CAS Research | Texas Woman's University

Understanding the world

College of Arts & Sciences faculty leverage their research skills to better understand the world we live in and solve pressing problems, including:

studying political issues at home and abroad
discovering the impact of discipline-shaping figures in dance, the visual arts, theatre, fashion, rhetoric and literature
untangling pressing environmental issues
finding causes and cures for health problems such as breast cancer and neurodegenerative diseases
intervening in social issues through language instruction, psychology, social work and sociology
researching language, activism and gender issues
creating art, music and dance that engages and inspires

The wide range of disciplines and research approaches makes CAS unique in the way faculty connect to our communities and shape the future.

Grants

The College of Arts & Sciences accounts for 26.6% of the TWU student population, but CAS earns far more than any other TWU college or school, garnering $4,401,965 in grants in 2023-24.

CAS % of TWU grants

37.6%

CAS % of student research grants

35.9%

CAS % of Travel Assistance grants

42%

CAS won grants from HHS-NIH, National Science Foundation ,Department of Defense-Air Force, Department of Education, NASA, Council of Writing Program Administrators, the State of Texas, HHS-Administration for Children & Families and The Morris L. Lichtenstein Jr. Foundation.

In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.

— Louis Pasteur, chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist

Research is creating new knowledge.

— Neil Armstrong, astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

— Zora Neale Hurston, writer, anthropologist, folklorist and documentary filmmaker

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

— Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

— Marie Curie, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and chemist

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.

— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel-Prize winning biochemist

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

— Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and activist

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

— Thomas A. Edison, inventor and businessman

New CAS research

Jonathan Olsen

Co-authored the eighth edition of The European Union: Politics and Policies

Jackie Hoermann-Elliott

Co-edited Parenting While PhDing: Surviving and Improving the Working Conditions of Graduate Student Parents

Richard Schuster

Commission and performance of Movement for Pianist & Dancer

Islam Ebeid

Researching the intersection of artificial intelligence and the life sciences

Jessica Gullion

Co-wrote Doing Ethnography

Gabrielle P.A. Smith

Researching the intersection of social psychology, Black psychology and community-engaged scholarship

TARGET awardees

CAS earned five of the six Fall 2025 awards:

Dayna Averitt, PhD, DiAnna Hynds, PhD, and Lakeisha Lewter, PhD (Biology)
Ashley Bender, PhD, David Gardner, PhD, and Julie Libersat (Language, Culture, & Gender Studies, Computer Science, and Visual Arts)
Islam Akef Ebeid, PhD (Computer Science)
Ting Han, PhD, Yunxiang Li, PhD, and Manal Omary, PhD (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Gustavo Salazar, PhD, and David Gardner, PhD (Chemistry & Biochemistry and Computer Science)

Approximately $200,000 has been allocated for state-of-the-art equipment program to support TWU faculty. The award committee looks favorably on research equipment also used to enhance the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Student research

In 2023-24, CAS students earned 15 Student Presentation grants (44% of those won by TWU students) and made 42 Student Research Symposium presentations.

Explore with us

Take a look at our faculty and student scholars and researchers and the subjects that intrigue them.

TWU internal grant programs Dean's research scholars New research CAS student research Center for Student Research