The Big Idea Magazine

Welcome to the digital edition of the University of Houston Division of Research magazine, The Big Idea. While many people enjoy physical publications, many others have gone fully digital. We will continue to do our best for all our readers from our alumni, colleagues, UH friends and our community at large to continue our dialogue ...and ideas-sharing.

While many lament the challenges that we faced during the past 18 months, our Division looks at these challenges as opportunities for resilience development and for innovation. We have learned new models of communication and collaboration. We now have the opportunity to select the most effective C and C model for a given set of circumstances and expected outcomes. I was not amongst those who pictured a ‘new normal’. This does not mean that we will return to exactly the workplace ecosystem that we departed from around February-March of 2020. How many articles were written, and appreciated by readers, about the end of face-to-face higher education. At the time, I likened this to the hundreds of articles that declared the death of classroom instruction when the MOOCs movement started. Nothing of the sort happened. We are social creatures who thrive on face-to-face communication and collaboration. We can all see that, come Fall 2021, it is likely that we will re-embrace the immersive educational and research experience that we have refined over decades of practice.

Our community inside and outside of UH has exhibited superior levels of resilience and adaptability during the virus crisis. And we now refocus on addressing our long-standing challenges of accessible healthcare sans virus but also learn the necessary lessons from the virus to increase our resilience in combating the flu and future infectious disease. With every passing day we are reminded of the challenges our society continues to face in cybersecurity, in managing natural and human-induced hazards, in discerning the quality of news, data and information, in equity and inclusion, in achieving energy sustainability and in strengthening our social fabric as a nation.

This issue of The Big Idea grapples with some of the above challenges and offers thought-provoking insights that are intended to enrich and broaden our perspectives, and therefore aiding the convergence to solutions that address the core challenges.

I invite you to explore the ideas we bring you in The Big Idea and the multitude of stories we present. I welcome your feedback on these articles, which explore some of the most pressing issues of our time. I sincerely hope that you continue to be in good health as you and your colleagues begin to transition back to campus in the coming weeks.

Amr Elnashai
Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer