funding
flows.”
Hurdle joined the UT Arlington College
of Science in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded
a five-year, $1.9 million research grant
from the National Institutes of Health National
Center for Complementary and Alternative
Medicine to study new ways to
treat an opportunistic and sometimes
deadly bacterium, Clostridium difficile.
“I am honored to be selected,” Hurdle
said. “The study section where I will serve
is made up of leading
experts from academia
and the pharmaceutical
industry and
I am looking forward
to contributing to the
grant review process.”
Hurdle
Study section
members are chosen
based on their demonstrated
competence and achievements
in their study area, including activities such
as research activity and publication in scientific
journals.
Hurdle is using his grant funding to develop
a more effective treatment for C. difficile,
one of the most widespread and
dangerous infections in the U.S. He and
students in his laboratory are working with
colleagues at St. Jude Children’s Hospital
in Memphis, Tenn.

COLLEGE NEWS | OFFICE OF THE DEAN
Cordero takes leadership role in academic affairs
For Minerva Cordero, taking charge of the College of
Science’s academic affairs as associate dean has been a
seamless transition.
Cordero, a professor of mathematics, has extensive
experience in academic and student affairs, and the
chance to help direct the college’s academic strategy appealed
to her. She has been associate dean for academic
affairs since Spring 2013.
“I was intrigued by the idea of serving in a role to facilitate
matters pertaining to undergraduate science and
mathematics education across the college and offer leadership
in bringing together efforts focused on enhancing
the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in
the college in a manner that capitalizes on the great work
that is already taking place,” she said. “I love working
with students and wanted to do my part to help increase
their chances of success in the College of Science.”
Cordero is responsible for the development and evaluation
of undergraduate programs. Her goal, she said, is
to ensure that the fundamental commitment to learning
outcomes relies on best practices throughout all departments
and units of the College of Science.
“I’m looking into strategic initiatives to enhance
teaching and collaborate with colleagues on establishing
metrics for evaluating undergraduate programs and student
success,” she said. “I’m also providing assistance
with faculty mentoring in the area of teaching.”
Purgason giving major boost
to undergraduate research
Ashley Purgason started her job as the
College’s assistant dean for undergraduate research
and student advancement in August
and has wasted no time making things happen.
She held workshops to show students how
they can become involved in research during
the College’s annual
Science Week in November.
She has plans
for a website with dedicated
resources for
students and faculty,
as well as a journal, to
be called Breakaway,
for undergraduate researchers
to publish
their findings through
Purgason
Dean of Science Pamela Jansma said Cordero’s leadership
enables the college to put an increased emphasis
on improving its academic structure and improving students’
opportunities to succeed.
“Dr. Cordero has served as associate dean of the Honors
College here at UT Arlington and has worked in a variety
of other roles with students, and these experiences
make her an ideal fit for this role,”
Jansma said.
Cordero has long been involved
in helping students. She
came to UT Arlington in 2001 and
immediately began working to
create an organization for undergraduate
math students, because
she recognized the importance of
Cordero
a peer review and faculty review process.
“Our biggest priority as we move forward
is finding ways to increase undergraduate research
participation as part of the curriculum
and not solely relying on the traditional apprentice
model,” she said. “I look forward to
working closely with faculty in the future on
this front, bringing ideas and proven initiatives
to them to explore.”
It’s no surprise that Purgason is so fired
up about involving students in research. A UT
Arlington alumna, she earned a B.S. in Biology
with Honors in 2006 and an M.S. in Biology
in 2007. She was also a member of the
Lady Mavericks basketball team, where she
was named an Academic All-American in
2004.
In May, she completed work on her Ph.D.
in Environmental Toxicology from UT Medical
Branch at Galveston. She also spent a
year immersing herself in issues important to
students as a student member of the UT System
Board of Regents, traveling across the
state to listen to students’ concerns.
“Another goal I am working very hard on
is finding dedicated funding for undergraduate
researchers to travel to conferences and
present their findings,” she said. “These experiences
are invaluable for their professional
development and to have conversations with
other scientists to learn all the directions their
work can go.”
Purgason is perfectly suited to her new
role, Dean of Science Pamela Jansma says.
“Ashley has already done so much to promote
and advance undergraduate research in
the College,” Jansma said. “Her enthusiasm
is infectious and she’s really excited by the
chance to work with students and help provide
them with every possible tool to succeed.”
As a doctoral student, Purgason conducted
research at both UTMB and the NASA
Johnson Space Center in Houston. She wants
to give younger students the chance to get in
the lab and gain experience which will put
them ahead of the game by the time they
reach graduate school.
“As a scientist, I want to learn for life, and
UT Arlington is a place that I will always be
able to do that,” Purgason said. “The unique
capabilities here, such as the Shimadzu partnership,
are thrilling. I am so pleased and
honored to be in this role. We are laying a
great foundation for undergraduate research
in the College of Science.”
helping students feel connected to
the faculty, department, and each
other. That organization, the UTA Student Chapter of the
Mathematical Association of America (MAA), is now a
central force in the math undergraduate community.
While she was serving as its faculty advisor, it was named
Outstanding UTA Student Organization. The following
year, Cordero received the 2004-05 Outstanding Student
Organization Advisor award. She also collaborated
with students to found a UTA chapter of the Society for
the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native
Americans in Science (SACNAS).
For several years, Cordero has co-directed a research
program for undergraduates, which allows students historically
underrepresented in mathematical sciences to
conduct math research. As associate dean of the Honors
College from 2005-08, she served as the college’s representative
on the Quality Enhancement Plan committee,
which developed a plan to enhance teaching and learning,
especially as it relates to higher-order thinking.
Another area where Cordero wants to make a difference
is in strengthening STEM (science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics) education. Nationwide,
there is a shortage of undergraduates obtaining degrees
in STEM fields, and according to predictions, in 10 years
the deficit could be as large as one million graduates.
“While there are various reasons for this shortage,
one of the most significant causes is attrition during the
first two years of college,” Cordero said. “One of the two
foci for my first few years is to evaluate our undergraduate
programs to ensure that the curriculum is designed
to meet our students’ needs and that the teaching of the
introductory courses is most effective. My other focus will
be to help provide our undergraduates with research experiences.
While some of them are engaged in research,
I would like to see the number double or triple and have
every science major participate in original research for
at least two semesters by the time they graduate.”
Jansma named ACE Fellow
for 2013-14 academic year
Pamela Jansma, dean of the College of Science, and Victoria Farrar-
Myers, a UT Arlington professor of political science, were named American
Council on Education Fellows for the 2013-14 academic year.
Former UT Arlington President James D. Spaniolo nominated both
educators for the prestigious program, which selected a total of 50 college
and university senior faculty and administrators
after a rigorous application process.
Established in 1965, the ACE Fellows Program
is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership
in American higher education by identifying
and preparing promising senior faculty and administrators
for senior positions in college and
university administration.
Dean Jansma joined the College of Science in
Jansma
2009, having previously served as the dean of New
Mexico State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Jansma, a professor of earth and environmental sciences, is an
expert in microplate tectonics, earthquakes and faults.
During her tenure at UT Arlington, enrollment of the College of Science
has increased 24 percent and the College has launched the Shimadzu
Institute for Research Technologies. The College also is home to
several grant-funded programs aimed at increasing participation in
STEM fields by traditionally underrepresented groups.
“I am deeply honored and thankful for the selection as an ACE Fellow,”
Jansma said. “Students, faculty and the community-at-large should
be proud that UT Arlington has gained a national reputation that allows
its representatives to be welcomed into such an elite group.”
Ronald Elsenbaumer, provost and vice president for academic affairs,
said both Jansma and Farrar-Myers are representative of the best UT
Arlington faculty.
“Dean Jansma and Dr. Farrar-Myers are distinguished by their commitment
to teaching and research excellence, and they each have had a
significant impact on the colleges they represent,” Elsenbaumer said.
“Both of these UT Arlington leaders have unlimited potential in their careers,
and we are fortunate to count them as our colleagues.”
Maverick Science 2013-14
11

COLLEGE NEWS | OFFICE OF THE DEAN | UNIVERSITY
Long, Stephens helping
guide students in COS
on the path to success
The College of Science welcomed two new members to
its administrative staff in June, with the goal of better
serving the needs of its students.
Following the retirement of Assistant Dean Ed Morton
in May 2013, Kent Long assumed the role of Health Professions
advisor and director of the College’s Joint Admission
Medical Program (JAMP). Long previously served as Morton’s
assistant for two and a half years. Kathleen Stephens
joined the College as Coordinator for Student Affairs, coming
over from UT Arlington’s University
College, where she was an
academic advisor.
“Kathleen and Kent both have a
long history of working with students
and bring considerable knowledge to
their positions,” Dean of Science
Pamela Jansma said. “They will help
Long
Stephens
us enhance the student experience
in the College of Science, particularly
in pre-professional advising,
transitioning from University College
to the College of Science, scholarships,
and any other academic issues
students may encounter. Together
with Minerva Cordero serving as associate
dean for academic affairs,
they form an outstanding team dedicated
to ensuring success for all of
our students.”
Long coordinates all activities related
to pre-professional programs. He advises all pre-professional
students (medical, dental, pharmacy, optometry,
veterinary, physical therapy and physician’s assistant),
chairs the UT Arlington Health Professions Advisory Committee,
coordinates activities for the College’s annual
Health Professions Day, assists with Health Professions
Freshmen Interest Groups, and coordinates all aspects of
student admission files to medical, dental, pharmacy, optometry,
and veterinary schools. Long also coordinates the
scholarship process for all of the health professions scholarships
administered through the College of Science, and
he sponsors all of the pre-professional clubs on campus.
“I'm enjoying working with our students in new and innovative
ways,” he said. “In the past we have underutilized
the resources available to us and that is something I
want to change.”
Stephens oversees all issues relating to grade appeals
and degree plans and is responsible for ensuring compliance
with academic standards for the College. She represents
the College to current and prospective
undergraduate students across the campus at Preview
Days, Welcome Days, and special events with other College
of Science staff. She also serves as liaison to University College
and the Honors College in matters of advising and academic
policies. She coordinates activities with the
Science Advising Center and with the Office of Student Affairs
on admissions and new student orientation programs.
“I really enjoy helping students,” Stephens said. “It is
very rewarding to encourage and support them through
the challenges of the undergraduate experience, and the
College of Science is a great place for students to develop
the skills and knowledge that will allow them to be leaders
and innovators in their chosen fields.”
12 Maverick Science 2013-14
Science faculty, staff honored
with University, College awards
The College of
Science presented
annual awards to
faculty and staff
and recognized faculty
members who
received various
honors in the 2012-
13 academic year
during an end-ofyear
faculty and staff
Mandal
Abayan
meeting on May 2. Award recipients included:
■ Outstanding Research Award –
Subhrangsu Mandal, associate professor
of chemistry and biochemistry.
■ Outstanding Faculty Teaching
Award – Gaik Ambartsoumian, associate
professor of mathematics.
■ Outstanding Graduate Teaching
Award – Kenneth Abayan, Department
of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
■ Mary Jane Goad Staff Excellence Award –
Karen Twohey, administrative assistant II in psychology.
Faculty who received University awards in 2012-
13 were also recognized. They included:
■ Purnendu ‘Sandy’ Dasgupta, the Jenkins Garrett
Professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was
named to the Academy of Distinguished Scholars,
which exemplifies the University’s commitment to
quality research and creative activity. Members advocate
the importance of research and creative activity,
promote a sense of community among
scholars and advise the institution on research practices
and policies.
■ Darlene Campbell, lecturer in mathematics,
received the Provost’s Award for Excellence in
Teaching. The award honors non-tenure track instructors
who have demonstrated excellence in
teaching, strong personal commitment to students
and the ability to motivate, challenge and inspire.
■ Bradley Pierce, assistant professor of chemistry
and biochemistry, received the President’s
Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award recognizes
teaching that is inspiring, effective and innovative
by professors.
Those receiving promotions to associate professor
were: Gaik Ambartsoumian, mathematics; Jeffrey
Demuth, biology; Theresa Jorgensen, mathematics;
Laura Mydlarz, biology, Arne Winguth,
earth and environmental science. Promoted to full
professor were: Wei Chen, physics; Minerva
Cordero, mathematics; Perry Fuchs, psychology;
Laura Gough, biology; David Jorgensen, mathematics.
Promoted to senior lecturer was Nila Veerabathina,
physics.
Price, Crandell honored as UT Arlington
distinguished alumni during annual gala
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy
Price (B.S. in Biology ’72)
and Keith L. Crandell (M.S.
in Chemistry ’87) were
among seven honorees during
the 48th UT Arlington
Annual Distinguished Alumni
Gala on October 19 in the
E.H. Hereford University
Center Bluebonnet Ballroom.
Price
Price served as Tarrant County tax assessor for
11 years before being elected Fort Worth mayor in
2011. She has been credited with promoting jobs,
strengthening education, fighting crime and improving
mobility during her tenure.
An avid bicyclist, Mayor Price helped organize
FitWorth, a citywide initiative to encourage active
lifestyles and healthy habits in children and adults.
She also has championed responsible and sustainable
cuts to balance the city’s $1.2 billion budget
and advocated changes to the pension plan to protect
taxpayers and stabilize the fund.
Ambartsoumian
Twohey
Dasgupta Campbell Pierce
Crandell is co-founder
and managing director of
ARCH Venture Partners, a
27-year-old seed and earlystage
venture capital partnership.
The Distinguished Alumni
Award, established in
1965, is the highest honor
Crandell
given by the University and
the University of Texas at Arlington Alumni Association.
The awards honor individual achievements,
contributions to industry or profession,
community service and demonstrated loyalty to UT
Arlington.
Dr. Ignacio Nuñez (B.A. in Biology ’75), a 2010
Distinguished Alumnus, served as master of ceremonies.
Nuñez is an obstetrician and gynecologist
with Family Healthcare Associates in Arlington
and has worked in health care for 30 years. He is a
past president of the Fort Worth OB-GYN Society
and a member of the Tarrant County Medical Society
and numerous other health organizations.

COLLEGE NEWS | CHEMISTRY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Tanizaki honored for
outstanding teaching
by UT System regents
Seiichiro Tanizaki, lecturer in chemistry and biochemistry,
was one of nine UT Arlington faculty members to receive
a prestigious award for teaching excellence from the
UT System Board of Regents in 2013.
“I am very honored to be selected for this award and
appreciate the support of the Chemistry
Department and the College of
Science,” Tanizaki said. “I am also
thankful for the wonderful students
here at UTA - they inspire me. This is
very rewarding. Though teaching is
hard work, it is also incredibly engaging
and exciting. I learn something
new about chemistry and
about teaching every semester. Receiving
this award encourages me to
continue developing my teaching skills.”
Tanizaki
In all, 63 educators from across the UT System were
recognized. The honors come with a $25,000 cash award
and recognize faculty members at UT System academic institutions
who demonstrate extraordinary classroom performance
and innovation at the undergraduate level. The
professors were recognized August 21 during a ceremony
in Austin.
The honor is the second major award for Tanizaki in
two years for his work in the classroom. In 2012, he received
the UT Arlington Provost’s Award for Excellence in
Teaching.
“We were absolutely thrilled to hear that Dr. Tanizaki
won the UT Board of Regents teaching excellence award.
He is an outstanding colleague and a superb teacher,” department
chair Rasika Dias said. “He has taught multiple
sections of very demanding introductory chemistry courses
since 2006 and has done an unquestionably high quality
job. He also developed our first online chemistry course
for nursing-intended students at UTA. The Board of Regents
could not have picked a better person to honor with
this award.”
Tanizaki came to UT Arlington in 2006 as a visiting instructor;
he became a full-time lecturer in 2007.
Dasgupta, Schug team to
rewrite chemistry book
When he agreed to help a close friend rewrite an
influential textbook on analytical chemistry, Purnendu
“Sandy” Dasgupta admits he had no idea what
he was in for. He’s just glad he asked Kevin Schug to
join him in the epic task.
Dasgupta, the Jenkins Garrett Professor of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, wasn’t feeling up to the monumental
job when his friend and colleague Gary
Christian, professor emeritus at the University of
Washington, asked him to help rewrite his book, Analytical
Chemistry, three years ago. But he didn’t
want to turn Christian down, so he decided to ask
Schug, Shimadzu Distinguished Professor of Analytical
Chemistry, to help.
“I knew that this was going to take time, but I had
no idea how much time it would end up consuming,”
Dasgupta said. “I did not really expect Kevin to say
yes. To my surprise – and to be honest, even after
Armstrong receives ACS Award in
Separations Science & Technology
Daniel Armstrong, professor of chemistry,
received his second national award
to training and mentoring more than 170
strong, his innovations and his dedication
from the American Chemical Society in
students, post-doctoral researchers and
2014, honoring his landmark contributions
to the field of analytical separations.
The ACS also named Armstrong to its
visiting professors.
The ACS Award in Separations Science
and Technology, which is sponsored
novative achievements in the lab as well
2013 Class of Fellows, recognizing his in-
by Waters Corp., recognizes “the development
of novel applications with major
ects.
as his effective, engaging outreach proj-
impacts and/or the practical implementations
of modern advancements in the field of sep-
work represents the epitome of the research excel-
Armstrong
“Dr. Armstrong’s incredible body of
aration science and technology.” It was presented at lence and trailblazing dedication we encourage our
the ACS national conference in Dallas on March 17. students and professors to aspire to,” UT Arlington
“Throughout his career, Dr. Armstrong has President Vistasp Karbhari said. “His recognition as
worked to increase our understanding of the world a fellow is exceedingly well-deserved.”
around us through development of new instruments Armstrong’s development of new methods for
and analytical methods,” said Ronald L. Elsenbaumer,
UT Arlington provost and vice president for has led to advances in realms of science essential to
separating chemical mixtures in solution or as gas
academic affairs.
pharmaceutical drug development and disease identification
and treatment. He is considered the “father
Armstrong, who holds the Robert A. Welch Chair
in Chemistry, joined UT Arlington in 2006. of pseudophase separations” – a type of liquid chromatography
that provides higher selectivity for sub-
Throughout his career, he has developed more than
30 different types of columns used in chromatography,
the science of separating molecules in gas or toxicity than previous analytical methods.
stances with lower cost and less volatility and
liquid for analysis.
In naming him a fellow, the Society also noted
The commercial applications of his inventions Armstrong's contribution to the community-atlarge.
Those include the founding of a syndicated
have been wide-ranging – including use by the drug
development, petrochemical and environmental National Public Radio show on science and his mentoring
of graduate students, many of whom were the
monitoring community. In addition, Armstrong is
the author of more than 550 scientific publications, first in their families to pursue college degrees.
including 29 book chapters, and holds 23 U.S. and Also in 2013, Armstrong was named to a list of
international patents.
the most influential people in analytical sciences by
“One of the strengths of our group is we come The Analytical Scientist, a U.K.-based magazine.
with new things to explore constantly, which is fun,” Armstrong was ranked No. 16 and is one of only
Armstrong said. He added that evidence his work is two Texans (and the only one in the Top 20) on the
influencing and helping other scientific endeavors – list. After an open nomination period, a panel of the
such as the 27,000 scientific citations his lab has editorial team and scientists voted on the top 20.
achieved – is a gratifying result.
“Dr. Armstrong is without question one of the
“You want to do things that have an impact and most influential analytical scientists in the world, so
are useful, either adding knowledge, insight or this is a very fitting honor for him,” Dean of Science
something practical that people can actually use,” he Pamela Jansma said. “He has been doing groundbreaking
and innovative work in separations and
said.
The 2014 ACS awards were announced in the chromatography for decades. His name certainly belongs
with the other illustrious names from around
January issue of Chemical & Engineering News in
an article where several colleagues praised Arm-
the world on this list.”
Kevin Schug, left, and Sandy Dasgupta with a copy
of the textbook they helped to rewrite.
some subtle discouragement of how it’s going to be a
lot of work – he wanted to do it!”
While Schug said the undertaking wasn’t easy,
he’s glad he was given the opportunity.
“I decided to do it because I felt I could really contribute
something to it,” Schug said. “It’s a big honor
this early in my career.”
Schug wins ACS award for young
investigators in separation sciences
Kevin Schug, associate professor of chemistry & biochemistry,
received the 2013 American Chemical Society Division
of Analytical Chemistry Award for Young Investigators in
Separation Science for his outstanding contributions to analytical
chemistry.
He was presented with the award at the international laboratory
science conference Pittcon 2013 in Philadelphia.
“It is a great honor to be selected for this prestigious
award from the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry and to
join the ranks of great scientists who have won this award before
me,” said Schug, who is also the Shimadzu Distinguished
Professor of Analytical Chemistry. “My goal is to make this a
sign of the great things still to come from our group in the future.”
Schug received a National Science Foundation Faculty
Early Career Development Program award in 2009 and the
2010 Eli Lilly Young and Company Young Investigator Award
for Analytical Chemistry.
Maverick Science 2013-14
13

