UT Tyler Establishes Research Center On Palestine Campus
With the help of The University of Texas at Tyler, soldiers of the future could become battlefield chameleons, their uniforms changing colors to match the environment and provide better camouflage.
UT Tyler is working on the electronic aspects of the uniform. But it takes more than just electronics research. It also takes applying for grants, coordinating researchers from different universities and perhaps even commercializing the product.
That's why the university has established the Center for Research and Economic Development, which will be based at the Palestine campus, UT Tyler officials announced Monday.
Peter J. Fos, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said the facility will centralize the university's fledgling research arm and streamline the process of researching and commercializing new products.
“UT Tyler is relatively new to the research realm,” Fos said. “We're at the point where we have to centralize some of research efforts. This is the first step toward that.”
Fos noted that external funding for UT Tyler research projects in the past five years has grown to $10 million annually from $700,000.
The university's research arm includes the Texas Allergy, Indoor Environment and Energy Institute, or TxAIRE, the Center for Organic Semiconductor Modeling and Stimu-lation, or COSMOS, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math-ematics, or STEM.
TxAIRE is studying indoor air quality and develops products that could clean that air. Now, the research, product development and marketing will occur under the new center. Development of the electronic aspects of the chameleon uniforms is taking place under COSMOS.
Under STEM, university officials hope to research cyber security, which will require a marriage of engineering, math, criminal justice and computer science, Fos said. While the center's administration system is in place, it will not have a brick-and-mortar home on UT Tyler's Palestine campus until next spring, he said.
The center not only will give UT Tyler a large spot on the research map, it also will help Palestine economically in the years to come, he said.
“The Palestine campus will serve as an incubator for businesses that will take the products to market so they can be sold,” Fos said. “The economic impact would be significant.”
Tom Mullins, Tyler Economic Development Council president and CEO, said UT Tyler's development as a research center is significant to the area's economy. In fact, nationwide, economists agree that research and development will be part of community economies of the future.
“I've said consistently that the UT presence in Tyler and East Texas … puts us in a better position to grow economically than any other city in the large part of East Texas,” Mullins said. “There's a huge connection between higher education, research and technology development.”
Source: Tyler Morning TelegraphThe University of Texas at Tyler
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