Texas Legislative Session


As lawmakers convene to tackle complex issues for the state, experts at The University of Texas at Austin can provide rich commentary and insight based on years of research and work in the field. Journalists covering the Legislature and Texas government can contact the following professors to discuss issues in these areas of concern to the Legislature:

If you are seeking expertise on other subjects, please call University Media Relations at 512-471-3151 or consult our general Media Experts Guide.



Criminal Justice


Michele Y Deitch

Michele Y Deitch

Distinguished Senior Lecturer , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 232 2562, +1 512 296 7212, michele.deitch@austin.utexas.edu

Deitch directs the LBJ School’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, a national policy resource center seeking to improve conditions of confinement and correctional oversight. She is an attorney with more than 35 years of experience working on criminal justice policy issues with state and local government officials, corrections leaders, justice system practitioners, and advocates. Most of Deitch's current research focuses on independent prison oversight, deaths in custody, and prison and jail management and conditions issues.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Jennifer E Laurin

Jennifer E Laurin

Professor , School of Law
+1 512 232 3627, jlaurin@law.utexas.edu

Laurin's principal research interests lie in the intersections of criminal and constitutional litigation, and regulation of criminal justice institutions.

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

Budget and Economy


Olivier  Coibion

Olivier Coibion

Professor , Department of Economics , College of Liberal Arts
, ocoibion@austin.utexas.edu

Olivier Coibion works on macroeconomic topics, including monetary policy, how agents for their expectations, inflation measurement, and commodity prices. Prior to joining UT Austin, Olivier worked at the International Monetary Fund, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Brookings Institution. He is also affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Education


Jennifer K Adair

Jennifer K Adair

Professor , Department of Curriculum and Instruction , College of Education
, jadair@austin.utexas.edu
Spanish Speaker

Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD is Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and the Director of the Agency and Young Children Research Collective at The University of Texas at Austin. A trained cultural anthropologist and former preschool teacher, Using video-cued ethnography, Dr. Adair works with young children, teachers, parents and administrators to understand how racism and white supremacy impact the learning experiences of young children. Dr. Adair focuses on the importance of agency for children's capability expansion as well as ways to locate/measure agency to overcome the overly-controlled schooling environments many children of color experience, even in the early years of school. Dr. Adair is a former Young Scholars Fellow with the Foundation for Child Development and recently completed a major Spencer Foundation study on civic agency in preschool classrooms. Dr. Adair is the author of the book, Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Early Learning (The University of Chicago Press, 2021; Awarded the Council on Anthropology and Education 2021 Outstanding Book Award) with Dr. Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove. Dr. Adair has published in numerous journals including Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Young Children, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. She currently serves on multiple, national editorial and advisory boards, and lectures in multiple countries. In addition to academic conferences, Jennifer has spoken at SXSW and Blackademics on why white parents need to talk to their children about racism and white supremacy. Jennifer's work and expertise can be found in a variety of media Washington Post, NPR, New America, Code Switch, Huffington Post, Edweek, The Conversation, Chicago Register and the Migration Policy Institute and NAEYC's recent equity statement.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Tricia S Berry

Tricia S Berry

Executive Director WiSTEM , Undergraduate College
, triciaberry@utexas.edu

Tricia Berry leads efforts to broaden participation in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) by creating an inspired community of confident STEM leaders as the Executive Director of Women in STEM (WiSTEM) at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a nationally recognized leader in Broadening Participation in STEM and STEM Education. With over 25 years of experience, her additional expertise includes STEM Workforce Development, Effective STEM Messaging and Engagement, Strategies to Engage Girls/Women in STEM, STEM Role Model Effective Strategies, Informal STEM Curriculum Development and Facilitation, Engaging Volunteers and Role Models, and Leadership and Career Development.

Christopher P Brown

Christopher P Brown

Professor , Department of Educational Leadership and Policy , College of Education
+1 512 232 2288, cpbrown@utexas.edu

Christopher is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy. He also is a Faculty Fellow with The Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis. He is also a former preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teacher who worked in Title 1 schools. Dr. Brown's research interests, rooted in qualitative methodologies, emerged from his experiences as a classroom teacher across a range of early childhood contexts. These experiences led him to build a research agenda rooted in the lived experiences of those working in contexts undergoing educational reform. By studying varied education stakeholders, he has sought to advocate for educational policies that seek to foster, sustain, and extend the complex educational, sociocultural, and individual goals and aspirations of children, their families, teachers, and school leaders. Much of his research seeks to understand how policymakers' reforms impact the lived experiences of those working across the varied fields of early education. This work illuminates how early childhood stakeholders in public school settings, including district/school administrators and classroom teachers, make sense of and can respond to policymakers’ reforms that emphasize increased academic achievement, standardization, and accountability while providing limited resources through rigorous and developmentally appropriate learning experiences; such practices seek to support all children through equitable learning experiences so that they can grow as learners and as members of their communities. His other primary line inquiry examines the impact of policymakers' reforms on the lived experiences of education stakeholders is in the field of teacher education. In doing so, his goal is to understand how teacher education programs can prepare preservice teachers to not only being successful classroom teachers but also advocates for change so that they can engage in equitable instructional practices that best align with the needs and wants of their students and the communities in which they teach. Such work has resulted in Dr. Brown receiving funding from the Spencer Foundation multiple times and publishing over 75 peer-reviewed articles using a range of qualitative research methods, including case study, video-cued multi-vocal ethnographic, and qualitative metasynthesis methods, to examine issues centering on policy, teaching, and teacher education. These publications have appeared in such journals as: Journal of School Leadership, Educational Policy, Leadership and Policy in Schools, Teachers College Record, American Educational Research Journal, The Elementary School Journal Qualitative Inquiry, Teaching and Teacher Education, AERA Open, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, and The Teacher Educator. Among these pieces, he is the first author on 72 of them, and 48 were written with 16 former and current graduate students. Additionally, he has written several pieces with former graduate students published in such practitioner-based journals as Principal and Phi Delta Kappan. He has also edited two research-oriented books, written one practitioner-oriented textbook with two former graduate students, a parent-oriented book on the issue of kindergarten readiness, and published a book about the changed kindergarten with Teachers College Press. Lastly, he has written numerous book chapters and research-based commentaries. As an instructor at UT, he is a highly rated professor who has been awarded the University of Texas System Board of Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award and the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Outstanding Early Childhood Teacher Educator Award. In terms of service, he currently serve as the co-editor for the ECE Series at Teacher College Press. He is also on the editorial board for the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, and the International Advisory Board for the Journal of Early Childhood Research. He has also served as the Past-Chair, Chair, and Chair Elect of the Early Education and Child Development Special Interest Group of AERA. Furthermore, at UT, he currently serves as the Graduate Studies Council Chair and Assistant Graduate Advisor for the ELP department as well as the M.Ed. Program Co-Coordinator for the Educational Policy and Program Area.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Keffrelyn D Brown

Keffrelyn D Brown

Professor , Department of Curriculum and Instruction , College of Education
+1 512 232 4257, keffrelyn@austin.utexas.edu

Keffrelyn D. Brown (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is the Suzanne B. and John L. Adams Endowed Professor of Education and Distinguished University Teaching Professor of Cultural Studies in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is the co-founder and co-director (with Dr. Anthony Brown) of the Center for Innovation in Race, Teaching, and Curriculum. She also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Women and Gender Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on the sociocultural knowledge of race in teaching and curriculum, critical multicultural teacher education and the educational discourses and intellectual thought related to African Americans and their educational experiences in the U.S. Keffrelyn has published over 50 books, journal articles, book chapters and other educational texts. She serves on the editorial boards for several well-recognized peer-reviewed journals including Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Teaching and Teacher Education and Urban Education. Her most recent book, After the "At-Risk" Label: Reorienting Risk in Educational Policy and Practice was published by Teachers College Press. Keffrelyn has received recognition for both her research and teaching. In 2017 she received the Division K Mid-career Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). In 2013 she was awarded the Kappa Delta Pi/Division K Early Career Research Award from AERA. She is also the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and the Wisconsin-Spencer Foundation Research Training Grant. In 2012 she received the Regent's Outstanding Teaching award, the highest teaching honor given for excellence in undergraduate teaching across the University of Texas system. She was inducted in the Provost's Teaching Fellows program at UT-Austin in 2017 and in its Academy of Distinguished Teaching in 2019. Keffrelyn is a sought after presenter in her local, regional and national communities. She is active in the multiple roles she has as a researcher, teacher, teacher educator and critically engaged community member. As a former elementary and middle school teacher, school administrator, and curriculum developer, Keffrelyn is keen to the everyday challenges of schooling.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Elizabeth T Gershoff