COLLEGE NEWS | STEM EDUCATION | SCIENCE WEEK
Ashanti Johnson, back row sixth from right, with President Barack Obama, center, and other
recipients of the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering
Mentoring Program at the White House in 2010.
Johnson a leader in effort to boost
minority participation in STEM
For years, Ashanti Johnson has been working
to find ways to help underrepresented minorities
become more involved in STEM (science, technology,
engineering and math) education. Her knowledge
of the subject means she is in high demand
by a host of governmental agencies and educational
entities trying to achieve the same goal – including
the White House.
Johnson, UT Arlington Assistant Vice Provost
for Faculty Recruitment and associate professor of
environmental science, was appointed to two national
committees last year with that goal in mind.
The first group is the
Coalition of Hispanic,
African and Native Americans
for the Next Generation
of Engineers and
Johnson
Scientists (CHANGES),
which she became involved
in after a White House
Forum on STEM Minority
Inclusion, organized by the
Office of Science and Technology
Policy in February 2013. Johnson is on the
group’s executive board and is in charge of communications
among the 16 STEM organizations
that are a part of CHANGES.
“The goal of CHANGES is to advance underrepresented
minorities in STEM education,” Johnson
said. “We want to serve as a voice to local, state
and federal government agencies, educational institutions,
the business sector, and communities.
It’s very broad in structure, focusing on different
target areas. My focus is undergraduate and graduate
education.”
CHANGES member organizations will provide
feedback on ways to improve best practices, mentoring
and training programs, and more.
In November 2013 Johnson was invited to participate
in the White House Forum on Minorities
in Energy, organized by the Department of Energy.
The forum gathered innovators from various energy
and STEM fields to discuss effective ways to
advance the participation of underrepresented minorities
in energy-related enterprises in communities
across the country. Part of the mission of this
forum and its participants is to highlight the national
imperative of a thriving, diverse energy
workforce to ensure a clean energy future for the
United States.
That’s not all Johnson – the first African-American
to earn a doctoral degree in oceanography
from Texas A&M University and one of the first female
African-American chemical oceanographers
in the country – added to her plate in 2013.
In June, she was appointed to a 24-member
advisory panel to create a strategic vision for the
National Academy of Sciences’ Gulf Research Program.
The program is a $500 million, 30-year endeavor
established as part of the settlements of
federal criminal complaints against BP and
Transocean Ltd. after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon
explosion and subsequent contamination of
the Gulf Coast.
The program focuses on human health, environmental
protection and oil system safety and
will fund and carry out studies, projects, and activities
in research and development, education
and training, and environmental monitoring. The
advisory committee is articulating the program’s
mission, goals, and objectives – including preliminary
thinking about metrics to measure its impacts
– and outlining how the program will
operate in the first three to five years.
Johnson is also Executive Director of the Institute
for Broadening Participation, a non-profit organization
which strives to increase diversity in the
STEM workforce by designing and implementing
strategies to increase access to STEM education,
funding, and careers, with special emphasis on diverse
underrepresented groups.
Then there are Johnson’s UT Arlington roles
as vice provost and associate professor, which are
more than enough to keep most people busy.
Johnson’s tireless efforts to improve diversity
in STEM fields haven’t gone unnoticed. Among the
honors she has received is the Presidential Award
for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering
Mentoring, presented at a White House
ceremony in January 2010.
Because of her desire to make a positive contribution
to the STEM community and maintain a
balanced professional and family life, on perhaps
far too many occasions, Johnson has found it necessary
to work late into the night on various professional
activities after putting her three young
children to sleep. “The idea of being able to help
shape national policy on minority involvement in
STEM and energy is great, but I need to set boundaries
somewhere. I want to maximize the amount
of impact I can have, but I also want to sleep!” she
said with a smile.
College celebrates science
with talks, career panels
during Science Week ’13
The College’s fourth annual Science Week put the spotlight
on science with a full slate of activities the week of November
4-9, with students, alumni and faculty coming
together for invited talks, panel discussions on careers in science
fields, and workshops aimed at helping students take
advantage of opportunities to become involved in research.
Among the highlights were talks by Harold McNair, professor
emeritus in chemistry at Virginia Tech University;
David R. Nygren, distinguished scientist at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory and inventor of the time projection
chamber; and UT Arlington alumnus Robert Stewart, professor
emeritus in oceanography at Texas A&M University.
McNair, a pioneer in gas chromatography,
reflected on his career in
his talk, “55 Years in Chromatography”.
Nygren, inventor of the time projection
chamber, spoke about “Gas-Filled Detectors:
The Long-Distance Champions
of Particle Physics”. Stewart surveyed
his career and gave advice to students
in his talk, “50 Years in Oceanography”
(see story on Stewart, page 38).
McNair
A panel discussion on environmental careers included UT
Arlington alumni David Brittain, Susan Doerfler, David Long
and Kenneth Tramm, who offered insights to students seeking
jobs in the environmental science field. A health professions
panel featuring UT Arlington alumni Dr. Hank Jacobs,
D.D.S., and Dr. Jocelyn Zee allowed students to glean wisdom
from medical professionals.
Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Recruitment Ashanti
Johnson, Assistant Dean Ashley Purgason and Tom Windham,
consultant for the Center for Multiscale Modeling of
Atmospheric Processes at Colorado State University, held a
series of workshops for students on how to get involved in
research and how to find research and funding opportunities
in Texas and around the nation.
Dean Pamela Jansma hosted a dinner for Freshman Interest
Groups at the Planetarium, and a special 75th birthday
party was held in honor of John Fry, professor emeritus in
physics. A new physics scholarship created in Fry’s honor by
friends and former students was announced at the party (see
story, page 10).
Dr. Jocelyn Zee (B.S. Biology ’04) and Dr. Hank Jacobs, D.D.S.
(B.S. Biology ’82) flank Dean Pamela Jansma after a panel
discussion on careers in health professions.
14 Maverick Science 2013-14

COLLEGE NEWS | EARTH & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
EES receives record $300K pledge for master’s program
Master’s studies in the Department of
Earth and Environmental Science are receiving
a significant boost with the donation
of $300,000 by Pioneer Natural
Resources Co., an Irving-based oil and
gas firm.
The donation is the largest cash gift in
the history of the department and will be
disbursed in three annual payments of
$100,000. The first payment was made
in January.
“This is wonderful news for the department
and for our master’s students in
particular,” said Asish Basu, professor
and chair of the EES department. “This
generous donation will allow us to continue
to improve our graduate program in
the form of scholarships and research
funding for master’s students. I would
like to thank Pioneer Natural Resources
for their generous donation and their
commitment to science education in the
North Texas area.”
The partnership was formed in 2013,
when one of Basu’s students received her
master’s degree and was hired by Pioneer
Natural Resources. Basu – who became
department chair in January 2013 – has
been reaching out to area businesses
about the opportunity to become involved
in geoscience education by funding scholarships
and research stipends.
“This is something which will benefit
everyone because the donation will enable
us to train students who will be
highly qualified when they receive their
degrees, and that will in turn provide
ready access to strong job candidates for
businesses here in the Metroplex,” Basu
said.
Dean of Science Pamela Jansma, a
geoscientist whose research interests include
microplate tectonics and strain partitioning,
hailed the contribution as
exactly the kind of academic-corporate
partnership the College of Science and the
University want to foster.
“We’re very excited by this generous
donation from Pioneer Natural Resources
and by what it will mean to our master’s
students in earth and environmental science,”
Jansma said. “These funds will enable
our students to spend less time on
finding ways to finance their education
and more time on doing innovative research
and becoming leaders of the next
generation of geoscientists.”
Louis Goldstein, Pioneer Natural Resources
vice president of corporate geoscience,
said the move benefits everyone
by helping students pay for the instruction
they receive and the research they
conduct in order to earn their degrees,
which in turn provides a pool of young,
talented geoscientists who will make ideal
job candidates for industries which are in
need of that talent.
“The universities of today provide the
technical and scientific talent which are
essential to our resource and environmental
industries of tomorrow,” Goldstein
said. “Partnerships between
industry and higher education are essential
to reach the goal of maintaining global
leadership in the geosciences that are key
to both managing our energy resources
and preserving our environment.
“Pioneer’s contribution of $300,000
to the UTA Department of Earth and Environmental
Science is intended to advance
this partnership. We are committed
to support Professor Basu’s vision of continuing
to build a program that provides
Tier One-caliber graduates to the resource
and environmental sectors.”
The January check signing was attended
by Jansma, Basu and UT Arlington
President Vistasp Karbhari, along
with Goldstein and E.G. ‘Skip’ Rhodes, Pioneer
Natural Resources director of new
plays and shale technology.
Pioneer Natural Resources is an independent
oil and natural gas company that
was formed in 1997. It has 3,900 employees
and had total assets of $13.1 billion at
the end of 2012.
EES chair Basu aiming to build on foundation,
help department reach new heights of success
After taking the reins of the Department of Earth and
Environmental Sciences as chair in January 2013, Asish
Basu has wasted no time formulating new goals aimed at
moving the program forward.
He has overseen major renovations and upgrades of
the interior of the Geosciences Building which houses department
offices, labs and classrooms and which will soon
include the Center for Environmental, Forensic and Material
Science. The center will be part of UT Arlington’s
Shimadzu Institute for Research Technologies, a $25.2
million endeavor that will transform research capabilities
and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)
education at UT Arlington and throughout the
state.
With the amount of oil and gas drilling being done in
Texas, Basu sees opportunities to create joint programs
with the UT Arlington College of Engineering. He also
aims to launch a geochemistry program, utilizing the
strong infrastructure already in place at UT Arlington in
the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry plus the new
Shimadzu research facilities. The main reason he left his
previous job, at the University of Rochester in New York,
was because of the potential he saw in the UT Arlington
EES department and the opportunity to help build on the
department’s successes.
“I wanted a new challenge,” Basu said. “Rochester is a
very fine university, but I felt I had done everything I
wanted to do there, and as chair had taken the department
as far as I could. Now I would like the challenge of helping
to build – with support from the faculty and the administration
– a distinguished Earth and Environmental Sciences
Department at UT Arlington.”
Basu notes the diversity of UT Arlington’s student
body, as well as of its faculty, as one of its greatest
strengths, and says he enjoys meeting as many of them as
possible to share ideas and listen to different viewpoints.
“My mission in professional life has been teaching and
research, and it seems to me the students at UT Arlington
have a passion for learning,” he said. “My goal is to help
make the department as successful as possible and to
Asish Basu in his lab with a mass spectrometer machine
he brought to UT Arlington from his previous
lab at the University of Rochester.
make it a first-rate program, nationally and internationally.”
Basu was selected as department chair from a field of
four finalists. He replaced John Wickham, who stepped
down after having led the department since his arrival at
UT Arlington in 1992.
“We’re very pleased to have a geoscientist as distinguished
and experienced as Dr. Basu leading the Department
of Earth and Environmental Science,” Dean of
Science Pamela Jansma said. “His knowledge and expertise
will be invaluable in helping build a geochemistry program
here and in attracting top faculty to do research and
teach in this area.
“We all thank John Wickham for his 20-plus years of
excellent leadership as chair. The department has made
tremendous gains under his guidance, and his efforts to
ensure that our students receive all the teaching and
hands-on training they need to be successful have been
tireless. His leadership has ensured that the department
is in great position to continue to move forward under Dr.
Basu.”
Hu named Fellow
by e Geological
Society of America
Qinhong “Max” Hu, an associate professor
of earth and environmental sciences, has
been named a fellow by The Geological Society
of America, an honor reserved for scientists
making distinguished contributions to the
geosciences.
“Dr. Hu’s world-class
efforts to advance earth
science are evidenced by
an impressive history of
publications, presentations,
funding and professional
honors,” Dean
of Science Pamela
Jansma said. “As a
newly-named fellow, he
Hu
will undoubtedly continue these contributions
in the years to come.”
Hu has been at UT Arlington since 2008.
Prior to that, he worked at the U.S Department
of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory. His research specialty is
in describing and exploring the processes by
which fluids (air, water and hydrocarbon)
move through porous and fractured porous
media in the Earth such as tight rock formations.
Hu has published more than 80 peer-reviewed
journal articles and numerous other
works focused on resources management, environmental
remediation and waste isolation.
He is currently the principal investigator on
$625,000 in grants to study fracture-matrix interaction
in gas recovery in North Texas’ Barnett
Shale.
Maverick Science 2013-14
15

COLLEGE NEWS | MATHEMATICS
Math department named best in nation by AMS
New emporium director out
to help students ‘do the math’
Shanna Moody, above, taught her first math class at age 12
when her seventh-grade teacher was out sick. The substitute
teacher was unfamiliar with the material, so school administrators
allowed Moody – the top math student in her class – to
teach for the day. She has gone on to make a career out of math
education.
Moody’s mission, she says, is to disprove the notion that
math is just too hard for some people to grasp. In June, she became
the new director of the department’s Math Learning Resource
Center, or Math Emporium. She has made it her job to
dispel the myth that math is something to be feared or simply
endured on the way to obtaining a college degree.
“Everybody can do math. They may not think so, but they
can do it,” Moody said. “They just need the right instruction.
Right now, our public K-12 education system often leaves gaps
in students’ mathematical education, and a lot of them come to
college with a fear of math. That’s part of the mindset I want to
change.”
The emporium, which opened in August 2012, is a tutorial
lab with computer software which supplements and reinforces
classroom instruction and allows students to receive help from
instructors and graduate teaching assistants in areas where they
are having difficulty. It is based on a model provided by the National
Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), which has
produced often dramatic results at other institutions that have
implemented it.
College algebra was selected as the initial course because it
is one taken by a large number of college students from numerous
divisions and one which has high failure rates nationwide.
The American Mathematical Society has
named The University of Texas at Arlington the
winner of its 2013 AMS Award for an Exemplary
Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department.
The award honors the mathematics
department at UT Arlington as a model of excellence
among the group’s 570 member institutions.
The society recognized the UT Arlington
mathematics department for doubling the size of
its doctoral program over five years and bolstering
those ranks with historically underrepresented
student groups, including women and
minorities.
From 2005-10, the number of doctoral students
in the department grew from 23 to 52.
Large gains were also made in the number of U.S.
citizens or permanent residents pursuing doctoral
degrees.
“This is an extraordinary honor and recognition
of the achievements of the UT Arlington Department
of Mathematics,” said Ronald
Elsenbaumer, provost and vice president for academic
affairs. “Our nation needs more leaders
who have achieved the highest degrees in math,
science and engineering. We are pleased to see
the tremendous work of our math faculty recognized
on the national stage.”
The UT Arlington mathematics department
now joins ranks of elite math programs that are
former winners of the award, such as University
of California at Los Angeles and University of
Iowa.
In their citation, the selection committee said
that UT Arlington’s math department stood out
because of its focus on students. Over several
years, faculty and staff created an environment
where undergraduate and graduate students of
all backgrounds could flourish, the judges said.
Mentoring programs, professional development,
active recruiting and study groups that build connections
among students were essential components,
they said.
The department also significantly increased
its number of undergraduate majors during the
same period of time.
The Department of Mathematics hosted a day
of Mavericks in Math for over 100 fifth and sixth
grade girls from Arlington schools on October 19
at Pickard Hall.
The event had three goals: encouraging the
study of mathematics among young women, especially
minorities and those from low-income
families; providing an enriching and encouraging
environment for promoting positive attitudes toward
mathematics; and continuing to develop a
strong connection between UT Arlington and Arlington
ISD students and math teachers.
“The girls had a great day of engaging mathematics
activities and encouragement to continue
studying mathematics, led by UT Arlington math
students,” said event organizer Theresa Jorgensen,
an associate professor of math. “Motivating
girls at this young age can bear long-lasting
fruit as they select their academic paths through
middle school and high school.”
The day included workshops, games, and a
visit to the Planetarium for a special panel discussion
where the girls asked questions of four
“Departmental faculty are truly dedicated to
training a culturally and ethnically diverse group
of students with the potential to thrive in our profession,
and they have had great success,” said
Phil Kutzko, a University of Iowa math professor
who served as chairman of the award selection
committee. “This commitment on the part of a
significant percentage of the faculty is what sets
departments like the one at UT Arlington apart
from other departments with similar goals.”
Pamela Jansma, College of Science dean, said
math faculty members have actively pursued
grants to improve their department and to provide
students the support they need to finish their
doctoral degrees. She credited the leadership of
former UT Arlington department chair Jianping
Zhu and current chair Jianzhong Su.
“Many of these students would not have been
able to attend graduate school without the financial
help of these grants,” Jansma said. “By seeking
out these funds, our faculty has ensured that
the University doesn’t miss out on the contributions
these talented individuals can make.”
Department
chair Jianzhong
Su: “The exceptional
contributions
of our
faculty members
and staff are the
reason behind
the UT Arlington
Mathematics
Department
receiving this
prestigious
award.”
Outreach program allows Arlington
schoolgirls to get excited about math
women with varied backgrounds who use mathematics
in their careers, including Minerva
Cordero, College of Science associate dean and
professor of mathematics; Melinda Au, system engineer
for Lockheed Martin and a Ph.D. student
in mathematics; Wendy Okolo, a Ph.D. student in
aerospace engineering; and Iris Alvarado, a Ph.D.
student in mathematics who has a master’s degree
in mechanical engineering.
Over 70 mathematics undergraduate and
graduate student volunteers from UT Arlington
helped with the event. The girls who attended
were a highly diverse group: approximately 50
percent were Hispanic and 30 percent were
African-American. The free event was held with
funding support from the Mathematical Association
of America Tensor Program for Women and
Mathematics, the National Science Foundation,
the Association for Women in Mathematics, and
the UT Arlington College of Science.
The event is one of a number of outreach programs
the College of Science hosts each year to involve
K-12 students in science and math.
Over 100
girls from
fifth and
sixth
grade
Arlington
schools
attended
the Mavericks
in
Math day
in October.
16 Maverick Science 2013-14

COLLEGE NEWS | PHYSICS | MATHEMATICS
SAVANT Center using research to improve security
SAVANT Center leaders, from left, Andrew Brandt, Erick Jones and Wei Chen
want the center to be a platform for multidisciplinary research.
A new center at UT Arlington is focusing
on using nanotechnology to
strengthen and enhance U.S. security
through collaborative research across
disciplines.
The Security Advances Via Applied
Nanotechnology (SAVANT) Center is
home to projects already under way, including
using nanoparticles to detect
threats such as nuclear dirty bombs. It is
also a place to explore new concepts,
such as using luminescent nanoparticles
to prevent “friendly-fire” incidents in
combat.
The center’s goals include (1) providing
a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration
among UTA faculty as well as
the UT Arlington Research Institute
(UTARI), augmenting the prospects of
obtaining federal funds to address critical
security issues through technological
advances; (2) assisting local agencies in
acquiring funding to strengthen security;
and (3) facilitating the education and
training of STEM (science, technology,
engineering and mathematics) students in research
areas relevant to homeland security, thus providing a
new work force that would be well-positioned to fill
the critical shortage of trained professionals in this
vital area.
Wei Chen, a professor of physics, is director of the
center. Chen, along with physics professor Andrew
Brandt, has received more than $1.9 million in federal
grants to develop radiation detection devices using luminescent
nanoparticles embedded in a polymer thin
film.
“Our center will go beyond standard detection
techniques, using newly-advanced, science-based
breakthroughs,” Chen said. “We will be looking to
identify threats in a variety of arenas, including transportation
hubs and other public gathering places,
public infrastructure networks and the U.S. border.”
Brandt and Erick Jones, an associate professor in
the College of Engineering, are deputy directors of the
center.
The collaboration will be primarily between the
university’s College of Science and College of Engineering.
The Colleges of Liberal Arts, Business and
Education and Health Professions are also involved
in planning future projects.
Organizers hope the center will be recognized as a
Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology
Directorate Center of Excellence by 2020 and,
by that time, garner grants and private industry funding
of more than $10 million annually. Currently, the
Department of Homeland Security has 12 Centers of
Excellence at universities nationwide.
They work with industry and first-responders
to develop new technologies to
enhance homeland security.
“Federal funding agencies have
clearly indicated the need for increased
innovation to address U.S. security issues
at home and abroad. Research universities,
especially like UT Arlington,
have a significant and unique role to
play,” said Ronald Elsenbaumer, provost
and vice president for academic affairs.
Other ongoing or proposed projects
include:
n The use of near-field RFID, or
radio-frequency identification, sensing
nanotechnology to detect, track, trace
and locate threats, especially at the U.S.
border.
n Developing nanoscale probes and
sensors for use in water and food safety
testing.
n Development of nanomedicine for
treatment and prevention of radiation
exposure or damage.
UT Arlington’s North Texas location will be an
asset to researchers’ work, allowing them to team with
the ultimate users of threat-detection services, such
as entertainment venues, military contractors and airports.
Supporting and training young investigators
will also be a major task for the new center. Collaborations
with other universities also are planned.
“We will work to ensure that our students have
valuable research opportunities at every level,” Dean
of Science Pamela Jansma said. “The wide array of
projects proposed as part of the SAVANT center will
enhance student experiences and help fuel securitybased
research in the future.”
Learn more about the SAVANT Center at
http://www.uta.edu/savant/.
Math department receives $623K grant
from NSF for STEM field scholarships
A new $623,608 National Science Foundation
S-STEM grant to the UT Arlington Mathematics
Department will help undergraduates
with up to $10,000 in tuition and fees as they
pursue their future in teaching, research or other
math-based professions.
S-STEM stands for Scholarships in Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The
funding – which will be spread over four years -
is the second S-STEM grant the department has
received. The first, in 2008, helped 46 students
toward their degrees. A majority of those came
to UT Arlington from community colleges, and
some graduates have continued to pursue advanced
degrees in STEM areas.
“Mathematics is a key to real-life problems
everywhere, from science and engineering to
business, sports or music. By supporting students’
interest in a math major we are training
graduates ready to lead tomorrow’s technological
advances,” said Jianzhong Su, professor and
department chair.
UT Arlington’s S-STEM program is called
SURGE (Scholarships for Undergraduates to
Reach Goals in Education). To be considered for
the SURGE scholarship, students must have
demonstrated academic excellence and financial
need and be pursuing a math degree in the College
of Science. In addition to funding, recipients
also get access to a network of support in the
form of peer mentoring, tutoring, faculty mentoring
and industry mentoring with graduates of
the department who work in the Metroplex.
Members of the SURGE team and co-investigators
on the new grant funding are professors
Tuncay Aktosun, Hristo Kojouharov and Su, and
associate professors Ruth Gornet and Barbara
Shipman.
“Experience shows that support outside the
classroom and involvement in challenging activities
such as research keeps students moving toward
their goals,” Dean Pamela Jansma said.
“The math department already is an example of
excellence in those areas of engagement.”
Magnet school wins Calculus Bowl
The 2013 UT Arlington Calculus Bowl went down to the wire, but in
the end, the School of Science and Engineering Magnet (SEM), a
college preparatory public high school in Dallas was victorious. SEM
edged Flower Mound High School, which was trying for its fourth
consecutive title at the 13th annual event. SEM, competing in its first
Calculus Bowl, scored 24 points to Flower Mound’s 22. In all, teams
from 23 DFW area schools matched wits in the contest which tests
students’ knowledge through a series of multiple choice questions.
Pictured are SEM team members, from left, Quinn Torres, Murali
Subramanian, team captain Andrew Merrill, Wesley Runnels, Sirjan
Kafle and coach Joshua Newton.
Maverick Science 2013-14
17

