The Co-op fulfills its 115-year old mission as a non-profit corporation by returning all profits to its owners - the students, faculty and staff of the University. Since 2000, The Co-op has given over 32 million dollars to UT in the form of gifts, grants and rebates.
The George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence are awarded each year to students who have made an uncommon contribution to their fields of study by way of research project, literary work, musical composition, humanitarian project or similar undertaking. Awards range from $2,000 to a top prize of $20,000.
This awards program was developed by University Co-op President and CEO George Mitchell and the Co-op's Chairman of the Board, Dr. Michael Granof and presented to UT President Dr. Larry Faulkner in 2000.
Students with exemplary academic records are nominated by UT faculty members and winners are chosen by a selection committee. These award-winning students have embraced the opportunities around them with a passion and intellectual creativity.
Application
For more information on how to apply for the University Co-op/George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence, please click here. Please read the criteria below before submitting your application.
Criteria
Students nominated for these awards by faculty members have an exemplary academic record and have made an uncommon contribution to their fields of study by way of a research project, literary work, musical composition, humanitarian project, or similar undertaking.
The selection committee paid particular attention to the nominating faculty member's explanation of the significance of the work / project in the context of the relevant field of study and to the project itself.
Nominees submitted a one or two page curriculum vita or resume highlighting their activities and achievement at UT Austin, documentation of the project for which they were nominated (e.g., copy of a paper or thesis, a videotape or photographs), and a personal statement placing their work / project in the context of their educational experiences at UT Austin and their vision for themselves as a developing scholar in their field.
Click here to see previous Undergraduate Grand Prize Winners.
2013 Press Release
Winners of the 14th Annual University Co-op George H. Mitchell Student Awards for Academic Excellence
AUSTIN, May 3, 2013 - Winners of the undergraduate student awards were announced on Thursday, May 2nd at the Fourteenth Annual George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence presented by the University Co-operative Society at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin. The awards celebrate The University of Texas at Austin students with exemplary academic records who have made an extraordinary contribution to their fields of study by way of a research project, literary work, musical composition, humanitarian project, or similar undertaking. Chairman of the University Co-op’s Board of Directors and Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting, Dr. Michael Granof hosted the event. Dr. Granof said, “Tonight we honor an extraordinary group of gifted students - students who not only have stellar academic records, but who also have already made and who undoubtedly will continue to make exceptional contributions to their disciplines.” Attendees included the Provost, Deans, and Vice Presidents of the University, as well as past grand prize winners of the award.
This year, there was a tie for the Grand Prize and two students shared the Undergraduate Student Awards for Academic Excellence and received $12,500 each; Victor Vu, a Computer Science senior, and Katherine Noble, an English senior. Victor Vu, who was nominated by Professor Mike Walfish, is being honored for his contributions to cloud computing, in collaboration with UT faculty in Computer Sciences and Mathematics in a project titled A Hybrid Architecture for Interactive Verifiable Computation.
Many individuals now have music, books and even personal files stored ‘in the cloud’; this is even more true of scientists in Astronomy, Biology and Physics, as well as health professionals, pharmaceutical firms, and any firm mining large databases (airlines, social media, governments). This is referred to as distributed, or cloud computing, and is attractive to researchers as well as corporations who cannot afford to maintain billion dollar supercomputer centers of their own. Mr. Vu and UT researchers addressed accuracy and run time problems associated with the cloud and accomplished a significant reduction in runtime, analogous to reducing years to seconds. With continued work, we may be in sight of a vast new world of fast, cheap applications in medicine, drug design, and unforeseeably many commercial applications.
Katherine Noble was nominated by associate professor Dr. Michael Adams for her project titled, Like Electrical Fire Across the Silence. Katherine Noble’s poetry personally addresses the most compelling themes of human concern, confronting traditional stories from the Bible, from myth, from history and eliciting from them unexpected emotions and reflections. Katherine Noble brings to her poems the sadness of one becoming more sophisticated about life, expressing that sadness in language that is fresh, alluring, poignant, and evocative. For her achievement, Katherine has already been awarded the prestigious Bailey Prize in Poetry, given by the Swedenborg Foundation; she has received the Roy Crane Award for “outstanding creative achievement,” the Ellen Engler Burks Memorial Scholarship and The James F. Parker Prize for the excellence of her poetry. She has been invited to read her poems on Houston Public Radio and at the Houston Library alongside three Texas Poets Laureate and two winners of the Yale Prize for Younger Poets.
Two other undergraduate students, Isaac Gomez, a Theater and Dance senior; and Andrew Wortham, a Plan II and Asian Studies graduate, won the second prize and received $5,000 each.
The three winners of the $2,000 awards were Ashty Karim, a Chemical Engineering senior; Leon Dean, also a Chemical Engineering senior; and Hannah Waitt, a Plan II Honors senior.
For more information, please contact Hulan Swain at (512) 322.7071 or hswain@universitycoop.com
The University Co-op fulfills its 117-year old mission as a non-profit corporation by returning all profits to its owners - the students, faculty and staff of the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2000, the Co-op has given over 33 million dollars to UT in the form of gifts, grants and rebates.
