Dear UH Community,

Our focus, goal and passion is to both serve and lead the UH research community and through our leadership reassert the position of UH as a national research leader. We lead on the national stage by being preeminent in our fields, by publishing scholarly works and broadly producing scholarly outputs. The great stories of our impact on society are our signature and our lasting legacy.

Over the past year or so, we initiated a project to bring these stories to life, and the outcome has been spectacular, in terms of our impact on the quality of life.

We invite you to explore our ReachingHouston website to flip through and appreciate the collection of stories that we have captured so far. These stories cut across a diverse range of impact areas, including community health, regional environment, health equity, social justice, local economy, urban infrastructure, natural disasters, and safety and security.

The site has documented more than 50 stories — and we are just scratching the surface. We know there are many more compelling stories to tell, and we need your help to unearth them. If you have current or past research projects that have impacted Houston in a measurable way, contact Lindsay Lewis, executive director of DOR communications, who will follow up to ensure your research is part of this project and to highlight your and your team’s societal impact role.

This summer, we will begin a University-led external communications campaign in Houston to focus light on this project. We will seed these stories into the Houston community to demonstrate that UH research is translational, often transformational, and always community-focused and impactful.

Thank you to all the faculty who have shared their research outcome gems with us. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we appreciate your enthusiasm and support of the project.

Best regards,

Amr S. Elnashai, FREng  
Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer