We are now about T minus 365 days and counting to

October 12, 2012 and I am very pleased to be the guy in

Mission Control who will take the School of Engineering

into its second century. Since joining Rice in July, I have had

the pleasure of meeting with many students, faculty and

alumni. With each of these meetings I learn more about Rice

and gain more appreciation of why those closely associated

with the school are so loyal to it. Houston is very different

from Boston in many ways, and there are many things

that differentiate Rice from MIT. However, these schools

have two important things in common: great students and

outstanding faculty. I see the School of Engineering as on

track to do even greater things, and I look forward to meeting

with more of you and enlisting you in our common effort.

In this issue of Rice Engineering magazine, we take a look at

how the School is engaged in Provost George McLendon’s

three areas of focus for the university: medicine and health,

energy and the environment and global engagement. These

areas have been identified through many conversations with

Rice faculty and in the spirit of the University’s Vision for the

Second Century, they draw on the strengths of our faculty and

researchers which are linked to our proximity to the energy

industry and to Texas Medical Center, and our engagement

with universities and corporations around the world.

In this issue you can read about why there is so much excitement

around the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen and the Rice

Center for Engineering Leadership. Our students have been busy

winning competitions with their design projects fabricated in the

OEDK and RCEL is creating new courses and enabling activities

outside the classroom to develop our students’ leadership skills.

But while we celebrate our students’ successes, we mourn the

passing of Ken Oshman ’62, who with his wife, Barbara, made

the OEDK possible. Ken will be greatly missed but his deep love

of Rice and his dedication to the advancement of engineering

education will live on in the facility that bears his name.

One of the great pleasures of being a dean is to get

news of faculty and students winning recognition for their

contributions to engineering. Just this month, Richard Tapia

was named a recipient of the National Medal of Science, the

highest honor our country bestows on its scientists and

engineers. This is one of the many impressive awards you

can read about in the awards section of this issue.

I’ve attended several events put on by the Rice Engineering Alumni

and I look forward to many more. The School of Engineering benefits

greatly from the engagement of our alumni with our students and

faculty, and if you haven’t been involved, I encourage you to do

so. You’ll find a calendar of upcoming events at the end of this

issue. Come to campus and help us mark Rice’s first hundred years

and launch us into the next. We’d love to see you in attendance!

Ned

Edwin L. “Ned” Thomas William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering

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New faculty

A new twist on old technology

Batteries on the nanoscale

Tackling the complexity of biological systems

Chipping away at diagnosing disease

Going global

Rice hosts NanoJapan

RCEL gives students opportunities to lead

Philosophy of leadership informs practice

Engineers in the halls of power

OEDK inspires students to win!

Electric Owl soars in competitions

In memoriam: Ken Oshman

Student awards

Faculty awards

Jim Young retires

REA names outstanding alumni

Interview with REA president George Webb

Mastering the marriage of business and technology

REA awards picnic

Calendar of events

Parting shot

Caleb Kemere will join the faculty of the Department of

Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor

in 2012. Kemere is currently a Sloan Schwartz Postdoctoral

Fellow in the W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative

Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco.

Kemere earned a B.S. in electrical engineering

and a B.A. in economics from the University

of Maryland in 1998. From Stanford

University he earned a master’s degree and

Ph.D. in 2000 and 2005, respectively. In

2008, Kemere was awarded a Helen Hay

Whitney Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences.

His research focuses on the hippocampus, a

part of the brain critical to the formation and recall of memories. He

hopes to understand how activity and plasticity in neural circuits

underlie both learning and the ability to use learned information to

make decisions. Kemere will combine low-power embedded systems

and advanced signal processing to build systems to decode the brief

patterns of neural activity corresponding to individual memories, and

map how they are stored, recalled and used to guide behavior.

new faculty

Before joining the Rice faculty, Swarat Chaudhuri was

assistant professor of computer science and engineering at

Pennsylvania State University, starting in January 2008. He

received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from

the Indian Institute of Technology,

Kharagpur, in 2001, and a Ph.D.

in computer science from the

University of Pennsylvania in 2007.

Chaudhuri has received the National

Science Foundation CAREER Award, the

ACM SIGPLAN Outstanding Doctoral

Dissertation Award, and the Morris and

Dorothy Rubinoff Award from the University of Pennsylvania.

Chaudhuri’s research aims to bring a closer integration between

automated reasoning and the art and science of program

design. In his vision, the programmer of the future will focus

on the creative, algorithmic aspects of program design; tools

capable of automatic reasoning about programs will manage

the tedious, lower-level details. This will make programming

more accessible and fun, he says: “After all, there are tasks

that machines are simply better at. You wouldn’t want a human

to do repetitive calculations on large amounts of data.”

Herbert Levine, professor of physics at the University

of California, San Diego, will become the Hasselman

Professor of Bioengineering when he joins the faculty in

2012. Levine specializes in research on nonequilibrium

processes with applications in many biological systems.

He has developed new theoretical approaches to

explain the directed cell motion of eukaryotic cells.

Levine received his B.S. in physics

from the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology in 1976, and his M.A.

and Ph.D. in physics from Princeton

in 1977 and 1979, respectively. He

joined the faculty at UCSD in 1987.

Levine is the immediate past chair

of the American Physical Society’s

Division of Biological Physics and recently completed a

six-year term as associate editor of the Biophysical Journal.

Last spring he was elected to the National Academy of

Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society

and chair of the APS Division of Biological Physics.

Levine is co-founder and co-director of UC San Diego’s

Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, funded by the

National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Centers

program. He will move his research laboratory to Rice’s

BioScience Research Collaborative, where much of his

work will focus on cancer. He will collaborate with cancer

specialists in the Texas Medical Center to apply new

concepts from physics to cancer research and treatment.

03 RICE ENGINEERING

new faculty

On July 1, Edwin L. “Ned” Thomas became

dean of Rice University’s George R. Brown School

of Engineering. For 22 years Thomas was on

the faculty of the nation’s top-ranked Department

of Materials Science and Engineering at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

As a materials scientist and mechanical engineer,

Thomas joined the MIT faculty in 1989. Its Department

of Materials Science and Engineering has been ranked

No. 1 by U.S. News and World Report for all 22 years.

As MIT’s Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science

and Engineering, Thomas worked with electrical

engineers and physicists on photonics and nanostructure

fabrication and collaborated with synthetic polymer

chemists, chemical engineers and mechanical engineers.

In 2002 he founded MIT’s Institute for Soldier

Nanotechnologies (ISN), which has received more

than $11 million in annual funding and includes

some 60 faculty members from 12 departments. ISN

research has resulted in lightweight gear for the

military and a device to remotely detect explosives.

Co-author of the textbook The Structure of Materials

(1999), Thomas advocates “practical engineering.”

He has 14 patents, three of which are licensed

to a company he co-founded, OmniGuide, which

specializes in minimally invasive CO2 surgery. A

“perfect mirror” developed by Thomas and a student is

used in flexible, hollow-core photonic fibers for laser

surgical applications in endoscopic procedures.

Thomas is well-known for research in polymeric

materials. He served as director of MIT’s Program

in Polymer Science and Technology and as deputy

director of the MIT Microphotonics Center before

he was appointed chair of the Department of

Materials Science and Engineering in 2006.

Coming from a department with a research budget of

$35 million, 32 faculty members, 225 graduate students,

140 undergraduates and 83 postdocs, Thomas

said Rice’s engineering school is “the right size.”

“I’ll be able to remember the names and faces of

everyone on the faculty,” he said. Thomas said he

has “a good gene” for finding gifted faculty and staff.

“At Rice,” he said, “there’s a chance to move the

university forward. It’s in my DNA to lead and make

things better, and this is a great opportunity to do that.”

In addition to serving as dean, Thomas is the William

and Stephanie Sick Chair and a professor in the

Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials

Science and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

“Ned is a terrific addition to our leadership team at

Rice, and we welcome his breadth of perspective,”

President David Leebron said. “With his broad

experience and record of accomplishments, he’s

just the right person to lead our engineering

school to even higher levels of achievement.”

Before MIT, Thomas served on the chemical

engineering faculty at the University of Minnesota

and as chair of the Polymer Science and Engineering

Department at the University of Massachusetts. In

2009 he was elected to the National Academy

of Engineering and the American Academy of

Arts and Sciences. He has a B.S. in mechanical

engineering and engineering science from the

University of Massachusetts, and earned a Ph.D. in

materials science from Cornell University in 1974.

Thomas was born and raised in Attleboro, Mass.,

once known as “The Jewelry Capital of the World,”

and his father worked as a jeweler for the L.G.

Balfour Co. Thomas and his wife of 40 years, Dee,

have three daughters and three grandsons.

RICE ENGINEERING 04

Researchers from Rice and Lockheed Martin have discovered how to use silicon to radically increase the capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Sibani Lisa Biswal, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Michael Wong, a professor in the same department, and Steven Sinsabaugh, a Lockheed Martin Fellow, have enhanced silicon’s capacity to absorb lithium ions.

Their breakthrough was announced at Rice’s Buckyball Discovery Conference, part of a year-long celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the buckminsterfullerene, or carbon 60, molecule. It could become a key component for electric car batteries and large-capacity energy storage.

RICE ENGINEERING 06

“The anode, or negative, side of today’s batteries is made of graphite, which works. It’s everywhere,” Wong said. “But it’s maxed out. You can’t stuff any more lithium into graphite.”

Silicon has the highest theoretical capacity of any material for storing lithium. “It can sop up a lot of lithium, about 10 times more than carbon, which seems fantastic,” Wong said. “But after a couple of cycles of swelling and shrinking, it’s going to crack.”

Other labs have tried to solve the problem with carpets of silicon nanowires that absorb lithium like a mop soaks up water, but the Rice team took a different tack.

With Madhuri Thakur, a post-doctoral researcher in chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Mark Isaacson of Lockheed Martin, Biswal, Wong and Sinsabaugh found that putting micron-sized pores into the surface of a silicon wafer gives the material room to expand. While conventional lithium-ion batteries hold about 300 milliamp hours per gram of carbon-based anode material, treated silicon could theoretically store more than 10 times that amount.

Sinsabaugh described the breakthrough as one of the first fruits of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Nanotechnology Center of Excellence at Rice (LANCER).

Nanopores are simpler to create than silicon nanowires. The pores—a micron wide and 10 to 50 microns long—form when a positive and negative charge is applied to the sides of a silicon wafer, which then is bathed in a hydrofluoric solvent. The researchers are confident that inexpensive, plentiful silicon combined with ease of manufacture could help push their idea into the mainstream.

“There are several silicon-based anode materials that have been reported,” Biswal said. “But we think this has the potential to be low cost and easily amenable to current battery fabrication technologies.”

07 RICE ENGINEERING

The world at the nano-scale may soon follow the lead of the more familiar macro-scale and run on lithium-ion batteries. Rice University researchers have moved a step closer to creating robust, three-dimensional microbatteries that would charge faster and hold other advantages over conventional lithium-ion batteries.

The breakthrough could power new generations of remote sensors, display screens, smart cards, flexible electronics and biomedical devices.

Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering, and his colleagues found a way to fabricate the cathode, electrolyte and anode, of a hybrid electrochemical device into a single nanowire and tested an array of such nanowire energy storage devices for its electrochemical performance.

The findings were reported in the July 14, 2011, issue of the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

Ajayan and his colleagues tested two versions of the battery/supercapacitor hybrid. The first combines nickel/tin anode, polyethylene oxide (PEO) electrolyte and polyaniline cathode layers. The second packs the same capabilities into a single nanowire. The researchers built centimeter-scale arrays containing thousands of nanowire devices, each about 150 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

RICE ENGINEERING 08

Ajayan’s team has been moving toward single-nanowire devices for years. They first reported creation of three-dimensional nanobatteries in 2010. In that project, they encased vertical arrays of nickel-tin nanowires in PMMA, which served as an electrolyte and insulator. In that battery, the encased nickel-tin was the anode but the cathode was outside.

They eventually settled on an easily synthesized polymer known as polyaniline (PANI) as their cathode. The new process tucks the cathode inside the nanowires, Ajayan said.

“The idea here is to fabricate nanowire energy storage devices with ultrathin separation between the electrodes,” said Arava Leela Mohana Reddy, a Rice research scientist and co-author of the paper. “This affects the electrochemical behavior of the device. Our device could be a very useful tool to probe nanoscale phenomena.”

The team’s experimental batteries are some 50 microns tall—roughly the diameter of a human hair. Theoretically, the nanowire energy storage devices can be as long and wide as the templates allow.

The nanowire devices show good capacity; the researchers are fine-tuning the materials to increase their ability to repeatedly charge and discharge, which now drops off after about 20 cycles. “Optimization of the polymer separator and its thickness and an exploration of different electrode systems could lead to improvements,” Sanketh Gowda, the paper’s lead author said.

The Hartley Family Foundation, Rice University, National Institutes of Health, Army Research Office and the Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative supported the research.

By definition, systems and synthetic biology

(SSB) is multi-disciplinary, an emerging

field of study bridging research in biological

systems at different levels, including cellular

and molecular, and straddling conventional

engineering and scientific bodies of knowledge.

“From sequencing the genome to learning which

genes cause which diseases and then figuring

out ways to treat them, is a huge job. It is a

multistage and interdisciplinary process, and

that’s what SSB is about,” said Marek Kimmel,

professor of statistics and bioengineering and a

founding member of the newly organized Rice

Systems and Synthetic Biology Group (RSSBG).

The group reflects this disciplinary diversity. Included

from the school of engineering are faculty members

in bioengineering, chemical and biomolecular

engineering, computer science and statistics. From

the school of natural science come members of

the biochemistry and cell biology, chemistry, and

ecology and evolutionary biology departments.

The aim of systems biology is to deepen understanding

of how biological components interact to produce

physiological responses and behaviors. In the

words of Oleg Igoshin, another founding member of

RSSBG and assistant professor of bioengineering:

“It’s an attempt to unify our understanding of

biological processes. We have molecules, we have

cells and tissues, but instead of focusing on the

parts, we focus on the interaction of the parts.”

Synthetic biology is the construction of new cellular

pathways to create desired behaviors. If systems

biologists take a “top-down” view of the cell,

synthetic biologists approach it from the bottom-up,

working to understand and use cellular and genetic

regulatory mechanisms at a fundamental level.

Taken together, systems biology and synthetic biology

overlap with the approach called quantitative biology.

One of the goals is a reliable computational model

of the cell, and another is an integrated “systems

physiology” model of the entire organism.

Genotype and phenotypeBiologists are careful to distinguish between genotype and phenotype, an organism’s

genetic inheritance and the way that inheritance is expressed. Our genotype is

the information, transmitted in the form of DNA, passed along by our parents. Our

phenotype is the outward expression of that information, everything from the color of

our hair to our metabolic rates.

09 RICE ENGINEERING

“People in systems biology are excited about what they call

predictive, preventive, personalized medicine. There’s a potential to

transform medicine by decreasing morbidity and mortality of chronic

diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and diabetes,” Igoshin said.

Some of the science begins to sound like science fiction. Jeff

Tabor, assistant professor of bioengineering, has helped develop

“bacterial photography”—microorganisms programmed to act as a

biological film capable of genetically “printing” an image of light.

“My interest is in programming the behaviors of cells and organisms

using synthetic genetic circuits,” he said. “We are learning so much

so fast, we’re not even certain about all the practical applications.”

Tabor says his fundamental interest lies in understanding the

biological “design principles,” an organism’s rules of organization.

“That may sound abstract but our understanding of such things

has broad applications in science, medicine and biotechnology.

Science always begins with understanding how things work, which

enables us to figure out how things can work for us,” Tabor said.

Yousif Shamoo, associate professor of biochemistry and cell

biology and a founding member of RSSBG, agreed:

“The way we’ve trained future generations of researchers to tackle

biological problems has sometimes lagged behind, in part because

emerging research challenges require training in multiple disciplines.”

Sequencing the human genome was only the

beginning of the process, Shamoo said. That

accomplishment served to highlight the

underlying complexity of biological systems.

“How can we begin to understand the vast networks

of interacting parts that translate genotypes into

phenotypes? That’s an enormous step,” Shamoo said.

The new hybrid discipline aims at uncovering

fundamental information about biological systems,

and then using that knowledge in real-world

applications. Kimmel, for instance, sees its promise

in understanding and treating cancer. Igoshin sees

applications to tuberculosis and other diseases.

Ramon Gonzalez, associate professor of chemical

and biomolecular engineering, and of bioengineering,

explores its application in the development of biofuels.

“We are interested in how biological molecules

communicate with each other,” Gonzalez said. ”How

does this communication encode the processing

of information? I think we are still in the infancy

of this area. Systems and synthetic biology may

hold the key to solving many of the world’s energy

problems and, of course, medical problems.”

RICE ENGINEERING 10

The research of Matthew Bennett, assistant professor

of biochemistry and cell biology, straddles the

boundaries between experimental and theoretical

molecular systems biology. Much of his work

focuses on the dynamics of gene regulation.

“I’m interested in the creation of rationally designed

gene networks for practical applications and

fundamental science,” Bennett said.

He uses both experimental and computational

approaches to study E. coli and two varieties of yeast

to understand transcriptional signaling networks

critical to cellular decision-making processes. His

lab creates mathematical models to interpret and

predict cellular phenomena and design synthetic gene

networks. This research will ultimately illuminate how

the genotype of a cell manifests as a phenotype.

“My ultimate goal is the elucidation of the fundamental

mechanisms that govern gene regulation at all levels,” he

said. “This is very basic science which we’re only just

beginning to understand, but it promises to have many

applications for engineers in medicine and biotechnology.”

11 RICE ENGINEERING

Laura Segatori, the T.N. Law Assistant Professor in

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, researches the

relationship between protein folding and disease. She

started out working closer to the synthetic side of the

new discipline but has grown more systems-minded.

“Proteins are the main building blocks of living systems and

mediate all chemical reactions that control life. They start as

chains of amino acids that take on distinct configurations—a

process not yet understood. If proteins misfold, they

can aggregate and this can lead to disease,” she said.

Associated with the problem are Parkinson’s,

Alzheimer’s, Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s disease.

Segatori and others in her lab study and model the

pathways that facilitate cellular protein folding. Proteins

misfold even in healthy people, Segatori said, and cells

have an efficient system for preventing the formation

of aggregates and eliminating misfolded proteins. But

the system can break down, Segatori said, “and

that’s one of the problems we want to solve.”

In a word, the lab of Amina A. Qutub, assistant professor

of bioengineering, studies oxygen. “All the leading

diseases in the developed world involve the body’s

response to low oxygen, including neurodegenerative

diseases and cancer. We study how the body responds

to low oxygen, employing methods from cell biology,

computer science and engineering,” she said.

In one project, Qutub studies the brain’s repair system to

better understand and design new treatments for stroke,

neurodegenerative diseases and brain injury. The goal

is to discover patterns in cell behavior during new brain

capillary formation. “We model brain and blood vessel cells

as miniature self-adapting robots, or agents,” Qutub said.

With researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, she

also researches acute myeloid leukemia. Using statistics

and mathematical analysis to study proteins from more than

500 patients, she characterizes unique signaling pathways.

“We hope to find new drug targets to treat leukemia and

tailor the treatments to particular patients,” she said.

Microsponges derived from seaweed hold promise in

diagnosing heart disease, cancers, HIV and other diseases

quickly and more inexpensively than current clinical methods.

The microsponges are an essential component

of Rice University’s Programmable Bio-Nano-

Chip (PBNC) and the focus of a paper in the

March 7, 2011, issue of the journal Small.

Written by John McDevitt, the Brown-Wiess Professor in

Bioengineering and Chemistry, and colleagues at Rice’s

BioScience Research Collaborative, the paper suggests

PBNCs could become a mainstream diagnostic tool.

PBNCs are the focus of several human clinical trials

involving cardiovascular disease, cancer and drug

abuse. One chip designed to detect heart attacks using a

patient’s saliva is being tested at the Michael E. DeBakey

VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC) in collaboration with

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston.

PBNCs capture biomarkers in blood, saliva and other

bodily fluids, and sequester them in sponges set in

an array of inverted pyramid-shaped funnels in the

microprocessor heart of the credit card-sized PBNC.

When a fluid sample is put into the disposable device,

microfluidic channels direct it to the sponges, which are infused

with antibodies that detect and capture specific biomarkers.

They can be analyzed within minutes using a microscope

and computer built into a portable, toaster-sized reader.

The microsponges are 280-micrometer beads of agarose, an

inexpensive material derived from seaweed, and often used

as a matrix for growing live cells or capturing proteins.

Agarose captures a variety of targets from large protein

biomarkers to tiny drug metabolites. In the lab, agarose

starts as a powder, like Jell-O. Mixed with hot water, it can be

formed into gels or solids of any size. The size of the pores

and channels in agarose can be reduced to the nanoscale.

The challenge, McDevitt said, was defining a new concept

for quickly and efficiently capturing and detecting biomarkers

within a microfluidic circuit. His solution is a network of

microsponges with tailored pore sizes and nano-nets of

agarose fibers. The sponge-like quality allows fluid to be

processed quickly, while the nano-net provides a huge surface

area that can be used to generate optical signals 1,000

times greater than conventional refrigerator-sized devices.

13 RICE ENGINEERING

“Ultimately, PBNCs will enable rapid, cost-effective

diagnostic tests for patients in an emergency room, an

ambulance or those being treated in their own homes.”

—John McDevitt

The team found that agarose beads with a diameter of about 280

micrometers are ideal for real-world applications and can be mass-

produced inexpensively. Agarose beads retain efficiency at capturing

biomarkers, are easy to handle and don’t require specialized optics.

“We create an ultrahigh-surface-area microsponge that collects

a large amount of material,” McDevitt said. “The sponge is

like a jellyfish with tentacles that capture the biomarkers.”

The agarose bead is engineered to become invisible in water.

