Tag: Meet a scientist

Biodiversity: that’s a word many biologists are well familiar with. But even before the term was coined by E. O. Wilson in his 1992 book “The Diversity of Life,” Dr. Lee Fitzgerald and his research team were cataloging biological diversity within the country of Paraguay. Fitzgerald, professor and curator of Amphibians and Reptiles in Texas…

While people often find themselves inspired by their childhood surroundings, sometimes what is lacking in that environment can be just as impactful. That was the case for Emi Kimura, Ph.D., who grew up in Kyoto, Japan, an urban city a little larger than Dallas. Despite having never seen farming and knowing little about it, she remembers…

Shankar Chellam, Ph.D., will admit that education was not the highest on his priority list growing up.   Not “a dummy in the field,” as he describes himself at cricket, he attended college on an athletic scholarship.   It was there that he found an interest in science that would take his life on paths he had…

The natural environment one grows up in can heavily influence their interests and path in life. Texas Water Resources Institute Research Specialist Jason Gerlich grew up outdoors, happiest when surrounded by agriculture and nature, and pursuing that love has taken him across the world and back to his home state to work on water quality issues. While…

A former semi-professional badminton player, a DJ and the director of the National Center for Electron Beam Research at Texas A&M University — these are just a few of the many hats that Suresh Pillai, Ph.D., has worn over the years. While he might not have begun his academic path planning to be a leading researcher in his field,…

Article originally written by Cameron Castilaw Growing up in Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, Itza Mendoza-Sanchez, Ph.D., was always conscious of the city’s water supply problems. This sparked an interest in water infrastructure that has evolved over her years of study and research, eventually bringing her to Texas A&M University and the…

Article originally written by Madalyn Richards As a Texas A&M University professor and researcher who is tackling emerging environmental problems, Susie Dai, Ph.D., advises her students, “Don’t complain, if you can think of something you can do about it.”  That drive to solve problems is exactly how Dai found herself back at Texas A&M, researching per-…

People find their path in life in many different ways. For Yina Liu, Ph.D., she thought hers would be taking over the family business in Southern China, and she began her academic career by pursuing a degree in economics at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine). That all changed one day in college when she…