UT Dallas

The Last Word: Spin the Spectrum’s Courtney Willis on How DJ Training Can Help Autistic People

by | Jan 27, 2023
Willis is a speech and language pathologist who earned a Masters in communication disorders from UT Dallas. As the founder, CEO, and clinic director of Dallas-based Speech Wings Therapy, she co-founded something new in 2022: Spin the Spectrum, a nonprofit that offers inclusive DJ classes, camps, and workshops for autistic and neurodivergent people of all ages.
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Dallas’ MedCognetics Gets $750K NIH Grant to Research Unbiased AI for Breast Cancer Detection
by | Jan 26, 2023
Last month, we told you about MedCognetics getting FDA clearance for its unbiased AI-enabled software for breast cancer screening. Today, the Dallas-based company announced it has been awarded $750,000 from an NIH program to research unbiased AI for breast cancer detection. The NIH's AIM-AHEAD program—short for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity—awarded the grant. "This NIH grant will play an important role in future product development as well as helping us further expand our global market penetration," said MedCognetics CEO Debasish Nag.
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Meet Wiggle. She’s Helping a UT Dallas Team Develop a Treat-Dispensing Agility Course for Home-Alone Dogs
Working in UT Dallas' UTDesign Capstone program, the student team is developing an automated agility course that motivates pets to stop their lazy sofa-surfing and jump around to earn treats. The team had to tweak their design when Wiggle—their "chief beta tester"—figured out how to snag free Cheez-Its with her nose.
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Ericsson’s Kevin Zvokel on 10 Hot Consumer Trends, His Company’s ‘Factory of the Future’ in Lewisville, and More
Ericsson's new report, "10 Hot Consumer Trends: Life in a Climate-Impacted Future," is packed with insights on what consumers—including those in DFW—believe is looming on the way to the 2030s. We spoke with Kevin Zvokel, head of networks for Plano-based Ericsson North America, about both the report and his company's innovative impact across North Texas.
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UTD’s Dr. Amy Pinkham Picked to Head Global Initiative to Standardize Schizophrenia Assessment

by | Dec 9, 2022
Dr. Amy Pinkham of UTD’s School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences received an award for outstanding research on social cognition. The award puts her group at the forefront of research in the field, the professor said.

The work could be applicable for many disorders, including autism and mood and anxiety disorders.
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The Last Word: UTD’s Dr. Amy Pinkham on Heading a Global Initiative to Standardize Schizophrenia Assessment
Dr. Amy Pinkham of UTD’s School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences received an award for outstanding research on social cognition. The award puts her group at the forefront of research in the field, the professor said. The work could be applicable for many disorders, including autism and mood and anxiety disorders.
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The Last Word: UTD’s Balakrishnan Prabhakaran on Virtual Reality Tech for Phantom Limb Pain
The Mr. MAPP system uses a laptop, camera, and VR headset to create a virtual 3D model of the user’s missing or paralyzed limb. Wearing the VR headset, Peterson played a series of games where the virtual model of his missing lower leg did things like stomp the floor or burst a bubble.
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math
UT Dallas and Novartis Are Using Math to Speed Drug Discoveries
“The advantage of our algorithm is that it could screen about 100,000 compounds in a couple of days, which is much faster than other methods,” UT Dallas' Dr. Baris Coskunuzer says.
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How Axxess’ John Olajide Built a Bootstrapped Unicorn in Dallas

Axxess founder John Olajide built his Dallas-based healthcare tech company from a fledgling startup in 2007 to a global company with 1,000 employees serving 3 million-plus patients. But the journey getting there wasn’t a straightforward path. 

He tells his own story to inspire others and strengthen the ecosystem. And he's confident that "we'll be celebrating several more unicorns going forward."
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With New Center, UT Dallas Researchers Are Looking into the Molecular Causes of Pain
With a five-year, $11.3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, researchers at UT Dallas' new Human Nociceptor and Spinal Cord Molecular Signature Center are digging into the causes of chronic pain and new ways to treat it. The center's leader, Dr. Ted Price, says the data generated "will fundamentally change the way that we think about pain and how we develop therapeutics."
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The Last Word: UT Dallas’ Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn on Creating a New Cancer-Fighting Molecule
Dr. Ahn is working on something very small that may have a profound, lifesaving impact on something hugely dangerous. In collaboration with UTSW Medical Center professor Dr. Ganesh Raj and UTHSC San Antonio's Ratna Vadlamudi, Ahn has created a molecule that can kill an array of cancers, including an aggressive form of breast cancer. The goal of the molecules is to prevent molecular “handshakes” between proteins that can cause out-of-control cell growth that spreads cancer further.
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Fort Worth’s Lucid Hearing Launches Over-The-Counter Hearing Aids as New FDA Rule Kicks In
Today is the first day that over-the-counter hearing aids can be sold without a prescription. It’s a moment that Fort Worth-based Lucid Hearing has been eyeing for years.
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The Last Word: UT Dallas’ Dr. Joshua Summers on Tech That Harvests Water From the Air

With mega-droughts drying up lakes out west and "water wars" predicted in the world's future, having reliable access to water is becoming more and more vital. A team at UT Dallas led by Dr. Xianming “Simon” Dai is doing something about it. They're working on a tech platform that could enable anyone to have "an affordable, portable device that could access water anywhere, anytime conceivably using no external energy," according to the university.
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Additive Manufacturing Materials Firm Adaptive3D Relocates Local HQ to Richardson’s Innovation Quarter
by | Sep 20, 2022
Adaptive3D is moving its headquarters from Plano to Richardson's newly christened IQ HQ, returning to the city where it was founded. The company is working on photopolymers that separate into two parts at the “nano level,” making them more durable for industries ranging from consumer and healthcare to industrial and transportation. “This move also signals the strength and importance of partnerships with key academic institutions like UT Dallas and the role they play in fostering the collaborative creation of future-ready technologies within the IQ,” says Founder and CEO Walter Voit.
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Dallas Route Optimization Startup Routora Aims to Help You Save Time, Money on the Road
by | Sep 20, 2022
It's easy to get from A to B. But what if you have to go from A to B to C to D to E? Finding the fastest way to complete all the stops can be daunting. But now a UT Dallas computer science student has co-founded Routora—a free Google Maps extension tool that reorders your stops for the fastest, most efficient trip. While still in beta, the tool has already attracted around 3,000 users from 70 countries. “By creating more efficient routes, not only are they saving money on gas, but they're also emitting less carbon into the atmosphere," says Routora Co-founder and CEO Tom Vazhekatt.
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‘A Global Influencer of Technology and Innovation’: Richardson Opens HQ for Its Innovation Quarter
by | Sep 15, 2022
The 27,500-square-foot new HQ—in partnership with UT Dallas—anchors Richardson's 1,200-acre Innovation Quarter. A masterwork of vision planning years in the making, it's a catalyst to spark innovation and nuture collaborations—and attract hundreds of entrepreneurial businesses. Six new UT Dallas research centers will initially launch at the IQ HQ, helping to build businesses and commercialize research coming from the nearby university.

“We are a global presence," Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker said at the event. "And the vision that we have here is that we will be a global influencer of technology and innovation."
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