The Center for Health Communication is a joint academic center bringing together researchers and experts across broad areas of health communication so they can collaborate, share ideas and innovations, and advance their scholarship and its impact to the highest possible level. The Center can be a resource for teams pursuing SBIR & STTR grants and other external funding opportunities, especially in regards to health interventions such as mobile apps, e-health applications, etc.

The Program in Clinical Innovation and Design is a 2-semester collaborative effort between the UT Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Texas Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease at UT Health Austin. The goal of this team-based initiative is to train aspiring physicians and engineers on the process of medical innovation. Students completing this program acquire the skills necessary for human-centered design of meaningful medical technology and processes.

The College of Natural Sciences Catalyst Grants program is a College of Natural Sciences internal funding mechanism meant to inspire new interdisciplinary research collaborations in high-impact, emerging fields that will seed efforts to secure major external funding.

The Convergent Incubator program connects founders with engineers, designers, and business analysts needed to take ventures to the next level. Founders work with a technical project manager, a designer, and a team of engineers to build, add features, and scale the product. In unison, our team of business analysts set founders up for success in raising capital. We partner with organizations like Genesis to streamline the process for funding.

Annual grant for one faculty member to explore an industry related to their area of research with the goal of discovering near-term commercialization opportunities. Over a 12-month period, the faculty member receives a $30,000+ grant to lead a team consisting of a graduate student, undergraduate researchers / market analysts, and paired with an Industry Guide to support their efforts.

The E. Craig Nemec Elevator Challenge Award is a $1,000 prize given to the presenters of the top three elevator pitches at the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition. The award is named after Edward Craig Nemec, who began his entrepreneurial pursuits while completing his business degree at UT. Over the next 25 years, he grew it into the commercial real estate firm Pearson Group Capital Management, owners and operators of office and industrial properties.

Here at The Dallas Morning News Innovation Endowment, we are working toward innovating journalism with our students. This means creating podcasts, building bots and planning community events. These projects give students the work experience they both want and need to develop stellar careers.

The M.A. in Design focused on Health program brings together expert designers and health design specialists to teach courageous health care leaders and professionals the latest design methods underpinning revolutionary solutions for health’s most wicked problems. The program teaches learners how to become a force of innovation by using person-centered design methodologies. Students learn to prototype, test, and iterate solutions, based on measuring impact and results that matter.

We are a full-service podcasting production house that gives students from across the campus a chance to build high-quality, long-form podcasts. Our first podcast, "The Orange Tree," was a true-crime story that has exceeded 4.5 million listens. We have multiple other podcasts in production. We are open to working on projects with entities across the campus to tell your stories for a mass audience. We are working with Planet Texas, a UT research consortium, on a podcast about climate change.

The KS WEL Institute hosts monthly EmpowHER Hours for the UT community. EmpowHER hours help equip and empower our students through 1-hour presentations presented by UT Austin Alumnae. In the past, EmpowHER Hour topics ranged from Picking a Team, Interview Tips, Women in Consulting, Finding a Mentor, Investing Basics, Personal Branding, etc. You can sign up to attend EmpowHER Hours by visiting KS WEL Institute website!