Rice Engineering Magazine 2014

FALL 2014
ENGINEERINGS NEW DEPARTMENT:

MATERIALS SCIENCE
AND NANOENGINEERING
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
What a year we have had in Rice Engineering! Late last year we
celebrated the creation of a new department: Materials Science
and NanoEngineering. Rice has always had very strong research in
materials and nanotechnology and the purpose of this new department
is to concentrate the focus of these areas and to produce a greater
number of the next generation of materials scientists through stronger
undergraduate and graduate programs.
Weve had a great start at this effort with the hiring of two new
faculty members (one of them just before were going to press!) and the
acquisition of new equipment. Also, we note the signicant increase
in the number of undergraduates choosing materials science as a major
since the department was formed!
Last spring, the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership hosted the
rst national conference on engineering leadership, which focused on
the rst ve years of an engineers career. We had great participation
from students and faculty from other universities that have leadership
programs and from leaders in industry and public service.
We like to think that this conference was the impetus for the American
Society for Engineering Education to establish the Engineering
Leadership Development Division shortly afterward. And adding
to RCELs momentum, the Faculty Senate just voted to approve its
new Leadership Certicate program so students who complete the
RCEL curriculum will have the certication ofcially noted on their
transcripts. This is the rst four-year engineering leadership certicate
program in Texas and one of only a few in the country!
In the area of honors, one of our distinguished faculty members was
elected to the National Academy of Engineering, we had three young
faculty members win National Science Foundation CAREER Awards
and students who won Hertz, Fulbright and Udall fellowships and
scholarships, among others.
I hope you enjoy reading about these developments and all the
exciting research were undertaking. We continue to work hard at
making the George R. Brown School of Engineering a stimulating and
great place to be!
Edwin L. Ned Thomas
William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering

Message f rom t he Dean
CONTENT
New f acul t y
New depar t ment chai r s named
Desi re to serve
Hel pi ng t he school advance
2014 COMPLETE Conf erence
Prof essi onal mast er s progr am t ur ns 40
RESEARCH
Appl yi ng chemi st r y t o energy product i on
The progr ammer s progr ammer
Keepi ng t he pi pes cl ean
Wat er t reat ment f or t he f ut ure
Smar t ski n reveal s st r ai n
Har nessi ng t he mi crobi ome
I nspi red by nat ure
New t hr ust i n engi neer i ng
Predi ct i ng soci al behavi or
Expl or i ng t he st r uct ure of net wor ks
Summer of desi gn
Ri ce EWB wi ns t wo nat i onal awards
St udent awards
Facul t y awards
St aff awards
Joe Hi ght ower 1936- 2014
Al umnus spotl i ght: Gaurav Banga
Out st andi ng al umni awards
REA Presi dent , Mi chael Evans, speaks out
Engi neer i ng cel ebr at es end- of - year pi cni c
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Rice Engineering Magazine is a
production of the George R. Brown
School of Engineering Offce of
Communications at Rice University.
Dean
Edwin L. Ned Thomas
Associate Deans
Janice Bordeaux
Walter Chapman
Keith Cooper
Gary Marfn
Ann Saterbak
Bart Sinclair
Editor
Ann Lugg
Writers
Patrick Kurp
Holly Beretto
Graphic Design
Donald Soward
Contributors
Jade Boyd
Mike Williams
Sasha Ichoonsigy
Photography
Jeff Fitlow
Tommy Lavergne
Chris Chowaniec
Donald Soward
An Le
Brandon Martin
Send comments or letters to the editor:
Rice Engineering Magazine
Rice University MS 364
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, Texas 77251
or email: engrnews@rice.edu
On the cover: MSNE core
faculty: Ned Thomas, Pulickel
Ajayan, Emilie Ringe, Boris
Yakobson, Jun Lou and
Enrique Barrera
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG 2
NEW FACULTY
Philip Ernst is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School in 2014. His
research areas include probability theory, stochastic control, stochastic optimization
and asymptotic statistics. He focuses on taking optimization problems of practical
interest in stochastic settings and abstracting these problems for use in ecology,
biology and other science elds. As a student, he published an article in the
Journal of Applied Probability. Ernst received his Bachelor of Arts degree from
Harvard in 2007 and his masters degree from the Wharton School in 2010.
Adrianna Gillman and Paul Hand are assistant professors in the Department of
Computational and Applied Mathematics. Gillman was the John Wesley Young
Research Instructor at Dartmouth Colleges Department of Mathematics. Her
research focuses on fast direct solvers for linear partial differential and integral
equations. Her computational tools are crucial to multiple science and engineering
applications, including materials science, radar, device modeling, and imaging
and remote sensing. She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science
degrees from California State University, Northridge in 2003 and 2006, respectively.
She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011.
Most recently Hand was an NSF postdoctoral fellow in MITs Department of
Mathematics. His research focuses on discovering and analyzing algorithms for signal
recovery under incomplete and inaccurate measurements. He has also worked on the
analysis and numerical simulation of partial differential equations that describe the
electrical behavior of cardiac muscle tissue. He received his Bachelor of Science degree
in applied and computational mathematics from the California Institute of Technology
in 2004 and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from New York University in 2009.
Three new faculty members have joined the George R. Brown School of Engineering.
Philip Ernst, Adrianna Gillman and Paul Hand began their careers at Rice on July 1.
Paul Hand Phi l i p Er nst Adr i anna Gi l l man
3
New Department Chai rs named
New chairs have been named for four departmentsbioengineering, electrical and computer engineering,
statistics and chemical and biomolecular engineeringin the George R. Brown School of Engineering.
The new positions took effect July 1.
Michael W. Deem, the John W. Cox Professor in Biochemical and Genetic Engineering, and professor
of physics and astronomy, is the new chair of bioengineering. Deem earned his Ph.D. in chemical
engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1994, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow in
physics at Harvard University in 1995-96. He joined the Rice faculty in 1997.
In his research, Deem uses tools from statistical physics to solve problems in natural and engineered
systems. The theoretical methods he developed have been applied to predict vaccine effectiveness and
which strain of fu to cover in annual vaccine formulations.
