Breakthrough (College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics)

UH College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics Breakthrough (College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics)

Fall 2024

NSM Pride: Awards and Honors

Share News of Your Achievements

NSM is proud of the achievements of our outstanding alumni, students, staff and faculty. Submit news of your awards, new jobs and honors to uhnsm@uh.edu or contact Kathy Major at ksmajor@uh.edu or 713-743-4023.

Alumni

Kang Min Ok (Ph.D. ’04, Chemistry), a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Sogang University in Seoul, was selected for the 2024 Global Leader Research Project, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The Global Leader Research Project is the largest individual grant program among available funding and resources for science and technology. It aims to foster world-class research leaders for the development of future innovative technologies and to intensively support in-depth research through global cooperation. Ok is one of nine researchers selected by the Global Leader Research Project. They will each be funded at nearly U.S. $625,000 per year for up to nine years. While at UH, his mentor was Shiv Halasyamani (Chemistry).

Juan Pablo Ramos (Ph.D. ’24, Geology) received the 2023 Gordan I. Atwater Award for Outstanding Poster Presentation at the GeoGulf 2024 for his presentation on basin modeling in offshore Colombia and Panama. Ramos completed his dissertation titled “Tectonostratigraphic Studies of the Paleogene Yucatan Back-Arc Basin, the Miocene-Recent Collisional Zone Between the Panama Arc and South America, and the Late Cretaceous Caribbean Large Igneous Province and its Adjacent Oceanic Crust.” Ramos began working as an explorationist with the BP Gulf of Mexico team in May 2024.

Students

Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Student Research Grants Program

Three EAS students received funding through the department’s Student Research Grants Program. The program awards funds to students to carry out and publish research. Each semester, $5,000 is available, with up to $2,500 awarded per student. Fall 2024 winners included:

  • Mohammad Jahirul Alam (Advisor: Bernhard Rappenglueck): Method Development, Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) and Study of their Partitioning between Air and Water Using Chromatographic Techniques, $2,150
  • Daniel Ragusa (Advisor: Voary Voarintsoa): Tracking the Water pH and Atmospheric CO2 Evolution During Synthetic Carbonate Precipitation, $285
  • Poorna Srinivasan (Advisor: Qi Fu): Geochemical Constraints on the Generation and Kinetics of Natural Energy Resources, $2,500

Pablo Lopez-Duque (Physics Ph.D. student) and Lorissa Saiz (Biology Ph.D. student) received Lydia Mendoza Fellowships from the UH Center for Mexican American and Latino Studies. The fellowships include a stipend of $8,250 per semester for up to two years. Each fellow will be assigned a mentor and receive opportunities for collective mentoring and networking. All fields of study are eligible to apply, and applicants must have a demonstrated interest in Mexican and Latino studies and culture. Lopez-Duque’s mentor is Carlos Ordonez (Physics) and Erin Kelleher (Biology & Biochemistry) is Saiz’ mentor.

NSM “Hot Topics in NSM” Annual Three-Minute Thesis Competition

Over 100 graduate students and faculty gathered to view 15 presenters representing all the College’s departments on October 11. After each three-minute presentation, there was time for 1–2 questions to be asked and answered. All presenters spoke of their outstanding research with great skill.

  • Audience Choice Award – Prachi Garella, Department of Physics, presenting “Neutron Stars: A Universe within a Universe.” Garella is mentored by Claudia Ratti.
  • Judges Choice Award – Shinjini Basu, Department of Biology & Biochemistry, presenting “A Light at the End of the Tunnel: Targeting Therapy Resistance in Breast Cancer.” Basu is mentored by Chin-Yo Lin.

Summer AI Student Showcase – Computer Science Teams Place 2nd and 3rd

The Department of Computer Science and the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute hosted the Summer AI Student Showcase. The event brought together graduate research teams from across UH to share innovative projects in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and data science. Students from Computer Science placed second and third.

  • Second Place
    • Team Lead: Divija Kalluri, Computer Science, Team Member: Charan Gajjala Chenchu, Computer Science
    • Project: Kalluri and Chenchu proposed a method to improve X-ray interpretation accuracy using the DenseNet deep learning architecture. By combining segmented image features with diagnostic prompts and processed report data, they trained a large language model to generate concise medical reports. This system enhances radiologists’ efficiency by automating image interpretation and report generation, providing a reliable tool for clinical diagnostics.
  • Third Place
    • Team: Rabimba Karanjai, Computer Science
    • Project: Karanjai’s AI-Powered Education Diary leverages advanced large language model technology to generate personalized code examples and study materials grounded in authoritative sources like textbooks and lecture notes. Continuous user feedback will refine the content, resulting in an intuitive, multi-device application that enhances personalized learning.

Ali Raza (Geology Ph.D. student, first author), along with EAS faculty Ny Riavo Voarintsoa and Shuhab Khan and Geology Ph.D. student Muhammad Qasim, developed a non-contact method to remotely characterize the mineral composition of a stalagmite. The findings published in Sedimentary Geology. The paper details the new technique used to categorize a stalagmite from Madagascar. Stalagmites are a variety of cave deposits, collectively known as speleothem, that grow upward from the cave floor. The team employed lab-based hyperspectral imaging techniques, a method that collects spectral signatures of the materials across a wide wavelength of electromagnetic spectrum between 400 and 2500 nanometers. This method allowed them to identify the carbonate mineralogy and organic content present in these deposits without physically destroying the sample. To ensure the accuracy and reliability of the method, the researchers checked the mineralogy using traditional techniques that include X-ray diffraction and petrographic microscopy.

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Bhavay Tyagi (Physics Ph.D. student, first author) and Eric Bittner (Physics) published a paper in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters that was featured on the journal cover. Work for the paper, Noise-Induced Quantum Synchronization and Entanglement in a Quantum Analogue of Huygens’ Clock, was done in collaboration with Los Alamos National Lab and the Institut Cortois at the Universite de Montreal. The paper presents a “quantum analog” of Huygens’ famous observation of spontaneous synchronization of pendulum clocks in the 17th century whereby coupling to a shared correlated noisy environment, quantum spins can become phase-locked and entangled. The theory presented in the paper can be used to explain the quantum efficiency photosynthesis and be used to develop error-tolerant quantum computers by exploiting environmental correlations.

Faculty/Staff

Ashley Askew (NSM Director of Special Programs and Data Specialist) received the 2024 President’s Excellence Award in the Administrative and Professional Category. The award recognizes meritorious service, dedication, and contribution to the University beyond the requirements or expectations of the job. She leads the TC Energy Summer Scholars Academy, an intensive nine-week program designed for students who have an outstanding high school academic record and are interested in majors in NSM or the Cullen College of Engineering. She also leads the assessment effort for the College.
     Askew also presented at the 2024 Professional Development Summer Institute sponsored by UH Institutional Research & Effectiveness. She hosted a workshop titled “Excel for Beginners/Intermediates” which focused on a variety of skills from entering and formatting data to pivot tables and using XLOOKUP. The session was well attended and provided guidance for novice and seasoned users of Excel.

Guoning Chen (Computer Science) is the 2024 recipient of NSM’s John C. Butler Excellence in Teaching Award. The award recognizes NSM faculty, who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in teaching and have a track record of dedication to the teaching mission of NSM.

Zhigang Deng (Computer Science) and Computer Science Ph.D. student Meng-Chen Lee (first author) presented a full technical paper at the 26th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction. The paper received the Best Paper Runner Up Award. When humans participate in three-party conversations, we use non-verbal behaviors (such as gaze, gesture, etc.) to manage turn-taking and conversational flow among participants. The authors developed a multi-modal computational framework that accurately predicts “when the exact end-of-turn will happen during three-party conversations.” The “end-of-turn” includes three cases: normal turn-taking, interruption, and overlapping. Their computational model can accurately predict the three cases (with accuracy over 75%). The method is based on multi-modal signals of the three participants in a conversation, including their gazes, speech features, gaze target information, and their back-channeling information (such as head nodding/head shaking). The work is the first ever reported research that can accurately predict “interruption” and “overlapping” in multiparty conversations, besides the “turn-taking” case. The method can run in real-time and quickly make predictions every 100 milliseconds on continuous incoming data.