Elizabeth T Gershoff

Director, Population Research Center , Department of Human Development and Family Sciences , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 471 4800, liz.gershoff@austin.utexas.edu

Gershoff explores how neighborhoods, schools, early childhood education settings, and public policies affect children and youths, focusing on how socioeconomic resources and exposure to violence influence them. More specifically, Gershoff’s current research interests center on four topics: (1) how parental discipline affects child and youth development; (2) how contexts of poverty, neighborhoods, schools, and cultures affect children, youth, and families; (3) how exposure to various forms of violence (from parents, communities, and terrorism) affect child and youth development; and (4) how enriched early childhood educational environments can improve the lives of low income children and their families. Dr. Gershoff is committed to using advanced applications of structural equation modeling and hierarchical modeling to understand the dynamic and multilayered contexts of children’s lives.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Joan  Hughes

Joan Hughes

Associate Professor , Department of Curriculum and Instruction , College of Education
+1 512 232 4145, joanh@austin.utexas.edu

Dr. Hughes has twenty-four years of teaching and research experience in the K-12 educational technology space. Her research and teaching focuses on teacher learning and technology integration in preservice teacher settings and PK-12 schools. She studies how teachers and K-12 students use technologies in-and-outside the classroom for subject area learning and how school leaders support classroom technology integration. She also explores the preparation of new teachers (in university certification programs) to determine how and what they are being prepared to do with technology in their future teaching positions. Her publications have been cited more than 3400 times. Her twenty-four years working in the educational technology field began as an elementary and middle school computer teacher in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Arthur B Markman

Arthur B Markman

Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs , Extended Education Ventures
+1 512 232 4645, markman@austin.utexas.edu

Arthur Markman's research interests include similarity and analogy, categorization, decision making and consumer behavior, and knowledge representation. Dr. Markman is the founding director of Human Dimensions of Organizations (HDO) at the University of Texas at Austin. HDO is a program that aims to provide education in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences to people in business, nonprofits, government, and the military. The goal of the program is to teach leaders about how people, groups, and cultures influence the workplace. He is also the director of Similarity and Cognition Lab. He has written numerous articles on his research areas. He was awarded a number of awards including grants to support his research such as the 2007 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue this research. He is currently the executive editor of the journal Cognitive Science. The journal is published by the Cognitive Science Society.

Sarah R Powell

Sarah R Powell

Professor , Department of Special Education , College of Education
+1 512 475 6556, srpowell@utexas.edu

Sarah R. Powell is a Professor in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin and Associate Director of the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk. Her research, teaching, and service focus on mathematics, particularly for students who experience mathematics differently. Powell is currently Principal Investigator (PI) of an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) efficacy grant (RAAMPS) related to word-problem solving at Grade 4. Powell is also PI of SPIRAL, an IES grant which works collaboratively with Grade 4 and 5 teachers who provide mathematics instruction to students with mathematics difficulty. Powell is Co-PI of STAIR 2.0 (funded by IES) in which the team works with middle school special education math teachers and SCALE (funded by the US Department of Education) in which the team is replicating a fraction intervention in Grades 4-8. Powell collaborates on Math Words, an IES development grant about mathematics vocabulary. She also assists with a word-problem project funded as a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to Querium. To help create the next generation of researchers focused on mathematics, Powell is PI of a doctoral leadership grant (LIME) funded by Office of Special Education Programs. Powell was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019. Powell understands all of these efforts are a team effort, and she thanks her project leads, graduate students, research assistants, and research collaborators as well as the teachers and students who participate in these projects.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Victor  Saenz

Victor Saenz

Associate Dean for Student Success, Community Engagement, and Administration , College of Education
+1 512 232 7519, +1 512 471 7551, vsaenz@austin.utexas.edu
Spanish Speaker

Victor B. Sáenz serves as the Associate Dean for Student Success, Community Engagement, and Administration in the College of Education and as the L. D. Haskew Centennial Professor in Public School Administration in the [link:https://education.utexas.edu/departments/educational-leadership-policy]Department of Educational Leadership and Policy[/link] at the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds courtesy appointments with the [link:https://lbj.utexas.edu/]LBJ School of Public Affairs[/link], the [link:https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/cmas/]Center for Mexican American Studies[/link], the [link:https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/mals/]Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies[/link], the [link:https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ppi/]Irma Rangel Public Policy Institute, the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis[/link], and the [link:https://heri.ucla.edu/]UCLA Higher Education Research Institute[/link]. Sáenz's current work advances research-informed best practices and policy solutions that improve educational outcomes for underserved students in education, with a special emphasis on boys and young men of color. In 2010 Sáenz co-founded an award-winning initiative at UT-Austin, a multi-pronged effort focused on advancing educational outcomes for male students of color. Under Project MALES he launched a nationally recognized Student Mentoring Program that partners with local schools to connect undergraduate peer mentors with middle school and high school male students. He also co-created a network of K-12 and higher education institutions called the [link:http://diversity.utexas.edu/txedconsortium/]Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color[/link] that focuses on advancing educational outcomes for this critical student population. Supported by grants from the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF), the Trellis Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, this statewide collaborative focuses on improving educational outcomes for male students of color across the state of Texas. The Consortium is made up of over thirty institutional partners in K-12 and higher education, and it seeks to align and coordinate existing programs and services across the education continuum. Over the years, Sáenz has received various research and service recognitions for his support of schools, students, and communities (e.g., Somos Austin, Seedling Mentors, Catch the Next). In 2009 he was named by Diverse Magazine as "One of 25 to Watch" diversity leaders in American higher education. In fall 2010, he was recognized as one of seven "ING Professors of Excellence" among over two thousand faculty members at the University of Texas. In 2018 he received a Research Award from the AERA Hispanic Research Issues SIG, and in 2022 he received the Mentoring Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education. He has also earned several faculty fellowships at UT-Austin and is currently the holder of the W.K. Kellogg Professorship in Community College Leadership. Sáenz has co-authored three books and has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and his work has been cited in numerous policy reports, scholarly publications, and by local and national media. He has presented his research at countless conferences and meetings across the country, including at the White House, the National Press Club, and on Capitol Hill. Sáenz is a member of two distinguished editorial boards for peer-reviewed journals in his field, and he is an active member of several national associations focused on higher education issues, including ASHE, AERA, AIR, AAHHE, and TACHE. He has also served on the national boards of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience, the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium, and the Texas Puente Project (Catch the Next). Locally he serves on the UT Elementary School Management Board, the Ann Richards School Foundation Board, and the Texas Lyceum Board. He is currently the Board Chair of AAHHE, a national association committed to advancing leadership opportunities for the Latinx community in higher education. Dr. Sáenz earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change in 2005 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also completed a Master's in Education in 2002. He also earned a Master's degree in Public Affairs (1999, LBJ School of Public Affairs) and a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics (1996, College of Natural Sciences) from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Sáenz is a fourth-generation Texan and a second-generation Longhorn.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Julie  Schell

Julie Schell

Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology and Director of the Office of Academic Technology
+1 512 232 1772, julie.schell@austin.utexas.edu

