Stories

There was some big news this month in the College of Science & Engineering. TCU’s Department of Environmental Sciences was officially renamed the Department of Environmental and Sustainability Sciences.

Family Weekend is the perfect opportunity to experience the community your students call home. Families will have the opportunity to interact with the College of Science and Engineering’s world-class faculty and staff while enjoying refreshments. Check out the CSE Family Weekend activities here.

Matt McLennan has been named the new Houston Livestock and Rodeo Professor in Ranch Management at Texas Christian University. McLennan graduated from TCU’s Ranch Management program in 1992. After graduating, he worked in stocker cattle production and cow calf production in eastern New Mexico and in Comanche, Texas. McLennan managed the Beaumont Ranch south of Fort Worth for four years. This led him to the cattle feeding and stocker operations of the Panhandle area of Texas.

Greg Friedman, chair of TCU’s Department of Mathematics, has been named the new John William and Helen Stubbs Potter Professor of Mathematics at Texas Christian University. Friedman joined the College of Science & Engineering as an assistant professor of mathematics in 2005. He was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and then to professor in 2016. In 2019 he was named chair of the Department of Mathematics, and in 2020 Friedman received the TCU Deans’ Award for Research and Creativity.

David Cross, Rees-Jones Director of TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development (KPICD), will retire at the end of this year. For more than 30 years, Cross has been fiercely committed to changing the world for children. Serving previously as Associate Director of Research at KPICD, Danica Kalling Knight will step into the role of the Rees-Jones Directorship for the KPICD when Cross retires.

Did you know that there is a wind tunnel in the basement of Tucker Technology Center on TCU campus? Its primary use at TCU is for educational lab instruction, extensively in a fourth-year mechanical engineering laboratory course, ENGR 40871. It has also supported a number of undergraduate research and honors projects over the years.

Many Texans don’t realize that within the past century, there have been more than 100 earthquakes in our state that have been large enough to be felt. Five of these earthquakes have had magnitudes between 5 and 6, making them large enough to be felt over a wide area and produce significant damage. While Texas has many fault lines, Helge Alsleben, associate professor of geology at TCU, explains why our earthquake hazard is small in comparison to other states and how seismic activity is monitored.

Dean Michael Kruger announces that Dr. Zoranna Jones has joined the College of Science & Engineering as assistant dean as of August 1, 2022. Jones will oversee student support in the College of Science & Engineering by leading success initiatives such as the testing center and peer-mentoring program.

It’s been 10 years since Victoria Bennett, associate professor in the Environmental Sciences department, launched TCU’s Bat Monitoring Program. After a decade of raising public awareness for bats and managing one of the first long-term studies to monitor bat populations in Texas, Bennett explains why there is no reason to fear bats and helps us understand the ecological services they provide.