You might not know it, but surveillance is happening all around us all the time. Businesses, governments, and nonstate actors are gathering information — whether it’s to sell us something on social media or screen us when we apply for a home loan. Researchers from both The University of Texas at…

Through all eras of human history, communities have confronted stresses related to climate change that have affected how and where they live. Studying past societies helps us recognize the long-term effects of these stresses — which can be hard to see in the moment—and understand how humans will…

Maria De-Arteaga was working remotely as an investigative journalist in Madrid when she realized that data mining and machine learning could help to uncover social problems in the developing world. She was looking into a highway that Brazil had built through the Amazon rainforest to reach a port on…

In the future, Texas is expected to face increasing exposure to a wide range of climate-driven natural disasters — most notably deadly catastrophic flooding from hurricanes, storm surges, and extreme rain events.

It is with some sadness but also pride that I bid farewell to the leadership team of Planet Texas 2050, a UT initiative that I helped found three and a half years ago with the aim of making Texas more resilient in the face of unprecedented demographic and climate change. As I say goodbye, I reflect…

The Planet Texas 2050 theme organizing committee shows its support for the City of Austin's Climate Equity Plan. We also request that the UT Austin President’s Sustainability Steering Committee integrate climate equity-related goals and strategies into the university Sustainability Master Plan. To…

Our dirty, smelly wastewater could hold something very valuable: the key to tracking COVID-19 hot spots in Austin before diagnostic testing is able to identify outbreaks.

Frances Acuña has lived in the Dove Springs neighborhood in Southeast Austin for 23 years. She knows every place it floods when it rains — such as the intersection at Brassiewood Drive and Pleasant Valley Road, in the street along Turnstone Drive, and near the Nuckols Crossing Bridge that spans…

In January 2020, I began my year as chair of Whole Communities–Whole Health. The world was a very different place. We were in the midst of preparing for a very ambitious faculty hiring plan. Our community engagement efforts were maturing and helping support a shared understanding of the health…

To protect ourselves and others during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us have had to shift our everyday lives to our homes. This has led to a steep drop in the amount of physical activity our kids are getting. Prior to the pandemic, few U.S. children were meeting physical activity guidelines, which…