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Rachel White

Monica Muñoz Martinez stands on campus in front of two wooden doors. She is smiling widely and wearing a blue velvet blazer.

Borderlands Historian Awarded ‘Genius Grant’

September 28, 2021 by Rachel White

Monica Muñoz Martinez has been awarded a MacArthur fellowship, often referred to as the “genius grant.” The award recognizes her work to recover untold histories of racial violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Silhouette of head, thinking

A Language for Big Data Neuroscience

September 23, 2021 by Rachel White

Imagine your brain activity displayed on a computer screen — multiple, bustling tabs open, some sparked by a fleeting thought, others derived from prior or underlying behaviors or features. Now imagine a scientist trying to make sense of that activity.

protestor holding sign "racism is a pandemic too"

The Body’s Real-Time Response to Racism

June 15, 2021 by Rachel White

For the first time, researchers have recorded how the body responds when someone is confronted with racism or discrimination in the real world, providing new insight into health disparities in the United States and the stress experienced by students-of-color.

2021 Keene Prize for Literature

May 19, 2021 by Rachel White

When asked where she drew inspiration for her award-winning work, fiction-writer Carrie R. Moore points somewhere between track 12 and 13 on the Solange Knowles’ album “When I Get Home.”

personal protective equipment, hanging out to dry

2021 Carnegie Fellow to Study Long-Term Consequences of Epidemics

May 12, 2021 by Rachel White

Kevin Thomas is one of 26 new fellows in the nation to receive $200,000 to fund significant research and writing in the social sciences and humanities.

Jamie Pennebaker stands in a field at sunset with cityscape in background.

A Psychologist’s Award-Winning Word Play

December 4, 2020 by Rachel White

Before his research helped discover the healing powers of writing and the Secret Life of Pronouns, Jamie Pennebaker’s curiosity killed the crab.

Red bench sign at carriage ride, "A Place to Park Your," with outline of donkey.

Capturing Culture

November 17, 2020 by Rachel White

When people travel to the United States, they might be shocked at how large our portion sizes are, how friendly strangers may seem or how informal and direct conversations tend to be.

Political themed collage with Statue of Liberty, U.S. Capitol Building, mail-in ballots, unemployment chart, coronavirus, and protest viewed through magnifying glass with American flag background.

2020 Vision: Examining Some of the Country’s Big Issues

October 30, 2020 by Rachel White

Experts from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts weigh in on some of the major issues facing our country and the president-elect over the next four years.

Books by Black Studies at UT faculty

Want to Learn More About Race in America? Read this.

September 2, 2020 by Rachel White

Authors from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts describe their books and what they hope readers will learn.

LIDAR imagery of Aguada Fénix.

Earliest Mayan Ceremonial Structure Unearthed

June 3, 2020 by Rachel White

The discovery of a near 3,000-year-old platform, built among wetlands and rivers of the Mexican tropical forest, offers new insight into the Maya’s early communal development.

Illustration of parents standing holding shapes with numbers with two children playing on the floor in a home setting with pink walls and a chalkboard on the wall.

Three Ways Kids Can Learn through Play at Home

May 7, 2020 by Rachel White

family and community. But recent shelter-in-place efforts have limited many of these routine yet vital experiences — especially because young kids can’t video call or text their friends as freely as others.

A moving illustration of a large scene. In it, we can see vertical windows looking to a peaceful night cityscape, with twinkling stars overhead. The windows are in the shape of a cellphone battery icon, and illustration slowly turns to a bright, cheerful day scene. The buildings all come to life in a bright, multi-colored wash of color. Around the border of the window, we can see stylized illustrations of people in various poses. We see people having fun with computers, people playing with their pets, families, riding bikes, reading. We also see a medical doctor with a mask waving. There are also wires leading from each person that connect with the battery-shaped window in the middle, giving life to the city.

Rebooting Our Lives After COVID-19

May 7, 2020 by Rachel White

The world’s new reality amid the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to confront issues and critically think about how to revive communities slowly, safely and sustainably.

Ontario Highway 401 with a single, white car

Ask the Experts: What are the impacts of COVID-19?

March 16, 2020 by Rachel White

To learn more about the impacts of the global pandemic, we asked the experts within the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.

