When Dr. Amy Earhart teaches American literature, an anthology is never simply a collection of readings. To her, it is also a record of choices: which writers are included, which are left out and whose work comes to define the American literary tradition.

Those choices are at the center of Earhart’s award-winning book, Digital Literary Redlining: African American Anthologies, Digital Humanities, and the Canon. Earhart, a professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of English and affiliated faculty member in Africana Studies, has received the 2026 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for a Monograph from the American Studies Association’s Digital Humanities Caucus.

Published by Stanford University Press, Digital Literary Redlining examines how both technical systems used to organize literary information and scholarly systems used to define academic fields shape the representation of identity. Bringing African American literary studies into conversation with digital humanities, the book asks a fundamental question: Who becomes visible in the literary canon and why?

“Anthologies represent fields by what they choose to include and what they choose to exclude,” Earhart said.

For Earhart, the award carries particular personal significance. The prize honors the scholarly, social justice and mentorship legacy of Dr. Ángel David Nieves, who served as Dean’s Professor of Public and Digital Humanities and Professor of Africana Studies and History at Northeastern University.

Earhart and Nieves entered the emerging field of digital humanities around the same time, becoming professional peers and collaborators. They appeared together on conference panels, Nieves invited Earhart to speak at Hamilton College, and the two were among several  co-editors of a special issue of American Quarterly devoted to digital practice in American studies. Nieves died in December 2023.

“I am honored to receive this book award,” Earhart said. “Angel and I started work in the field around the same time. … His death impacted those of us in the field greatly.”

The questions behind Digital Literary Redlining first took shape in Earhart’s classroom. While teaching surveys of American literature, she began thinking about how anthologies do more than collect texts. For generations of students, they also help define what American literature is.

As efforts to expand the literary canon gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s, Earhart became interested in what happened next. Had broader representation continued, or had some of those gains stalled or even receded in the anthologies scholars and instructors continued to use?

To answer that question at scale, Earhart created DALA, the Database of African American and Predominantly White American Literature Anthologies. The curated dataset includes 267 anthology volumes, 107 editions, 319 editors, 2,844 unique authors and 22,392 individual entries.

The database allows researchers to trace more than a century of changing patterns in who is included and excluded from literary anthologies, including patterns associated with the race and gender designations of authors and editors. Its data and visualizations form the backbone of Digital Literary Redlining.

The book’s title draws on the concept of “digital redlining,” often used to describe unequal access to technology. Earhart points to the COVID-19 pandemic as a familiar example: A student trying to participate in online learning with only a cellphone faced very different barriers from a student with a laptop and dependable internet access.

Her research extends that idea beyond access itself. It examines how disparities and human judgments can become embedded in databases, metadata, datasets and the institutions that build and use them.

For Earhart, that lesson has become increasingly important as digital systems play a larger role in how information is organized and understood.

“Every piece of technology, databases to LLMs, are constructed by humans using human information,” she said. “Every intervention a human makes is a value judgement.”

That perspective also shapes Earhart’s teaching at Texas A&M.

In a previous senior seminar, students worked directly with the archival papers of former Texas A&M President Gen. James Earl Rudder, housed at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives. Using those materials, students developed both written and digital scholarship from their research.

Earhart also has brought historical newspaper research on the Millican Massacre into her courses, connecting digital methods with questions about local history, archives and whose stories are preserved.

That work is now informing her next book and digital project, The Millican Massacre: Networked Racial Violence and Archival Restitution. The project will combine geospatial digital methods, government records and newspaper coverage to examine both the massacre’s local history and the wider circulation of information about the event.

The research builds on a decade of Earhart’s public humanities work with community groups, including a successful effort to establish a Texas Historical Marker honoring those who were murdered during the massacre.

For Earhart, the Nieves Book Award recognizes more than a single publication. It affirms an approach to humanities scholarship that asks readers to look closely at the systems through which knowledge is organized and preserved, whether those systems are anthologies, archives, databases or emerging digital technologies.

Her work ultimately returns to the question that began in the classroom: Who gets counted, taught and remembered?

By making the choices behind those systems visible, Earhart asks readers and students to see the literary canon not as a fixed inheritance, but as something shaped by human decisions and therefore something that can be examined, questioned and reconsidered.

Psychology has been part of the Texas A&M story since the university’s earliest days. A course in Mental Philosophy—an academic precursor to modern psychology—was offered during Texas A&M’s first year in 1876, beginning a nearly 150-year history of psychological study and research at the university.  

The study of psychology seeks to answer a fundamental question: Why are humans the way we are? For Dr. Cortney Warren, a board-certified clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, addictive behaviors, self-honesty and cultural competency, that question is what sparked her initial interest in the study of psychology.  

“I’ve always been fascinated by how humans work—why we are the way that we are, what makes us similar and what makes us different,” Warren said. “I was interested in finding out what makes us unique and how humans are different from animals. How do we all find meaning? These are existential themes that psychology is constantly studying.”

After earning her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2006, Warren completed a clinical internship at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated McLean Hospital before beginning a tenure-track academic career at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). There she established a body image and multiculturalism lab and eventually became a tenured member of the psychology department.  

Throughout her academic career, Warren has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and taught graduate courses in clinical skills and psychotherapy. But, after years in academia, she made an uncommon decision and resigned from her tenured position.  

“I decided I wanted to do something different,” Warren said. “That is one of the best things about a degree in psychology: there is a lot of career flexibility in what you can do.”  

Warren chose to take a step back from academia. While remaining adjunct in the psychiatry department at UNLV, she started a new chapter of her career: translating psychological research and academic studies into information that can be easily accessed and understood by a general audience. 

To help educate a broader audience, Warren published her most recent book in 2023, which is a self-help book on getting over an ex-lover from an addiction framework. She explores why some people struggle to let go of an ex and how understanding the experience as a form of withdrawal can help them move forward.  

“Going through heartbreak is sort of a universal experience for most humans, as most people will fall in love, and most will have their heart broken and not know how to move on,” Warren said.  

This is where romantic love can look like an all-consuming addiction. Although not a mental health diagnosis, falling head over heels in love often looks like a person becoming addicted to their lover. They become the most important thing in a person’s life, consuming their time, energy, mental space and thoughts. Much of a person's time is spent around their lover, thinking about their last moments together, and planning for their next meeting.  

“When you think about relationships that way, falling in love looks a lot like an addictive process,” she said. “People become infatuated with a person; they want to be with them all the time and plan the rest of their life with them.” When this type of relationship ends in breakup, it oftentimes resembles withdrawal: the ex is no longer in their life but is still being treated as though they are the most important thing that they want.

Warren said people struggling through a difficult breakup may benefit from viewing the experience as a form of withdrawal from an addiction. “Your new job is to break yourself off from the addictive stimulus, which is your ex, and then learn to create a life without them,” Warren said.

Nowadays, Warren spends a lot of her time speaking to students, organizations, lay-audiences and the media about mental health, eating and behavioral addictions, as well as romantic relationships and love. Her new life outside of academia carries with it a goal that she hopes to share with everyone.  

“Of course, the research and studies done in psychology are extremely important, but from my perspective, it can be lost when it never actually trickles down to the people who need it most,” Warren said. “I strive to straddle those two worlds by remaining involved in vigorous research and translating that research for people who can then use the information to help themselves.”  

To help educate a broader audience, Warren published her most recent book in 2023, which is a self-help book on getting over an ex-lover from an addiction framework. She explores why some people struggle to let go of an ex and how understanding the experience as a form of withdrawal can help them move forward.  

“Going through heartbreak is sort of a universal experience for most humans, as most people will fall in love, and most will have their heart broken and not know how to move on,” Warren said.  

This is where romantic love can look like an all-consuming addiction. Although not a mental health diagnosis, falling head over heels in love often looks like a person becoming addicted to their lover. They become the most important thing in a person’s life, consuming their time, energy, mental space and thoughts. Much of a person's time is spent around their lover, thinking about their last moments together, and planning for their next meeting.  

“When you think about relationships that way, falling in love looks a lot like an addictive process,” she said. “People become infatuated with a person; they want to be with them all the time and plan the rest of their life with them.” When this type of relationship ends in breakup, it oftentimes resembles withdrawal: the ex is no longer in their life but is still being treated as though they are the most important thing that they want.  

Warren said people struggling through a difficult breakup may benefit from viewing the experience as a form of withdrawal from an addiction. “Your new job is to break yourself off from the addictive stimulus, which is your ex, and then learn to create a life without them,” Warren said.

That is the focus of her book, Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction, a psychological perspective on tools that to help work through a breakup and move forward. 

Part of this passion for studying romantic relationships and love started at Texas A&M, where Warren met a mentor who eventually influenced her research. “During my time at Texas A&M, my clinical supervisor was Dr. Douglas Snyder, who specialized in couples therapy,” she said. “My expertise in romantic relationships and couples probably would not exist without Dr. Snyder.”  

Originally from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Warren grew up in an academic household, with both parents being professors. From an early age she was taught the importance of learning both in and out of the classroom, which gave her opportunities to travel and encounter diverse cultures and belief systems from an early age. That early exposure later influenced Warren’s approach to psychology.  

“In particular, I was really fascinated by how women’s relationships with their physical body, appearance and eating looked so different across cultures,” Warren said. “So, I started doing research and looking at body image and eating behavior in different cultural groups and how they varied.”

That interest continued throughout her undergraduate career, where she researched eating behavior, women and the effects of media exposure. When it came time to choose a graduate program, Warren already knew she would continue studying body image and eating disorders while incorporating a strong cross-cultural component to her research. That goal led her to Texas A&M. 

“I had two advisers, both supporting me in different areas of my studies while at Texas A&M,” Warren said. “Dr. David Gleaves specialized in eating disorders while Dr. Antonio Cepeda-Benito is an expert in substance use and supervised my clinical work in Spanish. Together, these mentors gave me a unique opportunity to blend cultural and clinical perspectives on eating behavior, body image and addiction.”   

Five years later, Warren graduated from Texas A&M with a Ph.D. and a wealth of knowledge and experiences that continue to shape her work today.  

“Being at Texas A&M in a department that embraced me and the research I hoped to pursue gave me opportunities that would have been hard to find elsewhere,” Warren said. “My supervisors and mentors were amazing, and the intense, cross-cultural research was a definite strong suit of the department.”  

Her memories of Texas A&M extend beyond the academic opportunities she found on campus. “There is something magical about living in a college town that caters to the student experience,” Warren said. “You just feel special being part of the Aggie community.” 

She hopes that same curiosity and willingness to explore new ideas will carry the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences into its next 150 years as researchers continue to ask difficult questions, challenge established ideas and pursue possibilities that may not yet have answers.  

“You have to have bright minds who are willing to think outside the box and propose something that, at the time, might sound ludicrous but eventually proves true,” Warren said. “I hope Texas A&M continues to be a place where people are encouraged to think that way.”  

This is the second of several stories marking 60 years of achievement and discovery in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. 

In the middle of a nondescript room on the 10th floor of Texas A&M University’s Eller Oceanography and Meteorology (O&M) Building sits a cream-colored structure about the size of a garden shed. Extension cords jut from the exterior to reach electrical outlets in the ceiling. A peek inside the small window of the reinforced door reveals an interior covered with reflective aluminum and clear sheets that look like cellophane held together with green tape. 

Outside of the structure is a vast array of cords connected in every direction to devices positioned on the floor or sitting on countertops. On one side of the room stands a group of high-pressure gas cylinders. A wet lab appears through a doorway. 

Welcome to the Aerosol Chemistry and Climate Impacts Lab overseen by Dr. Yue Zhang, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences. It is in this room that Zhang and his fellow Texas A&M atmospheric chemists and students utilize the Texas A&M Environmental Chamber (TAMEC) to simulate the atmosphere, release minute aerosols into it, and document their interactions, replicating the real-world chemical processes that have led to our planet’s current air quality and climate challenges.

The "cellophane" and "duct tape" lining the TAMEC interior are non-reactive and extreme-temperature-resistant PTFE film sheets and tape. Mass spectrometers attached to the chamber identify aerosols in real time. A cloud condensation nuclei counter records the number of aerosols that become droplets. In less than a minute, a tabletop furnace heats to a temperature of over 1,000 degrees to simulate a wildfire. 

In an area the size of a standard classroom, scientists can simulate atmospheric and climate conditions, studying the ways in which different organic vapors and aerosols impact air quality. In doing so, they are garnering information about the atmospheric effects of dust storms, microplastics, wildfires, gas pollutants, and many other atmospheric hazards faced by our planet and those who inhabit it.

Zhang hopes the atmospheric aerosols data gathered both within the lab and in field research outside of it will help improve air quality—and life quality—on a global level. It’s an issue, he said, that transcends socioeconomic status and other societal divisions. “Poor air quality is one of the top five causes of deaths worldwide,” he said. “So, when you improve air quality, you are not just helping a subset of people but are helping everyone.”

