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 McLendons 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 Universitys 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. Ive 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 havent been involved, I encourage you to do so. Youll find a calendar of upcoming events at the end of this issue. Come to campus and help us mark Rices first hundred years and launch us into the next. Wed love to see you in attendance! Ned
Edwin L. Ned Thomas William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering

content
3 5 7 9 13 15 16 17 19 20 21 23 24 25 27 34 35 36 37 39 40 41
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

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 bachelors 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. Chaudhuris 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 wouldnt want a human to do repetitive calculations on large amounts of data. 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 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 masters 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.
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new faculty
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.

joined the faculty at UCSD in 1987. Levine is the immediate past chair of the American Physical Societys 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 Diegos Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, funded by the National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Centers program. He will move his research laboratory to Rices 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.

Thomas is well-known for research in polymeric materials. He served as director of MITs 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 Rices engineering school is the right size. Ill be able to remember the names and faces of everyone on the faculty, he said. Thomas said he On July 1, Edwin L. Ned Thomas became dean of Rice Universitys George R. Brown School of Engineering. For 22 years Thomas was on the faculty of the nations 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 MITs 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 MITs 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. has a good gene for finding gifted faculty and staff. At Rice, he said, theres a chance to move the university forward. Its 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, hes 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.
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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 silicons capacity to absorb lithium ions. Their breakthrough was announced at Rices 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.

The anode, or negative, side of todays batteries is made of graphite, which works. Its everywhere, Wong said. But its maxed out. You cant 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, its 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 poresa micron wide and 10 to 50 microns longform 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.

RICE ENGINEERING 06

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.

07 RICE ENGINEERING

Ajayans team has been moving toward singlenanowire 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 teams experimental batteries are some 50 microns tallroughly 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 papers lead author said. The Hartley Family Foundation, Rice University, National Institutes of Health, Army Research Office and the Department of Defenses Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative supported the research.

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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 thats 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: Its 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 phenotype

Biologists are careful to distinguish between genotype and phenotype, an organisms 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. Theres a potential to transform medicine by decreasing morbidity and mortality of chronic diseases such as cancer, Parkinsons and diabetes, Igoshin said. Some of the science begins to sound like science fiction. Jeff Tabor, assistant professor of bioengineering, has helped develop bacterial photographymicroorganisms 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, were not even certain about all the practical applications. Tabor says his fundamental interest lies in understanding the biological design principles, an organisms 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 weve 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? Thats 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 worlds energy problems and, of course, medical problems.
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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. Im 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 were only just beginning to understand, but it promises to have many applications for engineers in medicine and biotechnology.

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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 bodys 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 brains 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 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 configurationsa process not yet understood. If proteins misfold, they can aggregate and this can lead to disease, she said. Associated with the problem are Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Tay-Sachs and Gauchers 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 thats one of the problems we want to solve. 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 Universitys Programmable Bio-NanoChip (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 Rices 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 patients 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.
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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 massproduced inexpensively. Agarose beads retain efficiency at capturing biomarkers, are easy to handle and dont 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 doesnt 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 McDevitts supervision, 11 undergraduates and four graduate students finished construction of their own devices in the wet lab at Rices 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 theyre 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

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 Rices 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 Rices international vision.

GOING GLOBAL

... our students need to have global exposure as part of their professional engineering preparation. Dean Ned Thomas
There are multiple parts to this, obviously, he says. Were 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 Chinas 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 were 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 McLendons 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.

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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 nations 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.

Rice hosts NanoJapan

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 advisers 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 Institutes Summer Research Colloquium held in August. The program encourages intercultural exchanges. Students were housed at Rices graduate student apartments, and many American students had Japanese roommates. Theres a lot of interaction between U.S .and Japanese students in our program, Phillips said. Its rare to see one of our students alonetheyre almost always with at least one other NanoJapan student. NanoJapan started in 2005 with funding from the NSFs 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 Educations (IIE) prestigious Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education. To learn more about NanoJapan go to http://www.nanojapan.rice.edu.