Dr. Julie Schell is the Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology and the Director of the [link:https://provost.utexas.edu/the-office/academic-affairs/office-of-academic-technology/]Office of Academic Technology[/link] at The University of Texas at Austin. She oversees the University's technology-enhanced learning ecosystem and works to advance teaching and learning through the strategic use of academic technology. She is also an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Departments of Design and Educational Leadership and Policy, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on learning experience design. In her current studios, Dr. Schell and her students are partnering with generative AI to prototype speculative objects and environments designed to improve teaching and learning in education settings.  Dr. Schell is also an award-winning college teaching and learning expert with over 25 years of expertise in higher education. She has delivered over 100 talks, workshops, and keynotes on teaching and learning. She is the creator of Think Before You Design Think­?, a popular introductory human-centered design curriculum she first launched at AT&T and has delivered at Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations throughout the United States. Dr. Schell's approach to design thinking focuses on using the principles of learning science to develop design thinking self-efficacy, especially among non-designers. She has supported thousands of new learners in their journey to understand and apply human-centered design to improve lived experiences. Before joining the Provost's office, Dr. Schell served as the Assistant Dean of Instructional Continuity and Innovation at the College of Fine Arts, where she led the [link:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10071173/]transition to online learning[/link] for over 200 arts and design faculty and academic staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Schell completed her doctorate in higher and postsecondary education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a four-year post-doctoral fellowship focused on the science of teaching and learning in the Mazur Group at Harvard University. Her dissertation, dedicated to improving undergraduate teaching and learning, won the Dissertation of the Year award for the American Educational Research Association's higher education division.  She has held positions at the nation's top research universities, including Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard.

Media Contact: Lara Harlan, lara@austin.utexas.edu, 512-475-7374

Jessica R Toste

Jessica R Toste

Associate Professor , Department of Special Education , College of Education
+1 512 475 6551, jrtoste@austin.utexas.edu

Jessica R. Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin. She holds research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and Texas Center for Equity Promotion; and is a fellow with the IES-funded Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE). Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities, and she is principal investigator on research grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Toste was trained in reading intervention research as a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University and as a Fulbright scholar at the Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University. She has worked as an elementary special education teacher and reading specialist in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dr. Toste is associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities and a principal member of the reading, writing, and language development grant review panel for the Institute of Education Sciences. She is an award-winning teacher; she was the recipient of a 2023 President's Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, 2022 Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award, and was named one of the 2017 "Texas 10" professors at UT Austin. She is current Chair of the Graduate Assembly and Immediate Past Chair of the Provost's Teaching Fellows Program at UT Austin, as well as current President of CEC's Division for Learning Disabilities, and Vice-President for CEC's Division for Research. Dr. Toste is engaged in advocacy as a member of the Board of Directors for GLSEN, a leading national organization focused on LGBTQ+ issues in K-12 education, and as Past Chair of the Board of Directors for Disability Rights Texas, the federally designated legal protection and advocacy agency for people with disabilities in Texas.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Paul  Von hippel

Paul Von hippel

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 537 8112, paulvonhippel@utexas.edu

Paul von Hippel?s research interests include educational inequality and the relationship between schooling, health, and obesity. He is currently working on a WT Grant-funded study on the growth of achievement gaps, as well as a study, funded by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, on financial inequality between families and between school districts. He was a co-investigator on a state-funded project that evaluated the teacher preparation programs in Texas, and he now serves as a research advisor to a multisite randomized study evaluating the impact of summer learning programs. He is a three-time winner of best article awards from the education and methodology sections of the American Sociological Association. Von Hippel is an expert on research design and on statistical methods for missing data. Before his academic career, he was a data scientist who developed fraud-detection scores for banks including JP Morgan Chase and the Bank of America.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

David S Yeager

David S Yeager

Professor , Department of Psychology , College of Liberal Arts
, dyeager@utexas.edu

Prior to his research career, David Yeager was a middle school teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In his substantive area of research, he studies adolescent development, with a focus on aggression, stress, and academic achievement. His approach is to conduct longitudinal, randomized field experiments at key transitions (e.g., the transition to high school or college) to investigate the role of social cognitive processes in shaping adolescents' developmental trajectories. This is because he believes that one good way to understand a developmental system is to try to change it. In addition, he draws on qualitative and correlational methodologies to examine developmental phenomena. In his current research, he is investigating the psychological causes of A) adolescents' reactions to peer exclusion or victimization, and B) changes in academic performance among racial minority adolescents at the transition to high school or college. This research has appeared or is scheduled to appear in Child Development, Developmental Psychology, JEP:General, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Review of Educational Research, the Journal of Adolescent Research, and other outlets. In his methodological research, he investigates the psychology of asking and answering questions, so as to optimize the accuracy of self-reports. In addition, he evaluates the accuracy of methods for sampling survey respondents (e.g., random samples and non-probability samples of Internet volunteers). His methodological research has appeared or is scheduled to appear in Public Opinion Quarterly, Developmental Psychology, and Medical Care

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Energy and the Environment


John C Butler

John C Butler

Clinical Associate Professor , Department of Finance , Red McCombs School of Business
+1 512 232 6821, butlerjc@mccombs.utexas.edu

John Sibley Butler is the director of the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center, and director of the IC2 Institute, which focuses on technology commercialization and is dedicated to the creation of new ventures throughout the world. He is an author, researcher and lecturer on venture start-up, immigrant and minority entrepreneurship and organizational behavior. Prof. Butler has consulted for many firms, such as State Farm Insurance Co., as well for the U.S. Military. He is also a member of the Economic Advisory Team of Governor George Bush's 2000 Presidential Campaign. His books include "Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black America: A Reconsideration of Race and Economics;" "All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way" (with Charles C. Moskos -- Winner of the Washington Monthly Best Book Award); and "Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship: The Continuous Rebirth of American Communities" (with George Kozmetsky). Butler has appeared on over 30 radio and television programs, including Eye On America (CBS Nightly News), The Jim Leher News Hour, CBS Radio Talk Show, The Osgood Report, and Public Radio. His research has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and other newspapers and magazines across America. Butler received his undergraduate education from Louisiana State University and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Media Contact: Judie Kinonen, judie.kinonen@mccombs.utexas.edu,

John S Dzienkowski

John S Dzienkowski

Professor , School of Law
+1 512 232 1367, jdzienkowski@law.utexas.edu

Professor Dzienkowski teaches and writes in the areas of professional responsibility of lawyers, real property, international energy transactions, and oil and gas taxation. He is widely regarded as one of the most dynamic and effective speakers on topics of professional responsibility and he has delivered almost one hundred ethics presentations to in-house corporate departments, large and small law firms, state bar continuing legal education programs, and law faculties throughout this country. John is also the co-chair of a bi-annual UT Program on Oil and Gas Taxation co-sponsored with the Internal Revenue Service. Professor Dzienkowski, along with John Steele and Bradley Wendel, have co-founded www.legalethicsforum.com, a leading blog on issues related to legal ethics. In 2004, John received the Texas Exes Faculty Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. He is a two-term member of the drafting committee of the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination.

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

David J Eaton

David J Eaton

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 471 8959, +1 512 471 8972, eaton@austin.utexas.edu

David J. Eaton received his Ph.D. in environmental engineering and geography from The Johns Hopkins University. Eaton teaches courses on systems analysis, environmental and energy policy, and nonprofit management in the LBJ School. He has lectured in twenty countries and conducted field research in fifteen nations.

