UTA In The News — Monday, June 22, 2020
COVID-19 tests
Seong Jin Koh, UTA professor of materials science and engineering, is developing a $5 portable device, about the size of a person's thumb, that can deliver COVID-19 testing results on-site in about 10 minutes, Mirage News and Targeted News Service reported. “Our new technology will allow health officials to quickly and easily determine if a person is a COVID-19 carrier,” Koh said. “Because it is portable, the device could be used in airports and other high-volume locations.” Koh received a National Science Foundation RAPID grant to develop the device.
Juneteenth
UTA hosted online events to celebrate Juneteenth, Patch.com reported. The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when news of the federal order ending slavery in the United States reached enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. Pamela Safisha Hill, adjunct professor of social work and faculty affiliate with the Center for African American Studies, led a discussion on UTA's School of Social Work Facebook page that covered both distant and recent history, beginning with the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation and continuing to current events, including the Black Lives Matter movement and issues in higher education.
Sculpture commission
The G.W. Jackson Multicultural Society has commissioned accomplished artist and UTA alumnus Spencer Evans (’17 MFA) to sculpt a memorial statue of its namesake and Corsicana's first African American school principal, The Corsicana Daily Sun reported. The finished statue, part of the society's Legacy Project, will be cast in bronze and installed at Jackson's former homesite at 705 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Corsicana.