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Spring 2015
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Inquiry Magazine Archive

  • Spring 2016

    Spring 2016: Premium Blend

    Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.

  • Fall 2015

    Fall 2015: Collision Course

    Within the particle showers created at the Large Hadron Collider, answers to some of the universe’s mysteries are waiting.

  • Spring 2015

    Spring 2015: Almost Human

    Model systems like pigeons can help illuminate our own evolutionary and genomic history.

  • Fall 2014

    Fall 2014: Small Wonder

    UT Arlington's tiny windmills are bringing renewable energy to a whole new scale.

  • Winter 2014

    Winter 2014: Overdue for an Overhaul

    The stability of our highways, pipelines, and even manholes is reaching a breaking point.

  • 2012

    2012: Mystery solved?

    Scientists believe they have discovered a subatomic particle that is crucial to understanding the universe.

  • 2011

    2011: Boosting brain power

    UT Arlington researchers unlock clues to the human body’s most mysterious and complex organ.

  • 2010

    2010: Powered by genetics

    UT Arlington researchers probe the hidden world of microbes in search of renewable energy sources.

  • 2009

    2009: Winning the battle against pain

    Wounded soldiers are benefiting from Robert Gatchel’s program that combines physical rehabilitation with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

  • 2009

    2007: Sensing a solution

    Tiny sensors implanted in the body show promise in combating acid reflux disease, pain and other health problems.

  • 2006

    2006:Semiconductors: The next generation

    Nanotechnology researchers pursue hybrid silicon chips with life-saving potential.

  • 2005

    2005: Imaging is everything

    Biomedical engineers combat diseases with procedures that are painless to patients.

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shook up

Rock Solid

Grant enables professor to study earthquakes, educate secondary school teachers 

W. Ashley Griffith

W. Ashley Griffith

The August 2014 earthquake in Napa Valley caused an estimated $300 million in damages to homes and businesses. Minimizing such destruction is one goal of geophysicist W. Ashley Griffith’s latest research.

The earth and environmental sciences assistant professor received about $400,000 from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program to study how rock structures react to events such as earthquakes, meteor impacts, and explosions.

“Our goal is to look at how a rock behaves in response to fast-loading rates and relate that behavior to its mineral composition and microscopic structure,” Dr. Griffith says. “We believe the characteristics are linked. If that proves true, this work could lead to a better understanding of the physics of past earthquake and impact events, increasing our predictability of hazards associated with future such events. It could also allow engineers to design more effective structures.”

Griffith is also using the grant to partner with Teach for America-Dallas/Fort Worth to create Teach for America Rockcorps. (Griffith is a former Teach for America member.) The Rockcorps program will involve secondary school teachers in research and provide them with a geophysics-based curriculum for their classrooms.

“Dr. Griffith’s research in geophysics is helping add a new dimension to what is known about the Earth’s movements,” says James Grover, interim dean of the College of Science.

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