Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of faculty and students at The University of Texas at Dallas. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communications manager.
Center for BrainHealth Partners with Global Project
The Center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas recently collaborated on an editorial published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry calling for a science-based, economic reimagining of brain health as a critical, measurable asset. Researchers believe that improving brain health — emotional, behavioral and cognitive functioning — would help people tap into their potential, catalyze innovative thinking and improve productivity that, in turn, could strengthen the economy. Called the Brain Capital Grand Strategy, the global project is a cross-disciplinary effort of more than 30 experts, including Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth.
“Brain Capital is the economic benefit that accrues from keeping our brains powered at the highest level,” Chapman said. “This is exactly what The BrainHealth Project is all about: helping people everywhere realize that they have this limitless power to become a more resilient version of themselves at all ages.”
Black Public Administrators Group Honors Professor
A faculty member in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas has received an award from the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of Black public leadership in local and state governments.
Teodoro Benavides, associate professor of practice of public and nonprofit management and director of the Master of Public Affairs program, was honored for his teaching, mentoring and service commitment with the 2020 Educator of the Year Award during the organization’s virtual FORUM 2020 conference in October.
“I am honored to receive the award,” Benavides said. “It is always fun to be recognized for doing something you love, but receiving this award from all my friends and colleagues is something special. This should fuel me to teach another decade, at least!”
Benavides is considered an exceptional innovator in the practice and study of city management and financial management and budgeting with a focus on meeting local government management challenges of the 21st century. He served as Dallas city manager from 1998 to 2004.