2013 Undergraduate Grand Prize Winner
Recipient of $20,000
Victor Vu “A Hybrid Architecture for Interactive Verifiable Computation”
Category: Science and Technology
Senior, (Mscs, Five-Year Integrated Program)
Nominator: Dr. Mike Walfish, Department of Computer Science, College of Natural Sciences
Katherine Noble “Like Electrical Fire Across the Silence”
Category: Artistic and Creative
Senior, English
Nominator: Dr. Michael Adams, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts
2013 Undergraduate Winners
Recipients of $5,000
Isaac Gomez “The Women of Juarez”
Category: Artistic and Creative
Senior, Theater and Dance
Nominator: Dr. Andrew Carlson, Department of Theater and Dance, College of Fine Arts
Andrew Wortham “Sikkimese Schools: Modernity in the Mountains”
Category: Social Sciences
December 2012, Plan II and Asian Studies
Nominator: Prof. Heather Hindman, Department of Asian Studies and Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts
2013 Undergraduate Winners
Recipients of $2,000
Ashty Karim “Characterization of plasmid burden and copy number in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for optimization of metabolic engineering applications”
Category: Science and Technology
Senior, Chemical Engineering
Nominator: Dr. Hal Alper, Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
Leon Dean “Polarity-Switching Top Coats Enable Orientation of Sub-10 nm Block Copolymer Domains”
Category: Science and Technology
Senior, Chemical Engineering
Nominator: Dr. C. Grant Willson, Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
Hannah Waitt “The History, Development, and Future of K-Pop and The Korean Music Industry”
Category: Humanities
Senior, Plan II Honors
Nominator: Dr. Michael Anderson, Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts
Previous Undergraduate Grand Prize Winners
Recipients of $20,000
2012 Winner
George F. Miller
Major: Plan 2 Honors Program/Astronomy Two Planets Orbiting the Eclipsing System NN Serpentis
Nominated by: Dr. Don E. Winget, Professor Department of Astronomy, College of Natural Sciences
2011 Winner
2010 Winner
Dylan Thomas Bumford
Major: Linguistics, Mathematics, Psychology, and Plan II Honors Making Sense of Sense: Lessons from Synaesthetic Metaphor
Nominated by: Johan A. Kamp, Visiting Professor.
John Meyer
Major: English and Government Shakespeare At Winedale Regents American Volunteers, A Play in Four Acts
Nominated by: James N. Loehlin, Ph. D.
2009 Winner
2008 Winner
Yuxuan Wang
Biochemistry Honors and Plan II Aptamer Antagonists of Myelin Promote Axon Growth
Nominating Professor: Dr. Andrew Ellington, Wilson M. and Kathryn Fraser Research Professor In Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry,
College of Natural Sciences
Baltej Ludher Chemical Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering Baltej Ludher was nominated by Professor Keith P. Johnston for his research paper "Novel Methods for Producing Micron and Sub-micron Pharmaceutical Particles for Pulmonary and Oral Delivery." Baltej's research has the potential to radically advance drug delivery, as well as disease diagnosis and treatment. He has helped develop two novel methods for producing high-surface area therapeutic and pharmaceutical particles: thin-film freezing method and pH flocculation method.
2007 Winner
2006 Winner
Christina Skelton Geosciences, Plan II, College of Natural Sciences
Christina Skelton was nominated by Professor Thomas Palaima for a research paper that brought together her interests in Biology and Classics, “Methods of Using Phylogenetic Systematics to Reconstruct the History of the Linear B Script”. By adapting phylogenetic methods to a very different kind of evolution, that of an evolving script, Christina has taken a brilliant step forward toward the solution of several hitherto intractable problems in Mycenaean Greek studies.
W Seth Howes Germanic Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Seth Howes was nominated by Professor Kit Belgum for his work "Negativ- Dekadent: The Cultures of Punk in Halle/Saale, 1978-1989" - richly textured and sophisticated work of original scholarship in the field of contemporary cultural studies, with a focus on the punk music movement in the German Democratic Republic.
2005 Winner
2004 Winner
Emily Barton Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences
Emily was nominated by Dr. Keith Stevenson for her invention of a new technique, termed "confined dewetting lithography", which uses water removal to leave nano-sized patterns on many different kinds of surfaces. This technique may eventually be profoundly important for producing near- molecular sized patterns quickly and cost-efficiently, which is a critical challenge for the emerging nanotechnology industry.
Brian E. Hardin Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering
Brian was nominated by Dr. Anthony Ambler for creating a sophisticated computer program, which generates unusual shapes for solar cells and maximizes their ability to collect light on a smaller space. His project, “Non- tracking Solar Concentrator Model” has long-range implications for the viability of solar power. A patent for his ideas has been filed by Oxford University.
2003 Winner
2002 Winner
Lauren E. Banta Radio-Television-Film
Lauren was nominated by Dr. Paul Stekler for her documentary film “The Kiely Family”, an inspiring account of the everyday life of a foster family with six children - four of them with disabilities.
Abigail Green Biology, College of Natural Sciences
Abigail was nominated by Dr. Ulrich G. Mueller for her vital contribution to a publication entitled “Extensive Exchange of Fungal Cultivars Between Sympatric Species of Fungus-Growing Ants” (published in Molecular Ecology) and for her two modules for teaching conservation biology in Spanish.
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