UTA In The News — Monday, February 25, 2019
Developing heat shields
UTA’s Luca Maddalena, an aerospace engineering professor, received Navy grants worth more than $1.5 million to develop heat shields for hypersonic vehicles and measure plasma flow, Dallas Innovates reported.
CLEAR-Apache agreement
UTA’s Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation has extended its agreement with the Apache Corp. to study surface and groundwater quality in the West Texas area the company is using for oil and natural gas extraction, Techsite reported.
UTA alumnus dies
Morgan Woodward, an actor and alumnus of North Texas Agricultural College, UTA’s predecessor, died Friday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News reported. Woodward established a professorship in film through a $250,000 donation. He appeared in episodes of Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Star Trek and Dallas, but is probably best known for his portrayal of Boss Godfrey in the movie Cool Hand Luke.
Transit deserts
An O.K. Carter column in the Fort Worth Business Press questioned whether Arlington is ready to shed its anti-transit image. The column mentioned UTA’s Diane Jones Allen’s work on transit deserts, which is an area that has high demand for transit but lacks access to high-quality public transportation.
Architect profiled
The late James Pratt, whose firm, Pratt, Box and Henderson, designed the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, was profiled in a Dallas Morning News column by Mark Lamster, a professor in practice of architecture at UTA and the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News. Pratt will be remembered in a public celebration Sunday.
Aiming for municipal elections
Buoyed by their gains in Tarrant County last November, Democratic organizers are now taking aim on municipal elections in May, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Tom Marshall, UTA political science professor, said it’s difficult to get a “spillover effect,” especially in nonpartisan elections.
Transit programs need to improve
Enisha Williams, senior program manager of leadership programs at the George W. Bush Institute, wrote an opinion piece in Northwest Indiana Times about how cities need to build better transportation systems. She mentioned a UTA study that says people most dependent on mass transit in Dallas only have about 4 percent of good regional jobs available to them and it takes an hour to 45 minutes to reach their workplaces.
More polling places
Two UT Austin students helped file legislation to add polling locations to college campuses across Texas, including UTA, the DailyTexanOnline.com reported.