Letter from the Director

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first edition of Gearing Up! Our dispatches, from historic Gearing Hall and beyond, provide you a window into our School of Human Ecology. I hope the stories in these pages make you feel a part of our daily journey—through new ideas, talent, discoveries, and experiences of human connection through science.

Our School has a long tradition of giving students opportunities to learn by experience, with many of our 1,700 students benefiting from internships and practical work. This is true for students in a relatively new major in our School, Public Health, whom you’ll meet in our newsletter as they travel to Brownsville, Texas. You’ll also find future fashion retailers from our Division of Textiles and Apparel taking on Manhattan, and our Human Development and Family Sciences students learning closer to home at the Priscilla Pond Flawn Child and Family Laboratory, which is celebrating its 90th year in 2017. Each year about 700 undergraduates move out of the classroom and into hands-on experiences with early childhood education there.

From our Nutritional Sciences Department comes a glimpse into the latest research on sugar and obesity. The latest federal health guidelines called for greater attention to added sugar in Americans’ diets, suggesting we limit intake to 10 percent of total calories. But is that enough? Read on to see what our experts know.

Our researchers also are making headway in understanding how to address inflammation that leads to breast cancer, and they are examining the close link between relationships and health and between maternal depression and child development. Finally, you’ll meet some of our newest additions and learn about a few transitions among our faculty. 

We welcome you to connect with us and stay involved. If you would like to receive emails about happenings in Human Ecology, please update your information with us at he.utexas.edu/about/alumni. We also post updates about students and faculty on social media at facebook.com/UTAustinSHE and on Twitter
@UTAustinSHE.

Thank you for your interest in and support for the amazing work and discovery that happens here every day!

Warmly,

Deborah Jacobvitz 

Director
School of Human Ecology