COLLEGE NEWS | PSYCHOLOGY
Center is focused on combating chronic illnesses
Chronic illnesses – such as heart disease, cancer,
diabetes and arthritis – affect millions of people
in the United States every year and are a major contributor
to skyrocketing health care costs.
More than 75 percent of U.S. health care costs
come from treatment of chronic diseases. These
persistent conditions are the leading causes of
death and disability in the United States.
That’s why the Center of Excellence for the
Study of Health and Chronic Illnesses at UT Arlington
was created. The center’s purpose is to coordinate
and stimulate biopsychosocial and medical
research, as well as community-based education
and prevention efforts pertaining to the causes and
management of chronic illnesses.
The center, which opened Jan. 1, 2013, also includes
the Dr. Andy Baum Memorial Bioassay Clinical
Research Laboratory, which was the brainchild
of UT Arlington psychology professor Andrew
Baum, a giant in the field of health psychology who
died in 2010. The lab is named in his honor and can
perform a variety of assays.
Robert Gatchel, distinguished professor and the
Nancy P. & John G. Penson Endowed Professor of
Clinical Health Psychology, is director of the center
and was the driving force behind its creation. The
center’s formation took almost 10 years, starting
when Gatchel came to UT Arlington from UT
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 2004.
“This was something I worked toward since I
came to UT Arlington,” Gatchel said. “When I got
here, one of my areas of expertise was chronic pain,
which is associated with a large number of medical
conditions. I had a lot of grants in that area, and I
started thinking we could have a place here where
important collaborative research could be done.”
The center was established in response to the
changing health care landscape in the United
States, Gatchel notes. It reflects marked changes in
major health threats, from primarily infectious diseases
– such as polio and tuberculosis – to chronic
illnesses, which affect millions of people today.
Modern chronic illnesses are caused in part by
aging and lifestyle, and they present problems in
management, prevention and treatment, the center’s
website states. Stress, lack of exercise, diet,
drug and tobacco use, and other psychosocial factors
appear to contribute to “wear and tear” on the
UT Arlington team members, from left, faculty mentor Linda Perrotti,
graduate student coach Amber Harris, Gaurang Gupte, John Perish,
Matt Fisher, Eliza DeNobrega, Hannah Wriston and graduate student
coach Samara Morris Bobzean.
18 Maverick Science 2013-14
Members of the center include, from left, Robert Gatchel, Robbie Haggard, Kimberly Warren, Pedro Cortes,
Sarah Eames, Megan Ingram, McKenna Bradford, Melissa Muenzler, Celeste Sanders, Yun Hee Choi, Meredith
Hartzell and Sali Asih.
Gatchel and Celeste Sanders in one of the center’s
research rooms in the Life Science Building.
body, and to an acceleration of the aging process.
Most of these factors can be modified, and this
fact offers important new ways to reduce illness
risks, as well as the personal, financial, and medical
toll of many chronic illnesses. These changes in the
nature of serious chronic illnesses pose a number
of very important challenges for systematic study,
evaluation, and intervention.
Another impetus for the center’s creation,
UT Arlington team members put their
heads together and used their gray matter when
it mattered most to come home with the trophy
at the 14th annual Intercollegiate Brain Bowl.
The 2013 competition, held April 16, pitted
teams from UT Arlington, defending champion
Trinity University and UT San Antonio. UT Arlington
scored 236 points to top runner-up UT
San Antonio’s 219 points.
The Brain Bowl, sponsored each spring by
the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at the
University of Texas Health Science Center San
Antonio, is a neuroscience quiz show in which
three teams of undergraduates from universities
across Texas compete for prizes, bragging
rights, and the Brain Bowl trophy.
Gatchel says, is UT Arlington’s push towards becoming
a Tier I research university. The amount of
research expenditures is an important criterion in
receiving Tier I status, and the center’s goal is to
add significantly to the University’s expenditure
numbers.
A vital component of the center is the advisory
committee, which will guide the research focus of
the center and seek funding for projects from federal,
state and private sources. The committee is a
multidisciplinary team comprised of UT Arlington
faculty in psychology, chemistry, engineering, business
and kinesiology; faculty from UT Southwestern,
UT Dallas and UNT Health Science Center;
and medical professionals from around North
Texas.
The center will also give students the opportunity
to participate in case studies conducted at the
center as research assistants, allowing them to gain
valuable experience as they advance in their careers.
“In terms of giving them an environment to be
involved in practical clinical research, this is the
perfect place for that,” Gatchel said.
To learn more about the center, visit
http://www.uta.edu/psychology/hci/index.php.
UTA team wins contest with brain power
“We were thrilled to win,” said faculty mentor
Linda Perrotti, assistant professor of psychology.
“Our win truly came down to the final
question. It was an incredibly suspenseful experience
and the competition was very close.”
The Brain Bowl tests the knowledge of undergraduate
neuroscience students. Questions
range from relatively easy to very difficult, covering
fields of research including neurophysiology,
neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, drugs and
the brain, and the brain and behavior.
Modeled after the 1960s TV quiz show University
Challenge, the Brain Bowl includes
three rounds of short answer questions and a
final round “challenge” where teams can wager
points accumulated in previous rounds.

COLLEGE NEWS | SCIENCE EDUCATION
Growth of UTeach surpassing all expectations
UT Arlington set out to address the shortage of
highly trained secondary school science and math teachers
head-on when it started the UTeach Arlington program
in 2010. UTeach’s aim is to recruit, train and
inspire math and science majors who are interested in
earning teaching certifications.
The program provides early and intensive field experiences
in K-12 schools for teacher candidates; utilizes
experienced master teachers as instructors, mentors
and field experience coordinators; and offers a variety
of scholarship and internship opportunities for students.
UTeach allows students to graduate with both a
degree and a teaching certificate.
The original UTeach program, at UT Austin, started
in 1997 and was an immediate success. UTeach Arlington
launched in Fall 2010 and is a collaboration between
the College of Science and the College of Education.
UTeach Arlington was made possible by a $1.4 million
grant from Texas Instruments, the Michael and Susan
Dell Foundation, and the Texas Education Agency, via
the National Math and Science Initiative. The success of
UTeach Arlington, which will have its first graduates this
spring, has surpassed even the wildest expectations of
its three co-directors – Greg Hale, assistant dean in the
College of Science; Ramon Lopez, professor of physics;
and Ann Cavallo, professor in the College of Education.
“When we were preparing to launch UTeach Arlington,
we hoped that we would be able to recruit 90 students
into the program during a fall semester by our
fifth year,” Hale said. “Instead, we recruited 90 in our
very first semester. The first graduating class, in May
and December of 2014, will produce more than 50 secondary
science and math teachers. This is approximately
10 times the number of such teachers we had
been graduating per year prior to launching the program.”
Lopez, who has made a significant impact in space
research and in science education, says his involvement
with UTeach is easily the most important thing he has
done since coming to UT Arlington.
“It’s been a lot of work, but there has been amazing
growth in the program in just 3½ years,” Lopez said.
STEM teacher training program gets $150K boost from NSF
UT Arlington has received a significant
financial boost in its effort to prepare
students to become university teachers in
science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) fields.
The University’s Organizational Network
for Teaching as Research Advancement
and Collaboration (ON-TRAC)
program received a three-year, $150,000
grant from the National Science Foundation
in October to help in its mission of
building a national faculty in STEM committed
to enhancing undergraduate
STEM education.
ON-TRAC is a member of the Center
for the Integration of Research, Teaching
and Learning (CIRTL), a network of 22
national research institutions committed
to helping STEM graduate and postdoctoral
students develop effective teaching
strategies for diverse learners. ON-
TRAC’s $150,000 grant came from a $5
million NSF grant to CIRTL, which the 22
member institutions share.
Kevin Schug, associate professor of
Anne Marie Russell, left, and Stephanie Gutierrez
will be among the first graduates of the UTeach Arlington
program in May.
“Time sure flies when you’re having fun! None of it
would be possible without our master teachers and the
way they prepare our students. Every report we get from
teachers in the field is great; these kids know their stuff.”
Stephanie Gutierrez and Anne Marie Russell are two
of the UTeach Arlington students who will graduate with
diplomas and teaching certificates in May.
Gutierrez, from Dallas, already knew a lot about
UTeach when she enrolled at UT Arlington because her
sister graduated from the UTeach program at UT Austin
and had a “great experience,” Gutierrez said. She originally
wanted to go into dentistry, but as she advanced
in the program, her career goals changed.
“As I became more involved in UTeach and started
getting experience in the classroom, I decided that
teaching is what I want to do,” she said. “Seeing the impact
that teachers can have on a student’s future is remarkable
and I want to be a part of that.”
Russell, also from Dallas, learned about UTeach during
a freshman orientation activities fair. She already
knew she wanted to be a teacher, but not necessarily in
math. After STEP 1 – the first phase of her classroom
teaching – she changed her mind.
“After doing Step 1, I loved UTeach so much that I
chemistry and biochemistry and the Shimadzu
Distinguished Professor of Analytical
Chemistry, is principal investigator
(PI) for ON-TRAC. He said the grant will
fund half of the University’s ON-TRAC
costs for the next three years. The other
half will come from the Colleges of Science,
Engineering, Education and Health
Professions, and the Offices of the
Provost, Research, and Graduate Studies.
“This is a terrific resource for students
who are thinking about going into STEM
teaching,” Schug said. “We want to get
faculty more involved and make students
more aware of the program. It’s a very
forward-thinking program and a great
opportunity for our graduate students.
Our University is invested in the program’s
success, so we should all be looking
for ways to benefit from the resources
it offers.”
The program has three core ideals: 1)
teaching as research, which involves the
deliberate, systematic, and reflective use
of research methods to develop and implement
teaching practices that advance
the learning experiences and outcomes of
students and teachers; 2) learning
through diversity – effective teaching requires
commitment to creating equitable
learning experiences and environments
that promote the success of diverse learners;
3) learning community – development
of a learning community is fostered
by shared discovery and learning where
participants learn collaboratively and
come together to achieve learning goals,
rather than relying on traditional “expert
centered” lecture formats. These communities
support and validate growth in
teaching and learning.
was willing to go ahead and change to a math major in
order to continue with the program,” Russell said. “I
want to be a math teacher because I want make an impact
on others’ lives and help make math not so difficult
for students.”
Gutierrez and Russell are shining examples of the
kind of students UTeach produces, Hale said.
“Stephanie and Anne Marie have been incredible
ambassadors for UTeach Arlington when they’ve been
on their field placements, taken part in internships, and
been asked to meet with our grantor and potential
donors,” Hale said. “Their passion for teaching and their
confidence in their preparation is immediately evident,
and our entire team of faculty, advisors, and staff members
is very proud of them.”
A big part of the program’s success has been the financial
support many students receive from UTeach Arlington’s
corporate partners. AT&T has provided broad
support and scholarships for UTeach students since
2011, relieving some of the financial burden that students
face in college. Gutierrez and Russell are among
the 2013-14 AT&T UTeach Scholarship recipients.
“This scholarship means a lot to me, as I am paying
for most of my education,” Gutierrez said. “Scholarships
like this one reassure me that I will be able to continue
to be in school full-time without the pressure of money
added to my list of hurdles.”
Lopez says UTeach Arlington will make a major difference
in the DFW region by sending well-trained graduates
with a passion for teaching out into area K-12
classrooms.
“All of our students are going to go on to really make
a difference for kids in science and math education,”
Lopez said. “It’s hard to underestimate the impact it will
have on education in our community. Most students
who become teachers stay within 50 miles of where they
went to school, so we’re going to be putting a lot of science
and math teachers into the Metroplex, and they’re
going to have such an amazing and positive impact on
kids.”
To learn more about UTeach Arlington, visit
http://www.uta.edu/cos/uteach/.
ON-TRAC will help train better instructors
for higher education, but the
overriding goal extends beyond the college
classroom. Ultimately, the center intends
to improve STEM education for
students nationwide, increase diversity in
those fields and increase the nation’s
STEM literacy.
The ON-TRAC leadership team also
includes co-PI Raymond “Joe” Jackson,
associate dean in the Office of Graduate
Studies; Lisa Berry, coordinator of Retention
and Completion in the Office of
Graduate Studies; Ann Cavallo, professor
of Curriculum and Instruction in the College
of Education and Health Professions;
James Epperson, associate professor of
math; Lynn Peterson, senior associate
dean for Academic Affairs in the College
of Engineering; Pranesh Aswath, associate
dean for Graduate Affairs in the College
of Engineering; Phil Cohen, vice
provost for Academic Affairs and professor
of English; and David Silva, vice
provost for faculty affairs.
Maverick Science 2013-14
19

Early Eocene strata in the Wind River Basin of
central Wyoming show alternating ancient soil
(red) and fluvial channel sandstone (grey and
yellow). Photo courtesy of Majie Fan.
Crunching
the STRATA
Sedimentary rock contains information about what the Earth
was like long ago, as well as how and why it has changed. UT
Arlington geologist Majie Fan and her students are studying
these ancient archives to learn how mountain ranges formed,
what the climate was like, and more.
20 Maverick Science 2013-14
By Greg Pe derson

Solving a childhood mystery gave Majie Fan the desire to study
geology and make a career of examining sedimentary formations
to unlock the clues they provide about tectonic processes
and climate changes that shaped the Earth millions of years
ago.
Fan, a UT Arlington assistant professor of earth and environmental
science, was born and raised in the Gansu Province
of rural northwestern China, a region located between two famous
geologic features: the Tibetan Plateau and the Chinese Loess Plateau.
Loess is silty sediment, usually yellowish or brown in color, which consists
of tiny mineral particles deposited by the wind. For much of her childhood,
she and her family lived in
cave houses, or yaodong –
structures typically carved
out of the side of a cliff or
hill.
Fan remembers her curiosity
in the yellow and
brown hues of the houses’
earthen walls.
“When I was a kid, I always
wondered about the
frequent color variations
from light yellow to light
brown on the walls inside
the houses and on any
cliffs, and imagined an
artist riding a helicopter
and painting the cliffs,”
she said. “Not until I entered
college did I learn
from an introductory geology
class that the color
variations in loess are
common in the Chinese
Loess Plateau, and the layers
of different colors can
be traced for thousands of
kilometers.”
Fan also learned that
the color variations are
caused by climate
changes, with yellow layers
representing periods
of wind-blown dust accumulation
when the area
was dry, and light brown
layers representing periods
of soil development
during relatively humid
periods. Answering the
questions she had as a
child about the composition
of the walls of the cave
houses where she had
lived sparked a desire to
learn more about geology.
That desire propelled her to a career as a geologist at UT Arlington, where
she has an active research lab and enjoys helping students learn and gain
experience in the fields of earth and environmental sciences. Her research
focuses on sedimentary geology, basin analysis, and stable isotope geochemistry.
“Sedimentary rocks archive information regarding the tectonic processes
and climate changes that shaped the Earth’s surface,” she said. “My experience
with yellow earth as a climate proxy and basin development in response
to tectonic processes led me to the field of sedimentary geology and basin
analysis. Stable isotope geochemistry is one of the common study approaches
to unravel information from sedimentary rocks.”
Now in her third year at UT Arlington, Fan and her students
are working on a variety of projects involving the
use of sedimentary records to determine what caused
geologic processes to happen millions of years ago. One
project focuses on reconstructing the history of surface
uplift and climate change in the central Rocky Mountains
during the late Cenozoic Era, roughly 70 to 45 million
years ago. The project, of which Fan is co-principal
investigator along with Paul Heller of the University of Wyoming, is funded
by a three-year, $304,179 grant from the National Science Foundation. UT
Arlington has been subcontracted $223,530 of the funds.
“My students and I are
working on the sedimentary
record in the central
Rocky Mountains in
Wyoming and the nearby
area in order to understand
the tectonic
processes shaping the regional
landscape and the
climate changes associated
with these tectonic processes
during the last 35
million years,” Fan said.
The project also extends
to gaining a better
understanding of the stable
isotope composition in
modern soil and water in
the central Rockies, she
said.
Fan says it still is not
clear to what extent the
present-day high regional
elevation of the central
Rockies was generated
during the last mountain
building event in western
North America – called
the Laramide Orogeny –
versus post-orogenic surface
uplift. Orogeny refers
to the formation of mountain
ranges by intense upward
displacement of the
Earth’s crust, usually associated
with folding, thrust
faulting, and other compressional
processes. The
name Laramide comes
from the Laramie Mountains
in eastern Wyoming.
Brandon Wade
Majie Fan, left, and doctoral student Min Gao, who is working with Fan on a project to study
the history of surface uplift and climate change in the central Rockies of Wyoming.
Contrasting data sets collected
from middle and
upper Cenozoic sedimentary
basin fills in the region
have led to different interpretations of uplift mechanism. Fan’s project aims
to constrain the post-Laramide depositional history in the central Rockies
coupled with paleo-elevation and paleoclimate reconstruction.
Fan and her students have spent the past three summers conducting field
work in the central Rockies of Wyoming with Heller and colleagues from the
University of Wyoming. Fan’s UT Arlington students involved in the project
over the past two years include Jillian Rowley, a former master’s student;
Min Gao, a second-year doctoral student; Brian Hough, a former postdoctoral
student; current master’s student Alex Mankin; and former undergraduate
students Sarah Allen and Daniel Kirkwood. They have collected
numerous rock samples in order to analyze the stable isotope compositions
and the place of origin of the sediment. They have also collected many mod-
Maverick Science 2013-14
21

Photo credits:
Above and right,
Brandon Wade; top
right, Majie Fan.
At top left, master’s student Sara Ayyash drills
holes in a freshwater carbonate sample collected
near Douglas, Wyoming, in order to collect
the powder for stable isotope and element
concentration analysis. Above, doctoral student
Min Gao conducts primary field work last
summer at Firehole Canyon in southwestern
Wyoming, where the upper stream of the Colorado
River cut the rocks formed in a lake environment
about 52 million years ago. At left,
Fan in her lab with master’s student Ohood Al
salem, who is examining a thin section of sandstone
collected in Wyoming. The thin section
of sandstone, which dates from the Miocene
epoch, can be seen on the computer monitor.
ern soil and water samples in order to understand
the stable isotope signatures of modern climate
and environment, “because the interpretation of
geologic data derived from the rock record relies
on the understanding of such data in modern geologic
context,” Fan said.
The project has three goals, Fan said. The first
is to investigate the occurrence and timing of a regional
transition of post-Laramide basin fill from
fluvial to eolian deposition, by applying field observations,
sandstone petrography and detrital
zircon geochronology study, and grain-size analysis.
The second is to constrain the timing of surface
elevation changes by reconstructing the
stable isotope compositions of middle and late
Cenozoic surface water and surface temperature
from the combined analysis of hydrogen isotope
ratios of volcanic glass, oxygen and clumped isotope
ratios of pedogenic and lacustrine carbonates.
The third is to evaluate and refine proposed
competing mechanisms of formation of the high
central Rockies.
Gao spent three weeks last summer with Fan
in Wyoming, locating areas with good outcrops
from which to collect samples. Gao is focusing on
sediment constraint and basin subsidence modeling
in order to understand the influence of mantle
upwelling on surface uplift when the subducting
flat oceanic slab was detached underneath the
continental plate.
“In the next field trip, I will be working on
measuring stratigraphic sections and collecting
rock samples,” said Gao, who wants to teach and
do research at a university in her native China
after earning her Ph.D. “Specifically, after we find
a good outcrop to work on, we will measure the
thickness of every stratigraphic layer and record
as many characteristics of the rock as possible,
such as the lithology and the sedimentary structure.”
The field work involves a great deal of hiking.
Due to the remote location of the outcrops and in
order to keep costs down, the team normally
camps in tents.
Fan and her students are in the final stages of
lab data collection and have recently published
one paper and submitted two others based on
their research. They also have three papers in different
stages of preparation. Their research has
yielded the discovery that modern soil carbonate
in the central Rocky Mountains is formed during
the short periods of soil dewatering, which happen
irregularly during hot summer weather.
“This particularly challenges the previous assumption
that soil carbonate is formed continuously
during the growth season,” Fan said.
They also found that the central Rockies and
adjacent Great Plains in western Nebraska experienced
another stage of uplift after the end of the
Laramide orogeny, which caused concomitant
drying in both areas. Lastly, they found that there
was a regional transition from water-lain sedimentation
to wind-lain sedimentation which occurred
32-35 million years ago, and the transition
became younging eastward.
“The transition represented a regional drying
event caused by the initiation of a rain shadow
due to the uplift of the central Rocky Mountains.
However, global cooling due to Antarctica glaciation
at around 34 million years ago may be another
factor causing the drying events. Such
findings bring new research questions,” Fan said.
In a separate project, Fan is teaming with Barbara
Carrapa of the University of Arizona to research
the temporal and spatial patterns of
Laramide uplift to evaluate and refine the proposed
competing geodynamic models of the tectonic
processes during the Laramide orogeny.
22 Maverick Science 2013-14

