UTEP Faculty Named Senior Members of National Academy of Inventors
EL PASO, Texas (March 19, 2024) – Three faculty members at The University of Texas at El Paso have become senior members of the National Academy of Inventors’ (NAI) Class of 2024.
Marc Cox, Ph.D., Eric Freudenthal, Ph.D., and Raymond C. Rumpf, Ph.D., join a class comprised of 124 academic inventors worldwide “who have demonstrated remarkable innovation producing technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society,” according to an announcement by the NAI.
“These exceptional professors are creating new treatments for cancer to patients, new tools for people to understand each other better, and new ways to build complex 3D parts,” said UTEP President Heather Wilson. “They represent the best of what a university can do to impact the health and economy of the community we serve.”
Cox, the chair of pharmaceutical sciences within UTEP’s School of Pharmacy, has been at UTEP since 2007. Cox is renowned for his research on prostate and breast cancer, having previously been named Texas Inventor of the Year, and holds multiple patents related to the treatment of these ailments.
“This recognition demonstrates UTEP’s commitment to advancing discovery of public value and brings national attention to the many technologies being developed at UTEP with the potential to impact the health, culture, education, and economy in the region,” said Cox. “I am honored to be named to the 2024 Class of NAI Senior Members, and I am looking forward to using this platform to continue to advocate for intellectual property protection and entrepreneurship on campus and in the region.”
Freudenthal, an associate professor of computer science and a member of the biomedical engineering faculty, has been at UTEP since 2004. Freudenthal’s research has led to several patents related to intonation enhancement (IE). IE is a new form of immersive augmented reality that increases peoples’ awareness of intonation, the rise and fall of the voice while speaking. His current research investigates how and why IE seems to increase people’s ability to express and discern nuance in spoken communication. His El Paso-based tech startup plans to launch consumer products that boost peoples’ “emotional intelligence” by the end of 2024.
“I proposed IE to cure my tin ear with the hope that it would enable me to sing with friends,” said Freudenthal. “Now, I focus on helping people to communicate better.”
Rumpf, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been at UTEP since 2010 and leads UTEP’s EM Lab, which develops technologies in the areas of electromagnetics, photonics and hybrid 3D printing. Under Rumpf’s leadership the lab has produced numerous breakthroughs. This includes new ways to control light and being the first to automate hybrid direct-write 3D printing, which affords the unique capability to make complex 3D parts with conductors, dielectrics, magnetics and other materials placed in any manner throughout the parts.
“The EM Lab is very ambitious and inventive because of how we developed our culture to accept risk and failure in areas where the payoff could be huge,” said Rumpf.
The 2024 Class of NAI Senior Members is the organization’s largest to date and is comprised of individuals from 60 NAI member institutions across the country. Collectively, the newest class of Senior Members are named inventors on over 1,000 U.S. patents with 344 of those being licensed technologies and commercialized products, according to the NAI.
Last Updated on March 19, 2024 at 12:00 AM | Originally published March 19, 2024
By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications
