Your Gifts at Work

At Reliant Stadium, twin cheerleaders Marisa and Larisa Coy cheer on the Houston Texans, rallying the football players to perform at the top of their game. As middle school math teachers, the two have an even more challenging role – rallying their students to love math and dream big.

The duo – both graduates of the University of Houston’s College of Education – take both roles in stride, staying true to a motto espoused by their mother.

“Our mom has this saying – anytime we do anything, whether it is performing or teaching, she always says, ‘You have one shot to do your very best,'” said Marisa Coy.

The theory applies equally today as it did when they were growing up in Baytown – whether it was taking first place in the state history fair in junior high or excelling in honors classes in high school.

Though their studies were always their top priority, the twins made sure they had time for extracurricular activities, including dancing.

When it came time to go to college, neither had settled on education as a major. Though their mother was a middle school math teacher, and later an administrator, the two weren’t convinced they wanted to follow the same path. But an experience tutoring at their local school changed their minds.

“Initially, I was a little iffy about whether I wanted to go into teaching or not, but when I did some tutoring in Baytown … that sealed the deal,” Marisa said. “We wanted to be teachers.”

The two earned scholarships to a local community college, where they attended to save a little bit of money. At the time, they were also performing as cheerleaders for the Houston Aero’s hockey team.

On a whim, they decided to try out for the Texans cheerleading squad.

“We were thinking, if we don’t ever try, we will always wonder,” Marisa said. “We went out on a limb to try and our mindset was we are not going to get disappointed either way.”

After surviving several rounds of cuts, they made the team and have stayed on it for five seasons.

Though they had considered leaving the area to finish up their degrees elsewhere, the Texans’ job gave them an added incentive to stay near Houston.

“We chose UH main campus because not only did it offer the whole college experience, but at that moment, we realized we wanted to go into teaching, and we had looked into the teaching program here at UH,” Larisa Coy said. “That is why we came to UH.”

Though they were commuting from Baytown, the twins made a home for themselves on the UH campus. They spent much of their time in the education building and the library, but they enjoyed eating lunch at the University Center’s Satellite.

“I loved the flexibility of the schedules,” Larisa said. “We were able to take face-to-face classes, which we loved, as well as the online classes.”

They were inspired by all of their professors, particularly those in the College of Education.

“The longer we went there, we realized that the professors were really great,” said Marisa. “Not only were they telling us how to be teachers, but they had taught themselves. They gave real-life examples.”

They learned a lot from the other students in their classes as well, Larisa said. As they got closer to graduation, the classes got progressively smaller so the students could focus on the particular grade levels they were going to teach, she said.

“Everybody would say (about our group), ‘You are the brave ones – you are doing middle school,'” Marisa said. “We were like, ‘OK, we are going to do this together.'”

The tight-knit middle school group spent their last semesters creating lesson plans, which everyone in the group would share, knowing they had a resource they could draw from in the future.

The twins graduated in December 2008 in the middle of a school year – a difficult time for teachers to be looking for employment. But by a stroke of luck, they attended a job fair at UH, and learned there were openings for positions at two different schools in their home school district. They interviewed for the jobs and learned they would be starting in January.

“At first, I was like, ‘I can do this.’ But on Jan. 4, I realized, ‘the students are coming tomorrow,'” Larisa said. “That is when everything I had been working for was about to start.”

Now, Larisa teaches at Horace Mann Junior High in Baytown while Marisa teaches at Highlands Junior High.

The technology they learned at UH has put them ahead in their classrooms, as well as in their schools, where they often find themselves tutoring older teachers about the latest educational tools.

“I tell them everything I learned was from UH,” Larisa said. “They are like, ‘Wow. They really taught you a lot.’ I am really proud to say I learned it here.”

The technology and other educational skills they learned while students at the University of Houston have helped them to become better teachers, she said.

“I love math, and I just want to instill that same passion in students,” Larisa said. “I always tell my students coming in that, first, I’m going to make math fun. … You may not love it, but you will appreciate it and be more comfortable with it.”

Outside of class, the two stay busy with their secondary career as Houston Texans cheerleaders. They practice several times a week and make multiple appearances throughout the year at community events and other charity functions.

The twins also have been featured in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, as well as on the Web site for Maxim magazine.

