WINTER 2025 NEWSLETTER
SMU Corporate Engagement is your connection to SMU for cutting-edge research partnerships, strategic philanthropy, talent acquisition, and continuing and executive education. We connect companies, nonprofits and individuals to SMU faculty, students and staff who are ready to collaborate with business.
Around campus:
11th president of SMU assumes office on June 1
Early in January, the University Board of Trustees named Dr. Jay Hartzell, current president of the University of Texas at Austin, the new president of SMU. Dr. Hartzell succeeds Dr. R. Gerald Turner, who will transition into the role of president emeritus. Dr. Hartzell has a highly distinguished career in higher education, including research activities in real estate finance, corporate finance and corporate governance. He is also a former dean of UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Please read more about Dr. Hartzell’s appointment as University president here.
New dean at Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences
Late in 2024, Provost Elizabeth G. Loboa announced Dr. Janarthanan “Janan” Jayawickramarajah will be the next Elisabeth Martin Armstrong Dean of SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. Dr. Jayawickramarajah joins SMU from Tulane University, where he currently serves as senior associate dean for academic affairs and professor of chemistry in Tulane’s School of Science and Engineering. Dr. Jayawickramarajah will assume his office this June.
Update on search for new dean at Cox School of Business
The University’s search committee to bring forward a finalist to replace Dean Matthew B. Myers as the leader of the Cox School of Business has begun its work. First-round interviews are expected to occur in late January/early February, with finalist interviews taking place in mid-to-late February, and a finalist selected during the spring semester.
Exciting interdisciplinary collaboration in computational chemistry
University researchers created an open-source virtual tool, entitled SmartCADD, to accelerate matching chemical compounds to create new therapeutic drugs. Professor Elfi Kraka, head of SMU’s Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Group (CATCO), and Professor Corey Clark, assistant professor of computer science in our Lyle School of Engineering and deputy director of research at SMU Guildhall,
led a team of postdoctoral and graduate student researchers to develop SmartCADD. The tool combines artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics and computer assisted drug design to speed up screening of chemical compounds, significantly reducing drug discovery timelines. According to Professor Kraka, SmartCADD can sift through billions of chemical compounds in one day, dramatically reducing the time required to identify promising drug candidates. The tool combines deep learning models, filtering processes and explainable AI to screen chemical compound databases used to pinpoint drug leads.
This collaboration can’t occur without SMU’s high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem, powered by a NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD data center platform. The ecosystem, including NVIDIA GPUs, allows student and faculty researchers and their external partners unprecedented capacity for computational research not only in chemistry, but in additional fields such as advanced manufacturing and clean energy.
2024 Mustang Athletics enjoyed historic first few months in ACC
SMU made a fantastic debut in the Atlantic Coast Conference this past semester. The Mustang football team won the ACC regular season title in its first year in the conference. Although the team fell to Clemson in the ACC championship game, the Mustangs were selected to participate in the inaugural NCAA Division I Football Bowl Sub Division 12-team playoff. The Mustangs lost to Penn State in the first round, but are again among the top programs in the country and looking forward to another great season this fall.
Football wasn’t the only SMU athletic program to experience great success this fall. Our men’s soccer team reached the NCAA Division I Elite Eight quarterfinal round and finished the season ranked fifth overall in Division I, its highest ranking since 2005. Our women’s volleyball team earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Division I tournament and hosted the tournament’s opening two rounds for the first time in program history.
We look forward to more success this spring as our men’s and women’s basketball, golf, tennis, swimming/diving, equestrian, and track and field teams compete against ACC rivals and non-conference foes. For more about Mustang sports, click here.
Spring semester events:
We invite you to forward this newsletter to your colleagues. We’re happy to add them to our mailing list. To learn more about research activities at SMU, please follow SMU’s Research News site and LinkedIn.
Let’s talk.
Best,
Rob Strauss
Senior Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations
Tim Angell
Director for Corporate Engagement
SMU
Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations
P.O. Box 750402
Dallas, TX 75275-0402
smu.edu/CorporateEngagement
cfr@smu.edu