Paige Evans (teachHOUSTON/Mathematics) and postdoctoral fellow Karla Garza attended and presented at the annual National Science Foundation Noyce Summit. Their presentations were related to the work for three NSF grant programs, including Transforming STEM Professionals into Culturally Responsive STEM Teachers (STEM Pro), University of Houston: Advancing Cultural and Computational Engagement in STEM Scholars (UH-ACCESS), and University of Houston – Leadership through Equity and Advocacy Development (UH-LEAD). Also attending the conference were five students and graduates from the teachHOUSTON program.

Karla Adelina Garza (teachHOUSTON Postdoctoral Research Fellow) received the John Laska Dissertation Award for Teaching at the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum’s Annual Meeting, held in Denver on October 4. Garza’s dissertation, titled Migrant Students Following the Crops, Teachers Following Their Students: A Narrative Inquiry into Two Migrant Children Who Became Teachers, was nominated for the award by Cheryl Craig, professor and the Houston Endowment Endowed Chair of Urban Education in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture at Texas A&M University.

Ioannis Kakadiaris (Computer Science) received the IEEE Biometrics Council Meritorious Service Award at the IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics. The award honors outstanding service in the field of biometrics. Kakadiaris received a plaque and $1,000 honorarium.

Randy Lee (Chemistry and NSM Associate Dean) was a keynote speaker at the Second International Conference on Chemical Sciences (ICCS 2024) in Ninh Binh, Vietnam. His presentation was “Photonic Nanoparticles for Hydrogen Production and Biosensing.” The theme of the conference was Chemical Sciences – For A Better Life.
     Lee also was selected as a 2024 Tokyo Institute of Technology World Research Hub International Scholar.

Fred McGhee (NSM Business Office) served as a panelist for the Public Sector, Education and Government Industry Roundtable at Slalom R4, an invitation-only, multi-day customer summit. The session addressed the rapidly changing workforce that is creating historic gaps in the labor market and how government, business, and education can work together to create ‘learner-to-worker’ pathways that create economic growth and social mobility.

Rich Meisel (Biology & Biochemistry, corresponding author), former UH undergraduate Patrick Foy (first author), and Biology graduate student Sara R. Loetzerich published in Journal of Heredity with collaborators from 10 universities. The house fly has an extremely variable system for determining if an embryo will develop into a female or male. Across natural populations of house fly from throughout the world, different chromosomes contain genes that initiate sexual development. This paper reports the results of a collaboration organized by USDA, in which the frequencies of these sex determining chromosomes were measured in populations across the U.S. Data were collected by Foy, now in graduate school at Indiana University. Analysis of these data revealed that frequencies of these chromosomes are correlated with the differences in daily temperatures, suggesting a role for ecological factors in maintaining this curious polymorphism.
     Meisel, former postdoctoral scholar Pablo J. Delclos (corresponding author, now on the faculty at UHD), and numerous student co-authors published in eLife. Y chromosomes are passed from fathers to sons, and as a result of this male-limited inheritance, they are predicted to accumulate mutations that increase male reproductive success. While there is evidence for Y chromosome genes that allow males to make sperm, examples of Y chromosome genes affecting male-specific behaviors are lacking. In this paper, multiple UH undergraduates, a Ph.D. student, and Delclos identified a gene on a house fly Y chromosome that affects male mating behavior allowing them to mate faster and outcompete other males for female mates. This provides a demonstration of how a Y chromosome gene can improve a male-specific behavior.

Rich Meisel (Biology & Biochemistry), Danial Asgari (first author), and Alex Stewart, former UH faculty now at University of St. Andrews in Scotland, published in G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics. Immune systems can respond to infections by turning on genes that kill pathogens, or they can maintain constant activity regardless of infection status. Each of these strategies has costs and benefits, including the rate of response to infection and the cost of production of defensive molecules. In this paper, Asgari developed a mathematical model to catalogue these costs and benefits in order to determine when the different strategies are expected to evolve in response to bacterial infections. The model showed that the benefits of the strategies depend on the density of infectious bacteria and their proliferation rates, which also affect the use of different negative feedback loops in preventing overstimulation of the immune response.

