UNT Research Magazine 2025

INSTITUTES OF RESEARCH EXCELLENCE

ADVANCED ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

AERI features a thriving interdisciplinary research team exploring fascinating questions about our environment and uses basic and applied research to find solutions to the complex problems that we face. The team conducts ongoing research in a wide array of areas related to local, regional, national and international environmental problems.

940-369-5555 | AERI@unt.edu | aeri.unt.edu 1155 Union Circle #310559, Denton, Texas 76203-5017

ADVANCED MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES INSTITUTE

AMMPI brings together a diverse group of faculty members who are focused on structural materials, functional materials, computational tools and advanced manufacturing processes. The strength of the institute’s members lies in designing high-performance materials for the aerospace, automotive and energy sectors.

940-369-8438 | AMMPI@unt.edu | ammpi.unt.edu

UNT Discovery Park Annex, 3940 N. Elm St., Denton, Texas 76207-7102

BIODISCOVERY INSTITUTE

BDI delivers research solutions to underpin the use of plants and microorganisms for the sustainable production of biofuels, polymers, new materials for construction and transportation, and bioactive small molecules with applications ranging from agriculture to health care.

940-565-2491 | BDI@unt.edu | bdi.unt.edu 1155 Union Circle #305220, Denton, Texas 76203-5017

JIM MCNATT INSTITUTE FOR LOGISTICS RESEARCH

The institute’s multidisciplinary research team develops effective solutions to complex logistics and supply chain problems confronting public and private organizations. Specialties include business logistics, engineering, aviation, economics, information technology, geographic information systems, transportation and operations research.

940-565-8666 | JMI@unt.edu | logisticsresearch.unt.edu 1155 Union Circle #311396, Denton, Texas 76203-5017

22 Soaring Beyond Sound

As our nation’s military looks to bring hypersonic-capable aerospace vehicles into its fold,

12 | NEXT-GEN SEMICONDUCTORS

UNT’s new multidisciplinary research center is advancing semiconductors and supporting efforts to grow the industry and its workforce.

30 | TRANSFORMING MOBILITY

On the ground and in the air, UNT researchers are developing solutions for logistics, mobility and transportation of the future.

34 | LAUNCHING RESEARCH CHANGEMAKERS

Through unique research experiences, mentorship and intentional programs, UNT is shaping tomorrow’s creative leaders and researchers across disciplines.

40 | GIVING ACCESS TO HISTORY

UNT Libraries helped build one of the world’s most used online archives on Texas history that has changed the way scholars and hobbyists research the state.

44 | MEET THE PRESIDENT

President Harrison Keller, Ph.D., is guiding UNT as a Tier One research university. DEPARTMENTS

SOARING HIGHER TOGETHER

As a Tier One public research university designated a Hispanic- and Minority-Serving Institution, the University of North Texas is dedicated to discovery that shapes our world for the better and is experiencing unprecedented growth for our research enterprise. In fiscal year 2024, UNT had more than $124 million in total research expenditures, including $49.3 million that are federal and private funds for research.

UNT researchers are advancing fields critical to the U.S. economy such as semiconductors and additive manufacturing, supporting future space exploration through more resilient equipment for extreme environments and helping solve some of our society’s most pressing environmental and health issues. Staff across our Division of Research and Innovation are working harder than ever to help faculty and students meet their research goals.

This past year, we added Texas’ largest drone test facility and started design of a one-of-a-kind X-ray diffraction system for hypersonic research. We also began construction on a Science and Technology Building thanks to $103.4 million in tuition revenue bonds authorized by the 87th Texas Legislature. This building will bring together interdisciplinary teams at the experimental and computational level within the fields of chemistry, life sciences, physics, psychology, kinesiology, biomedical, and other engineering fields.Another transformational investment from the state through the Texas University Fund (TUF) is helping support our future research growth and ensure our researchers have the equipment and facilities to continue conducting high-caliber collaborative research.

Our role in preparing the workforce for the state, nation, and beyond is critical for Texas to maintain its competitive advantage. We are engaging our students early in research through intentional programs, workshops, mentorship, and experiences so they can cultivate the skills and relationships needed to succeed at UNT and well into their careers. Across several of our grants — especially within additive manufacturing, semiconductors, biomedicine, and cybersecurity — workforce training and development remains a core focus.

I am proud to be part of such a collaborative research community, and I look forward to soaring higher together.

Vice President for Research and Innovation

Pamela Padilla

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UNT Research is published for the Division of Research and Innovation by the Division of University Brand Strategy and Communications, University of North Texas. The research office can be reached at 1155 Union Circle #310979, Denton, Texas 76203-5017, 940-369-7487. Articles may be reprinted in their entirety with acknowledgment unless they are published in UNT Research by permission of another source. Requests for photographs or illustrations should be addressed to the editors at UBSC, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311070, Denton, Texas 76203-5017, 940-565-2108.

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TRENDING @ UNT

CAREER AWARDS

NATIONAL SCIENCE

FOUNDATION HONORS

UNT FACULTY

University of North Texas assistant professors (from left) Xiao Li (materials science and engineering) and Yuanxi Wang (physics) earned more than $1.3 million in total grants through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program.

The NSF CAREER award is the most prestigious recognition for early career research faculty. It is granted to selected tenure-track faculty who haven’t earned tenure and whose scholarly products have a high impact in their discipline and/or on society. Including its most

recent honorees, 24 UNT researchers have earned NSF CAREER awards to date. Over the next five years, the recent recipients will tackle research in a variety of areas with their grants.

Li is investigating new strategies for creating chiral materials. Chirality is a geometric property of a molecule or structure that cannot be superimposed on its mirror image. It is prevalent in the human body with DNA and proteins and used in fields such as mechanical and biological engineering.

Wang is developing computer algorithms to

identify defects in solid materials with physical properties suitable for quantum devices, which includes technologies ranging from quantum computers to magnetic field sensors.

“These awards will be transformative not only for advancing faculty in their careers but also in offering opportunities for our community and for students to conduct enriching research experiences within their labs,” says Pamela Padilla, UNT vice president for research and innovation and a past recipient of the NSF CAREER award.

EXAMINING eDNA

UNT biological sciences assistant professor Zacchaeus Compson (pictured below) has built his research on using environmental DNA (eDNA) — the genetic material shed by organisms — to identify species in bodies of water.

“Fundamentally, what I do is like CSI for the environment,” Compson says.“We can take a sample of water, filter it and then analyze the DNA to tell us all of the species present at a specific location.”

Testing for eDNA is increasingly being used by researchers in a range of science fields to measure biodiversity in water. This approach is helping Compson detect invasive species before they impact ecosystems and identify — non-intrusively — the presence or absence of endangered species to inform conservation efforts for projects funded by the United States Geological Survey and Texas Comptroller, respectively.

“eDNA sampling

approaches are being rapidly adopted because DNA allows scientists to collect biodiversity data without having to invade or disturb the habitat of native, sensitive or endangered species,” Compson says.

One drawback to eDNA approaches is that scientists don’t know much about how eDNA moves through ecosystems and degrades, but he hopes that will soon change. Gaining a better fundamental understanding of eDNA to fill in that knowledge gap is the focus of his latest project, which is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Compson is part of a multi-university team of researchers on the project, including collaborators at the University of Alabama and Penn State University.

Over the next five years, the team will analyze the movement and degradation of eDNA in streams from varying ecosystems across the U.S., from Puerto Rico to Alaska, which are part of the NSF-funded National Ecological Observatory Network organized by the Battelle Memorial Institute.

BIOLOGICAL DATA

When it comes to developing medicines and advancing the understanding of plant and bacteria behavior, massive biological datasets could be key in finding answers, but researchers need effective ways to analyze the increasing amounts of data.

UNT’s new Center for Computational Life Sciences is creating computational methods for analyzing and interpreting these large datasets so they can be used to solve problems in biology and medicine. It includes 40 faculty members from biology, biomedical engineering, computer science, information science and mathematics.

“It used to be that researchers could open up an Excel document, crunch the numbers and then do their own data analysis,” says center director Serdar Bozdag (pictured above).

“But with the advent of highthroughput technologies, now they’re producing vast amounts of biological data, which introduces the new challenge of how to store and interpret it.”

Bioinformatics uses computer technology to collect, store and analyze data to help scholars extract valuable knowledge and decrease experimental time. Faculty affiliated with the center already have nearly $25 million in active research grants combined. For example, Bozdag received a $1.8 million U.S. National Institutes of Health grant for his research on developing computational tools to integrate multiple types of biological datasets.Then, he earned another nearly $300,000 NIH grant to identify potential drugs for Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

NEW EQUIPMENT

Research teams, led by assistant professors of physics Jens Neu and Yuzhe Xiao (pictured), earned more than $1 million in awards from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to secure equipment to enhance research on semiconductors and optical properties of infrared materials. The awards are from the DoD’s Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions Equipment/Instrumentation Program.

Neu’s research team was awarded $760,000 to acquire a new atomic force microscope, combined with scattering near-field terahertz microscopy and conductive probe microscopy. Neu says the instrument will offer imaging 100 times better

STEM EDUCATORS

A team of researchers in the UNT College of Education,

than an optical microscope and be used to analyze semiconductors by looking at how their components interact to find opportunities for increased efficiency. The team includes faculty Xiao, Usha Philipose, Yuankun Lin, Jingbiao Cui and Rebekah Purvis in physics; Jeffry Kelber in chemistry; and

College of Engineering and College of Science is addressing the national need for more secondary educators in engineering, mathematics and science through a $2.4

Richard Zhang and TaeYoul Choi in mechanical engineering.

Xiao also is leading a team awarded $258,000 from the same DoD program. That team includes faculty Neu, Purvis and Lin in physics; Kelber in chemistry; and Melanie Ecker in biomedical engineering. The grant will

million U.S. National Science Foundation grant.

The six-year Noyce Fellowship project will help prepare students majoring in engineering, mathematics and science to become STEM teachers in grades 6-12, especially in highneeds schools. Additionally, the project will expand knowledge about recruitment, readiness and retention of STEM educators. UNT is collaborating with Denton ISD, Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science program as well as nonprofits talkSTEM, Communities in Schools North Texas and

fund the purchase of an infrared variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometer that will enhance the team’s ability to characterize and understand the optical properties of infrared materials.

the National Society of Black Engineers-Dallas-Fort Worth for the program.