“That makes it an ideal environment to capture biomarkers,

because the matrix doesn’t get in the way of visualizing the

contents. This is a nice use of novel biomaterials that are cheap

as dirt, yet yield powerful performance,” McDevitt said.

Ultimately, he said, PBNCs will enable rapid, cost-effective

diagnostic tests for patients in an emergency room, an

ambulance or those being treated in their own homes.

Someday, the chips may permit quick, simple testing of

the healthy to look for early warning signs of disease.

Last spring, Rice offered for the first time a practical course in

microfluidics, the basis for “lab-on-a-chip” technologies. Under

McDevitt’s supervision, 11 undergraduates and four graduate

students finished construction of their own devices in the wet

lab at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK).

Lectures were given at the BioScience Research Collaborative

and students worked at the OEDK on biosensors based on

three materials: paper, laminates and polydimethylsiloxane, a

silicon-based organic polymer. “Almost half the students told

me that this course is going to change their career decisions.

Some will go on to study microfluidics, and others are thinking of

practicing medicine, but now they’re open-minded to the methods

and devices that can be put into practice,” McDevitt said.

Co-authors of the Small paper included first author Jesse

Jokerst, a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at

Stanford University; postdoctoral students James Camp, Jorge

Wong, Alexis Lennart, Amanda Pollard and Yanjie Zhou, all of the

departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of

Texas at Austin; Mehnaaz Ali, an Assistant Professor of chemistry

at Xavier University; and from the McDevitt Lab at Rice: Pierre

Floriano, director of microfluidics and image and data analysis;

Nicolaos Christodoulides, director of assay development; research

scientist Glennon Simmons and graduate student Jie Chou.

The National Institutes of Health, through the National Institute

of Dental and Craniofacial Research, funded the research.

RICE ENGINEERING 14

“... our students need to have global exposure as part of their professional engineering preparation.”

—Dean Ned Thomas

GOING GLOBAL

Rice University Provost George McLendon is

discussing international strategies, and how the

marketplace is changing the way we work and

interact. When he came to Rice from Duke in

September 2010, he spent time meeting with faculty

and other stakeholders, gathering their thoughts

about what Rice could or should do to enhance its

international distinction, as envisioned by the Vision

for the Second Century, the strategic plan for Rice’s

second hundred years. Across the board, three

topics clearly emerged: creating broad strategies for

bioscience and health, energy and the environment,

and building a stronger international strategy.

Task forces from across the university are working on

how those strategies might take shape and McLendon

feels positive that the spirit of collaboration will be a

boost to the process. In the meantime, he sees the

George R. Brown School of Engineering having a

great deal to contribute to Rice’s international vision.

“There are multiple parts to this, obviously,” he

says. “We’re talking about research strategies,

education strategies that are distinct for

undergraduates and graduate students, outreach

strategies, branding. They are all interrelated.”

McLendon says that Rice is working to create a series

of international partnerships with universities around

the world that will enhance research and educational

opportunities for Rice engineering students and faculty.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed with

Peking University, one of China’s leading institutions

of higher education, to create research opportunities

in nanotechnology and nanoscience and engineering.

Rice is also working on building relationships with

universities in Brazil, France and the United Kingdom

that would allow a strengthened collaborative

structure between researchers at Rice and abroad.

“Most of our expert researchers at Rice have collaborated

with faculty and groups at other institutions around

the world,” says McLendon. “Our focus on building

international strategies is a way to use these networks

so that we’re enhancing our strengths and learning

more about new ideas and new instruments for research

that are being used by our international colleagues.”

Dean of Engineering Edwin “Ned” Thomas agrees

with McLendon’s assessment and approach.

“Coordinating existing collaborations and defining

new ones in key areas with top quality institutes is

necessary in order to stay at the forefront of basic

science and technology in the new ‘flat world’ and

our students need to have global exposure as part

of their professional engineering preparation.”

“All great universities in the 21st century will be global,”

says McLendon. “And we at Rice are looking at ways

to give our students the most options to prepare

them for a global life, and offer experiences for our

faculty to strengthen their research networks.”

15 RICE ENGINEERING

Rice hosts NanoJapan

For the first five summers of its existence, NanoJapan sent

groups of American undergraduates to work as interns in

Japanese universities and national labs, doing research in

nanotechology and studying the nation’s language and culture.

That plan abruptly changed last March 11 when a powerful

earthquake struck off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, triggering a

tsunami that claimed thousands of lives and disrupted much

of the country, including its university research laboratories.

“We made decisions very quickly. By April 1 we had reversed

the program. We were inviting Japanese students to do

research at Rice,” said the founder of NanoJapan, Junichiro

Kono, professor in electrical and computer engineering and of

physics and astronomy.

By late in May, 25 Japanese undergraduates and graduate

students had arrived to spend two months of intensive study on

the Rice University campus. Joining them were the 14

American students already enrolled in the program.

“We believed the best way to support Japan was to continue to

conduct business as usual,” Kono said, “but some of our

partner labs, especially those at Tohoku University, were

severely affected by the earthquake and not ready to host any

students. In the end, we decided this reverse program was the

best way to address the situation.”

Kono worked closely with colleagues in the Rice schools of

engineering and natural sciences to place each student in an

adviser’s research lab appropriate to his or her academic

background and research interests.

“The advisers were eager to support our program. Many of

them had close research collaborators in Japan who were also

affected by the earthquake and tsunami,” NanoJapan program

administrator Sarah Phillips said.

Some student projects involved the fabrication and

characterization of nanostructures and nanomaterials, in

particular carbon-based materials such as nanotubes and

graphene.

“There was emphasis on the interaction of terahertz radiation

with electrons in nanosystems,” Phillips said.

Students also submitted abstracts to the Rice Quantum

Institute’s Summer Research Colloquium held in August. The

program encourages intercultural exchanges. Students were

housed at Rice’s graduate student apartments, and many

American students had Japanese roommates.

“There’s a lot of interaction between U.S .and Japanese

students in our program,” Phillips said. “It’s rare to see one of

our students alone—they’re almost always with at least one

other NanoJapan student.”

NanoJapan started in 2005 with funding from the NSF’s

Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE)

initiative. The program is open to students from all U.S.

universities and combines a traditional study-abroad experience

in Japan with an undergraduate research internship in

nanotechnology.

About 15 American students customarily take part in the

12-week program. Once in Tokyo, students undergo three

weeks of intensive language training, three hours each day.

Kono, a native of Japan, visits host labs before students arrive.

He receives weekly reports from each student and regularly

speaks with faculty hosts.

In 2010, PIRE awarded the program a new five-year grant. In

2008, NanoJapan received the Institute of International

Education’s (IIE) prestigious Andrew Heiskell Award for

Innovation in International Education.

To learn more about NanoJapan go to

http://www.nanojapan.rice.edu.

RICE ENGINEERING 16

upcoming RcEL EvEnts

Engineering Houston’s FutureNovember 11-12, 2011

Organized by Rice engineering students, this two-day conference is free and open

to the public. Speakers will include leaders in local government and business.

Elevator Pitch CompetitionNovember 17, 2011

Engineering student design teams have 60 seconds to pitch their

projects and convince judges of the commercialization potential of

their projects. This event is free and open to the public.

For more information on these events and other RCEL activities, see rcel.rice.edu.

When Rice University alumni John ’73 and Ann ’75

Doerr made a $15-million gift to found the Rice Center

for Engineering Leadership (RCEL), they hoped to instill

in Rice engineering students the foresight to identify

the world’s most pressing problems, the resolve to

tackle them and a passion for innovative solutions.

“The Center is here to challenge you to do more and be more,”

John Doerr said last fall in a presentation to Rice students,

faculty and staff celebrating RCEL’s founding. “Engage with

the Center, engage with the projects, figure out how you can

be the most powerful leader you can possibly be. In the next

chapter of your life, I think you’re going to be judged on your

ability to listen actively and think critically … you’re going to be

judged on your ability to communicate, to think and speak on

your feet, to debate the merits of the great issues of our times,

and to do so in small groups, in large groups and in teams.”

Over the last year, Doerr’s challenge to students

has played out across the George R. Brown School

of Engineering as RCEL has established new

courses, supported internships, funded engineering

student trips, hired faculty and prepared to open

offices in Abercrombie Hall. These activities have

enabled an expanded experience for students,

said Mark Embree, RCEL’s director and professor

of computational and applied mathematics.

“Our programs draw students from across the

school to work together,” Embree said. Thus,

some of the most interesting students in the

school—who previously would’ve only met

through serendipity—are now placed side by

side. It makes for interesting conversations

about topics that span disciplines.”

R ICE CENTER FORENGINEERING LEADERSHIP

RcEL givEs studEnts

oppoRtunitiEs to LEad, REsouRcEs to ExcEL

17 RICE ENGINEERING

Among the programs are three new courses introduced in Spring

2010. ENGI 120 is a design course giving freshmen the opportunity

to work in teams with real-world clients. The course is coupled with

ENGI 315/316, a two-semester sequence that educates upper-class

students about leadership. These “apprentice leaders” then coach

teams of freshmen in ENGI 120 as they address design problems. Last

Spring, one freshman team worked with physicians and therapists

at Shriners Hospital to develop two prototype devices for measuring

forearm rotation. Another drew up plans to modify the irrigation

system on the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen’s “green” roof.

Based on this successful trial run, the course will be offered twice

in the 2011-12 academic year, quadrupling the number of freshmen

given this experience in team building, leadership, design and

communication. The expansion will permit more apprentice leaders

to undertake their own two-semester intensive leadership education.

“Students worked in their teams each class period and also

substantially outside of class time,” said Professor in the Practice

Ann Saterbak, who led the course. “Almost weekly, student

groups had to turn in technical memos that captured the key

results or decisions from the previous week’s work. They

were also required to present their work informally to clients

and formally to the entire class. In the real world, especially in

industry, engineers work in teams and use these skills daily.”

Embree described the class as “a blast” and said it delivered on

two of RCEL’s key components, leadership and communication,

but accomplished even more: “It reinforced my conviction that

students must get involved in design early, to start thinking like

engineers and to start thinking of themselves as engineers.”

The Apprentice Leaders program has been RCEL’s primary

curricular focus, but RCEL plans to expand these offerings. “We

want a spirit of leadership to pervade the entire School of

Engineering,” he said. “In the coming years we seek to reach

all of our students, ideally through collaboration with core

classes throughout the curriculum, and with targeted programs

in particular areas. In particular, in the next few years, we will

increase our emphasis in public policy and entrepreneurship.”

[This freshman design course] reinforced my conviction that students must get

involved in design early, to start thinking like engineers and to start thinking of

themselves as engineers.”—Mark Embree

spEaKing oF EnginEERingoppoRtunitiEs to LEad, REsouRcEs to ExcEL

RCEL encourages students to look at challenges

around them as problems with engineering

solutions. Last fall, engineering majors took

part in a seminar called “Short Talks on Big

Problems” in which they were required to

research issues related to engineering, science

and public policy. The students presented

their findings and proposed solutions to

guests, faculty and other students at the RCEL

inaugural celebration last November. To prepare

for the event, the students were coached by

Tracy Volz, who with Jan Hewitt, is a lecturer

in communication for RCEL. Opportunities for

improving communication under their tutelage

are now woven into the engineering curriculum:

Volz specializes in oral presentations and Hewitt’s

work with students is on effective writing.

