Congratulations to Our 2025 Social Impact Challenge Teams! The Moritz Center is incredibly proud to celebrate the achievements of our 2025 Social Impact Challenge (SIC) cohort. From your passionate applications to your live pitches and the hard work you’ve put…
by Travis Foster If you walk past my office or a rehearsal room at UT, you might see something that looks out of place in a research-driven institution: I am likely dancing. It isn’t a performance for an audience; it is a physical…
by Sara Vandegrift What draws people in higher education so powerfully to working with students? Perhaps it’s their vivacity—that untempered enthusiasm we remember from our own younger selves, before the workforce jaded us in some ways. Students carry an ambition…
The Moritz Center for Societal Impact is proud to announce Abena Yirenya-Tawiah as a recipient of the Moritz Center Dissertation Award. The Moritz Center Dissertation Award supports doctoral students in the School of Social Work pursuing innovative, impact-oriented dissertation research…
A convening at the Cactus Café and a follow-up survey highlight the challenges and strengths of Austin’s music nonprofit ecosystem—and what it takes to sustain the people behind the sound. by Andy Langer This year marks the 35th anniversary of…
by Dr. Elisa Borah Trying to keep up with the ever-expanding AI landscape can feel overwhelming. It’s hard to stay on top of all the advances and new apps, or to know whether the information we consume is AI-generated. As…
by Erin Schumacher Each year, thousands of children in Texas grow up in foster care without ever finding a permanent home. In 2024, 860 young people aged out of the foster care system, transitioning to adulthood without the stability of…
By Baker Hamilton MD, MMSc I’m delighted to have recently come on board at the Moritz Center as the Health and Technology lead. I have other feelings about it too: hope, eagerness, and enthusiasm are present, along with a counterbalancing…
by Aaron Rochlen, Ph.D. Finding ways to merge hobbies and/or passions into work can be difficult at best, impossible at worst. And in my 20 years at UT, this has been true. Most of the time, these creative efforts to fuse…
by Emily Neimeyer Key Insights The First Problem: Substance Use and Overdose Deaths Over the past two decades, fatal overdoses have surged. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports a steady rise in fatal drug overdoses from 1999 to 2022,…