“We hope this program can serve as a model for universities seeking to address STEM teacher shortages, offering a replicable blueprint for supporting STEM teaching fellows, thereby establishing a sustainable teacher pipeline,” says Colleen Eddy, associate professor of teacher education and administration, who is leading the project along with associate professor of mathematics Nirmala Naresh and mechanical engineering professor Zhenhua Huang.

PATENTPENDING ROBOTICS

Students working in Amir Jafari’s Advanced Robotic Manipulators Lab in the

BODIES IN MOTION

After noticing a troubling trend that many athletes — especially women — reported struggling with body image, UNT psychology professor Trent A. Petrie and his research collaborator Dana Voelker, professor at West Virginia University, began developing a program that could equip athletes with psychological tools to combat the negative perceptions they had about their bodies.

Less than a decade later, the Bodies in Motion program has been licensed to 25 different universities in the U.S. and earned more than $400,000 in grants from the

UNT College of Engineering leave the university with much more than a degree. Many have the opportunity to make research contributions to patent-pending inventions.

In the ARM Lab, researchers are designing

NCAA, Pac-12 Conference and the American Athletic Conference.

For Bodies in Motion, groups of four to eight female collegiate athletes meet weekly over five weeks. Two facilitators — typically professionals in the athletics department — guide participants through activities and discussions intended to reframe female athletes’ perspectives around beauty, identity and self.

“We knew if we could shift their focus from evaluating their bodies based on appearance to what they can do functionally, such as playing their sport at a high level, we’d see improvement in overall wellbeing,” Petrie says.

advanced robotics components that could shape the future of human-machine interaction. At the helm is Jafari, an associate professor of biomedical engineering who is a robotics expert with seven patents of his own.

ARM Lab technologies under consideration for patents include variable impedance actuators (VIA), which are devices that can modify their resistance to motion — encompassing stiffness, damping and inertia — to optimize interaction with humans and unknown surroundings.

A hydraulic-actuated soft robotic glove (pictured) was designed to bolster hand movement and dexterity across a spectrum of motions, including grasping, pinching and pointing.

Then, researchers developed the Peltierintegrated therapeutic wrap to address muscle and joint discomfort resulting from strains, injuries or chronic conditions.

“Soft robotics is an emerging field that is changing really fast,” Jafari says.“We are developing technologies in this lab that have the potential to help people in the future — from robotics used in surgeries to those used in rehabilitation to help increase mobility.”

Watch The Lab series on YouTube to learn more about Amir Jafari’s research.

Illustration generated using Adobe Firefly

MARINEENERGY POWERED SENSOR

With human activities increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) techniques are offering a promising solution to help absorb and store more carbon from the atmosphere. Monitoring pH is critical to this process, yet current pH sensors face many limitations. UNT mechanical engineering professor Haifeng Zhang is working to change that.

Supported by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Ocean Technology Interdisciplinary Program, Zhang is leading a team with research collaborators at the University of Michigan and University of California-San Diego to develop a sensor

that can better detect pH levels. The marine energypowered multimodal MicroElectro-Mechanical System (MEMS) sensor array aims to provide uninterrupted, highly sensitive and accurate pH measurements across vast ocean areas with varying depths.

Researchers will work with industry developers and governmental labs to accelerate deployment of the forthcoming MEMS sensor. The grant also will support curriculum development, professional non-technical skills training and research mentoring for graduate, undergraduate and K-12 students in the North Texas region as well as in the Michigan and UC-San Diego communities.

“This sensor will play a crucial role in assessing environmental impact, optimizing the processes and ensuring the overall success and sustainability of mCDR efforts,” Zhang says.

STUDYING RECOMMERCE

In a historic collaboration, researchers in the UNT College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism partnered with the NRF Foundation to produce an educational case study focused on the fast-growing retail trend known as recommerce — the practice of selling previously owned goods, including clothing and other apparel, through physical and online platforms. It marks the first time the NRF Foundation, a nonprofit that provides access to education and opportunities needed for successful retail careers, has worked with a U.S. university on a case study.

CMHT faculty members

Sanjukta Pookulangara, Jiyoung Kim and Iva Jestratijevic interviewed

directors of circularity and other executives at seven international fashion brands for the study to learn about the $100 billion global recommerce market, which is growing five times faster than the broader retail market.

However, recommerce is not without its challenges, especially for retailers. Increased labor costs tend to make it a more lucrative practice for larger fashion brands than smaller ones. Also, it is an ongoing struggle for brands to gauge the unpredictable supply-anddemand levels for products and constantly shifting price points.

The case study found that luxury brands tend to fair better economically as higher-end items tend to retain their value even with the discounted pricing of recommerce.

SUPPORT SYSTEM

A team of UNT alumni and student researchers from the College of Visual Arts and Design and College of Information partnered with physicians to develop and test a new digital health technology system.

EndoMD (pictured), which has received nearly $20,000 from CVAD’s Flagship Grants program, facilitates online education and self-management support for diabetic patients and their caregivers in rural areas of Texas.

Communication design professor Michael R. Gibson is co-leading the project with Flower Mound

endocrinologist Dr. Wasim Haque, who was working with his physician colleagues on a “web presence” to help rural residents locate support and educational materials and combat misinformation about diabetes and its treatment.

Gibson, who coordinates CVAD’s Interaction Design and Design Research graduate programs, suggested a collaboration between the students and doctors to develop a comprehensive EndoMD platform.

The UNT research team conducted interviews and focus group sessions with more than 60 volunteers ages 55 and older who tested existing digital health technology systems and

EndoMD prototypes, then shared feedback on the systems’ usability. When it launches in Spring 2025, EndoMD will feature educational articles, images and videos covering diabetes prevention, treatment, diet and strategies for managing medical expenses. Once operational, the platform will collect limited user data that will help determine future design decisions and enhance the system’s effectiveness.

Gibson says, “The EndoMD project has the potential to transform how diabetes self-management is facilitated for millions of rural Texans.”

PREGNANCY HEALTH

Julia Heck, professor of rehabilitation and health services, studied what impact alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiencies in pregnancy can have on birth outcomes in a project supported by the Alpha-1 Foundation.

AATD is a condition caused by not having enough of a protein called alpha-1 antitrypsin. This protein helps keep the lungs healthy by protecting them from damage caused by certain enzymes released by white blood cells.

Heck investigated the risk of pregnancy complications and adverse birth outcomes in mothers and children with

AATD. Using a cohort of 305 Danish mothers and 254 children with AATD from 1973 to 2013, she analyzed associations between alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, adverse birth outcomes and pregnancy complications in the mothers and children.

The study revealed that pregnancy in women with AATD contributes to low birth weight of their babies, cesarean-section delivery, preterm birth and preeclampsia . These findings underscore the importance of close monitoring during pregnancy for women with AATD, suggesting routine screening for better management, despite its inherited nature.

PRESERVING CULTURE

A UNT project was one of only seven selected for funding by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities as part of its Research and Development Grant Program and its special initiative, “American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present and Future.”

As a Hispanic- and Minority-Serving Institution, UNT plays a critical role in safeguarding culturally and historically significant documents related to minority groups in the U.S. Previous research has shown a potential deficiency in the support provided to archives and special collections at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), particularly concerning the digitization of cultural records, which is essential to guarantee the preservation and accessibility of these records.

With the NEH grant, UNT researchers are examining the landscape of MSI archives and special collections to better understand what resources are available and needed as well as the status of digitization efforts.

“We hope this research can lead to a new information system that would provide centralized resources and repositories to MSIs to store and share these unique resources with the broader public,” says information science assistant professor Brady Lund (pictured left), who is leading the project team, which includes information science faculty Ana Roeschley (middle) and Maurice Wheeler as well as Morgan Gieringer, (right) head of UNT Special Collections, and graduate student assistant Homero Rendon Cuevas.

MUSIC & NATURE

Conversations about environmentalism within the fields of music and sound studies have historically not been robust, but UNT music theory assistant professor Andrew Chung is working to change that.

He studied at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) library in Worcester, Massachusetts, for a project to examine the musical connection to Earth’s current climatological condition. The research was supported by an AAS fellowship with funds from a grant to the society by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities.

“There’s a tendency to romanticize music as being the purest expression of the inner heart and the spirit. But music really is affected by worldly goals, concerns and activities,” Chung says.

Chung will use his research for his first book, Music’s Long Anthropocene: The Climate of Empire and the Sound of Ecological Disaster, which will detail how the planet arrived at its current climatological condition as well as examine how some colonial processes were damaging to the environment. Music can reveal additional details about the history within that story, Chung says.

CYBERSECURITY EXCELLENCE

UNT re-solidified its status as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense for the next 25 years. UNT is among 30 institutions nationwide — and one of only four in Texas — with a 25-year designation from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). This status underscores UNT’s commitment to cybersecurity through academic, research, and institutional practices and community engagement.

UNT is one of the few universities offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a doctorate in cybersecurity. With the designation, UNT can issue security certificates approved by the NSA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, expanding job opportunities for recent graduates. Through UNT’s Center for Information and Cyber Security (CICS), College of Engineering and College of Information faculty are advancing information and computer security.

“In today’s fast-changing digital world, with the expanse of the internet and the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s clear why cybersecurity matters more than ever. At UNT, our goal is to pioneer innovative solutions to address these evolving challenges,” says Ram Dantu, CICS director and computer science and engineering professor.

FULBRIGHT AWARDS

Four faculty and one student are conducting research abroad with awards and recognition from the prestigious U.S. Fulbright Program.

SODIUM TOXICITY

Professor Constance Hilliard, an African evolutionary historian, found that certain illnesses common in many Black American communities — like hypertension and kidney disease — may be explained by unique genetic variations that affect how the body absorbs sodium. Her interdisciplinary research led her to conclude that people of West African descent, whose ancestors would have had access to little or no salt, are likely to possess G1 and G2 variants of the APOL1 gene, which produces proteins that support the immune system. The G1 and G2 variants allow the body to absorb even trace amounts of sodium efficiently, increasing the likelihood of survival in salt-deficient regions.

According to Hilliard, those

Faculty Kathryne Beebe (history), George James (philosophy and religion), Vladimir Shulaev (biological sciences) and Elyse Zavar (emergency management and disaster science) were named Fulbright U.S. Scholars. They are traveling to Austria, the Indian State of Karnataka, Southern Chile and Australia, respectively. Their research topics range from Appiko, a grassroots environmental movement, to buyout programs for residents who must relocate for climate adaptation.