Deem was named a 2012-13 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and serves as director of the Ph.D. program
in Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology at Rice. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical
and Biological Engineering, American Physical Society, Biomedical Engineering Society and American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He is an associate editor of Physical Biology and Protein
Engineering Design & Selection.
Edward Knightly, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is the new chair of that department.
He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California,
Berkeley in 1996, and joined the Rice faculty that same year.
Knightly was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2009 and a Sloan
Fellow in 2001. He was the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and received
the best paper award from the Association for Computing Machinery MobiCom in 2008.
His research focuses on mobile and wireless networks with an emphasis on protocol design, performance
evaluation and at-scale feld trials. He leads the Rice Networks Group. Its current projects include
deployment, operation and management of a large-scale urban wireless network in a Houston under-
resourced community.
The new chair of statistics, Marina Vannucci, is professor of statistics and director of the Interinstitutional
Graduate Program in Biostatistics at Rice, and an adjunct faculty member of the M.D. Anderson
Cancer Center.
Vannucci earned her Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1996. Two years later she
joined the statistics department at Texas A&M University, where she became a full professor in 2005. She
was elected to the American Statistical Association in 2006 and joined the Rice faculty the following year.
Her research focuses on the theory and practice of Bayesian variable selection techniques and on
development of wavelet-based statistical models and their applications. She serves as editor-in-chief of
Bayesian Analysis, the journal of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.
Michael S. Wong, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and of chemistry, and civil and
environmental engineering, is the new chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Wongs research involves the design and engineering of new materials for catalytic and encapsulation
applications. He works with nanostructured materials, heterogeneous catalysis, and bioengineering
applications. In particular, he is interested in developing new chemical approaches to assembling
nanoparticles into functional macrostructures.
Wong earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT in 2000, did postdoctoral research at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, and joined the Rice faculty in 2001. He has a guest professorship
at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Dalian, China, for 2013-17.
The outgoing department chairs are Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Behnaam Aazhang, David W. Scott and
Walter G. Chapman, respectively.
Four graduates of the George R. Brown School of Engineering sit
on the 25-member Rice University Board of Trustees for 2014: Jay
Collins, Mark Dankberg, Lynn Elsenhans and John V. Jaggers.
In addition to serving Rice at the highest level as counselors
to University President David Leebron (who serves as an ex
ofcio member of the board) and other members of the senior
upper administration, all four remain involved with the School of
Engineering. They advise departments and the school, serve on
departmental advancement committees and use their networks to
connect engineering students with summer internships.
Problem solving and implementing solutions through teams
are as fundamental to business as they are to engineering, said
Jaggers 73, who now is managing general partner with Sevin Rosen
Funds in Dallas. My Rice engineering education was more about
how to think than acquiring specic skills.I spent four years of my
career solving electrical engineering problems, and the next 35 years
solving business problems.The specics and tools may have been
different, but the process and conceptual approach was the same.
T. Jay Collins 69 graduated with a B.A. and a masters degree
in chemical engineering. After Rice he went to work for the Shell
Oil Company and received his MBA from Harvard Graduate
School of Business in 1972. In May 2011, he retired as president
and CEO of Oceaneering International, Inc., in Houston. The
company is a global provider of oileld engineered services
and products, primarily to the offshore oil and gas industry.
Oceaneering has more than 7,900 employees in 21 countries.
Collins joined Oceaneering in 1993, serving as senior vice
president and chief nancial ofcer.In 1995 he was appointed
executive vice president of oileld marine services; in 1998,
president and chief operating ofcer; in 2002, elected to the board
of directors; in 2006, appointed CEO. He serves as chair of the
council of overseers of the Jones Graduate School of Business at
Rice and will chair the advancement committee of the Chemical
and Biomolecular Engineering Department this fall.
Mark Dankberg 76, 77 graduated with B.S. and masters
degrees, respectively, in electrical engineering. He was elected to
the board in 2013 and chaired the advancement committee for
the Department of Computer Science last spring. He is chairman
and CEO of ViaSat, Inc. in Carlsbad, Calif., the company he co-
founded in 1986. ViaSat is a producer of satellite and other wireless
communications and networking systems for government and
commercial customers.
Dankberg received the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics International Communications Award in 2008. He
was named Visionary Executive of the Year for 2012 by Satellite
Research and Markets. His companys most recent ViaSat-1 satellite
is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the
worlds highest bandwidth communications satellite, serving home
internet, in-ight WiFi and other applications.
Lynn Laverty Elsenhans 78 graduated with a B.A. in
mathematical sciences and went on to receive an MBA from
Harvard University in 1980. Since 2012 she has been a board
member at GlaxoSmithKline and Baker Hughes. The former
chair and CEO of Sunoco and Sunoco Logistics, she served the
company from 2008 to 2012. During her tenure at Sunoco,
Forbes named her among the 100 Most Powerful Women.
Prior to joining Sunoco, Elsenhans worked for Royal Dutch
Shell, retiring in 2008 as executive vice president for global
manufacturing. She had a number of assignments at Shell in
the areas of manufacturing, marketing and planning, including
overseas assignments in Singapore and London. Elsenhans serves
on the Council of Overseers for the Jones Graduate School of
Business at Rice and on the boards of the Texas Medical Center,
United Way of Greater Houston and First Tee of Greater
Houston.
I strongly support leadership training for young engineers,
Elsanhans said, and Im delighted to see it now available to
Rice students.There is little of real substance accomplished by
an engineer working alone. Early in your career you must learn
to work on a team.If you want to increase your responsibility
and inuence as you increase your experience, you must learn to
motivate and inspire others.
At Rice I had many opportunities to learn outside the
classroom. The residential college system and later the Rice
Student Association gave me my rst leadership experiences. I
was sent to a leadership conference where I represented Rice,
and the theme was people support what they help create. It
always served me well in my career.
John Jaggers 73 graduated with B.A. and masters degrees
in electrical engineering and started his career as a development
engineer at Paragon Data Systems, providing data-processing
software and services to hospitals. He went on to earn an MBA
from Harvard. Jaggers joined Sevin Rosen Funds in Dallas in
1988 and serves as the companys managing general partner.