Martin Nuñez (Biology & Biochemistry) and Greg Morrison (Physics) were on a panel moderated by Jennifer Ruiz (Biology Ph.D. student and Vice President/Outreach Chair of SACNAS-UH) at the “Latinos in STEM Higher Education – Adelante!” session at the Houston Holocaust Museum’s Latinx Heritage Month – Day of Action on September 14. The event was organized by the museum’s Latinx Initiatives Advisory Committee. UH members of that committee are Ruiz, Lorissa Saiz (Biology Ph.D. student and President of SACNAS-UH), and Mark Goldberg (UH History). In addition to the panel discussion, five students and Morrison did physics, chemistry, and biology demos for elementary and middle school students. Nuñez and Morrison are SACNAS-UH faculty advisors.

Martin Nuñez (Biology & Biochemistry) co-authored “Disentangling the impacts of plant co-invasions: additive, antagonistic and synergistic” with colleagues from University of Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Published in Biological Invasions, the paper explores the ecological effects of co-invasion (simultaneous invasion by multiple alien species). Using an analytical framework, the team investigated the individual and combined effects of two global plant invaders (Leucanthemum vulgare and Lupinus polyphyllus) on the aboveground vegetation (plant richness, diversity, and biomass) and belowground soil variables (pH, salinity, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, organic carbon, phosphorous, and potassium) of grassland communities in the Himalaya. They studied these ecological variables in comparable plots under four scenarios: both invaders absent, either of the two invaders present, and both invaders present. Based on the insights gained from this study, they highlight priority areas of future research in species co-invasions.

Donna Pattison (Biology & Biochemistry and NSM Assistant Dean) was recognized on October 17 as one of Houston Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business. She was nominated in the Outstanding Business Leader in Government and Education category. The Women Who Mean Business Awards recognize women in leadership roles who demonstrate excellence in their careers and community. Pattison is one of 90 women recognized. The awards honor women across nine industry categories plus the Woman to Watch category. Read More

Ioannis Pavlidis (Computer Science) and Computer Science Ph.D. graduate Vitalii Zhukov published in Communications Psychology with colleagues from three other universities. They investigated what makes a research paper impactful, how often other researchers cite a paper as a measure of impact. They found the stronger predictor of impact is the appeal of the paper’s research across disciplines. They demonstrated such appeal comes more often from monodisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary papers. This flies in the face of prevailing wisdom that considers multidisciplinary research – known as science convergence – to be a prerequisite of broader impact. The authors cite as an example the case of AI papers, which though computer science artifacts, transformed methods and practices across all disciplines. By analyzing over half a million publications, they documented the same phenomenon accounts for the rise and dominance of affectivism over cognitivism in behavioral sciences literature. Affectivism, rooted in psychology, emphasizes the role of emotions in explaining human behavior. Cognitivism, rooted in a multidisciplinary amalgamation known as brain science, emphasizes the role of thoughts in explaining human behavior. Successful affectivism papers tend to exert impact across a wide spectrum of disciplines. For example, findings from papers on anxiety are used not only in psychology, but also smartwatch sensing, migraine etiology, and economic productivity. By contrast, successful cognitivism papers tend to exert impact only within the confines of brain science. Their work brings to the fore the mechanism through which contemporary intellectual trends dominate science and shape our world.

Weiyi Peng (Biology & Biochemistry/CNRCS) is the 2024 recipient of NSM’s Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research. The award recognizes faculty at the rank of assistant professor who have demonstrated great potential in research and/or scholarship by virtue of the exceptional quality of their contributions.

Dawnelle Prince (NSM Career Center) was recognized by the U.S. Army for her sustained collaborations between the Army and the UH student body at the Stop the Bleed! Event. Army representatives have provided support for several NSM events, including Block Party and the Career Fair. The team is coordinating an Emergency Preparedness Day for March 2025 where students will receive training in emergency medicine and practice in a staged mass casualty scenario. Prince is an avid advocate presenting all possible career pathways to students, and for students concerned about the high costs of medical school, the military path to medical, dental, and veterinary school may be a solid choice.