Recent UNT graduate Charlotte MacDonald, who studied clarinet performance, earned an award from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She is researching Polish clarinet culture alongside renowned clarinetist Barbara Borowicz and will perform archival research of 20th century Polish female composers.

with the G1 and G2 variants require far less dietary sodium than those without. However, the average American consumes 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day. By limiting their sodium intake, Hilliard says, carriers of the G1 and G2 variants may be able to avoid these common negative health outcomes.

Hilliard’s research is detailed in her book Ancestral Genomics: African American

Health in the Age of Precision Medicine, in which she also mentions how another genetic variant can explain Black Americans’ unusually high susceptibility to a certain class of aggressive cancers like triple-negative breast cancer. “As a historian, I’m making connections between past ecological environments’ impact on people then and their ancestors today,” Hilliard says.

COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION

As one of the nation’s Tier One public research universities, we are discovering tomorrow’s knowledge through collaboration and innovation. Together with supportive mentors, students learn in creative environments that combine academic excellence, hands-on experience and thought-provoking research to spark their imaginations. Our dedicated faculty provide an educational experience that challenges and enriches students, ensuring they have the power to compete with anyone, anywhere.

NEXT-GE N SEMICONDUCTOR S

New research center will fuel semiconductor innovation, help grow the industry and train the future workforce.

TEXT: HEATHER NOEL

PHOTO: PETE COMPARONI

Semiconductors are the building blocks of electronics and drive modern society from artificial intelligence, internet of things, cellphones and computers to medical equipment, autonomous vehicles and systems used for the nation’s defense. In a world increasingly reliant on technology and innovations spurring the need for more advanced components, semiconductors are more important than ever.

To further fuel research on semiconductors, the University of North Texas launched a new research center — the Center for Microelectronics in Extreme Environments (CMEE). A UNT College of Engineering and College of Science collaboration, the center is advancing the development of next-generation semiconductors, supporting regional and state efforts to grow the industry and training the future semiconductor workforce. It brings together expertise from more than a dozen faculty members in materials science, physics, chemistry, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering.

“This center aligns UNT’s existing expertise in materials research and will foster more interdisciplinary collaboration and funding opportunities, as well as technology innovation that is critical for our economy,” says Pamela Padilla, UNT’s vice president for research and innovation. “Our efforts will help build a more sustainable semiconductor workforce

pipeline in Texas and beyond by ensuring our students have the breadth of expertise and entrepreneurial mindset they’ll need for success in this rapidly changing industry.”

HIGH-POWER ELECTRONICS

The center’s main research emphasis is on creating semiconductors that are needed for high-power electronic devices for commercial use, but also for more specialized applications needed by government agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy and NASA.

“High-power, high-frequency semiconductor materials and devices are needed for a wide variety of applications,” says Nigel Shepherd, associate professor of materials science and engineering, who serves as the center’s director along with co-director Usha Philipose, professor of physics. “In use, they need to function in pretty much every environment you could think of, including conditions such as radiation exposure, high and low temperatures, mechanical shock and high pressures, among others. When materials fail, applications fail — so understanding their performance limits is crucial. The knowledge from our research will lead to devices that can better withstand these extreme operating conditions.”

UNT’s research facilities across campus can simulate extreme conditions for testing materials and devices. For example, the College of Science’s ion beam accelerator lab

“This center aligns UNT's existing expertise in materials research and will foster more interdisciplinary collaboration and funding opportunities, as well as technology innovation that is critical for our economy.”

— Pamela Padilla, UNT vice president for research and innovation

— the only university facility in the nation capable of performing elemental and ion-induced charge mapping in electronics materials and devices at a sub-micrometer scale — will be used in the research.

At UNT’s 300-acre Discovery Park, the largest research park in the North Texas region, researchers have access to UNT’s Materials Research Facility (MRF) — one of the most advanced university research facilities in the nation for materials analysis, which includes the only 3D atom probe system in the state. The adjoining CMEE Clean Room allows for materials to be synthesized, tested and controlled in close proximity.

Through the individual labs of faculty contributing to the center’s research, UNT has equipment for research including

ALUMS IN MICROCHIP TECH

University of North Texas alumni are leading change in roles scattered throughout the semiconductor industry. UNT chemistry professor Oliver Chyan has dozens of former students who have successful careers with some of the industry’s biggest players — from Texas Instruments and Intel to Micron Technology and IBM.

“The most important product is my students. That’s been the most enjoyable aspect of my job at UNT for the last 30 years,” says Chyan, whose research on microelectronic fabrication and semiconductor processing has garnered seven pending or issued patents.

After earning his undergraduate degree in his native India, Ashish Shivaji Salunke (’22 Ph.D.) continued his chemistry education at UNT once he heard about Chyan’s impactful electrochem-

thin-film synthesis, defect and noise analysis and computational materials design.

VARIED EXPERTISE

With faculty from across disciplines, the center pulls together expertise covering chemical and physical vapor deposition, 3D characterization of structural and chemical properties, electronic defects and trap analyses, and many other research areas related to semiconductor design and function.

The group has been funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Army Research Laboratory, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, as well as private grants from the Semiconductor Research Corporation and contracts with

istry and semiconductor research. In Chyan’s lab, Salunke had the opportunity to contribute to projects that gave him a fundamental understanding of semiconductor production.

Now, as a lead engineer for the photomask clean process team at Micron Technology, Salunke has developed a process that ensures the company manufactures a defect-free photomask for extreme ultraviolet lithography — an opaque quartz substrate that acts like a stencil to aid in printing integrated circuit designs on silicon wafers for fabricating semiconductors.

“At first, I found it challenging to connect the dots between my projects at UNT. However, Dr. Chyan helped me weave them into a cohesive story for my thesis,” Salunke says. “This ability has been incredibly useful in my current job, where we often handle multiple tasks. Those who can see the bigger picture and link these elements are the ones who succeed in leadership.”

many industry collaborators such as Texas Instruments, Intel and NXP Semiconductors.

UNT researchers are active in a variety of areas including the synthesis and characterization of compound semiconductors, dielectric and optical/photonic thin films, electronic and optoelectronic devices, metamaterials and devices, surface and interface science, defect and noise analyses, advanced electronic ceramics for next-generation radio frequency applications, semiconductor cleaning processes, supercritical processing of materials, and nanostructures with novel electronic and photonic properties. Their faculty expertise extends to the fundamental science for microelectronic fabrication and semiconductor processing, patent-

Another of Chyan’s former students, Trace Hurd (’05 Ph.D.), has touched almost every aspect of semiconductor production in his decades-long career, including stints at TI, Entegris and Arch Chemicals.

Currently senior director of technology development with Tokyo Electron U.S., also known as TEL, he oversees research and development for the global supplier of integrated circuit manufacturing equipment.

Managing an R&D organization of nearly 60 scientists and engineers, Hurd says he takes a lesson on leadership from Chyan in the way he prioritizes students and their aspirations.

“I want to make sure they’re getting the most out of their career and mentor them if there’s things they want to learn,” Hurd says. “That was always key to Dr. Chyan; he was always looking to help his students move along in their life and giving them the right tools to do so.”

pending methods to detect flaws in microchips, and improving anti-corrosive technology for the copper wiring that acts as the interconnect in semiconductor fabrication.

“Copper has a very high conductivity, making it easy for an electric signal to travel through wires using the material, but it is also very susceptible to corrosion,” says Oliver Chyan, professor of chemistry. “So, we invented a selected copper passivation coating that helps prevent some of that corrosion.”

BOOSTING THE INDUSTRY

There have been big moves in recent years on the federal and state levels to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry. In 2022, the U.S. passed the CHIPS Act approving $280 billion in new funding to advance domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors.

Texas is the largest semiconductor exporter in the nation and is No. 1 in semiconductor manufacturing capacity, accounting for 36% of the U.S. total capacity. In 2023, it approved its own CHIPS Act, which included the formation of a group of experts to advise the state on its strategic planning to secure Texas’ leadership in semiconductors. In March 2024, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the inaugural members of the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Consortium (TSIC), which includes UNT’s Shepherd.

“I’m honored to be UNT’s TSIC representative and contribute to the state’s planning to enhance semiconductor research, innovation, manufacturing and secure leadership of the sector,” Shepherd says.

The North Texas region has long been a leader in semiconductor innovation. In 1958, Jack S. Kilby invented the first integrated circuit while working at Dallas-

based Texas Instruments. In more recent years, the region, which has been dubbed the “Silicon Prairie,” has continued to expand its presence in the industry with the opening of new manufacturing and design facilities for semiconductors.

The new research center at UNT will work with universities and manufacturers in the region and across the state to foster growth of the industry.

Building on collaborations with industry, academic institutions and the current research centers at UNT such as the Materials Research Facility, the overall objective is to expand the semiconductor research and development ecosystem at UNT.

A core focus for the center will be recruitment and securing scholarships in support of UNT master’s students interested in semiconductors. Students will receive one-on-one faculty mentorship and training, as well as semiconductor research and learning opportunities. UNT also will work with the semiconductor sector to establish internship opportunities for students.

Philipose says, “The center’s capabilities and faculty expertise will not just strengthen semiconductor research and innovation efforts but will train the next generation of scientists and engineers to meet the emerging workforce needs. ”

D OWNST REAM EFFECTS

UNT researcher works to ensure new roads aren’t barriers for wildlife.

Road construction is a common temporary inconvenience for Texas commuters, but when those roads cross streams or other waterways, they can have adverse long-term impacts on the travel patterns of aquatic wildlife.

When culverts restrict a waterway’s flow, they increase the rate of the flow of water at the point of the crossing. If certain species of fish aren’t capable of swimming fast enough to pass through the restricted point of the waterway, it can limit their distribution and potentially affect the number of fish in the population.

That’s why University of North Texas biology professor Ed Mager (pictured left) is conducting research in collaboration with the Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to analyze whether stream crossings need to be re-engineered to accommodate the movement patterns of aquatic life.

Mager’s team, including doctoral student Allie Burdette (pictured right), is examining the swim speed of seven species of native Texas fish, three of which have been designated as Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) by Texas Parks and Wildlife. “They’re not formally listed as endangered, but if their populations continue to decline, they could be imperiled,” Mager says.

