Tower Fellows Resources

Could you imagine one day having a dynamically evolving virtual replica of yourself that your doctor could use to drive personalized decisions to optimize your health and well-being? In engineering, these personalized dynamic computational models are known as digital twins, and are already being used to drive
predictive maintenance decisions for aircraft and aircraft engines. This talk discussed the mathematics and computational science that goes into creating a digital twin, and the exciting new directions for digital twins in engineering, geosciences and medicine.





Karen Willcox
Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences

Generative Al has rapidly emerged as a transformative force, driving creativity, innovation, and progress across diverse domains. This talk delves into the promise of generative Al, exploring its foundational technologies-such as deep learning, transformer-based large language models, and diffusion-based generative models-that empower machines to generate text, images, videos, and more with human-like creativity. While its potential is vast, generative Al also raises pressing questions about ethics, data privacy, and societal impact. This session examined the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, emphasizing the importance of responsible development and deployment.

Mingyuan Zhou
Associate Professor of Information, Risk, and Operations Management

Over the past 20 years, concerns have grown about declining political listening in the U.S., as national conversations have
splintered into isolated social media bubbles and echo chambers. Rather than engaging with diverse viewpoints, many now hear only
like-minded voices, fueling polarization and political gridlock. In this presentation, Dr. Slotta explored this crisis through his research in leaderless communities in Papua New Guinea, where similar listening failures occur. Yet there, "not listening" helps maintain equality and independence-suggesting that even in the U.S., selective listening might serve a meaningful political function.

James Slotta
Associate Professor, Anthropology

Decades of research have demonstrated the importance of positive caregiver-child interactions for healthy development. Work on emotional and mental health problems suggests that disruptions in how the caregiver and child interact during emotional events contributes to mental health problems in children. In this talk, Dr. Camacho gave an overview of how she has leveraged novel advances in developmental and neurosciences techniques to increase our understanding of risks and protective factors for emotional and mental health problems early in life.

Laura Quiñones Camacho
Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology

This talk surveyed the approaches taken by different comic book publishers and addresses how these different publishers have negotiated the relationship between their publishing and filmed entertainment divisions. The talk also highlighted what is distinctive about comic books as sites of contemporary IP exploitation by Hollywood, in comparison to other pre-sold properties such as plays, podcasts, and popular fiction.






Alisa Perren
Professor of Radio-Television-Film and Director of the Center for Entertainment and Media Industries

Isaac Newton worked at Britain's Royal Mint from 1696 until his death in 1727, nearly as long as the 35 years he spent as a professor of physics at Cambridge. He pursued his duties at the Mint energetically: prosecuting counterfeiters, leading the Great Re- coinage, and taking an active role in debates over the birth of fiat money. Newton's mathematical genius makes it all the more incongruous that, as Master of the Mint, he would make a serious mathematical mistake that put the English monetary system in peril. Professor Scott described his blunder, and what lessons it has for us today.

James Scott
Professor of Statistics

This presentation was a preview of the sold-out performances that premiered at Texas Performing Arts. Oscar Cásares, an acclaimed novelist from the Rio Grande Valley, wanted to tell his 10-year-old daughter, Elena, about his experience of growing up on the Texas-Mexico border. To tell her this story, Casares and photographer Joel Salcido traveled the length of the Rio Grande, from El Paso and Juarez to Brownsville and Matamoros, to share his roots and the subtle and profound details of those who live there.

Oscar Cásares
Professor and Director of the New Writers Project

With increasing age, the risk of heart disease increases, and physical function and performance decrease. Masters or veteran athletes are unique and impressive in that these age-related changes are often absent. Dr. Tanaka described the differences in sedentary aging and active aging.








Hirofumi Tanaka
Professor of Kinesiology and the Director of the Cardiovascular Aging Research Laboratory

The presentation examined the parallel evolution of information technology, government powers to surveil and collect information on private citizens, and the law of search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.










Adam Klein
Director - Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law

Tower Fellows experienced a private tour of the exhibit, Visualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy. The exhibit showcased some of the iconic works by Ansel Adams alongside those of his predecessors and the generations of artists he influenced and inspired.

Steven D. Hoelscher
Faculty Curator for Photography at the Harry Ransom Center and Stiles Professor of American Studies and Geography

Tower Fellows toured and participated in an interactive demonstration of the Lab for Immersive Media (LIM), a unique space that merges research and creativity. The LIM serves as a "possibility space," allowing users to explore the intersection of virtual and physical experiences.

Michael Baker
Chair, Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies

The LBJ Foundation invited the Tower Fellows to an exclusive private tour of the LBJ Presidential Library, followed by dinner and an intimate "one-room conversation" on presidential history. This discussion was inspired by a tradition established by President Lyndon B. Johnson during his administration.

Mark Updegrove
President and CEO, LBJ Foundation