VOLUME 8 ISSUE 2 SPRING 2018 ƒresh approaches Hope for Chronic Pain Relief Grows at UTD FIRST SIGHT From left: Jared Ray and Merek Byckovski, members of the men’s soccer team, glide down a paint slip-and-slide during Splatter Dance. The paint party took place during Springapalooza, an annual weeklong celebration held after spring break. UTDM AALL G A Z ASI N E Vice President, Communications John Walls Managing Editor Teri Brooks Communications Specialist Paul Bottoni AVP, Marketing Lauraine O’Neil Creative Director LeeDon Moore MFA’14 Contributing Writers Jill Blevins Chase Carter Stephen Fontenot Grace Gaddy Kim Horner MA’05 Dr. Carie S. Tucker King Chaz Lilly BA’11, MA’15 Brittany Magelssen Jimmie Markham BA’10 Jill McDermott Ben Porter MS’08, PhD’11 Phil Roth Robin Russell Dr. Rainer Schulte (From left) Drs. Ted Price BS’97, Amanda Siegfried Greg Dussor and Zach Campbell 24 are researching new solutions to Bruce Unrue treat pain. Chase York Designers and Illustrators Steve Chambers In This Issue Julianne Fowler Nitashia Johnson Pete Pagliaccio From Working 9-to-5 to Hollywood Scribes Campus News 4 18 After pursuing careers in different fields, two Comet brothers decided to chase their Photographers dreams as screenwriters in Tinseltown. Alumni Notes 32 Randy Anderson Ricardo Castrillón BA’17 X’s and O’s Not Exclusive to Those With Y Chromosome In Memoriam 45 Rachael Drury 22 Former UTD athlete Desireé Allen BS’99 is crashing one of the most exclusive clubs Gary Pina in Texas: the high school football coaching ranks. Albert Vacerka Sarah Wall Fresh Approaches 24 In an age of increased opioid-related addiction and deaths, three UTD scientists are hunting to find new solutions for chronic pain. Volume 8, Issue 2 SPRING 2018 A Whoosh Heard ’round the World Geospatial information science senior Sam Weiger showed off his Comet pride during a trip to Greenland in August 2017. Weiger’s trip was part of an independent study project for the GIS department in which he created a partnership between UTD and Visit Greenland, the Subscribe to country’s tourism agency. UTD’s NewsCenter, a roundup of campus news and events. utdallas.edu/news Go Digital UT Dallas Magazine’s website has an updated look that provides readers with a new online experience. Since We Last Spoke ... Visit utdallas.edu/magazine and tell us what you think. In response to the fall issue: In response to “Blurred Lines” cum laude in May 1979.” (Editor’s cover story [Fall 2017]: Note: Carolyn Lipshy Galerstein was the first female dean at UTD.) Follow Us “From its foundation, UTD was about Betty Morris BGS’79 ‘blurred lines’ so it is staying true to facebook.com/utdallas the original vision.” “That looks exactly like my Regina Kyle registration a couple of years later!” twitter.com/ut_dallas Sandra Wood BA’84 “My colleague, Joey Belgard, shared youtube.com/utdallascomets with me the article ‘Blurred Lines’ by “I was in the second class of freshmen Amanda Siegfried. I love the article.” in the fall of 1991! What a great instagram.com/ut_dallas Comments Chris Kosterman turning point in my time.” Readers commented via social media Mark Alphonso BS’96 For a full listing of the schools and on several articles. In response to the “Hindsight” programs that have social media sites, [Fall 2017] about the first UTD In response to “No Pain, No Gain” visit utdallas.edu/social. “Proud to be a UT Dallas alum. It’s undergraduate registration: [Fall 2017]: always a pleasure to meet some pro- fessors who had taught us and are “[Dean Carolyn Galerstein’s] question “Jami Clinton [strength and Contact Us still there.” to me, a 43-year-old mother of three conditioning coach] changed Shehdad Mehreen BS’05 teenage children, was ,‘Betty, what do my life. Her dedication and UT Dallas Magazine you want to do with your life?’ I had commitment prove her tremendous 800 W. Campbell Road, AD14 “I look forward to each issue of this no answer because no one ever asked effort to changing the lives of each Richardson, Texas 75080-3021 publication. It keeps alums and me that before. (I was a product of the student-athlete. I’m proud to be a (972) 883-4326 [email protected] friends up-to-date. Keep up the great ’50s.) 