The other species of fish they’re studying serve as hosts for larval mussels that have been designated as SGCN. “The mussels themselves provide important ecosystem services to humans in the form of cycling nutrients, filtering the water and stabilizing the substrate within the river,” Mager says.

The data is collected by placing specimens in a swim tunnel respirometer — think of it as a treadmill for fish. The clear tube uses a propeller to circulate water through it at various speeds. Mager’s team uses this to assess the fish’s maximum sustained swimming speed. They test at least eight fish of each species at three different temperatures to account for the impact of seasonal changes.

“There are several ways that this type of information can be and has been used to facilitate fish passage by designing roadstream crossings so that water velocities don’t exceed the swimming capability of the fish species in question,” says Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries research scientist Preston Bean.

“Increasing the size or number of culverts to reduce velocities in each culvert is one approach. Reducing the slope of the culvert or installing baffles to provide refugia from high water velocities within a culvert also are ways to ensure that fish can move upstream past road-stream crossings or other structures that might impact fish passage.”

Some of the species of fish studied so far include the Texas Shiner and Blacktail Shiner. Bean says the data has already influenced culvert designs on projects in Kerr County in the Guadalupe River Basin.

“It’s important to think through these kinds of problems because if you don’t, they can have unintended impacts on the biodiversity of the region,” Mager says. “That doesn’t just affect the conservation of a fish species, it can have major ramifications for people as well.”

TEXT: SCOTT BROWN PHOTO: PETE COMPARONI

INNOVATORS TO WATCH

CREATING A CULTURE OF DISCOVERY

UNT STUDENTS ARE LEARNING FIRSTHAND HOW THEIR INNOVATION CAN IMPACT ART, SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.

AQUATIC TOXICOLO GY

Kristina Fite, a biological sciences master’s student, is investigating the potentially harmful effects of the chemical 6PPD that’s often used as a stabilizing additive in rubbers, as well as the byproduct of that chemical when it reacts with the ozone, 6PPD(Q). As a recipient of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship, Fite is conducting a fullscale project to understand more about the chemicals and their environmental impact — especially on developing amphibian larvae. Ultimately, Fite wants to work with an endangered animal population and support repopulation of a species. “I feel like by understanding how we think and interact with the environment, I can help create conservation or sustainability,” Fite says.

HEARING AID ACCEPTANCE

Adelin Eason, an audiology doctoral student, was inspired to pursue a career as an audiologist after seeing her brother’s experiences with auditory process disorder growing up. “There is so much cutting-edge research in the field combined with the opportunity to really make a difference in people’s lives — that’s what drew me to this profession,” Eason says. As a UNT research assistant, she already has learned many research techniques and developed valuable clinical skills through her work collecting data from participants in a study led by audiology and speech-language pathology faculty Sharon Miller, Erin Schafer and Boji Lam. Their research will contribute to the understanding of what drives better hearing aid acceptance.

COATINGS FOR LUNAR TECH

Javier Solis (’24), a master’s student in mechanical and energy engineering, interned at Johnson Space Center in Houston in Summer 2024. While there, Solis contributed to a collaborative project UNT College of Engineering and College of Science faculty are working on with NASA scientists to advance heat transfer coatings for autonomous space vehicles. At UNT, Solis works on thermal fluids research in the lab of assistant professor Richard Zhang, principal investigator for the heat transfer coatings project. In the future, he hopes to work for NASA. “I want to find a novel method of propulsion to enhance how we explore space and reach farther beyond our solar system,” Solis says. “My research at UNT is a step in the right direction.”

NATIVE POLLINATORS

Ethan Phillips, a senior ecology major, researches native bees and other pollinators in the lab of Elinor Lichtenberg, assistant professor of insect behavior and community ecology. His interest in bees started while working at the Pollinative Prairie at UNT’s Discovery Park, where he learned how bee boxes help nurture bee populations. Phillips later helped lead efforts to add bee boxes across campus with support from a grant through UNT’s We Mean Green Fund. As an Undergraduate Research Fellow at UNT, he is studying how bees use the boxes installed on campus.“I hope my research will not only bring awareness to native bees, but also contribute to conservation methods that are accessible and effective in supporting populations,” Phillips says.

EXPLORING AI IN RETAIL

Cassandra Castro, an undergraduate student double majoring in fashion merchandising and digital retailing, is researching artificial intelligence in the retail industry. “AI is very general and not very specific,” says Castro, who is a UNT Undergraduate Research Fellow. She says Generation Z cares more about individuality than trends, and she wants to understand Gen Zers’ attitudes toward AI’s generalization of beauty standards. Her research methods include questionnaires and surveys that also address the effect social media has on beauty standards. She hopes her study will shed light on the practices of some retailers and brands regarding AI and body standards. Next up, Castro might dig further into AI or veer more toward market research for brands.

IMPROVIN G PUBLIC SAFETY

Andrew Summitt, a data science senior, focuses on ways virtual and augmented realities could be used for emergency evacuation and response. Summitt’s research aims to improve public safety and develop emergency response systems by combining data visualization with user-friendly interfaces.“Data tells stories by allowing us to record and measure information, offering insights beyond numbers,” Summitt says. Working with data science professor Sharad Sharma, Summitt also is contributing to a geospatial mobile app funded by a U.S. National Science Foundation grant. Bridging data science with real-world applications, the app will integrate Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles with Cesium for Unity and create an AR platform for realtime navigation.

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURIN G

Sydney Fields, a materials science and engineering doctoral student, hopes her research will contribute to future aircraft developed with additive-manufactured or 3D-printed titanium alloys. Her advisor, Yufeng Zheng, first introduced her to 3D-printed alloys. By working in his lab, Fields was able to attend conferences, such as one with The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, and collaborate with student researchers at other universities to gain more insight into the field. As a recipient of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship this past year, Fields is continuing her research and education at UNT.“With additive manufacturing, we can decrease product waste, increase fuel efficiency and help the environment,” Fields says.

DEMYSTIFYIN G HEALTH CARE

Charlie Su, a doctoral student in clinical psychology, is using his interest in family processes to change the way health professionals screen clients for various conditions. He’s exploring how parenting styles and behavioral norms affect individuals with different cultural backgrounds — and how current screening tools may be assessing things differently across diverse populations. Su knows improving these tools could be a game-changer for how the global scientific community helps people with psychological or neuropsychological conditions, whether through more accurate diagnostic processes or through developing culturally-competent interventions. “This research could have sweeping effects that may benefit so many different groups,” he says.

AI AND MUSIC

Colin Stokes, a Ph.D. student in composition, is researching artificial intelligence in computer music systems design. The composer/performer, who was the 2023 Presser Graduate Scholar, partnered with UNT Regents Professor Marco Buongiorno Nardelli for a concert at the CURRENTS New Media festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in which they used synthesis models driven by recurrent neural networks. The pair trained the deep learning system on hours of Stokes’ performances to synthesize compositional material, which was mixed with live-processed cello and fixed media. Now, they are updating the model to allow for multimodality and higher-quality outcomes. “I love the idea of creating new tools for my fellow composers,” Stokes says.

EXERCISE PSYCHOLO GY

Sabrina Madson, a doctoral student in human performance and movement science, researches sport and exercise psychology as well as public health. She studied the sport environment and considered how an athlete’s sense of choice affects their levels of anxiety and burnout. Her dissertation addresses the effects choice has on pregnant and postpartum women in exercise. “I’m considering questions like, what are some barriers and motives that might interfere with the benefits of exercise? And why we aren’t exercising,” Madson says. She has presented her research nationally, including at the Association of Applied Sport Psychology annual conference. In the future, Madson is considering becoming a professor or working in exercise research.

SOA RI N G BEYOND SOUND

As needs for hypersonic-capable aerospace vehicles increase, UNT researchers are developing materials that can withstand higher Mach speeds leading to ultrahigh surface temperatures and extreme environments.

TEXT: AMANDA LYONS ILLUSTRATION: KENNY FAILES

PHOTO: AHNA HUBNIK AND PETE COMPARONI

Soaring five times the speed of sound or more in the near future, our nation’s military and aerospace industries are looking to bring hypersonic-capable vehicles into their fold. However, the research road to Mach 5 and beyond is long and arduous.

“This is not an incremental difference. It’s a massive gap,” says Andrey Voevodin, associate dean for research and materials science and engineering professor in the College of Engineering at the University of North Texas.“You cannot use the same materials, the same alloys or even the same instrumentation.”

UNT can help lessen that gap thanks to its team of engineering experts and top-rate facilities across the university. The Materials Research Facility (MRF) at UNT’s Discovery Park is a unique center for multi-scale and multi-dimensional characterization of materials, including those relevant for hypersonics. Additionally, a novel X-ray diffraction system, specifically designed for analyzing hypersonics-related materials, is being developed and installed at UNT. Meanwhile, the Center for Agile and Adaptive Additive Manufacturing (CAAAM) is bringing material synthesis and manufacturing into the future through its state-of-the-art infrastructure and faculty specializing in the comprehensive additive manufacturing science of advanced materials and 3D printing.

HYPERSONIC CHALLENGE

Today, aerospace vehicles are constructed using materials made from a mixture of metals called superalloys capable of withstanding high temperatures. Current jet engines can reach about 2,000 degrees Celsius inside the combustion section. Most of the superalloys fail at around 1,300 degrees Celsius. To protect them, the aerospace industry uses a protective ceramic coating or thermal barrier coating manufactured over the superalloy. However, for hypersonic speeds, the alloys and ceramics need to withstand temperatures approaching 4,000 degrees Celsius. That’s nearing surface of the sun temperatures, which is usually about

5,500 degrees Celsius. materials and ceramics fail rapidly at such extreme temperatures,” Voevodin says.

Finding materials that fit the temperature requirement isn’t the only challenge researchers face. The act of studying and testing these materials also is challenging. A person cannot stand next to a material at that temperature without protective gear from the heat radiation. Most tests are performed with researchers in a separate room. For the test, a gas torch is hooked up to an oxygen or other combustion gas feed and then fired at the material. Researchers watch the process through a glass window or infrared camera . “But you’re not measuring anything. You can only see if it breaks,” Voevodin says.

system at UNT’s Discovery Park capable of reaching the extreme temperatures needed for hypersonic speeds while allowing property measurements of protective materials upon heating under extreme conditions.

