Faculty Recognition & Honors
Paul Chu (Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH) received the 2019 OCA Pioneer Award at the OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates National Gala Awards reception and banquet. The award recognizes Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have paved the way for members of the community in their chosen field. Chu was honored as “an incredible Asian American Ambassador in the field of physics and science.”
Mini Das’ (Physics) research lab’s work was highlighted in a September 2019 Nature Reviews Physics feature article, “X-ray images in full colour.” The piece provided an overview of the detector technologies developed at CERN and the capability of producing stunning color X-ray computed tomography images. The article also addressed the challenges of bringing those images to hospitals. Das, who is working to improve the capabilities for these types of detectors, has a joint appointment in the biomedical engineering department. Das mentors Ph.D. students in both physics and engineering, and all projects in her lab are collaborative interdisciplinary efforts.
Bill Dupre (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) received the 2018-2019 Distinguished Service Award from the Houston Geological Society. The award honors members who have given long-term valuable service to the Society.
John Suppe (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) has been named an American Geophysical Union Fellow. The Fellows program recognizes AGU members who have made exceptional contributions to Earth and space sciences as valued by their peers and vetted by a committee of Fellows. AGU has 62,000 members from 144 countries and is one of the largest societies in Earth science.
Key Publications
Seamus Curran (Physics) was part of an international team of researchers reporting that a material created using tellurium nanorods – produced by naturally occurring bacteria – is an effective nonlinear optical material, capable of protecting electronic devices against high-intensity bursts of light, including those emitted by inexpensive household lasers targeted at aircraft, drones, or other critical systems. The researchers describe the material and its performance as a material of choice for next-generation optoelectronic and photonic devices. The work, published in the journal Nature Communication, also describes a superior manner of telecom switching without the use of electronics; instead, they use an all-optical method that could improve the speed and capacity of internet communications.
Richard Meisel’s (Biology & Biochemistry) work on sex determination of house flies was the September cover article of the journal Genetics. The paper reported slight genetic differences in male house flies from the north and south. Though minute, the difference between the two types of flies is the position of the Y chromosome in the sequence of the genes.
Alexander Stewart (Biology & Biochemistry) was corresponding author for new research suggesting that subtle differences in the way social networks are organized can have profound effects on voting outcomes. The work, published in the journal Nature, relied on a mathematical analysis to explain a phenomenon the researchers call “information gerrymandering,” saying the structure of a social network can sway the outcome of a vote toward one political party, even if both parties are equal in size and have the same amount of influence.
Michihisa Umetani (Biology & Biochemistry), along with first author Ph.D. student Arvand Asghari, published an article in the journal Endocrinology. The researchers found that a cholesterol-derived molecule, called 27-hydroxycholesterol (27HC), directly affects white adipose (fat) tissue and increases body fat, even without eating the diet that increases body fat. Long-term applications of the findings could lead researchers to a treatment that reduces the levels of 27HC, which could result in reduced capacity for making fat.
Jonny Wu (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) discovered that a chain of volcanoes stretching between Northeast Asia and Russia began a period of silence 50 million years ago, which lasted for 10 million years. In the journal Geology, Wu and Ph.D. student Jeremy Tsung-Jui Wu report that one of the most significant plate tectonic shifts in the Pacific Ocean forced the volcanoes into dormancy.