While they enjoy being in the spotlight at Reliant Stadium, the twins say they find greater joy in seeing a student who had previously been frustrated learn to solve a problem.

“It’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Marisa said. “They didn’t get it that first week … but now they get it. They want to do it on the board. They are the master of it – it is their thing.”

When C.W. “Paul” Chu came to the University of Houston in 1979, the superconductivity pioneer imagined limitless possibilities.

After a stint conducting industrial research at Bell Laboratories and serving as physics professor at Cleveland State University, Chu was looking for a place to really delve into his research. He found it in Houston.

“The time I came, that was the boom time of Houston, and nothing seemed to be impossible in Houston,” he said. “That is why I came here.”

The decision paid off. In 1987, Chu, together with colleagues, made a discovery that would usher in a new era in materials science. With the discovery of superconductivity above 77° Kelvin, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen, Chu opened the door to major energy breakthroughs.

Superconductivity is a subfield of condensed matter physics. A superconductor is a unique material that loses its resistance to electricity when you cool it below a certain temperature. Superconducting materials are now being used to make devices for energy generation, transmission and storage, as well as ultra-fast and ultra-sensitive signal detection and magnets for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

“In other words, superconducting transmission cables can be used to transmit electricity over long distances without energy loss,” he said. “Today, we use copper wire or aluminum wire which is less efficient, so superconductors can do wonders.”

Chu, who founded the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH and now serves as it executive director, continues his research, hoping to achieve superconductive properties at even higher temperatures with minimal cooling necessary. He receives funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Department of Energy to develop new materials.

“Whenever you are doing any cooling, you are consuming energy,” he said. “So when you can get to the point where you are operating superconducting devices without cooling them, you change every aspect of our lives, wherever electricity is involved. That will induce an industrial revolution. It is very exciting.”

Chu’s interest in superconductivity developed when he was a graduate student, but even as a young boy growing up in Taiwan, he was interested in science and technology.

“Even when I was a little boy, I started making motors, generators, crystal radios, and so on,” he said. “All those small gadgets had a major impact on my later career.”

Chu completed his undergraduate education in Taiwan, and came to the U.S. to pursue his graduate work at the University of California at San Diego. That is where he met his advisor and mentor, Bernd T. Matthias, whom he described as “a giant in superconductivity.”

“Superconductivity is one of the few subjects in science that has intellectual challenges as well as the technological promises,” he said. “Therefore, it has attracted scientists from different fields, such as physics, chemistry, material science and engineering.”

The mentor relationship had a major impact on Chu’s future career.

“One of Professor Matthias’ major goals was to get superconductivity to work at as high a temperature as possible, and that has been my passion for the decades,” he said.

Chu is so passionate about superconductivity because he sees it as key to helping to solve the world’s energy problems. There are two ways to stave off future energy shortages – improving the efficient use of existing resources and developing new resources, including renewable energy, he said.

“Superconductivity can do the first part, which is making the use of energy more efficient,” Chu said.

Superconducting material also can be used in devices like fault current limiters, inserted into electrical grids to help prevent blackouts and brownouts during lighting strikes or other power surges, or for medical applications such as MRI machines, he said.

“If we can reduce the cost of the magnetic resonance imaging technology and improve its mobility, that would have a major impact on health care in the Third World,” Chu said.

For his work, Chu has been given countless prestigious awards, including the Comstock Prize, Bernd Matthias Prize, the Texas Instruments Founders Award, the Prize Ettore Majorana-Erice-Science for Peace and the National Medal of Science. He was named the Best Researcher in the U.S. in 1990 by U.S. News & World Report, and has been inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other prestigious foreign academies.

The awards and recognition are nice, but Chu said it is his passion for his work that keeps him going – passion he likes to share with students.

“I tell them I work seven days a week, and more than 10 to 12 hours a day,” he said. “I don’t expect a student to do the same, but I never feel that it is very hard, because that is where my heart is.”

Chu enjoys working with students at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, which he said serves an important role in educating the next generation of scientists.

“I always like to see that they can develop a passion for the work we are doing,” he said. “Passion is extremely important.”

A passion for education took Chu to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he served as president for eight years and two months while he simultaneously continued overseeing his research at UH until September 2009.