The Laramide Orogeny deformed
the foreland basin of the
Sevier fold-thrust belt into a
high orogenic plateau with high
relief during the Late Cretaceous
through the Eocene epoch, Fan
said. The Sevier orogeny was a
mountain-building event that
affected western North America
from what is now Canada in the
north to what is now Mexico in
the south, and was caused by
tectonic plate activity between
140 and 50 million years ago.
The current model is too simple
to explain the great duration of
the Laramide Orogeny – around
40 million years – and the internal
connections among the regional
tectonic units and
processes in the western United
States, Fan said.
“We are combining multidisciplinary
basin analysis – sedimentology,
stratigraphy, isotope
paleoaltimetry, and detrital geochemistry
– and basement apatite
fission track thermochronology
to reconstruct the
temporal and spatial patterns of
Laramide uplift,” Fan said. This
work has led to an accepted paper in the journal Tectonics.
A
fter earning a B.S. in Geology from Lanzhou University
in China in 2000, Fan decided to begin graduate school.
The summer before starting work on her master’s degree
at Lanzhou, she got the chance to participate in a collaborative
project between Lanzhou and the University of
Arizona. The study’s goal was to understand the tectonic
processes forming the high Tibetan Plateau by studying
the sedimentary rocks preserved in topographic lows,
called sedimentary basins, in northwestern China. She worked as a field assistant
for two University of Arizona researchers over that summer and the
next.
“I learned from these two knowledgeable geologists way more than the
help I could provide at that time,” she said. “I was particularly impressed by
their broad ranges of interest in nature, their determination to pursue a multidisciplinary
approach to solve problems, their diligent work habits, and
their patience with students. They became my role models, and the experience
shaped my professional track significantly.”
After earning an M.S. from Lanzhou in 2003, she applied for and was accepted
to the University of Arizona for further graduate work. She earned a
master’s in Geoscience in 2005 and then began work on her Ph.D. in Geoscience.
In the summer of 2009, she worked as an intern geologist with
ExxonMobil in Houston. She completed her
Ph.D. the following semester while also working
as a lecturer at Arizona, then spent the next 18
months as a postdoctoral fellow at the University
of Wyoming. In early 2011, she interviewed
for a faculty position at UT Arlington and was
impressed with the diversity of the faculty and
students. She started in August 2011 as an assistant
professor.
“Their diversity represents different perspectives
to shape our campus culture,” she
said. “When I was interviewed in the spring of
2011, the minute I saw the diverse populations
walking around the green campus in the warm
early spring, I said to myself this
is the place I would be very
happy to be.”
Fan’s
students
love working
with her because
she is supportive
and
eager to help
them succeed.
Ohood Al salem, a second-year
master’s student in Fan’s lab, is
studying the history of subsidence
(the sinking of the
Earth’s surface due to geologic
causes) of the Fort Worth
Basin, which was formed 280 to
250 million years ago by the
collision between the supercontinent
Gondwana and Laurentia,
a large, stable portion of
continental craton (part of a
continental lithosphere) which
forms the ancient geological
core of the North American
continent.
“The subsidence history of
the Fort Worth Basin is not only
important to the understanding
of tectonic processes during the
collision, but also to the maturation and migration of oil and gas in the basin,”
Fan said.
Al salem plans to complete her master’s degree this spring and then hopes
to begin work on a doctoral degree, with Fan as her mentor.
“Dr. Fan is the best mentor. She always offers help and support to her students,”
Al salem said. “She is a very hard worker and very talented, which
gives me the motivation to do my best in my research. That’s why I really
want to do my Ph.D. with her. I believe our work together will lead to excellent
scientific research.”
Sara Ayyash, a first-year master’s student, is studying rock samples collected
by Fan from the White River Formation near Douglas, Wyoming, to
learn more about the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment during the late
Eocene and early Oligocene epochs, approximately 34 million years ago.
“Dr. Fan is extremely dedicated to her work and teaching,” Ayyash said.
“You can tell that she truly enjoys learning new things or subjects that she is
not familiar with. She puts a tremendous amount of effort into what she does,
whether it’s teaching or research and it shows during lectures or when you
speak with her.”
Fan finds her work as a geoscientist fulfilling and enjoys taking the knowledge
she has acquired and passing it on to her students and helping them as
they embark on their careers.
“Because research is the only way to advance knowledge created in the
past, I feel excited about the role I am playing in advancing knowledge,” Fan
said. “I enjoy passing knowledge along in a variety
of ways to students, and spending time
with students in the classroom, lab, and field in
order to help them gain the skills to make geologic
observations, interpretations, and discoveries.Geology
offers me the opportunity to
conduct fieldwork and examine the Earth with
colleagues and students in the wilderness. Such
experiences are very rewarding because we discover
the beauty of nature that most people do
not see and forge long-term relationships.
“Doing geology research is sometimes challenging.
However, once in a while, I discover
something that takes my breath away.” n
Above, Fan uses a pen for scale next to a sandstone formation showing climbing ripples,
located in the Wind River Basin of Wyoming. Below, Fan shows Aragonitic freshwater
bivalve fossils found in the early Eocene Wasatch Formation on the west side
of the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. The oxygen isotope ratio of the fossil will be
used to collect information regarding the paleoelevation of the mountains bounding
the basin. Photos courtesy of Majie Fan.
Maverick Science 2013-14
23

Subhra Mandal in his laboratory.
Photos by Brandon Wade
Breaking
it down
Subhrangsu Mandal and his
students use biochemistry to
study things like genes and
DNA in order to find ways
to combat the formation
and spread of diseases such
as cancer. By Greg Pederson
U
nderstanding disease on a cellular level has been an
endeavor of scientists for decades and has led to a
myriad of advances in how disease can be treated.
To effectively combat diseases such as cancer, scientists
must understand how the diseased cells form
and how they spread inside the body. Biologists and
biochemists do this by studying the molecular
processes which allow this to happen.
Subhrangsu Mandal, a UT Arlington associate professor of biochemistry,
conducts research to discover ways to combat cancer cell growth
and to treat cardiovascular disease. Mandal’s educational background is
in chemistry, but as he progressed in graduate work he became increasingly
interested in how the chemical processes he studied related to living
organisms.
24 Maverick Science 2013-14

Mandal, shown with members of his lab, clockwise from top left: Arunoday Bhan, Mandal, Shyam
Prakash, Paromita Deb and Aarti Bashyal.
“As my primary education is in chemistry, I always
wanted to be a chemist,” he said. “However,
as I studied more and more biology, I wondered
more and more how cells function, how life functions,
and how genomes are organized and function.”
Mandal’s research focuses on histone modification,
gene regulation and epigenetics in the human
system. Histones are groups of basic proteins present
in the nuclei of cells that form nucleosomes,
which are sections of DNA that are wrapped tightly
around a core of histones, like spools of thread.
Gene regulation is the process of turning genes
on and off. Early in their development, cells begin
to take on specific functions, and gene regulation
ensures that the right genes are expressed at the
right times. Gene regulation can also help an organism
respond to its environment. It is accomplished
by a variety of mechanisms including
chemically modifying genes and using regulatory
proteins to turn genes on or off.
Epigenetics is the study of external modifications
to DNA that turn genes on or off. These modifications
do not change the DNA sequence, but
they do affect how cells read genes. Epigenetic
changes alter the physical structure of DNA. These
changes are not solely genetic, but are influenced
by environmental stimuli such as hormones and
nutrients.
“My primary research interest is to understand
the epigenetic mechanism of gene expression and
its regulation in humans,” Mandal said. “This area
of research has profound consequences in understanding
the mechanism of gene regulation, chromatin
(a complex of nucleic acids and proteins in
the cell nucleus that condenses to form chromosomes
during cell division) dynamics and various
human diseases including cancer and cardiovascular
diseases.”
Though not even a decade into his career, Mandal
has established a reputation as a top-notch researcher.
He earned a Texas Advanced Research
Program grant in 2006 and since then he has
helped secure over $2 million in funding for projects
with which he’s been involved. In May he was
chosen to receive the College of Science Outstanding
Research Award, given annually to a faculty
member who makes critical contributions to their
field in the area of research.
“Dr. Mandal is a quality teacher and a top-rate
biochemist,” said Rasika Dias, professor and chair
of the chemistry and biochemistry department. “He
is a good team player who collaborates closely with
a wide group of scientists at UT Arlington and
around the world. He has established a world-class
research laboratory to study gene regulation mechanisms
and to develop treatments for diseases resulting
from out of control genes. He is also an
expert on hormone action, such as the effect of estrogen
on breast cancer. We’re proud to have him
as a colleague in our department.”
M
andal’s lab is a busy
place, as he has numerous
research projects
going on at any
given time. One current
project involves
understanding the epigenetics
of cancer biology,
tumor microenvironment and targeted therapy.
In the past six months Mandal and his students
had papers published in the journals
Oncogene and the British Journal of Cancer detailing
their investigation of the epigenetics of tumor
microenvironment in vivo using mice models of
human cancer.
“Understanding the tumor microenvironment
and the signaling mechanism that controls tumor
growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis, is critical for
developing novel and effective cancer therapy,”
Mandal said.
In the Oncogene manuscript, which he co-authored
with former postdoctoral fellow Khairul
Ansari and postdoctoral researcher Sahba Kasiri,
Mandal demonstrated that mixed lineage leukemia
(MLL), a gene which is associated with blood cell
differentiation and leukemia, is closely involved in
vasculogenesis and angiogenesis (mechanisms
which implement the formation of the vascular network
in the embryo). MLL is also a chromatinmodifying
enzyme that controls gene expression
and chromatin dynamics in human cells. His group
also found for the first time that MLL1 is critical for
hypoxia signaling and tumor growth, and that antisense-mediated
targeting of MLL1 results in
tumor growth inhibition in a mice model. Hypoxia
signaling and angiogenesis are major trademarks
that help tumors grow and metastasize. Molecules
that inhibit angiogenesis are potential anti-cancer
drugs.
“Because MLL1 is so crucial to angiogenesis and
tumor cell proliferation, gene targeting to MLL1 resulted
in tumor suppression of tumor growth in
pre-clinical models of human cancer,” Mandal said.
“This is the first time in literature to show that an
Maverick Science 2013-14
25

Immuno-histochemical staining showing the distribution of MLL1 along the line of blood vessels
(basement membrane) in the core of tumor tissue. CD31 is a well-known marker for angiogenesis.
DAPI staining shows the nucleus. Image courtesy of Subhrangsu Mandal.
MLL family of chromatin-modifying enzymes is a
major player in the proliferation of tumor cells, angiogenesis
and hypoxia signaling and antisensemediated
gene targeting to MLL led to a
suppression of tumor growth. This work revealed
a novel epigenetic mechanism of tumor cell signaling.
MLLs are novel targets for cancer therapy.”
Mandal hopes that this research will eventually
provide a new paradigm in antisense therapy and
the discovery of new epigenetic medicines.
In 2001, after over a decade of work,
scientists successfully completed the
first-ever “map” of the human
genome, the complete set of genetic
information for humans. This has
opened the door for scientific exploration
of subtle genetic influences on
many common diseases.
Another of Mandal’s current projects involves
non-coding RNAs and their roles in epigenetics and
disease. RNA is ribonucleic acid, a family of large
biological molecules that perform many important
roles in the coding, decoding, regulation, and expression
of genes. RNA joins with DNA to form nucleic
acids, which are essential for all known forms
of life. An epigenome is a layer of biochemical reactions
that turns genes on and off. It consists of
chemical compounds that modify the genome and
tell it how to behave.
“The human genome sequencing founded an
important milestone in today’s functional genomics
world and fueled biomedical research by providing
detailed nucleotide sequence information for protein
coding genes present in humans,” Mandal said.
“This helped in understanding the function of various
human genes, their transcriptional regulatory
network and roles in human diseases.”
It was found that only a tiny percentage of the
human genome encodes functional protein coding
genes, with the rest considered to be mostly nonfunctional,
or “junk DNA”. Subsequent studies suggested
that more than 80 percent of the genome
contains functional DNA elements that do not code
for proteins. These non-coding sequences include
DNA elements and sequences which code for transcripts
that are never translated into proteins.
These transcripts that are coded by the genome,
transcribed into RNA, but are not translated into
proteins are called non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs).
“Studies show that non-coding RNAs are critical
players in gene regulation, maintenance of genomic
integrity, cell differentiation, and development and
they are misregulated in various human diseases,”
Mandal said.
Mandal and his students are working with several
non-coding RNAs, studying their roles in chromatin
organization, gene regulation and diseases
while trying to identify novel ncRNAs. One is called
HOTAIR (for HOX antisense intergenic RNA),
which is located on chromosome 12. Studies from
Mandal’s lab have shown that HOTAIR is a key regulator
in gene silencing, interacting with various
gene silencing machineries and recruiting them to
the target gene.
“HOTAIR is overexpressed in breast cancer and
it is transcriptionally induced upon exposure estradiol
and expression is critical for cell viability and
growth, tumor invasiveness and metastasis,” Mandal
said. “Knockdown of HOTAIR expression resulted
in breast cancer cell death, indicating its
potential application in novel cancer therapy.”
Arunoday Bhan, a fourth-year doctoral student
in Mandal’s lab, is among those working on the
project. He says he is excited to be taking part in research
that could benefit millions of people.
“The data generated from our research will not
only aid in the formulation of therapies for cancer
treatment but also could identify potential molecular
targets that can be further developed as targets
for therapeutic drugs or as prognostic markers for
the identification of cancer at an early stage,” Bhan
said. “It makes me proud that I am contributing towards
the detailed understanding of the cancer
epigenome that in the future might save people’s
lives, or at least lengthen their life spans. I feel humbled
by the fact that the research carried out in our
lab would serve the community and society as a
whole.”
Paromita Deb, a second-year doctoral student,
is also part of the project, studying non-coding
RNAs and homeobox genes, which are a large family
of similar genes that direct the formation of
many body structures during early embryonic development.
“Homeobox genes are involved in developmentrelated
diseases and therefore, diagnosis of these
genes could be important to therapy,” Deb said.
“Dr. Mandal's innovative ideas have helped me sail
through a sea of experimental hardships. He has
always motivated me to work toward my goals.”
Mandal says it is an exciting time to be involved
in research which is showing how human genes
function and which could lead to breakthroughs in
methods of disease treatment and prevention.
“Biochemical and biomedical research has
reached a special stage, the ‘post genomic and
epigenomic era’,” he said. “The human genome has
been sequenced and now epigenomes are being
discovered. Recent projects discovered that ‘junk
DNA’ in the human genome is not really junk at all.
In fact, it is code for many non-coding RNA that
control the functionality of the whole genome.
These provide much deeper insight about how the
human genome is packaged, read and transcribed
into RNA and translated into protein.”
A
nother of Mandal’s ongoing
projects involves assessing
how various chemicals
found in the environment
can disrupt the ability of the
body’s endocrine system to
function properly. The endocrine
system is a collection
of glands that secrete
chemical messages, called hormones, to organs
throughout the body.
“Almost everything in your body is controlled
by hormones,” Mandal said. “Hormones control
26 Maverick Science 2013-14

your development, your mood, your
blood cholesterol. If there is a molecule
that interferes with normal hormone
function, it could have a very
disruptive effect.”
Mandal and his lab have been focusing
on what happens when the signals
sent to genes by the hormone
estrogen are disrupted by exposure to
a chemical compound like Bisphenol
A – a known endocrine disruptor that
has generated concerns that its use in
plastics like food storage containers
and baby bottles could harm humans.
Mandal has also examined another
known endocrine disruptor, Diethylstilbestrol,
a synthetic form of the female
hormone estrogen, which was
prescribed to pregnant women from
1940-71 to prevent complications of
pregnancy. It is now known to cause
cancer, birth defects, and other developmental
abnormalities. Mandal is
also looking at growth hormones used
in milk and meat production.
“Many of these hormones are used
to produce meat and vegetables because
they amplify growth,” Mandal
said. “People do not realize how it
eventually can interfere with your normal
endocrine pathways.”
M
andal was
born and
raised in
rural West
B e n g a l ,
India, and
he took an
avid interest
in the
native wildlife as a boy. He spent
countless hours catching fish and frogs
and recalls close encounters with Indian
cobras, the reptile often seen with
snake charmers and responsible for a
large number of snakebites in India
each year.
He developed an interest in science
and scientists as a child, reading everything
he could find about the lives of
Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and
others who inspired him. When he got
to high school, his teachers sparked in
him a fascination with chemistry, and
he had his sights set on becoming a
chemist by the time he enrolled in college
at Vidyasagar University in his native
West Bengal. He earned a B.S.
with Honors in Chemistry in 1989,
and went on to graduate studies at the
University of Kalyani, also in West Bengal, where
he earned an M.S. in Chemistry in 1992.
From there, Mandal went on to doctoral studies
at arguably the top research university in India, the
Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore. While
working on his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry,
Mandal started taking an interest in genes
and genomes, their molecular structures and functions.
He received his Ph.D. in 1998 and set his
“Research is kind of like
an addiction; the longer
you spend doing it, the
more addicted to it you
become.”
— Subhrangsu Mandal
sights on postdoctoral work in the fields of genes
and chromatin biology, and in understanding the
mechanism of human diseases.
His postdoctoral work took him first to Canada,
where he studied the mechanism of DNA replication
at the University of Alberta, and then to New
Jersey, where he worked on eukaryotic transcriptions
and gene regulations in humans at the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute/University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
His postdoctoral studies also introduced
him to histone modification and
epigenetic research.
Mandal says he knew he wanted to
work in academia, where he could do
the kind of research that interested
him and help train the next generation
of scientists at the same time. He interviewed
for a faculty position at UT
Arlington and was hired in 2005. The
value of his research ideas were apparent
early on when he received an Applied
Research Program grant in
2006, and his work has been funded
continuously ever since.
His students admire his ardent
focus on research and his genial nature.
Kasiri earned his Ph.D. in 2012
with Mandal as his mentor. He now
works part-time in Mandal’s lab and
also as an adjunct lecturer in the
chemistry and biochemistry department.
Kasiri says Mandal takes a personal
interest in the lives of his lab
group members.
“Dr. Mandal was not only a good
mentor but also a kind and close
friend for me,” Kasiri said. “He is a
very hard worker and is very passionate
about science and research. At the
same time, he tries to spend as much
time as possible with his family and
friends. I remember he always told us
that his lab members are also a part of
his family.”
In keeping with his multi-disciplinary
approach to research, many of
Mandal’s projects involve colleagues
from other UT Arlington departments.
Mandal and Samar Mohanty, assistant
professor of physics, are working to
develop a live cell imaging system and
to study the chromatin dynamics.
Mandal, Mohanty and Yong-Tae Kim,
associate professor of bioengineering,
are developing biophotonic technology
to study the neuronal network and
brain and to address neurological disorders.
In addition, Mandal and Mohanty
are teaming with Alan Bowling, assistant
professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering, to study a new
model for how motor proteins behave
in the body. Mandal also has several
collaborative projects with Linda Perrotti,
assistant professor of psychology,
related to hormone signaling endocrine
disruption and non-coding
RNA.
“Research is kind of like an addiction; the
longer you spend doing it, the more addicted to it
you become,” Mandal said. “I also enjoy teaching
and interacting with students. That’s why I like
being here at UT Arlington, which provides an atmosphere
for both research and teaching and has
lots of student diversity. It is exciting to be involved
in work that could have such a positive impact on
people’s lives.” n
Maverick Science 2013-14
27

The
BIG
Picture
Studying ecological issues with an eye toward larger spatial and
temporal patterns has benefited Sophia Passy and her students
in their research. One of their latest projects shows how wetlands
can help streams affected by acidification in the Adirondacks.
By Greg Pederson
Brandon Wade
Sophia Passy with some of the members of her lab, from left, master’s student Hongsheng Liu, biology instructor and recent Ph.D. graduate Katrina Pound,
Passy, doctoral student Melissa Walsh and doctoral student Ben Anders.
28 Maverick Science 2013-14

While small-scale experiments are important to science and often lead to major discoveries, when
it comes to ecology it’s often necessary to take a wide-ranging and all-inclusive look at things
to find solutions to complex problems.
Macroecology — the study of relationships between organisms and their environment at
large spatial scales to characterize and explain statistical patterns of species abundance, distribution
and diversity — is what Sophia Passy uses to show how nature works. Passy, a UT Arlington associate professor
of biology, has used the “big picture” approach in her research and it has helped lead to a better understanding
of how one facet of a subject can affect many others.
Passy has led numerous
research projects utilizing a
macro approach, including
many environmental ecology
studies which explore
the response of algal communities
to anthropogenic
acidification, or acid deposition
caused by human activities.
One such study is
an assessment of the effects
of acidic deposition on
streams in the eastern and
central parts of the Adirondack
Park in upstate New
York. Passy is co-principal
investigator of a three-year,
$187,224 grant by the New
York State Energy Research
and Development
Authority.
The project’s principal
investigator is Gregory
Lawrence, a physical scientist
with the U.S. Geological
Survey’s New York Water
Science Center with whom
Passy has worked for years
on several acid-related
projects in the Adirondacks.
One of Passy’s doctoral students, Katrina Pound, was lead author of a
paper the team wrote about the research which was published in the September
2013 edition of the leading environmental and biodiversity conservation
journal Global Change Biology. The study set out to determine
if watershed wetlands can play a role in remediating the damage done to
streams by acidification.
“For over 40 years, acid deposition has been recognized as a serious international
environmental problem, but efforts to restore acidified streams
and biota have had limited success,” the researchers said in the Global
Change Biology article. “The need to better understand the effects of different
sources of acidity on streams has become more pressing with the
recent increases in surface water organic acids, or ‘brownification,’ associated
with climate change and decreased inorganic acid deposition.”
“Acidification of surface waters from acid deposition is one of the most
serious environmental problems in the northeast United States and northern
Europe,” Passy said. “It is associated with biodiversity loss, elevated
mortality, and simplified food webs. Despite numerous state and federal
actions to reduce acid emissions, streams continue to experience acidification
and biological communities have not returned to their pre-acidification
state.”
Passy, Pound and Lawrence, working with the USGS, carried out a
large-scale study showing that wetlands are capable of improving stream
ecosystem health in the Adirondacks, which is one of the most acid-impacted
regions in the United States.
“Wetlands are important
not only for wellbuffered
stream ecosystems
as sources of iron,
but also for acid-impacted
streams because they contribute
to the neutralization
of aluminum, which
reaches highly toxic concentrations
in acid
streams,” Passy said. “This
research has far-reaching
consequences for biodiversity
conservation and
stream management. It
suggests that wetlands can
be used in acid stream
restoration and offers a viable
alternative to the current
approach for
acidification remediation
through liming, which is
ineffective and even harmful.”
For her dissertation research,
Pound analyzed diatom
communities from
around 200 Adirondack
streams that were sampled
over four sampling periods.
Diatoms are an environmentally
sensitive group of algae and the most diverse microbial
producers. Pound successfully defended her dissertation in August and received
her Ph.D. in December 2013. She is working as a biology lecturer
and continuing to do research in Passy’s lab during the Spring 2014 semester.
“Studying this region is challenging because streams are acidified by
both inorganic acid deposition and natural organic acidity originating from
soils and wetlands,” Pound said. “My job was to count and identify the diatom
species in each of the stream samples and examine the impact of
these two sources of acidity on diatom diversity.”
The current study is an extension of the 2003-05 Western Adirondack
Stream Survey (WASS), a project for which Passy and her USGS collaborators
received $486,000 from the New York State Energy Research and
Development Authority. According to the USGS, the study found that acid
rain had acidified soils resulting in toxic aluminum levels in two-thirds of
565 assessed streams. It also found that diatoms were moderately to severely
affected by acid rain in 80 percent of assessed streams; aquatic insects
and related organisms referred to as macroinvertebrates were
moderately to severely affected in over half of assessed streams; and recovery
from acidification had been minimal in 11 of 12 Adirondack streams
sampled in the early 1980s.
“By teaming up, we are able to address the problem of acid rain from a
truly interdisciplinary perspective, myself being the soil and water chemist
and Sophia being the expert in aquatic ecology, and in particular, diatoms,”
Passy and her students analyzed water samples from streams such as this one in
the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Photo courtesy of Sophia Passy.
Maverick Science 2013-14
29