Throughout its six decades as an independent department, meteorological research has remained central to Texas A&M Atmospheric Sciences, evolving from the university’s early need for accurate weather prediction to support its agricultural and military missions into the sophisticated research conducted today.

It was military advances, in fact, that spearheaded Texas A&M’s post-World War II meteorological research efforts. Nascent radar technology forged during the war was of interest to meteorologists, who saw its potential as a tool to study and predict powerful, often destructive, storms. This “potential tool” proved its worth in 1956, when Aggie meteorologists used a 10-cm wavelength weather radar to track tornadic activity in Bryan and provided the first radar-based tornado warning

In 1973, the Aggie Doppler Radar dish was set atop the Eller O&M Building, providing researchers with a plethora of weather data. That rooftop data is now furnished by the Climavision Ranger X5 Doppler weather radar. 

Early meteorological expertise also came in the form of military veterans.  

One of the most consequential research developments to come out of World War II was the completion of the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer: the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). In 1950, a team led by five scientists—including Dr. John Freeman—used the computer to mathematically predict the weather. It proved game-changing in terms of weather prediction and its impact on everything from shipping to air travel to agriculture. 

In 1952, Texas A&M hired Freeman as one of the first three faculty members to teach meteorology in its newly minted Department of Oceanography. Freeman brought with him the knowledge garnered from his ENIAC experience, which went hand-in-hand with the emerging science of climate modeling.

Climate modeling uses computer programs and mathematics to simulate weather conditions over time. The “over time” concept is key to understanding the relationship between meteorology and oceanography and why both disciplines are important when it comes to creating a climate model.

Dr. R. Saravanan, atmospheric sciences professor and recent department head, explained the link between the two disciplines. “To build a climate model, you need a model of both the atmosphere and the ocean,” he said. “The mathematical equations are the same for both water and air: one is a liquid, one is a gas, but they are both fluids. 

“In terms of weather forecasts, if you’re predicting a day in advance, you can just focus on the atmosphere,” he continued. “Much beyond that, you need to focus on the ocean, as well. If the ocean is warm, for instance, a hurricane will get stronger and it will rain more. So, you need to predict both.”

While weather forecasts remain an important service during severe weather and daily living, long-term climate modeling continues to increase in importance as the planet faces threats from climate change.

In the years following the 1966 division of Texas A&M’s Department of Oceanography and Meteorology into two separate entities, the university’s meteorologists frequently took part in large-scale, collaborative research ventures. Two of the most notable projects investigated tropical regions, where rainfall and trade winds drive global weather patterns and precipitation cycles.

In 1992, the international Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere program’s Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment involved the efforts of more than 1,200 researchers. Using ships, aircraft, weather balloons, platforms and sensors, scientists collected data in the Western Pacific Warm Pool, notable for affecting climate due to changes in its ocean heat content. Texas A&M researchers used their expertise in data collection, modeling and analysis to aid in this historic effort.

Another international endeavor—this one led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency—was intended as a three-year tropical monitoring effort but ultimately lasted 17 years. 

In 1984, Dr. Gerald North, a physical scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), became the initial proposer and first study scientist of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). This satellite-based venture studied tropical precipitation and the associated atmospheric heating that shape both weather and climate. As the first and only precipitation radar in space, the TRMM satellite provided researchers with invaluable weather and climate pattern information and a far greater understanding of hurricanes and storms.  

In 1986—some 11 years before the TRMM satellite finally launched—North left NASA for a position as a distinguished professor of meteorology and of oceanography at Texas A&M. His GSFC colleague, Dr. Thomas Wilheit—who specialized in collecting atmosphere and surface data via satellite microwave remote sensing—joined him as a meteorology professor in 1989. Both are now professors emeritus.

The recruitment of North and Wilheit to the Texas A&M meteorology faculty exemplifies a focused effort in the mid-1980s to strengthen the department’s research program. The effort was a resounding success not only in terms of prominent faculty additions, but in external research funding. By the late 1990s, funding had increased from about $100,000 per year in the early 1980s to an annual $3 million. 

By the end of the century, meteorological research interests had advanced beyond classic meteorology into such areas as climate change and satellite and remote sensing. The departmental name switch from “Meteorology" to “Atmospheric Sciences” in 1998 reflected this evolving mission.

Today’s Texas A&M atmospheric scientists are both continuing the work of their predecessors and taking on newer challenges. 

Like Zhang, roughly a third of the department’s scientists focus their research on atmospheric chemistry and aerosols.

Climate prediction also remains a major focus. With more data and greater accuracy, scientists build models that predict how climate might change in the future due to human and natural factors, providing information for fields ranging from agriculture and water resource management to transportation and urban planning. Other Texas A&M researchers are working on ways to predict climate events by examining the winds that lead to severe weather phenomena like hurricanes, dust storms and wildfires. Some use climate risk assessments to study air quality and extreme heat, particularly as they impact disadvantaged communities. Still others use global climate simulations for insight on flood risks and climate adaptation.

Tropical meteorology likewise endures as a primary focus for atmospheric scientists. Researchers are studying the impact of climate change on tropical global weather, particularly as rainfall and wind patterns increasingly take the form of life-threatening hurricanes. Accurate models of these regions are crucial for forecasting extreme weather events. 

Other Texas A&M atmospheric scientists are researching such topics as climate dynamics (atmospheric processes over millennia), topographic waves, climate adaptation, and the climate impact of volcanic activity.

The cooperative and interdisciplinary efforts that have always played key roles in the research endeavors of Texas A&M atmospheric scientists also remain vital to the department. One notable example involves a massive $37 million NASA satellite mission that uses a specialized radiometer to investigate how and why the properties of high-altitude clouds of tiny ice crystals change throughout the day. Dr. Anita Rapp, Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences and a Class of 2000 graduate of the university, is a member of the mission science team and will use measurements from this mission to study ice clouds that come from tall thunderstorms.  The resulting information will provide crucial data for earth system modeling, which, in turn, can tell scientists how these cloud changes impact the planet’s energy balance and climate.

On the Texas A&M campus, an interdisciplinary College of Arts and Sciences study is looking at dementia from a wide variety of angles. Atmospheric science is contributing data about the possible connection of aerosols to this disease. 

In the interdisciplinary Texas A&M Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, atmospheric chemists join those in other fields to address air quality issues and potential strategies for mitigating the impacts of climate change. And the Texas Center for Extreme Weather brings together climate scientists from both Texas A&M and other institutions to develop comprehensive prediction models and to disseminate findings about hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather events to potentially impacted communities. 

State Climatologist Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas A&M Regents Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, has been a member of the Atmospheric Sciences faculty since 1991. During that period, he has witnessed the impact of his colleagues’ research on understanding everything from air quality to climate mitigation. He, too, has enjoyed the satisfaction that comes with new discoveries and their potential impact

“Research is fun,” he said. “It's incredibly rewarding to be the first person on the planet to learn something and then teach others about it.”

Nielsen-Gammon’s applied climatology, extreme rainfall, drought monitoring and local circulations research endeavors have garnered recognition from the nation’s top meteorological organizations. As recently as 2024, research he and a graduate student initiated found that climate change has intensified storm-related rainfall by nearly 20 percent.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, second only to heart disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cancer was responsible for 619,876 deaths in 2024, with an additional 683,491 attributed to heart disease in that same year.

Texas A&M University nuclear chemist Dr. Sherry J. Yennello and her research group in the Cyclotron Institute are working to change that with the help of cyclotron beams and novel chemistry. As director of the Cyclotron Institute, she oversees a leading U.S. program in developing alpha-emitting radioactive isotopes that are transforming nuclear medicine as an effective treatment for inoperable tumors. In recent years, her research group has perfected routine production, separation and distribution of astatine-211, a short-lived alpha-emitting radioisotope that shows strong promise as a strategic therapeutic weapon against cancer.

“Targeted alpha therapy is a potentially transformative cancer therapeutic of great interest due to its ability to cause large amounts of damage near a tumor cell while keeping the healthy surrounding tissue and organs intact,” explained Yennello, a Distinguished Professor and Regents Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M. “We are one of a handful of U.S. centers capable of routinely producing astatine in medically relevant quantities and delivering it to nearby facilities.”

The Astatine Advantage

When astatine decays, it emits alpha particles, which are formed by the combination of two protons and two neutrons. For a variety of reasons, these alpha particles are highly effective at delivering potent energy capable of killing cancer cells. Unlike other types that can penetrate deeper into the body, damaging both healthy and cancerous tissue, alpha particles only travel a short distance before depositing their cell-destroying energy payload. Thus, when At-211 is positioned in or near cancerous tissue, its emitted alpha particles travel deep enough to destroy the cancer cells but leave surrounding healthy tissue minimally harmed.

Because of At-211’s short half-life, it loses its radioactivity quickly and therefore is less toxic than other longer-lived radiopharmaceuticals. In particular, At-211’s absence of secondary alpha decay radioactivity is key in maximizing its cancer-killing energy and efficiency, making it an attractive prospect for researchers and drug makers throughout the world. Already, it is being pioneered as an alpha-emitting treatment option in clinical trials for blood cancers and even explored in early-stage research and development for Alzheimer's disease.

“Astatine-211’s availability remains the biggest hurdle to harnessing its potential to transform the future of nuclear medicine,” Yennello said. “Fortunately, the advances we’re making here at Texas A&M will go a long way toward addressing that.”

Astatine-211 On Demand

The Yennello Group initially began producing At-211 using Texas A&M’s K150 cyclotron in December 2019. Within months, her team discovered a useful interaction between At-211 and a class of chemicals known as ketones, which led to their 2021 development of a high-yield production, purification and recovery method for At-211 that takes minutes rather than hours. In the years since, Yennello and her group have continued to work with collaborators across the nation to learn more about the behavior and reactivity of shipped At-211 while perfecting their recovery and activation methods.

Texas A&M is currently one of two national suppliers of astatine through the National Isotope Development Center as a featured member of its University Isotope Network since 2023. Yennello and her team regularly provide At-211 to multiple research groups across the state of Texas and nation, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and UTHealth Houston, where researchers can tailor it to their own chemical uses while exploring its radiopharmaceutical properties and therapeutic potential.

Universal Benefits of Nuclear Reactions

Yennello, who holds the Cyclotron Institute Bright Chair in Nuclear Science, originally came to Texas A&M because of her interest in the Cyclotron Institute, a Department of Energy University Facility that she has been a member of for 33 years and has led since 2014. An internationally renowned nuclear chemist and expert in heavy-ion reactions, she is recognized among the top 0.5% of researchers in nuclear chemistry and has made transformational contributions to our understanding of nuclear reactions induced by radioactive nuclei. She is also a global authority in the use of isotopically selected beams to explore the dynamics and thermodynamics of nuclear collisions, including one of the first-ever experiments induced by a radioactive beam.

“My research is focused on working to understand the forces that govern the universe and then using that knowledge to benefit society,” Yennello added. “As a nuclear chemist, I study nuclear reactions and the properties of neutron-rich matter to determine how the elements of the periodic table were made within the stars. By developing a more robust understanding of the chemical evolution of our universe, we can better understand how this knowledge — and nuclear collisions — can be applied to improving the human quality of life and enriching the human experience.”

Yennello is a fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her transformational research has been recognized with the ACS’s highest honor in her field — the ACS Glenn T. Seaborg Award in Nuclear Chemistry — as well as the ACS Garvin-Olin Medal. Her many national career awards to date include the Sigma Xi National Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Oak Ridge Associate Universities Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, the APS Division of Nuclear Physics Mentoring Award, and the Southeastern Universities Research Association Distinguished Scientist Award.

Earlier this year, Yennello was honored with her most recent award, the Texas A&M Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Research. She is one of five Texas A&M faculty who have earned Distinguished Achievement Awards in three different categories, having previously been recognized for Teaching at both the university and college levels in 2012 and 2008, respectively, and for Administration in 2019. In addition, she has earned the Texas A&M Women’s Faculty Network Outstanding Mentor Award.

‘Fascinating World of the Nucleus’

When asked about her own mentors, Yennello credits her high school science teacher, Judy Haduch, for introducing her to the “fascinating world of the nucleus” during a nuclear chemistry course — work that she says was followed up by Ivor Preiss, whose laboratory she worked in as an undergraduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After earning her Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry at Indiana University, she spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Michigan State University before beginning her independent academic career at Texas A&M, where she sees infinite possibilities inherent in the many inquisitive students, excellent staff and top-notch facilities — chief among them the one she leads and loves.

“The Cyclotron Institute is a wonderful and unique facility that provides the infrastructure for discovery science in many areas,” she added. “In the process of delivering applications that benefit society, from producing medical isotopes for cancer treatment to testing for radiation resilience of electronics, we’re also developing the next generation of scientists and helping to supply the nation’s future workforce in areas that are critical to global innovation and advancement.”

