The UNT College of Engineering and Texas A&M SecureAmerica Institute are collaborating to offer the America’s Cutting Edge (ACE) Machine Tool Workforce Development Program for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The TEDxUNT event hosted in October featured nine speakers — including faculty members and UNT alumni — tackling issues centering on the theme “This Way Forward.”

Xiaohu Xia (’03 Ph.D.) is a principal scientist for Mars Wrigley Global Research and Development.

Rebecca Bernard’s (’21 Ph.D.) teaching work at a men’s prison in Kentucky provided a new way of looking at incarcerated people – and inspiration for her writing.

Johnna Sargent (’16), an engineering specialist for the mission systems group at Bell Flight, received the Modern Day Technology Leader Award from the Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) Conference.

Kelly Pierce (’20) studies punitive attitudes in the criminal justice system.

John Ryals (’77) is co-founder of AgBiome, which finds bacteria in the soil so it can protect crops against insects and pathogens.

Andrew Huebner (’19 M.A.), a doctoral student in history, became the first UNT graduate student to be named a Boren Fellow.

Jennifer Stanley, a design graduate student with a concentration in fashion design and creative technology, is discovering ways to transform fashion design education.

Sahar Behpour (’22 Ph.D), a recent doctoral graduate in information science, realized her strong interest in developing data-driven universal artificial intelligence after taking a machine learning course with Mark Albert, assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Maria Ortega (’22), a first-generation education major with EC-6 bilingual certification, had her first research publication, “Juntxs with the comunidad: A collaboration across two universities and one school district,” in the Texas Journal of Literacy Education.

Joyradyn James-Rollins is conducting research in the lab of Zacchaeus Compson who specializes in food web ecology, aquatic ecology and DNA metabarcoding.

Kenzie Duwe, an undergraduate integrative studies major with concentrations in rehabilitation studies, sociology and education, has been researching the UNT ELEVAR Transition Pathways program alongside Melissa Savage, an assistant professor of educational psychology.

Percyval Seddoh, a teaching assistant and master’s student in biomedical engineering, is studying cardiovascular tissue engineering, with an emphasis on creating microscopic representations of the heart to model issues such as diseases and aging.

Meng Ren, a doctoral ethnomusicology student, is documenting the evolution of Chinese hip-hop in her dissertation titled “Forbidden Sound: The Art, Culture and Politics of Chinese Hip- Hop,” the first full-length work on this topic.

Megan Kelly (’22 M.S.), a recent graduate of the international sustainable tourism master’s program, was inspired by her work as a flight attendant to be part of the solution in preserving travel destinations.

Tessa Boucher (’20), a master’s student in environmental science, is tracking how the North Texas Municipal Water District’s restoration of the 15,000-acre Riverby Ranch is changing the bird population there.

Project Communicate is a five-year program funded by a $1.24 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Through UNT’s shared research facilities, researchers on campus and industry partners can access the latest high-tech equipment and spaces to carry out the most sophisticated projects and analysis.

College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism Dean Jana Hawley — a sustainable textile scholar — understands the value of collaborative research.