While in Hong Kong, he raised the international reputation of that institution as a world-class university – a similar effort that the University of Houston is undertaking in its pursuit of Tier-One status. Chu said he wholeheartedly supports the efforts to reach Tier One.

“Based on my humble opinion, this is the right way to go because you have to get the recognition from the outside world in particular, to know you are serious about hiring distinguished faculty members, and creating new knowledge,” Chu said. “The best faculty members attract the brightest students … that also attracts funding and recognition from the world. Therefore, having excellent faculty do cutting edge work is the best way to education students and help them as they graduate.”

Great improvements have already been made over the years since he arrived on campus in 1979, he said.

“We are getting more and more quality faculty members, and their work has been recognized by more and more people outside of Houston,” he said. “I think that is a good thing.”

The support of the community is also increasing, he said, adding that is key to UH reaching Tier-One status.

“I feel right now the city is fully behind the university,” Chu said. “I can see that President Khator’s vision for a Tier-One university is getting closer to reality.”

A Pharmacy Student Excels In the Classroom and the Lab.

As a child from a small, farming village in the African country of Cameroon, Odelia Bongmba never could have imagined just how far her desire for knowledge would take her – from Africa to Germany, and finally to the U.S.

A pharmacology doctoral student at the University of Houston, Bongmba began her path to higher education in Yaounde, the capital of her country, where she attended college and earned a degree in agricultural engineering.

“In Cameroon, the most important thing is agriculture – subsistence agriculture,” she said. “When I was growing up, we did a lot of farm work … so as a young girl, I wanted to do something concerning agriculture.”

After working for a few years, Bongmba earned a scholarship to study forest management in Germany. She did her field work in the forests of Cameroon – an experience that would eventually help develop her interest in medicine.

“I was looking at other products from the forest, other than timber,” she said. “I discovered that the people in this area relied very much on medicinal plants for their treatments. I collected a number of these medicinal plants, and that started my interest toward doing something medicinal.”

After working for a few more years, Bongmba came to the U.S. in 2001 to join her husband, a professor of religious studies at Rice University. While still getting settled in Houston, she took a job working at an assisted living center.

“I had a lot of Alzheimer’s patients and people with Parkinson’s, so I was thinking, ‘How can I do something to be of help?'” she said. The medicinal plants she collected during her forestry research began to get her thinking about pharmacology as a career.

After doing some research, Bongmba decided the University of Houston was the best place for her to pursue her degree.

“I don’t think I could have a better environment [than UH],” she said.

Because her background was in agriculture, Bongmba said she had a steep learning curve when it came to certain pharmacy classes. But the professors at UH were all eager to see her succeed, she said.

“All of my professors on this faculty are my mentors. They open their doors to you anytime I need them,” Bongmba said. “When I got into this program, I came from an agricultural background, so I had quite a bit of difficulty. All of the professors encouraged me.”

As an international student, Bongmba appreciates the diversity on campus, as well as in the city of Houston. She said she enjoys collaborating with people from all over the world, who each have different perspectives.

“I have classmates from all over,” she said. “I think that has a big role. I think it gives the University of Houston a big advantage.”

As part of her research, Bongmba is exploring the role of the signaling protein Rac in synaptic plasticity, learning and memory in Assistant Professor Maria V. Tejada-Simon’s lab. Her research could contribute to the search for and development of new forms of therapy that might improve the quality of life for people whose lives are affected by degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“Just thinking that someday, maybe something can happen and we can get, not a cure, but something that can reduce the proliferation of this disease, it makes me feel really passionate about the project,” she said. “If you have a relative who has Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, then you understand why I am so passionate.”

As part of the degree program, Bongmba said students are encouraged to attend conferences and present their work – an opportunity she says adds an important dimension to her educational experience.

“In the long term, you can do all of the work in the lab, and have all of the great results, but if you cannot communicate your results to the world, then your research is not useful,” she said. “Going [to conferences] makes you know how to present what you are doing.”

Because of her success in presenting at conferences, and her research accomplishments, Bongmba was selected for the prestigious Biotechnology Institute Minority Fellowship program, which offered professional development training, career-building skills and mentor matching with biotechnology industry leaders.

“My eyes were really opened,” she said of her experience.

As she continues her research, expecting to complete her degree program in 2011, Bongmba said she feels UH is providing her everything she needs to succeed in her chosen career.