Sevin Rosen is a venture capital rm specializing in investments
in early-stage companies, typically investing between $4 million
and $15 million in its portfolio companies.
Before joining Sevin Rosen, he worked for the investment
banking rm Rotan Mosle. Jaggers sits on the boards of
Capstone Turbine Corp., a public micro-turbine manufacturer;
FourthWall Media; and Market6. From 2006 to 2010, he served
on the board of the National Venture Capital Association.
DESIRE
TO SERVE
HELPI NG THE SCHOOL ADVANCE
5
Lynn El senhans
John V. Jagger s
T. Jay Col l i ns
Mar k Dankberg
During his 22 years at MIT, Edwin L. Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean
of the George R. Brown School of Engineering, knew them as review committees.
Theyre a great idea, very useful to everyone involved. Departments learn their strengths and
weaknesses, as seen by objective eyes. When I came to Rice three years ago, I wanted to
start a tradition of review committees, but I wanted a more positive-sounding name. Thats
why we decided on advancement committees. Thats what we want the departments and
the whole school to doadvance, Thomas said.
Starting in 2013, advancement committees made up of Rice alumni and representatives
from industry, government and academia began the process of systematically meeting with
and reviewing the performance of the nine departments in the engineering school at Rice.
The goal is not to have Big Brother looking over your shoulder. The goal is to get an objective
understanding of what the departments are doing well and what they need help with,
said Thomas, who recently served on an advancement committee at Drexel University in
Philadelphia. By spring 2015, Thomas expects all of the engineering departments at Rice
to have undergone review by advancement committees.
The Department of Computer Science had its review in January. Vivek Sarkar, the E.D.
Butcher Chair in Engineering, who became department chair in 2013, said it was the frst
departmental review in 14 years.
We felt very positive about it. I dont think anybody was worried. We wanted honest feedback
on the job were doing. Computer science now has the largest number of declared majors
at Rice, and we want to keep that trend going said Sarkar, noting that the number rose
from 104 in 2008 to 240 in 2013.
The committee met throughout the day and in various combinations with the dean,
department chair, faculty members and students. They had lunch with fve early-career
faculty. In the afternoon they heard faculty reports on specifc topics. Professor John Mellor-
Crummey, for instance, spoke on high-performance computing, and Lydia Kavraki, the Noah
Harding Professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering, discussed the departments
partnership with the Texas Medical Center.
Asked if the committees fndings contained any surprises, Sarkar said one member noted
the relatively small number of Hispanic students and faculty in computer science. Contained
in the committees report is this recommendation: Recruit and engage a more diverse
community in the Computer Science Department, with a focus on participation by women
and other underrepresented groups.
We just hadnt thought about it before. Now well act on it, including more engagement with
high schools in the Houston area, Sarkar said.
RCEL TAKES THE LEAD
Among the students attending workshops and lectures at the 2014
COMPLETE Conference at Rice University was Ciara Simmons-Pino,
a sophomore in civil engineering, who is convinced she was destined
to become an engineer.
I was always building with Legos. I didnt play with dolls
when I was a little girl. I was always hands-on, she said. But only
after coming to Rice and getting involved in the Rice Center for
Engineering Leadership (RCEL) did she learn theres more to being an
engineer than solving problems and building things.
Even in high school I was a leader, but now Ive been shown
how important that is professionally. The people at this conference
stressed that to be successful as an engineer you need to be a leader.
You cant be passive, said Simmons-Pino, endorsing the theme of the
conference, held March 21-22: Developing Engineering Leaders:
Effectiveness in the First Five.
RCEL hosted the event in Duncan Hall for COMPLETE
(Community of Practice for Leadership Education for 21st Century
Engineers), a consortium of 11 universities in the U.S. and Canada,
including Rice, MIT and the U.S. Naval Academy. David Nio,
professor in the practice of engineering leadership at Rice, said in his
opening remarks:
What were proposing is a national conversation on engineering
leadership. We want to help young engineers transition successfully
into the workplace. We want our students to nd engineering careers
they truly love and to begin to leverage the power of engineering to
achieve great things for society.
Are leaders born or made? You have to believe they are at least
partly made, said Bobby Tudor 82, chairman of the universitys
Board of Trustees and chief executive ofcer of Tudor, Pickering, Holt
and Co., an energy investment rm he founded in 2007.
The keynote speaker, Dan Mote, president of the National
Academy of Engineering (NAE), urged engineering students to
understand the difference between being a leader and holding a
position of authority.
Strong leadership is taken, not given. You can give someone a
position but if thats all he has, its third-ranked leadership, said Mote,
who served as president of the University of Maryland for 12 years
before assuming the NAE presidency in 2013.
Leadership, he stressed, is inevitable in every human organization,
from families to governments and corporations. Mote said styles of
leadership vary, from the most powerful and effectivetransformative,
charismatic leadershipto the least powerful and potentially most
damagingpunitive, coercive leadership.
Inclusivity is absolutely mandatory. Everybody wants to feel like
they are a part of the team, Mote said. Everybody within your cone
of responsibility must see themselves as being a part of that vision.
Otherwise, they may work against it, and that creates internal conicts
that detract from your ability to execute the vision.
Dan Mot e
Ci ar a Si mmons- Pi no
7
Ellen Ochoa, director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC), is a
veteran of four space ights as a NASA astronaut, logging 978
hours in space. She has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from
Stanford University. At NASA, she said, were always looking for
the best and brightest engineers we can nd, but it takes more than
technical skills. We look for negotiating and communication skills,
and the ability to collaborate as part of a team.
With Ochoa was Lauri Hansen, director of engineering at JSC,
who echoed her call for more than just technical skills among
engineers: Competency in your discipline is a given. We ask a lot
of our engineers at NASA. We are results-driven. I would ask all
you future engineers: How are you on the softer skills? We need
engineers, and even more, we need engineering leaders.