Looking back through the years and reflecting on the myriad memories and milestones, Yennello says she is exceptionally grateful for a career goal fulfilled — getting to “do cool science” — and the many people she has gotten to know and work alongside in the process.

“To date in my career, I am most proud of and for the people whose lives have been positively impacted, from undergraduates in my classes and research group, to graduate students, staff and faculty as well as the numerous people outside of Texas A&M of all ages across the state, nation and world.

“I get to work with amazing people every day, and I am always learning something new.”

Entering its fifth academic year, the College of Arts and Sciences is welcoming 78 new faculty members whose expertise spans the humanities, social sciences and sciences, strengthening the college’s teaching, research and service mission.

Dr. Stefanie Harris, executive associate dean, and members of the college leadership team welcomed the group at a fall reception at Kyle Field, where the new faculty met colleagues and learned more about their new academic home in the Bryan-College Station community. 

“The work of our faculty changes lives and advances knowledge,” said Harris, A professor of global languages and cultures. “Through research, teaching and service, these new faculty members will help address important challenges, inspire future leaders, and strengthen the disciplines and communities they serve. The greatest strength of Arts and Sciences has always been its people, and we are delighted to welcome them into a community of 800 faculty dedicated to making a difference.”

Harris said the college’s strength lies not only in the breadth of its disciplines, but in the potential created when they intersect. “The size and disciplinary experience of this college creates opportunities that simply do not exist when we remain within the boundaries of our own fields and classrooms. You are not only joining an academic department or beginning a new position. You are becoming part of a community of excellence with an extraordinary history of people, ideas and opportunity.” 

From quantum computing and climate change ethics to the workings of the human brain and the movement of fluids beneath the ocean floor, new faculty members bring an expansive range of research, scholarship and expertise. They include 34 tenure-track assistant professors, 10 tenure-stream associate and full professors, 18 academic professional track faculty and 16 faculty with visiting titles. Twenty-eight of the new faculty are in the humanities, 14 in the social sciences and 36 in the sciences, with several departments welcoming five or more new faculty members. 

“This exceptional faculty cohort represents both the strength of Arts and Sciences today and our confidence in what lies ahead,” said Dr. Simon North, dean of the college and the John W. Bevan Professor of Chemistry. “As Texas A&M celebrates 150 years, we are reminded that the arts and sciences have been here from the beginning, helping fulfill the university’s mission since 1876. These scholars are now part of what comes next, advancing discovery, inspiring students and preparing the leaders who will shape Texas and beyond.” 

As Texas A&M celebrates its 150th anniversary, the College of Arts and Sciences reflects a legacy that stretches back more than a century. Though officially formed Sept. 1, 2022, its roots trace to the School of Arts and Sciences established in 1924. Through decades of evolution and eventual reunification, the college has been here from the beginning, helping to shape the university’s teaching, research and service mission.  View the photo gallery from the College of Arts and Sciences new faculty welcome event.

Dr. James Francis, instructional associate professor in the Department of English, has published an open educational resource (OER) textbook titled Images in Motion. Developed over three years with 16 undergraduate students and English faculty, it explores film from historical and cultural perspectives in a range of different genres. 

The inspiration for Images in Motion grew from a concept that Francis began incorporating into his classroom early in his teaching career: contact zone theory. He wanted to bring students together to explore texts from diverse perspectives, and visual media offered a compelling way to do that. “We've all seen at least one television show or movie, and we all have our own opinions," Francis said. "So, if I can bring television and film into the classroom as a ‘contact zone’ for students, it may give them a familiar subject they can feel confident discussing." 

As Francis incorporated visual media into his classroom, he began looking for a textbook that would align with his lessons and support student learning. "There are tons of textbooks out there about film and television, but most of them cost between $75 and $300; that's not cost effective for most students," he said. 

In 2022, Francis conceived the idea for Images in Motion, an OER designed to enhance classroom learning. “Who better to write such a resource than the students who will be using it?” he asked. “I wanted student voices at the heart of the textbook so that when students read it, they feel like it was written by people who understand how they learn.” 

Working on Images in Motion gave undergraduate students an opportunity to experience firsthand what graduate-level research looks like in the humanities. Beyond writing, the students involved contributed video essays, sample screenplays, still photography and student-produced short films.  

"When you're working on a long-term project like this, you learn how to synthesize information, communicate effectively, write better and effectively manage your time," said River Scott '25, honors English student with a double-major in philosophy, wrote the comedy section of the book. "Working alongside a professor on a project like this is useful for any student, not just those interested in graduate school or considering careers in academia.” 

Leonardo Martins '24, who wrote the drama section, said the creative freedom he was given in writing allowed him to explore foundational topics outside of rhetoric, his field of study. 

"In this chapter, which is essentially a genealogy of the history of drama, I analyzed what has become of film and reviewed the way in which drama has expanded outside of Aristotle's early definition," said Martins, currently pursuing a master's degree in English at Texas A&M. "The experience gave me a strong understanding of how texts are published." 

Contributing Editor Sam Herndon '24, now a high school English teacher, said that OER texts like Images in Motion can complement traditional curriculum materials while offering students new ways to engage with course content.  

For Herndon, who completed a Master of Education at Texas A&M, OER textbooks embody what education is supposed to be about: providing access to knowledge without financial barriers or the boundaries of a traditional classroom. "I love the idea of implementing the study of film as an aspect of literature," Herndon said.  

Francis plans to continue working with more undergraduate students and faculty members in other departments to expand the textbook beyond film and television to other visual and performance media like dance, comic books and manga. 

"We have a network of students from a variety of majors, both within English and across the university, who have contributed to the book, Francis said. “Without the students, the textbook would not be what it is today.” 

Dr. Hugo Samayoa-Oviedo, a postdoctoral researcher in Texas A&M University’s Department of Chemistry, has been named a 2026 Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) Fellow. The prestigious fellowship provides career development support to outstanding postdoctoral scholars in chemistry, physics, astronomy, or an allied field. 

The RCSA Fellows Initiative selects early-career scholars based on the quality and significance of their scientific achievements, proposed research and teaching plans. “He was selected through a competitive process that recognized his potential to become an outstanding faculty member in chemistry,” said Dr. Lane Baker, who heads the Department of Chemistry, part of Texas A&M’s College of Arts and Sciences. 

The three-year fellowship assists outstanding early career faculty members in their initial job search and during their first year as a tenure-track faculty investigator at a higher education institution in the United States and Canada. Fellows receive specially tailored professional development, including a mock interview session, networking through an annual cohort meeting, individual mentoring and travel funding.  

“I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity, which represents a first step in finding and nurturing my own voice within the academic community,” Samayoa-Oviedo said. “A distinct advantage of this program is being part of a strong network of mentors and peers, whose feedback and support will be invaluable throughout my professional career.” 

This recognition is a feather in the cap for Texas A&M University’s Department of Chemistry. “Our participation in this program underscores Texas A&M Chemistry’s commitment to preparing future leaders in the field,” said Baker, who holds the Dr. Carl D. McAfee ’90 Chair in Analytical Chemistry. “It also strengthens the department’s visibility as a destination for talented postdoctoral researchers and graduate students who seek scientific excellence, purposeful mentoring and comprehensive professional development. The fellowship represents a strong alignment between the commitments of the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement and Texas A&M Chemistry to advancing research, education and the development of the next generation of scientific leaders.” 

Samayoa-Oviedo’s higher education journey began in Mexico City, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from National Autonomous University of Mexico. After working briefly as a high school teacher, he continued his education at Purdue University, earning a doctorate in chemistry.  

In 2024, Samayoa-Oviedo joined the University of Utah as a postdoctoral researcher before coming to Texas A&M. “I was eager to continue learning new skills and expand my expertise in analytical instrumentation,” he said. “Texas A&M is the perfect place to pursue this goal. I was excited to receive a postdoctoral offer to work under the supervision of Professors Lane Baker and Xin Yan, both leaders in the fields of electrochemistry and mass spectrometry, respectively.” 

He credits his interest in analytical instrumentation to his penchant for finding new ways to approach interesting scientific questions. “I love working with instruments and developing new technology to answer scientific questions,” he said. “Although I lack an engineering background, my time in graduate school pushed me to quickly learn about electronics and electrical components, so I could design, troubleshoot and repair the mass spectrometers in our lab. This passion has led me to explore research fields where there is a need to develop new technologies to make complex measurements in a simpler way.” 

His research combines electrochemistry and mass spectrometry to explore methods of designing materials that can efficiently turn waste products into high-value chemicals. “When it comes to chemical analysis, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution,” he said. “Working in the Baker and Yan research groups, we use electricity to drive a chemical reaction and mass spectrometry to identify the exact chemical species we produce.  

“I hope our research will help us understand how certain reaction conditions and electrode materials determine whether a reaction proceeds in one direction or another. This is critical for developing more efficient ways to synthesize value-added products, like green fuels or pharmaceuticals.”  

He added that collaboration among research groups working on similar technologies will continue to push the limits of measurement science, enabling scientists to extract as much information as possible from even the smallest samples. 

Samayoa-Oviedo is contemplating his next career step. “Next year, I plan to begin applying for faculty positions,” he said. “I am excited to prepare my application materials and to discuss my research ideas with my peers. Being a postdoc at Texas A&M is a unique opportunity, as the innovative research conducted here and the community-oriented atmosphere fosters friendly, insightful scientific discussions. I believe these experiences will serve as a cornerstone for my scientific and professional development.” 

He credits Baker and Yan at Texas A&M and Dr. Julia Laskin at Purdue University for providing valuable early professional and research guidance. “I particularly enjoy mentoring graduate students in the lab,” he said. “I am optimistic that many of those projects will come to fruition soon.” 

This career development cycle, which includes programs such as the RCSA Fellows Initiative, is pivotal to successfully preparing future generations of faculty members who extend scientific research while educating those who follow. “We are deeply grateful to the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement for this opportunity and for its foresight in addressing the critical transition from doctoral and postdoctoral training to an independent faculty career,” Baker said. “The organization has long played a leading role in advancing research and education in chemistry and physics. Its sustained investment in emerging scientists continues to strengthen the future of the physical sciences by preparing talented researchers to become thoughtful educators, mentors and academic leaders.” 

Three College of Arts and Sciences former students were among 12 Aggies honored with Texas A&M University’s 2026 Distinguished Alumnus Award, the university’s highest honor for a former student.

Musician Chris Tomlin ’94, business leader Cathy L. Gist ’92 and attorney and former U.S. Rep. Gregory H. Laughlin ’64 were recognized by Texas A&M University and The Association of Former Students for professional achievement, service and contributions that have brought distinction to the university and their communities.

Presented jointly by the university and The Association of Former Students, the Distinguished Alumnus Award has recognized former students since 1962. The Association reports that only 366 of Texas A&M’s more than 629,000 former students have received the honor.

Chris Tomlin ’94, one of the world’s most influential worship artists, discovered his purpose at Texas A&M. While earning his psychology degree, he became an integral part of the Breakaway campus ministry. Although he initially considered a career in medicine, his time in Aggieland led him to Christian music ministry and a career that now fills arenas around the world.

The award-winning singer-songwriter has earned 21 No. 1 radio singles, including “Holy Forever,” and has sold more than 12 million albums. His work has generated 8 billion career streams and earned a Grammy Award, three Billboard Music Awards and 30 Dove Awards. His songs are sung in churches around the globe by an estimated 20 million to 30 million people each week.

Tomlin and his wife, Lauren, founded For Others, a nonprofit that supports vulnerable children and families. The organization has aided thousands of people worldwide through family reunification and adoption.

Cathy L. Gist ’92 is global vice president of Cemex and a leader in public affairs, communications and stakeholder strategy. A Texas A&M journalism graduate, she was active as a student in Student Government, Zeta Tau Alpha, Fish Camp and the Aggieland yearbook staff.

As vice president of public affairs at Cemex, Gist oversees global stakeholder strategies and communications. Her executive career has also included roles at Westinghouse Electric Co., the American Bureau of Shipping and Halliburton. Her professional leadership, mentoring and advocacy have earned recognition from Rice University and the industry, including a “Women Worth Watching” honor.

Gist has maintained a longstanding commitment to Texas A&M and The Association of Former Students. As chair of The Association’s Board of Directors during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she helped foster unity and connection during a period of extraordinary disruption. She has also endowed two Aggie Ring Scholarships, has been an Endowed Century Club member for 35 years and sponsored a space in the Association-developed, student-focused building in Aggie Park.

The Hon. Gregory H. Laughlin ’64 has devoted his career to public service, law and Texas A&M University. Raised in West Columbia, Texas, Laughlin earned the rank of Eagle Scout before coming to Texas A&M, where he earned a history degree, served as a Student Senate officer and participated in the Corps of Cadets as a Ross Volunteer.