Eaton's current research concerns U.S.-Mexico environmental cooperation, new methods for evaluation of air pollution emissions, joint management by Palestinians and Israelis of shared groundwater, and water conservation in Texas. The Texas Department of Insurance used research on tort reform directed by Eaton as evidence to justify rebates of over $1.3 billion for liability insurance in Texas in 1997-1999.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Brian L Evans

Brian L Evans

Professor , Chandra Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
+1 512 232 1457, bevans@ece.utexas.edu

William L Fisher

William L Fisher

Professor and Leonidas T. Barrow Centennial Chair Emeritus in Mineral Resources , Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences , Jackson School of Geosciences
, wfisher@jsg.utexas.edu

William L. Fisher is the Leonidas T. Barrow Chair and Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he served as the Inaugural Dean and the first Director of the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences (2001-2006), a school he was instrumental in founding as well as securing its substantial endowment. He is a former long-time director of the Bureau of Economic Geology (1979-1994, 2000-2001), former chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences (1984-1990) and former director of the Geology Foundation (1984-2006). Dr. Fisher is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as Assistant Secretary of Interior for Energy and Minerals under President Gerald Ford (1975-1977). Fisher has chaired and served on numerous state and federal advisory boards, as well as committees and boards of the National Research Council and professional societies. He has also served on several corporate boards. He served on the White House Science Council under President Ronald Reagan (1988-1989). Fisher's research has focused in the areas of stratigraphy, sedimentology, and oil and gas assessment. In 1967 he introduced the concept of depositional systems-now a fundamental part of modern stratigraphy and sedimentology. In 1987 he led an assessment team for DOE that turned around the then-prevalent view of natural gas scarcity. He has championed the importance of technology in resource availability and has been a leader in the rethinking of the significance of reserve growth from existing, geologically complex oil and gas fields. Dr. Fisher is past president of American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Association of American State Geologists, the American Geological Institute, the American Institute of Professional Geologists, the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, and the Austin Geological Society. He has received the Powers Medal from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Twenhofel Medal from SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology), the Campbell Medal from the American Geological Institute, the Parker Medal from the American Institute of Professional Geologists, the Boyd Medal from the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, the Hedberg Medal for Energy from the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, and the Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal from the American Geological Institute,among numerous other awards. Fisher holds a B.S. and D.Sc. (Hon.) from Southern Illinois University, a M.S. and Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Kansas, a D. Eng. (Hon.) from the Colorado School of Mines and D.Sc. (Hon) from Flinders Univeristy; he received the Presidential Citation (equivalent to an honorary doctorate) from The University of Texas at Austin.

Media Contact: Anton Caputo, anton.caputo@jsg.utexas.edu, 512-232-9623

Zhanfei  Liu

Zhanfei Liu

Professor , Department of Marine Science , College of Natural Sciences
+1 361 749 6772, zhanfei.liu@utexas.edu

Marine organic compounds are produced in the ocean surface through photosynthesis and are modified by bacteria or zooplankton; some are preserved by interaction with minerals. Dr. Liu’s research investigates the source, distribution, and changes of organic compounds in marine environments. Knowing geochemical behaviors of organic compounds is critical for a better understanding of global carbon cycle and nutrient dynamics. Dr. Liu is also interested in geochemical behaviors of petroleum hydrocarbons in marine environments. More recently, he's turned his attention to nurdles, small bits of plastic that are increasingly appearing in marine environments, to find out what toxins they may be absorbing and passing along to wildlife.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

David R Maidment

David R Maidment

Professor , Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
+1 512 468 1744, +1 512 471 0065, +1 512 471 4620, maidment@utexas.edu

Jon E Olson

Jon E Olson

Professor , Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
+1 512 471 3161, +1 512 471 7375, jolson@austin.utexas.edu

Varun  Rai

Varun Rai

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 471 4697, +1 512 471 5057, rai@austin.utexas.edu

Varun Rai earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2008 with specialization in energy systems and technologies. Before joining the University of Texas at Austin in July 2010 he was a research fellow at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) at Stanford University from 2008-2010. He holds a M.S. from Stanford and a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. His principal research interests are in technological change, innovation and diffusion; economics of climate change/integrated assessment models; and energy and development. His research combines energy systems modeling with the political economy of energy markets to understand how changes in energy technologies, market conditions, policies and regulation, and environment could impact energy generation. The emphasis of his research is on interdisciplinary and integrative research in engineering and policy to ensure that the insights from his policy research are rooted in the underlying technical realties. His past research has concentrated on three problems in particular: incentive policies and rates of technological diffusion for carbon capture and storage (CCS); performance and behavior of national oil companies; and strategies for engaging developing countries in global climate change policy.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Mukul M Sharma

Mukul M Sharma

Professor , Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
+1 512 471 3161, +1 512 471 3257, msharma@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Mukul Sharma earned his Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from University of Southern California in 1985. He joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin that same year. Dr. Sharma researches natural gas engineering, injection water management, formation damage and petrophysics. He also researches surface and colloid chemistry as well as fluid flow in porous media as it relates to exploration and production of oil and gas. He has researched ways to best inject water into oil wells, a process which forces more oil out of the underground areas where it resides. Sharma has studied methods for combating fractured wells and oily water, both of which result in a decline in injection success. He also aims to improve oil recovery through his study of wetting and spreading (both of which are interactions between a solid and spilled liquid due to surface tension). He is interested in cleaning up damage caused by structural failures including wall-building filter cakes and perforations and preventing such failures by accounting for chemical effects in wellbore stability models.

David B Spence

David B Spence

Professor , School of Law
+1 512 232 1369, david.spence@mccombs.utexas.edu

David Spence is an expert in public policy, business-government relations and the regulation of business--particularly energy and environmental regulations. He is co-director of the Energy Management and Innovation Center and he addresses energy topics from a legal and political perspective. Recent commentary includes energy reform, federal budget ramifications on oil and gas, and the financial bailout. Spence has taught as a visitor at Duke, Vanderbilt, Cornell and Harvard. He received his Ph.D in political science from Duke University, and his J.D. from the University of North Carolina.

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

Michael  Webber

Michael Webber

John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair, Professor , Mechanical Engineering , Cockrell School of Engineering
+1 512 475 6867, webber@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Michael E. Webber is the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and CTO of Energy Impact Partners, a $3 billion cleantech venture fund. From September 2018 to August 2021, Webber was based in Paris, France where he served as the Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE, one of the world’s largest energy companies. Webber’s expertise spans research and education at the convergence of engineering, policy, and commercialization on topics related to innovation, energy, and the environment. His book Power Trip: The Story of Energy was published in 2019 by Basic Books with an award-winning 12-part companion series spread out over two seasons that aired on PBS, Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and in-flight entertainment on American Airlines. The series had more than 10,000 broadcasts in the United States and has been distributed in dozens of countries, ultimately reaching millions of viewers. He was selected as a Fellow of ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and as a member of the 4th class of the Presidential Leadership Scholars, which is a leadership training program organized by Presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton. Webber has authored four full-length general interest books, created two interactive textbooks, written more than 500 publications, and been awarded 6 patents. He serves on the advisory board for Scientific American and GTI Energy (an industry consortium formerly known as the Gas Technology Institute). A successful entrepreneur, Webber was one of three founders in 2015 for an educational technology startup, DISCO Learning Media, which was acquired in 2018. Webber holds a B.S. and B.A. from UT Austin, and M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He was honored as an American Fellow of the German Marshall Fund and an AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellow on four separate occasions by the University of Texas for exceptional teaching. Webber’s areas of expertise are Energy policy; Food, Energy & Water; Alternative and renewable energy; Energy in Texas; Smart Grid; Power Sector

Media Contact: Nat Levy, nat.levy@utexas.edu, 512-471-2129

Charles J Werth

Charles J Werth

Professor , Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
+1 512 232 1626, werth@utexas.edu

Werth’s research interests include environmental and water resources engineering; reactive transport and fate of pollutants in water resources, including groundwater and urban lakes; and the development of sustainable technologies for pollution removal from affected waters.

Health Care and COVID-19


Steven  Abrams

Steven Abrams

Professor of Pediatrics , Department of Pediatrics , Dell Medical School
+1 512 495 4700, sabrams@austin.utexas.edu

Abrams is a neonatologist and a professor of pediatrics. His research is focused on healthy nutrition for children, and he is an advocate for healthy feeding practices. He served on the dietary huidelines advisory committee in 2015 and supports balanced sustainable nutrition practices.