A lidar-derived model of the Birds of Paradise ancient Maya wetland field system and parts of the nearby Maya sites of Gran Cacao (bottom-left) and Akab Muclil (top-left) in Northwestern Belize.

Ancient Alteration

November 19, 2019 by Rachel White

Evidence showed that the Maya faced environmental pressures and responded to by converting forests to wetland field complexes and digging canals to manage water quality and quantity.

Illustration of two women, one with a lock symbol near her brain, and the other with an unlock symbol

Attitude Adjustment

November 19, 2019 by Rachel White

Boosting academic success does not have to derive from new teachers or curriculum; it can also come from changing students’ attitudes about their abilities, according to the latest findings from the National Study of Learning Mindsets published in Nature. The experimental study involved more than 12,000 ninth graders from 65 public high schools across the […]

Taqueria La Reyna Taco Truck

The Taco Truck: Author Takes His Research to the Streets

November 19, 2019 by Rachel White

Robert Lemon examines the evolution of taco trucks and how it transforms U.S. cities.

A man sitting with his hands folded.

A Matter of Life and Death

November 19, 2019 by Rachel White

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in August, sociologists Mark Hayward of UT Austin and Isaac Sasson of Tel Aviv University examined the intersection of education, cause of death and life expectancy across gender and race. Overall, life expectancy declined by an average of two months from 2010 to […]

Illustration of a primate in a tree with different animals and objects in its roots

The Protection of Being Known

November 15, 2019 by Rachel White

Anthropology Ph.D. candidate Allison McNamara studies lesser known primate species that face risks of extinction.

Illustration of the side young man on two side of a siren. On one side three small dots indicate calm thought, the other side has black and red lines and exclamation points to indicate stress.

Three Questions to Ask When You’re Stressed Out

October 8, 2019 by Rachel White

From big class presentations and midterms to navigating the social scene and balancing a large workload, the school year — and life in general — brings on stress, but asking yourself three questions can help fight anxiety with curiosity rather than panic. Jasper Smits, a psychology professor and director of the Anxiety & Stress Clinic […]

Man casting his vote in blue box located on folding chair with sheer lavender curtains as background.

Why the most popular candidate in a close election will probably lose

September 19, 2019 by Rachel White

The Presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 were controversial, in part, because it seemed like the wrong person won. In 2000, Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by 5 electoral votes after losing the popular vote by about 540,000. And in 2016, Republican Donald Trump garnered 27 more electoral votes than Democrat Hillary […]

Illustration from Grapes of Wrath cover with man standing holding black jacket.

Don Graham Commentary: “The Grapes of Wrath” has Outlived Its Relevance

May 13, 2019 by Rachel White

Eighty years after John Steinbeck wrote the classic American novel The Grapes of Wrath, it remains a hardy perennial on many high school reading lists. But a casual survey of sixty-six upper-division English majors at the University of Texas in March of this year reveals that forty-nine students have not read the novel and that […]

illustration of brain in pink, red and blue.

Grading Brain Health: How Educational Experiences Impact Cognitive Functioning Later in Life

May 13, 2019 by Rachel White

High school experiences follow you long after you’ve graduated, shaping your professional success and even your health. Now, researchers are investigating how it could contribute to your future brain health and maybe even impact your likelihood of getting Alzheimer’s Disease. University of Texas at Austin sociologist Chandra Muller researches how educational experiences shape life course […]

Sadaham Yathra monks walking along a wooden path.

The Earth’s Keepers: How Religion Can Guide Environmentalism

April 22, 2019 by Rachel White

If you knew in the next life you’d become a tree, you might hesitate before you cut one down. Or if you were to become one of the ocean’s fish, perhaps you’d be more careful about how you dispose of certain plastics. That’s Karma, at least as it’s applied in an environmental context, which might […]

Portrait of Dr. Richard Harper.

Healing With Humanity

April 4, 2019 by Rachel White

The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic pursuits or have participated in service related to the college. […]

man in the dark illuminated by computer light

Trolling the U.S.: Q&A on Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election

January 9, 2019 by Rachel White

It’s been more than two years since the 2016 presidential election, and the United States is still piecing together Russia’s propaganda-filled interference in U.S. political conversations on social media. According to a February 2018 poll by The University of Texas at Austin and The Texas Tribune, 40 percent of Texans believe Russian interference played a […]

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