Recognition & Honors
Accolades & Acknowledgements
NSM’s Giving Day 2026 delivered a standout performance, raising $26,871.59 from 139 gifts by 124 donors, while unlocking $9,250 in matches and challenges, including the full $5,000 Dean Dudley Match. The college also demonstrated strong engagement across campus competitions, earning wins in the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship, First Gift and Student Voting challenges. This year’s results represent a significant increase over previous years, surpassing $4,773.00 (78 gifts, 77 donors) in 2025, $9,189.24 (83 gifts, 80 donors) in 2024, and $4,877.10 (39 gifts, 37 donors) in 2023!
Mary Ann Ottinger, emeritus professor and research professor of Biology and Biochemistry, has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award from the U.S. Department of State. Through the program, she will collaborate with the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa on environmental science initiatives, fostering international partnerships and knowledge exchange. The highly competitive award recognizes her academic achievement, leadership and potential to advance global collaboration in research and education.
Bryan Tuck, a Computer Science Ph.D. student, is earning national recognition for research in adversarial machine learning that aims to make AI systems more secure and reliable. He received the COSC Junior Ph.D. Student Award, published a first-author paper at the highly competitive AAAI 2026 conference and was selected for a Department of War (formerly known as the Defense of Defense) summer internship. His work identifies instability within AI models as a signal of adversarial attacks, offering a flexible and efficient approach to strengthening real-world AI security.
Ognjen Miljanić, Moores Professor of Chemistry, has been appointed Associate Dean for Research in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, effective April 1. A leader in supramolecular chemistry and molecular materials, Miljanić will help advance NSM’s research enterprise, strengthen faculty support and position the college for continued growth in strategic areas including energy, health and data science.
Edgar Bering, professor of physics, has been named the recipient of the TSAAPT Robert N. Little Award for Outstanding Contributions in Texas Physics Higher Education, recognizing his exceptional service and lasting impact on physics education across the state. The award, presented by the Texas Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, honors educators who demonstrate sustained excellence in teaching, mentorship and leadership in advancing physics education.
The FIELDGeo 2026 winter field experience brought together nearly 70 students and faculty from the University of Houston and partner institutions for an immersive, NSF-supported geoscience program across southern New Mexico. Designed to introduce early-stage students to the field while advancing ongoing research, the weeklong experience provided hands-on opportunities in sediment coring, trenching and geologic mapping, helping students connect classroom concepts to real-world environments. The program continues to play a key role in shaping scientific identity and fostering long-term engagement in geosciences.
Joao Schober, a chemistry postdoctoral fellow, has been selected as a recipient of the 2026 Merck Next Generation Leaders in Chemistry Award. The award “recognizes graduate and postdoctoral fellows for their outstanding contributions to the broader chemistry community” through research and their potential to be innovators in the field. This is the second time this award has been given to a postdoctoral fellow at UH in two years.
In the News
Brandon Than, a biology student at the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, has been named a 2026 Barry Goldwater Scholar, the nation’s premier undergraduate award for students pursuing research careers in science, engineering and mathematics. Than is the second consecutive University of Houston recipient of the prestigious scholarship and the first UH student in recent years to pursue an MD/Ph.D. pathway, with plans to focus on cancer immunology and translational research to develop targeted immunotherapies. Selected from more than 5,000 nominees nationwide, his recognition highlights UH’s growing national presence in undergraduate research and student achievement in STEM.
Peter Copeland, professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has earned additional national recognition as his textbook Earth History: Stories of Our Geological Past received the 2026 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA), in addition to its previously announced 2026 PROSE Award in Earth Science. Co-authored with Janok P. Bhattacharya, the book is noted for its innovative, story-driven approach that helps undergraduate students understand Earth’s history through key geological events, reinforcing UH’s impact on teaching and scholarship in the geosciences.
Madhan Tirumalai, a biology and biochemistry research assistant professor, was quoted as an expert on microbial survival and planetary protection in the New York Times on a research paper published by Johns Hopkins.
Publications
Computer science professor Albert Cheng, alongside his Ph.D. student Michael Yantosca, has had a long paper accepted by the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026). Dr. Cheng co-authored the paper, titled “Spectral Gravity Formant Estimation for Phonetic Segmentation,” with Yantosca, marking the second consecutive year that a collaboration between the professor and his student has been accepted by the ACL.