After graduation, Laughlin served in the U.S. Army and later the Army Reserve, retiring as a colonel. He began his legal career as an assistant district attorney in Houston before being elected to four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented Texas and served on key congressional committees.

Former U.S. Rep. Gregory H. Laughlin ’64, left, participates in a parade alongside a Desert Storm veteran. Laughlin represented Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms and later retired as an Army Reserve colonel. Photo courtesy of Josh Smith, Media North Star.

Throughout his public-service career, Laughlin worked to build bipartisan support for consequential legislation. He also founded the Texas A&M Agricultural and Natural Resources Policy Internship Program, creating opportunities for Aggies to gain public-policy experience.

Laughlin has been recognized as an Aggie Lawyer of the Year and inducted into the Corps of Cadets Hall of Honor. He is also a longtime member of The Association of Former Students’ Century Club.

Texas A&M University and The Association of Former Students honored the 2026 recipients at the Distinguished Alumni Gala on Sept. 4 at Reed Arena. The honorees also received recognition during halftime of Texas A&M’s Sept. 5 football game at Kyle Field.

Learn more about the Distinguished Alumnus Award and the 2026 honorees through The Association of Former Students.

Historians are rarely able to work with a full picture. Very few people write down every aspect of their lives with perfect preservation, so researchers are forced to look back at a patchwork of clues and partial sources to reconstruct scenes, people and lives from decades, centuries or even millennia ago. 

For example, when examining texts from around the American Civil War, researchers consider the material a text is printed on. What kind of paper is it? During the war, most paper mills were located in the North, so people living in the South were eventually forced to make use of whatever paper they could in order to circulate the news, and resorted to using wallpaper to print newspapers. So often, newspapers printed in the Confederacy included decorative patterns on the back. 

Even if the paper was properly manufactured for the purpose of printing, it must be identified as either mass-produced wood-pulp paper or rag paper made of recycled linens. For millennia, paper was made from linen rags that were macerated and dried on wire frames, leaving a signature grid-pattern on the finished page. Wood-pulp paper emerged in the mid-1800s, using the now-familiar production method in which wood is processed into pulp to make paper. The date paper was manufactured is not printed on its sheet, so experts use the material and method of production to determine when the paper must have been produced, and from that explore the historical context around the author’s words as well as the different people and skilled trades the paper came in contact with before eventually making its way to a reader’s shelf. The tears, stains, burns and marks on a book’s page all tell stories about the people who came into contact with the books we now study.

Dr. Avery Blankenship, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M University Department of English, has dubbed this area of research “literary forensics.” She and researchers like her use clues gathered from the physical properties of texts to infer information about the people who used them. 

Blankenship’s expertise lies in cookbooks from the 1800s. At the time, these books were treated more akin to the way we treat novels, with recipes often including anecdotes and tangents while providing the ingredients and steps to prepare a meal. The books were meant to be read, but in the parlor far away from the kitchen. They were typically covered in cheap binding, with embossed but ungilded titles, indicating they were intended for use, not just display. Keeping production costs down expanded the number of people who could afford to purchase these books in a time when books were pricey investments. 

Blankenship found another example of contextual evidence used to assemble a picture of how cookbooks are made and where their recipes come from in The Carolina Housewife by Sarah Rutledge. Her recipe for “hoecakes,” which are typically pancakes made with cornmeal, includes a note that they may be cooked on either a griddle or the back of a hoe. According to Blankenship, women of Rutledge’s social class generally did not prepare their own meals; such work was left to enslaved people, or sometimes German or Irish immigrants. As such, Rutledge herself did not cook pancakes on the back of a hoe as she advises her readers to do in her “tried and trusted” cookbook. Rather, she watched someone else doing so on the plantation she grew up on and included the technique in her book. 

Yet, even this way of close reading recipes does not always tell us how the books were actually used. The food stains within the book, however, do. “Stains are important when you’re studying food because they tell us what parts of the cookbook were actually used.” Blankenship said. “You may buy a cookbook and never open it. We still do that. But a stained cookbook tells us someone made this recipe at some point.” 

In the past, many archives and libraries viewed these stains as nuisances — blemishes that soaked into centuries old pages which lowered a book’s value as part of a conservation collection, or otherwise got in the way of reading the text on the page. But as Blankenship further explored these “defects,” she began to see them as another window into an otherwise lost past. 

As she explored more historic cookbooks, she became increasingly interested in identifying the composition of the stains. They could lend insight into the lives of the cooks, many of whom were otherwise unable to document their own lives in books or letters. 

“I became increasingly focused on trying to learn more about these stains,” Blankenship said. “Trying to find written recipes from enslaved people is somewhat of a dead end. There are only two cookbooks in the entire 19th century that were written by Black women, that we know of. And one of those cookbooks, there’s only one copy in existence.” 

After a long search involving Harvard University’s paper conservation laboratory, the Smithsonian Institution and eventually the local FBI — “Because this is essentially forensics work, like surely they must know how to do these things?” Blankenship laughed — she finally got a lead from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Conservation scientists often take microscopic samples of paint from art pieces to chemically analyze and identify them similarly to what she intended to do, and the museum was able to give her a lead: infrared spectroscopy.  

Infrared spectroscopy is a chemical analysis method whereby the researcher shines a beam of infrared light, the kind we feel as heat, at a material and examines how the molecular bonds in the material absorb energy from the light to bend, stretch or vibrate. Different chemicals absorb different wavelengths of light, so the amount of light a molecule absorbed can work as a signature to help identify which chemicals the beam interacted with.  

Blankenship had a lead for her experiments, and a personal collection of around two dozen 19th century cookbooks no one would mind her damaging a little while she refined her method. She got to work. 

There were two problems. First, there is no singular database of spectroscopic signatures of historical food stains to compare unknown stains against. Existing databases are proprietary, owned by private companies and expensive to access. So Blankenship made one herself. She secured a small grant to fund her research and the use of the equipment at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, stained period-accurate paper with a known food substance, performed a spectroscopic analysis on it to see what signature the data produced and repeated the process with as many food items as time and funding allowed. 

Second problem: the paper. The intent is to get data from the stains, but every stain has soaked into paper, which provides a spectroscopic signature of its own. As she amasses her database, Blankenship is also using a statistical reduction method to compare samples and filter out the background noise from cellulose and any other chemicals present in the paper, since the same noise is present in every sample. Without millions of samples for comparison, the analysis cannot identify the exact ingredient that dripped onto the page, but it can help her place it within a general category. 

This semester, Blankenship intends to expand her testing. Her existing method can tell the category ingredient, but for much more specific readings she needs to use mass spectrometry, which requires a sample to be removed from the book and dissolved in a solution. For cookbooks, that would typically mean taking a small hole punch of every stain to analyze the chemicals. Due to the historical significance of the books she wants to examine, that is not a viable option. But once again, she found a solution from the world of conservation science that she plans to put into practice this semester.  

“I can take a very small piece of fiberglass polishing film, about 2 millimeters wide, which is what they use to polish gemstones,” Blankenship said. “I put it on essentially a pair of tweezers and gently rub it on the stain. The film flakes off microscopic pieces of the stain, and that’s all you need to do the analysis.” 

A stain of Prussian blue on a page initially indicates ink, but a closer look reveals the ink has been pushed away from the center of the stain, leaving the center diffused by a clear substance. Spectroscopy detects the signatures of both ink and oil.  Knowing that the ink is water-based and that oil is hydrophobic tells us the order the two were likely dropped on the page. 

The same page includes a recipe for apple cider. A nearby stain is identified as having acidic properties, indicating someone actually prepared the recipe in the past. With that context, an entire life previously lost to time comes into focus, even if only by a single moment. We cannot know exactly who the person was or what they were doing, but the pieces fit together to form the picture of someone testing a bottle of cider fermented from juice, making a note — possibly in the recipe they were following, possibly on some paper off to the side — and fumbling a bit of cider and ink in quick succession for any number of reasons, staining the page with one, then the other before the first had time to soak into the fibers or dry out, leaving evidence of both the cooking process and a life otherwise lost to history. 

Food stains can be read like marginal notes or additions made to a recipe in real time. “If I find something on the page that must be an acid, and I know enough about 19th century food that I can guess it’s lemon juice, and the recipe doesn’t call for it, we can infer the cook added lemon juice, but they couldn’t write it down.” Blankenship said. “To me that’s important, because it revitalizes even a couple of seconds of someone’s life.” 

The common person is almost always lost to history. Of the over eight billion living humans, only a handful will be remembered more than a few decades after they die, and fewer still multiple centuries on. But with enough curiosity, ingenuity and technology, researchers can glimpse the silhouettes of souls lost to time and give light to those obscured. 

The reaction starts with two unassuming powders, one orange, one yellow. Into the mortar bowl, one after the other. The lab tech grabs the pestle and starts mashing them together, applying rhythmic, pulverizing force. Something incredible happens: the powders transform into a beautiful, deep blue. More specifically, it is Prussian blue, a chemical that has been used as a dye for centuries and that is still in use today in many industrial applications.

Making Prussian blue with traditional chemistry requires beakers of liquids that must be combined to create the deep blue powder, which become waste after the pigment is removed. This simple approach using a mortar and pestle, despite being ancient tools, represents a new approach to chemical synthesis and manufacturing, known as mechanochemistry.

What is Mechanochemistry?

Working with powdered chemicals is not new to chemistry. What sets mechanochemistry apart from other branches of chemistry is its focus on force.

In traditional chemistry, the energy needed to initiate a reaction is provided by heat, light or electricity. Mechanochemistry uses kinetic energy, derived from mechanical processes such as metal grinding on ceramic or components being shaken dozens of times per second. Force has been used in chemistry since ancient times — striking flint on stone to create a spark is a mechanochemical process — but the field had been overlooked due to the difficulty of applying precise forces to materials in a repeatable manner. Hand-powered machines like the mortar and pestle are wildly inconsistent between users. As such, mechanochemistry did not evolve into a more common practice until the rise of automated machines that could apply the same force for hours

With these advances, mechanochemical approaches allow for more precise and efficient reactions that can be conducted at lower temperatures and produce less chemical waste than traditional processes, making them safer and more sustainable. The field also opens opportunities to perform entirely new chemistry. In traditional methods, reagents are first dissolved in a liquid, known as a solvent, to perform reactions. The solvent must be disposed of when the reaction is complete. In mechanochemistry, liquid solvents are generally not required, allowing researchers to now perform reactions that were previously impossible, due to the compounds of interest being insoluble.

The Mechanochemistry Innovation Hub

The Mechanochemistry Innovation Hub (MIH) in Texas A&M University’s Chemistry Building operates as part of the National Science Foundation’s Center for the Mechanical Control of Chemistry (NSF). The NSF CMCC facilitates research to advance our understanding of mechanochemistry, producing foundational knowledge that can be used to develop mechanochemical methods for advanced chemical manufacturing.

“We focus on the methodology,” explained Dr. Yuguang Cai, an associate instructional professor in the Department of Chemistry and manager of the MIH. “When we do mechanochemistry, we are asking: What kind of standard conditions should we report to make it reproducible, and what is happening inside a mechanochemical reaction?”

While there are many other mechanochemistry labs around the country, Texas A&M’s MIH is unique in its openness. “To my knowledge, this is the first user facility of its kind in the U.S.,” said Dr. James Batteas, a Regents Professor, D. Wayne Goodman Professor of Chemistry and Director of the NSF CMCC. “It not only supports the nearly 65 researchers in the center, but it’s also outward-facing and open to external stakeholders.”

The MIH also stands out in the diversity of machines available to researchers. “Other labs around the country might have one ball mill or a twin-screw extruder,” said Cai, but the MIH offers a complete suite of tools ranging from standard ball mills to acoustic mixers, where powders can be subjected to accelerations up to 100 times the force of gravity.

“We have also advanced these tools to include mills that can record the exact forces experienced by the materials in them generated by each collision,” Batteas said. “Our 'fundamentals to fab' approach also offers the opportunity for translating work from the lab scale, of milligrams to grams, up to small pilot scales of 1 kilogram or more.” This assortment of machines allows researchers to repeat experiments in different ways to better understand how different applications of force affect different reactions.

 “We bring together not just important toolsets, but also a core set of researchers focused on advancing this area,” Batteas said. Collaboration is a primary goal at the MIH, not just for researchers at Texas A&M, but for those around the country and even around the world. The free flow of information and methodology allows them to exchange ideas, learn from one another and foster innovation.

