News

A seminal event in human history occurred 50 years ago this month when humans took their first steps on the Moon. This feat, the culmination of years of work by a multitude of people, happened with the involvement of many who started here in the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences.

Several faculty in the College of Natural Sciences have been named the recipients of University-wide awards for their efforts to motivate and educate students at The University of Texas at Austin.

In 2014, the staff at Estero Llano Grande State Park, on the Rio Grande outside Weslaco, began seeing large colonies of ants they did not recognize around the buildings and in the restrooms. Then staffers began noticing the ants driving birds out of their nests — a particularly bad thing at a park that is part of the Rio Grande Valley's World Birding Center.

The University of Texas at Austin's Graduate School has announced the 2019 winners of its professional and student awards, which include two graduate students and one faculty member from the College of Natural Sciences. Generously underwritten by the University Co-op, the awards recognize excellence in graduate academics, teaching and professional services.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have awarded prestigious graduate research awards to 48 University of Texas at Austin students, including ten from the College of Natural Sciences.

The Texas Academy of Science has chosen David Lambert, the Isabel McCutcheon Harte Centennial Chair in Astronomy, as the 2019 Distinguished Texas Scientist in honor of his notable career and significant contributions to science.

​Astronomer Keely Finkelstein and data scientist Kristin Harvey are among eight University of Texas at Austin faculty members named as recipients of the 2018-19 President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award. The award recognizes the university's educational innovators who demonstrate exceptional undergraduate teaching in the core curriculum, including signature courses, and engage with curriculum reform and educational innovation.

Gold medalists in an astrophysics Olympic-style event, award-winners at a statewide science fair and budding genetic engineers who shared their research 2,000 miles away are among the high schoolers who found success after working closely with members of the Texas Science community in 2018.

Orhi Esarte Palomero, a chemistry graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded a prestigious "la Caixa" postgraduate fellowship. Sponsored by the "la Caixa" Banking Foundation, these fellowships are granted each year to Spanish graduate students studying abroad.

Dr. Anitha Mitchell Logan, an alumna of the College of Natural Sciences, is one of six winners of this year's Distinguished Alumnus Awards from the Texas Exes, the alumni association of the University of Texas at Austin. The awards, currently celebrating their 60^th anniversary, are given annually to alumni who have distinguished themselves professionally and through service to the university.