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Abigail R Aiken

Abigail R Aiken

Associate Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 232 2561, araa2@utexas.edu

Aiken's research focuses on reproductive health and spans several disciplines, combining backgrounds in biomedical sciences, public policy, demography, public health. Her current projects include: examining women's experiences obtaining safe abortion in contexts where legislative barriers prevent access through the healthcare system; evaluating programs and policies designed to increase access to contraception in the postpartum and post-abortion setting; and investigating the determinants and impacts of unintended pregnancies through a health equity and reproductive justice framework.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Jacqueline L Angel

Jacqueline L Angel

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 471 2956, jangel@austin.utexas.edu

Jacqueline L. Angel is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1989 and post-doctoral training at Rutgers in mental health services research and the Pennsylvania State University Program in Demography of Aging. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of family, health and aging. She is particularly interested in evaluating the impact of policies on the health and well-being of Latinos, immigrants, and other vulnerable groups, and how cultural heterogeneity among the elderly affects the design of programs for the cost-effective delivery of health services. Angel is a co-investigator on an NIH/National Institute on Aging funded benchmark study of the longitudinal health of older Mexican Americans in the Southwestern United States. Since the inception of the project, she has assessed the impact of nativity and the migration process on health outcomes, and examined their implications for family living arrangements and long term care policy. She is currently developing a research agenda that focuses on the role of civil society and non-governmental organizations on the care of low-income elderly in the United States and Latin America.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Christopher G Beevers

Christopher G Beevers

Professor , Department of Psychology , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 232 3706, +1 512 471 1157, beevers@utexas.edu

Beevers' primary research interest focuses on the cognitive etiology and treatment of major unipolar depression. He believes that understanding normal cognitive processes provides an important foundation for identifying how these processes go awry in clinical depression. Further, he is very interested in using experimental psychopathology methods to understand why treatments work and translating these same methods into effective interventions for depression and related psychopathology (e.g., anhedonia, negative affect). Dr. Beevers is particularly interested in the interplay between biology (e.g., variants of the serotonin transporter gene) and cognitive risk and maintaining factors for depression. Current project utilize behavioral, eye tracking, and EEG methodologies to measure cognitive bias combined with smart phone methods to measure affect in its natural environment. He collaborates with numerous faculty at UT, nationally, and internationally. As a highly prolific scholar, Dr. Beevers has contributed to 5 books, published more than 100 journal articles, and has been cited over four thousand times.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Kevin  Bozic

Kevin Bozic

Professor of Surgery , Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care , Dell Medical School
+1 512 495 5089, kevin.bozic@austin.utexas.edu

Dr. Kevin Bozic is the inaugural Chair of the Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care, and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, at the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. He was most recently the William R. Murray Professor, M.D. Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a member of the core faculty of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is also a Visiting Scholar in the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School. Dr. Bozic is a graduate of the UCSF School of Medicine and the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program. Additionally, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. Dr. Bozic has fellowship training in Adult Reconstructive Surgery from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Bozic’s clinical interests are in management of patients with arthritis of the hip and knee, with an emphasis on primary and revision hip and knee replacement. His research interests are broadly in the fields of health policy and health care services research, and specifically in the areas of healthcare technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, shared medical decision making, and the implementation and evaluation of value-based payment and delivery models. In addition to his clinical and research activities, Dr. Bozic is actively involved in numerous regional and national health policy initiatives, including the University of California Center for Health Quality and Innovation, the American Joint Replacement Registry, the Integrated Healthcare Association’s Episode of Care Payment Program, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. Dr. Bozic also holds both regional and national leadership positions, including member of the Board of Trustees of the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, Chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Council on Research and Quality, and member of the Board of Directors of the American Joint Replacement Registry. He is former Chair of the California Joint Replacement Registry. Dr. Bozic has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation’s Clinical Research Award, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeon’s Clinician-Scientist Traveling Fellowship Award, the American Orthopaedic Association’s American-British-Canadian Traveling Fellowship, the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeon’s James A. Rand Young Investigator Award, and the Orthopaedic Research Society’s William Harris Award.

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Namkee  Choi

Namkee Choi

Professor , School of Social Work
+1 512 232 9590, nchoi@austin.utexas.edu

Namkee Choi, Ph.D., is the Louis and Ann Wolens Centennial Chair in Gerontology at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She is an expert on geriatric mental health. Her current research focuses on depression in late life and the use of technology to bring effective psychosocial interventions for depressive symptoms among older adults.

Media Contact: J.D. Moore, jordan.moore@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-1458

Lauren I Ehrlich

Lauren I Ehrlich

Professor , Department of Molecular Biosciences , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 471 7080, +1 512 475 7125, lehrlich@austin.utexas.edu

Ehrlich studies the development of immune cells called T cells, which has implications for diseases such as T cell leukemia, autoimmunity, and most recently, COVID-19. Her lab is currently collaborating with investigators and clinicians at Dell Medical School to investigate which immune responses correlate with disease severity in COVID-19 patients across the lifespan. She is also studying links between SARS-CoV-2 infection and autoimmunity. T cells are master regulators of the adaptive immune system: they are essential for coordinating the appropriate immune response to different pathogens, and they are responsible for immunologic memory, which protects us from recurrent infections. As T cells develop in the thymus, they encounter a wide variety of cells in their microenvironment, collectively referred to as the thymic stroma. Thymocytes and stromal cells are mutually dependant on each other for proper development and maintenance. Deviations in normal thymocyte: stromal interactions are thought to contribute to diseases such as T cell leukemia and autoimmunity.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Ilya J Finkelstein

Ilya J Finkelstein

Associate Professor , Department of Molecular Biosciences , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 471 1394, ifinkelstein@cm.utexas.edu

Finkelstein studies how organisms maintain their genomic integrity, which has implications for cancer and how viruses like COVID-19 mutate. For COVID-19, these mutations have implications for severity of disease, speed of transmission and efficacy of vaccines and other therapies. Genomic DNA acts as the blueprint for life and all organisms have evolved complex protein machines that faithfully maintain our genetic material. Genomic instability, which arises from defects in these proteins, is a defining feature of most cancers. Elucidating the mechanisms of DNA maintenance is therefore fundamental to our understanding of the molecular basis of many cancer types. Our interdisciplinary research program combines aspects of single-molecule biophysics, molecular biology and micro-/nano-scale engineering to understand how organisms are able to maintain their genomic integrity. To increase our understanding of this essential problem, we develop new techniques that allow us to directly observe, in real time, the key biochemical reactions as they occur on DNA.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Michael L Geruso

Michael L Geruso

Associate Professor , Department of Economics , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 475 8704, mike.geruso@utexas.edu

Michael Geruso’s research focuses on developing country health and the regulation of US health insurance markets. In his work on Medicare, he has used publicly available and large-scale administrative datasets to investigate upcoding by physicians and imperfect competition among private Medicare Advantage insurers. His research on sanitation provides the first evidence that that open defecation, practiced by a billion people worldwide, generates large infant mortality externalities. His work has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, and the Economist magazine. His research has been funded by the National Institutes for Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Joydeep  Ghosh

Joydeep Ghosh

Professor , Chandra Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
+1 512 471 8980, jghosh@utexas.edu

Lisa C Kirsch

Lisa C Kirsch

Senior Policy Director , Dell Medical School
+1 512 796 3807, lisa.kirsch@austin.utexas.edu

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Molly A Lopez

Molly A Lopez

Research Associate Professor , Office of the Associate Dean for Research
+1 512 232 0614, mlopez@austin.utexas.edu

Molly Lopez, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, a research associate professor at Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and the director of the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health. Her research interests include mental health services, child and adolescent service systems, the implementation of evidence-based practices, and cognitive behavioral therapies. Previously, Lopez served in several leadership roles within the Texas public mental health agency, the Texas Department of State Health Services. In these roles, she provided policy and programmatic oversight of children’s mental health services and played a key role in a system redesign aimed at ensuring that evidence-based treatments were widely available and supported by state infrastructure.