Another goal of the MIH is to further education and training in mechanochemistry at all levels. Scientists working at the MIH are helping to develop new undergraduate curricula to include more knowledge about mechanochemistry. In addition, the center offers an Research Experience for Undergraduates program, in which students from around the country come to Texas A&M to work with the lab’s mechanochemistry instruments, an experience not often seen in traditional chemistry curricula. Undergraduate students are also engaged with NSF CMCC research projects in the MIH year-round.

Additionally, industrial partners, such as Fritsch Milling and Sizing, bring expertise to the facility through workshops and training sessions with students, and by donating equipment. “Industry partnerships like this help us translate the work of the NSF CMCC out into practice,” said Batteas.

There are many opportunities for graduate students as well. Beyond their typical research positions, graduate students working in the NSF CMCC have opportunities to travel abroad and perform mechanochemical research in the United Kingdom at the University of Birmingham, through an International Research Experience for Students, also supported by the NSF.

Understanding the Basics

Even before the MIH opened in May 2025, researchers in the NSF CMCC had already launched several projects using its equipment to determine what is possible with mechanochemistry.

“One of the most used instruments for doing mechanochemistry is a ball mill,” Batteas said. A typical ball mill has two main components: a metal jar with a lid, and a small metal or ceramic ball. The chemicals being used in the reaction are put in the jar in powder form along with the ball, the jar is sealed, secured in the mill and shaken with more force and speed than any human could produce.

Depending on the exact reaction and machine, researchers may add a small amount of liquid to enhance mixing of the reagents; not enough to dissolve the powders, but enough to stop them from simply compacting or otherwise not interacting.

The kinetic energy of the ball colliding with the materials and compressing them against the wall of the jar drives the reaction. Though this may be a relatively basic process, there is still plenty to learn about how the reaction progresses.

“What we’re trying to understand is, how do you control the energy dissipation pathways, or the amount of energy put in?” Batteas said. Researchers design reactor components out of different materials and with varying shapes to observe how these changes alter the forces applied, which in turn affects the outcomes of the reactions. Here Batteas, together with NSF CMCC researcher Jonathan Felts from Texas A&M’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, have patented a series of different milling systems to advance these approaches. The MIH also uses 3D printing to make custom adapters and reaction vessels, which allows students to rapidly prototype designs and explore new ideas at low cost.

Without a liquid solvent, some mechanochemical reactions can be affected by chemicals in the air. Alison Altman, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, uses a glovebox that allows her team to study reactions in an oxygen- and water-free environment. These reactions produce materials with unique electronic and magnetic states for use in quantum computing.

Another chemistry faculty member and member of the NSF CMCC, Dr. Daniel Tabor, is developing a database of mechanochemical reactions. One challenge in mechanochemistry is determining which reactions can be driven mechanically. While there is an existing database of chemical reactions using traditional methods, the Open Reaction Database, it lacks information about mechanochemical reactions. By quantifying the types of reactions, forces applied and experimental conditions, machine learning tools can be applied to predict other reactions that might be possible with mechanochemistry. One of the long-term goals of the project is to combine predicted reactions with automation to create materials by design and streamline the manufacturing process.

Real-World Applications

The work at the MIH goes beyond defining the parameters and abilities of mechanochemistry as a field. Several researchers are exploring potential applications of mechanochemistry in multiple industries.

One graduate student is experimenting with using a ball mill to break down the cell walls of corn kernels to release nutrients. Currently, corn kernels are treated with a chemical base to break the cell walls and release amino acids and sugars, but this processing step adds chemicals to the final product and results in chemical waste. The ball mill can break apart the corn kernels with kinetic force alone, eliminating the use of excess chemicals.

Another graduate student from the College of Engineering’s Department of Material Science and Engineering is experimenting with using mechanochemistry to create high melting point metal alloys to be used in extremely hot environments. These alloys tend to crack when being cooled during manufacturing. To combat that, the researcher is experimenting with coating a metal powder with even smaller nanoparticle carbon, which can fill cracks and strengthen the metal as it cools. The goal of this project is to be able to use metallic powders as 3D-printing filaments to print jet engines or other complicated engineering parts, allowing metal alloys to be created in the shape of the part it is intended to become, rather than needing to cast an ingot of the metal which then needs to be reshaped later.

Another project coming online in the MIH involves designing better approaches for polymer breakdown and recycling. “Here we will be looking to create complete processes that can run in a single reactor to convert what we want to recycle directly into our desired materials,” Batteas said.

The Future

Even with a generous selection of machines already available at the MIH, researchers continue to consider new tools to expand the lab’s capabilities. Of particular interest is a Raman spectrometer, which would allow the researchers to better understand the structures of the compounds they produce by watching how light scatters from the chemical compounds during reaction.

Researchers also plan to expand beyond benchtop-scale experiments to explore the challenges of working with larger quantities of material, a critical next step to make mechanochemical techniques viable for real-world manufacturing settings.

The prospect of new collaborations excites Texas A&M’s MIH team, which envisions the facility growing not in its physical footprint but through the new researchers, projects and ideas it brings together. “We welcome researchers from around the world,” said Cai. “We have plenty of people to help you foster and nurture success."

A worker honeybee can travel up to 500 miles in its lifetime — but that’s still not as far as the late Dr. Vaughn Bryant, from the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University, was willing to go for his students. 

“Teaching was his greatest passion,” said Anna Belle Bryant, Vaughn’s granddaughter and archaeology master’s degree student at the University of Wichita. “He was determined to make sure people knew about the study of anthropology and loved it. That became his life’s mission.”

Vaughn, a Regents Professor, had a career at Texas A&M that defied limitations and disregarded boundaries. In 1971, he joined the faculty at Texas A&M, where he helped start the Department of Anthropology and the Palynology Lab specializing in pollen analysis. While that was his focus, he also studied the diets of prehistoric man and the history of kissing, among other subjects. 

“What’s that old saying? Jack of all trades, master of none?” Vaughn said. “You must be willing to do things and always be open-minded. If you are willing, there is no telling what avenues will open for you.”  

Bryant earned three degrees from the University of Texas: an undergraduate degree in geography, master’s in anthropology and a Ph.D. in botany. The three fields of study combined to make for a varied and rich career in research and discovery.  

During his time as the director of the Palynology Lab, Vaughn was asked to help the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and even the White House.  

In 1979, he analyzed the pollen trapped in the fibers of the jacket of a young female victim who was found slain in a New York cornfield in 1979.  

“Investigators shipped the victim’s clothing to me, which I analyzed for pollen grains,” he said. “I determined that the girl was not from New York, but from either southern Florida or around San Diego, based on pollen grains found in pocket lint that had survived, even after all those years. In 2015, she was identified as being from southern Florida.” 

To analyze pollen grains, Vaughn used a special vacuum to gather pollen from the sample while wearing an anti-contamination suit. He placed the vacuum filter in a test tube, which was treated with a series of acids that leaves behind only the pollen. He microscopically studied and identified the pollen grains, matching them to the original plants. 

“After 9/11, the CIA asked me to analyze samples to help track down terrorists using forensic pollen techniques,” he said. “They sent me random objects but never said where they came from or the item’s significance.” 

Vaughn analyzed a shoelace taken from a terrorist’s boot, a prayer blanket and even weapons. He has been asked to determine the origin of illegal drugs and analyzed the honey at the White House, during the Obama Administration, to determine where the bees were sourcing their pollen. At one time, he was analyzing more than 100 honey samples a year for importers, exporters, beekeepers and producers, as he believed he was the only person doing melissopalynology — the study of pollen in honey — on a regular basis, tracking down honey with a “questionable heritage.”  

Some samples were labeled as originating from other countries, but they actually came from China and were re-routed to avoid high tariffs. Those tariffs were imposed after Chinese exporters began “dumping” cheap honey into the U.S. market, threatening the domestic honey industry.  

“Now there are lots of shenanigans going on to avoid having to pay those tariffs, and the investigators are way behind in following them,” Vaughn said at the time. “The beekeepers of the U.S. have been pleading with the FDA to enact stricter guidelines about accurate labeling for honey, but that is a long, slow process. Meanwhile, I’m trying to help out here and there, but it’s almost impossible to keep up.” 

No matter how accomplished he became in his field, to Anna Belle, he was just “Pa Pa.” 

“I never knew how big a deal he was until I was 20 years old,” Anna Belle said. “He never took himself too seriously and was one of the funniest people I knew. He appreciated and valued every aspect of his life.” 

Aside from his pollen research, Vaughn studied coprolites, which are fossilized feces, to learn about the diet of prehistoric man. He also began studying the history of kissing due to a student’s inquiry in one of his first classes. 

“I asked students to list five cultural universals, things that all people in the world do,” said Vaughn. “Someone said kissing. I had no idea if it was universal. I told the class I had no idea, but I would pursue it.” 

While initially finding nothing, he kept digging and believes that the origin has to do with smell. The earliest and best references to kissing come from India where “kiss” and “sniff” were referred to by the same word. He believed kissing originated in ancient India, from a nose rub gone awry. 

It’s that kind of dedication to his students that has defined his legacy most of all.  

“When I was young, I would spend time with him in his office in the anthropology building,” Anna Belle said. “Everyone was so tight-knit, and there was just this respectful, beautiful relationship between him and his students. I also felt like I had a personal relationship with his students because of the way he talked about them. I only ever heard how much he loved Texas A&M, the anthropology department, his students and the faculty.” 

Even after he was diagnosed with leukemia, Vaughn continued to teach and conduct research even from his hospital room at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He told KBTX in 2017, "Why am I still doing this? Why haven't I retired? Because I love it! Although it's a challenge, it's being with students. This is my life.” 

His granddaughter said he found energy in teaching, rather than finding it draining. “It’s what kept him going all the years he had cancer," she said. "He loved his work more than anyone else I’ve ever known. That’s why he took his microscope into what eventually became his death bed.” 

Vaughn passed away in 2021, but his legacy lives in the significant research he conducted and the students he taught.  

Dr. Crystal Dozier, one of Vaughn’s last Ph.D. students, an anthropological archaeologist at Wichita State University and current mentor of Anna Belle, said, “Dr. Vaughn Bryant was a powerful example of what academic mentorship should look like. He was so supportive of student projects and of finding creative ways to fund student work.” 

She recalls a time when she asked him if she could use his lab and supplies for a small pollen experiment. While Bryant didn’t think the experiment would yield many results, he let her conduct the experiment anyways.  

“I managed to get it published despite the limited results he expected, and he was congratulatory,” Dozier said. “In the building of my own laboratory, I strive to continue his tradition of an open-door, student-led, creative and supportive space. His infectious joy for mentorship and research propelled the careers of so many of his students, now all across the country. I am honored to carry that tradition.” 

In 2018, when Bryant received the Regents Professor Award — the highest honor bestowed by the Texas A&M University System on faculty members, former dean of the College of Liberal Arts Pam Matthews said, “Vaughn Bryant has given so much to our college and university over the years that it is very gratifying to see him honored with a Regents’ Professorship. He is the complete professor: committed to his important research in palynology, dedicated to his students, and selfless in his service to Texas A&M University.  Those of us who are lucky enough to have worked with Vaughn are better for knowing him.” 

Anna Belle emphasized what a special place the anthropology department was for her grandfather. “He still feels so alive through his influence, and the people continuing his research are keeping his legacy going. I feel his presence all around me.” 

Matthew Morris ’25 is well on his way in preparing to teach high school science. While he credits his Texas A&M University classes for creating a strong foundation, the College of Arts & Sciences biology major also listens to aggieTEACH Arts & Sciences’ Momentum podcast to pick up timely insights on some of the finer points of teaching. 

The aggieTEACH Momentum podcast is the brainchild of aggieTEACH Arts & Sciences Program Manager Kenric Davies ’10. “When I was thinking about doing this podcast, I did a search and didn't see anything that was specific to the needs of preservice teachers,” said the aggieTEACH alumni and former high school physics teacher. “Of course, teaching is teaching, but preservice teachers are not as knowledgeable, so they need things explained in a way that is going to impress upon them the importance of an area in their future career.” 

First launched in 2025, the Momentum podcast, now in its third season, is available on most major podcasting platforms. With each episode averaging 30 minutes, the podcast is catching on and now has more than 1,100 views. “It's even connected with people who live outside of Texas,” Davies said. “I have listeners in Mississippi and Florida and individuals from other teacher preparation programs, which is kind of cool.”

The podcast’s content is based on Davies’ and aggieTEACH Program Coordinator Kolby Richardson’s secondary classroom experiences as well as feedback from aggieTEACH Arts & Sciences’ current and former students. Each episode delves into timely topics that new teachers face, such as classroom management, classroom efficiency, teacher burnout, special education, gamification and school safety.   

