Honors

Housing development plans prepared by a group of construction science students at Texas A&M for a 118-acre site in Utah were among of the top entries in a nationwide contest at a National Association of Home Builders convention last January.

For his extraordinary leadership as president of the Texas A&M Chapter of the National Association of Home Builders, Alexander Allen, a senior construction science major, received the NAHB's Outstanding Student Award at the national group's annual convention last January in Las Vegas.

For his tireless efforts supporting and expanding the digital image collection at the college's Technical Reference Center, visual resources coordinator Ian Muise received a President’s Meritorious Service Award.

Vanellope von Schweetz, the razor-tongued character in Disney Animation Studio's "Wreck-It Ralph," earned a 2013 Visual Effects Society Award nomination for the animators who brought her to life, including former vizzer Michelle Robinson.

The National Science Foundation presented visualization professor Ann McNamara with its prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award to fund her research to enhance mobile augmented reality technology, which is used to combine real and virtual worlds.

Adrian Smith, designer of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and a champion of sustainable design, will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree from Texas A&M at spring commencement.

Peckerwood Garden, a 19-acre trove of rare plants from the southern U.S. and Mexico has earned its founder/curator, Texas A&M Regents Professor John Fairey, recognition from the Scott Arboretum in Swarthmore, Pa.

Nominations for 2013 College of Architecture Outstanding Alumni Awards, which annually recognize former students of exceptional accomplishment, are being accepted through Feb. 22, 2013.

Service learning, in which students learn and develop through engaging human and community needs and structured opportunities for reflection, will become part of the teaching repertoire of two faculty who received service-learning faculty fellowships.

Residents in a suburban area north of Houston can jog, hike, fish or observe nature in a new park designed by landscape architecture students at Texas A&M, which recently won a 2012 Parks and Natural Areas Award from the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

Residents will soon be able to boat from their home to work, restaurants and shops at Towne Lake, a masterplanned community in suburban northwest Houston that Peter Barnhart ‘95, a former Master of Science in Land Development student at Texas A&M, is helping to develop.

For their work on Disney/Pixar’s summer smash hit movie “Brave,” two former Texas A&M visualization students are nominated for an Annie award, the highest honor bestowed by the International Animated Film Society.

Facilities, the world’s leading scholarly journal in the facility management field, begins its fourth decade with new co-editor Sarel Lavy, associate professor of construction science at Texas A&M. He and fellow editor Joseph Lai of Hong Kong Polytechnic University replace Edward Finch, who held the editor's post 18 years.

Hispanic residents of Travis County will have better access to health care and social services with the help of a new group of promotoras, community health workers trained by Texas A&M’s Colonias Program.

Improving communication among architecture practitioners, educators and students throughout Texas is a new priority for Jorge Vanegas, dean of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, who was recently elected to a two-year term as the Texas Society of Architects’ educator member director.