The system’s design is being led by Young, a materials science and engineering associate professor. Once in operation, the system will be open for use by UNT and U.S. Department of Defense scientists.

The flames from the torch are so hot, any measuring equipment would melt or break during testing. Researchers cannot test if a ceramic can bend at 4,000 degrees Celsius or how the microstructure of an alloy changes as it is heated. Voevodin says there is no lab in the U.S. capable of such measurements under extreme conditions, not even within the U.S. military. But UNT researchers will soon change that.

CLOSING THE GAP

Voevodin and his UNT colleagues — Samir Aouadi and Marcus Young — are

“This is not an incremental difference. It’s a massive gap.

You cannot use the same materials, the same alloys or even the same

instrumentation.”

— Andrey Voevodin,

UNT College of Engineering associate dean for research and materials science and engineering professor

“Right now, it’s not possible to observe high temperature behaviors,” Young says. “This system is going to allow us to answer those questions of can we control alloy shape morphing, can we control the ceramic that covers it, can we create a stable structure that will last longer at these extreme temperatures?”

Young is working with analytical instrument manufacturer Rigaku to design the machine, which they expect to be operational by Spring 2025.

Instead of a gas torch, it will use a laser beam to heat the materials. The laser will apply a more centralized ultrahigh temperature onto the surface of the material.

“We’ve been in talks with multiple companies over years about this system,” Young says.“You tell them you want to put a laser into the system, and they say it’s too complicated. It is complicated, but we need to do this. Rigaku has been a great collaborator for us in working to make this system a reality.”

NEW MATERIALS

UNT researchers also are creating materials capable of withstanding hypersonic conditions. While all of them have a background in aerospace and high temperature research, each team member plays a specific role in moving the research forward.

Young, who specializes in alloys and ceramics, focuses on developing ultrahigh temperature shape memory and shape morphing alloys. The alloys are capable of changing to a predetermined shape they “remember” when exposed to a high temperature, an electrical current or responding superelastically to a bending force, such as those experienced during hypersonic flight.

Aouadi focuses on the ceramics side of the project. The selected ceramics would consist of coatings that are produced over the alloys to help protect them from the heat generated by hypersonic speeds. “We are taking a very different approach by using a mix of high temperature ceramics,” Aouadi says. “There are very few compounds that won’t melt at 3,500 degrees Celsius. Since we know what those are, now we just have to focus on selecting the right ones that facilitate the shape morphing aspect, which we’ll be able to study with the new system.”

Aouadi is producing high temperature ceramic matrix composites for testing. Ceramic fibers are weaved together on a microstructural level to make the final component less likely to crack. Common fibers used for these composites are carbon, silicon carbide and Similar to pottery, the idea is for the final ceramic material to be durable at room temperature, but as it heats up, it should become malleable and bend with the shape morphing alloys.

Meanwhile, Voevodin is an expert in heat dissipation across a material and controlling heat during testing. With the three working together, they account for each main part of the hypersonic equation — the alloys, the ceramics and the temperature. “We are creating the foundation here at UNT,” Voevodin says. “We are preparing our students to work in this hypersonics realm and carry the torch

come.”

One such student is doctoral candidate Sophia Cooper, who has been with the team since 2020. “It’s been challenging, but rewarding,” Cooper says. “Sometimes it’s difficult to gauge the progress you’re making, but our meetings with the army researchers show that the work we are doing at UNT is meaningful.”

Cooper is developing high temperature shape memory alloys that can withstand hypersonic speeds for up to one hour. Her

alloys are based on a mixture of nickel, titanium and zirconium. She’s also added in copper and niobium to tailor material properties. “I have come to find that research is a lot of failure before progress.” Initial studies demonstrated that shape memory alloys made with zirconium were difficult to process or shape, according to Cooper. Most existing research instead uses a mixture with hafnium. Other research even uses gold, palladium and platinum. Cooper says zirconium has been hard to work with but she intends to stick with it. “Zirconium is a lot cheaper

than hafnium and the other materials. It’s also more lightweight. My hope is we can find a solution that will create a more commercially viable alloy for these applications.”

Cooper (pictured left) uses equipment in Young’s X Lab: Metallic Processing and Characterization for her work, such as an arc melter that melts the metals together and a rolling mill that converts the metal to a plate or rod. She then rolls the alloy and repeats the rolling process until it reaches the desired thickness.“There’s a lot of problem solving that goes into it. It’s been the most fun and the most challenging.”

Her alloys, which will be shielded by the ceramics, operate at a much lower temperature of up to 500 degrees Celsius. Since the operating temperature is lower, it allows her to study the alloys more closely to find a viable path forward for zirconium. She’s able to use more equipment to study the alloys as they transform upon heating and cooling. One technique she uses is differential

scanning calorimetry, which allows her to see the specific temperatures where these phase transformations happen.

At the Army Research Lab’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, she and army researchers there have used transmission electron microscopy to give insight into the materials’ behaviors at an atomic scale. “Oftentimes, you feel like you’re moving backward, but that’s not the reality. Otherwise, great discoveries would never have been made,” Cooper says.

CHANGING MANUFACTURING

Across the hall from the Materials Research Facility is the Center for Agile and Adaptive Additive Manufacturing (CAAAM), which has secured $30 million in funding from the Texas Legislature since 2021 for its innovative research. As faculty like Voevodin, Aouadi and Young (pictured right) find the mixtures needed to make materials capable of hypersonic speed, CAAAM researchers focus on how to create the

final components. “They know the properties they need, but fabricating the components by conventional technology and manufacturing processes is very difficult,” says Regents Professor Narendra Dahotre, who serves as CAAAM associate vice president and founder. “That’s where additive manufacturing and 3D printing come into the picture.”

UNT faculty affiliated with CAAAM have expertise in advanced materials, such as Voevodin, Aouadi and Young, and in additive manufacturing like Dahotre. It’s also home to state-of-the-art and specially made customized machinery for additive manufacturing research of high temperature refractory materials. There are two types of machines used for their research — a laser powder bed machine and laser direct energy deposition machine.

For the laser powder bed machine, a laser moves over a bed of powder material, typically a pre-alloyed powder or elemental powder blend, and fuses the mixture layer by layer into a component

“We

are ahead of most labs in the country with our center. Not many labs in the world have the kind of machinery we do for 3D printing.”

shape like a gear. “It’s like watching something rise out of a tank of water, but it comes out of loose powder,” Dahotre says.

The laser and a powder dispenser move together in the laser direct energy deposition machine. The powder is injected into the beam and the molten drops fall onto a substrate layer by layer to form the component.

“A hypersonic jet engine for an airplane and a hypersonic jet engine for a space shuttle are both engines,” Dahotre says. “But their requirements are different from one another which means the components’ properties will be different. Our research is studying the fundamental science of these manufacturing processes.”

Regents Professor Rajarshi Banerjee in materials science and engineering is another member of CAAAM and MRF director. Like Dahotre, he studies alloys currently used in aircraft and their viability if made through additive manufacturing.

“We compare these microstructures and compositions to conventionally made alloys,” Banerjee says. “If they’re similar, then we’ll have an idea that the additively manufactured component will survive the same conditions before we move to simulated testing.”

The work, funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and guided

by the Air Force Research Lab, is carrying out fundamental science on developing next generation high temperature alloys for hypersonics, including refractory high entropy alloys and their processing using additive manufacturing or 3D printing. “Our research on 3D-printed alloys has potential to impact mass production of components for aircraft in the future.”

CAAAM researchers also test the components they create with these alloys to see if they are capable of withstanding high temperatures. However, they run into the same problem as before: they can’t test the component as it’s being heated. “We would love to be able to test these components in a dynamic environment, but there’s no equipment that can sustain an environment approaching 4,000 degrees Celsius that lets you see what’s happening on a microscale at the same time,” Banerjee says.

That’s where the future X-ray diffraction system will come into play. For now, teams at CAAAM perform lower temperature post-processing testing on components looking at properties such as mechanical, grip and fatigue strength. After that, they use computation models to project how the components will behave at higher temperatures.

Conventional manufacturing and the current commercially available version of additive manufacturing cannot produce multimaterial and multilevel microstructures on-site and on-demand like CAAAM’s machinery can.“We are ahead of most labs in the country with our center. Not many labs in the world have the kind of infrastructure CAAAM has for 3D printing,” Dahotre says. “Many researchers understand the issues at play for hypersonic capabilities, but they can’t work on it because they don’t have the unique capabilities we have.”

FULL SPEED AHEAD

Teams at the MRF and CAAAM mainly work with the U.S. Department of Defense to explore ways to make hypersonic vehicles for the U.S. military. However, there are other applications for hypersonic capable components, such as fusion energy and future transportation.

“The inside of a nuclear reactor has an extremely high temperature and high pressure so there could be a cross compatibility that CAAAM is exploring,” Dahotre says.

The future also could bring hypersonic travel on Earth and in space. A hypersonic transatlantic flight from Dallas to London, for instance, would only take one hour. “We could even reduce the size of everything,” Dahotre says. “If you look at the model of a space shuttle, the part the human sits in is very small, everything else is related to the engine.”

Hypersonic vehicles could help the environment, too. Both Voevodin and Dahotre say the hotter an engine burns, the more efficient its fuel usage is, meaning hypersonic vehicles would use less fuel and produce lower carbon dioxide emissions.

“If you look back in history, the military is always on the front line,” Voevodin says. “A decade later commercialization starts. I think the same thing is going to happen here and that’s why I’m excited to work on this. This will be a game changer, and it’s starting here at UNT.”

ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY

CAAAM plays a crucial role in inspiring and educating future engineers. Through CAAAM’s Institute for Transformative Education in Additive Manufacturing (ITEAM) summer outreach program, high school and junior college students in the North Texas region as well as faculty and students from other universities get a crash course in additive manufacturing.

Beginning in 2020, the first program had 10 to 12 students. For summer 2024, CAAAM accepted 50 participants from nearly 100 applicants. “This program is important because it gives people exposure to state-of-the-art technology that’s currently not on a shop floor,” says Regents Professor Narendra Dahotre, who serves as CAAAM associate vice president and founder.

The two-week program includes one focused on theories surrounding additive manufacturing, such as logistics and supply chain, machine learning and data analytics, process diagnosis, and advanced materials and their uses in additive manufacturing. The other week is when participants get to run interactive printing exercises with metals, polymers and ceramics.

