UT Arlington earns elite research designation
In its quest to be named a Tier One university, UT Arlington this week may have achieved the next best thing.
The University of Texas at Arlington on Monday was named an R-1 doctoral university with highest research activity by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, putting UTA on a list that includes Harvard, MIT and Johns Hopkins.
The Carnegie Classification analyzes data from all U.S. postsecondary institutions and evaluates measures of research activity for doctoral universities in making its assessments, which are released every five years.
“This is a tremendous validation of UTA’s emergence as a preeminent university on the national stage,” UTA President Vistasp Karbhari said in a statement. “Being ranked as a Research 1 university places us truly among the best of the best.”
Thriving research universities foster economic development by infusing their regions with technology, knowledge and talent.
Duane Dimos
UTA vice president for researchThe Carnegie Classification’s assignment to categories of highest, higher and moderate research activity is based on research and development expenditures in science and engineering fields and in other fields; science and engineering research staff including postdoctoral candidates and nonfaculty staff with doctorates; and doctoral conferrals in humanities and social sciences fields, in STEM fields and in other areas such as business, education, public policy and social work.
Achieving the Carnegie ‘highest research activity’ designation places UTA in an entirely new league. Under President Karbhari’s leadership, UTA continues to demonstrate its real value to the people of Texas.
State Sen. Kelly Hancock
R-North Richland HillsUTA reached the threshold of 216 doctoral degrees conferred for the second year in a row in 2015, attaining another criteria in the quest to not only be classified as a national R-1 university but also to be ranked as Tier One in Texas.
Monday’s announcement comes as UTA is recruiting 50 new faculty members in the colleges of engineering; business; architecture, planning and public affairs; education; science; liberal arts; and nursing and health innovation, with more openings to be posted this fall.
These positions we expect to fill this spring, and the added number of fall recruitments, serve to fuel this continuing drive towards national preeminence in teaching, research, outreach and service, both at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Linda Johnsrud
interim vice president for academic affairs and provostLast year, the university started down the path of its UTA Strategic Plan 2020 and carried out other steps to advance UTA’s mission, reputation and service to the community. Among those, plans were unveiled that call for UT Arlington to add a 200,000-square-foot Science and Engineering Innovation Research building, with groundbreaking expected in October.
“UTA has achieved and exceeded many of the metrics by which the nation’s most prestigious universities are measured, and we are well on our way to surpassing our near term goal of $100 million in annual research expenditures,” Karbhari said. “This new assessment is another milestone for the model 21st-century urban research university and the urban flagship for the University of Texas System.”
Patrick M. Walker: 817-390-7423, @patrickmwalker1
Big things brewing at UTA
New faces
The anticipated new hires this spring and fall are in addition to prominent hires made over the last year and a half. Those include: physicist David Nygren (National Academy of Sciences); Kenneth Reifsnider (National Academy of Engineering); Marco Brotto, the George W. and Hazel M. Jay Professor in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation; Mark Haykowsky, Moritz Chair of Geriatric Nursing Research in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation; College of Liberal Arts Dean Paul Wong; Nursing and Health Innovation Dean Anne Bavier; Vice President for Research Duane Dimos (National Academy of Inventors); and Dean of the College of Science Morteza Khaledi.
New money
Some of the notable recent grants awarded to UTA researchers:
$1.24 million from the Office of Naval Research to Michael Cho, chair of the Department of Bioengineering, to determine how shockwaves injure the brains of soldiers in battle;
$1.1 million from the National Institutes of Health to Michael Brothers, an associate professor of kinesiology, to develop what are believed to be the first formal protocols for effective and safe use of cold therapy, and a state-of-the-art cryotherapy device that can stimulate blood flow to keep tissue healthy and minimize potential side effects.
$2 million from the National Institutes of Health to Heng Huang, a professor in the computer science and engineering department, to investigate the possibility of predicting whether a person is predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing complex genomics data.
$1 million from NASA to Purnendu “Sandy” Dasgupta, UTA’s Hamish Small Chair in Ion Analysis of Chemistry and Biochemistry, to further the search for amino acids, the so-called building blocks of life, in space.
Source: UT Arlington
This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 1:58 PM with the headline "UT Arlington earns elite research designation."