“Presentation skills are essential,” said Embree.

“We emphasize fluent technical communications

from the outset, and provide students with proper

support to develop into able communicators.”

RICE ENGINEERING 18

For the ancient Greeks, a leader was someone gifted

with self-knowledge, one who could move others because

his own movements were measured and confident.

“Authentic leadership is rooted in the idea of living the examined

life, knowing who you are, what you want to achieve and where

you can contribute. Our job is to show Rice students how they

can develop their capacity for leadership,” said David Niño, newly

appointed Professor in the Practice of Engineering Leadership

at the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL).

Niño’s undergraduate studies at the University of Texas

at Austin were in philosophy, with emphasis on Plato

and Aristotle—an intellectual legacy he carries into his

service at Rice. In addition to his work with RCEL, he is

the faculty associate for Leadership Rice and lecturer in

management in the Jones Graduate School of Business.

“David’s qualifications are unique,” said Mark Embree, director

of RCEL and professor of computational and applied

mathematics. “He has a rich background in leadership theory

and practice, and his pedagogy is top-notch. He works

with executives and he also works with students. David

will help RCEL expand its course offerings and provide a

rich set of extracurricular experiences for our students.”

RCEL was founded in 2010 with the aid of a Rice

Centennial Campaign gift of $15 million from the Beneficus

Foundation, a private charitable organization set up by

longtime benefactors and engineering school alumni, John

and Ann Doerr. John Doerr ’73 is a venture capitalist and

Ann Doerr ’75, a longtime advocate for the environment.

Niño’s education reflects his broad range of interests and

skills. In 1989, he earned a B.A. in philosophy from the

University of Texas. In 1992, from the same university, he

took a B.B.A. in finance; in 1995, a master’s degree in Latin

American Studies; in 2002, a Ph.D. in management.

Niño has more than nine years of teaching experience at the

University of Texas at Austin and at the University of Houston-

Downtown, and 15 years teaching executives in such fields

as managerial and leadership skills, teamwork, internal and

external communications, and strategic management.

“Students at Rice are extremely bright and their technical

background is outstanding. We want them to learn how to

apply those skills in the real world, how to practice teamwork

and collaboration. By learning leadership, they learn to be

better, more creative and effective engineers,” Niño said.

He reiterates RCEL’s focus on four aspects of engineering

at Rice, while emphasizing the inherent opportunities

for leadership development: design, communication

skills, international experience and entrepreneurship.

“We want to stress interdependence, that we need each other to get

things done. Leadership is not about one person doing what he or she

wants to do. It’s about enabling collective performance,” Niño said.

inFoRms pRacticEPhilosophy of leadership

“[David Niño] has a rich background in leadership

theory and practice, and his pedagogy is top-notch.”

—Mark Embree

19 RICE ENGINEERING

EnginEERs in thE haLLs oF powER

Six engineering students at Rice University learned about public

policy this summer in Houston and Washington, D.C., through

internships sponsored by the Rice Center for Engineering

Leadership (RCEL) and the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“All of these students have the best engineering education Rice

can provide, but now they have something else,” said Mark

Embree, director of RCEL and professor of computational

and applied mathematics. “They have an education in public

policy, in the ways technology and government can work

together to solve the problems we face every day.”

Two students interned for 10 weeks with the City of Houston’s

Office of Administration and Regulatory Affairs: Vivas Kumar,

a sophomore in electrical and computer engineering, and

Robyn Moskowitz, a senior in computer science.

The pair evaluated three of the city’s IT infrastructure projects,

wrote reports on each and made recommendations. In one

of the projects, they helped identify a software vendor whose

product would enable the city to meet the email search

capabilities mandated by the Texas Public Information Act.

The students filed their reports with Alfred Moran, the

city’s Director of Administration and Regulatory Affairs,

and met with Houston Mayor Annise Parker ’78.

Four undergraduates interned in Washington, D.C., through

RCEL and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s

Jesse Jones Leadership Center. Taking part in the Summer

in DC Policy Research Internship Program were:

Rebecca Jaffe, a senior in civil and environmental

engineering; Ellory Matzner, a senior in civil and environmental

engineering and policy studies; Sailesh Prabhu, a senior in

computational and applied mathematics and mechanical

engineering; and Rahul Rekhi, a junior in bioengineering.

Jaffe, whose interests focus on environmental policy and

sustainable transport and infrastructure, was recommended

for participation in the program by political science

professor Bob Stein. She interned at EMBARQ, the Center

for Sustainable Transport of the World Resources Institute.

“My project involved designing a model for mass transit

and then creating specific policy recommendations to

supplement the designs. One component of my project

was to statistically analyze the efficiency and safety of

different mass transit systems. This resulted in a set of

guidelines for sustainable transport that will be published

and given to policy makers worldwide,” Jaffe said.

Matzner is interested in food sustainability and

environmental policy. She worked at Defenders of

Wildlife, researching proposed agriculture legislation.

Prabhu, who is interested in space policy, researched the

comparative economic determinants of successful space

programs at NASA’s Studies and Analysis Division.

Rekhi focuses on the convergence of ethics, health, and

science and technology. He researched policy for the

Congressional Affairs Group of the Office of Legislative and

Public Affairs at the National Science Foundation. He said:

“The most important thing I learned was that the

distinction between engineering and policy isn’t quite

as great as one might imagine. Engineering, at its

core, is about solving the world’s problems—from

sustainable energy to human health—and as such,

it has a natural synergy with public policy.”

Jaffe said: “I learned about the needs of a sustainable

city, but I also learned what successfully working

in D.C. was like. Just living there during this time

in our country’s history gave me a lot of real-world

knowledge I wouldn’t have gained otherwise.”

R ICE CENTER FORENGINEERING LEADERSHIP

RICE ENGINEERING 20

Team: DragonMicrosoft Imagine Cup Competition: Third Place, Mobile Game DesignEntry: Azmo the Dragon, a device to measure lung volume, connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone running Windows 7 MobileTeam members: Computer Science: JungWoo Lee, Chase Sandmann; Health Sciences: Veronica Burkel; Sociology: Pierre Elias

Team: DexterAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Bioengineering Rehabilitation Design Competition: First PlaceEntry: Dexterity-testing device to measure the ability of a patient with cerebral palsy to complete a task, the efficiency of completion, and the subject’s motion trajectoryTeam members: Mechanical Engineering: Avery Cate, Dillon Eng, Rachel Jackson; Bioengineering: Alli Scully, Jessica Scully

Team: Tru(Hb)loodBMEStart Design Competition of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance: Second PlaceEntry: Low-power, portable, filter-paper-based hemoglobinometer for measuring the amount of hemoglobin in blood samplesTeam members: Bioengineering: Carlos Elguea, Lina Hu and Miel Sundarajan; Electrical and Computer Engineering: Jeff Yeh, Aron Yu; Psychology: Laura Barg-Walkow

Team: EquiliberatorsRESNA Student Design Competition: Top Five Finalist (highest honor)Entry: Video game controller and diagnostic balance testing device for patients who cannot stand or walk without aidTeam members: Bioengineering: Drew Berger; Computer Science: Jesus Cortez, Irina Patrikeeva, Nick Zhu; Mechanical Engineering: Matthew Jones, Michelle Pyle; Studio Arts: Jennifer Humphreys

Team: LANARNCIIA BME-IDEA Design and Innovation Competition: Honorable MentionEntry: Optoluminator, a light-integrated surgical instrument for intra-illumination techniques in plastic surgeryTeam members: Bioengineering: Catherine Augello, Hector Munoz, Barbara Thorne-Thomsen, Michael Zhao

Among the 61 teams completing projects this year at the OEDK, 11 won recognition in international, national and regional competitions.

21 RICE ENGINEERING

Team: MAVerickAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) iShow: Top Ten FinalistEntry: Modular ambient energy harvesting device to be used on micro air vehicles (MAVs) in flightTeam members: Mechanical Engineering: Rhodes Coffey, Christopher Cromer, David McMahon, Stephen Williams

Team: Zikomo American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) iShow, BTB National Global Health Design Competition: Second place, both competitionsIEEE President’s Change the World Competition: Outstanding Humanitarian PrizeEntry: Automated syringe pump for neonatal careTeam members: Bioengineering: Elizabeth Carstens, Yiwen Cui, Rashmi Kamath, Clare Ouyang; Mechanical Engineering: Cynthia Sung

Team: StrikeoutGlobal National Instruments LabVIEW Student Design Competition: FinalistEntry: PitchPALS (Pitch Pressure Analysis and Logging System), to improve baseball pitching techniqueTeam members: Bioengineering: Ashley Herron; Electrical Engineering: Sharon Du, Henry Zhang; Mechanical Engineering: Pete Hoagland, Jenny Sullivan

Team: Electric OwlTexas Instruments Analog Design Competition: First placeTexas Space Grants Consortium Design Challenge: Top Design Team, Best Next-generation NASA Project, plus six other awardsEntry: Full-custom set of avionics as a technology demonstration for unmanned aerial vehicle capable of exploring MarsTeam members: Computer science: Robert Brockman; Electrical Engineering: Anthony Austin, Jeffrey Bridge, Peter Hokanson

Team: infantAIRSaving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development: One of 19 finalistsEntry: Bubble continuous positive airway pressure device (bCPAP) to help infants with acute respiratory infections breatheTeam members: Bioengineering: Jocelyn Brown; MBA: Cynthia Hu, Will Pike, David Tipps, Martha Vega

Team: CardiOwlsTexas Space Grants Consortium Student Design Showcase:Top Design Team (shared with Electric Owl)Entry: A wireless, 12-lead electrocardiogram system for space habitation health monitoringTeam members: Electrical and Computer Engineering: Tara Hong, Stephen Jong, Stephen Kruzick, Brian Viel

Team: NanoSPABeyond Traditional Borders National Global Health Design Competition: Best PosterEntry: Solar-powered autoclave using nanotechnology for the resource-constrained settingTeam members: Bioengineering: Ben Lu, M.K. Quinn, Shea Thompson, Eric Kim; Mechanical Engineering: Kevin Schell

RICE ENGINEERING 22

A decade ago, two friends dreamed of exploring

Mars with an aircraft of their own design.

By 2011, they and two other students had turned Electric Owl

into an award-winning senior design project at Rice University.

“These guys have known each other a long time. They’ve

created something that is remarkable in itself, and that

could be the basis of follow-on projects,” said Gary Woods,

a professor in the practice in electrical and computer

engineering (ECE) who served as adviser to Electric Owl.

On July 12, the Electric Owl project took the $10,000 Engibous

Prize for first place in Texas Instruments’ national Analog Design

Competition. Formally called “A Fault-Tolerant UAV [unmanned

aerial vehicle] Autopilot System for Mars Exploration,” the

project was designed by four Rice students—Anthony Austin,

Jeffrey Bridge, Robert Brockman and Peter Hokanson.