Michael S Mackert

Michael S Mackert

Director of the Center for Health Communication , Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations , Moody College of Communication
+1 512 348 8490, mackert@utexas.edu

Michael Mackert, Ph.D., is the Director of The University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication and Professor in the School of Advertising & Public Relations and Department of Population Health. His research focuses primarily on the strategies that can be used in traditional and new digital media to provide effective health communication to audiences with low health literacy. He leads projects on a variety of public health issues – including tobacco cessation, opioid overdose prevention, and men's role in prenatal health – that generate evidence-based health communication strategies and contribute to health communication scholarship.

Media Contact: Mary Huber, mary.huber@austin.utexas.edu, 409-790-6902

Octavio N Martinez

Octavio N Martinez

Senior Associate Vice President and Executive Director for the Hogg Foundation , Hogg Foundation for Mental Health
+1 512 471 5041, +1 512 471 7625, octavio.martinez@austin.utexas.edu

Jason  McLellan

Jason McLellan

Professor , Department of Molecular Biosciences , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 232 1906, jmclellan@austin.utexas.edu

Jason S. McLellan specializes in understanding the structure and function of viral proteins, including those of coronaviruses. His research focuses on applying structural information to the rational design of vaccines and other therapies for viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. McLellan and his team collaborated with researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center to design a stabilized version of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is a key element in at least four COVID-19 vaccines to have either reached Phase 3 clinical trials or been approved for emergency use (those from Pfizer and BioNTech; Moderna; Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceutica; and Novavax). McLellan also co-developed a vaccine candidate for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) that is currently in human trials.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Lauren A Meyers

Lauren A Meyers

Professor , Department of Integrative Biology , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 471 4950, utpandemics@austin.utexas.edu

Lauren received her B.A. degree in Mathematics and Philosophy in 1996 from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in 2000 from the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation, she joined the faculty of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2003. Using a combination of mathematical modeling and experiments, Lauren's research lies at the interface of evolutionary biology and epidemiology. She studies the interplay between disease transmission dynamics and the evolution of pathogens including those responsible for epidemic meningitis, influenza, walking pneumonia, and SARS. In collaboration with public health officials in the US and Canada, Lauren has developed powerful mathematical methods for forecasting the spread of respiratory diseases and designing effective disease control strategies for hospitals and metropolitan areas. Based on this research, the MIT Technology Review named Lauren as one of the top 100 global innovators under age 35.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Kristin E Mondy

Kristin E Mondy

Associate Professor of Internal Medicine , Department of Medicine
, kristin.mondy@austin.utexas.edu

Jewel  Mullen

Jewel Mullen

Associate Dean for Health Equity , Dell Medical School
+1 512 495 5110, jewel.mullen@austin.utexas.edu

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Michael J Telch

Michael J Telch

Professor , Department of Psychology , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 471 3393, +1 512 475 8488, +1 512 560 4100, telch@austin.utexas.edu

Michael Telch joined the clinical psychology faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1986 where he is currently Professor and founding director of the Laboratory for the Study of Anxiety Disorders and former Director of Clinical Training. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Association for the Advancement of Preventative Psychology. Dr. Telch is internationally recognized for his scientific research on the nature and treatment of panic, phobias and anxiety-related disorders. He has served as a scientific advisor to the National Institute of Mental Health’s Anxiety Disorders Education Program and the National Institute of Mental Health’s Panic Disorder Program. His published work has tackled a broad range of questions related to the nature and treatment of pathological fear across the full spectrum of anxiety disorders, and have utilized multiple research strategies including clinical trials, prospective longitudinal risk studies, experimental psychopathology, and controlled laboratory manipulations of cognitive, behavioral, and pharmacological strategies during exposure therapy.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Scott  Wallace

Scott Wallace

Managing Director, Value Institute for Health and Care , Dell Medical School
+1 512 495 5127, +1 708 267 6564, scott.wallace@austin.utexas.edu

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Thomas  Yankeelov

Thomas Yankeelov

Director of Cancer Imaging Research , LIVESTRONG Cancer Institutes , Dell Medical School
+1 512 417 1733, thomas.yankeelov@utexas.edu

Media Contact: Shahreen Abedin, shahreen.abedin@austin.utexas.edu, 512-495-5062

Immigration and Border Security


Ricardo C Ainslie

Ricardo C Ainslie

M. K. Hage Centennial Professor in Education , Counseling Psychology , Department of Educational Psychology , College of Education
+1 512 471 0364, +1 512 471 4407, rainslie@austin.utexas.edu

Ricardo Ainslie explores the intersection of psychology and culture through such topics as the psychological experience of immigration, ethnic conflicts within communities, and the relationship between individual and collective identity. He pursues these topics primarily through the descriptive methodology of qualitative inquiry. Additionally, Ainslie examines these matters through books, documentary films, and photographic exhibits. Drawing from the fields of anthropology, creative non-fiction, and the liberal arts, Ainslie has generated a hybrid methodology of 'psychoanalytic ethnography' based on in-depth interviews of profoundly psychological character. His extensive work in Texas and Mexico propelled his inquiry into how communities function and transform in response to significant conflict. Ainslie is particularly interested in investigating how individuals and broader cultural groups experience life within these affected communities. Ainslie's multidisciplinary and integrative sensibility is evident in his extensive involvement throughout the University of Texas at Austin, where he is professionally affiliated with the American Studies Program, the Center for Mexican American Studies, and the Lozano-Long Institute for Latin American Studies. He is the M. K. Hage Centennial Professor in Education, was recently a Fellow in the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and taught at Houston's Center for Psychoanalytic Studies for seven years.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Noel B Busch-Armendariz

Noel B Busch-Armendariz

Associate Dean for Global Engagement , School of Social Work
, nbusch@austin.utexas.edu

Noel Busch-Armendariz, Ph.D., is a professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and director of the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, a collaboration between the Schools of Social Work, Nursing and Law. Her research focuses on interpersonal violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, refugees, and international social work. She has over two decades of experience in working to end violence against women and their children, and has worked as a battered women's advocate, support group leader, program director, and registered lobbyist. She has served as an expert witness in nearly four dozen criminal, civil, and immigration cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault, and co-directs a national training on how to be an ethical and effective expert witness.

Media Contact: J.D. Moore, jordan.moore@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-1458

Denise L Gilman

Denise L Gilman

Clinical Professor , School of Law
+1 512 232 7796, dgilman@law.utexas.edu

Gilman can address immigration law, immigrant rights and family detention.

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

David L Leal

David L Leal

Professor , Department of Government , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 471 1343, dleal@austin.utexas.edu

David Leal's primary academic interest is Latino politics, and his work explores the political and policy implications of demographic change in the United States. He studies questions involving Latino voting patterns, Latino public opinion, the role of religion in politics, the politics of migration and the border, and the military and society.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

NCAA Changes and Collegiate Athletics


Thomas M Hunt

Thomas M Hunt

Associate Professor , Department of Kinesiology and Health Education , College of Education
+1 512 471 1540, tmhunt@austin.utexas.edu

Thomas M. Hunt, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. With research interests that include sport law, history, and international relations, Hunt has published articles in, among others, the [italic]Journal of Sport History[/italic], the [italic]International Journal of the History of Sport[/italic], and the [italic]International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics[/italic]. His book [italic]Drug Games: The International Olympic Committee and the Politics of Doping, 1960-2008[/italic] is considered a critical text on the topic.

