Austinite of the Year

Meet the impressive winners of prestigious Austin Under 40 Awards for 2016

Austin Kaplan was named Austinite of the Year at AU40.

Photo by Joan Brook

The young professional community of Austin packed into the JW Marriott Saturday evening for the 18th annual Austin Under 40 Awards. The gala honored the city’s emerging talent in an awards ceremony featuring over 70 hard-working nominees. During the evening, 15 winners were recognized for not only their career achievements but also for their significant contributions to the community.

The prestigious title of Austinite of the Year was bestowed to lawyer Austin Kaplan. Kaplan is the founder and managing attorney at Kaplan Law Firm, which focuses on employment and civil rights issues. He represents clients on a wide-range of matters including breach of employment contract, discrimination, wage and hour violations, marriage equality, and much more. Kaplan is also president-elect of the Austin Young Lawyers Association and serves on the board of directors for the Central Texas Anti-Defamation League.

During the evening, when he also received the legal category award, Kaplan told a heartbreaking yet inspirational story about a same-sex couple who were denied a marriage license in Granbury. He informed the audience that the couple — his clients — won their case, which granted them their marriage license and sued the Hood County clerk for breaking the federal law. Kaplan was close to tears as he wrapped up his acceptance speech, displaying to those in attendance how passionate and dedicated he is to his line of work.

The 2016 Austin Under 40 winners are as follows:

Arts, Media, and Entertainment: Ghislaine “Qi Dada” Jean, Riders Against the Storm
Community Service and Nonprofit: Dr. Teresa Granillo, Con Mi Madre
Culinary Arts and Hospitality: Josh Hare, Hops & Grain
Engineering, Architecture, and Design: Stephen Delgado, Texas Engineering Solutions
Entrepreneurship and Startup: Chelle Neff, Urban Betty Salon
Financial and Insurance Services: Blake Absher, BB&T
Government and Public Affairs: Holly Deshields, McGuireWoods Consulting
Legal: Austin Kaplan, Kaplan Law Firm
Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations: Joy Schoffler, Leverage PR
Medicine, Healthcare, and Life Sciences: Sujit Iyer, Dell Children’s Medical Center
Real Estate: Patrick Ley, Equitable Commercial Realty
Sports, Wellness, and Fitness: Ashley Spence Clauer, Wanderlust Yoga
Technology and Science: Amir Husain, SparkCognition
Youth and Education: Michelle Wallis, Austin ISD
Mentor of the Year: Mitchell Jacobson, UT Austin

The annual celebration benefits the Young Men's Business League Sunshine Camps, which send thousands of low-income, high-potential children to summer camp with a focus on STEM, life skills, and outdoor education, as well as the Young Women’s Alliance Foundation, which provides academic scholarships to young women in Central Texas.

You can see the full list of nominees here.

awards young-professionals

Top of the class

UT Austin ranks among best U.S. schools for entrepreneurship in 2025

UT Austin, University of Texas at Austin, top Texas schools, best public universities, best colleges

Photo by Alexander Williams on Unsplash

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The University of Texas at Austin has earned two top-10 spots on The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s lists of the best graduate and undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies for 2025.

UT Austin's McCombs School of Business ranks seventh in the graduate category, and UT ranks second in the undergraduate category.

The school is no stranger to the prestigious national lists. In the 2024 rankings, UT also appeared as No. 2 among undergraduate programs, and No. 6 in the ranking for the best graduate programs.

This year marks the fourth time that the school has landed in the top 5 on the undergraduate side, and the 12th time in 15 years that McCombs has made the top 10 among graduate programs in the annual ranking, UT notes in a news release.

The only other schools in Texas to make either top-10 list for 2025 were Rice University (No. 1 graduate school) and the University of Houston (No. 1 undergraduate program).

Rankings for The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s 2025 lists were based on a survey of administrators at nearly 300 schools in the U.S., Canada, and Europe that offer entrepreneurship studies. Among the more than 40 factors used for the rankings were academic programs, faculty credentials, mentorship opportunities, and alumni entrepreneurship ventures.

"If the focus of the MBA program at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin were to be summed up in one word, it would be 'collaboration,'" reads the 2025 graduate schools report. "Students in more than 20 concentrations uniformly crow over its 'incredibly collaborative culture,' citing the 'supportive culture' as a top reason they ultimately picked the program. As a 'top 20 school,' the 'rigorous academic[s]' and 'focus on clean energy,' 'technology,' and 'entrepreneurship,' are other stand-out elements of the program."

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best graduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. Rice University
2. University of California-Los Angeles
3. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
4. Washington University in St. Louis
5. Babson College
6. University of Washington
7. University of Texas at Austin
8. University of Virginia
9. Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands
10. University of South Florida

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. University of Houston
2. University of Texas at Austin
3. Babson College
4. University of Washington
5. Washington University in St. Louis
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. University of Maryland-College Park
8. Miami University of Ohio
9. Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico
10. Northeastern University

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The story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

entrepreneurship rankings ut business university-texas

Austinite of the Year

Meet the impressive winners of prestigious Austin Under 40 Awards for 2016

Top of the class

UT Austin ranks among best U.S. schools for entrepreneurship in 2025

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