“This is the first time in the five years of the contest’s history

that all four Engibous judges have selected the same winning

project on the first pass. One of the judges, [TI principal

fellow] Gene Frantz, made this comment: ‘This is so far above

what you’d normally expect from a senior design project that

it’s scary,’” said Syd Coppersmith, the TI Analog University

Marketing Manager who co-founded the contest five years ago.

Bridge and Brockman, both majors in ECE, first talked about

designing a Mars explorer in 2001 and wrote the first software

for the device in 2005. They formally started the project in early

2009, and by July of that year had drawn up a 25-page project

proposal. Austin and Hokanson joined the team in 2010.

“Robert already had the model airplane experience.

What we started with was extremely primitive, but

we got up to speed pretty quickly,” Bridge said.

The students developed a full-custom set of avionics for an

unmanned aerial vehicle that could be used to explore Mars.

Starting with a stock balsa wood airframe, they built from scratch

the entire avionics system, including fully redundant sensors,

autopilot control, automatic failover to normal radio-controlled

operation, digital telemetry and integrated ground-control software.

“They were ambitious from the start, sometimes almost

too ambitious,” Woods said. “They built redundancy into

everything. At one point last year over the Christmas break,

Jeff rewrote all the software for the operating system.”

Bridge served as project manager and designed the

low-level operating system. Brockman handled the

mechanical tooling of the plane, Austin the programming of

communication among the modules in the avionics system,

and Hokanson and Brockman the sensor programming.

“We wrote 80,000 lines of code for the project. A more typical

amount for a senior design project is 3,000 or 4,000,” Bridge said.

In April, Electric Owl was named Best Conceptual or

Computational Project at the Rice Engineering Design Showcase.

With another team from Rice, the CardiOwls, Electric Owl swept

all the major awards at the Texas Space Grants Consortium end-

of-year showcase at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on April 18.

Electric Owl was supported financially by the Department

of Electrical and Computer Engineering and by NASA

through the Texas Space Grants Consortium. The team

worked in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen.

Electric Owl soars in competit ions

23 RICE ENGINEERING

Rice University trustee, alumnus and benefactor,

M. Kenneth Oshman ’62, died Aug. 6 after a

two-year battle with cancer. He was 71.

Oshman and his wife of 49 years, Barbara, donated the lead

gift to establish the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen

(OEDK), which was dedicated in December 2008.

His namesake building, once home to the university’s central

food-service operation, has become a point of pride for the

George R. Brown School of Engineering. The OEDK gives

engineering students a facility to take design projects from

concept to prototype with easy access to a machine shop, a

classroom, a wet lab, a welding shop and conference rooms.

Oshman told the gathering at the OEDK dedication that

“Barbara, not being an engineer, was not 1,000 percent sure

we wanted to become part of something in the engineering

department again, despite my love for the school.”

The OEDK’s mission to provide cross-discipline and cross-

technology training for students in engineering, humanities, social

sciences, architecture and business won her over. “This will be

a great base for that kind of education going forward,” he said.

Maria Oden, OEDK director and a professor in the practice

of engineering education, said Oshman’s vision for the

kitchen is paying dividends. Eleven student teams among

the 61 completing projects at the kitchen this year won 12

awards in state, national and international competitions.

“My sense was that Ken initially appreciated, maybe more so

than any of us here on campus, how this facility would change

engineering education at Rice,” Oden said. “He saw from the

industry perspective what he wanted engineers to be able to do.”

A native of Kansas City, Mo., Oshman was co-founder of

the ROLM Corporation, a Silicon Valley telecommunications

company acquired by IBM in 1984. He was vice president at

IBM until 1986, and chief executive officer of Echelon Corp.,

a networking company in San Jose, Calif., until 2009. He

served as the company’s executive chairman until his death.

After graduating summa cum laude from Rice, Oshman earned

his master’s and doctorate degrees at Stanford University while

working at Sylvania Corp. He received Rice’s Distinguished Alumnus

Award and was a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Ken OshmanJuly 9,1940–August 6,2011

RICE ENGINEERING 24

Anthony P. Austin, who graduated from Rice University

in May with degrees in electrical engineering and

mathematics, was among 40 students from across

the United States to be named Marshall Scholars.

The Marshall Scholarship, founded by an Act of the British

Parliament in 1953 to commemorate the humane ideals of

the Marshall Plan, allows

intellectually distinguished

American students to pursue

two years of graduate

study at any institution in

the United Kingdom.

Austin will use the

scholarship to complete

a Master of Advanced

Study degree in Part III of

the Mathematics Tripos

at Cambridge University

and a Master of Science

in pure mathematics at

Imperial College London.

“There is a lot of good mathematical history to be enjoyed

at Cambridge. After all, it has been home to some of the

world’s most brilliant scientists and mathematicians, from

Isaac Newton to G.H. Hardy. Getting to experience this

connection to the past will be a treat,” Austin said.

He is especially interested in studying mathematical analysis

and also has a substantial interest in signal processing.

As an undergraduate, he conducted research on the

mathematics behind the physics of vibrating strings.

He intends to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics and to

become a university professor. At Rice, Austin was part

of an undergraduate engineering design team working

on an unmanned aerial vehicle to Mars, and received

the Outstanding Junior Award in electrical engineering

and the Hubert E. Bray Prize in mathematics. As a

Century Scholar at Rice, he has conducted research

with faculty members Mark Embree and Steve Cox in the

Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics.

“Aside from family members, the people who have had the most

profound influence on my development have been my teachers,

especially my calculus instructor from high school and several of

the professors at Rice. By becoming a teacher, I might be able to

do for someone else what they have done for me,” Austin said.

Marshall Scholarship

Five students, four of them in the George R. Brown School of Engineering, have received graduate fellowships to support their studies and research.

“These fellowships are highly sought after and often

come with opportunities for student internships at the

companies that sponsor them,” said Jan Odegard,

executive director of the Ken Kennedy Institute

for Information Technology at Rice University.

Yenny Chandra received the Ken Kennedy–Cray

Inc. Graduate Fellowship. Chandra is a third-year

graduate student in civil and environmental engineering

(adviser, Assistant Professor Ilinca Stanciulescu). Her

research focuses on developing numerical techniques

for simulating loss of stability in aerospace structures.

“The Ken Kennedy–Cray Graduate Fellowship fund was

established in 2007 as a tribute to both Ken’s long-time to

service to Cray as a member of our Board of Directors and

his pioneering work in compilers and parallel programming

models,” said Peter Ungaro, Cray president and CEO. “Ken

helped move our industry forward and we are very excited

that this award is providing continued support for deserving

students working in these same important areas of study.”

The Rice University Computer Science Club and

CSters–Schlumberger Fellowship was awarded to Xu

Liu, a second-year graduate student in computer science

(adviser, Professor John Mellor-Crummey), whose research

focuses on high-performance computing, especially

performance analysis for large parallel scientific programs

using novel software and hardware techniques.

Corporate-sponsored Graduate Fellowships

25 RICE ENGINEERING

Ana Watson, a graduate student in civil and

environmental engineering at Rice University, has

received a Ford Foundation Fellowship from the National

Research Council of the National Academies.

Her research focuses on energy production and consumption in

waste management. She studies the use of municipal solid waste

in various waste-to-energy

technologies for generating

electricity. This creates an

alternative renewable source of

fuel while simultaneously reducing

the amount of discarded waste.

Watson is a third-year Ph.D.

student in environmental

engineering. She earned her

B.S. in chemical engineering

in 2008 and her master’s

degree in environmental

engineering in 2009, both from

the University of Michigan.

To be eligible for a Ford Foundation Fellowship, a student

must display “superior academic achievement (such as grade

point average, class rank, honors or other designations), and

be committed to a career in teaching and research at the

college or university level.” As a Ford Fellow, Watson will

remain on the Rice campus while conducting her research.

Rahul Rekhi, a junior majoring in bioengineering, is

among the 275 American students named Goldwater

Scholars for 2011 by the Barry M. Goldwater

Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.

Rekhi conducts research in the lab of Amina Qutub, assistant

professor in bioengineering. He founded the Rice Research

Mentorship Initiative last fall

and spent the summer as a

Baker Institute/Rice Center

for Engineering Leadership

intern in Washington, D.C.

He plans to earn a Ph.D. in

bioengineering, conduct

research in computational/

systems biology and teach

at the university level.

Goldwater scholars are

selected on the basis of

academic merit from a field

of mathematics, science

and engineering students who are nominated by the faculties

of colleges and universities nationwide. The Foundation

is a federally endowed agency honoring the late Barry M.

Goldwater, who represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate. The

organization’s goal is to help outstanding students pursue

research careers in mathematics, science and engineering.

Ford FellowshipGoldwater Scholarship

Corina Serediuc received the Rice University IEEE

Student Chapter and Women Excel–Schlumberger

Fellowship. Serediuc is a fourth-year electrical and

computer engineering graduate student (adviser,

Professor Behnaam Aazhang) who researches

cooperative wireless communications.

“The selection process is quite rigorous,” said Brian

Clark, a current Schlumberger Fellow. “Schlumberger

has been pleased to provide fellowships to top

students over the past decade. We value our

relationship with Rice University, as it is one of the top

science and engineering schools in the country.”

Awarded BP High-Performance Computing Graduate Fellowships were:

Rajesh Gandham, a second-year graduate student in

computational and applied mathematics (adviser, Associate

Professor Tim Warburton). His research focuses on developing

algorithms to solve partial differential equations of industrial scale,

using parallel architectures such as graphic processing units.

Kaijian Liu, a sixth-year graduate student in earth science

(adviser, Professor Alan Levander). His research in computational

seismology focuses on teleseismic imaging/inversion of the

geological structure beneath the western United States.

“BP has been engaged with the Kennedy Institute at Rice in a number

of ways, including development of HPC education and training

material, providing equipment to computer labs and co-hosting

workshops focused on high-performance computing in the industry,”

said Odegard. “The fellowships not only help our students but are

instrumental in highlighting the HPC career opportunities in the industry.”

RICE ENGINEERING 26

Three members of the George R. Brown School of Engineering faculty have won National

Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards.

Jeffrey Jacot, assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University, adjunct professor at Baylor

College of Medicine and director of the Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering Laboratory at the Congenital

Heart Surgery Service at Texas Children’s Hospital, researches the causes of congenital heart

disease, heart defects and the development of tissue-engineered stem cells for treating infants.

He earned a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Boston University in 2005 and holds a bachelor’s degree

from the University of Colorado. From 2005 to 2008, before joining the Rice faculty, Jacot conducted research

as a postdoctoral fellow in the Cardiac Mechanics Research Group at the University of California, San Diego.

Jamie Padgett, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, teaches courses in structural analysis

and bridge engineering in extreme events, and researches new ways to assess the vulnerability of transportation

infrastructure. Her aim is to more effectively protect bridges against such hazards as earthquakes and hurricanes.

Padgett earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in

civil engineering from the University of Florida. She joined the Rice faculty in 2007 and was named one of the 14

“Best and Brightest New Faces” in engineering under the age of 30 by the National Engineers Week Foundation.