Media Contact: Acacia Coronado, acacia.coronado@austin.utexas.edu,

Security and Identity Protection


Dawna  Ballard

Dawna Ballard

Associate Professor , Department of Communication Studies , Moody College of Communication
+1 512 471 5251, diballard@utexas.edu

Dawna I. Ballard (Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara) is associate professor of organizational communication and technology in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. An expert in chronemics—i.e., the study of time as it is bound to human communication—she researches what drives our pace of life and its impact on the communication practices and long-term vitality of organizations, communities, and individuals. Dr. Ballard is currently completing a book, Time by Design (under contract at MIT Press), about how effective organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast. She was recently awarded the 2022-23 William David Blunk Memorial Professorship, to recognize her “outstanding record in teaching, and extraordinary contribution to student advising, mentorship, and guidance.” Her research and commentary are regularly featured in mainstream news outlets, such as The New York Times, Fortune, The Atlantic, Forbes, Inc., NBC News, Reader’s Digest, Men’s Magazine, Quartz, HuffPost, and NPR as well as venues such as SXSW and Creative Mornings. Her expertise is sought after by global think tanks such as the Aspen Institute and The European House Ambrosetti. A member of the National Communication Association (past Chair, Group Communication Division), International Communication Association, and the International Society for the Study of Time (past Council Member), she co-directs the internship program and teaches courses on communication in groups, teams and communities, scale development, and chronemics. Find more information about Dr. Ballard and her research at [link:dawnaballard.com]

Media Contact: Mary Huber, mary.huber@austin.utexas.edu, 409-790-6902

Suzanne Barber

Suzanne Barber

Professor , Chandra Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
+1 512 656 6152, sbarber@identity.utexas.edu

Dr. Suzanne Barber is the AT&T Endowed Professor in Engineering and Director of The Center for Identity at The University of Texas. The mission of the Center is to deliver high-quality discoveries, applications, education and outreach in identity management, privacy and security. Formerly, Dr. Barber served as Director of Software Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. She is published in over 300 peer-reviewed journals in the areas of cyber-trust, cyber-security, agent-based systems, and software engineering. Her research has been supported by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Congress, the State of Texas, and numerous corporate organizations. Dr. Barber has invented and commercialized core technologies that deliver new levels of visibility, knowledge discovery and collaboration among distributed stakeholders, as well as trusted online transactions. Dr. Barber currently serves as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, appointed by Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, offering guidance to the DHS Chief Privacy Officer.

Matthew S McGlone

Matthew S McGlone

Professor , Department of Communication Studies , Moody College of Communication
+1 512 471 1920, matthew_mcglone@austin.utexas.edu

Dr. McGlone (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1994) investigates the cognitive, cultural and psychological foundations of interpersonal communication and persuasion. He has two principal research programs. One explores the linguistic devices people use to overcome communication challenges ? i.e., how people talk about things that are difficult to talk about. He has studied how people use metaphors to describe abstract concepts (time, intelligence, justice, etc.), use euphemisms to describe embarrassing topics (bodily functions, prejudice, death, etc.), and resort to "contextomy" (selective quotation) to discuss complicated sociopolitical issues in self-serving ways. A second program explores the role of social stereotypes in interpersonal interaction. In particular, he is interested in how people's awareness of self-relevant stereotypes can impair their communication with others, a phenomenon known as "stereotype threat."

Media Contact: Mary Huber, mary.huber@austin.utexas.edu, 409-790-6902

Stephen  Slick

Stephen Slick

Director of the Intelligence Studies Project , Intelligence Studies Project
+1 512 471 0814, sbslick@austin.utexas.edu

Stephen Slick was appointed in January 2015 as Director of UT-Austin’s Intelligence Studies Project and Clinical Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Before moving to Austin, he served 28 years in CIA's clandestine service including five assignments abroad. Between 2005 and 2009, he was a special assistant to the president and the Senior Director for Intelligence Programs and Reform on the staff of the National Security Council. He received a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University, J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, and Master in Public Policy from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Texas Politics


Joshua M Blank

Joshua M Blank

Director of Research for the Texas Politics Project , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 471 0371, joshmblank@austin.utexas.edu

Joshua Blank is the Research Director of the Texas Politics Project, where he has conducted public opinion polling of Texans for over a decade. Blank has extensive experience polling Texas voters about their attitudes towards abortion, gun control/gun violence, voting/elections, and many other areas of public interest. He regularly writes, presents, and gives interviews about contemporary Texas politics, including elections, public opinion, and governance. Born in New York, NY, he has a bachelor's degree in political science from Boston University and a doctoral degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Robert M Chesney

Robert M Chesney

Dean, School of Law , School of Law
+1 512 232 1120, rchesney@law.utexas.edu

Bobby Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institute, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. He holds a TS/SCI clearance. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege (testifying in Congress last year regarding the latter topic). He has served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include a book (under contract with Oxford University Press) concerning the evolving judicial role in national security affairs. Professor Chesney's scholarship is posted on SSRN here. He also maintains a BePress Selected Works page here, though it is not as current as the SSRN page. For a complete list of his publications including works-in-progress, please see his CV (posted in the left-side column of this page). For those interested in following national security law developments, Professor Chesney welcomes subscriptions to his listserv, which focuses exclusively on distributing news of recent judicial opinions, new statutes, forthcoming scholarship, and other similar resources relating to national security and the law. Just send him an email if you'd like to subscribe. The course website for Professor Chesney's Con Law class is posted here. For National Security Law, click here. For Law and Terrorism, click here. Finally, to get the syllabus for the special one-week mini-course on terrorism and law, click here

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

Sherri R Greenberg

Sherri R Greenberg

Professor of Practice , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 471 8324, +1 512 656 6592, srgreenberg@austin.utexas.edu

Sherri Greenberg served for 10 years as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, completing her final term in January 2001. In 1999, she was appointed by the Speaker of the House to chair the House Pensions and Investments Committee, which oversees the Texas State Employee Retirement System, state employee health insurance program, Teacher Retirement System, local public employee retirement systems, and regulation of state investments and public securities. After the 1999 legislative session, the Speaker appointed her as chair of the Select Committee on Teacher Health Insurance. Greenberg served two terms on the House Appropriations Committee, which is the House's budget writing committee, and served on the Appropriations Committee's Education and Major Information Systems Subcommittees. Other committee assignments included the House Economic Development Committee and the Welfare-to-Work Committee. Greenberg's professional background is in public finance. She served as the Manager of Capital Finance for the City of Austin from 1985 to 1989, overseeing the City's debt management, capital budgeting, and capital improvement programs. Prior to that she worked as a Public Finance Officer for Standard & Poor's Corporation in New York, where she analyzed and assigned bond ratings to public projects across the country. Greenberg has a B.A. in Government from UT Austin and an M.S. in Public Administration and Policy from the London School of Economics. At the LBJ School she teaches courses in public financial management, policy development, and public administration and management. Her teaching and research interests include public finance and budgeting, Texas state government, local government, health care, education, utilities, transportation, and campaigns and elections.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

James R Henson

James R Henson

Executive Director of Texas Politics Project , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 471 0090, j.henson@austin.utexas.edu

James Henson teaches in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the founder and executive director of the Texas Politics Project and the director of the political internship program. The Texas Politics Project is a hub of research and public affairs work focused on providing non-partisan resources for understanding Texas government and politics. As part of that work, he co-founded the longest running academic survey of public opinion in Texas with Daron Shaw in 2008. Results from more than a decade of statewide polling for that project are available to the public on the Texas Politics Project website. His writing about Texas politics has appeared in every major Texas media outlet, as well as a variety of publications including The Washington Post, The Hill, Texas Monthly, The Texas Tribune, and others. He is the principal author of the Texas Politics textbook published by Soomo Learning and used in introductory Texas government courses across the state, which is now in its 11th edition.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Peniel E Joseph

Peniel E Joseph

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 475 7241, peniel.joseph@austin.utexas.edu

Joseph’s research focuses has been on “Black Power Studies”, which explore the interdisciplinary fields of Africana studies, women’s and ethnic studies, law and society and political science. He is currently teaching “The Civil Rights Movement and Public Policy”.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Daron R Shaw

Daron R Shaw

Professor , Department of Government , College of Liberal Arts
+1 512 232 7275, dshaw@austin.utexas.edu

Daron R. Shaw is Distinguished Teaching Professor and Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Chair of State Politics at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Shaw specializes in American Government, Campaigns and Elections, Political Parties, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior, and Applied Survey Research. He is author of The Race to 270: The Electoral College and Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004 (Chicago), co-author of Unconventional Wisdom: Facts and Myths about American Voters (Oxford), co-author of The Turnout Myth (Oxford), co-author of The Appearance of Corruption (Oxford) and co-author of Battleground: Electoral College Strategies, Execution, and Impact in the Modern Era (Oxford). His research has been published in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Communication, PS: Political Science, Party Politics, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and several other professional journals. In addition to his academic career, Professor Shaw served as a strategist in the 1992, 2000 and 2004 presidential election campaigns. He is currently co-director of the Fox News Poll, co-director of the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, director of the Texas Lyceum Poll, and associate Principle Investigator for the 2024 American National Election Study. He is also a member of the decision team for Fox News, the advisory board for the MIT Election Data & Science Lab, and the advisory board for the Annette Strauss Institute. Formerly, he served as President George W. Bush’s representative on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and as one of the academic directors for President Barack Obama’s Commission for Election Administration.

