THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS P. O. Box 830688 Richardson, Texas 75083-0688

News Release
For Immediate Release

UTD Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies
Annual Lecture Series Begins This Week

RICHARDSON, Texas (Sept. 18, 2006) — The Center for U.S.–Mexico Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) this week will begin its annual lecture series about topics of interest to both the United States and Mexico.  As it did last year, the series will take place both at UTD and at institutions of higher education in Mexico.  UTD has enjoyed a collaborative relationship and scholarly exchange with universities in Mexico for the last 10 years.

Now in its sixth year, the 2006-07 lecture series will include talks about such topics as nanotechnology, geospatial science, materials science, complex mathematical problems, reproductive rights in Mexico and an anthology of Mexican fiction in translation.

The lectures are free and open to the public and conclude with a question-and-answer session.  Additional information about the talks is available by calling the center at 972-883-6401, or by visiting the center’s website at http://www.utdallas.edu/research/cusms/ls.htm.

The schedule for the 2006-07 series is as follows:

• UTD’s Dr. Anvar Zakhidov will give a lecture about Dry-Spun Carbon Nanotube Sheets and Yarns for Energy Harvesting, Lighting and Field Emission Applications at the University of Guanajuato (UG) in Mexico on Sept. 19.  His talk is co-sponsored by UG’s Institute of Physics.  Zakhidov is a professor of physics and associate director of the UTD Nanotech Institute.  His “Nanophysics for Devices” research group is actively involved in investigations about the physical properties of advanced nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, photonic crystals and organic and hybrid multilayers.  

• Brian J.L. Berry, dean of UTD’s School of School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, will give a talk at the Mexican National Polytechnique Institute in Mexico City on Sept. 28 about the Emergence of Geospatial Science.  His lecture is co-sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and the Mexican National Polytechnique Institute.  Berry is UTD’s Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor.  His research involves long-wave dynamics and their relationship to macrohistorical phasing of economic development and political behavior.  Berry is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  In 2005, Berry received the Vautrin Lud Prize, the highest award bestowed upon a geographer and modeled after the Nobel Prize, which does not have a category for geography.

• Alberto Herrera-Gomez will speak about Photons and Electrons in Solids on Oct. 10 at 9 a.m. in UTD’s Engineering and Computer Science South Building, Room 2.305.  Herrera-Gomez is a professor at the Mexican Research Center for Advanced Studies in Queretaro, Mexico, and is currently on sabbatical at UTD, where he serves as visiting associate professor in Electrical Engineering.  He received a Ph.D. degree in applied physics from Stanford University in 1994.  His professional interests range from the study of nanofilms to materials science as applied to food stuffs.  For his contributions in the latter field, Herrera-Gomez was granted Mexico’s 2000 National Food Science Award.  He is currently doing work in the field of photoemissions.

• Jose Carlos Gomez Larranaga will lecture about the Non-Technical Explanation of Poincaré Conjecture:  A Millennium Prize Problem at UTD on Nov. 14 at 11 a.m., at a location to be determined.  The talk is co-sponsored by the Mexican Research Center for Mathematics (CIMAT) and the UTD School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.  The Millennium Prize Problem is one of seven mathematical problems considered by the Clay Mathematics Institute to be “important classic questions that have resisted solution over the years.”  Gomez Larranaga is general director of CIMAT. Under his direction, the center has concentrated its efforts in organizing several national meetings with the Mexican Society of Mathematics, as well as joint meetings with the American Society of Mathematics.  Gomez Larranaga is a member of the advisory board of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Education at UTD. 

• Juan Guillermo Figueroa-Perea will speak about Reproductive Rights in the Recent Mexican Experience on Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. in Room 4.614 of UTD’s Erik Jonsson Academic Center.  A professor and researcher at El Colegio de México, Guillermo has edited eight books related to reproductive behavior, health and sexuality.  

• C.M. Mayo will give a talk titled Mexico:  A Traveler’s Literary Companion on March 14 at    7 p.m. in Room 4.708 of UTD’s Jonsson Center.  The talk, which is based on Mayo’s anthology of the same name, is co-sponsored by UTD’s Center for Translation Studies.  Mayo is author of the widely lauded travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, as well as The Other Mexico and Sky Over El Nido, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.  She also is a translator of contemporary Mexican poetry and fiction.  Mayo currently divides her time between Mexico City and Washington, D.C., where she teaches at The Writers Center.  She is at work on a novel set in 19th Century Mexico, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire.

About UTD

The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 14,500 students.  The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores.  The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs.  For additional information about UTD, please visit the university’s website at www.utdallas.edu.