Lin Zhong, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer

science, is researching ways to increase the capacity and efficiency of such devices

as “smart phones.” He investigates mobile and embedded system design and applications,

system power analysis and optimization, and human-computer interactions.

Zhong earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 2005, and holds bachelor’s and

master’s degrees in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University. He joined the Rice faculty in 2005.

CAREER awards support the research and educational development of young scholars the NSF expects

to become leaders in their fields. The grants are usually worth about $450,000 and are among the

most competitive awards from NSF, which gives only about 400 per year across all disciplines.

NSF CAREER Awards

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Ten current and former Rice undergraduate students received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships in

2011. They and the institutions where they are pursuing doctoral degrees in engineering are:

Frank Chen, electrical and computer engineering, Stanford University

Andres Goza, mechanical engineering, California Institute of Technology

Rachel Jackson, mechanical engineering, Stanford University

Mitchell Koch, computer science, Carnegie Mellon University

Kathleen Tina Li, statistics, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Stacey Skaalure, chemical and biomolecular engineering, University of Colorado Boulder

Taylor Stevenson, bioengineering, Cornell University

Laura Tanenbaum, bioengineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citlali Tapia, civil and environmental engineering, Rice University

Catharine Shea Thompson, bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley

The fellowships recognize and support outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and

mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad. Fellows receive

a three-year annual stipend of $30,000, a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees, a one-time international travel

allowance and the freedom to conduct research at any accredited U.S. of foreign institution of graduate education.

27 RICE ENGINEERING

Richard Tapia, a Rice University mathematician and longtime

champion of diversity in U.S. education, has received the

National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama.

The medal is the highest national honor given to U.S. scientists,

and is Tapia’s second award from the White House. In 1996,

he received the inaugural Presidential Award for Excellence in

Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring; that same

year he earned a presidential appointment to the National

Science Board, the nation’s highest scientific governing body.

Tapia joined the Rice faculty in 1970. He is a University

Professor, the highest academic rank at Rice, the Maxfield-

Oshman Professor in Engineering and a professor of

computational and applied mathematics. He is also director

of Rice’s Center for Excellence and Equity in Education.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Tapia grew up in Los

Angeles and was the first member of his family to attend

college. He excelled in math and science and earned

international acclaim for his research into numerical

optimization methods. For this work, Tapia became the first

Hispanic elected to the National Academy of Engineering,

in 1992. Tapia has authored or co-authored two books

and more than 100 mathematical research papers.

“I never thought that this would happen,” Tapia said. “I

am extremely honored. When I look at the list of the

mathematicians, computer scientists and statisticians that

have won the National Medal of Science, I’m totally humbled.”

Tapia has directed or co-directed more underrepresented

minority and women doctoral students in mathematics

than anyone in the country. Due partly to his efforts, Rice’s

Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics

has graduated more than double the national average of

minority and female Ph.D. students for more than a decade.

Tapia’s awards include the Lifetime Mentor Award from the

American Association for the Advancement of Science, the

Distinguished Service to the Profession Award from the Society

for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Distinguished

Public Service Award from the American Mathematical Society,

and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society

for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in

Science. He is the first academician to be named Hispanic

Engineer of the Year by Hispanic Engineer Magazine.

Established in 1959, the National Medal of Science is

awarded by the president in recognition of outstanding

contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological,

mathematical, engineering, behavioral and social sciences.

Recipients are selected by a 12-member committee of

scientists and engineers appointed by the president and

administered by the National Science Foundation.

Tapia received the medal, which has been awarded to 468

people, at a White House ceremony in October. Earlier in the

year, Tapia won the 2011 DuPont Minorities in Engineering

Award from the American Society for Engineering Education

(ASEE), given to educators who motivate “underrepresented

students to enter and continue in engineering or engineering

technology curricula at the college or university level.”

National Medal of Science

RICE ENGINEERING 28

Farinaz Koushanfar, assistant professor in

electrical and computer engineering, was among

the 85 researchers named by President Barack

Obama to receive the Presidential Early Career

Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest

honor bestowed by the United States government

on science and engineering professionals in

the early stages of their research careers.

“Science and technology have long been at the core of

America’s economic strength and global leadership,”

President Obama said. “I am confident that these

individuals, who have shown such tremendous

promise so early in their careers, will go on to make

breakthroughs and discoveries that will continue

to move our nation forward in the years ahead.”

Koushanfar joined the Rice faculty in 2006 after

earning advanced degrees in electrical engineering and

computer science and in statistics from the University

of California, Berkeley. She has a master’s degree

from UCLA and a bachelor’s from Sharif University of

Technology in Tehran, both in electrical engineering.

Her research interests include design and optimization

of robust and secure systems, with a particular interest

in hardware-based security, digital rights management,

adaptive designs, emerging nano technologies, and

sensor-based embedded computations/systems.

Ten Federal departments and agencies nominate

scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments

show promise for assuring the preeminence of the

United States in science and engineering. President Bill

Clinton established the PECASE awards in 1996.

Koushanfar has received the Young Faculty Award from the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the central

research and development agency for the U.S. Department of

Defense. She also received the National Science Foundation

(NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award,

the NSF’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty members.

Koushanfar received the PECASE Award last

December in a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

PECASE Award

29 RICE ENGINEERING

Computer scientist Moshe Vardi has been named

a Distinguished Service Professor, one of Rice

University’s most prestigious faculty appointments.

Vardi came to Rice in 1993 and is the Karen Ostrum George

Professor in Computational Engineering and director of the

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. He was

named to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002 and

the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010, and

also serves as editor-in-chief of the Association of Computing

Machinery’s flagship publication, Communications of the ACM.

“Moshe is a remarkable colleague who has been most

helpful in helping me understand our aspirations and

opportunities at Rice,” said Rice Provost George

McLendon. “I feel very lucky to work with him.”

Vardi chaired the Department of Computer Science from 1994

to 2002. He is a member of the Rice Faculty Senate and past

chair of the Rice Graduate Council. He has served on dozens

of faculty committees, including promotion and tenure, research,

library and intellectual property. He is a past member of the

University Council and past president of the Rice chapter of

the American Association of University Professors.

A renowned logician, Vardi earned his doctorate from the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1981 and is the author

or co-author of two books and more than 400 articles.

He was honored with the 2010 Outstanding Contribution

to ACM Award for his leadership, including chairing the

organization of an influential 2006 report on overseas job

outsourcing in the software industry. Vardi is a member of the

European Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europea.

Distinguished Service Professor

Kurt Kasper, faculty fellow in bioengineering, was named winner of the

2011 Young Investigator Award by the North American chapter of the Tissue

Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS).

Kasper’s research at Rice University’s BioScience Research Collaborative focuses

on devising new materials for the regeneration of orthopedic tissue, including

bone and cartilage. He is a principal investigator on a $1.7 million grant from the

National Institutes of Health to develop an injectable mix of polymers and adult stem

cells to promote growth of new cartilage in injured knees and other joints.

He is the author of more than 35 articles and contributed to the

preparation of a textbook on biomaterials for undergraduates.

“This award is a direct reflection of Kurt’s talents in taking fundamental research forward

by developing technologies and methods that have great potential for future clinical

use,” said Antonios Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering, Chemical

and Biomolecular Engineering, director of the Center for Excellence in Tissue

Engineering, and director of the J.W. Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering.

Kasper earned his Ph.D. in bioengineering from Rice in 2006 and conducted

postdoctoral research in the Mikos lab at Rice before becoming a faculty

member in 2008. The TERMIS award will be presented to Kasper at its annual

conference and exposition to be held in Houston December 11-14.

TERMIS Young Investigator Award

RICE ENGINEERING 30

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) elected

Lydia E. Kavraki, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer

Science and professor of bioengineering, a 2010 Fellow.

She was among the 41 members honored for advancing

fundamental knowledge of computer science and innovations

in industry, commerce, entertainment and education. The ACM

cited Kavraki’s contributions to robotic motion planning and

applications of information science in computational biology.

Kavraki holds a joint appointment at Baylor College of

Medicine and is author of more than 140 papers on such

topics as robotics and computer science, computational

biology, bioinformatics and metabolic network analysis.

Kavraki is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of

Artificial Intelligence, the American Institute for Medical and

Biological Engineering, and World Technology Network. She

earlier received the ACM’s Grace Murray Hopper Award, a

National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the IEEE

Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career

Award. She is a Sloan Fellow. She won the Duncan Award

for excellence in research and teaching at Rice in 2004.

Kavraki earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science

from the University of Crete and a Ph.D. from Stanford

University, also in computer science, in 1995.

Dan Mittleman and Ray Simar have been elected fellows of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for 2011.

“This is great honor for Dan and Ray,” said Behnaam Aazhang,

J.S. Abercrombie Professor of Electrical and Computer

Engineering and department chair. “Their continuing contributions

to Rice, the department and students make them very

deserving of this important recognition from their peers.”

Mittleman, a professor, was cited for his “contributions to terahertz

radiation imaging, sensing and spectroscopy.” He joined the Rice faculty

in 1996 after holding a post-doctoral position at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories.

In 1994, Mittleman earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of

California, Berkeley. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Simar, a professor in the practice, was recognized for “leadership

in digital signal processor architecture development.” He previously

worked at Texas Instruments where he was an industry fellow and

advanced architecture development manager. Simar earned a

master’s degree in electrical engineering from Rice in 1983, and has

been teaching and doing research in digital signal processing.

The IEEE has 385,000 members in 160 countries. Fellow designation

is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the

technical community as an important career achievement.

ACM fellow

IEEE fellows

Dave McStravick, Professor in the Practice of Mechanical Engineering,

has been elected Congressional Fellow of the American Society of

Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and will spend a year in Washington,

D.C., working as a technical adviser on legislation in the U.S. Congress.

McStravick is one of two ASME Congressional Fellows in the nation’s

capital for 2011-12, and has been assigned to the office of U.S. Senator

Mark Begich (D–Alaska).

“I hope I can make a difference. It’s Washington, I know, and you can’t

change things overnight, but I hope to use my training and experience to

have a positive influence on developing a workable energy policy for this

country,” McStravick said. In addition, he would like to use his experience

in Washington to promote Rice University and greater Houston.

McStravick earned three degrees in mechanical engineering from Rice

University: a B.S. in 1965, a master’s degree in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1972.

Before joining the Rice faculty, McStravick worked for more

than 20 years in research groups developing new products

for the oil industry, resulting in 15 U. S. patents. He worked

for the company that is now ExxonMobil, and later was a

research manager for Baker Packers, a division of Baker

Hughes, supplying equipment for major oil companies.

“Rice couldn’t have a better representative than Dave McStravick.

He’s been with the department for 15 years, and has been

responsible for a host of courses. Along with being a topnotch

engineer, Dave has always worked closely with students. Rice

is fortunate to have him,” said Andrew Meade, professor and

chair of mechanical engineering and materials science.

In 1993, McStravick founded Lynes Inc., a Houston consulting

firm. For 11 years he was president, and since 2004 has served

as vice president.