The podcast features interviews with guests from across the educational spectrum who share different perspectives that are helpful to listeners. “I think that the Momentum podcast does a really great job covering the topics that are a big part of teaching but are not necessarily part of the curriculum,” said Navasota Independent School District Principal Elizabeth Stanley ’16, an aggieTEACH former student who was a podcast guest.  “For example, I discussed T-TESS, which is the teacher appraisal process in Texas. It was covered briefly in the curriculum in college but was a huge part of my experience as a teacher. By bridging the gaps and covering these topics, aspiring teachers are more likely to be successful in their first year of teaching.” 

The podcast also addresses important areas outside of the classroom. For example, Davies invited College of Arts & Sciences Associate Director for Career Services Barclay Osborne on the podcast to discuss the finer points of interviewing during the job search. That episode also led the pair to present on the use of podcasts for recruitment, mentorship and retention at the Texas Conference on Student Success. “Being on the podcast was such a wonderful experience, and Kenric was so prepared and made the experience such a fun and engaging event,” Osborne said. “We discussed the importance of using the interview to find out about the culture of the school and department to make sure it will be a good fit so new teachers can start off on the right foot in a teaching position.” 

The Momentum podcast also addressed the serious issue of teacher burnout, which often arises for new teachers and also is a key factor in Texas’ ongoing teacher shortage. The highly popular podcast episode featured Charles Butt Foundation’s Senior Program Director of Data Insights Kurt Lockhart and Director of Raising Blended Learners Christine Lowak. 

Already looking ahead to the podcast’s next season, Davies is developing episodes on a new slate of topics: clinical teaching; the difference between skills and content; high quality instructional materials; digital learning; and the responsibilities of school boards. 

Aggie preservice teachers who have listened to the podcast appreciate this approach. “It’s exposing me to an environment that I’m not aware of,” said Morris, who grew up in Hallsville, Texas. “Even when I listen to the podcast passively, I hear something I don't know and learn what it means.” 

Morris is especially appreciative for the Momentum podcast about preparing for teacher certification exams. “They brought on some of my friends who talked about their experience, how to prepare, and what to be worried about,” he said. “I'll be taking my pedagogy exam within the month so I may actually rewatch the podcast.”

The aspiring teacher also continues to think about a recent Momentum episode devoted to the use of inquiry in science classes. “There’s a right way as well as a wrong way to teach science. The trick is being able to actually reach the person you’re trying to teach, because it’s so incredibly easy to just say ‘science’ and hope that a student picks up on it,” Morris said. “If you can inspire someone to use inquiry, they can become learners of science as well as lifelong learners, which is the ultimate goal.” 

This type of support is exactly what aggieTEACH Arts & Sciences strives to provide to current and former students who are entering the teaching profession. “Joining the AggieTEACH program was one of the best choices that I have ever made. I would not be where I am without it,” Stanley said. “I am excited to see the program continue to grow and am happy that the leadership is looking for ways to connect alumni to current students in order to share knowledge and experience.”

Through the support of a Mellon Grant, The Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI) at Texas A&M University initiated a new summer internship program for undergraduate and graduate students in the College of Arts & Sciences. The Mellon-RESI Public Fellows Internship brought together its first group of interns, which worked in pairs for two local community partners: United Way of the Brazos Valley and Tiny Hope Village. 

"We generously were able to give back to our communities through the efforts of these internships," said RESI Community Initiatives Coordinator Algae Guzmán. "We have more years to come, and we plan to keep expanding how many interns we have and the organizations that we're able to reach." 

RESI outlines its mission goals for support, research and scholarship in the humanities and social and behavioral sciences that contribute to the study of race and ethnicity. 

The first group of Public Fellow interns this summer had the opportunity to contribute to RESI's mission, gaining hands-on experience in humanities-based projects and presenting their findings at the end of the summer.

Sofia Landaeta,a philosophy doctoral student, and Hannah Laverde, senior psychology major, undertook the ReStory Project for United Way of the Brazos Valley, using recycled materials and repurposing items easily found at home for creative expression.

"The ReStor project was a community initiative built on trying to connect different ideas, build community, and encourage reflection on themes of place, resilience and community building," Laverde said.

With a heavy focus on environmental awareness and creating art while being resourceful, the two interns collected materials and assembled bilingual art supply kits to be distributed to children in the area. The pair wanted children to reflect on themes of home and surrounding environment in their art. They created guidelines and provided materials to make junk journals, 3D art houses, bookmarks and blackout poetry.

The art kits were distributed to the Lincoln Recreation Center in College Station, where local children created art pieces from the kits and hosted an art gallery showcasing their projects.

Instructional guides and step-by-step videos were uploaded to a website that the pair created, with the hopes that children would continue to create art and their projects would reach more members of the community.

"Creating materials to help people reflect was really rewarding for me because I think it's very important to stop and think and create and connect with your environment - recenter yourself," Landaeta said.

Malaya Porras, a sophomore in environmental studies, and Garrett Riley, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in sociology, interned at the Tiny Hope Village , a permanent housing solution for people who have experienced homelessness in the Bryan/College Station/Hearne area.  

The interns worked on their projects separately, with a similar goal in mind — getting to know the residents and generating more support for the initiative. 

Focusing on revamping Tiny Hope Village's digital presence, Porras worked on a website redesign and created a social media page to increase awareness to generate donations for the organization. 

"I started making connections; I reached out to different churches, local businesses, organizations and larger foundations, and I talked to anybody who would listen," Porras said.  

Porras also worked to create a food sustainability workshop.  

"One of our residents, Nikki, started a garden in her car and donated it to Tiny Hope," Porras said. "Together we created a gardening workshop so we can invite visitors to come to Tiny Hope Village, introduce them to the land, learn about food sustainability and take home a plant.” 

Interested in outreach and historical preservation, Riley set out to talk to the residents of Tiny Hope Village, establishing connections and trust, and giving the Tiny Hope community an opportunity to share their individual stories.  

Working to create digital material for his outreach initiative, he used the prompt "How do you remain hopeful?" to piece together a video to share with the community.  

"The core narratives that organizations share between individuals and the people they serve are important because they shape how individuals interact with the organization," Riley said. "It shapes how the organization can fulfill and pursue its mission and its vision."

Connecting with the college’s strategic plan goals to elevate undergraduate learning, advance graduate student preparation and heighten impact through external engagement, RESI Director Dr. Wanzer-Serrano said he sees the Public Fellows program as a “key opportunity to show how community-engaged and public humanities scholarship can uplift community voices and prepare our students for the challenges of the future.” 

At the conclusion of their internships, the four Texas A&M students presented their research and a summary of their projects to friends, family and faculty, each focusing on the lasting impact that their internship will have on the community and their future plans in the humanities.  

"Tiny Hope Village and the residents here have really opened my eyes to what I will consider for my career," Porras said. "I am a helper — that is what I want to do and what I was meant to do." 

After enrolling in the philosophy program at Texas A&M University with no clear vision for her future studies, Lily Bermudez ’21 found herself guided by a deep sense of curiosity about how technology shapes public discourse and political reality: a principle that has since grounded her graduate studies and professional career. 

Bermudez graduated from Texas A&M in December 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. During her undergraduate years, she developed the ability to think beyond disciplines, engage in research critically and understand the ethical context of and implications of technology. 

“I chose philosophy because it was the most interdisciplinary major available to me,” Bermudez said. “It gave me the freedom to research anything under the umbrella of ethics. I came in planning to go straight to law school, but I was never fully convinced that was the right path for me. I kept returning to philosophy in my personal studies, and eventually I stopped fighting it.” 

Bermudez’s passion for the intersection between ethics and technology came about during the pandemic, as she witnessed the role of social media in reshaping society through its conceptual schemes. Although not having the toolkit to fully comprehend it at the time, she continued to develop her thinking about the relation between the two throughout her studies. 

“The pandemic changed my perspective in a way I didn’t anticipate,” Bermudez said. “My undergraduate years were interrupted by it, and I had a front-row seat to the remarkable yet unsettling reality that technology is not neutral. It encodes values, and those values have real world consequences. I realized I wanted to be someone who examined those consequences before they became crises.” 

Dr. Glen Miller encouraged this newfound interest was encouraged when she took the philosophy course, Ethics in a Digital Age, where she learned that the dynamic interplay between ethics, technology and policy was not just an academic thought or experiment, but an urgent call to action. 

“For the first time, I understood this intersection as an actual professional frontier,” Bermudez said. “A frontier with urgent, unsolved problems and not nearly enough people working on them.” 

Following the course, Miller became one of Bermudez’s most trusted mentors, as he encouraged her to keep asking questions, and more importantly, understand her role in the shaping of technology. 

“Dr. Miller didn’t just teach that course,” Bermudez said. “Rather, he gave me the space to keep pursuing this research direction, championed my curiosity when I wasn’t sure where it was leading, and continued supporting my work long after I graduated. For any student who hasn’t yet found that professor, I encourage you to keep looking. At Texas A&M, you are sure to find them.” 

Following her time at Texas A&M, Bermudez went on to attend Duke University, where she graduated with a master's degree in technology ethics and science policy. Under the direction of her professors, she further understood the process of taking interdisciplinary questions about technology and society and translating them into real policy recommendations. With another trusted mentor, David Hoffman, Bermudez expanded her research, traveling to Brussels, Belgium, to conduct an Intel Corporation fellowship. 

“During my time in Brussels, I authored a white paper on transatlantic collaboration in quantum technologies,” Bermudez said. “Working under the guidance of Riccardo Masucci, Intel’s managing director of government affairs, I examined the legislative frameworks, geopolitical dynamics, and industry structures shaping how the U.S. and European Union approach one of the most consequential emerging technology sectors in the world. That research became the foundation for much of what I’ve done since.” 

Following her internship, she went on to be a leading policy contributor at Deep Tech at Duke — an initiative focused on engaging leaders about the societal impacts of technology. Projects ranged from AI governance and equity in the Global South, to the role of politics within the technology landscape. Throughout each of these projects, she remained rooted in her desire to ensure that the research she conducted enabled communities to make decisions. 

“My hope is that my work offers a timely, grounded analysis of emerging technologies — that it helps inform policy before problems calcify into crises,” Bermudez said. “The goal is not just to understand how technology develops; it is to shape the conditions under which it develops." 

At Duke, an ongoing collaboration between Deep Tech at Duke and the Duke Quantum Center (DQC) gave her the opportunity to lead research at exactly that convergence. That partnership brought some of the field’s leading voices to campus.  

Working with the DQC, Deep Tech at Duke hosted a presentation by Adam Zalcman of Google Quantum AI, who shared his recent work on emerging quantum threats to blockchain technology. The talk was followed by a panel discussion featuring Zalcman alongside Dr. Ken Brown, Lee Reiners and Kartik Nayak — a conversation that drew together perspectives from quantum computing, computer science and economics to examine the implications of those findings and to explore potential policy responses.  

Building on that momentum, Bermudez took on a leadership role of her own. She launched a new project she leads at Deep Tech at Duke, “Export Controls and Quantum Technologies: Balancing Security and Innovation.” She also previously co-led Duke University's first Quantum 101 event, a collaborative event between Deep Tech at Duke, the DQC and Duke University School of Law’s Center for Innovation Policy.  

This event invited experts from across campus to participate in important conversations regarding quantum education, investments, applications, policy and governance concerns. Bermudez hopes to organize a follow-up event as U.S. quantum policy continues to evolve.  

"The interdisciplinary nature of my work, the way it weaves together ethics, law, policy, and science, is not a liability — it is the entire point," Bermudez said. "The questions being asked about AI and quantum computing are not purely technical questions. They are philosophical. They are questions about values, power, access and what kind of future we want to build. Philosophy trained me to ask those questions rigorously, stay curious and trust that the next thread worth following will show up when it’s ready.” 

This fall, Bermudez will also be co-leading a Bass Connections course at Duke University titled "CHIPS Challenge: Technology, Policy, and the Global Semiconductor Supply Chain," which examines the global semiconductor supply chain with the goal of informing policy, sustainability strategy and future innovation.

As a member of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Wranglers, Rachael Owens ’27 represents one of Texas A&M University’s most recognizable student organizations, performing country-western dance routines for thousands of fans each year and sharing the spirit of Aggieland wherever she goes.  

But long before she ever whirled across the dance floor in the trademark boots and denim skirt, becoming an Aggie Wrangler was simply a childhood dream.  

A third-generation Aggie who grew up attending football games with her great-grandfather, Owens developed a love for the university at an early age. When she was 13, she saw the Aggie Wranglers perform at a local event and was immediately captivated by their energy and athleticism. An interest was sparked that would eventually become a defining part of her life.  

“I loved their skirts, I loved the spinning, and I loved the flips,” Owens said. “I started watching all the Aggie Wrangler YouTube videos, and I knew I was going to do that someday."

Owens joined the Lil' Wranglers, a youth dance program inspired by the organization. The practices were grueling, and the choreography was challenging. At first, Owens wasn’t sure she belonged. But instead of walking away, she kept returning, and with each practice her confidence grew. What once felt uncertain became an undeniable passion.  