RCEL was established in 2009 with a $15 million gift to Rices
Centennial Campaign from the Benicus Foundation, founded
by longtime benefactors and Rice engineering alumni John Doerr
73,74 and Ann Doerr 75. In a videotaped interview played during
the COMPLETE conference, John Doerr said: We dont really
believe in buildings. We believe in people. A common mistake
new engineers make is to burrow in instead of reaching out. We
encourage you to interview like crazy. Network, and I dont mean
just on Facebook.
Students and other participants broke into smaller groups and
attended workshops and research presentations conducted by
leaders from universities and such organizations as Northwestern
University, Boeing, NASA and Shell. Simmons-Pino attended
a workshop called The Four As of Project Success, led by Ed
Hoffman, chief knowledge ofcer for NASA. His Four As are
ability, attitude, assignments and alliances.
The thing that ends most careers is attitude, Hoffman said. If
you have a bad one, forget it. Successful engineers have certain
things in commonintellectual curiosity, for instance, and theyre
good listeners and theyre willing to collaborate.
Simmons-Pino was encouraged by another bit of advice given
by Hoffman, who said: The people who are most successful are
enjoying what they do. Theyre active and responsive. The people
who are less successful are waiting for the organization to take care
of them.
Reecting on that, Simmons-Pino said: Im a positive person
and I want to be a positive engineer. I got into engineering because
its fun. I enjoy it. As a leader, part of my job is to inspire other
people to enjoy themselves too.
RCEL was organized in 2009 to prepare Rice engineering
students to become inspiring leaders, effective team members and
bold entrepreneurs. Through academic courses, leadership labs,
student discussion groups and structured learning experiences,
RCEL provides them with opportunities to develop leadership
abilities and prepares them to put these skills into practice.
El l en Ochoa
St ephani e Tzouanas
Davi d Van Kl eeck
COMPLETE SUCCESS
Conference attendees who responded to a post-event survey
indiciated that it had exceeded their expectations.
COMPLETE was the frst conference I have attended and I could
not have imagined it any more informative, motivating and
inspiring, said one visiting student. Another non-Rice student
said, My motivation for attending this event was to expose
myself to top leaders from different schools and different
occupations. I feel very fortunate to have been able to attend.
This event was a game changer for me.
Several survey takers rated the workshops and conference
speaker sessions as excellent and above average, and many
said they felt the sessions were useful for their disciplines.
Additionally, multiple attendees noted the attention to detail put
into the event by the RCEL staff and student volunteers. The
RCEL staff and faculty were outstanding hosts, remarked a
faculty member from another institution.
I very much enjoyed my time at the COMPLETE conference,
said another non-Rice faculty member. I was quite impressed
by the caliber of speakers and the diversity of participation
(different types of higher education institutions and personnel
involved with engineering leadership). RCEL faculty, staff, and
students deserve a big pat on the back for running a great event.

9
In 2004, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) issued The
Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century, a report
urging engineering schools to encourage leadership skillsdynamism,
agility, resilience, and fexibilityin their graduates, along with traditional
technical knowhow.
In response, a handful of universities across the country began setting
up engineering leadership programs over the next decade. Among
them was the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program,
launched in 2007. Each year, more than 100 MIT students enroll in a
program aimed at instilling professional, personal and leadership
progression.
The NAE report really was a wake-up call for a lot of schools, said
Kazimir Kaz Karwowski, executive director of the Rice Center for
Engineering Leadership (RCEL). It gave fuel to the frustrations felt by a
lot of people, that universities werent producing the kind of leadership
we needed to tackle some of the big problems in the world. The lack
of engineers displaying leadership qualities after graduation motivated
schools to take action.
Before moving to Rice in 2013, Karwowski spent four years as an
engineering leadership specialist in the Gordon-MIT program and, before
that, 20 years in the U.S. Army. The average age of the infantrymen I
was leading wasnt much older than typical university students. Working
with students isnt that different from working with soldiers. They have a
lot of energy. You motivate them, and give them direction and purpose,
Karwowski said.
In the past decade, engineering leadership programs have been set up
at Cornell, Purdue, Penn State, Northeastern, the University of Colorado
and Drexel, among others. The Rice program was organized in 2009.
RCEL was partly a response to the NAE report. The need for leadership
training was there and Rice has responded to it accordingly, said David
Nio, professor in the practice of engineering leadership.
One way to learn how to lead is to experience what its like to deal
with challenging leadership situations. Weve learned how important it
is to turn students loose on real-world situations and see what they
can do, said Nio, who also serves as treasurer of the newly formed
Engineering Leadership Development Division of the American Society
for Engineering Education (ASEE). We know theyre smart. We want
them to turn their intelligence and learning into ideas that work.
ANSWERI NG THE NAE S CALL
For more information about the Rice Center
for Engineering Leadership, visit rcel.rice.edu.
Kaz Kar wowski
Davi d Ni o
Laur i Hansen Sophi e Xu Bobby Tudor
Erjola Buzi 12 came to the United States from her native
Albania in 2007 with a B.S. in electronic engineering, no job,
little English, many fears and even more dreams.
Seven years later she has a professional masters degree in
electrical engineering from Rice, a job with Schlumberger and
a husband.
I consider myself very fortunate. I am working as a design
engineer with a good company. Rice is like America to meit
helped me make my dreams come true, said Buzi, who is 32
and has worked for Schlumberger since 2008.
For 40 years, Rice has offered professional masters
degrees, often tailored for students like Buzi, who already
have experience in the working world and wish to further
their education and improve their marketability. The nine
departments in the George R. Brown School of Engineering
offer 14 professional masters degrees.
An early beneciary of the professional masters program
at Rice was Bart Sinclair, associate dean of engineering for
academic issues and budgets, who earned his bachelors and
masters degrees in electrical engineering in 1973 and 1974,
respectively, and his Ph.D in 1978.
The program is proving very successful and increasingly
popular, Sinclair said. In 2005-2006, across the entire school,
we were down to 29 professional masters degrees. Now we are
up to 180. Thats a six-fold increase in a short time. Asked to
explain the programs sudden growth, he said, We are more
aggressively marketing the program and its popularity begins
to spread by word of mouth. Were making it attractive to
working people.