CAAAM also works with different companies throughout the year to brief their workers on additive manufacturing and how to use the machinery “These companies know that conventional

manufacturing technology is going to gradually phase out to become obsolete,” Dahotre says. “They are training themselves now so they can be prepared for the future.”

Recognizing the importance of early engagement, CAAAM welcomed even younger students this past year to explore additive manufacturing technology Twenty campers from North Texas-area middle schools who were participating in UNT’s Elm Fork Education Center summer camp visited CAAAM for a day to learn more about engineering.

“We want to make these students familiar with basic concepts of materials science and let them see state-of-the-art technology in action to get excited about engineering,” Dahotre says.

The campers got a brief lesson on the history of engineering and on how the atomic structure affects a processed product’s properties. The highlight of the day came when they had the opportunity to 3D print their own objects such as blocks, dice and gears.

“We want to make sure people of all ages understand and feel confident about additive manufacturing,” Dahotre says. “This way of engineering is the future and CAAAM is happy to welcome others into it.”

One day soon, uncrewed air ambulances could more quickly get help to an accident scene or speed up delivery times for donated organs and human tissue for life-saving transplants. Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) could play a crucial role in the nation’s supply chain, delivering goods and people through established air routes or “highways in the sky.” Researchers at the University of North Texas are finding solutions to make those possibilities a reality through projects supported by several government agencies, including the U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA, U.S. Department of Defense and the Texas Department of Transportation.

The work is part of UNT’s Center for Integrated Intelligent Mobility Systems (CIIMS), an interdisciplinary research effort that is paving the way for the future of transportation and mobility by creating solutions for the complexities of devices such as autonomous ground vehicles and UAVs. Affiliated center researchers from UNT’s College of Engineering and G. Brint Ryan College of Business study the technology itself as well as the data, logistics and policies affecting its development.

CIIMS is a hub between basic research, translational research and corporations to deploy intelligent mobility systems, establish an agile manufacturing process and build the skilled workforce to meet the needs of an autonomous future powering tomorrow’s Texas, nation and world.

T R ANSFO RMI N G MOBILIT Y

UNT researchers are paving the way for the future of transportation and mobility.

“We are advancing all aspects of research — from intelligent mobility ideas to business practices to the community acceptance of autonomous ground and air vehicles — with the cooperation of industry,” says Andrey Voevodin, co-director of CIIMS and associate dean for research in the College of Engineering.

FACILITIES & EXPERTISE

UNT is home to exceptional facilities that will help it reach new heights in this transportation and mobility research. Some of the world’s most state-of-the-art machinery for additive manufacturing is available in the Center for Agile and Adaptive Additive Manufacturing (CAAAM) at UNT’s Discovery Park, the largest research park in the North Texas region. Additive manufacturing technology is transforming the industry and could play a significant role in helping manufacturers more rapidly produce autonomous technologies.

Then, through the UNT Advanced Air Mobility (UAAM) test facility, which officially opened in March 2024 at UNT’s Discovery Park, researchers can experiment with new UAV technology. Standing at 80 feet tall, 120 feet long and 300 feet wide, the sprawling 36,000-square-foot UAAM facility is the largest of its kind in Texas and one of the biggest nationally.

At the facility, UNT researchers and external collaborators can analyze drones to learn how specific maneuvers impact performance; explore safety measures

like collision avoidance; and test communication between UAVs and stationary receivers or autonomous vehicles on the ground.

“This drone testing facility really positions UNT as a leader in advanced air mobility research,” says Terry Pohlen, senior associate dean of the Ryan College of Business, director of UNT’s Jim McNatt Institute for Logistics Research and CIIMS co-director. “It allows us to take these new innovations, new applications and test them out in a controlled environment.”

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION

Communication is vital for facilitating relief operations immediately after natural or man-made disasters. However, cell towers often become overloaded or cease functioning altogether during emergencies or major public events.

Integrating intelligent mobility and communications into the operations of first responders is at the core of multiple CIIMS projects, including one that is establishing a smart and connected ecosystem for the first-responder community.

Electrical engineering professor Kamesh Namuduri is leading the project — funded by a $1.5 million NSF grant — that’s focused on better understanding how information is shared between different teams and agencies working on disaster relief operations.

“Disasters such as hurricanes can have catastrophic impact on lives and infrastructure,” Namuduri says. “Our goal is to make the response efforts faster and more efficient.”

TEXT: AMANDA LYONS AND HEATHER NOEL PHOTO: GARY PAYNE AND PETE COMPARONI

Contributing faculty members Ila Manuj (supply chain management) and Dipakkumar Pravin (information technology and decision sciences) in the Ryan College of Business are looking at current communications on the ground at the individual and organizational level. Previous reports from agencies, such as FEMA and the National Emergency Communications Plan, suggest that current technologies in place cannot meet the desired levels of performance set by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Understanding interactions, such as information acquisition and resource allocation, during large-scale operations will enable the most effective integration of advanced technologies into these operations,” Manuj says.

At the same time, Namuduri and Maurizio Manzo, mechanical engineering associate professor, are studying how technology could aid in disaster relief operations and other rescue efforts. One example is substituting a nonfunctioning cell tower with a cellular base station airlifted by drones. Moreover, drones equipped with sensor systems such as imaging, infrared and chemical sensors, could survey the area and assess the extent of damage as crews work to locate stranded victims.

“Our commitment to preserving human life and enhancing rescue operations profoundly resonates in this project,” Manzo says. “Even a faster response by just a few seconds can save more lives.”

In a separate project, Namuduri is exploring how to manage the airspace for drones to fly from point to point, which could speed up emergency response times and help connect citizens in even the most remote areas to emergency care. The work is part of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign Project, which is focused on bringing the U.S. closer to an operational high-demand air route for uncrewed, autonomous cargo- and passenger-carrying air transportation.

The UNT research team and their

external collaborators previously tested an uncrewed air taxi concept using a surrogate aircraft in an air corridor between Discovery Park and Hillwood’s AllianceTexas Flight Test Center in Justin. That project unites a group of 15 entities, including representatives from UNT, Bell Textron, Unmanned Experts Inc., AAMTEX, Hillwood, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.

“In the future, we are going to see a lot of autonomous vehicles. And if we are guaranteeing the safety and security of people and infrastructure, then we are going to see a lot of scaling up, thousands of vehicles are going to fly,” Namuduri says.“At UNT, we are the pioneers in this new technology and are seeking to make this vision a safer, better future reality for all of us.”

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

UNT computer science and engineering professor Song Fu, who is affiliated with CIIMS, is leading a research team in developing a self-driving car powered by AI and deep learning programs.

Researchers have installed various sensors on the car capable of taking 2D pictures and creating 3D point clouds, a series of points in a space that creates a 3D outline of an object like a car or pedestrian. The team doesn’t want the car to be solely self-reliant though. They’re also working on how autonomous cars can share their sensor data to communicate with one another.

“This way, multiple cars can sense an object that a single car may not have picked up on — for example, a person using a crosswalk or an upcoming accident on the side of the road,” Fu says.

Along with communication between vehicles, Fu and his team are working on ways transportation infrastructures, such as traffic lights, can send data to vehicles. Similar to communicating with other cars, this would allow a car to know of approaching objects a traffic light camera might pick up that the car can’t.

The car research is supported by a $2.25 million grant through the NSF’s Industry-

University Cooperative Research Centers Program and conducted through the Center for Electric, Connected and Autonomous Technologies for Mobility (eCAT), a national effort to foster more collaboration in the development of emerging vehicle technologies.

As the UNT lead for eCAT, Fu is working with his UNT colleagues — along with researchers at Wayne State University, Clarkson University and University of Delaware — to leverage research across academic disciplines and industry expertise to transform the future of mobility and train the next generation of the workforce in this area.

“Electric, connected and autonomous vehicle technologies are the future of ground transportation and it’s going to take a concerted, cooperative effort to bring this technology to the mainstream,” Fu says.

LOGISTICS INNOVATION

Collaboration will be key in improving the nation’s supply chain. As the largest inland port, the North Texas region and UNT are poised to lead change in logistics and autonomous systems. Currently, more than 900 million tons of freight valued at more than $1.1 trillion annually moves through the region, employing more than 450,000 workers.

Autonomous vehicle and aerial drone technologies are becoming a critical component to solving supply chain issues. However, while these technologies are progressing rapidly, an integrated system that merges the logistics and supply chain infrastructure does not yet exist, and current mobility systems are dependent on foreign technology and manufacturing.

Manuj, Namuduri and Pohlen have been working on various projects funded by NASA, the U.S. Air Force and North Central Texas Council of Governments. These projects are examining the supply chain and engineering challenges related to drones, such as the gaps that need to be addressed for high-volume drone manufacturing. Additionally, they are

creating processes for commercialization of UAVs and components.

In 2023, UNT also became the lead institution on a $1 million grant from the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program. The network of organizations called the Texoma Logistics Innovation Engine is collaborating to advance the workforce and mobility systems in the Texoma region, which covers 26 counties and is bordered on the south by the Dallas-Fort Worth area and north by the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. It includes participation by UNT, Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University, Southeastern Oklahoma State University and Dallas College along with dozens of other public and private organizations.

“What we’re doing here at UNT and with our regional collaborators is at the very forefront of the transformation in transportation, mobility and logistics,” Pohlen says. “With advanced air mobility combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are going to open up a tremendous amount of opportunities and new applications that we haven’t even dreamed of.”

SUPPLY CHAIN SUMMIT

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Supply Chain Innovation and National Security Summit hosted at UNT at Frisco in September 2024 gathered academic, government and private sector leaders to engage in broad conversations about supply chain and logistics, cybersecurity, emerging technologies, workforce development and public-private collaboration.

It marked a significant step forward in the work of the Texoma Logistics Innovation Engine, a UNT-led network of organizations — funded by a $1 million NSF grant — that’s collaborating to advance the workforce and mobility systems in the Texoma region.

“This has been a tremendous collaboration, and I see this summit as being a foundation for many other collaborative efforts,” says Terry Pohlen, senior associate dean of UNT’s G. Brint Ryan College of Business, director of the Jim McNatt Institute for Logistics Research and principal investigator for the NSF Engines grant.