Lawrence said. “Sophia's expertise is
well-recognized in her field, and her
interest in interdisciplinary science
makes her an excellent partner in
these studies.”
Passy also studies algal
biofilms, which support
the food chain in
stream ecosystems.
The biofilms look like
microscopic forests
with some algae that
are short forming the understory and
other algae that are tall, filamentous or
branched, forming the overstory, she
explains.
“Ecological theory, which was
based on research in communities,
such as phytoplankton or grasslands,
with much simpler spatial organization
than biofilms, has predicted that
adding large quantities of various nutrients,
such as nitrogen and phosphorus,
leads to biodiversity loss,” Passy
said of a 2008 study which was published
in the journal Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences
(USA). “This thinking has dominated
ecological research for decades, but
my lab showed that fertilization promotes
biodiversity in biofilms because
it stimulates the development of the
biofilm overstory without harming the
understory. The research proposed a
novel mechanism for species coexistence,
counteracting the natural tendency
of organisms that share the
same resources to drive each other to
extinction as a result of competition.”
The study’s findings have relevance
not only to freshwater but also to forests and marine ecosystems, where
encrusting and turf-forming macroalgae coexist as a two-story community,
Passy said.
A different study, which was featured on the September 2012 cover of
the top ecology journal Ecology Letters, focused on algal biofilms, invertebrates,
and fish in U.S. streams. It demonstrated that contrary to widely
held views of microbes and large organisms as having distinct large-scale
distributions (microbes being everywhere, while macroorganisms only
somewhere), these groups were actually quite similar. Both microbes and
macroorganisms have restricted distributions, especially group members
that are specialists (picky about their resources and environment). This
finding can help determine what species are most vulnerable to environmental
changes and, therefore, at a greater risk of extinction. The study
further showed that as the biodiversity increases, so does the abundance
of rare species.
“This discovery has important implications for conservation planning,
which is faced with the difficult challenges of identifying the appropriate
conservation targets and managing their landscape requirements,” Passy
said. “It suggests that broad community-based conservation efforts to promote
biodiversity may be adequate for increasing the abundance, and with
this, the chance of survival of rare and potentially endangered species.”
Another recent algal community project, with former post-doctoral student
Chad Larson, involved a series of microcosm investigations on biofilm
growth in an artificial stream facility constructed in Passy’s lab. It showed
that temporal flow variability in streams leads to increased rates of species
accumulation and diversification. The study underscored the importance
Passy and former postdoctoral fellow Chad Larson
built an artificial stream facility (top and
above right) in Passy’s lab to study biofilm
growth. At left, a confocal microscope image of
live biofilm material grown in the artificial
stream facility. Photos courtesy of Chad Larson.
of maintaining the natural flow regime, which is progressively modified
by humans through damming and channelization, Passy said. Their work
was featured on the March 2013 cover of the journal Applied and Environmental
Microbiology.
Larson, who earned a Ph.D. with Passy as his faculty mentor, worked
as a postdoctoral fellow in her lab, where he was funded through Passy’s
Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program grant for $194,780. In
May 2013, Larson took a job as a stream ecologist with the Washington
State Department of Ecology. He credits Passy’s guidance with preparing
him for a career in environmental ecology.
“I was really fortunate to have her as a mentor while I was at UT Arlington,”
Larson said. “She’s very passionate about ecology, and she has a
very good view of the big picture when she’s studying something. She’s always
thinking of how the work she’s doing fits into the bigger picture, and
she has a very keen understanding of how something on a micro level has
important implications for so many other things. She’s been very productive
in her research and has had her work featured in many of the top journals.
That shows the quality of work she’s doing.”
After what she calls a “nomadic life” in science, Passy
found her true calling as a biology professor and researcher.
Born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria, she had
her sights set on medical school as she neared her high
school graduation — in Bulgaria, students going into
medical school, as well as those going into other science
and engineering schools, do so immediately after high
30 Maverick Science 2013-14

school. While preparing for admission
exams, Passy changed her mind and applied
to the biology and chemistry departments at
Sofia University. This pleased her father,
who was a renowned professor of philosophy
at the university, but chagrined her
mother, an endocrinologist who wanted her
to go into medicine.
“In retrospect, this was the right decision
— I do not handle suffering well, and open
wounds are definitely out of the question,”
Passy said. “I got accepted in both schools
but biology was closer to my heart and I
chose it over chemistry. This was fortunate
because later on, I realized that mixing acrid
and caustic substances in the lab and ruining
my clothes wasn’t my thing either.”
She earned an undergraduate degree in
1984, focusing on molecular biology. She
stayed at Sofia University and began work
on a master’s degree, switching to paleoecology
and studying diatom remains from an
ancient sea that covered parts of Europe and
Central Asia. After earning a master’s degree
in 1986, she worked as an assistant professor
of plant systematics at Sofia University before
deciding to begin doctoral studies. She
felt the best course was to conduct those
studies in the United States.
“I had the feeling that I had reached the
limits of my environment,” Passy said of the
educational opportunities in her native Bulgaria.
“People refer to the United States as
the land of opportunity, and although they
generally mean material prosperity, this
view cannot be truer anywhere else than in
science. We have witnessed an unprecedented
surge of wealth in the post-communist
world, but the advancement of science
has not kept pace.
“I came to the U.S. to learn, and what I
have learned made so much that was out of
reach for me before a reality.”
She was accepted to the Ph.D. program at Bowling Green State University
in Ohio in 1992 and wrote her dissertation on water quality issues
— how algal communities respond to organic pollution in streams.
“While working on my dissertation, I stumbled upon six algal species
from Bulgaria and South Africa, which I described as new to science,” she
said. “South Africa is known for its enormous plant biodiversity — comparable,
for example, to that of the tropical rainforest. So it was fascinating
to me that in a small scoop of the stream biofilm — the stuff that grows on
the bottom — from this region, there were so many algae never seen before.”
After earning her Ph.D. in 1997, she spent four years as a postdoctoral
researcher — first in protein structural biology at the University of Minnesota
and then in bio-monitoring at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
a private research university in Troy, N.Y. where she began her collaboration
with the USGS on acidification research. In 2000, she saw a posting
for a biology faculty position at UT Arlington. She had visited Texas once
before, and the thought of living in a warm climate enticed her.
“Having spent all my life in the northern latitudes, I was enchanted by
Texas when I visited for the first time in the spring of 1997,” she said. “It
was sunny, warm, and beautiful. There were flowers everywhere, and the
air was filled with hope and happiness. I was even more excited when I
came to visit in 2000 during my UTA interview. I already knew many of
the faculty from their works, but it was the possibility to interact with such
a diverse and fun group of scientists that sold the job for me.”
“is research
has far-reaching
consequences
for biodiversity
conservation
and stream
management.”
— Sophia Passy
Jonathan Campbell, professor and chair
of the UT Arlington biology department, was
impressed by Passy when he interviewed her
for the job and is even more impressed 13
years later.
“Dr. Passy's dedication and passion for
research is exceptional and her enthusiasm
is revealed in any conversation with her
about her work,” Campbell said. “She is able
to inspire her students with the excitement
and importance of conducting research. Her
work on stream acidification is making a significant
impact in her field. We are lucky to
have her in our department.”
T
he use of macroecology in
Passy’s research is maybe
best demonstrated in a
study that she says is “perhaps
my best piece of detective
work.” For decades,
stream ecologists thought
that major nutrients such as nitrogen and
phosphorus control algal communities,
which are the primary food source for herbivorous
bugs and fish in many streams,
Passy explained.
The paradigm was that these nutrients
stimulate growth and promote biodiversity
of algae in freshwater. A similar emphasis on
macronutrients (nutrients required in large
quantities) was given in marine systems. In
the late 1980s, however, the idea that iron restricted
algal production in large areas of the
open ocean revolutionized the field of
oceanography.
“This is where macroecology comes into
play. I was working on a very puzzling problem
— the biodiversity of algae did not show
a decline with latitude as in nearly all other
organisms, but a very strange pattern,” she
said. “To understand what might have
caused it, I looked what stream and watershed
properties across the U.S. exhibit corresponding latitudinal distributions.
I discovered that both stream iron concentration and wetland spread
conformed to the same latitudinal pattern as algal biodiversity.
“Contrary to the common belief, it was not nitrogen and phosphorus
that had the strongest positive impact on stream algae. It was iron, which
originated from the watershed wetlands. Simply put, the larger the wetland
the higher the iron concentration, and the greater the algal biodiversity in
the stream. Therefore, wetland destruction or alteration will have negative
consequences not only for the wetland itself but for the associated stream
network.”
Passy’s macroecology approach challenged the macronutrient paradigm
in streams. It also revealed that — similarly to the ocean — iron plays
a pivotal role in structuring algal communities, and it showed that wetlands
and streams form an ecological continuum, whereby a disruption in one
system would propagate to the other. The work was published in the leading
ecology journals Global Ecology and Biogeography in 2009 and Ecology
in 2010.
The work demonstrated Passy’s ability to see patterns and understand
how processes viewed in the micro environment can significantly affect
things on a much larger scale.
“Any small scale experiment or observation captures just a facet of the
complexity of life,” Passy said. “Macroecology puts these facets together,
allowing us to understand better how nature works. That’s why I love what
I’m doing so much.” n
Maverick Science 2013-14
31

Shining a
LIGHT
Samarendra Mohanty’s innovative biophysics research utilizes
tools such as optical tweezers and light therapy as he and his
students seek new and more effective ways to find and treat disease.
By Greg Pederson
Samar Mohanty, center, in his lab with doctoral students Bryan Black, left, and Kamal Dhakal.
Brandon Wade
32 Maverick Science 2013-14

B
reakthroughs in technology
are expanding the
limits of what’s possible
in biophysics research.
Samarendra Mohanty is
helping to push those
boundaries by developing
new tools to discover
safer, more efficient ways
to treat disease and study the human body.
Mohanty, a UT Arlington assistant professor of
physics, is using the principles of biophysics –
studying biological processes and materials by
means of the theories as well as the tools of physics
– to find new and innovative ways to alter biological
systems down to the molecular level. He and
his students are improving cutting-edge tools such
as optical tweezers, specialized optical microscopes
and optogenetics (the science of controlling brain
activity with light) to understand and influence
processes in cells and cellular networks.
“We have taken an integrated approach of cellular
manipulation, activation and control by optical
as well as hybrid approaches, combined with
a variety of imaging methods to visualize and
quantify responses in in-vitro and in-vivo models,”
Mohanty said. “In order to evaluate miniscule
changes to cell membranes during optical manipulation,
we developed a unique multimodal imaging
platform integrated with laser scissors,
tweezers, spanners, transporters and stimulators
here at UT Arlington.”
At the moment, Mohanty and the Biophysics
and Physiology Laboratory group he leads are
working on projects in five major research areas,
along with a number of smaller projects. He keeps
up a relentless pace in preparing and submitting
grant proposals which have brought millions of
dollars in research support from the National Institutes
of Health, National Science Foundation
and other sources. He authors and co-authors
manuscripts which are regularly published in top
journals.
“His projects are highly imaginative. He’s doing
an intriguing combination of physics, biology,
chemistry and biomechanics,” said Alex Weiss,
professor and chair of the Department of Physics.
“He’s doing very interesting research with nerve
cells and optical stimulation of the brain, among
other things. The work his group is doing has a lot
of potential to improve medical research and treatment
of disease down the road.”
A
s excited as he is by his
group’s current work,
Mohanty is even more
thrilled by the research
he envisions happening
in his lab in the years
ahead. He wants to shift
his main focus from different
aspects of neuronal
manipulation, imaging and control, to the
Brain Research through Advancing Innovative
Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, an effort
unveiled by President Barack Obama in April 2013
which is intended to revolutionize understanding
of the human brain through groundbreaking research.
This image shows a highly-controlled laser transfection of
ChR2-YFP gene into a targeted area of retina (green is
ChR2-YFP and blue is nuclei) by a near-infrared femtosecond
laser microbeam. Image courtesy of Samarendra Mohanty.
This illustration
demonstrates the
non-invasiveness of
two-photon optogenetic
stimulation. It
shows brain tissue
damage by an invasive
fiber delivering
one-photon stimulation
(shown in
blue) vs. non-invasive,
two-photon
stimulation (shown
in red). Illustration
courtesy of
Samarendra
Mohanty.
One of Mohanty’s current projects which could
be useful in the BRAIN initiative is the development
of a tiny tool which could help scientists map
and track interactions between neurons inside different
areas of the brain. The fiber-optic, two-photon,
optogenetic stimulator builds on a previous
Mohanty discovery that near-infrared (NIR) light
can be used to stimulate a light-sensitive protein
introduced into living cells and neurons in the
brain. This new method could show how different
parts of the brain react when a linked area is stimulated.
“Scientists have spent a lot of time looking at
the physical connections between different regions
of the brain. But that information is not sufficient
unless we examine how those connections function,”
Mohanty said. “That's where two-photon optogenetics
comes into play. This is a tool not only
to control the neuronal activity but to understand
how the brain works.”
The two-photon optogenetic stimulation involves
introducing the gene for ChR2, a protein
that responds to light, into a sample of excitable
tissue cells. A fiber-optic infrared beam of NIR
light can then be used to precisely excite the neurons
in a tissue circuit. In the brain, researchers
could then observe responses in the excited area
as well as other parts of the neural circuit. In living
subjects, scientists could also observe the behavioral
outcome, Mohanty said.
Optogenetic stimulation avoids damage to living
tissue by stimulating neurons with light instead
of electric pulses used in past research. Mohanty’s
method of using low-energy NIR
light also enables more precision and a
deeper focus than the blue or green light
beams often used in optogenetic stimulation.
Kamal Dhakal, a third-year doctoral
student in Mohanty’s lab, works in optogenetics
and optical manipulation of cells. He
says the multidisciplinary approach of Mohanty’s
research is preparing him well for
a career in optics and biophotonics. Dhakal
was lead author of a paper on the brain
mapping research that was published in
the June 1, 2013 edition of the journal Optics
Letters; Mohanty, doctoral student
Bryan Black and postdoctoral researcher
Ling Gu were co-authors.
“Dr. Mohanty is very good researcher
and has fancy ideas and visions,” Dhakal
said. “He is very frank, like a friend, and
helpful. Before joining his lab, I did not
have any technical knowledge such as
using computer software for data analysis,
interfacing instruments with computers,
imaging, programming, even how to make
a good graph. But today, I know all of them.
In addition, my projects require a wide variety
of knowledge, from genetics to optics,
mammalian cells to bacterial cells, electrophysiology
to digital holography. These
Maverick Science 2013-14
33

things would not be possible
without him.”
Another of Mohanty’s current
projects, which the twophoton
optogenetic stimulator
builds upon, involves finding a
better way to initiate certain
gene therapies that are more
effective against retinitis pigmentosa,
an inherited eye disease
that causes progressive
vision loss and can cause blindness.
Mohanty will receive
$384,269 over the next two
years from the National Institutes
of Health for the project.
The study involves using NIR
ultrafast laser beams to deliver
genes that allow expression of
light-sensitive proteins, called
opsins, in specific cells. The
proteins’ expression allows researchers
to influence neural
activity through optogenetics.
In the past, the genes have
been delivered to cells by a
virus, but that method has
drawbacks, such as undesired
immune responses, in addition
to the benefits. In Mohanty’s
method, a laser beam creates a
“It is becoming evident that physics and
new physical tools and materials are playing
very important – almost inevitable – roles
in answering key questions in biology and
medicine.”
– Samarendra Mohanty
transient sub-micrometersized
hole, which allows for the
gene encoding the proteins to
permeate the cell membrane. It
can limit the risk of immune
response as well as deliver
larger genes than viral methods, he said.
“Our minimally invasive near-infrared method can deliver DNA and other
impermeable molecules effectively where you want it and only where you want
it,” Mohanty said. “For example, in retinitis pigmentosa, only the peripheral
retina begins to lose light sensitivity due to loss of photoreceptors. This is
where a laser can deliver the genes, making those neurons respond to light
again. With a virus, the genes will be delivered everywhere, causing complications
in areas already working fine.”
Optogenetic stimulation also holds promise for influencing neurons in the
brain. Scientists, including Mohanty’s lab group, are studying ways it could
be used to understand how the brain works or to intervene in cases of neurological
disorders or to affect behavior. Ultimately, Mohanty’s team has a goal
of creating all-optical, or light-based, control and monitoring of cell activity.
So, in addition to the light-assisted delivery of genes, his lab also will work on
refining methods for stimulating the neural activity using NIR and visible
light.
“Dr. Mohanty's innovations continue to be recognized because of the great
potential they hold," College of Science Dean Pamela Jansma said. "Hopefully,
his work will one day provide researchers in other fields the tools they need
to examine how the human body works and why normal processes sometimes
fail.”
A
nother major focus of Mohanty’s research is to understand
the mysterious ways by which different
types of neurons – nerve cells that are the basic
building block of the nervous system – and neuronal
circuits respond to physical cues such as force, flow
and heat. Information is transmitted between neurons
via axons, or nerve fibers, which are long, slender
appendages. The process of sending messages
from one neuron to another depends on connection
between neurons, which requires axonal guidance. Although numerous methods
to achieve fully-controlled
axonal guidance have been introduced,
they are ineffective or
require introducing invasive
external factors, Mohanty said.
“Recently, we discovered
that an important physical cue,
heat, can be highly efficient for
axonal guidance,” Mohanty
said. “Our non-contact approach
shows remarkable capability
of non-invasively
navigating axons with 100 percent
efficiency and high spatiotemporal
resolution at large
working distance.”
Mohanty believes that this
new, optically-controlled method
will open new avenues for
non-invasive guidance of regenerating
axons at long working
distances for the restoration
of impaired neural
connections and functions. He
and his group, along with UT
Arlington assistant professor of
bioengineering Young-Tae
Kim, are working with the Veterans
Administration Spinal
Cord Injury Center in Dallas to
evaluate the technology as a
new option for the treatment of
spinal cord injuries.
A paper on the findings coauthored
by Mohanty, Kim,
visiting researcher Argha Mondal
and lead author Bryan
Black, was published in the July 1, 2013 edition of Optics Letters.
“The major goal of this project is to develop an effective, therapeutic approach
for robust guidance of regenerative axonal outgrowths past the glial
scar in the case of spinal cord injury,” Mohanty said.
M
ohanty’s group is also developing hybrid optical
methods of phototherapy. While use of light
alone has been beneficial in many applications,
there is a growing need to target light to diseased
tissue so that healthy tissue is not damaged.
Also, certain diseases – especially those
affecting the nervous system – require cell-selective
interaction with light. The recent development
of nanoparticles/genetic targeting in
combination with light irradiation is emerging as a new modality for hybrid
phototherapy, Mohanty said.
“We have developed new nanomaterials and employed existing light-activatable
molecules for various therapeutic applications such as cancer therapy,
restoration of vision and inhibition of pain,” he said.
Working with UT Arlington professor of physics Ali Koymen, Mohanty’s
lab developed a method using magnetic carbon nanoparticles to target and
destroy cancer cells through laser therapy - a treatment they believe could be
effective in cases of skin and other cancers without damaging surrounding
healthy cells.
Mohanty and Koymen co-authored a paper about the work along with Ling
Gu (lead author) and Vijayalakshmi Vardarajan, two postdoctoral researchers
in Mohanty’s lab, which was published in the January 2012 edition of the
Journal of Biomedical Optics.
“Because these nanoparticles are magnetic, we can use an external magnetic
field to focus them on the cancer cells. Then, we use a low-power laser
to heat them and destroy the cells beneath,” Koymen said. “Since only the carbon
nanoparticles are affected by the laser, the method leaves the healthy tis-
34 Maverick Science 2013-14

