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Hagler Institute for Advanced Study

Research institute at Texas A&M University

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2023)

The Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University (HIAS), formerly the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS), is a research institute at Texas A&M University^[1]inCollege Station, Texas, that brings world-renowned scholars to collaborate on frontier research with faculty and students at A&M, with particular focus on “rising star” faculty. The institute cuts across all fields of graduate study in A&M's colleges, schools and the Health Science Center. The institute integrates a visiting scholar with the relevant department endeavors and with related specialists in adjoining fields. The Institute is named in honor of Jon Hagler, a distinguished graduate of Texas A&M and a philanthropist who donated $20 million dollars to launch the endowment for the institute.

Ten years in the making, HIAS was founded by John L. Junkins, a professor of aerospace engineering, and the former interim President of Texas A&M University. His ideas for a strategy of bringing more top scholars to Texas A&M were adopted by A&M's administration in 2010, with support from the university and the Chancellor of the Texas A&M System.^[2]

The institute's first twelve classes have included six Nobel Laureates, awardees of the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize and the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, and about 110 others who have won internationally competitive research honors equivalent to or exceeding the US national academies of Science, engineering and medicine and comparable international academies such as the Academia Europaea, the Académie nationale de médecine and the Royal Society of Sciences.

Visiting scholars, Hagler Fellows or formerly known as TIAS Faculty Fellows, after nominations by tenure track faculty, five per college or school, are approved by the college or school Dean, then vetted and selected by an elected panel of University Distinguished Professors. In this way, a fit with the existing scholarship and research pursuits at A&M is ensured, as is the quality of nominees based on their notable achievements. The US science, engineering and medicine nominees must already be members of their respective national academies, all others must be judged of equivalent or higher stature in their field. Once recruited, HIAS Faculty Fellows nominally visit Texas A&M for up to 12 months, but appointments can also be distributed over several years.^[1][2][3] Hagler Faculty Fellows are provided maximum time for intellectual pursuits with A&M's faculty and students. While they give public lectures and are invited for periodic departmental or college seminars, they typically have no formal teaching assignments. Their focus is research, scholarship, providing concentrated periods of time for collaboration with A&M's faculty and for development of graduate students.^[1]

Mentorship and development of students are important aspects of HIAS.^[4][5][6] Each TIAS Faculty Fellow is assigned two graduate students with whom to collaborate on research projects. Once a Faculty nominee has been successfully recruited to visit the institute, each college nominates two or more graduate students to be reviewed by the HIAS Director for a TIAS Graduate Fellowship. HIAS graduate students conduct research with the TIAS Faculty Fellow under the supervision of the Fellow's departmental hosts.

Each Hagler Fellow has one or more faculty hosts in the nominating department to facilitate his or her visit to Texas A&M.^[1] The hosts are also frequently those whose research interests coincide with those of the Faculty Fellow and are the ones engaged in new joint research.

The institute was launched in 2011 with a startup budget from Texas A&M University System to cover the first five years of operation. Subsequently, the institute has been supported by a combination of the academic budget and a number of additional philanthropic gifts. The institute provides financial support to the Faculty Fellows with stipends consistent with their full-time salaries, housing and travel reimbursement, and significant discretionary funding to support their research activities. The first class of six scholars arrived during the 2012-2013 academic year, and the second class had nine scholars; the most recent two classes each had 14 scholars, a total of 116 scholars have been brought to date. The launch of the institute and the first two classes' credentials are highlighted in the institute's first annual report.^[1] The goal is to appoint 20 top scholars per year to Texas A&M.^[1][2]

• hias.tamu.edu

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