Working people like Erjola Buzi. My big dream was to get
into the best school. I was already living and working in
Houston, she said, so that meant Rice. While working at
Schlumberger, which agreed to pay her tuition, Buzi started at
Rice in January 2010.
It was quite a challenge at rst. The rst semester I started
with one class. The second semester I went to three, but I
ended up auditing the business class I was taking, Buzi said.
It was a struggle, very long days, but I did it. The school really
tried to make it friendly for people with jobs.
Brian Vanover would agree. At age 27, he has already spent
a lot of time in school and on the job. In 2010, he graduated
with a B.S. in mathematics and another in economics from
Arizona State University. He had thought about going to
business school but as an undergraduate he got interested in
probability theory and decided to give statistics a try.
Statistics is interesting because it actually answers questions.
I like working with massive amounts of data and looking
for answers to questions, he said, explaining his decision to
pursue a professional masters degree at Rice.
Vanover was enrolled at Rice, beginning in August 2010,
when he attended a job fair on campus and was hired the
following June as an R&D mathematician at the Sandia
National Laboratories in Albuquerque. He earned his
masters degree in December 2012. My job is an interesting
combination of IT and research analysis. I got a pretty
rigorous education at Rice, and that helps a lot, said Vanover,
who since August 2013 has been pursuing a masters degree in
computer science at the University of Southern California.
Prof essi onal Mast er s Progr am: 40 year s and growi ng
Er j ol a Buzi
11
We do mentor the students and actively help them fnd their way.
Thats Dagmar Beck speaking. She is director of the Science and
Engineering Professional Masters programs, and often one of
the frst people students encounter at Rice when contemplating a
return to academia in pursuit of a masters degree in engineering.
Professional masters programs are attracting people who are
employed and want to advance their careers or undergraduates
not interested in pursuing a research degree but who want to be
better prepared for work in industry and business, Beck said.
She and her colleagues have stepped up efforts to market the
professional masters program nationally and internationally, and
have boosted enrollment in the last 18 months.
Beck and Agustina Fernndez-Moya, program coordinator for
the George R. Brown School of Engineering, conduct marketing
campaigns, assist departments with program development and
oversee online education activities. They recruit and advise
students, build corporate relations and coordinate marketing for
the programs.
Prospective students in science come to me for guidance and
advice. Those in the engineering school will either contact the
department of their interest or our offce, Beck said.
I serve as the liaison between the different departments, the
deans offce and the students, Fernndez-Moya said. My job
is to increase enrollment, ensure the quality of students and
improve the experience of students.
Beck earned an associate business administration degree
in Germany in 1983 and worked for corporations there and in
the U.S. After a three-year stay in Singapore, she worked for a
language school in Houston, and joined the Rice staff in 2002.
Beck earned a B.A. in German from the University of Houston
in 2010.
Fernndez-Moya, a native of Argentina, received a graduate
degree as a C.P.A. from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1997,
a post-graduate degree in marketing from the Universidad de
San Andres in Buenos Aires in 2000, a certifcate in Integrated
Marketing from the University of Chicago in 2002 and a masters
degree in Communications/Public Relations from the University
of Houston in 2009.
Mi ssi on: To ser ve
Agust i na Fer nndez- Moya, Dagmar Beck Agust i na Fer nndez- Moya, Dagmar Beck
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12
Theres a paradox at the heart of Isabell Thomanns goals as a researcher,
as there often is in science and engineering, and it involves the basic
chemistry of a familiar substance, water.
Water is the Earths most plentiful source of hydrogen, and hydrogen
is potentially an important carbon-free replacement fuel for automobiles.
A shorthand way to describe Thomanns work is to say she wants to
power cars with water, though its more complicated than that.
Hydrogen production usually requires the burning of fossil fuels,
which creates even more carbon dioxide. Solar power can be used to
split water into oxygen and hydrogen, but
the process must be made less expensive
and more efcient to make it a practical
substitute for fossil fuels. Thomann
proposes using nanostructured metals
and semiconductors as antennas for light
harvesting to enhance the efciency of
photoelectrochemical conversion.
That means a nanostructured
photocatalyst absorbs sunlight and breaks
the water molecules apart. No carbon is
produced during the process, said Thomann,
assistant professor of electrical and computer
engineering, of chemistry, and of materials
science and nanoengineering at Rice
University.
Thanks to her recent $400,000
CAREER Award from the National Science
Foundation (NSF), and a Major Research
Instrumentation (MRI) grant, also from NSF,
Thomann will focus her energy on exploring ways to use sunlight to
reduce the carbon footprint of power plants.
In the bigger picture, both these grants are focused on improving
photocatalysis, a class of processes in which we use light to drive
chemical reactions, Thomann said. The NSF CAREER grant will
focus on the reduction of carbon dioxide using sunlight, but the
methods that we study in our lab can be broadly applied across many
disciplines.
More often than not, we know materials that are good photocatalysts
for a given reaction, but we have no idea why this is the case. This is not
a satisfactory situation, and our group is involved in developing both
laser spectroscopy tools and nano-characterization tools to improve our
understanding of whats going on in these nanostructured surfaces.
Thomann is the lead principal investigator on an MRI grant that will
allow her group and LANP (Laboratory for Nanophotonics) members to
construct a time-resolved nanophotonic scanning probe microscope. In
essence, it uses an atomic-scale needle to scan the surface of a material.
By focusing laser pulses onto the needle we gain novel information about
nanostructured materials, with improved spatial and temporal resolution
compared to conventional optical microscopy.
Thomann said energy and green chemistry are only two of the
research themes in her lab. We are interested in materials for energy
applications, particularly for those involving solar photocatalysis, she
said. But energy is just one of the challenges of our day. There are also
problems in sensing and health. We hope to help solve other grand
challenges with nanophotonics.
Appl yi ng green chemi st r y t o energy product i on
I sabel l Thomann
13
Programmers, whether they are novices or seasoned pros, dont want
to waste a lot of time explaining things to a computer.
If you want a task performed, you tell the computer what to
do and let it take care of the details, while you move on to more
important things. The goal of computer-aided programming is to
make programming faster and more intuitive, said Swarat Chaudhuri,
assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, who has co-
authored more than two dozen papers devoted to the subject.
