Visiting professor elected to American Academy

Alan Needleman, visiting professor of materials science and engineering at the University of North Texas has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Needleman is also the Florence Pirce Grant University professor at Brown University. He served as a visiting professor during the spring 2007 semester, and will return to UNT as a visiting professor for the spring 2008 and spring 2009 semesters.

Needleman’s main research interests are in the computational modeling of deformation and fracture processes in materials over a range of size scales from the nano to the macro. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1977, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has been awarded the Prager Medal by the Society of Engineering Science and the Drucker Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Needleman also holds honorary doctorates from The Technical University of Denmark and Ecole Normale Superior de Cachan (France).

UNT receives $40,000 from Czech foundation

The Czech Educational Foun­da­tion of Texas (CEFT) has do­nat­ed an additional gift of $40,000 to the University of North Texas College of Music, boosting the university’s endowment to promote Czech music and culture in Texas to nearly $500,000.

The gift will benefit an endowment known as the CEFT Frank J. and Hermine Hurta Kostohryz Residency in Czech Music and Culture, which was established in 2004. A plaque honoring more than 60 major donors to the endowment was unveiled Jan. 27, during a recital and reception at the Murchison Performing Arts Center on the UNT campus.

The endowment supports an annual residency in which musicians, artists and educators from the Czech Republic visit UNT to perform, teach and conduct research. The residency allows for the traditions of Czech music and culture to be shared with students and communities with Czech centers of population in Texas.

The endowment began with a lead gift of more than $200,000 from Francis Kostohryz in memory of his parents — the Rev. Frank J. Kostohryz, who served as a minister to largely Czech populations at the Unity of the Brethren Church in Texas, and Hermine Hurta Kostohryz, an organist and religious instructor.