Advancing the Strategic Plan 2020 - Spring 2018

GUIDING ASPIRATION
ENGAGE IN HIGH-IMPACT RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
“UTA will strengthen applied and
translational research and scholarship that
is multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary
and that has high impact on society through
enhanced development and application of
knowledge.”
RESEARCH
SOURCES
FY17
Image courtesy of Sandbox Studios
LEADER IN HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS
UTA scientists led by physics Professor Jaehoon Yu
are playing an increasingly important role in the Deep
Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a 10-year,
$1.4 billion international project focused on subatomic
particles known as neutrinos. For the first phase of
the project, UTA is responsible for building a cage that
will provide a uniform electric field to the entire liquid
argon detection volume of the ProtoDUNE Dual Phase
detector being constructed at CERN in Switzerland. UTA
is the only U.S. university working on the ProtoDUNE
Dual Phase detector technology and is leading a
coalition—consisting of UT Austin, SMU, UT Dallas,
and the University of Puerto Rico—that is working on
the assembly of the charge readout plane, another key
component of the final DUNE detector.
KINESIOLOGIST WINS
$3.3 MILLION FOR HEART
RESEARCH
Michael Nelson, assistant
professor of kinesiology, received
a five-year, $3.3 million NIH
grant to study the link between
fat storage in the heart and
cardiovascular disease, as well as
the influence of gender on the development of cardiac
dysfunction. His preliminary data shows that men may
respond differently than premenopausal women, who
appear to be protected despite similar levels of fat in
the heart. Dr. Nelson and his team—which includes
Mark Haykowsky, the Moritz Chair of Geriatrics; Daisha
Cipher, associate professor of nursing; and researchers
from UT Southwestern, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles, and the University of Colorado at Denver—
will spend the next five years studying 60 healthy
subjects aged 18 to 30 to better understand the links
between different factors.
NATIONAL SPACE WEATHER INITIATIVE
UTA is leading a five-year, $7.3 million national initiative to develop a next-generation space
weather simulator capable of predicting energy distributions during space weather events like
solar flares with unprecedented accuracy. Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense through the
Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, the project is led by Associate Professor
Yue Deng and involves researchers from UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, MIT, the University
of Colorado at Boulder, the University of New Mexico, and UT Dallas. “UTA is leading a strategic
national project that is key to the stability of our communications systems and our national security,” says U.S. Rep.
Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. “The Department of Defense’s selection clearly demonstrates that research at UTA has
reached the very highest level and positions the university among the nation’s leaders in this field.”
BOLD SOLUTIONS
GLOBAL IMPACT
13