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RICE CENTER FOR

ENGINEERING LEADERSHIP
RcEL givEs studEnts

oppoRtunitiEs to LEad, REsouRcEs to ExcEL

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 worlds 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 RCELs 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 youre going to be judged on your ability to listen actively and think critically youre 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, Doerrs 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, RCELs 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 schoolwho previously wouldve only met through serendipityare now placed side by side. It makes for interesting conversations about topics that span disciplines.

upcoming RcEL EvEnts

Engineering Houstons Future
November 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 Competition

November 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.

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[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 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 Kitchens 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 weeks 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 RCELs 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 RCELs 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. 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 Hewitts 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.

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Philosophy of leadership
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 Nio, newly appointed Professor in the Practice of Engineering Leadership at the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL). Nios undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin were in philosophy, with emphasis on Plato and Aristotlean 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. Davids 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.
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inFoRms pRacticE
Nios 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 masters degree in Latin American Studies; in 2002, a Ph.D. in management. Nio has more than nine years of teaching experience at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of HoustonDowntown, and 15 years teaching executives in such fields as managerial and leadership skills, teamwork, internal and external communications, and strategic management.

[David Nio] has a rich background in leadership theory and practice, and his pedagogy is top-notch. Mark Embree
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, Nio said. He reiterates RCELs 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. Its about enabling collective performance, Nio said.

RICE CENTER FOR

ENGINEERING LEADERSHIP

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 Houstons 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 citys 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 citys 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 Policys 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 NASAs 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 isnt quite as great as one might imagine. Engineering, at its core, is about solving the worlds problemsfrom sustainable energy to human healthand 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 countrys history gave me a lot of real-world knowledge I wouldnt have gained otherwise.
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Among the 61 teams completing projects this year at the OEDK, 11 won recognition in international, national and regional competitions.

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

Team: Dexter
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Bioengineering Rehabilitation Design Competition: First Place Entry: Dexterity-testing device to measure the ability of a patient with cerebral palsy to complete a task, the efficiency of completion, and the subjects motion trajectory Team members: Mechanical Engineering: Avery Cate, Dillon Eng, Rachel Jackson; Bioengineering: Alli Scully, Jessica Scully

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

Team: Equiliberators
RESNA 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 aid Team members: Bioengineering: Drew Berger; Computer Science: Jesus Cortez, Irina Patrikeeva, Nick Zhu; Mechanical Engineering: Matthew Jones, Michelle Pyle; Studio Arts: Jennifer Humphreys

Team: LANAR
NCIIA BME-IDEA Design and Innovation Competition: Honorable Mention Entry: Optoluminator, a light-integrated surgical instrument for intraillumination techniques in plastic surgery Team members: Bioengineering: Catherine Augello, Hector Munoz, Barbara Thorne-Thomsen, Michael Zhao

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Team: MAVerick
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) iShow: Top Ten Finalist Entry: Modular ambient energy harvesting device to be used on micro air vehicles (MAVs) in flight Team 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 competitions IEEE Presidents Change the World Competition: Outstanding Humanitarian Prize Entry: Automated syringe pump for neonatal care Team members: Bioengineering: Elizabeth Carstens, Yiwen Cui, Rashmi Kamath, Clare Ouyang; Mechanical Engineering: Cynthia Sung

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

Team: Electric Owl

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

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

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

Team: NanoSPA
Beyond Traditional Borders National Global Health Design Competition: Best Poster Entry: Solar-powered autoclave using nanotechnology for the resourceconstrained setting Team members: Bioengineering: Ben Lu, M.K. Quinn, Shea Thompson, Eric Kim; Mechanical Engineering: Kevin Schell

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Electric Owl soars in competitions

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. Theyve 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 studentsAnthony Austin, Jeffrey Bridge, Robert Brockman and Peter Hokanson. This is the first time in the five years of the contests 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 youd normally expect from a senior design project that its 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 endof-year showcase at NASAs 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.