McStravick became a professor in the practice at Rice

in 2006. His teaching duties have included courses on

machine design, statics and dynamics, engineering design,

and lab courses on fluid and power systems. He has also

advised many student teams in year-long design projects.

“Concerns about the environment and global warming,”

McStravick said, “led me to my current research in wind turbine

energy production.”

McStravick is a licensed Professional Engineer in Texas and

has served as an expert forensic witness in more than 25 court

cases. McStravick is a member of the American Society of

Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Petroleum Engineers

and the American Society for Engineering Education.

ASME Congressional Fellow

Kenneth R. Cox, professor in the practice

in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering,

has been named a fellow of the American

Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Cox joined the Rice faculty in 2000, when he

became a senior lecturer and laboratory coordinator

in the department of chemical engineering. He

was named a professor in the practice in 2006.

Cox earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering

from the University of Illinois in 1979. For 17

years he worked as a research engineer for the

Shell Development Company in Houston, and

for four years was an associate professor of

chemical engineering at the Ohio State University.

Cox’s research interests include colloidal

dynamics and stability, phase equilibria

of complex systems, applications of

molecular simulation, and thermodynamics

of electrolytes. For many years he has

served as the Rice AIChE student chapter

adviser. In this capacity he received the

C.M. and Demaris Hudspeth Award

for Student Life and Student Clubs.

The AIChE is the world’s largest

organization for chemical engineering

professionals with more than 40,000

members from 93 countries.

AIChE fellow

RICE ENGINEERING 32

v

Richard Baraniuk, the Victor E. Cameron Professor in Electrical and Computer

Engineering, was named winner of the 2011 Education Award by the Institute

of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Signal Processing Society.

The award was presented to Baraniuk in May at the society’s international conference

on acoustics, speech and signal processing in Prague. The IEEE is the world’s largest

technical professional society, with more than 395,000 members in 160 countries.

Baraniuk joined the Rice faculty in 1993, and in 1999 founded Connexions, one of the

first initiatives to offer free, open-source textbooks via the Web. Connexions is among the

largest open education platforms, making available more than 17,000 modules (for instance,

textbooks and journal articles). It is used by more than 2 million people each month.

Baraniuk’s research on signal and image processing is applicable in a number of areas,

including image analysis and compression, medical imaging and machine learning.

Baraniuk earned his B.S. in 1987 from the University of Manitoba, his master’s

degree in 1988 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his Ph.D. in 1992

from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering.

IEEE 2011 Education Award

Tomasz Tkaczyk, assistant professor in

bioengineering and in electrical and computer

engineering, has been honored with the 2011

Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award

by the Optical Society of America (OSA).

The award recognizes Tkaczyk’s work in

developing cost-effective optical imaging

platforms that provide multi-dimensional

biological data. The systems have broad use

in basic research and clinical diagnostics.

Tkaczyk received his Ph.D. in mechatronics from

Warsaw University of Technology in 2000. Since

joining the Rice faculty in 2007, he has combined

optics, opto-mechanics, electronics and software,

and biochemical materials to develop devices

producing high-quality images. Tkaczyk has

worked as lead investigator in developing a dual-

functioning endoscope used in cancer diagnosis.

Tkaczyk’s work was featured in OSA’s “Hot

Topics” and “Papers of the Year” in 2010. The

company Tkaczyk co-founded to commercialize

the technology, Rebellion Photonics, was

featured in Fortune magazine and selected

as winner of the Goradia Innovation Prize

by the Houston Technology Center.

Tkaczyk is author of more than 30 articles

and a textbook, Field Guide to Microscopy

(SPIE Publications, 2009). He has received

a John S. Dunn Research Foundation Award

to adapt endoscopic technologies and build

a high-resolution endoscope that images

the inner ear in vivo (2009), and a Becton-

Dickinson Professional Achievement Award

from the Association for the Advancement

of Medical Instrumentation (2010).

Tkaczyk received the Forman Award in

October at Frontiers in Optics, the OSA’s

annual meeting in San Jose, Calif.

OSA Engineering Excellence Award

33 RICE ENGINEERING

J im Young: Committed to engineering education

James F. Young, whose research focused on developing new

optical/photonic devices and who taught the popular Introduction

to Engineering Design class (fondly remembered as “Lego Lab”),

has retired from Rice University as professor of electrical and

computer engineering (ECE).

About five years ago Young switched the focus of his research to

engineering education, both undergraduate and K–12 levels,

prompted by the challenge of teaching “Lego Lab” to a mix of

engineering and non-engineering students.

“I greatly appreciated Jim’s leadership, energy and vision for the

undergraduate educational directions of the engineering school,”

said Sallie Keller, former William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the

George R. Brown School of Engineering. “Early in my term as

dean, Jim organized and led the Rice Engineering Education

Forum. The seeds of ideas from that forum helped spawn

development of the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen and the

Rice Center for Education Leadership.”

Young graduated with a B.S. and a master’s degree in electrical

engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in

1965 and 1966, respectively, and with a Ph.D. in the same

discipline from Stanford University in 1970. He spent the next

twenty years on the Stanford faculty, until he joined the Rice

faculty in 1990.

Jeff Wisoff, future NASA space-shuttle astronaut, was a

graduate student in applied physics at Stanford when he met

Young in the mid-1980s.

“We were working on short-wavelength lasers. Jim was already

on the faculty and was one of the directors of research in the lab.

We were developing new vacuum ultraviolet and high intensity

laser sources. Jim was the guy who got things done in the lab,”

said Wisoff, who in 1986 earned his Ph.D. at Stanford and

joined the ECE faculty at Rice.

Wisoff was selected by NASA for its astronaut training program

in January 1990, just months before Young also came to Rice.

“I’m sorry to say we didn’t overlap at Rice, but Jim was a good

mentor when I was still a grad student.”

Young is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a member of Tau

Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, and a registered

professional engineer. He holds two patents and has authored

more than 75 articles and published proceedings.

Young supervised the research of more than 30 graduate students.

He was a founding member of the Rice University Outreach

Council and among the first senators elected to the Rice Faculty

Senate. He helped organize teaching workshops for faculty and

served as deputy speaker during the discussions over the

possible acquisition of the Baylor College of Medicine.

As emeritus professor Young plans to continue working in

education, developing a minor in engineering science for non-

engineering students, and training secondary-school teachers to

incorporate open-ended, team-based design projects into their

classes. He and his wife, Cecily, plan to continue their close

relations with Rice undergraduates. Both are active associates of

Martel College, and have been named Outstanding Associates of

Martel and Hanszen Colleges.

Maria Byrne, the coordinator of Martel College since it opened in

2001, has known the Youngs since they became college

associates in 2005.

“Jim immediately started getting involved. He would come to lunch

and get into conversations with the students right away. He was a

mentor to some of them but he was also their friend,” she said.

v

Jim Young works with K–12 teachers, showing them how

to introduce engineering concepts in the classroom.

RICE ENGINEERING 34

The Rice Engineering Alumni (REA) board of directors has announced its 2011 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus (OEA) and Outstanding Young Engineering Alumnus (OYEA).

Honored with the OEA is R. Norris Keeler ’51, who

graduated with a B.S. in chemical engineering and

went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at the

University of Colorado and the University of California,

Berkeley, respectively. Receiving the OYEA is Aaron

Hertzmann ’96, who graduated with a B.A. in

computer science and another in art and art history.

Keeler enlisted in the U.S. Navy and completed active

duty as missile guidance and electronics officer. In 1963,

he joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

as a member of the Equation of State and Property of

Materials Group, and become its division leader.

From 1970 to 1975, Keeler headed the laboratory’s physics

department, and from 1975 to 1977 was one of the six

principal advisers to the assistant secretary of the Navy

for research and development. He attained the rank of

captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served five tours as

a unit commanding officer. Since 1979, Keeler has worked

in the private sector as a consultant and as the principal

scientific adviser of Kaman Aerospace Corporation.

He has done research in foreign science and technology

assessments, nonacoustic antisubmarine warfare, physical

oceanography, submarine laser communications, mine

detection, cryogenic engineering, high pressure physics,

electro-optics, high pressure equation of state, lidar systems

and ocean surveillance. He holds more than 20 patents

in the area of airborne lidar and laser communications.

After graduating from Rice, Hertzmann, the OYEA, went on to get a

master’s degree in 1998 and a Ph.D. in 2001, both in computer science,

from New York University. Hertzmann was an acting assistant professor in

the computer science department at the University of Washington 2001-

2002. He joined the computer science department at the University of

Toronto in 2003, and has been as associate professor there since 2007.

In 2009-2010, Hertzmann was a visiting research scientist at

Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. His work focuses on

the response of digital characters to changing environments, with

potential applications in animated films and video games.

In 2009, Hertzmann won the Young Computer Science Researcher

Award from the Canadian Association of Computer Science. The

following year he received the Steacie Prize for Natural Sciences,

awarded annually to a young scientist or engineer who makes notable

contributions to research in Canada. The prize is administered by the

trustees of the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fund, a private foundation

for the advancement of Canadian science and engineering.

Each year the REA recognizes outstanding engineering alumni in two

categories. The Outstanding Engineering Alumnus award has been

presented annually since 1974. It recognizes alumni for careers of

exceptional achievement and community service. The Outstanding

Young Engineering Alumnus award was first presented in 1996. It

recognizes the achievements of engineers under the age of 40.

REA names outstanding alumni

Rice Engineering Alumni Association Outstanding Alumni Presentation and Reception

Friday, Nov. 4, 2011 4 to 5 p.m. McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Join us to honor the REA’s 2011 Outstanding Alumnus, R. Norris Keeler ’51, and Outstanding Young Alumnus, Aaron Hertzman ’96. After a brief presentation of honors and talk by each recipient, a reception will be held in Martel Hall.

35 RICE ENGINEERING

George Webb ’88, ’91, is president of the Rice Engineering Alumni (REA) and a patent lawyer who works in Houston and Austin. While a student at Rice, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering. Recently we had a conversation with George, asking him about the REA, its ongoing activities and his involvement in the organization:

How did you get involved in the REA?

“I participated in REA events for many years, but I first

joined the REA board in 2007. A member had resigned

and I was nominated to fill the rest of his term through

2009. I was put on the Social Committee, which was

a lot of fun, and the next year I became chair of it. I

was asked to stay on the board to serve a full four-year

term, which I’m doing now. In 2010 I had the honor of

being named president-elect, and now I’m president.”

What do you see as the mission of the REA?

“Our goal is to serve as a catalyst for collaboration and

lifelong connections between alumni and the school. In

practical terms, we do this by recognizing outstanding

achievements, supporting students, and facilitating

interactions among alumni, students, faculty and staff.

These programs build connections that are academic

and professional, as with the Oshman Engineering

Design Kitchen, but also social and informal. The

school and its alumni are all doing remarkable things,

and it benefits all of us when each reinforces the other.”

What are some of your organization’s

recent accomplishments?

