According to UTPA President Miguel A. Nevárez, Yang will supervise the development of undergraduate curriculum, including implementation of the new core curriculum, and provide leadership for the development and implementation of undergraduate retention, advisement and other related programs and activities.
"He will also provide direction on educational improvement efforts such as critical thinking, writing across the curriculum and multicultural/diversity curriculum integration," Nevárez said.
Yang, who came to UTPA in September 1997, received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1982. He was a faculty member at Arkansas State University from 1982 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1997 he was the program director of the Geometric Analysis Program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the National Science Foundation.