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Ken Oshman

July 9,1940August 6,2011

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 universitys 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 OEDKs mission to provide cross-discipline and crosstechnology 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 Oshmans 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 companys executive chairman until his death. After graduating summa cum laude from Rice, Oshman earned his masters and doctorate degrees at Stanford University while working at Sylvania Corp. He received Rices Distinguished Alumnus Award and was a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

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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 worlds 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

Corporate-sponsored Graduate Fellowships

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 KennedyCray 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.
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The Ken KennedyCray Graduate Fellowship fund was established in 2007 as a tribute to both Kens 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 CStersSchlumberger 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.

Goldwater Scholarship
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 organizations goal is to help outstanding students pursue research careers in mathematics, science and engineering.

Ford Fellowship
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 masters 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.

Corina Serediuc received the Rice University IEEE Student Chapter and Women ExcelSchlumberger 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.
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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 masters 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.

NSF CAREER Awards

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 Childrens 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 bachelors 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 bachelors 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 bachelors and masters 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.

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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 Tapias 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 nations highest scientific governing body. Tapia joined the Rice faculty in 1970. He is a University Professor, the highest academic rank at Rice, the MaxfieldOshman Professor in Engineering and a professor of computational and applied mathematics. He is also director of Rices 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, Im 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, Rices 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.

National Medal of Science

Tapias 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.

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PECASE Award
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 Americas 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 masters degree from UCLA and a bachelors 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 NSFs most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. Koushanfar received the PECASE Award last December in a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

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Distinguished Service Professor

Computer scientist Moshe Vardi has been named a Distinguished Service Professor, one of Rice Universitys 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 Machinerys 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.

TERMIS Young Investigator Award

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). Kaspers research at Rice Universitys 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 Kurts 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.

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IEEE fellows
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&Ts 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 masters 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.

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 Kavrakis 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 ACMs 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 bachelors degree in computer science from the University of Crete and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, also in computer science, in 1995.

ACM fellow

ASME Congressional Fellow

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 couldnt have a better representative than Dave McStravick. Hes 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 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 nations capital for 2011-12, and has been assigned to the office of U.S. Senator Mark Begich (DAlaska). I hope I can make a difference. Its Washington, I know, and you cant 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 masters degree in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1972. 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.

AIChE 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.
RICE ENGINEERING 32

Coxs 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 worlds largest organization for chemical engineering professionals with more than 40,000 members from 93 countries.

IEEE 2011 Education Award

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 societys international conference on acoustics, speech and signal processing in Prague. The IEEE is the worlds 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. Baraniuks 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 masters 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.

OSA Engineering Excellence 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 Tkaczyks 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 dualfunctioning endoscope used in cancer diagnosis. Tkaczyks work was featured in OSAs 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 BectonDickinson 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 OSAs annual meeting in San Jose, Calif.

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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 K12 levels, prompted by the challenge of teaching Lego Lab to a mix of engineering and non-engineering students. I greatly appreciated Jims 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 masters 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.
Jim Young works with K12 teachers, showing them how to introduce engineering concepts in the classroom.

Jim Young: Committed to engineering education

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. Im sorry to say we didnt 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 nonengineering 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.
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REA names outstanding alumni

After graduating from Rice, Hertzmann, the OYEA, went on to get a masters 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 20012002. 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.

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 masters 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 laboratorys 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.
35 RICE ENGINEERING

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 REAs 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.

Conversation with the president

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 bachelors and masters 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 Im doing now. In 2010 I had the honor of being named president-elect, and now Im 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.

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 cityin 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.

What are some of your organizations recent accomplishments?

We are greatly expanding the REA student awards program, one of our flagship activities. In addition to the scholarships weve 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 were starting a program to provide grants for carefully selected student initiatives and projects outside the classroom. This idea first came from Angela Young, the schools executive director of development. We hope to begin taking applications late this fall.