Chaudhuri works to harness the power of algorithms for
automated reasoning to simplify programming tasks. Rather than
hand-testing programs, the programmer uses a verication algorithm
to nd bugs or conrm that the program is correct. The programmer
writes a specication of the programs objectives and lets algorithms
for program synthesis generate appropriate low-level code.
I envision a software design process in which humans would
specify programming and verication tasks at very high levels
of abstraction, and algorithmic assistants capable of automated
reasoning would analyze the accuracy of programs and synthesize
correct low-level code. Even small steps in that direction will lead to
signicant gains in software reliability and programmer productivity,
Chaudhuri said.
One of Chaudhuris approaches to computer-aided programming
is based on harnessing Big Code, or large sets of pre-existing
programs. Traditional programming tools view programs as isolated,
self-contained entities. Only rarely, however, do programmers write
code entirely from scratch, free of overlaps with existing code. Im
interested in building a new generation of programming tools that can
exploit such overlaps, Chaudhuri said. Such a system would obtain
specications and snippets of code by searching a body of existing
software, and use the results in program verication and synthesis.
As part of this endeavor, Chaudhuri is one of three technical leads
in a DARPA (Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency) award
that Rice, Grammatech, Inc.,
the University of Wisconsin,
and University of Texas at
Austin received for building
such systems. The award is
part of DARPAs Mining
and Understanding Software
Enclaves (MUSE) program.
Chaudhuris research
has applications in system
software, robotics, data mining,
computational economics
and online education. The
idea is to make programming
accessible to those who dont have a degree in computer science, and
to improve the productivity of those who do, said Chaudhuri, the
principal investigator for Computer-Aided Programming @ Rice.
Chaudhuri earned a Ph.D. in computer science in 2007 from
Pennsylvania State University, and worked there as an assistant
professor of computer science and engineering until 2011, when he
joined the Rice faculty. He received a CAREER Award in 2010 from
the National Science Foundation.
Swar at Chaudhur i
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14
Flow assurance is to the petroleum industry as low cholesterol and
exercise are to a healthy cardiovascular system.
So says Francisco Paco Vargas, assistant professor of chemical
and biomolecular engineering at Rice University: Asphaltene
deposition is like a buildup of plaque on the arterial walls. It reduces
oil ow and can even clog up the pipes. Its the cholesterol of the oil,
and its a very expensive problem.
As oil production has moved into increasingly inaccessible
environments, such as deeper water and the arctic regions, and
as the industry has turned to enhanced oil recovery techniques
for increasing the amount of crude oil extracted, ow assurance
has become more critical and more difcult. Guaranteeing the
uninterrupted ow of petrochemicals from well to market has
focused attention on such organic and inorganic byproducts as
hydrates, asphaltene, scaling, wax and naphthenates.
The formation of these deposits can occur naturally in the
subsurface and is usually increased by changes in temperature,
pressure and composition, said Vargas, who addresses most of his
attention to asphaltenes. These materials are no longer soluble and
they accumulate on the walls of the tubing. It is a major concern for
the industry.
Vargas notes that the problem is made even more difcult by
the absence of reliable monitoring tools and predictive commercial
models to identify and control asphaltene deposition at an early
stage. In addition, because asphaltenes exist in many forms, in widely
divergent molecular weights and chemical structures, there is no one-
size-ts-all solution.
As Vargas phrases it, Sometimes people nd great solutions to the
wrong problems.
The most sophisticated tests used in the industry today for
monitoring byproduct buildup are mass spectrometry, advanced
microscopic measurements or molecular diffusion measurements,
but none is foolproof.
Vargass experience with the oil industry is not merely academic
or theoretical. After earning his Ph.D. in chemical engineering
from Rice in 2009, he spent more than three years in the United
Arab Emirates, where he was an assistant professor of chemical
engineering at the Petroleum Institute and manager for the Flow
Assurance Research and Development Program of Abu Dhabi
National Oil Company. He joined the Rice faculty in 2013.
We think that heavy organic deposition in the production
tubing and the near-wellbore region can be signicantly mitigated
by implementing strategies that include proper monitoring, good
production practices and the insight obtained from laboratory
work and accurate prediction models he said.
Vargas and his team take an interdisciplinary approach to these
problems, which includes understanding molecular structure,
micro and macroscopic morphology, and optical, thermodynamic
and transport properties, and also thermodynamic and
computational uid-dynamics modeling.
If we dont address this problem, it could have a serious impact
on the availability and, consequently, the cost of fuels, Vargas
said. We no longer have easy oil, and it wont get any easier.
K E E P I N G T H E P I P E S C L E A N
15
A MULTI DI SCI PLI NARY CHALLENGE
Asphaltene is a naturally occurring substance found in
crude oil, a byproduct of the same geological processes
that turn fossils into fossil fuel.
It was frst identifed in 1837 by the French chemist Jean-
Baptiste Boussingault, who concluded that the viscosity of
crude oil increases with the amount of asphaltene present.
As the supply of easy oilreadily and safely accessed
light depositsdwindles, such asphaltene-rich sources
as the Athabasca oil sands in Canada and the heavy oils
of Mexico and Venezuela are growing in importance as
alternative sources.
From the well through the refnery, asphaltene fouling can
interfere with production equipment. David Ramirez, a
ffth-year graduate student in electrical and computer
engineering, studied the problem as an intern in the offce of
the chief technology offcer at BP in Houston this summer.
In a report he prepared for the company, he says asphaltene
deposition is made worse by several complicating factors
including inorganic deposition (calcite), sand production,
high water cuts and hydrates.
Echoing Francisco Vargas, Ramirez notes that the precise
mechanisms of asphaltene formation and deposition are not
completely understood, and proposes three potential strategies
for solving the problem:
Chemical: Surface coatings that prevent or reduce asphaltene
deposition; new substances that inhibit or disperse asphaltenes;
colloidal and interfacial approaches (for instance, surfactants and
nanomaterials).
Mechanical: Improved deposit management techniques,
including mechanisms such as acoustics and improved pipeline
cleaning tools.
