In the News: Comets Making Headlines

Joan Bernstein BA’08, MA’10, PhD’23 has been featured in The Dallas Morning News for being the oldest graduate, at the age of 88, to be awarded a doctorate from The University of Texas at Dallas. Bernstein didn’t complete her first college degree, an associate from a local community college, until she was in her 50s and didn’t graduate with her bachelor’s degree until 2008. To date she has been a student at UTD for 20 years. In that time, she earned a bachelor’s in literary studies and art and performance, a master’s in arts and humanities, and a doctorate in literature where she concentrated on 18th-century German writers, all from the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. Bernstein spent 12 years working on her doctorate.

Gaurav Shekhar MS’16 is a UT Dallas faculty member and alumnus who has been named to the Dallas Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list for 2023. Shekhar is director of the MS Business Analytics Program in the Naveen Jindal School of Management and an assistant instructor of information systems. His areas of research focus are IT project management, AI/machine learning, natural language and organizational leadership, and he has been instrumental in setting up student and corporate engagement programs at UT Dallas.

In the 17th annual 40 Under 40 list, DBJ newsroom staff reviewed hundreds of nominations to choose the list’s top rising North Texas business professionals in a variety of industries including academia. Shekhar was the only person selected to represent the region’s colleges and universities. The honorees will be recognized at an event July 20.

UT Dallas graduates Jacky Chao BA’22, Karlin Oei BS’20 and Sameer Ranjan MS’20 were selected as alumni winners in the 2023 Big Idea Competition hosted by the UT Dallas Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The alumni were three of 10 finalists in the business idea pitch competition that awarded $170,000 to the winners. In addition to alumni, the contest included entries from UTD students and faculty.

Chao’s winning idea was for an education technology company to empower children with hands-on creative-tech skills. Oei created a business concept to merge education, gaming and social-emotional learning to create innovative environments for those who feel left out. Ranjan pitched a business idea focusing on an AI-driven platform to aid decision-making at every important point of human life, including assisting school students in choosing a career and improving their soft skills. The 2023 Big Idea Competition finals were held May 19 on the UT Dallas campus.