sue unharmed, and it is non-toxic.”
Mohanty, Koymen and engineering student
R.P. Chaudhary developed a way of creating
nanoparticles using an electric plasma discharge
inside a benzene solution.
Carbon nanoparticles produced for the cancer
study varied from five to 10 nanometers wide. A
human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide.
Mohanty said the carbon nanoparticles can be
coated to make them attach to cancer cells once
they are positioned in an organ by the magnetic
field. He said the new method has several advantages
over current technology and could be administered
using fiber optics inside the body.
“By using the magnetic field, we can make sure
the carbon nanoparticles are not excreted until the
near-infrared laser irradiation is finished,” he said.
“They are also crystalline and smaller than carbon
nanotubes, which makes for less cell toxicity.”
The magnetic carbon nanoparticles also
are fluorescent. Thus, they can be used to
enhance contrast of optical imaging of tumors
along with that of MRI, Mohanty said,
adding that lab tests also showed that the
carbon nanoparticles and a continuous
wave (cw) NIR laser beam could be used to
put a hole in the cell, revealing another potential
medical use.
“Without killing the cell we can heat it
up a little bit and deliver drugs and genes to
the cell using a low power cw near-infrared
laser beam. This is an additional important
novelty of our photothermal approach with
carbon nanoparticles,” he said.
A
n ongoing project
in Mohanty’s
lab which has received
considerable
attention in
science media is
the development
of a fiber-optic
wrench that uses
two laser beams to stably rotate and move
microscopic objects, such as living cells –
an innovation that will help scientists to
work more efficiently at the microscopic level.
The new technology surpasses current methods
of fiber-optic rotation because it allows the object
to be rotated at any axis, giving a fuller view.
Through this method, cancer cells could be imaged
during rotation or oocyte cells could be moved
during in vitro fertilization, Mohanty said. The
spanner also can use a “rotating bead handle” to
twist and untwist DNA molecules to allow it to be
sequenced more rapidly than current methods.
The innovation was detailed in a paper co-authored
by Black and Mohanty in the Dec. 15, 2012
edition of Optics Letters.
“This technique overcomes many of the challenges
to working with optically trapped microscopic
objects and has numerous possibilities for
nanotechnology and biotechnology,” Mohanty
said. “It is widely applicable because it is not limited
by the sample’s shape and does not require
any mechanical motion of the fiber. Also, because
the tools are fiber-optic, they can be used at a
larger depth inside a closed environment such as
This illustration shows a multifunctional fiber optical probe,
which can be used for (i) trapping, transport and delivery of
micro/nano objects, (ii) forcing measurements at single cellparticle
level, (iii) two-photon excitation and imaging, (iv)
cellular stretching, and (v) generation of localized fluid flow
by fiber optics. Illustration courtesy of Samarendra Mohanty.
the body.”
The fiber-optic spanner uses two laser beams
emanating from optic fibers. The fibers are placed
on opposite sides of the object with a transverse
offset, or parallel, but not co-linear.
Through a process of counter propagation, the
beams use gradient and scattering forces to trap
and rotate an object. The axis on which the object
is rotated can be adjusted by changing the direction
of offset between the two fibers. This gives a
fuller, deeper view than what is available with
most existing microscope objective-based laser
tweezers systems, Mohanty said. By adjusting the
power of one beam, the object can also be moved
from one place to another. An ultrafast laser beam
in one fiber optic arm can also be used to analyze
fluorescence of trapped objects.
“The attention that Dr. Mohanty and his team
are receiving for their work in the lab is well-deserved,”
said Carolyn Cason, UT Arlington’s vice
president for research. “His enhancement of current
technology could yield results for a number
of fields and it is a demonstration of the strides
that come from determined exploration.”
Born in eastern India in the
small coastal town of Balasore,
Mohanty had what he
says is an inherent interest
in physics and math from a
young age. His family members
were mostly in engineering
and the medical
field. He studied physics in
college, focusing on optics (the study of light) at
the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, where
he earned a master of technology degree in 1998.
That same year he began working as a scientist at
the Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore,
India, where he was soon leading a laser micromanipulation
lab. Never very interested in biology before,
Mohanty began to see it in a new light,
through the prism of physics.
“I found that physics can play a unique role in
answering key questions in biology and medicine,”
he said.
He began doctoral studies at the Indian Institute
of Science in Bangalore, India, earning his
Ph.D. in 2006. He left his senior scientist position
and took a postdoctoral fellowship at the Beckman
Laser Institute and Medical Clinic (BLI) at the
University of California at Irvine to work with BLI
co-founder Michael Berns, a pioneer in laser microbeam
technology.
“Michael provided me full freedom to venture
into new projects and establish collaborations
with faculties across different departments,” Mohanty
said. “I worked on laser nanosurgery to
cause injury to DNA and neurons in order to find
out the mechanism of damage and the repair
processes. During this time, I developed
many new techniques including single fiber
optical tweezers and scissors, and digital
holographic imaging of cellular nanosurgery.”
Mohanty also spearheaded work on
restoring vision in blind animal models by
using optogenetics – the combination of genetics
and optics to control well-defined
events within specific cells of living tissue.
Another of his projects focused on neurophotonics
– the imaging, manipulation
and control of neural activities using light.
Mohanty was the first to demonstrate the
use of near-infrared light for stimulation of
genetically-targeted cells and neurons at
larger depths with high spatial and temporal
precision. He also discovered that central
nervous system neurons can sense fluid
flow generated by a micromotor controlled
by optical tweezers.
In 2009, he interviewed for faculty positions
at several universities, and accepted
an offer from UT Arlington, where he had
been won over by his colleagues’ hospitality
and by the fact that he would have ample
lab space for his many research interests –
molecular biology, microbiology, cell culture,
animal tissue processing, and optogenetics,
which requires a large space.
Mohanty was excited about the opportunity to
establish a major biophysics lab in the Metroplex,
as well as the chance to collaborate with other departments
at UT Arlington and UT Southwestern
Medical Center in Dallas.
Over four years later, he’s glad to have the opportunity
and is eagerly looking forward to doing
more.
“It is becoming evident that physics and new
physical tools and materials are playing very important
– almost inevitable – roles in answering
key questions in biology and medicine,” Mohanty
said. “I also realized that biology and medicine
need formulations and definitive, well-predictable
theories similar to what Newton and Einstein created
in physics. There lies a huge challenge, but I
see a big scope as well. Having a background in
physics definitely helps in raising new questions
and providing new dimensions to the understanding
of the underlying biological processes.” n
Maverick Science 2012-13
35

A
Win-Win
Led by Nicolette Lopez, UT
Arlington’s Industrial and
Organizational Psychology
Center pairs master’s students
with area businesses in an
internship program that has
been a resounding success.
scenario
By Greg Pederson
For many college students, finding
the right job, one where they believe
they are making a difference,
can prove challenging.
Some might think there must be
a science to finding the ideal employer.
As a matter of fact, there is.
The field of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology
focuses on the study of workplaces, and in finding ways to
improve business productivity and workers’ overall wellbeing.
The main goal of I/O psychologists is to better understand
human behavior in the workplace.
Some of the things I/O psychologists do include: helping
to ensure the right people are selected for the right
jobs; developing employee training; identifying factors
that contribute to employee stress and devising solutions;
and assessing employees’ attitudes to help increase job
satisfaction.
In North Texas, UT Arlington is leading the way in I/O
psychology through a pioneering program aimed at providing
training for students and practical solutions to
workplace challenges for area companies. The Industrial
and Organizational Psychology Center was created in January
2012 with those goals in mind, and it is already an
unqualified success. Nicolette Lopez, a UT Arlington professor
in practice in psychology, helped formulate the idea
for the center and serves as its manager.
“The center has two specific, interrelated purposes: to
provide businesses with useful solutions that are based on
science, and to provide students the opportunity to transfer
classroom learning into practical experiences to enrich
their professional development,” Lopez said.
UT Arlington’s two-year master’s program in I/O psychology
– the only one in the Dallas-Fort Worth area – includes
a mandatory 400-hour internship requirement,
which provides students with opportunities to gain realworld
experience. The center places I/O students into internships
with companies and organizations around the
Metroplex. The students gain practical experience in I/O
psychology, while the participating businesses benefit
from students’ training and technical skills.
The internships often lead to students being offered
full-time positions, Lopez said. It has happened well over
a dozen times in the past three years alone.
Brandon Wade
Nicolette Lopez, right, with I/O students Kim Perry and Aaron Friedman in the offices of Leadership
Worth Following, one of the companies which partners with the UT Arlington I/O Center.
36 Maverick Science 2013-14

Hollweg Roark Thompson
“This is a clear indication that organizations not
only recognize and appreciate the value of our students
but also are benefiting from the knowledge and
skills that the students possess,” she said. “I believe
this also is an indication of the quality of the training
the students are receiving from our program.
“In my six-plus years here, the program has
evolved and changed quite dramatically. Keeping
true to I/O’s scientist-practitioner model, we now
have a fairly balanced curriculum so that teaching is
approached in a way that blends scientific rigor with
real-world application. Our program is unique in that
it offers numerous opportunities for students to practice
the profession in a ‘safe’ place, while being closely
supervised.”
The idea for the center took shape in
2009, when Lopez and Shannon Scielzo,
an assistant professor of psychology,
began looking for ways to create a
link between their graduate students
and area businesses. They drafted a
proposal which began winding its way through the administrative
process and received valuable feedback
from Paul Paulus, distinguished professor of psychology
and director of UT Arlington’s I/O program. Paulus
helped shepherd the proposal through the process of
gaining university approval.
“Dr. Paulus is a well-respected leader within and
outside of our University,” Lopez said. “He makes
things happen and we are fortunate to have his support
and to be able to draw upon his wisdom.”
Lopez also credits Robert Gatchel, distinguished
professor and former Department of Psychology chair,
with “believing in our vision for the program and supporting
the idea for the center from the beginning,” she
said. “I truly am thankful for his advice and encouragement
and the belief he has in me and my ideas.”
In 2013, an advisory council was established to develop
the future vision of the center. The council is comprised
of Dale Thompson, founder and CEO of
Leadership Worth Following (LWF); Lewis Hollweg,
president of HH Investments; Phillip Roark, CEO of Insala;
College of Science Dean Pamela Jansma; and
Shelly Frank, College of Science director of development.
“Our advisory council members are charged with
helping us keep the center current and tapped into the
needs of practitioners,” Lopez said. “This is an exciting
time for us, and we are so fortunate to have a group of
distinguished experts to help guide our vision.”
Thompson’s company, LWF – which provides talent
and organizational development services and uses
scientifically based leadership training – has been involved
with the I/O program since its founding in
2004. Thompson is perhaps the center’s biggest supporter.
In the past decade, LWF has provided numerous
internships and subsequently brought many of
those students on board full-time. Last year, the company
helped facilitate the creation of three endowed
professorships for the I/O program. Thompson, Hollweg
and Roark provided funds for the professorships,
which were established in their names.
“Over the years, Nicolette’s partnership has been essential
to the continued and growing success of LWF,”
Thompson said. “As time goes forward, we hope to increase
the strength and impact of our partnership
through providing more internships, hiring more staff,
and expanding our use of the center to help LWF redevelop
critical intellectual property.”
Hollweg became involved with the program when
he was president and CEO of Batrus Hollweg International,
a human resources software and consulting firm
that he sold in 2011. Based on Lopez’s recommendations,
BHI provided internships to a number of UT Arlington
I/O students, with outstanding results, Hollweg
said.
“Several of these students went on to be full-time
consultants with us and are now very successful professionals,”
he said. “We saw the I/O program as a talent
pipeline for our firm. Nicolette is committed to
expanding the horizons and knowledge of her students
and readily reaches out to knowledgeable professionals
to further stimulate student learning.”
Roark got involved when his company, Insala –
which provides talent development solutions to organizations
around the world – moved to Arlington in 2012
and began looking at internship programs.
“To achieve the center’s vision, it was clear we
needed more professors with diverse skills,” Roark said.
“The more comprehensive professorial staff would lead
to greater outcomes for the students and ultimately the
business community. The [endowed professorship] was
a logical decision as part of achieving those goals. Being
part of this project is exciting, challenging and rewarding
for me personally. It is fantastic to know our contributions
will enhance the future of the I/O psychology
field, and the success of many students and companies
that will hire those students.”
The professorships will serve to ensure that students
are well-prepared I/O professionals when they
leave the program and enter the workforce.
“These professorships will help bring additional top
scholars to the department who will be valuable resources
for the activities of the center,” Paulus said. “We
hope that the many useful connections of the center
with various companies and organizations in this region
and beyond will enhance the profile of the University
and gain it additional charitable support.”
For UT Arlington I/O students, the center is
a valuable resource that can pair them
with area businesses in a mutually beneficial
relationship. Aaron Friedman, who
grew up in Richardson, earned a master’s
degree in the program in May 2013 and is
now in his first year as a Ph.D. student in the Psychological
Sciences (Experimental) program. He served his
master’s internship with LWF, which hired him on as
an associate consultant and has since promoted him to
senior associate consultant.
“I really see the center and the I/O program almost
like a Venn diagram,” Friedman said. “One circle is the
I/O coursework and academic side, and the other circle
is the applied experience obtained through the center
and other internship experiences. The overlap between
those two circles is really the sweet spot. What differentiates
UTA’s I/O program is that students who graduate
are not coming out strong in one of those two
areas; they’re coming out strong in both of them. The
interaction between the coursework and the applied experience
is really where the magic happens.”
The center was a major reason why master’s student
Kim Perry chose UT Arlington’s I/O program. Perry,
who grew up in the Boston suburb of Natick, Mass., and
earned a B.S. in Psychology at Union College in Schenectady,
N.Y., is in her second year of the program and
also worked as an intern at LWF, where she’s now an
associate consultant.
“The center has been a huge help not only for me
personally but for those in the I/O program as a
whole,” Perry said. “It has provided us with various
networking opportunities in which we are able to interact
with and learn from important I/O professionals
in the field or more applied settings.”
Lopez was born in Pasadena, Calif., and
grew up in nearby Thousand Oaks. After
graduating from Thousand Oaks High
School, she started college but soon put
her studies on hold to get married and
have kids. She spent a few years as a
stay-at-home mom and during that time, she and her
family moved to Texas. In 1999, she enrolled at the University
of North Texas to resume undergraduate studies.
She took an interest in criminal justice and credits
a fascination with psychopathy for steering her in the
direction of psychology. In her last semester as an undergraduate,
she discovered I/O psychology.
“Like most people, until then I had never heard of
I/O and had no idea what I/O psychologists did,” she
said. “It was definitely a turning point for me. I loved
my undergraduate I/O psychology class. It’s such an interesting,
important and applicable discipline. We
spend a good deal of time at our jobs, and the idea of
potentially helping to make someone’s job more enjoyable
appealed to me.”
She graduated with a B.S. in Psychology from UNT
in 2001, and entered graduate school to focus on I/O,
staying at UNT and earning an M.S. in 2005 and a
Ph.D. in 2007. Her husband believed she would make
a good teacher and encouraged her to apply for a parttime
lecturer position at UT Arlington. She did so and
started in January 2007. At the time, she was also doing
part-time consulting work but gradually began moving
away from that and closer to academia. In 2008, she
became a visiting assistant professor, and in 2010 she
was named professor in practice.
Her students admire her for her mentoring and for
being a steady support system to them through all the
stresses of graduate school.
“I credit Dr. Lopez's networking ability, and of
course her hard work, in making the connections necessary
that allowed nearly every member (if not every
member) of my master's cohort to find employment
immediately upon graduation – in some cases, having
to choose between multiple competitive offers,” Friedman
said. “Her role within both the program and the
center transcends far beyond just teaching. She has
had, and continues to have, a tremendous impact on
students as well as the organizations in the Metroplex
that are working with the center.”
Lopez wants to see the center continue to
strengthen the relationships it has with area businesses,
while also reaching out to establish new ones as the I/O
program continues to grow.
“I would like the center to keep evolving and expanding
its capabilities so that we can continue to be a
valuable resource to the business community,” she said.
“This model has been very successful as evidenced by
the continual increase of collaborations between the
center and the field. These partnerships allow the field
to learn from us as well as allow us the opportunity to
learn from the business community – a truly beneficial
exchange which probably is my favorite aspect of these
projects.
“Keeping the communication open between academia
and practice really highlights what our program
represents. I really believe in this program and in its
potential to become one of the country’s best.” n
Learn more about the UT Arlington I/O Center at
http://www.thei-ocenter.com/.
Maverick Science 2013-14
37

Making
waves
Robert Stewart didn’t
know a thing about
oceanography when
he graduated from
Arlington State
College with a
physics degree in
1963. Fiy years
later, he can reflect
on an illustrious
career during which
he has helped us all
better understand
the ocean and why
it’s so important.
By Greg Pederson
During a visit to campus in November,
Robert Stewart was greatly impressed
with the growth and progress his alma
mater has made.
38 Maverick Science 2013-14
Brandon Wade

Above, Stewart aboard a research vessel in Chesapeake Bay off the
coast of Virginia in 1988. Top right, Stewart, right, talks with renowned
oceanographer Klaus Hasselmann at a colloquium on radio oceanography
in Hamburg, Germany in 1976. Bottom right, Stewart, left, hands a
Nansen bottle to Simon Ferreira aboard a research ship in the Indian
Ocean in 1964. The bottle collects samples of seawater from a specific
depth. Stewart was working with other oceanographers as part of the
International Indian Ocean Expedition, the first cooperative scientific investigation
of the Indian Ocean. Photos courtesy of Robert Stewart.
There’s a bit of irony to be found in the
fact that Robert Stewart was unimpressed
by the ocean as a child. But then
again, how could he have known at such
a young age that studying the sea and its
mysteries would become his passion?
Stewart first saw the ocean as a boy in Atlantic
City, N.J. He didn’t think it was anything special and
certainly didn’t hear anything calling to him as he listened
to the sound of waves washing ashore. His next
experience with the ocean, some years later in Galveston,
left him even less enthusiastic.
“I remember hot, dirty beaches with brown water,”
he says in summarizing his reaction.
In high school, he became interested in physics. He had never even
heard the term “oceanography” until he was nearing the end of his senior
year at Arlington State College (now UT Arlington) in 1963 and began looking
at graduate school work. By chance he read an article in The Saturday
Evening Post about the need for physicists in the field of oceanography,
and Stewart’s interest was piqued. That led to graduate studies at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San
Diego, and a long and distinguished career in oceanography.
During that career, which spans half a century, Stewart has used his
knowledge of physics to help solve some of the ocean’s great mysteries, but
he’s quick to say he has been lucky to have good mentors and work with
the right people. Among his achievements are pioneering work using high
frequency radar to study ocean waves; his involvement with the Seasat
satellite project, which laid the foundation for radio oceanography; and his
role in the TOPEX/Poseidon project, a satellite mission that helped revolutionize
oceanography as well as our understanding of ocean currents and
tides, and produced the first highly accurate global maps of the tides, among
other things.
Stewart also had a highly productive tenure as a professor of oceanography
at Texas A&M University, where he wrote a widely used textbook in
physical oceanography. He spent considerable time providing teaching materials
for K-12 instructors and students explaining oceanic processes and
the usefulness of satellite data for observing the ocean. He also did everything
in his power to improve the way oceanography is taught in schools
and to stress the importance of the ocean.
Now a professor emeritus and largely retired, Stewart returned to UT
Arlington in early November, marking just the second time since he graduated
in 1963 that he had been back on campus. He was a special guest
speaker during the College of Science’s annual Science Week, and he talked
with students about his career and urged them to find good mentors who
can point them in the right direction. He also stressed to them the importance
of studying the ocean.
“Robert Stewart is a pioneer in satellite oceanography,” said Lee-Lueng
Fu, a project scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who met
Stewart in 1980, when Fu had just finished his Ph.D. in oceanography. “He
was among the first few who recognized the potential of observing the global
oceans from the vantage point of an orbiting satellite. He convinced me of
the great opportunity in making a career in satellite oceanography. It has
been a privilege to know him and benefit from his visionary work.”
Stewart was born in York, Pennsylvania, one of five siblings.
Growing up, his favorite hobby was catching butterflies, a pursuit
which he continued to enjoy through college. When he was
11, Stewart, his parents and three of his siblings moved to Fort
Worth so his dad could start an air conditioning repair service
for York Air Conditioners. In addition to physics, Stewart developed
interests in religion and science fiction during high
school. In 1959 he graduated as class valedictorian from Laneri High
School, an all-boys Catholic school in Fort Worth.
At the time, the state of Texas offered valedictorians four years of free
tuition to a state university. Stewart took advantage of the offer and chose
Arlington State College, which was close to home and became a four-year
college for the first time in the fall of 1959, when Stewart enrolled as a freshman.
Maverick Science 2013-14
39

At left, Stewart in his
Army Corps uniform
during his freshman
year at Arlington State
College in 1959. At
right, Stewart, far
right, was treasurer of
the ASC Physics Club
in 1963 and is seen
here in an ASC yearbook
photo with other
club officers. Below,
Stewart stands near a
monumental bronze
statue of Amitabha
Buddha outside of the
Kōtoku-in temple in
Kamakura, Japan, in
1987. Photos courtesy
of Robert Stewart.
“By working in the summers for the highway department
and living at home, I could afford ASC,”
he said. “I decided to major in physics, because it
was the most fundamental science. I enrolled in the
Corps my first year, but only stayed in it for that one
year. I remember there were very few female students
at that time, and my social life was almost
nonexistent because I lived at home and rode city
buses to get to campus. Because I used public transportation,
I couldn’t attend on-campus functions
like dances or basketball and football games at
night. There was no way to get home afterward. I
was fortunate to be able to afford an old 1949 Ford
my senior year, and I could drive to campus and
park for free.”
Stewart entered college at an exciting time for
science. The Space Race between the United States
and the Soviet Union had started just two years before
when the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, the first
artificial satellite. He remembers watching along
with hundreds of other students on a TV set up in
the E.H. Hereford Center when the first American
astronauts were launched into space in 1961.
During his senior year, Stewart applied for graduate
school in meteorology and had been accepted
at the University of Colorado and the University of
Washington. Then in February 1963, he happened
to read the article on oceanography in the Post, written
by a noted fisheries expert from the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography — unbeknownst to
Stewart, the best oceanography school in the world.
Stewart wrote to him saying he had never heard of
oceanography and had applied to graduate school
in other fields. He received a return post with an application
to Scripps and a note urging him to apply,
which he did.
“They were looking for physicists who wanted to
study the ocean, because there weren’t many at the
time who did,” he said.
Stewart graduated from ASC magna cum laude
in May 1963, with the highest GPA in his class, and
he also scored highly on the Graduate Record Examination.
These factors worked strongly in his
favor and he was accepted to Scripps, despite the
fact that he had missed the official application deadline.
He spent the summer on a fellowship at Argonne
National Lab outside Chicago, helping to
construct the Zero-Gradient Synchrotron, which at
the time was the world's most powerful atom
smasher.
“We finished the construction, and the first
beam of particles was accelerated that summer,”
Stewart said. “Next, I loaded my car and headed to
Scripps. My goal was to study physics of the ocean,
whatever that was. It sounded exciting.”
When he got to San Diego,
Stewart immediately rethought
his earlier indifference
to and disdain for
the ocean.
“I was delighted with
the ocean when I reached
Scripps,” he said. “The lab was on the shore, on the
Pacific, with crystal clear water and beautiful waves.
We ate our lunches on the beach and I was soon getting
good at body surfing, beach volleyball and
oceanography.”
It definitely wasn’t all fun in the sun, though.
Stewart says he studied day and night, six and a half
days a week, for the first year. At Scripps, doctoral
students worked independently on their own projects.
“My work was to test the theory of how wind
generated ocean waves, which was first proposed by
a UCSD professor of applied math in 1959,” he said.
“My measurements, and theoretical work by a
Scripps postdoc, showed that momentum is not
transmitted to ocean waves, and the theory needed
to be modified. The real benefit of being at Scripps
was working with the best oceanographers in the
world.”
After he completed his thesis work and received
his Ph.D. in 1969, Stewart was asked by esteemed
oceanographer Walter Munk and William Nierenberg,
director of Scripps, to lead a project with a recent
Stanford graduate, G. Leonard Tyler, to study
high frequency (HF) radar scatter from the ocean.
“The results of our work showed that we could
measure surface currents and ocean wave heights
and directions out to more than a hundred miles
from shore,” Stewart said. “The work led to the development
of commercial HF radars now used to
map local currents along the U.S. coast and many
other coasts.”
His knowledge of radio scatter from the sea led
to Stewart being appointed as the Scripps representative
to NASA committees for the development of
Seasat, the first orbiting satellite designed for remote
sensing of the ocean. Seasat, which was
launched in June 1978, used mostly radio-frequency
instruments to measure processes, winds, waves,
currents, and temperature at the sea surface. A massive
short-circuit ended the mission in October
1978, but its importance far outweighed its shortlived
duration.
Interpreting the signals measured by Seasat’s instruments
led Stewart to write a textbook, Methods
of Satellite Oceanography, one of the first on the
subject, which was published in 1985.
In 1979, Stewart’s efforts with Seasat led to a
joint appointment at Scripps and NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
There, he became a project scientist for a new NASA
satellite named TOPEX (for Topography of the
Ocean Experiment). TOPEX joined with Poseidon,
a French effort to make similar measurements, giving
birth to TOPEX/Poseidon, a satellite mission
that revolutionized scientists’ understanding of
ocean currents and tides.
“TOPEX/Poseidon carried measurement accuracy
to an unprecedented new level,” Stewart said.
“It measured the height of the sea surface around
the world with an accuracy of 3 centimeters relative
to the center of the earth, every 10 days. This is an
accuracy of about one part in 10 to the tenth – difficult
to achieve even in a laboratory.”
The measurements required knowing the exact
center of mass of a satellite the size of a school bus,
tracking this center with an accuracy of 2 centimeters
as the spacecraft circled the earth at a speed of
6 kilometers/second, while measuring the height of
the satellite above the sea with an accuracy of 2 centimeters,
Stewart explained. The mission combined
highly precise geodetic techniques, radar technology,
ocean-wave theory, and orbital dynamics in
new and productive ways.
40 Maverick Science 2013-14