Charles Puelz (Mathematics) published “Simulating cardiac fluid dynamics in the human heart” in PNAS Nexus. Predictive mathematical models of the heart’s blood flow can simulate cardiac physiology, pathophysiology, and dysfunction along with responses to interventions. However, existing models are limited in their abilities to predict valve performance, use realistic descriptions of tissue biomechanics, or predict the response of the heart to changes in loading conditions. The computer model of the human heart introduced in this paper addresses these limitations. It generates pressure-volume loops, valvular pressure-flow relationships, and vortex formation times that are in excellent agreement with clinical and experimental data. The model also captures realistic changes in cardiac output in response to changing loading conditions.

Nouhad Rizk (Computer Science) received a $10,000 Teaching Innovation Proposal (TIP) grant for “Creating Generative AI-based Micromoment Activity to Enhance Student Engagement.” The award is for online instruction, and the project must eventually lead to the development or improvement of instruction in at least one online or hybrid course. All TIP awardees will present at the UH AI conference in February 2025.
     Rizk also received a 2024 UH Alternative Textbook Incentive Program Award. The program was created as part of UH’s initiative to mitigate the high cost of textbooks for students. Rizk was recognized in the Textbook Affordability category where faculty can adopt, adapt, or create open educational resources, or use a combination of freely available or library-licensed resources to replace required traditional textbook(s) and other high-cost learning materials in a future course. Rizk’s award is for COSC 4337: Data Science II.

Xin Shi (Postdoctoral Fellow, Physics/TcSUH) received the 2024 Steven Weinberg Research Award for excellence in research from the Texas Section of the American Physical Society. Shi was selected as the 2024 recipient for his outstanding achievements in thermoelectrics. The only criterion is excellence, including potential impact in the relevant scientific community. Recipients must have been a graduate student when the research was performed. Shi received a plaque and $1,000.
     Shi received the 2024 Outstanding Student Researcher Award from the Energy Materials and Systems Division of the American Ceramic Society. The award recognizes exemplary student research related to the division’s mission, and each year, one winner is selected from applicants around the globe. Xin, currently a postdoctoral fellow working with Zhifeng Ren (Physics/TcSUH), delivered an invited lecture, “Advancing Nontoxic, Antimony-based 1-2-2-type Thermoelectric Zintls,” at the annual conference. He also received a plaque and a travel award of $1,000.

Virginia (Jinny) Sisson (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) received NSM’s 2024 Faculty Award for Excellence in Service. This award recognizes a faculty member who has gone above and beyond in service that has had a substantial impact on students, faculty and the University.

Art Weglein (Physics) gave a technical presentation to the Geophysical Society of Houston on October 16. His topic was “Why multiples must be removed in every seismic processing method—there is no exception.”

Dan Wright (Biology & Biochemistry postdoctoral fellow) received an NSF Office of Polar Programs Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The two-year fellowship includes an award of $167,800 of which $30,000 is for the research budget. His project addresses the “High latitude cod kidney as a model for understanding adaptation to polar environments.” The project aims to uncover the molecular basis for seasonal modification to kidney function in cods as an adaptation to polar environments. Research will focus on four ecologically and economically important species of cod. Wright will use histology to characterize kidney morphology under summer and winter conditions, then single-cell RNA sequencing and ATAC-seq to investigate how cod kidneys react to antifreeze production through an analysis of gene expression and cis-regulatory enhancers associated with kidney function. Read More

Yingcai Zheng (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) spoke at the Geophysical Society of Houston Fall Forum: Unveiling Earth’s Treasures. He was part of a panel discussion on “AI and Tech in Data Science, Optimization, and Digital Sustainability.”
     Zheng also presented “Quest for Fracture Permeability Using Seismic Data” at the University of Utah & University of Houston Joint Technical Conference on Energy Geosciences and the Energy Transition.

Ming Zhong (Mathematics) received a 2025 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities Council of Sponsoring Institutions. He is one of 37 recipients, out of 174 applications. The one-year, $5,000 award supports his research on developing new mathematical models for explaining anti-social behaviors. UH is required to match the award with at least an additional $5,000.