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A woman wears clear safety glasses, a white lab coat, and purple gloves as she opens up a storage space, resembling an oven, for test tubes.

‘Conan the Bacterium’ Is Now a Poet

Aug. 7, 2025
Texas Engineer Lydia Contreras, Associate Dean of Postdoctoral Affairs, teamed up with renowned poet Christian Bök to encode poetry into a “deathless bacterium.”
A woman sits at a desk full of tax forms and a keyboard. In front of her are a man and a woman. All three of them smile at the camera.

20 Years of Tax Prep Help

July 29, 2025
“This is something that I’ve been praying for.” That’s what a client tearfully said to Matthew Amaya, an accounting major at Texas McCombs, when he helped prepare her income taxes and gave her the good news: She’d be getting nearly $8,000 back from the IRS.
A computer-generated representation of DNA.

Graduate Student Research: New AI Tool Accelerates mRNA-Based Treatments for Viruses, Cancers, Genetic Disorders

July 25, 2025
A new artificial intelligence model can improve the process of drug and vaccine discovery by predicting how efficiently specific mRNA sequences will produce proteins, both generally and in various cell types. The new advance, developed through an academic-industrial partnership between The University of Texas at Austin and Sanofi, helps predict how much protein cells will produce, which can minimize the need for trial-and-error experimentation, accelerating the next generation of mRNA therapeutics.
A painting of some of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that roamed the western U.S. during the Late Jurassic about 150 million years ago. Depicted from left to right: the Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, a herd of Diplodocus, two Camptosaurus, and an Eutretauranosuchus along the riverbank.

Graduate Student Research: Clues for Dinosaurs’ Diets Found in the Chemistry of Their Fossil Teeth

July 24, 2025
While the grub itself may be long gone, a record of dinosaurs’ favorite foods has been stowed away in their ancient tooth enamel over the last eon. When researchers at The University of Texas at Austin took a close look, they discovered that some dinosaurs were discerning eaters, with different species preferring different plant parts.
A woman in a black dress stands in front of three Macedonian flags inside a building in North Macedonia.

A Global Policy Student’s Summer of Strengthening Democracy in North Macedonia

July 16, 2025
Through the Texas Global Embedded Scholars program in the Balkans, Emma Niewald is working with the National Democratic Institute’s (NDI) Parliamentary Support Program (PSP), a long-standing initiative focused on enhancing the efficiency of North Macedonia’s legislature and strengthening public trust in democratic institutions.
A group of students and faculty wear orange University of Texas at Austin shirts and make the Hook 'em horns sign in front of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs building.

Meet Cohort 11: The LBJ School’s New Class of Executive Master of Public Leadership Students

July 16, 2025
The LBJ School of Public Affairs is proud to welcome the newest cohort of Executive Master of Public Leadership (EMPL) students. On June 11, twenty-one accomplished professionals began the 12-month program, united by a shared commitment to public service and leadership.
A city skyline covered with thick smog.

Graduate Student Research: Decline in Aerosols Could Lead to More Heatwaves in Populated Areas

July 16, 2025
This finding comes from a study published in Environmental Research Letters and led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. While recent research has linked declining aerosols to rising regional temperatures, this study is the first to examine aerosols’ impact on people’s exposure to heatwaves.
Lyman Lake in Arizona stores water from the Little Colorado River. Pictured here in 2021, the lake was 30 feet below capacity.

Graduate Student Research: Relief From Drought in Southwest U.S. Likely Isn’t Coming, According to New Research

July 15, 2025
The Southwest United States is currently facing its worst megadrought of the past 1,200 years. According to a recent study from The University of Texas at Austin, the drought could continue at least until the end of the century, if not longer.
A bicep flexes, wearing a small sensor with a gold node and a blue battery cartridge.

Postdoc Research: Stay Hydrated: New Sensor Knows When You Need a Drink

July 14, 2025
Such a device could help a football player stay hydrated on a hot September afternoon, keep a firefighter battling a blaze from getting too dried out, or just let an office worker know when it’s time to make a trip to fill their water bottle.
A woman wears glasses, a gold necklace, and a beige shirt and stands in front of a white wall.

Wenyan Cong Receives Best Paper Award at CVPR Workshop

July 9, 2025
The paper introduces VideoLifter, an efficient framework for lifting long videos into 3D scenes. It addresses the scalability and consistency challenges inherent in long video sequences while achieving over 5× speedup compared to state-of-the-art methods—making high-quality 3D reconstruction both accurate and practical at scale.