“The more I was in it, the more I knew this was my thing,” she said. “If you want something, it’s not going to be easy, and you have to work for it.” 

That same determination eventually led her to Texas A&M, where in 2024 she fulfilled her promise to her younger self by becoming an official Aggie Wrangler. Now an anthropology major, Owens studies how cultures and communities shape human experience, an endeavor that naturally complements the camaraderie and shared purpose that defines the Aggie Wranglers. 

Discovering Anthropology

Owens' passion for reading, keen interest in Texas history and hours spent hunting for artifacts on her family ranch inspired her to choose anthropology. "I would beg my family to stop at every historical marker we passed," she said. "I was always the weird kid collecting rocks, bugs, petrified wood and anything that resembled an arrowhead." During her wanderings, she looked for evidence of the people who lived on the land before her family.  

On our Triple T Ranch in Oakwood, Texas, I found lots of old rusty barbed wire, nails and other random treasures. Nothing I found was valuable to anyone except me, but these items somehow connected me to the people who came before us, and I always thought that was special.  — Rachael Owens '27

In high school, when she first discovered that she could study anthropology at Texas A&M, she realized that the major combined many of her natural interests and childhood experiences. "I was already interested in research, history, archaeology, cultures, the people who came before us and the things they left behind," she said. "I'm especially interested in archaeological anthropology as a way to understand cultures and relationships between groups of people throughout Texas history, particularly Native Americans."

She found her biblical aarchaeology class especially fulfilling. "We studied archaeological evidence and then looked for how it relates to the places, cultures and events discussed in the Bible," she said. "This allowed me to clarify my faith from a different perspective." Owens realized that, in our society, archaeology and anthropology are sometimes presented as challenges to religion, but her experience was different at Texas A&M. "Learning about the ancient world and realizing how much there is to explore made me more curious than doubtful. I was encouraged to ask questions, learn more and appreciate the historical and cultural context surrounding Christianity."

It is no surprise that in the spring 2026 semester, Owens' anthropology studies intertwined with the Aggie Wranglers in the form of a research paper in which she examined the group's history and culture through a different lens. "I looked at the team as if I was studying any other culture," she said, "and wrote about its history, traditions, uniforms, rituals, social structure and the ways that new members learn what it means to be an Aggie Wrangler.” It was one of the first times she was able to directly apply her major to something in the real world around her. 
 
Looking back, she is glad she stepped out of her comfort zone in Aggieland to dance with the Aggie Wranglers and study anthropology. “My studies have taught me to slow down and look more deeply at what’s happening beneath the surface,” she said. “Consider the traditions, values, relationships and experiences that shape what people and to how those things give us a much better picture of who they are.” 

Likewise, the Aggie Wranglers are teaching her to dig deep. "Being a Texas Aggie and an Aggie Wrangler is about honor and integrity," she said. "It's about being a better person than you were yesterday. If you mess up, just pick yourself up and carry on." 

Her advice to other students is simple: Find “your thing” at Texas A&M. Study what inspires you and pursue what excites you.

Dr. Karen Wooley, a distinguished professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Chemistry and an expert in sustainable polymers, recently received two awards from the American Chemical Society: the Pauling Medal Award – ACS Puget Sound Section, administered by the Puget Sound, Oregon and Portland Sections of the ACS, and the Nichols Medal. 

The Pauling Medal is named after Dr. Linus Pauling, a Nobel Laureate in both Chemistry (1954) and the Peace Prize (1962), whom Wooley was able to meet while she was an undergraduate student at Oregon State University. The award “recognizes outstanding achievement in chemistry,” and nominees “shall have made outstanding contributions to chemistry of a character that have merited national and international recognition.” 

The Nichols Medal is likewise an award for general contributions to the overall field of chemistry and “encourages original research in chemistry.” It is the first award authorized by the American Chemical Society. Previous recipients of the Nichols Medal include 20 Nobel Laureates and over 30 National Medal of Science recipients. 

“Receiving both the 2026 Pauling Medal and the 2027 Nichols Medal is an extraordinary honor, particularly because these awards reflect the contributions of many people who have shaped my career and research journey,” Wooley said. “Advances in chemistry are never achieved alone. They grow from the creativity and dedication of students, postdoctoral scholars, collaborators and colleagues who continually inspire new ideas and discoveries.” 

Wooley’s research group studies polymers, with a focus creating fully circular systems which recycle materials for sustainability, while minimizing the steps required to make the polymers to allow for more scalable production. Some of the group’s recent work looked into turning polypeptides into organic electrodes, and adding riboflavin to turn them into organic batteries. Within the past year, Wooley received the Hill Prize for Physical Science jointly with Matthew Stone of Teysha Technologies, and was also elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. 

“Dr. Wooley’s receipt of both the Pauling Medal and the Nichols Medal underscores her stature as one of the world’s leading chemists,” said Dr. Lane Baker, head of the Department of Chemistry. “Her pioneering work in polymer chemistry continues to drive advances in fundamental science and real‑world applications, and her leadership has shaped the next generation of researchers. These honors highlight her exceptional achievements and reflect the culture of excellence and innovation that defines the Department of Chemistry and the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University.” 

“I am deeply grateful to be recognized by the American Chemical Society and proud that the work being done at Texas A&M continues to demonstrate how fundamental chemical innovation can address important challenges in health, sustainability and society,” Wooley said. “To realize such potential impact, efforts over the past decade have leveraged early fundamental advances that were made in my laboratory toward naturally-derived and degradable polymers to facilitate their practical development and commercial translation as safe and sustainable plastics of the future.  Those translational activities would not be possible without academic-industrial partnerships, including between Texas A&M, Teysha Technologies, and Integrity Bio-Chemicals that is supported in part by a 2026 Hill Prize in Physical Sciences from Lyda Hill Philanthropies."

A documentary about the disability rights movement changed the course of Dr. Melissa Gentry’s academic career. What began as a search for research inspiration evolved into a broad research agenda focused on disability, accessibility and economic opportunity. As she wraps up her time in Aggieland to join the faculty of the University of South Florida, this passionate and driven scholar is producing research that is attracting attention from policymakers, transit agencies and even Uber.  

The 2020 documentary, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, tells the story of a summer camp for teenagers with disabilities in upstate New York and how many of those campers went on to become leaders of the modern disability rights movement. “The film got me thinking about accessibility and the broader barriers to inclusion that people with disabilities face,” Gentry said. “After reviewing the literature, I realized that much of the existing economics work focused on disability was limited to disability insurance programs. That same week, I pitched a research idea focused on access to paratransit services — something featured prominently in the disability civil rights movement. That idea sparked my entire research agenda.” 

The concept of disability was not new to Gentry. She was born with oculodentodigital dysplasia (ODDD), a rare genetic disorder that affects the development of fingers, eyes and teeth. “I was in and out of children’s hospitals for surgery for much of my childhood, so I grew up around other kids with disabilities,” she said. “The form of ODDD I have resulted in webbed fingers on each hand at birth. The effect on my eyes and teeth is minimal, although it may lead to issues later in life.” The condition gave her early exposure to the challenges many people with disabilities face. 

“I was often denied accommodations for the extra time I needed for exams because they said, ‘You’re already a good student.’ While it didn’t stop me, it did give me a small taste of barriers in my own life.” 

Research with Real-World Impact

Her doctoral dissertation was inspired by years of previous disability-related research and shaped by faculty mentors, including her advisor Dr. Andrew Barr, who provided guidance and encouragement along the way.  

Dr. Manasi Deshpande with the University of Chicago, who conducts research in the disability space, was a steady sounding board, and Gentry co-authored a paper with Drs. Jonathan Meer and Jeffrey Clemens exploring what happens to individuals with disabilities when there are large minimum wage spikes. With Drs. Joanna Lahey (Texas A&M University) and Ian Burn (University of Liverpool), she is also working on a project to study how remote work affects both disabled and older adults in the United Kingdom. 

“Melissa is an incredibly thoughtful researcher whose work has already changed our understanding of how people with disabilities experience the labor market,” said Meer. “She’s the kind of student that makes me proud to be a professor at Texas A&M.” 

Another of Gentry’s ongoing projects is a study of an on-demand service for paratransit customers in Seattle, which she plans to launch later this year with two co-authors, Drs. Michael Cassidy of the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Ludovica Gazze of the University of Warwick. (Paratransit is a shared transportation service for people whose disabilities prevent them from using regular public transportation.) 

Economics is not just stocks, interest rates and inflation. It’s the study of people — their behavior and how they make choices. Likewise, disability is not a monolith, and therefore disability research is not a monolith. There is no single disability experience. People with disabilities have enormously different lives, challenges, strengths and needs. My research must reflect that complexity rather than treating everyone as one group. 

— Dr. Melissa Gentry

The third chapter of Gentry’s dissertation, titled “Driving Inclusion: The Effect of Improved Transportation for People with Disabilities,” is related to Uber, the technology company best known for its smartphone app that connects passengers with drivers who provide rides on demand. In the chapter, she studies the impact of access to ridesharing on social and economic outcomes for disabled adults.  

“I discovered that access to reliable and flexible transportation — in this case via Uber — improves employment rates and even marriage rates among adults with disabilities,” she said. “It has more significant effects for people with more physical or sensory disabilities than for people with cognitive or self-care disabilities, revealing that transportation alone is not a panacea.” 

Initially, she reached out to Uber for a simple data request about its wheelchair accessible vehicle service. “They shared data with me, and I assumed that would be the end of my communication with them,” she said. “But after I posted the first draft of my paper, they reached back out to me.” Briana Gilmore, Uber’s head of public policy, accessibility and marginalized communities, wanted to connect to better understand Gentry’s findings.

A few months later, an employee of Uber Health contacted Gentry to invite her to share her findings in a research session the company was hosting at a Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) conference. HCBS are publicly funded supports that allow people with disabilities and older adults to remain in their homes instead of moving to institutions. “I knew this would give me a chance to share my research beyond academia, to nonprofits, policymakers and practitioners, so I jumped at the opportunity.” 

Her paper is in the peer review process at the Journal of Human Resources. 

In sync with Gentry’s research, Uber Health is working to support greater independence for people with disabilities with a self-booking feature, a “simple mode” for cognitive accessibility, Uber Caregiver, enhanced accessibility settings and driver training. 

A Scholar Goes Full Circle 

Gentry’s academic journey into economics began at Wakulla High School in Crawfordville, Florida, where she discovered an interest in public policy while participating in Model United Nations (U.N.), an educational and academic simulation of the U.N. 

“They gave us large-scale, international challenges to tackle, and we did all our own research,” she said. “I had to write a policy memo from the perspective of my assigned country, so early on I had to start thinking about data.” During her senior year, she also enrolled in an Advanced Placement economics class and was asked by her teacher to teach review sessions for her classmates before their final exam. That introductory macroeconomics class blended with her love of mathematics paved the way to the University of South Florida, where she received a Bachelor of Science in quantitative economics and econometrics (the applications of statistical methods to economic data). 

She went on to the University of South Carolina to earn a Master of Arts in economics and a graduate certificate in applied statistics, and soon after worked as a research assistant in the New England Public Policy Center in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “My time as a research assistant working closely with Dr. Jeff Thompson, an economist, confirmed that I wanted to get a doctorate.” 

Texas A&M stood out for having a large and active research group in applied microeconomics, the broad field she was pursuing. “Texas A&M’s Department of Economics encourages collaboration rather than competition among graduate students,” Gentry said. “The faculty provide extensive research support, and although no one else was doing disability work, my committee and many other faculty members were fantastic at helping me build out my research topic.” 

While fulfilling doctoral program requirements, she taught an undergraduate labor economics class in the summer of 2024. Gentry is a 2024-25 Pre-doctoral Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research Retirement and Disability Research Consortium, a competitive program designed to support promising young researchers whose work relates to retirement and disability issues. 

She graduated in May from Texas A&M with a Ph.D. in economics and will begin her career this fall as an assistant professor at the University of South Florida (Department of Economics). “After 110 job applications and 12 interviews, I’m going back to the department that shaped me as an economist,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier.” 

Accompanied by Phantom, the cat she adopted from Aggieland Humane Society shortly after moving to College Station, Gentry is looking forward to returning to Florida and beginning the next chapter of a career dedicated to expanding opportunity and improving quality of life for people with disabilities. 

Dr. Joan Broderick, a bioinorganic chemistry expert, was recently hired by Texas A&M University's (TAMU) Department of Chemistry with assistance from the Governor’s University Research Initiative (GURI). 

The Governor’s University Research Initiative was enacted in 2015 to support Nobel Laureate and National Academies-level researchers. Broderick is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, among several other prestigious distinctions and numerous awards. 