How are you getting along with the new dean of the engineering school, Ned Thomas?
Splendidly! Ned and I are both big baseball fansIm an Astros season ticket-holder, and hes a Red Sox fan from his days in Boston. It just so happened that on the night of Neds 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.
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Mastering the marriage of business and technology

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. Theyre chosen by professional editors, and people can access it on the Web or on their mobile devices. Its comprehensive, its reliable and its 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 thats 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 wasnt 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 eBays classifieds product offerings worldwide. Finally, he served as president of Skype, eBays internet communications company. I was at eBay for nine years, the most exciting growth years of the company. Thats 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 eBays third employee. It was a social storysharing site they thought of as a virtual front porch, and it remained in business until 2010. Tokoni didnt have a whole lot of traction. We decided to give online journalism a try, and thats the impetus behind Ongo, Kazim said. Its a better place to read the news. What unifies all the various ventures Ive 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 Californias Bay Area.

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 Engineering
Victor Leyva, mechanical engineering and materials science (MEMS). Endowed by Jack Boyd Buckley 48 and Helen Sartwelle Buckley 44 in memory of their parents

The Ralph Budd Prize for Best Engineering Thesis

Mark Davenport, electrical and computer engineering (ECE) In memory of Ralph Budd

The Bob Dickson Endowed Prize

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

The James S. Waters Creativity Award

Jeffrey Bridge, ECE Endowed in 1968 by an anonymous donor in honor of James S. Waters 17

The Alan J. Chapman Award

Rachel Jackson, MEMS Endowed by Melbern G. 61 and Susan M. Glasscock 62

The Hershel M. Rich Invention Award

Antonios 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, postdoctoral fellows, BioE Endowed by Hershel M. Rich 45, 47 and his wife, Hilda

The Thomas Michael Panos Family Engineering Students Award

Matt Fritze, MEMS Endowed by Michael Panos 52 and his sister, Effie

The Harrianna Butler Siebenhausen Award in Engineering

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

REA awards picnic

Outstanding 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

Engineering Events
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 Technology
IEEE Computer Society Ken Kennedy Award Lecture David Kuck, Intel Fellow

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

LeLand Lecture Mark Davis, Caltech

November 3, 2011
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
Engineering Houstons Future Conference

March 15, 2012

Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen
2012 Design Showcase

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

Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
Engineering Elevator Pitch Competition

April 12, 2012

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Annual Affiliates Meeting

November 17, 2011

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

April 18, 2012

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

December 7, 2011
Department of Statistics
Messages in Massive Data Rob Tibshirani, Stanford University

April 12-13, 2012

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

January 23, 2012

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology
Distinguished Lecture Limor Fix, Intel

May 16-18, 2012

Department of Statistics
Stochastic Processes in Systems Biology, Genetics and Evolution

January 24, 2012

Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology
Distinguished Lecture Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research

August 15-18, 2012

February 9, 2012
DeLange Conference VIII
The Future of the Research University in a Global Age

February 27-28, 2012

http://delange.rice.edu/

Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics

Finite Element Rodeo

March 2-3, 2012

Events celebrating Rices centennial are scheduled througout the coming year. A link to the calendar is at centennial.rice.edu.
RICE ENGINEERING 40

parting 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 deans Janice Bordeaux Gary Marfin Ratna Sarkar Bart Sinclair Editorial staff Holly Beretto Patrick Kurp Ann Lugg Designer Donald Soward Contributors Holly Beretto Jade Boyd Dwight Daniels Shawn Hutchins Patrick Kurp Mike Williams Photography Jeff Fitlow Tommy Lavergne Donald Soward
Send comments or letters to the editor: Rice Engineering Magazine Rice University MS 364 P.O. Box 1892 Houston, Texas 77251 or email them to: engrnews@rice.edu