As the most diagnosed cancer among women in the U.S., breast cancer remains a top focus for researchers with millions of dollars in funding allocated each year by top government agencies to learn more about the disease. Some of that discovery is going on here at UNT and in labs and hospitals across the world occupied by members of the Mean Green Family. During National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, learn more about the UNT faculty, students and alumni who have made it their life's mission to further the understanding of breast cancer and are contributing to the foundational science that could lead to new treatments for the disease.

UNT faculty in the College of Engineering earned nearly $3 million total in awards from the National Institutes of Health in recent weeks. Most of the funding will support research underway in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which has experienced tremendous growth in the last few years and is preparing students to answer the increasing demand for well-rounded engineers who are passionate about health-related innovations and improving the quality of life for people in Texas and beyond. Projects vary from how changes to human tissue can impact nano-therapeutic delivery to developing human liver organoids for use in drug discovery. See the list of projects recently funded by the NIH.

Assistant professor of chemistry Omar Valsson earned the highly competitive 2023 Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy. Valsson is one of 93 in the nation and only three in Texas to be named a recipient of the prestigious award from the DOE Office of Science's Early Career Research Program. As part of the award, Valsson will receive a total of $875,000 over the next five years to support his research into developing a new method to better predict the behavior and properties of polymorphic molecular crystals, which have an array of applications, including in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries.

Annular solar eclipse viewing at UNT made headlines in dozens of news outlets in Dallas-Fort Worth and across Texas. FOX 4 checked in with fans watching the eclipse at the football game, and the Denton Record-Chronicle covered the Society of Physics Students' eclipse watching party on the UNT campus, where about 800 solar eclipse glasses were distributed. Astronomy Program Director Ryan Bennett shared his expertise on the celestial event and best ways to view it with The Dallas Morning News, FOX 4, KRLD and others. Faculty in the College of Information also took advantage of the annular solar eclipse to conduct their own research ranging from collecting eclipse photos from the public to compare with NASA's predictions to testing UV meter changes and solar binocular systems.

A few outstanding student researchers have received national recognition lately. UNT College of Engineering doctoral student Ali Khan earned a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, one of the most competitive research awards in the U.S. for graduate students. History doctoral student Andrew Huebner, the first UNT graduate student to be named a Boren Fellow, was featured on the Wilson Center's blog talking about his experience as a research scholar at the Washington, D.C.-based institution and his research on post-First World War American relief operations in the Baltic states.

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