Tower Fellows Resources

We discuss the hidden world and creators of the most masterful painted backdrops in Hollywood history from films such as The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, and Cleopatra. These backings are at once intended to transport the audience and yet remain unseen for what they really are. We go behind the scenes to explore the artists, their craft, and UT's historic Hollywood backdrop collection.



Karen Maness
Lecturer in UT's Dept. of Theater and Dance and Co-Author of The Art of The Hollywood Backdrop

Some scholars treat the 1532 Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire as a decisive moment in world history, but others struggle to account for the Incas in their general models of human social development. We explore the question of how Western thinkers came to treat Inca civilization as exceptional and how this holds the key to understanding fundamental problems with our interpretation of ancient civilizations.


Alan Covey
Professor of Anthropology and Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will produce the most important galaxy map of the Universe. This map will allow us to measure how the Universe expands over time and will provide key insights into the mysterious entity called dark energy. We'll offer a glimpse at just-released data from this project, among the largest of its kind ever attempted.




Karl Gebhart
Herman and Joan Suit Professor of Astrophysics and HETDEX Project Scientist

The Chicxulub impact crater on the Yucatan Peninsula offers an opportunity to study the Earth's most recent mass extinction event, driving the extinction of an estimated 75% of life on Earth at the genus level. We'll discuss how recent surveys of the crater's core samples have advanced our understanding of how this impact affected the Earth's environment leading to the Cretacious-Palogene mass extinction.

Sean Gulick
Research Professor, Jackson School of Geosciences and co-director of the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

We'll host an intimate discussion on a wide range of topics with Senator Bill Bradley. Senator Bradley has a unique perspective on our country and our world as a Rhodes Scholar, Olympic gold medalist, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.




Bill Bradley
Senator Bill Bradley represented the state of New Jersey in the US Senate from 1979 to 1997.

In a moment when everything is anything but normal, we yearn for a return to familiar routines. The trouble is that this inflection point may never lead us back to the past. We explore innovations that have found resonance in recent times, as well as how we might completely reconsider our approach to the complex systems we live in.



Stacey Chang
Executive Director of the UT Design Institute for Health

The last 25 years has seen a huge revolution in our understanding of planetary systems around other stars. The Kepler spacecraft has revolutionized our knowledge of these systems, introducing us to types of planets we had never imagined could exist. Do these other planetary systems also harbor life? The new generation of large telescopes, such as the Giant Magellan Telescope, will begin to provide some answers to these questions.


William Cochran
Research Professor, Department of Astronomy

We are overrun in plastics and plastic waste. Biology has already begun to learn how to eat plastic in the wild, and biotechnologists are mining and adapting the methods that have evolved for personal and industrial use.









Andrew Ellington
Fraser Professor of Biochemistry at UT and Principal Investigator with The Ellington Lab

How concerned should we be regarding the technology commonly known as "deep fakes"—that is, the rapidly-improving capacity to use deep learning algorithms to synthesize video and audio of real people saying or doing things they never said or did. Professor Chesney will explain the nature of the technology, the possible benefits, the many potential harms, and the difficulty of framing legal, business, educational, and other responses to it.

Bobby Chesney
James A Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at the UT School of Law

Get a behind-the-scenes tour of UT's Brackenridge Field Lab from director Larry Gilbert and learn how its history is intertwined with Austin's industrial and ecological history.




Larry Gilbert
Director, UT Brackenridge Field Lab and Professor of Integrative Biology

UT's Athletic Director leads our Fellows on a behind-the-scenes tour of our iconic football stadium.






Chris Del Conte
University of Texas Vice President and Director of Athletics

Admiral Inman will share his thoughts on hotspots around the world based on his unique perspective and experience in the highest levels of our country's defense and intelligence establishment.



Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.) LBJ Centennial Chair in National Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs; former director of the NSA and deputy director of CIA.