During the summit, panelists touted the DFW area’s strengths, including its growing population, business-friendly climate and central location within North America. Having several higher education institutions, including UNT, provides ample supply of skilled talent for the future workforce. Being home to

major commercial and industrial airports also offers unparalleled access to major markets.

“You all have a specific competitive advantage that other places don’t have,” says Joda Thongnopnua (pictured far right), NSF special advisor for the technology, innovation and partnerships directorate. “You understand the sector really well, which is why we are investing in innovation ecosystems with similar competitive advantages and it’s why you all received a development award for your NSF Engines effort … Place plays a pretty powerful role in defining what’s possible.”

However, change doesn’t come without its challenges. Innovation requires a systematic plan that will only succeed with cooperation from all those involved.

“Together we know we have the power to effect change,” says Adam Fein (pictured left), UNT vice president for digital strategy and innovation and chief digital officer. “With that power and partnership comes a sense that we must continuously challenge ourselves to do more, create more and share more. Our campuses in Denton and Frisco are situated in the heart of the Texoma region, and we are committed to collaborations across industry and government to foster the vast talent here.”

L AUNCH I NG RESEARCH CHANGEMA KERS

UNT is providing its students with the resources and opportunities to launch their research careers in a competitive market in Texas and beyond.

TEXT: AMANDA FULLER PHOTOGRAPHY: PETE COMPARONI

Celeste Ortega-Rodriguez (’15), a Ph.D. student in UNT’s Graduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (G-RISE) program, discovered her love of research during her senior year at UNT.

She was working on her Honors College undergraduate thesis under the guidance of Mark Burleson, senior lecturer of biological sciences, and was serving as a research volunteer in the ecotoxicology lab led by Aaron Roberts, associate vice president for research and innovation and biological sciences professor.

“My undergraduate research experiences revealed a whole new world for me,” she says. “As neither of my parents graduated from college, and no one in my extended family had ever earned a graduate degree, I was unaware of science-related careers outside of health care. Aaron was the first person to encourage me to continue my journey with graduate school.”

After completing her master’s at Texas Christian University, she reconnected with Roberts and G-RISE, a UNT program funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop a diverse pool of scientists earning a Ph.D. through mentorship, financial support and career development resources.

Roberts now serves as her faculty mentor in the program.

“Grad school can be really challenging for first-generation students,” OrtegaRodriguez says. “Programs like G-RISE give students like me the opportunity to be successful. It does this by breaking down barriers that students may face, such as financial stress, lack of confidence or a lack of experience. Then, of course, G-RISE gives us a community and a place to belong.”

As one of only 22 Tier One research universities in the nation also designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education, UNT is cultivating new opportunities for student researchers to gain the experience they need to launch their careers in a competitive market in Texas and beyond. And through investment in facilities, such as the forthcoming 111,000-square-foot Science and Technology Building, UNT is ensuring its researchers have modern spaces that promote innovative discovery, cross-training and collaboration across disciplines.

“There are many opportunities already in place, such as our summer research experiences for undergraduates and the research experience offered through our Honors College,” says Brenda

Barrio, assistant vice president for research and innovation. “We also have more organic and intentional experiences through specific faculty or through our Institutes of Research Excellence. Our goal now is to expand the undergraduate research experience and bolster it from an interdisciplinary and holistic perspective to provide a springboard to graduate school.”

Barrio is partnering with divisions across the university to build a research infrastructure that supports students, faculty and staff through opportunities ranging from workshops and training programs to fellowships, internships, structured mentoring and more.

“Engaging students in meaningful and inclusive research early on not only improves their persistence and longterm success — it also helps them build skills and relationships that will benefit them well into their careers,” says Pamela Padilla, vice president for research and innovation. “As UNT’s impact as a higher education leader in the North Texas region continues to grow, we’re committed to finding new ways to spark our students’ curiosity and prepare them to become future leaders and innovators.”

ALUMNI CHANGEMAKERS

Studies show that students who engage in research are twice as likely to graduate, five times more likely to go on to graduate school and have more successful careers after graduation. UNT alumni reflect on their time at UNT and the research opportunities they had as students that served as foundational jumpstarts toward their current careers.

From fashion entrepreneurship and data analysis to product development and wildlife conservation, UNT alums are using their research skills to serve as changemakers in a variety of industries.

Kush Aggarwal (’23) is a brand technical seller for IBM, where he helps clients address challenges and enhance their businesses’ value through data, artificial intelligence and information architecture solutions. His education at UNT at Frisco equipped him well for his career with courses in professional communication, project management, design thinking and data analysis as part of the College of Applied and Collaborative Studies’ innovative curriculum. After earning his degree, Aggarwal launched his career as regional technology specialist trainee at Toyota Motor North America. While there, he participated in the 2022 Global Swarm Hackathon, where he contributed to anti-drunk driving technology that earned a patent, paving the way for Toyota to further develop the solution.

Shane Kuo (’20 Ph.D.) scales the company’s discoveries up from the lab to a commercially viable product as a senior development scientist for Corning — a materials science technology company in New York. It can be a complicated process, but Kuo’s time at UNT helping professor Jincheng Du start his Functional Glasses and Materials Modeling Laboratory taught Kuo to focus on the details.“As students, we started learning how to build a lab,” Kuo says. “What instruments do we need? What kind of electric plug do we need? There were lots of details and it was a big learning process. We didn’t know how to do it but having that experience has actually proven very useful in my career.”

Taylar Gomez (’18), entrepreneur in residence at Dallas venture capital firm RevTech Ventures, began building her e-commerce startup SYFT while earning bachelor’s degrees in merchandising and digital retailing at UNT. “My professors in the College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism provided the encouragement I needed to establish the company,” Gomez says. Now, she’s hiring current UNT students to help analyze data collected by her company’s browser extension. The SYFT plug-in uses artificial intelligence and algorithms she developed to scour social media trends and analyze user preferences to create personalized fashion options for its target audience of Gen Z shoppers. As online shoppers browse their favorite sites, the SYFT plug-in curates personalized collections of clothing items that are displayed in a pop-up window for purchase.

Solymar Rivera-Torres (’17 M.S., ’23 Ph.D.) is working to improve future generations’ health by erasing the stigmas surrounding clinical trials as a bilingual research associate at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health and UT Southwestern. Rivera says UNT connections she made as a student have inspired her overall personal and professional development, as well as encouraged her passion to educate Hispanic and Latino communities about health studies. While at UNT, she contributed to opioid use research being conducted by professors Stan Ingman and Elias Mpofu, which was funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration.“This opportunity was a great stepping stone to learn all aspects of research from study development to implementation and evaluation,” she says.

Ramiro Crego (’17 Ph.D.) says his time as a doctoral researcher with UNT’s Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program in Chile was “life changing,” giving him experience using research methodologies, managing projects and introducing new perspectives of understanding nature. Now a lecturer at the University College Cork in Ireland and a research associate with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Crego is still furthering research he started at UNT, which included investigating the impacts of the American mink invasion in Southern Chile and contributing to the discovery of a new bird species called the Subantarctic Rayadito. Current projects — such as using advanced ecological models and remotelysensed products to aid giraffe and other large herbivore conservation efforts across Africa — all center on wildlife conservation and spatial ecology.

Jen Bailey (’13, ’16 M.S.) supports management of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Natural Resource Program at NASA as functional management team lead at Herndon Solutions Group, LLC. She has contributed to NEPA projects on space exploration and produced reports on ecological corridors management and minimization of impacts to extraterrestrial environments, as well as improved databases tracking natural resources and environmental impacts across NASA. One of her first restorative projects came as a student at UNT, where she learned science-based decision-making. She had the idea to turn a few acres of Bermuda grass at UNT’s Discovery Park into the Pecan Creek Pollinative Prairie.“Now, it serves as a refuge for wildlife, outdoor learning and undergraduate research. I am proud to be part of building that,” she says.

Adrian Harvey (’06,’09 M.B.A.) helps businesses make better informed decisions with customers in mind as senior vice president at the marketing insights company Buxton. Recognized as a UNT Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences Alumni of the Year in 2014 and a G. Brint Ryan College of Business Rising Star in 2017, Harvey says research he conducted at UNT using data and real-world scenarios prepared him for his current role.“It was very beneficial in helping me in a professional setting to make the translation between academia and real-world application.” He explained that what may look good for a business on paper does not always translate. “Looking at more than what the data says is important. You have to marry the art and the science.”

INNOVATIVE SPACES

SCIENCE BUILDING UPGRADES

The University of North Texas completed a $14 million renovation inside its Science Research Building.

The most recent updates have transformed the building’s second floor into a more collaborative space for researchers in the College of Science, who collectively bring in millions of dollars in sponsored project awards annually for research advancing a variety of fields — from the development

of sustainable biotechnologies and next-generation semiconductors to finding solutions that address environmental and health challenges in society.

The 34,000-square-foot floor includes 10 private faculty offices, 54 workspaces for graduate student researchers, two collaborative huddle rooms, a conference room and a multipurpose break/ collaborative space. There also are support spaces for autoclave and glass washing, chemical storage, equipment, microscopy and tissue culture.

Open-concept laboratories with ample natural light allow

for researchers such as Xin Cui (pictured above) in chemistry and others in biological sciences and physics to work alongside each other, introducing new opportunities for joint scholarship and solutions.

“A lot of thought went into creating a floor plan that encourages collaboration between research groups,” College of Science Dean John Quintanilla says.“This new inviting space encourages even more cross-disciplinary research at UNT and will surely help incubate exciting new ideas for many years to come.”

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BUILDING

UNT is constructing a 111,000-square-foot multidisciplinary research building that will support its historic growth as a Carnegie-ranked Tier One public research university. In addition to more collaborative spaces for interdisciplinary research, the new Science and Technology Building will create experiential learning opportunities for students. The project is funded by $103.4 million in tuition revenue bonds authorized by the 87th Texas Legislature in 2021.

GREENHOUSE FACILITIES

The UNT Greenhouse Research Core Facilities include three greenhouse complexes — two on the main campus and one at UNT’s Discovery Park, the largest research park in the North Texas region. The facilities, which have been upgraded, support an array of plant research, including projects focused on corn and soybeans, as well as fiber work with cotton, jute and kenaf. The work contributes to the growing Texas and national bioeconomy by providing bio-based alternatives to traditional materials.