Others: New testing and characterization methods using sensors
and imaging tools; unconventional control techniques, such as
natural products; robotics for in situ remediation.
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16
Having enough water isnt really the problem. Its having enough of the
right kind of watersafe, clean, accessibleand having it where we need
it most.
We are facing a water crisis, said Qilin Li, associate professor of civil
and environmental engineering at Rice University, because we simply
dont have enough water where we need it, and not just in places like
India or Central America, but right here in parts of west Texas, southern
California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
Lis recent research focuses on nding novel ways to reclaim and
purify water that previously was discarded, including such non-traditional
sources as municipal and industrial wastewater, brackish groundwater and
seawater. The effort has grown increasingly urgent in recent years with
the boom in unconventional oil and gas production using the hydraulic
fracturing technology or fracking.
Much water is used in this method of recovering oil and gas, and were
looking at ways to safely reuse it. We also want to develop ways to utilize
renewable energy, such as sunlight and wastewater itself to treat and reuse
water, and to desalinate seawater using nanotechnology, Li said.
Recovering water from non-traditional sources using conventional
technologies is expensive, consuming large quantities of chemicals and
energy. Nanotechnology permits us to improve the reaction kinetics and
selectivity, reduce treatment-system size, increase system mobility and cut
costs. It allows us to be more efcient in the way we use renewable energy,
Li said.
For example, adsorption is a commonly used strategy for removing
organic and inorganic contaminants from water. Conventional adsorbents
are limited by surface area, lack of selectivity and slow adsorption kinetics.
Nano-adsorbents, with their high specic surface area and associated
sorption sites, short intra-particle diffusion distance and their tunable
pore size and surface chemistry, are signicantly more effective.
Nano-adsorbents are easily integrated into existing treatment processes
in slurry reactors or adsorbers. Applied in powder form, they can be
useful in slurry reactors because all surfaces of the adsorbents are utilized
and the mixing greatly facilitates the mass transfer. They can also be used
in the form of pellets and beads or porous granules loaded with nano-
adsorbents, Li said.
Another traditional strategy being updated with nanotechnology is
the use of membranes, physical barriers that remove impurities based
on their size and/or electric charge. Major challenges in their use are the
low permeability of the membrane and fouling of the membrane by the
impurities in water. Li is developing nanocomposite membranes using
nanoparticles that are antimicrobial or serve as slow release media for
antibiofouling agents. She is also exploring nanophotonic phenomena for
harvesting sunlight to directly drive desalination.
Nanobers have large surface areas and porosity, and form nanober
mats with complex pore structures. They are already used commercially in
air ltration, but Li is exploring their use in water treatment.
I believe nanotechnology holds the key to next-generation water
treatment systems. Its efcient, it can use less energy and it can be
portable, which is highly desirable for locations with no access to the
power grid, she said.
Li earned her Ph.D. in environmental engineering in 2002 from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and joined the Rice faculty
in 2006.
Wat er t reat ment f or t he f ut ure
17
I N THE WERCs
The Rice University Water and Energy Center (RiceWERC),
dedicated to a sustainable supply of two essential commodities,
should be in operation and administering interdisciplinary research
by early 2015.
Energy and water security are intrinsically interconnected. We
cannot produce or generate energy without water, and a
signifcant fraction of urban energy demand relates to treating
and moving water, said Pedro J.J. Alvarez, the George R. Brown
Professor of Engineering, chair of the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering (CEE) and associate director of
applications for RiceWERC. Through technological innovation
and scientifc input to inform policy, RiceWERC will foster water
management in an energy-constrained world.
In addition to Rice, the center will include as academic partners
Arizona State University, the University of Texas at El Paso and
Yale University, with researchers drawn from engineering, natural
sciences, social science and public policy. The center also plans
to have industrial and government partners, whose energy and
water challenges are best addressed through partnership with
academic research institutions.
Our goals are very ambitious, said Qilin Li, associate professor
of CEE at Rice, who will serve as the centers director. We will
encourage the use of cutting-edge technology to secure safe,
plentiful, energy-effcient water for Texas and the rest of the world.
The Energy and Environment Initiative (EEI) at Rice has provided
$100,000 in funding for RiceWERC. The center has also applied
for a substantial grant from the National Science Foundation. Of
the original 200 applicants, the Rice proposal is among the 16
semi-fnalists. Four grants will be awarded by NSF.
We will take a systems perspective on the water/energy nexus
to develop integrated water management strategies using
nanotechnology, biotechnology and advanced materials, Li said.
Qi l i n Li
19
More than just a cosmetic to cover the surfaces of buildings, bridges and
aircraft, a coating suffused with carbon nanotubes can detect deformations in
their structures before they become visible to the unaided eye.
Now we are designing a portable, battery-powered optical device,
incorporating an infrared spectrometer, that will help us nd these sorts of
problems before they become serious, said Satish Nagarajaiah, professor of
civil and environmental engineering.
Nagarajaiah and Bruce Weisman, professor of chemistry at Rice,
collaborated to develop what they call strain paint smart skin. In 2012
they published their ndings in the American Chemical Society journal
Nano Letters. We were amazed at the number of contacts we received from
industrycompanies like Boeing and Alcoa, Weisman said. Now we know
theres a demand for the technology, so were proceeding with the research
needed to make it practical.
In 2013, their work got a boost when the Ofce of Naval Research
awarded them a $325,000 grant to pursue the project. Since the near-infrared
uorescence of semiconducting carbon nanotubes was discovered in Weismans
lab in 2002, he has been exploring their physical and chemical properties,
and developing specialized optical instrumentation to characterize them.
Nagarajaiah and his collaborators led the 2004 development of nanotube-
based strain-sensing for structural integrity monitoring at the macro
level, exploiting the electrical properties of carbon nanolms. In 2010,
Weisman and Nagarajaiah attended the same NASA workshop, where the
chemist gave a talk on nanotube uorescence, including discussion of a
hypothetical system using lasers to reveal strains in the nano-coated wing of
a space shuttle. Nagarajaiah was intrigued and proposed a collaboration.