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The University of Texas at Dallas 3 Campus News FROM THE LAB From left: Dr. John H.L. Hansen, Cheng- zhu Yu PhD’17, Dr. Abhijeet Sangwan and Lakshmish Kaushik pose with a model of an astronaut at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Listening in on the Men on the Moon Practically every word uttered by an astronaut during “We designed our own 30-track read head and built a the historic moon missions was recorded by NASA. UTD parallel solution to capture all 30 tracks at one time,” said researchers now are ensuring that the recordings, stored for Hansen, the Distinguished Chair in Telecommunications. decades on outdated analog tapes, are available to the public. “This is the only solution.” Communications between astronauts, mission control The new read head cut the digitization process from years specialists and backroom support staff had been taped to months. Once the audio was transferred from reels to during the missions. Among the most well-known trans- digital files, researchers created software that could detect missions are Neil Armstrong’s quotes from Apollo 11 in speech activity. They also tracked speaker characteristics to July 1969. help researchers analyze how people In 2012, researchers in the Erik “The heroes behind react in tense situations. In addition, Jonsson School of Engineering and the tapes included audio from various Computer Science received a National the heroes represent the channels that needed to be placed in Science Foundation grant to develop countless engineers, chronological order. speech-processing techniques to recon- scientists and specialists One of the most challenging parts, struct and transform the massive according to the researchers, was archive of audio into Explore Apollo, a who brought their STEM- figuring out how things worked at website that provides public access to based experience together NASA during the missions so they the materials. The project, in collabo- collectively to ensure could understand how to reconstruct ration with the University of Maryland, the massive amount of audio. included audio from all Apollo 11 and the success of the Apollo “This is not something you can learn most of the Apollo 13, Apollo 1 and program.” in a class,” Chengzhu Yu PhD’17 said. Gemini 8 missions. Yu began his doctoral program at the Researchers with the Jonsson start of the project and graduated last School’s Center for Robust Speech Systems (CRSS) discov- spring. Now, he works in Seattle as a research scientist ered that the first thing needed was to digitize the audio. focusing on speech recognition technology. Transferring audio to a digital format proved to be an engi- The team has demonstrated Explore Apollo, the interac- neering feat itself. The only way to play the reels was on a tive website, at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. 1960s piece of equipment called a SoundScriber at the John- For Hansen, the project highlights the work of the many son Space Center in Houston. people involved in the lunar missions beyond the astronauts. SoundScriber could read only one track at a time. The “The astronauts clearly deserve our praise and admi- user had to mechanically rotate a handle to move the tape ration,” he said. “However, the heroes behind the read head from one track to another. heroes represent the countless engineers, scientists and CRSS founder and director Dr. John H.L. Hansen estimates specialists who brought their STEM-based experience that it would take at least 170 years to digitize the Apollo 11 together collectively to ensure the success of the Apollo mission audio using SoundScriber. program.” –Kim Horner 4 Spring 2018 utdallas.edu/magazine CAMPUS NEWS FROM THE LAB ON CAMPUS Solving a Martian Mountain Mystery A UTD fluid dynamics expert helped pro- Wind vortices blowing across the crater pose a solution to a Martian mystery of how slowly formed a radial moat in the sediment, the planet Mars’ distinctive crater mountains eventually leaving only the off-center Mount formed. Sharp, a 3-mile-high peak similar in height Dr. William Ander- to the rim of the crater. The mountain was son, an assistant skewed to one side of the crater because the professor of mechani- wind excavated one side faster than the other, cal engineering in the research suggests. Erik Jonsson School Day and Anderson have shown via computer of Engineering and simulation that, given more than a billion Computer Science, years, Martian winds were capable of digging Dr.