Category: Faculty

'Tis the season to celebrate for Texas A&M biologists Richard Gomer and Darrell Pilling, whose biotechnology company Promedior Inc. sold in mid-November to Swiss drug maker Roche for $1.4 billion dedicated to the global life-saving fight against fibrotic disease.

Texas A&M physicist Rupak Mahapatra has been appointed as director of research engagement for The Texas A&M University System National Laboratories Office (NLO), where he works to increase engagement between researchers throughout the Texas A&M System and all U.S. Department of Energy-affiliated laboratories — Los Alamos, in particular.

Chemist Sarbajit Banerjee and biologist Gil Rosenthal are among the 10 campus-wide faculty unveiled November 5 as Texas A&M University's inaugural class of Enhancing Development and Generating Excellence in Scholarship (EDGES) Fellows — mid-career faculty who are making significant marks in their disciplines and on track for membership in national academies or national and international awards.

Mathematician Simon Foucart and physicist Rupak Mahapatra are among 20 campus-wide faculty unveiled November 5 as Texas A&M University's third class of Presidential Impact Fellows, a coveted title recognizing the development of and excellence in one of the university's greatest strengths — its faculty.

Cameron Jones, an eminent scholar in residence and a visiting professor in Texas A&M Chemistry and a 2018-19 Faculty Fellow of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, has been appointed as the inaugural holder of the Thomas W. Powell '62-Heep Foundation Hagler Institute Chair for Science.

Texas A&M mathematician Sarah Witherspoon is one of four emerging faculty leaders across the campus selected as Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows for 2019-2020.

Three of the nine Hagler Institute for Advanced Study 2019-20 Faculty Fellows will be affiliated with Texas A&M Science, including a world leader in quantum metrology and dynamics of entanglement, an astronomer who helped discover the accelerated expansion of the universe and a pioneer in analytic low-dimensional dynamics of recursive maps.

Congratulations to Texas A&M chemist and College of Science Associate Dean for Research James Batteas, who has been appointed as the inaugural holder of the D. Wayne Goodman Professorship in Chemistry.

Congratulations to Texas A&M physicist and Mitchell Institute Director Bhaskar Dutta, who has been appointed as holder of the Mitchell-Heep Chair in High Energy Physics.

Congratulations to Texas A&M statistician Cliff Spiegelman, who has been recognized by the Texas A&M chapter of Sigma Xi with one of its primary annual awards celebrating scientific excellence and advancement — the 2019 Outstanding Science Communicator Award.

Texas A&M physicist Ed Fry has been selected to receive the Texas A&M Foundation's 2019 Partner in Philanthropy Faculty Award recognizing his commitment to enhancing and encouraging a culture of philanthropy at Texas A&M University.

Congratulations to Texas A&M biologist Deborah Bell-Pedersen, one of five Texas A&M faculty named to the inaugural class of University Professorship holders, a new distinction intended to recognize, elevate and amplify faculty achievement and impact.

On April 28, friends, family and colleagues across the Texas A&M campus gathered to remember Texas A&M professor Wesley Thompson, a neurobiologist who joined the Department of Biology in 2013 and explored various developmental aspects of the simplest of all vertebrae synapses, the neuromuscular junction, to gain insight into how the brain and overall human body adjust to aging, disease and injury.

Texas A&M biologist Asha Rao has been selected by the Texas A&M Office of Sustainability to receive the 2019 Faculty Sustainability Champion Award for her efforts to promote recycling across the Texas A&M Department of Biology.

April 7 marked the passing of longtime Texas A&M biochemist and former Dean of Science John Mack Prescott, who earned renown during his time as dean (1969-1977) and Vice President for Academic Affairs (a role now known as Provost) for recruiting talented academics in many fields as well as top students who helped transform Texas A&M into the world-class institution it is today. Read more in this 2016 feature from the Eagle's Brazos Valley veterans series.