TOPEX/Poseidon launched
in August 1992, 13 years after
work on the project began. The
satellite collected data until a
malfunction ended operations
in January 2006.
“From that mission came
the first global maps of the tides
with accuracies of a centimeter,
global maps of ocean surface
currents and their variability,
maps of heat storage in the
ocean, and the widely used plot
showing the change in global
sea level due to global warming
and the melting of polar ice,”
Stewart said.
Added Fu, “The mission
turned out to be revolutionary
in the ways we study the ocean.
It has shifted the paradigm of
studying ocean circulation
from slow and painstaking
shipboard measurement to rapid global observation
from space.”
In 1989, Stewart returned to Texas to take a
faculty position at Texas A&M University as
professor of oceanography. He wrote a
widely used textbook on physical oceanography,
and in 1996 he hired two graduate
students to help him create a website to
teach students about the ocean. The site,
OceanWorld, quickly became very a popular one,
with numerous resources for educators and students
– including Stewart’s textbook, which he made available
for free. The site won awards for its contributions
to ocean and environmental science education.
“Bob is a true intellectual with a broad and deep
knowledge of not only oceanography, but also many
other subjects,” said Ping Chang, Texas A&M professor
of atmospheric sciences and the Louis and Elizabeth
Scherck Chair in Oceanography who met
Stewart when Chang joined the A&M faculty in 1990.
“He is straightforward and yet caring. Some of Bob’s
strong points as a professor and researcher include
his abundant knowledge, wisdom and understanding;
his extensive research experience; and his dedication
to ocean science education. Bob has made a
profound contribution to propagate and promote the
subject of physical oceanography.”
Educating K-12 students about the ocean is something
Stewart is passionate about. He doesn’t think
nearly enough emphasis is placed on how vital a role
the ocean plays in a host of Earth’s processes, and
how critical the ocean’s well-being is to the future of
life on Earth. He notes that what is taught in schools
about oceanography at the pre-college level is determined
by the National Science Education Standards,
first published in 1996 by the National Research
Council.
“Those standards mention the ocean in only three
places,” Stewart said. “The ocean exists, and it
strongly influences life on this planet. Without the
ocean, the entire planet would be vastly different.”
Stewart can talk at length about why the ocean is
so critical. Ocean studies led to the development of
plate tectonics, which would be far different without
the ocean because water-saturated sediments move
much more easily than dry sediments, he explains.
Stewart told UT Arlington students in November
to find something they have a passion for
and learn it thoroughly, because “luck comes
to those who are prepared.”
“e ocean exists,
and it strongly
influences life
on this planet.
Without the
ocean, the entire
planet would be
vastly different.
We wouldn’t be
here without
the ocean.”
— Robert Stewart
Without the ocean there would
be very little oxygen in the atmosphere,
because free oxygen
is the result of the burial of reduced
carbon in sediments in
the ocean. These sediments
contain reduced carbon in the
form of coal, oil, and natural
gas that are used as energy
sources. Water vapor from the
ocean heats the atmosphere
when it condenses as rain and
drives the planet's winds. The
ocean is inextricably tied to the
problem of global warming and
the amount of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere.
In short, to Stewart the importance
of the ocean to life on
Earth can’t possibly be overemphasized,
and he would like to
see oceanography’s prominence
in K-12 science education
greatly enhanced.
“We wouldn’t be here without the ocean,” he says.
Looking back on his career, Stewart
humbly says he was in the right place
at the right time. He feels his success
is attributable to the fact that he took
advantage of being around brilliant
minds and soaking up as much
knowledge as he could from them.
He’s also grateful for having a career which gave him
the chance to travel around the world, to experience
a variety of other cultures and to meet and form relationships
with fascinating people.
“First, I feel I am incredibly lucky. I was born at a
time that allowed me to enter science just as interest
and jobs in science exploded after the launch of Sputnik
in 1957,” he said. “Then, I started work in an exciting
field at a great lab just by the chance reading
of a magazine article. Finally, I was invited to work
on interesting and important projects by mentors at
Scripps that I met mostly by chance. And those projects
turned out to be much more successful than we
expected, mostly because I was able to work with colleagues
who were much better than me.”
During his visit to UT Arlington in November,
Stewart advised a room full of science students to
take the equation of “preparation plus luck equals opportunity”
to heart.
“Luck is important. Some people are lucky, but
luck comes to those who are prepared,” he told the
students. “So do the work. Find something that you’re
passionate about and learn it very well. I was willing
to take a chance on what I worked on. I was mostly
out of the mainstream of physical oceanography, and
this helped greatly. Don't be afraid to take risks.
“A few years ago, I attended a meeting at Rice
University where a colleague and math professor,
David Sanchez, reflected on his career in mathematics.
He concluded by saying that when you are invited
up on the porch by the big dogs, and when you start
barking with the big dogs, soon people begin to think
you are a big dog. He and I were both fortunate to be
invited up to that porch.”
On the porch reserved for the big dogs of
oceanography, Robert Stewart has definitely earned
his place. n
Maverick Science 2013-14
41

Michaela Vancliff thrives
while focusing her research
and teaching on a branch
of algebra that even many
other mathematicians find
to be mystifying. By Greg Pederson
Vancliff discusses a problem with students in her
Graduate Algebraic Geometry class last fall.
Brandon Wade
Abstract artist
T
he subject of non-commutative algebraic geometry is likely to be baffling or even slightly intimidating to those
unfamiliar with advanced concepts in algebra. For Michaela Vancliff, it’s the subject she has devoted her career
to studying. Vancliff has been at the forefront of research in non-commutative algebraic geometry since it first
came on the scene in the late 1980s.
So, what is it, exactly?
First, a bit of a primer on some mathematical terms
might be in order. Addition is an example of a “commutative”
operation, because a + b equals b + a. Subtraction
is an example of a “non-commutative” operation, because
generally, a – b does not equal b – a.
Mathematics, in general, is the study of patterns and,
frequently, such patterns are described via systems of
equations, Vancliff explains. For instance, systems of
polynomial-style equations and their solutions play a
critical role in almost every scientific field, including elementary-particle
physics, quantum mechanics, robotics,
crystallography and more.
“Often, the solutions cannot be found by experimentation,
and often they are not numbers but are functions
and so, in general, they do not commute,” said Vancliff,
a UT Arlington professor of mathematics. “Non-commutative
algebra has application to fields such as
physics and chemistry. The science of seeking methods
42 Maverick Science 2013-14
that find all solutions to a system of polynomial-style
equations in non-commuting variables is non-commutative
algebra.
“The problem of solving a system of equations in
non-commutative algebra may be translated to one involving
an algebra over a field, and the representation
theory (or module theory) of that algebra. My research
is in the subarea of non-commutative algebraic geometry,
which is about using geometric methods to understand
the algebra and its representation theory that
arise in this way.”
The main idea to finding solutions to a system of
polynomial-style equations is to associate an algebraic
object, called a ring, which encodes all the properties of
the original equations, Vancliff said. Associated to this
ring are modules, which encode all the properties of the
solutions to the equations. So, in order to find all of the
solutions, one should find all the modules for the associated
ring. In many of the applications, the rings tend
to share certain properties satisfied by commuting polynomials.
Such rings are called AS-regular algebras and
are the main focus of Vancliff’s research.
“One of the goals of the study of AS-regular algebras
and their modules is to use geometric techniques to find
certain modules of the AS-regular algebra, and then to
use those modules to find the modules that give the solutions
to the original system of equations,” she said.
“My underlying goal throughout my research career has
been to improve on these geometric techniques. Being
an algebraist, I don’t work on the physics that generates
the equations that need to be solved; nor do I work on
the equations themselves.
“Typically, mathematical physicists translate the
quantum physics into algebraic problems, and then an
algebraist picks up the problem at that stage. In my case,
I work on techniques that solve types of equations, in

the hopes that such techniques might not only solve
equations of current interest, but also any equations of
the same type that might arise in physics in the future.”
Among Vancliff’s projects which could benefit research
in physics is one with Thomas Cassidy, professor
and math department chair at Bucknell University,
which focuses on generalizing the notion of Clifford algebra
and using geometry to motivate their proposed
generalization. Clifford algebras, which offer a direct
way to model geometric objects and their transformations,
have numerous applications in physics.
“Our work together involves a variation on classical
Clifford algebras. Clifford algebras have many applications
in theoretical physics, and we have been stretching
these ideas to encompass a broader family of algebraic
structures, with the hope of finding applications in
quantum physics,” Cassidy said. “Michaela is a remarkably
tenacious researcher. Mathematical research is
often characterized by sudden realizations or insights,
but those insights can only come after prolonged and
intense study. Michaela has the mathematical drive and
vision to delve into very abstract concepts and find hidden
connections.”
Vancliff is also working with UT Arlington associate
professor of math Dimitar Grantcharov, an expert in
representation theory, on a long-term project aimed at
describing a recently defined ring, called a graded skew
Clifford algebra, in terms of a Lie bracket and Poisson
geometry, and using that information to classify certain
modules of the ring. Vancliff and Cassidy were the first
ones to propose the idea of the graded skew Clifford algebra,
in 2010.
“Dr. Vancliff is a very talented mathematician and
she is highly dedicated to research, teaching and service,”
said Jianzhong Su, professor and chair of the math
department. “The field she works in is quite abstract,
even for other mathematicians, but this kind of mathematics
is reflective to some of the deeper insights in
modern physics. Dr. Vancliff is one of the leaders in this
research field, and the importance of her work is widely
recognized by the scientific community.”
A
n analytical mind was seemingly
hard-wired into Vancliff’s DNA.
She was born in England, northeast
of London in Essex County,
and her father was an electrical
engineer. He instilled in her a desire
to understand how things
work. Initially, she was interested
in physics, but in high school she was inspired by one of
her math teachers, who felt strongly that Vancliff should
pursue a mathematics degree. The teacher remained a
friend and mentor until his passing a few years ago.
“In hindsight, I believe I was interested in structural
patterns that make stuff work, more than in the physical
inner workings, and that interest translated into a desire
to understand the mathematics that explains how
stuff works,” she said. “From the entire cosmos down
to the tiniest flower petal, mathematics is behind the
scenes making it all work, and I wanted to understand
it all.”
After finishing secondary school, Vancliff enrolled at
the University of Warwick, in Coventry, England where
she earned a B.S. in Mathematics in 1986. Her degree
was in pure mathematics, but she also took courses in
quantum physics, special relativity and general relativity.
While at Warwick, one of the math faculty members
suggested that she pursue a graduate degree in the
United States, at the University of Washington.
“He was very familiar with the university and the city
of Seattle, and he felt that I would excel in that environment,”
Vancliff said. “Since I very much enjoyed living
in Seattle and being a student at the University of Washington,
I guess he was right.”
“Michaela is a remarkably
tenacious researcher. [She]
has the mathematical drive
and vision to delve into very
abstract concepts and find
hidden connections.”
– omas Cassidy
Bucknell University professor of mathematics
She taught high school math in London for a year
after graduating from Warwick, then moved to Seattle
and began work on a Ph.D. in mathematics with the intention
to focus on applied math. During her first year,
while taking a mandatory graduate algebra class, she
was introduced to the notion of a module over a ring.
“I immediately recognized it as a generalization of
the idea of matrices acting on a vector space, which is a
pervasive topic throughout all of the applied sciences,”
Vancliff said. “So a light bulb lit up in my brain, and I
fell in love with algebra.”
Her interests were mainly in physics applications, so
Vancliff was drawn to study modules over non-commutative
rings. At that time, the study of modules over
commutative rings had been ongoing for decades due
to the use of geometric techniques. In a bit of perfect
timing, Vancliff began her graduate studies just as a new
movement had started in the world of algebra that
pushed the study of non-commutative rings and their
modules via geometric techniques. This new subject became
known as non-commutative algebraic geometry.
“This was an entirely new subject, and I was fortunate
to enter it at its inception,” she said. “There were
many open problems ripe for the picking and many that
were accessible to junior researchers such as myself.
This meant that I was able to make groundbreaking
contributions to the subject while I was still a student,
simply because the subject was so new. I found it to be
very exciting.”
Vancliff says that she was fortunate that her Ph.D.
advisor at the University of Washington, S.P. Smith,
took his responsibilities very seriously.
“Not only does he have a rare gift for being able to
explain mathematics and its intricate beauty, but he also
devoted time to teaching me how to write research publications
and funded my participation at conferences
and workshops,” Vancliff said. “He actively encouraged
me to network and interact with famous mathematicians,
and those opportunities proved to be invaluable
to me throughout my career.”
Vancliff earned her Ph.D. in 1993, and then worked
for two years as a visiting assistant professor at the University
of Southern California in Los Angeles. From
there, she moved to Belgium and worked for a year as a
researcher at the University of Antwerp, before spending
two years at the University of Oregon in Eugene. In
1997, Vancliff had a conversation with a colleague in
Oregon which led to a significant career decision. The
colleague had family living in Fort Worth and was familiar
with the North Texas region.
“He felt very strongly that I would be happy working
at UT Arlington and living in the DFW area, so he encouraged
me to apply to UT Arlington,” Vancliff said. “I
investigated UT Arlington online and found a vibrant,
growing university.”
When she interviewed in 1998, she found that the
department was strong in applied mathematics and less
so in algebra, which Vancliff took as a “positive challenge”.
She joined the faculty as an assistant professor
starting that fall.
“The department has changed much in the past 15
years, and its research has grown in strength, with many
of the current faculty earning research grants,” she said.
Her own research has been continuously funded since
her arrival.
V
ancliff is working with her graduate
students on several projects.
She and third-year doctoral student
Richard Chandler are looking
at the point schemes and line
schemes of a family of algebras
and trying to understand the algebras'
underlying structure.
Chandler first met Vancliff when he was an undergraduate
in her Abstract Algebra class in 2010. He earned a
B.A. in Mathematics with teaching certification in May
2011 and entered the Ph.D. program that fall. He wants
to go into academia after earning his doctoral degree.
“Dr. Vancliff is an amazing mentor,” Chandler said.
“She has very high standards for all of her students, but
they are always reasonable. She doesn’t expect perfection,
but she does expect that you put 100 percent into
all aspects of your work.”
Padmini Veerapen studied under Vancliff and
earned a Ph.D. in May 2013. She’s now an assistant professor
of math at Tennessee Technological University in
Cookeville, Tenn.
“Dr. Vancliff emphasized a level of detail and thoroughness
during my years under her supervision that is
allowing me now to successfully handle all my responsibilities
as a faculty member,” Veerapen said.
In addition to her research and teaching, Vancliff is
the organizer of the long-running DFW Algebraic
Geometry, Algebra and Number Theory (AGANT) seminar
series, which brings together researchers and students
from academia and industry in the Metroplex and
beyond and features national and international speakers.
She also created the department’s Graduate Forum,
which helps junior Ph.D. students by letting them talk
with faculty mentors and senior doctoral students.
“It is very fulfilling and satisfying to share my knowledge
with my students and see them enjoy the material
as much as I do,” Vancliff said. “When they see the connections
that I see and share with me their delight in
finding new connections, I can see how much they have
grown mathematically, and that is a joy to witness. It is
particularly exciting to see them continue a research
path after graduation, especially in academia where they
can continue this sharing of knowledge with the next
generation of students.”
Vancliff says that helping and sharing her knowledge
with others, working as part of a team, and using the
technical expertise she has acquired to solve problems
are all rewarding aspects of her job as a researcher and
educator.
“I very much enjoy that my work at UTA entails all
these components, both individually and in combination,”
she said. “I also find that my success at earning
research grants renews my energy, not only in the research
arena, but in all aspects of my job. I consider myself
very fortunate to be able to work in my chosen
career, and in the supportive environment of UTA.” n
Maverick Science 2013-14
43

F a c u l t y N e w s
Todd Castoe, assistant professor of biology, was
lead author of a paper published in December by
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
which said the Burmese python’s ability to
ramp up its metabolism and enlarge its organs to
swallow and digest prey whole can be traced to unusually
rapid evolution and specialized adaptations
of its genes and the way they work. Castoe was
part of an international team which sequenced and
analyzed the genome of the Burmese python
(Python molurus bivittatus). Because snakes contain
many of the same genes as other vertebrates,
studying how these genes have evolved to produce
such extreme and unique characteristics in snakes
can eventually help explain how these genes function,
including how they enable extreme feats of
organ remodeling. Such knowledge may eventually
be used to treat human diseases.
Woo-Suk Chang, assistant professor in biology, received
$100,000 from Novozymes Biologicals, Inc.,
a biotechnology company, to study symbiotic nitrogen
fixation and discover a way to deliver nitrogen
through a better inoculant in crops (i.e., soybeans)
which is more efficient and better for the environment.
Inoculants are microorganisms which are
added to crops to promote plant health.
Manfred Cuntz, professor of physics, secured a
$15,000 grant from the NASA Education & Public
Outreach program to fund an updated version of a
show about the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy (SOFIA) for the Planetarium at UT
Arlington. SOFIA is an airborne observatory that will
complement the Hubble, Spitzer and other space
telescopes as well as major Earth-based telescopes.
Since the debut of the Planetarium’s original
show, SOFIA has obtained many additional
findings, which the new show will include.
Yue Deng, assistant professor of physics, received
a $408,000, three-year award from NASA’s heliophysics
division in January 2013 to develop a 3-D
look at how electrodynamic energy from solar
winds enters and moves throughout the Earth’s
upper atmosphere. Deng aims to help scientists and
engineers protect satellites, power distribution systems
and other vital infrastructure from the potentially
harmful effects of these inevitable bursts of
energy. She is co-developer of a new 3-D Global
Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model, or GITM.
Rasika Dias, distinguished professor and chair of
chemistry and biochemistry, received a $450,000,
three-year grant from the National Science Foundation
to develop new chemical processes and
technologies based on a better understanding of
the way that metals such as gold, silver, mercury
and zinc bind with organic compounds for chemical
reactions. The project involves reactions used
widely in industry and research laboratories. Dias’
work will explore the interaction between six metals
found in the right section of the Periodic Table
of Elements’ d-block and what are called pi-acid
ligands, which include familiar organic compounds
like carbon monoxide, ethylene, acetylene and the
related olefins and alkynes.
44 Maverick Science 2013-14
John ‘Trey’ Fondon, assistant professor of biology,
co-authored a study on gene mutation in pigeons
which was published in the Feb. 17 edition of the
journal Current Biology. The study explored pigeons
as a model for vertebrate evolution and
found that mutations and interactions among just
three genes create a wide range of color variations.
One of those genes may be an example of a “slippery
gene” more prone to evolutionary changes.
The genes in the study have previously been linked
to skin and hair color variation among people, as
well as the development of melanoma.
Matthew Fujita and Todd Castoe, assistant professors
of biology, were among 30 co-authors on a
2013 Genome Biology publication that described
their work on an international effort to sequence
the genome of a western painted turtle, only the
second reptile species to have its genetic information
fully mapped. Researchers found that some of
the turtle’s extraordinary abilities – like being able
to withstand oxygen deprivation and near total
freezing of its tissue – may be linked to sets of
genes that are common to all vertebrates, but used
uniquely in the turtle. It also showed that the turtle
genome has evolved extremely slowly.
Robert Gatchel, the Nancy P. & John G. Penson Endowed
Professor of Clinical Health Psychology and
director of the Center of Excellence for the Study
of Health & Chronic Illnesses, received the 2013
Dallas Psychological Association's Distinguished Psychologist
Award. Gatchel was nominated based on
his years of contributions to the psychological community
as well as his mentorship of graduate students.
Laura Gough, associate professor of biology, co-authored
a paper in the May 15 edition of the journal
Nature which challenges long-held ideas about the
effects of temperature increases in the Alaskan
tundra. Gough and other researchers working at
the U.S. Arctic Long Term Ecological Research Site
in northern Alaska found that carbon stocks in soils
subjected to 20 years of experimental warming did
not differ from soils that experienced ambient air
temperatures. They believe a complicated interplay
between increased woody-shrub growth and
the soil could be counteracting the warming effects,
but they say more study is needed in the
form of continued monitoring as the Arctic continues
warming and additional experiments that alter
temperatures over the long-term.
Jared Kenworthy, associate professor of psychology,
co-authored a study by a UT Arlington research
team published in the August issue of the Hispanic
Journal of Behavioral Science that found feelings
of entitlement and superiority that go beyond patriotism
and love of country may be a key predictor
for Americans who will feel or behave negatively
toward undocumented Latino immigrants. The
study looked at those enhanced feelings of superiority
– referred to as group-level narcissism – along
with a factor called national in-group identification,
which happens when a person’s individual
identity is strongly tied to and dependent on their
membership in a group, like being an American.
Peter Kroll, associate professor of chemistry and
biochemistry, is part of a multidisciplinary team
which received a $640,000 National Science Foundation
grant to assemble a computer-based
“genome” that will aid in the design and development
of advanced new materials that are super
hard, can resist extreme heat, are highly durable
and are less expensive. The work is funded through
a 2011 White House “Materials Genome Initiative”
intended to cut in half the time it takes to develop
novel materials that can fuel advanced manufacturing.
The effort has been compared with the national
Human Genome Project launched in the
1980s.
Daniel Levine, professor of psychology, was cochair
of the International Joint Conference on Neural
Networks (IJCNN 2013), held August 4-9 at the
Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. The IJCNN is the premier
international conference in the area of neural networks.
IJCNN 2013 was organized by the International
Neural Network Society (INNS), and
sponsored jointly by INNS and the IEEE Computational
Intelligence Society – the two leading professional
organizations for researchers working in
neural networks.
J. Ping Liu, professor of physics, received three research
grants: (1) a $490,000, two-year grant from
the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research
Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop rareearth-free
nano-composite magnets (manganese
and bismuth-based) which will not be dependent
on the expensive rare-earth elements currently
used in most magnets; (2) a $300,000, two-year
grant from the Department of Defense Army Research
Office for research on magnetic thin films;
(3) a $100,000 industrial sponsor grant for research
on bulk magnetic materials.
Fred MacDonnell, professor of chemistry, and recently
retired UT Arlington research associate professor
Norma Tacconi were awarded a three year,
$430,346 National Science Foundation grant to
study a new method for converting carbon dioxide
to methanol. The grant is part of the Sustainable
Chemistry, Engineering and Materials (SusChEM)
program, which aims to promote environmental
sustainability. It was part of $49 million in inaugural
grant awards given to 101 scientists and engineers.
The NSF started SusChEM in 2012 to support the discovery
of new science and engineering that will
provide a safe, stable and sustainable supply of
chemicals and materials sufficient to meet future
global demand.
Fred MacDonnell, professor of chemistry and biochemistry,
led a team which co-authored a paper
published in the May edition of Molecular Cancer
Therapeutics that identified two ruthenium-based
complexes the team believes could pave the way
for treatments that control cancer cell growth
more effectively and are less toxic for patients than
current chemotherapies. The team describes two
Faculty continued on page 46