“Here, I have a lot of opportunities,” she said. “Houston is a big city, and at UH, I have all of the connections that I would need.”

The journey to the University of Houston was a long one, but it was worth it to find a place that feels like home, Bongmba said.

“When you like something, you like to keep it close to you,” she said. “The University of Houston is opening the doors. … I think I will always want to remain a part of the University of Houston.”

When she needs a reminder of why she has spent so much of her career on topics such as vulnerability and living wholeheartedly, UH social work professor Brené Brown looks no further than a favorite sculpture on campus.

The piece, titled “Sandy in Defined Space,” features a bronze woman, curled tightly in a box – an image Brown says reminds her of society’s need to categorize people in easy ways, not the most authentic ones.

“I think I used to live like that for a long time,” Brown said. “I used to want to have a really easy answer for what it is that I do … But I don’t really have a box anymore.”

Brown, an author and noted speaker who recently was featured at both the Houston and Kansas City TEDx conferences, says she likes to describe herself as a researcher, a writer, a teacher, a storyteller, a mother, a budding photographer, a sister and a daughter.

“I am a lot of different things,” she said. “It all comes down to trying to live and work and be who I am and learn more about people and why it is that we are so afraid to see and be seen as who we are.”

Brown sees being a teacher as one of her defining characteristics, in part because she incorporates elements of teaching in many aspects of her life, and in part because she has known since her junior college days that she wanted to take on that role.

“I had incredible teachers in junior college and professors in college,” she said. “I was so inspired that I always knew that was what I wanted to do – to be in a classroom and to teach at the university level.”

She found her academic home at the Graduate College of Social Work at UH.

“I went to visit the social work program, and it just felt like home,” Brown said. “I couldn’t believe it was a place where everything I wanted to do came together.”

She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the department, where she encountered “incredible teachers – the kinds of teachers that changed my life, they changed everything about me.”

Now, as a professor herself, Brown said she is thrilled to remain a part of the social work community.

“The Graduate College of Social Work is still a community,” she said. “That I get to be a part of it on the other end, as a professor, is incredible.”

Brown is one of only a handful of scholars who have taken on the complex subjects of shame, vulnerability and authenticity.

“The thing that I have learned is that vulnerability is at the center of fear and shame, but it is also at the center of joy and gratitude and love and belonging,” she said. “If we continue to wake up every day and put our game faces on and think that invulnerability is the way to be … then we pay the price, because I don’t know that we would ever fully experience joy and love and belonging.”

In her years of research, Brown has found that defining shame helps to dispel it.

“Shame hates to have words wrapped around it. If we talk about it, it loses its grip on us,” she said. “A lot of my work is about helping give people language to understand, to make meaning out of their own experiences.”

Because shame affects everyone, it is a topic of universal interest, and many people outside of academic circles are interested in Brown’s research. Her books, including “I thought It Was Just Me” and her forthcoming “The Gifts of Imperfection,” are geared to a wider audience.

“While a lot of my colleagues are pursuing grants and doing different things with their research, my commitment is absolutely about democratizing the information that I find,” she said. “I write books and speak a lot in public. So it has been very important for me to get my research out to a much broader audience than an academic audience.”

But even as she reaches out beyond academia, Brown still enjoys her role as an educator.

“When I try to figure out what is at the heart of what I do, I think the bottom line is that I am a teacher,” she said. “That is where I am the most comfortable. That is where I am the happiest. That is where I feel the most alive and connected.”

She enjoys engaging her students in discussions about “race, about class, about the things that make us human, the things that make us vulnerable.”

She also enjoys the relationship between the college of social work and the community.

“A lot of what I do is keeping very close connections with the people in this community,” Brown said. “I think our dean does that, and our faculty does that. That is what we are teaching in our program.”

The university’s Tier One push has only enlivened efforts at the college.

“One of the things I’m proudest about our college is that while the research is happening, while the grants are happening and the federal funding is happening, we are solidly committed to community engagement and teaching. That is at the heart of what we do,” Brown said. “In many ways, I think we are the ambassadors for the Tier One push, and I love that.”

In addition to being a part of the community, Brown said she loves that the university is also a reflection of the community, with students from different cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds.

“To be able to teach at a university that is so diverse, and that honors differences, and that tells people their stories matter because they matter is one of the greatest gifts of my career,” she said.