MATERIALS RESEARCH FACILITY

UNT’s Materials Research Facility at Discovery Park is one of the most advanced university research facilities in the nation for materials analysis — from the atomic to macro scales. The facility already offers a suite of powerful analytical instruments used for true 3D characterization and processing and will significantly enhance its microscopy capabilities over the next year with support from the Texas University Fund.

AIR MOBILITY TESTING FACILITY

The 36,000-square-foot UNT Advanced Air Mobility (UAAM) testing facility at Discovery Park is the largest of its kind in Texas and one of the biggest nationally. Researchers can analyze drone technology, such as how specific maneuvers impact performance; explore safety measures like collision avoidance; and test communication between uncrewed aerial vehicles and stationary receivers or autonomous vehicles on the ground.

GIVI NG ACCESS TO HIS TORY

The Portal to Texas History at UNT changed the way people view historical documents from and about the state of Texas.

Cathy Nelson Hartman (’67,’91 M.S.) has traveled thousands of miles across the state of Texas. With just enough space in the trunk of her Honda S2000 to bring a digital scanner and laptop in tow, she has journeyed from local counties to some of the state’s tiniest rural towns to help build one of the world’s most used online archives on Texas history.

As with most successful inventions, the archive was started to solve a problem. It was the early 2000s, and Hartman, then head of the government documents department for UNT Libraries, had been using the computer in her Willis Library office to research primary sources that she knew were online but couldn’t locate through the internet search engines of the time. “We need some way to pull Texas history content together in one place online where it’s easier to find,” Hartman remembers thinking.

While a searchable online archive of digitized historical materials seems like a no-brainer today in a world where computers and internet use are commonplace, Hartman’s dilemma came at a time before the release of the first iPhone, when computer ownership wasn’t as ubiquitous, and content on the internet was more static with limited user interactivity on pages. At the beginning of the 21st century, libraries and archives were dabbling in digitization of their unique materials, but no one had established a searchable online collection with quality scans and centralized digital infrastructure integrity that would have longevity as a scholarly research resource.

Enter The Portal to Texas History. Thanks to Hartman, now associate dean of libraries emeritus, and UNT Libraries staff members Mark Phillips (’04 M.S., ’20 Ph.D.) and Dreanna Belden (’03 M.S.), UNT launched the transformative collection of Texas history and culture in 2004 as one of the first online research resources of its kind available to both academic researchers and history hobbyists.

“The brilliance of the Portal is that it started when it did, before the tremendous value of digitizing historical documents was so clear to people the way it is today,” says UNT professor Andrew Torget, who specializes in Texas history and digital scholarship.

Twenty years later, the Portal logs more than one million uses each month. It includes more than two million historical materials from newspapers and photos to maps, books, letters and other primary sources with collaboration from public and private partners throughout the state and beyond. It’s been named among the top online resources for humanities education by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For the industry, it’s helped establish best practices for digitizing documents and artifacts for preservation and made innovations in ways to design backend digital infrastructures to make the archive searchable and remain accessible in the internet’s changing landscape. For scholars, it’s been a game-changing tool for research and education by opening access to a trove of Texas history at the click of a mouse.

TEXT: HEATHER NOEL

PHOTOGRAPHY: AHNA HUBNIK AND PORTAL TO TEXAS

SAVING HISTORY

Ana Krahmer, director of the Digital Newspaper Program in UNT Libraries, got a call from concerned newspaper publisher Jeff Latcham in the summer of 2017, which prompted a trip to Aransas Pass on the Texas Gulf Coast.

“He said,‘We’re one hurricane away from these two newspaper titles being entirely lost,’” Krahmer remembers as she and Latcham stood in the city’s library where the newspapers were archived — walking distance to the beach.

That fall, Hurricane Harvey hit, and the library’s building was destroyed. Luckily, the archives of The Aransas Pass Progress and The Ingleside Index already were safe at UNT awaiting digitization for the Portal, and Krahmer says Latcham wrote to her expressing his appreciation. “Every page we digitize is not just one person’s life, but an entire community’s life,” Krahmer says.“The fact that we preserve it and give access to it for the long term means that we’re keeping these communities alive.”

Since 2006, UNT has digitized more than 11 million pages of newspapers — making the Texas Digital Newspaper Program the largest collection of one state’s newspapers in the U.S. In 2007, UNT became a Phase 2 institution in the National Digital Newspaper Program, a collaborative effort of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress that has funded Portal efforts to digitize Texas newspapers. And thanks to funding from the Tocker Foundation over the years, UNT has digitized newspapers from the state’s most rural towns.

COLLABORATIVE PRESERVATION

Bouncer Goin (pictured as a boy in 1944) became one of the Portal’s first partners. His private collection of photographs documents the history and growth of the town of Aubrey through the eyes of Goin and his family over generations. “One person scanned, while the other would take down information about the items that would become the metadata,” Hartman says of the early digitization efforts like the Aubrey Area Photographs collection.

Today, the Portal has more than 500 partners, from state institutions such as the Texas Historical Commission and Texas State Library and Archives Commission to local genealogical and historical societies and museums, as well as public and academic libraries.

“There are still many institutions that don’t have the resources to make this kind of content available online for the long term, so we can provide that service to them,” says Mark Phillips, who developed the digital infrastructure for not just the Portal, but the entire digital libraries at UNT and currently manages the Portal’s operation, including 22 full-time staff and up to 30 student assistants.

On average, projects can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to digitize, depending on the collection’s size, its condition and the types of materials it includes. The oldest item in the collection is a coin that dates to ancient Greece and the newest are present-day items, such as recent editions of the Texas Register, a publication outlining state agency rulemaking for Texas.

DIGITIZATION INNOVATION

The bulk of digitization for the Portal is carried out by a team of trained students from a variety of disciplines, each of them bringing their unique perspectives to the work.

When library science and photography master’s student Noah Garcia was tasked with digitizing political buttons, pins and medals, he was having trouble getting the items to lay flat for photographs. That’s when mechanical and energy engineering senior Raj Ravichandran stepped in with an idea to develop 3D-printed stands in Willis Library’s The Spark makerspace. The stands, which were adhered with magnets and designed with an indent for the safety pins on the buttons and pins, helped Garcia get much clearer photos and cut down on the digitization time for each item.

Phillips himself started work at UNT Libraries as a graduate student in library science and then got hired on full time as a digital projects librarian in 2004. The coding and web infrastructure Phillips envisioned for the Portal is based on open-source components. He and his collaborators have written many publications and papers and have presented nationally and internationally about the development of the technical infrastructure. “It’s been great to see how the work we do at the local level feeds into these national and international efforts,” says Phillips, who often gets contacted by other universities and institutions around the nation with inquiries about how to launch their own digital archives.

CHANGING SCHOLARSHIP

Getting access to historical materials can be a barrier to research. Scholars, like UNT history professor Andrew Torget, need funds and the time to travel to cultural institutions that may hold the key materials for their project. Even before joining the faculty at UNT, Torget discovered a digitized copy of Gammel’s Laws of Texas on the Portal as a graduate student in Virginia. The rare volumes of books from the 1890s became a fundamental source for both his first book and an online digital project about the movement of enslavers in the Republic of Texas.

“For historical researchers like me who do this professionally, or for students and even people who are doing genealogy casually, access to the sheer mass of materials that the Portal has managed to accumulate means that you can find valuable sources about whatever you’re looking for, whether that is in newspapers, a memoir or another source you never knew existed,” Torget says. “And that’s the magic of the Portal — it helps you find sources and make connections that you didn’t even know were out there.”

Torget and many other professors integrate the Portal into their curriculum for foundational freshman courses all the way up to graduate-level work. Since 2005, the Portal also has provided resources for K-12 educators to use its primary sources in their teaching. Through the Texas History for Teachers program, educators have access to lesson plans, video lectures and student activities to make the Portal’s digital artifacts come alive in the classroom.“I’ve had scholars tell me,‘I use the Portal every day,’ or,‘The Portal has completely changed the way I do research on Texas history,’” Hartman says.“That’s when you know you’ve made a real impact in the field.”

MEET THE PRESIDENT

HARRISON KELLER, PH.D. UNT PRESIDENT

A sixth-generation Texan from Plainview, Texas, President Keller joined UNT in August 2024 as its 17th president and quickly prioritized student success, research and innovation, and reforming UNT’s budgeting to advance strategic priorities.

“The unique opportunities at UNT make this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m excited about what we’ll be able to accomplish!”

LEADING EXCELLENCE

UNT is the largest university in the North Texas region, leading the way for the most dynamic state economy in the strongest national economy in the world. As a Carnegie-ranked R1 public research university that is recognized as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and a Minority-Serving Institution, we take very seriously our responsibilities to our students, our region, our state, and our nation. We are committed to providing excellent educational opportunities to every qualified Texas student who commits to learn with us, so they can attain knowledge, skills, experiences, and degrees that prepare them for meaningful, prosperous, and purposeful lives.

DRIVING RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

As a leading Texas public research university, UNT is committed to working at the frontiers of knowledge to provide creative contributions and discoveries of public value, drive innovation, and help power the Texas economy. We do that by prioritizing collaborations with industry, working at the intersections of academic disciplines, and building on our strengths in advanced materials, logistics and supply chain management, data science, and many other important areas.

ADVANCING PARTNERSHIPS

As the pace of change in our economy and our daily lives accelerates, we have to work across traditional disciplinary and institutional boundaries. By partnering with employers, policymakers, alumni, community colleges, and others, UNT aims to serve in the vanguard of a new generation of great American universities that are committed to excellence, innovation, and access.

ACCELERATING STUDENT SUCCESS

At UNT, we embrace our fundamental responsibilities to advance the success of every student we enroll. From students’ first contact with us, through their time on campus, and into their early careers, we are reimagining how we can provide every student with high-quality support to meet high standards. We are committed to providing the transformative educational experiences every UNT student deserves.

BUILDING THE FUTURE

We are working now on a new five-year strategic plan for UNT, with input from a broad range of community and campus stakeholders. Already, our early conversations have reinforced the importance of deepening our commitment to student success, not only to help our students graduate on time, but also to equip them for rewarding lives and careers. We can’t accomplish that vision on our own. We have to partner much more closely with employers and other educational institutions to educate graduates who will be prepared to thrive in a changing world.

PHOTOGRAPHY: AHNA HUBNIK