“We are greatly expanding the REA student awards

program, one of our flagship activities. In addition to

the scholarships we’ve traditionally given for academic

merit, this year we created new REA awards for

student research, leadership and international service.

Between those funded directly by the REA and those

that are separately endowed but REA-administered, the

REA now gives out $61,000 in scholarships. This fall

we’re starting a program to provide grants for carefully

selected student initiatives and projects outside the

classroom. This idea first came from Angela Young,

the school’s executive director of development. We

hope to begin taking applications late this fall.”

Any plans for changing the way the REA works?

“We want to increase our engagement with alumni outside Houston.

Historically, our board membership has drawn mainly from Houston,

and most REA events have been held there. Today, of our 24

board members, four live outside the city—in San Antonio, Austin,

Philadelphia and Chile. We need our most energetic alumni to

serve on the board, and we want to make sure alumni throughout

the world stay engaged with the REA and the school.”

Anything else?

“We want to enhance our communications, especially our presence on the

web and through social media. Operationally, we receive terrific support

from the Alumni Affairs office, especially Associate Director Sean Harlow,

and from Ann Lugg, communications director for the school. But we

definitely have room to grow in making sure that our message is timely,

consistent and complete in order to engage alumni most effectively.”

How are you getting along with the new dean of

the engineering school, Ned Thomas?

“Splendidly! Ned and I are both big baseball fans—I’m an Astros

season ticket-holder, and he’s a Red Sox fan from his days in

Boston. It just so happened that on the night of Ned’s first day at

Rice, July 1, the Astros hosted the Red Sox. So Ned and I went to

the game and had a great time. For the record, the Astros led most

of the way, but Boston rallied in the 7th inning to win it. Now we just

have to educate Ned that college baseball is really the pinnacle of

the sport, so that he follows the Owls with the same passion.”

Conversation with the president

RICE ENGINEERING 36

For a guy who arrived at Rice University in 1983

contemplating a career in aerospace engineering, Alex

Kazim ’87 has followed a long and circuitous path to

owning and operating an online news aggregator.

“One of the benefits of a Rice education is that it creates

engineers who are multifaceted. The world needs people

who can design software, but it also needs people who

can run a company or do venture capital,” said Alex Kazim,

founder and CEO most recently of Ongo, an online news

aggregator that pulls stories from leading news sources.

Kazim, a self-described “news junkie,” launched Ongo

in January 2011 with the help of $12 million in financing

from the Gannett Company, Inc., the New York Times

Company and the Washington Post Company.

“Ongo brings together stories from a lot of different

publications,” Kazim said. “They’re chosen by

professional editors, and people can access

it on the Web or on their mobile devices. It’s

comprehensive, it’s reliable and it’s convenient.”

The Rice alum and future business executive was born

in in 1965 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His father was

an orthopedic surgeon; his mother, a fashion designer.

The family moved to Houston when Kazim was 16

years old. A family friend and Rice graduate suggested

that Kazim, with his interest in aerospace, might also

want to attend Rice, where the field was focused

largely in the mechanical engineering department.

“So that’s what I did, but right from the start I was

also interested in computers. Bill Wilson was a god

and very influential,” said Kazim, referring to William

Wilson, who served on the electrical and computer

engineering faculty from 1972 until his retirement in

2006. During the summers while studying at Rice,

Kazim got a job designing courseware for several Rice

departments and bought his first Macintosh computer.

With his degree in mechanical engineering from Rice,

Kazim moved without a job to California in 1988, but

soon was hired by Apple as a software developer.

He remained there until the economic downturn

in 1994, when he was laid off by the company.

“It was an amazing experience that helped me later. I

learned about software, sure, but I also learned a

lot about business, about how good businesses

can succeed in Silicon Valley,” Kazim said.

Next, with several fellow Rice graduates, Kazim

decided to go into business designing video games.

He co-founded and became the CEO of the game

company Ix Entertainment. In the wake of the popular

Macintosh game Myst, Kazim and his colleagues

launched Golden Gate, a “360-Degree Non-Linear

Graphical Treasure Hunt,” in January 1996.

“It was a good game for its time. It wasn’t as

big as Myst but it still shows up once in a while.

It sold about 10,000 copies,” Kazim said.

Next, Kazim joined eBay, the online auction

and shopping website founded in 1995. Two

years later, the company received $6.7 million

in funding from Benchmark Capital, a venture

capital company. When Kazim was hired in

1998, the company had 100 employees, about

a million users and revenues of $30 million in

the United States. It went public that year.

Kazim started at eBay as director of engineering and

became vice president of marketing and business

operations for PayPal, the eBay-owned online

payment company. During his tenure in that post,

revenue increased from $200 million to $700 million.

As senior vice president of new ventures, Kazim was

charged with developing eBay’s classifieds product

offerings worldwide. Finally, he served as president

of Skype, eBay’s internet communications company.

“I was at eBay for nine years, the most exciting

growth years of the company. That’s where I learned

most of what I know about business,” Kazim said.

After leaving eBay in 2006, Kazim founded

Tokoni Inc. with his wife, Mary Lou Song, who

was eBay’s third employee. It was a social story-

sharing site they thought of as a virtual “front

porch,” and it remained in business until 2010.

“Tokoni didn’t have a whole lot of traction. We

decided to give online journalism a try, and

that’s the impetus behind Ongo,” Kazim

said. “It’s a better place to read the news.

What unifies all the various ventures I’ve been

involved in is this marriage of business and

technology, which I still find fascinating.”

Kazim and his wife have two daughters and

a son, and live in California’s Bay Area.

Mastering the marriage of business and technology

37 RICE ENGINEERING

“One of the benefits of a Rice education is that it

creates engineers who are multifaceted.”

—Alex Kazim

The 2011 Rice Engineering Alumni Student Awards Picnic in April featured the presentation of awards to students and faculty:

The Buckley-Sartwelle Scholarship in EngineeringVictor Leyva, mechanical engineering and materials science (MEMS). Endowed by Jack Boyd Buckley ’48 and Helen Sartwelle Buckley ’44 in memory of their parents

The Bob Dickson Endowed PrizeMichael Heisel, MEMS. Endowed by H. deForest Ralph ’55 and his wife Martha, with additional funding from Dale Dickson Johnson and others

The Alan J. Chapman AwardRachel Jackson, MEMSEndowed by Melbern G. ’61 and Susan M. Glasscock ’62

The Thomas Michael Panos Family Engineering Students AwardMatt Fritze, MEMSEndowed by Michael Panos ’52 and his sister, Effie

The Harrianna Butler Siebenhausen Award in EngineeringAndrew Waters, computational and applied mathematics (CAAM). Endowed by C.H. Siebenhausen ’50 in honor of his wife, Harrianna Butler

The Ralph Budd Prize for Best Engineering ThesisMark Davenport, electrical and computer engineering (ECE)In memory of Ralph Budd

The James S. Waters Creativity AwardJeffrey Bridge, ECEEndowed in 1968 by an anonymous donor in honor of James S. Waters ’17

The Hershel M. Rich Invention AwardAntonios Mikos, Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering (BIOE) and Professor of chemical and biomolecular Engineering (CHBE); Mark Wong and Simon Young of the University of Texas Dental Branch; F. Kurtis Kasper, faculty fellow in bioengineering; Patrick Spicer, Baylor College of Medicine doctoral student; James Kretlow and Meng Shi, post-doctoral fellows, BioEEndowed by Hershel M. Rich ’45, ’47 and his wife, Hilda

REA awards picnicOutstanding Senior: Jim Wang (Yangluo), CHBE and CAAM;

Distinguished Seniors: Eric Kim, BIOE; Aron Yu (Yingbo), ECE; Senior Merit Awards: Qing Hu, BioE; Michelle Conway, MEMS; Nicholas Hoeft, CHBE; Chun Wu, ECE; Maria (Marilu) Corona, CEE; Arjune Bose, CAAM

Outstanding Junior: Erin Walsh, CHBE

Distinguished Juniors: Aditya Kaddu, CHBE; John Stretton, MEMS; Junior Merit Awards: Vera Lam, CHBE; Richard Latimer, ECE; Andrew Owens, MEMS; Norman Truong, BIOE; Melanie Calzada, CEE; Amber Kunkel, CAAM

The Rice Engineering Alumni this year created three new awards to recognize student achievement:

Research Excellence Award: Benjamin Lu, BIOE

Leadership Excellence Awards: Matthew Stearns, CEE Georgia Lagoudas, BIOE

International Service: Yiwen Cui, BIOE

39 RICE ENGINEERING

Unless noted otherwise, for details of these and other events, visit the

Events link on the School of Engineering homepage: engr.rice.edu.

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information TechnologyIEEE Computer Society Ken Kennedy Award Lecture

David Kuck, Intel Fellow

November 3, 2011

Rice Center for Engineering LeadershipEngineering Houston’s Future Conference

Nov. 11-12, 2011rcel.rice.edu/EHF

Rice Center for Engineering LeadershipEngineering Elevator Pitch Competition

November 17, 2011

Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED)Advanced Coastal Models for Decision Makers and Engineers Symposium

December 7, 2011

Department of StatisticsMessages in Massive Data

Rob Tibshirani, Stanford University

January 23, 2012

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology Distinguished Lecture

Limor Fix, Intel

January 24, 2012

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology

Distinguished Lecture

Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research

February 9, 2012

DeLange Conference VIIIThe Future of the Research University in a Global Age

February 27-28, 2012http://delange.rice.edu/

Department of Computational and Applied MathematicsFinite Element Rodeo

March 2-3, 2012

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular EngineeringLeLand Lecture

Mark Davis, Caltech

March 15, 2012

Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen2012 Design Showcase

April 12, 2012

Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringAnnual Affiliates Meeting

April 18, 2012

Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED)Annual Conference

April 12-13, 2012

Department of StatisticsInterface 2012: 43rd Symposium on the Interface of Computing Science and Statistics

May 16-18, 2012

Department of StatisticsStochastic Processes in Systems Biology, Genetics and Evolution

August 15-18, 2012

Engineering Events

Events celebrating Rice’s centennial are scheduled througout the coming year. A link to the calendar is at centennial.rice.edu.

RICE ENGINEERING 40

par ting shot

Who is the little man seated beside the big machine? Can you identify

him, the building where he sits or when the anonymous photographer

captured him at his solitary post? As part of the upcoming Rice

Centennial Celebration, we ask readers to play detective and solve

the mystery. Send your answers to us at engr@rice.edu.

41 RICE ENGINEERING

credits

Rice Engineering Magazine is a production of the George R. Brown School of Engineering Office of Communications at Rice University.

Dean Edwin L. “Ned” Thomas

Associate deansJanice BordeauxGary MarfinRatna SarkarBart Sinclair

Editorial staffHolly BerettoPatrick Kurp Ann Lugg

DesignerDonald Soward

ContributorsHolly BerettoJade BoydDwight DanielsShawn HutchinsPatrick KurpMike Williams

PhotographyJeff FitlowTommy LavergneDonald Soward

Send comments or letters to the editor:Rice Engineering MagazineRice University MS 364P.O. Box 1892Houston, Texas 77251or email them to: engrnews@rice.edu