Texas A&M geographer Kathleen O'Reilly has received a grant to study successful sanitation practices in rural India. The grant is a first for the College of Geosciences from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

A degree from Texas A&M shows the world that you've received a world-class education. But senior geophysics student Amal Al Ebrahim has found that lessons from outside of the classroom are just as important to her goal of becoming a female leader in her home country of Saudi Arabia. Texas A&M has meant joining a diverse community, serving others, and developing leadership skills, she says. She'll continue to build on these opportunities as one of the 24 students participating in this year's Academy for Future International Leaders.

Six members in the College of Geosciences were recently recognized for their contributions to the university with awards from the college and the Association of Former Students (AFS).

A recently published paper by Texas A&M oceanographer Thomas Bianchi has already been hailed by researchers on two continents as a break-through in the role microbes play in the global carbon cycle.

COLLEGE STATION—Texas A&M University figures prominently in Foreign Policy Magazine's just-announced list of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers " for 2011, with George Mitchell, a 1940 graduate, and Terry Engelder, who earned a Ph.D. in geology at Texas A&M in 1973, prominently included "for upending the geopolitics of energy." They were specifically cited for their key roles that led to the process of fracking—breaking up shale containing natural gas deposits, a development that led to releasing vast reserves of natural gas and "reordered the global balance of energy and the political power that comes with it," according to the editors of the magazine.