Media Contact: Daniel Oppenheimer, oppenheimer@utexas.edu, 512-475-9712

Jeremi  Suri

Jeremi Suri

Professor , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
+1 512 475 7242, suri@austin.utexas.edu

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University's Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Suri's primary research interests include the formation and spread of nation-states, the emergence of modern international relations, the connections between foreign policy and domestic politics, and the rise of knowledge institutions as global actors. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Transportation


Oguzhan  Bayrak

Oguzhan Bayrak

Professor , Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
+1 512 232 6409, +1 512 232 7826, bayrak@mail.utexas.edu

Chandra R Bhat

Chandra R Bhat

Professor , Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
+1 512 471 4535, bhat@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Chandra R. Bhat earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Northwestern University in 1991. He joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in 1997. Bhat is associate chairman of the Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Department. Dr. Bhat conducts mathematical modeling of how people make decisions about their activity and travel choices. His research helps identify ways to reduce pollution and improve public health, and is useful for transportation policy makers because it identifies competitive positioning strategies for transportation services. His models enable evaluation of the effectiveness of alternative traffic congestion alleviation strategies such as telecommuting, urban form design to reduce auto dependency, work schedule changes, pricing strategies including tolls, ridesharing incentives, non-motorized travel such as bicycling and walking, and real-time driver information regarding traffic delays. Bhat also analyzes seat belt use and auto accidents and studies the adoption of alternative-fuel vehicles.

Leigh B Boske

Leigh B Boske

Professor Emeritus , Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs
, leigh.boske@utexas.edu

Leigh B. Boske, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh, is Associate Dean of the LBJ School. Over a twenty-year period at the LBJ School, his teaching and research interests have focused on transportation policy, economics, and finance. He is a recipient of the University of Texas Excellence in Teaching Award. His published research is on national and international transportation policies and programs, state multimodal transportation planning, cost efficiency in the airline and railroad industries, and port finance. In recognition of his research contribution to the understanding of the importance of maritime commerce and port development, Boske was named Port Person of the Year in 1997 by the Texas Ports Association. Boske has been a consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives, Texas Department of Transportation, Office of the Governor of Texas, Interstate Commerce Commission, Association of American Railroads, and other organizations. He is a founding member of the National Conference of State Rail Planning Officials and a former member of Transportation Research Board committees such as the Committee on Surface Freight Transportation Regulation and the Committee on the State Role in Railroad Transportation.

Media Contact: Tori Yu, victoriajyu@austin.utexas.edu, 512-232-4054

Todd E Humphreys

Todd E Humphreys

Director, Organized Research Unit, Wireless Networking and Communications Group , Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics , Cockrell School of Engineering
+1 512 471 4489, todd.humphreys@utexas.edu

Media Contact: Nat Levy, nat.levy@utexas.edu, 512-471-2129

Kara  Kockelman

Kara Kockelman

Professor , Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
+1 512 471 0210, kkockelm@mail.utexas.edu

The Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, Kockelman is a registered professional engineer and holds a PhD, MS, and BS in civil engineering, a Masters of City Planning, and a minor in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the NSF CAREER Award for faculty research and teaching (2000-2005), the NSF and Berkeley Fellowships for graduate study (1993-1998), the Tiebout Prize for best paper in regional science (1998), the U.C. Transportation Center "Student of the Year" Award (1998), and the University Medal from U.C. Berkeley as the "most distinguished graduate" among its body of 5,300 undergraduates (1991). Between her undergraduate and graduate studies, Kockelman worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the rural Andean region of Ecuador, managing the construction of potable water systems and other sanitation infrastructure. Kockelman's primary research interests include the statistical modeling of travel behavior and location choice, the connection between urban form and travel, and urban planning and policy-making. She has taught classes in transportation systems, transport economics, transport data acquisition and analysis, and geometric design (at U.T.) and statistics (at U.C. Berkeley). Dr. Kockelman is the author of numerous published papers, including the following: "A Model for Time- and Budget-Constrained Activity Demand Analysis" (Transportation Research B), "Changes in the Flow-Density Relationship due to Environmental, Vehicle, and Driver Characteristics" (Transportation Research Record No. 1644); "Travel Behavior as a Function of Accessibility, Land Use Balance, and Land Use Mixing" (TRR No. 1607); "The Effects of Location Elements on Home Purchase Prices and Rents" (TRR No. 1606); "High-Speed Rail for California: A Cost-Benefit Analysis" (Berkeley Planning Journal). Kockelman sits on the Transportation Research Board's Committee on Transportation and Land Development and its Sub-Committee on Integrated Transportation and Land-Use Modeling, and she is a member of NCHRP Panel 8-37 ("Statistical and Methodological Standards for Metropolitan Travel Surveys") and TCRP Panel B-19 ("Providing Transit Options for Older Americans").

Peter H Stone

Peter H Stone

Professor , Department of Computer Science , College of Natural Sciences
+1 512 471 9796, pstone@cs.utexas.edu

Peter Stone is the founder and director of the Learning Agents Research Group (LARG) within the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, as well as associate department chair and Director of Texas Robotics. He was a co-founder of Cogitai, Inc. and is now Executive Director of Sony AI America. His main research interest in AI is understanding how we can best create complete intelligent agents. He considers adaptation, interaction, and embodiment to be essential capabilities of such agents. He focuses mainly on machine learning, multiagent systems, and robotics. He researches topics that are inspired by challenging real-world problems. His AI applications have included robot soccer, autonomous bidding agents, autonomous vehicles, and human-interactive agents.

Media Contact: Christine Sinatra, christine.sinatra@austin.utexas.edu, 512-471-4641

Heather K Way

Heather K Way

Clinical Professor , School of Law
+1 512 232 1210, hway@law.utexas.edu

Heather K. Way directs the Community Development Clinic. Way has been a practitioner in the field of community development and affordable housing law since 1997. Prior to joining the faculty in 2006, she was the founder and Director of Texas Community Building with Attorney Resources, which provides legal education and pro bono legal assistance to nonprofit organizations. Prior to founding Texas C-Bar, Way was a staff attorney at Legal Aid of Central Texas where, as a Skadden Fellow, she represented nonprofit community development corporations and low-income persons seeking to access affordable housing. Way frequently lectures on topics in the area of affordable housing and community development. She is actively involved in the development of public policies related to community development, including land banks, tax delinquent properties, housing preservation, and gentrification. The State Bar of Texas Young Lawyers Association presented Way in 2002 with its Outstanding Young Lawyer of Texas award. Way has also been recognized as the 2001 Outstanding Young Lawyer of Austin (by the Austin Young Lawyers Association) and one of the Top 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the Texas Lawyer. Most recently, she was recognized in 2006 as an outstanding "Houser" by the Texas Low Income Housing Information Services.

Media Contact: Wendy Schneider, wschneider@law.utexas.edu,

For more information, contact: University Communications, Office of the President, 512-471-3151.