“This started with a faculty member from the chemistry department talking with me about the GURI program over dinner, at the end of my visit to receive the Scott Medal,” Broderick said. Several Chemistry faculty were enthusiastic to bring her on board, so she decided to have another conversation, which led to several more with the department head, originally Dr. Simon North, succeeded by Dr. Lane Baker.  

“Dr. Broderick’s arrival reflects a tradition of strategic recruitment and investment in Chemistry at Texas A&M,” said Baker, department head. “The university president, our college and the Texas Governor’s Office, provided amazing resources to bring her to Texas A&M. We are excited to welcome a researcher of her caliber, whose commitment to advancing our science, teaching, and facilities will further elevate our research capabilities and enrich the student experience.” 

Bioinorganic chemistry is the field of study exploring how metals and other inorganic materials interact with living systems. Broderick specifically studies the chemistry of iron bound in enzyme sites involved in catalyzing a wide variety of biochemical reactions. She is most well-known for her work on radical SAM (S-adenosylmethionine) enzymes. She received her doctorate from Northwestern University and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at MIT. Her first faculty position was at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where she stayed for five years before moving to Michigan State University where she received tenure. She has worked at Montana State University as a professor for 21 years and department head for seven. 

“I am particularly proud of my first independent paper, published while I was at Amherst College and with undergraduate students as my key co-authors, in the esteemed Journal of the American Chemical Society,” she said. “This paper represented a significant amount of challenging work carried out primarily by undergraduate students, and also set the stage for my success and leadership in the field of ‘radical SAM’ enzymes.” 

She is also proud of a series of papers she and her husband, Dr. William Broderick, a research professor in the Chemistry department at Montana State University, collaborated on which “delineated for the first time how SAM interacts with the iron-sulfur cluster in radical SAM enzymes.” Another paper published collaboratively with her husband established “the involvement of organometallic chemistry in the functioning of radical SAM enzymes, which has led to a long and impactful series of other papers since then.” 

Broderick’s lab will be equipped with “anaerobic chambers, so that we can work with the air-sensitive proteins that are a core part of our research program,” she said. “We will also have a range of biochemical instrumentation for purification and analysis of proteins and small molecules, instrumentation for rapid mixing and quenching of biochemical reactions, as well as atomic absorption, UV-visible, Fourier-transform infrared, and other spectroscopic capabilities. We are also working to establish a new laboratory for advanced electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy that will benefit the broader research community at Texas A&M University.” 

While she works to fully prepare her new lab space, Broderick will split her time between institutions: meeting virtually with students in Montana to provide guidance and mentoring, ordering equipment for her lab in Texas and continuing to work on her papers for publication while traveling between both locations. Presently, she has moved to College Station and is in the process of hiring several Ph.D.-level scientists to work with her in a temporary lab space starting in August, followed by a move to her permanent lab space in January. 

“I am looking forward to being part of a large and vibrant chemistry department, and interacting with students, faculty members, and distinguished outside seminar speakers that the department hosts on a regular basis,” she said. “I am excited as well about recruiting new students and researchers to my research group, and the opportunity to apply additional resources and new capabilities to address important and challenging research questions.” 

Broderick's transition to Texas A&M has meant adjusting to a larger size in nearly every respect. “The sheer scale of TAMU is so much bigger than MSU, including more students, faculty, staff and a massive campus,” she said. “The student population at TAMU — 80,000  to MSU’s 17,000 — is larger than the city of Bozeman, where MSU is located. At TAMU, I am also in a larger community of scientists, which provides exciting opportunities for interaction and collaboration, as well as significantly more resources to pursue exciting research ideas. While I love and will miss the mountains of Montana, I look forward to exploring all that Texas has to offer.” 

Texas A&M University nuclear physicist Dr. Jonas Karthein has always enjoyed building things in the laboratory, a passion he traces back to his childhood spent with LEGO sets and two engineer parents as his constants growing up in Germany. But when it comes to shaping his eventual career destiny, he credits a transatlantic flight and a chance seating assignment.

“In 10th grade, I was flying to Oregon for a school exchange and ended up seated next to Dr. Klaus Blaum, director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK),” Karthein said. “We talked for most of the flight about his research, and he invited me to intern at his institute when I returned home. I'd never seen anything like it — particle accelerators, storage rings, precision ion traps and lasers, all built to probe the fundamental constituents of the universe.”

Karthein admits he likely would have ended up in mechanical engineering otherwise, save for that single conversation that set his entire trajectory: undergraduate at Heidelberg University and MPIK, and then his master's and Ph.D. at Blaum’s CERN setup in Geneva, Switzerland.

After completing a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at MIT in 2024, Karthein moved to Texas A&M, where he is building his own research legacy focused on quantum sensing with nuclei. As an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a member of the Cyclotron Institute, he is studying radioactive atoms and molecules using the Cyclotron Institute’s two particle accelerators to gain insight into fundamental nuclear interactions and properties.

Karthein and his independent research program received a big boost this week, securing one of the nearly 300 Genesis Mission Phase I Request For Applications (RFA) awards unveiled today by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) at the Genesis Mission Summit in Washington, D.C. Karthein’s project is one of four led by Texas A&M researchers and one of 168 led by universities.

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the DOE, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.

The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation or generate new scientific insights.

"America has no shortage of bold ideas or talented scientists, and the response to the Genesis Mission proves that," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. "The 278 projects selected today represent the very best of our nation’s scientific enterprise. The remarkable number of high-quality proposals we received demonstrates that America’s innovation pipeline is strong, and it points to even greater opportunities for future investment and continued expansion of the Genesis Mission portfolio."

Digital Twins To The 'Data-Scarce' Rescue

Karthein’s project, "Scalable Agentic Digital Twins for Autonomous Precision Facilities," will be led by the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute in tandem with partners at Argonne National Laboratory, MIT and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University, along with California-based Gravistar USA startup as an unfunded industry partner. Karthein and his collaborators — including fellow Texas A&M physicist and Cyclotron Institute member Dr. Dan Melconian and Texas A&M statistician Dr. Abhishek Roy — will work to create an AI "digital twin," a fast, living computer model of actual experiments that functions on two key levels. First, it learns the physics of the apparatus well enough to find the best settings automatically, in seconds rather than hours. Second, an AI assistant reads the machine's sensors, logbooks and manuals, and — always under human supervision — suggests adjustments, flags problems early and clearly communicates its level of confidence in each of its recommendations in real-time.

The project addresses the DOE challenge area Enhancing Particle Accelerators for Discovery in the focus area AI-driven Accelerator Facilities.

"Artificial intelligence has already transformed large scientific facilities that produce enormous amounts of data,” Karthein said. "But these precision nuclear experiments are the opposite: they are 'data-scarce,' running only a few hundred experimental campaigns over an entire lifetime with a handful of datasets per campaign, not millions per day. Because standard, data-hungry AI simply doesn't work in this setting, this corner of science has been left behind."

Karthein notes that some of the most important experiments in nuclear science study exotic forms of atoms — rare isotopes that exist for only fractions of a second and reveal how the elements of our universe were forged in stars and stellar explosions. These experiments are extraordinarily delicate, considering that a single machine may have well over 20 experimental parameters — voltages, pressures, laser tunings — that are all subject to drifts. Ensuring that each of those settings is accurate depends heavily on the hard-won intuition of a handful of senior experts. Beamtime is scarce and expensive (ranging from many hundreds of dollars to more than $10,000 per hour), and hours can be lost to manual fine-tuning before real data can even be collected.

By slashing setup time and catching problems before they ruin a run, Karthein says the system frees precious beamtime to reach physics that is currently out of reach: the extremely neutron-rich and proton-rich nuclei that hold clues to how heavy elements are created in the cosmos. In effect, he adds, this project will enable scientists to make previously inaccessible discoveries with the same facilities.

Inspired by that futuristic vision, Karthein and his Genesis Mission project teammates will spend the next nine months executing their digital twin proof-of-concept using two university-scale testbeds — Karthein’s ion trap setup at Texas A&M and his former postdoctoral advisor and co-investigator Dr. Ronald Garcia Ruiz’s laser spectroscopy setup at MIT — aimed at scaling up for a possible Phase II. Both testbeds are exact replicas of Phase II targets at Argonne National Lab, FRIB and Texas A&M, respectively led by co-investigators and physicists Dr. Bernhard Maass, Dr. Kei Minamisono and Melconian to enable direct algorithmic scaling in possible future stages of the project.

On the hardware side, Karthein will lead integration and ion-trap validation, while Garcia Ruiz will do the same for surrogate physics and laser validation. Conversely, Argonne National Lab co-investigators and computational mathematicians Dr. Ahmed Attia and Dr. Sven Leyffer will oversee the AI development and manage high-performance computer scaling, respectively, while working with Roy at Texas A&M to develop a virtual twin to the team’s hardware setups with a focus on error prediction, simulation and optimization.

A Career Forged By Connection

Professionally and personally, Karthein says he has been building to this moment since that pivotal in-flight conversation with Blaum as a teenager, the first of many personal connections leading to the next and ultimately to Texas A&M.

As a graduate student at CERN, Karthein taught himself to code, which turned into something he genuinely loved. He then wrote the first Python-based Bayesian analysis code for the mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at CERN, replacing methods previously performed in Excel spreadsheets. He says that's where his interest in AI and machine learning took root — a curiosity-driven skill with direct relevance to his team’s current Genesis Mission project.

While at CERN, he also met his future postdoctoral advisor, Garcia Ruiz, who recruited him to MIT. At MIT, Garcia Ruiz was starting up his own new laser spectroscopy lab and provided Karthein with state-of-the-art training in laser spectroscopy as well as various opportunities to take on organizational roles in the new group. Karthein fondly recalls the time he spent with Garcia Ruiz that ultimately taught him what it takes to build a research group from scratch.

When it came time for faculty searches, Karthein says the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute stood out immediately with a strong nuclear physics program based on its on-campus accelerators, a competitive startup package, large modern laboratory spaces for a new research direction and, just as important, staunch support of dual-career opportunities for households with two academics. As a result, Dr. Jamie M. Karthein recently joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Cyclotron Institute as a faculty member after completing her National Science Foundation-funded ASCENT Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT.

Karthein says he and Garcia Ruiz will soon embark on another shared experience, courtesy of the Genesis Mission: hosting an event at each of their campuses to showcase the self-running demo of the team’s digital twin and the untapped potential that eclipses nuclear science.

For Karthein, the ultimate beauty of the team’s project is that it embodies the goal of DOE's Genesis Mission — using AI to dramatically increase the productivity of America's scientific infrastructure. In the same vein, he cites the AI assistant that captures the tacit expertise of veteran scientists, making it available to newcomers and thereby giving graduate students expert-level capability from day one while helping train the next generation of the nuclear science workforce. Because the same architecture applies to X-ray light sources, neutron sources, and fusion facilities that face similar tuning challenges, he says the benefits extend well beyond nuclear physics, given that the team plans to release its core tools as open-source software so that the entire scientific community also can build on them.

“If even half of the 15-plus U.S. precision nuclear physics facilities adopt this approach, it could recover more than $15 million per year in effective beamtime value — roughly 20 times the initial investment,” Karthein added.

See the complete list of Phase I Genesis Mission awards and learn more about the Karthein Lab at Texas A&M.

Three Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences researchers besides Karthein, Melconian and Roy are leading or contributing to two additional Genesis Mission Phase I RFA awards, outlined as follows:

• Dr. Grigory Rogachev, professor and head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a member of the Cyclotron Institute, is a co-principal investigator for the project, “Quantum-Enhanced Evaluation of Nuclear Reaction Cross Sections in R-Matrix Theory,” led by Florida State University. The project will combine AI and quantum computing to transform nuclear-reaction analysis using AI tools and a well-established nuclear framework called R-matrix theory to automatically extract nuclear properties from experimental data and determine the uncertainties in the results. In parallel, the project will investigate whether quantum computers can represent the complex behavior of nuclei more naturally and efficiently than conventional computers. The goal is to make nuclear-data analysis faster, more systematic and more reliable. The resulting tools may also benefit quantum chemistry, materials science, and quantum information research.
• Dr. Nicholas Perez, associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, is the principal investigator and lead for the project, “Multimodal AI Finders for REE Deposits: Texas, the Colorado Mineral Belt, and the Southwest U.S.” He and his five fellow Texas A&M investigators Dr. Siddharth Misra (Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering), Dr. Jenny Qiu (J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Qian Yuan (Department of Geology and Geophysics) and Dr. Rubaya Pervin (Department of Ocean Engineering) are joined by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory investigator Dr. Maruti Mudunuru in the project, which will use AI to combine and analyze geological, geochemical, geophysical and satellite-based datasets to uncover new clues about how critical mineral deposits formed and where similar geological conditions may exist. The project addresses the DOE challenge area Securing America’s Critical Minerals Supply in the focus area Geological Finders/Keepers.