S t u d e n t a n d A l u m n i N e w s
Ali Alam, a second-year medical student at Texas
A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine
who earned a B.S. in Biology from UT Arlington in
2012, received two fellowship awards over the
summer for his research into the most common
and malignant form of brain tumor, glioblastoma.
The first is the American Association of Neurological
Surgeons Medical Student Summer Research
Fellowship, which is for $2,500. The second is the
Alpha Omega Alpha Carolyn L. Kuckein Student
Research Fellowship, given by Alpha Omega Alpha,
the medical honor society, which is for $5,000.
Jayant Bhalerao, a Ph.D. student in physics, was
selected as a NASA/Texas Space Grant Consortium
Fellow for the 2013-14 academic year. The fellowship
consists of a $5,000 supplemental stipend.
Over the last eight years, the Texas Space Grant
Consortium (TSGC) has awarded over $1.25 million
in fellowships and scholarships. Bhalerao’s
faculty mentor is Sangwook Park, assistant professor
of physics.
Emmanuel Fordjour, a junior in the Honors Biology
program with a minor in chemistry, earned
the Joan Abramowitz Award for Outstanding Scientific
Achievement for his poster presentation at
the Joint American Society of Microbiology Branch
conference in November in New Orleans. He is involved
in molecular microbiology and bacterial infectious
disease research in the lab of Julian
Hurdle, assistant professor of biology. Fordjour’s
project was titled “Analysis of Anti-Clostridium
difficile Activity of Paired Antibiotic Combinations”.
Clostridium difficile is an intestinal bacterium
that causes severe to fatal diarrhea, killing
over 15,000 people annually in the United States.
John Gurak, a junior in chemistry/biochemistry,
was one of fewer than 40 scholars nationwide to
be awarded the EPA National Center for Environmental
Research’s two-year fellowship for undergraduate
study for 2013. It provides $50,000 over
two years to cover costs of tuition, books, travel
to conferences and other expenses.
Trevor Henry, a senior in interdisciplinary studies
(biology, geology and teaching) and a student presenter/educator
at The Planetarium at UT Arlington,
received a Hamilton Planetarium Scholarship,
which includes a cash award which is renewable
on an annual basis and entitles Henry to memberships
in the international and regional planetarium
associations.
Yayu ‘Monica’ Hew, a 2013 UT Arlington aerospace
engineering and physics graduate, was one
of Aviation Week’s “Twenty20s” honorees. The
Twenty20s recognize top science, technology, engineering
and math (STEM) students. The program
connects the next generation of aerospace and
defense talent with established leaders who have
created many of the “firsts” driving innovation in
the 21st century. Hew is pursuing her master’s degree
in aerospace engineering at Stanford University.
Alicia Machuca, a Ph.D. student in mathematics,
received a Student Presentation Award at the
2013 Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and
Native Americans (SACNAS) National Conference
in early October in San Antonio. Her presentation
was titled “An Exact Solution Formula for the
Kadomtsev-Petvishvili Equation”. Machuca, in her
fifth year of doctoral studies, conducts research
in partial differential equations. Her advisor is
Tuncay Aktosun, professor of mathematics.
Aaron Myers, a master’s student in Earth and Environmental
Science and an environmental analyst
with Associated Air Center in Dallas, helped Associated
Air win a 2013 Texas Environmental Excellence
Award from the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The award, for
Pollution Prevention, was given to Associated Air
for creating a safe alternative to hexavalent
chromium, which is used to meet requirements
for corrosion protection but is highly toxic. The
facility team of which Myers is a part came up
with a way to use an alkaline detergent wash and
solgel conversion coating instead of the “alodine”
(chromate conversion) coating. Myers also helped
Associated Air win the Most Valuable Pollution Prevention
(MVP2) award from the National Pollution
Prevention Roundtable (NPPR) for efforts in reducing
and, in some cases, eliminating hexavalent
chromium from its processes.
Donivan Porterfield, an analytical chemistry and
radiochemical measurements scientist at Los
Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.,
received the 2013 Award of Merit from the American
Society for Testing and Materials in November.
Porterfield earned a B.S. in Chemistry from
UT Arlington. The award recognizes Porterfield for
his extensive knowledge and commitment to excellence
in standards development.
The UT Arlington physics team educated and entertained
area students at the 10th annual Aviation
& Transportation Career Expo on October 4.
The event, sponsored by DFW International Airport,
the Federal Aviation Administration, American
Airlines and Tarrant County College, was held
at the C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth and the
American Airlines hangar at DFW Airport. More
than 3,000 students and about 1,000 teachers and
administrators from 60 North Texas schools
learned about aviation, transportation and science
in general at the Expo. UT Arlington team
members included Nilakshi Veerabathina, senior
lecturer in physics, Robert Bruntz, physics staff,
and physics students Andrea Marlar, Elijah Murphy,
Timothy Hoffman, Ashley Herbst, Sarah
Moorman, Monica Hernandez, Jeremiah
Browne, Kyle van Zuiden and Benjamin Rodriguez.
The UT Arlington chapter of Sigma Pi Sigma, the
physics honor society, inducted eight new members
in a ceremony November 19 in the Chemistry
& Physics Building. Sigma Pi Sigma is a national
organization open to students and faculty, or to
anyone who makes a significant contribution to
the field of physics. The UT Arlington chapter selects
new members based on a vote by active
members from the eligible pool of candidates, including
undergraduate students who are in the
top third of their class. Fall 2013 inductees included:
(undergraduates) Aaron Benjamin Baca,
Jeremiah D. Browne, Matthew Chrysler, Ricky
Hensley, Codie Mishler, Ying Wun Yvonne Ng,
Timothy Blake Watson; (faculty) Nilakshi Veerabathina,
senior lecturer in physics.
College of Science students earned numerous
awards at the 2013 Annual Celebration of Excellence
by Students (ACES) symposium, held March
27 in the E.H. Hereford University Center. They
include:
Ashley Asmus, biology, Graduate Sustainability
Award ($200) for the project, “Living fast above
the Arctic Circle: tundra arthropod assemblages
under severe seasonal constraints”.
Undergraduate Poster Presentation
Sabra Ramirez, chemistry, President’s Poster
Award ($200) for the project, “Synthesis and
Characterization of Sulfur-Containing Aliphatic
Photoluminescent Polymers”.
Hasan Sumdani, biology, Provost’s Poster Award
($100) for the project, “Protists and Bacteria in
an Aquatic Environment”.
Aliza Denobrega, psychology, Honorable Mention
($25) for the project, “Estrogen Modulates Conditioned
Cocaine Reward”.
Undergraduate Morning Oral Presentation
Catherine Greene, biology, Provost’s Award
($100) for the project, “Population Seasonal
Growth Dynamics of the Invasive Zebra Mussel
(Dreissena polymorpha) in Lake Texoma, Texas”.
Jessica Azzinnari, biology, Graduate Dean’s
Award ($50) for the project, “Life History Tradeoffs
of Vaejovis Scorpions in Response to Environment
Disturbances”.
Undergraduate Afternoon Oral Presentation
Keith Gray, physics, Provost’s Award ($100 ) for
the project, “Examination of the outgassing spectrum
on several generations of micro-channel
plate photomultiplier tubes”.
William Rush Scaggs, biology, Graduate Dean’s
Award ($50) for the project, “Rhodium Catalyzed
Regio- and Stereocontrol of Homoallylic Silyl
Ethers”.
Graduate Poster Presentation
Nagham Alatrash, chemistry, President’s Poster
Award ($200) for the project, “Chemotherapy
with Metals: Biological Activity of Lipophilic
Ruthenium (II) Polypyridyl Complexes”.
Angela Osen, geology, Honorable Mention ($25)
for the project, “Late Permian climate sensitivity
to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations
and precession cycles: implications for
the mass extinction”.
Graduate Morning Oral Presentation
Ashley Asmus, biology, President’s Award ($300)
for the project, “Living fast above the Arctic Circle:
tundra arthropod assemblages under severe
seasonal constraints”.
Students/Alumni continued on page 46
Maverick Science 2013-14
45

Faculty continued from page 44
newly developed ruthenium polypyridyl complexes,
or RPCs, that yielded results comparable to cisplatin
– one of the most widely used anti-cancer
drugs – against human non-small cell lung cancer
cells in pre-clinical lab tests.
Maeli Melotto, assistant professor of biology, coauthored
a paper published in the Nov. 19, 2012 online
edition of the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences in which researchers
examining how the hormone jasmonate works to
protect plants and promote their growth revealed
how a transcriptional repressor of the jasmonate
signaling pathway makes its way into the nucleus
of the plant cell. They hope the discovery will
eventually help farmers experience better crop
yields with less use of potentially harmful chemicals.
Zdzislaw Musielak, professor of physics, received
a three-year, $301,339 National Science Foundation
grant to investigate Alfvén waves in the Sun, a phenomenon
vital to understanding Earth’s nearest
star. Musielak hopes to explore one of the Sun’s
great mysteries – what forces fuel the heat of its
outer atmosphere and the basic physical processes
for creating its magnetic influence on Earth and
other planets.
Krishnan Rajeshwar, distinguished professor of
chemistry and biochemistry, was elected in June as
a vice president of The Electrochemical Society, an
educational nonprofit with more than 8,000 members
in more than 70 countries around the world.
The organization is based in New Jersey and also
has about 100 corporate members, including many
laboratories. Rajeshwar has been a faculty member
in the College of Science since 1983 and was a charter
member of the UT Arlington Academy of Distinguished
Professors.
Jorge Rodrigues, assistant professor of biology, coauthored
a paper published in the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences which
revealed a new concern about deforestation in the
Amazon rainforest – a troubling net loss in the diversity
among the microbial organisms responsible
for a functioning ecosystem. An international team
of microbiologists sampled a 38 square mile area in
the Fazenda Nova Vida site in Rondônia, Brazil,
where the rainforest has been converted to agricultural
use. Their findings in part validated previous
research showing that bacteria in the soil
became more diverse over the years, as it was converted
to pasture. But their findings contradicted
prior thinking by showing that the loss of restricted
ranges for different kinds of bacteria communities
resulted in a biotic homogenization and net loss of
diversity overall.
Kevin Schug, associate professor of chemistry and
biochemistry, co-authored a study of 100 private
water wells in and near the Barnett Shale that
showed elevated levels of potential contaminants
such as arsenic and selenium closest to natural gas
extraction sites. The study’s results were published
online by the journal Environmental Science &
Technology on July 25. The paper focused on the
presence of metals such as arsenic, barium, selenium
and strontium in water samples. Many of
these heavy metals occur naturally at low levels in
groundwater, but disturbances from natural gas extraction
activities could cause them to occur at elevated
levels. Brian Fontenot, a UT Arlington graduate
with a Ph.D. in quantitative biology and the
paper’s lead author, said more studies are needed
to conclusively identify the exact causes of elevated
levels of contaminants in areas near natural
gas drilling.
Kevin Schug, associate professor of chemistry &
biochemistry, was named Outstanding ACES Faculty
Mentor during the 2013 Annual Celebration of Excellence
by Students symposium on March 27.
Jianzhong Su, chair and professor of mathematics,
co-authored a paper published in the November
edition of the Journal of Immunological Methods
detailing a study using mathematical modeling to
develop a computer simulation which could one
day improve the treatment of dangerous reactions
to medical implants such as stents, catheters and
artificial joints. The work resulted from a National
Institutes of Health-funded collaboration by research
groups headed by Su and Liping Tang, professor
of bioengineering.
Muhammed Yousufuddin, research scientist in
chemistry and manager of the Center for Nanostructured
Materials, co-authored a study which was
published in the May 15 edition of the Journal of
the American Chemical Society about collaborative
research in biaryls. Biaryls, where two aromatic
rings are connected by a covalent bond, are a common
structure in pharmaceuticals, organic materials,
and ligands for catalysts. Such molecules are
typically made by connecting functionalized, and
often activated, aromatic rings using a transition
metal catalyst.
Students/Alumni continued from page 45
Shweta Panchal, biology, Honorable Mention
($50) for the project, “Regulation of plant immunity
by air humidity”.
Colin Jenney, psychology, Honorable Mention
($50) for the project, “The Influence of Previous
Experience on Exergame Use in College Undergraduates”.
Graduate Afternoon Oral Presentation
Hui Fan, chemistry, President’s Award ($300) for
the project, “Outlook on Treatment of Traumatic
Brian Injury - Ultra-trace Estrogen Detection in
Cerebrospinal Fluid to facilitate Neuroprotection
Studies”.
Eldon Prince, biology, Honorable Mention ($50)
for the project, “The genetic basis of convergent
evolution in humans and dogs”.
Last Feremenga, physics, Honorable Mention
($50) for the project, “Electron Identification
Studies for the Level 1 Trigger Upgrade”.
The College of Science honored outstanding students
with departmental scholarships for the
2012-13 academic year. Recipients included:
(Biology) Darrelle Colinot, Anh Le, Jose Maldonado,
Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award;
Nisita Obulareddy, Outstanding Graduate Research
Award; Samantha Trinh, Allied Health
Award; Heath Blackmon, T. E. Kennerly Award for
46 Maverick Science 2013-14
Excellence in Teaching; Paul Pasichnyk, The
William F. Pyburn Fellowship; Claudia Marquez,
Jessica Stevens, The Dr. Thomas R. Hellier, Jr. &
Mrs. Evelyn F. Hellier Biology Scholarship; Yomna
Farooqi, Dianna Nguyen, Emmanuel Fordjour,
Nathan Nguyen, Whitney Hall, Toan Nguyen,
Thao Hoang, Andrew Schroeder, Sungryeong
Kim, Martin Tran, The William L. & Martha
Hughes Award for the Study of Biology.
(Chemistry and Biochemistry) Alexa Dean, CRC
Handbook Award for Outstanding Freshman;
Ruona Ebiai, Robert F. Francis Award for Outstanding
Sophomore; Hiep Nguyen, R.L. Hoyle
Award for Outstanding Junior; Akinde Kadjo,
John T. Murchison Award for Outstanding Senior;
Khoa Nguyen, American Chemical Society Award
for Outstanding Chemistry & Biochemistry Major;
Hassan Kanani, Outstanding Chemistry Clinic
Tutor Award; Clifford ‘CJ’ Bautista, Chemistry
and Biochemistry Society Outstanding Member
Award; John Gurak, Undergraduate Research
Award; Amanda Dark, Undergraduate Teaching
Award; Prajay Patel, John Gurak, Daniel & Linda
Armstrong Scholarship; Jonathan Thacker, Hassan
Kanani, Sharon & Donald L. Jernigan Chemistry
Scholarship; Khoa Nguyen, Dennis S.
Marynick Scholarship; Junhee Park, Mayokun
Olanipekun, Ash Grove Cement Excellence Scholarship;
Lauren Apgar, Tony ‘Danny’ Nguyen,
John T. Murchison Scholarship; Nicole Khatibi,
Graduate Teaching Award; Shuai Chen, President
James Spaniolo Graduate Research Award; C.
Phillip Shelor, Charles K. Baker Fellowship Award.
(Mathematics) Kevin Mark Roche, Lingjia Zhang,
Norma Ghanem, John A. Gardner Scholarship;
Prajay Patel, Erick Villarreal, H.A.D. Dunsworth
Scholarship; Andrew McGinnis, Eric Moraw, Timothy
Hoffman, R. Kannan Memorial Scholarship;
Omomayowa Olawoyin, Denise Rangel, Benny M.
McCarley Scholarship; Richard Chandler,
Pengcheng Xiao, Stephen R. Bernfeld Memorial
Scholarship; Andrew McGinnis, Outstanding Junior;
Josh Hodges, Outstanding Senior; Mark Jackson,
Outstanding Math Clinic Tutor; Thomas
Seaquist, Padmini Veerapen, Outstanding Graduate
Teaching; Aubrey Rhoden, Weichao Wang,
Outstanding Graduate Research; Julie Sutton,
Outstanding Graduate Student.
(Physics) Shree Bhattarai, Timothy Hoffman,
Outstanding Physics Major; Bryan Black, Cezanne
Narcisse, R. Jack Marquis Award; Aaron Baca,
Hector Tejeda, Keith W. Tompkins Award; Last
Feremenga, Sarah Hernandez, John D. McNutt
Award; Harsha Perera, Christy Boone, Kinjal
Gandha, Scharff Award; Lee Baker, Jordan Benson,
Bonnie Cecil and Jo Thompson Award; Timothy
Blake, Brian Bui, James L Horwitz Award.
(Psychology) Priya Iyer, Verne Cox Outstanding
Graduate Research Award; Ailing Li, Anna Park,
Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award.

CHANGE A LIFE
YOUR ANNUAL GIFTS SHAPE THE FUTURE OF COLLEGE OF SCIENCE STUDENTS
Your support makes an immediate and lasting impact
Your annual gifts prepare our dedicated and talented students to become tomorrow’s leaders and make a
lasting impact on society.
Decreases in state assistance to public universities make gifts from alumni and other supporters even more
important. They help fund critical areas like student scholarships and efforts to recruit and retain world-class
faculty, propelling the College of Science ahead as we strive to train and equip the next generation of leaders
in science and conduct groundbreaking research which will benefit society.
UT Arlington works to keep tuition affordable so that students can fulfill their dreams of earning a college
degree. As a result, tuition revenue covers less than 50 percent of the University’s operating budget. Beyond
basic expenses, funding is necessary for innovative research programs, student enrichment, financial aid for
talented scholars, and countless other initiatives.
Your gift doesn’t have to be large to make a difference. Any amount — $10, $25, $50, or more on a regular
basis — adds up to significant dollars. Regardless of the size of your gift, your decision to give is priceless.
Also, your gift has an immediate impact. By contributing each year, you provide a consistent funding stream
that shapes the future of deserving Mavericks who, in turn, will shape the future of our world.
Give now
For more information about giving to the College of Science, please contact Shelly Frank, College of Science
director of development, at shellyfrank@uta.edu or 817-272-1497.

College of Science
Box 19047
Arlington, TX 76019-0047
http://www.uta.edu/cos
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Arlington, TX
Permit No. 81
Look out world, here we come
Commencement is a special time in students’ lives, marking the successful
culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice. When your name is read and
you cross the stage, listen to the cheers of family and friends, and grasp that
diploma, the feelings of pride and accomplishment will be priceless. Whatever
lies ahead aer graduation, never forget that you’re a Maverick, and Mavericks
make a difference. As a College of Science graduate, you will be well-equipped
with the knowledge and the training to take your place among the leaders of the
next generation of scientists and make a lasting impact on the world. Here, new
College of Science graduates are ready to celebrate during the Spring 2013 Commencement
ceremony at College Park Center. Photo by Kevin Gaddis Jr.