Nanotube uorescence displays predictable wavelength shifts when the
tubes are deformed by tension or compression. The smart skin with nanotubes
is designed to transfer strain from the object it covers to the embedded
nanotubes, which then act as tiny non-contact strain sensors. With our
technique, Weisman said, technicians could aim the probe laser at any point
on an airplane wing and quickly nd the magnitude and direction of strain at
that point. Then a set of those measurements would provide a strain map of
the surface.
As a protective lm, the smart skin could also impede corrosion and
perhaps enhance the strength of the underlying material. Well need to
optimize details of its composition and preparation, and nd the best way to
apply it to the surfaces that will be monitored, Weisman said.
Since the original article was published in 2012, the researchers have
replaced the plastic test substrates they originally used with more realistic
metal ones, and have also greatly reduced the size and weight of the
probe device. But much work remains, including studying interactions
among the nanotubes, the polymeric host, and the substrate, which affect
the reproducibility and stability of the spectral shifts. For real-world
measurements, these are important considerations, Nagarajaiah said.
Also working on the project are Peng Sun, a third-year graduate student in
civil engineering, and Sergei Bachilo, a research scientist in Weismans group.
Br uce Wei sman and Sat i sh Nagar aj ai ah
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20
Har nessi ng t he mi crobi ome
With the assistance of edible probiotic bacterium, Jeff Tabor is helping
the Navy nd an unlikely route to weight control and mental health.
The goal is to engineer a new bacterium that can protect against a
common large-intestine disorder, metabolic endotoxemia, that causes
obesity and depression, said Tabor, assistant professor of bioengineering
at Rice University and lead investigator on a new project funded by the
Ofce of Naval Research (ONR).
A three-year, $500,000 grant from ONRs Young Investigator
Program is funding Tabors research, among the rst studies to combine
two of the newest, most promising elds in the life sciencessynthetic
biology and microbiomics.
Synthetic biologists program single-celled organisms such as bacteria
and yeast. Tabor specializes in engineering bacterial sensors useful in
detecting information, including disease signals, in the gut. By linking
the sensors to synthetic genetic circuits, Tabor programs bacteria to
behave autonomously.
He starts with a genetically modied strain of Escherichia coli
that lives naturally in the human gut. Tabor programs probiotics for
reliable disease prevention by creating networks of genetic circuits that
sense, compute and respond to disease. There are about 10 times
more bacterial cells in our bodies than human cells, and studies in the
last decade have shown these bacteria have a role in obesity, immune
function, depression and other conditions, Tabor said.
The trillions of bacteria in the body, known collectively as the
microbiome, contain more genetic information than the human
genome. Scientists like Tabor are increasingly nding ways to use
the microbiome to treat disease and improve health. For example,
other researchers have identied a gut-brain axis, with a linkage
via the vagus nerve. In experiments on mice in which the nerve
was removed, the gut microbiome no longer affected the brain.
The microora in our bodies help digest food, ght
off infection and [help us] stay healthy, Tabor said. But
certain functions, including some that are benecial, yield no
evolutionary advantage for the bacteria. The goal is to add these
functions using rationally designed genetic circuits. Potentially,
patients could be treated with the healthful bacteria in the form
of yogurt, milk or pills.
ONRs Young Investigator Program selected 24 winners this
year from almost 280 applicants. ONRs mandate is to fund
early career academic researchers whose scientic pursuits show
exceptional promise for supporting the Department of Defense,
while also promoting their professional development.
Tabor earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the
University of Texas at Austin in 2006, and did postdoctoral work
in synthetic biology at the University of California, San Francisco.
He joined the Rice faculty in 2010.
21
THE GUT- OBESI TY CONNECTI ON
Jeff Tabor, assistant professor of bioengineering, has been awarded
a three-year, $180,000 research grant by the Welch Foundation of
Houston to study how the microbes in the human gut sense and
respond to chemical signals.
The large intestine contains almost 1,000 species of bacteria
about 100 trillion organisms. These bacteria contain more than
10,000 proteins of a specifc family, called sensor histidine kinases,
said Tabor, referring to a class of proteins that detect various
chemicals present in our diet, as well as chemicals produced by
the body and other microbes.
Sensor histidine kinases permit bacteria to produce the appropriate
metabolic enzymes to digest compounds. Scientists have little
understanding of the chemicals the sensors are detecting, but
recent studies have implicated sensor histidine kinases in many
diseases. Tabor will focus on identifying the chemicals sensed by
some 100 sensor histidine kinases linked to obesity.
Histidine kinases sense chemicals outside the cell and relay the
information to regulator proteins that activate or deactivate genes
inside the cell. Using a method developed in his lab, Tabor will rewire
the sensors to control the expression of a green fuorescent protein
in E. coli, and then grow the bacteria in the presence of chemicals
recently found to be present in the guts of obese humans. He
hopes to learn how proteins bind to molecules, with implications
for basic science, diagnostics and therapeutics.
The Houston-based Welch Foundation, named for Robert A. Welch,
the industrialist who founded it in 1954, is one of the oldest and
largest private funding sources for basic chemical research.
A small miracle of engineering, usually dismissed as a crop-destroying
pest, the locust is collaborating with researchers at Rice University
designing the next generation of micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs).
We trust the locust. It perfected moving its wings to y efciently
after millions of years of evolution. So, even though it was very
difcult, we had to make sure that we replicated that wing motion
as close to the reality as possible, said Tayfun Tezduyar, the
James F. Barbour Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rice.
Tezduyars research focuses on multiple applications of uid dynamics,
whether the design of spacecraft parachutes, blood ow analysis for
treatment of cerebral aneurysms or the aerodynamics of MAVs. The
technologies we focus on have a common, core computational
analysis needhow to accurately deal with the interaction between a
uid and a structure, said Tezduyar, who has designed homegrown
computer modeling techniques applicable to all of these projects.
For the MAVs, Tezduyar uses high-speed video recordings
of locusts in a wind tunnel made by Fabrizio Gabbiani and
Raymond Chan, neuroscience researchers at the Baylor College of
Medicine. Close analysis of the insects, the way their wings move
to maximize aerodynamic performance, reveals the relationship
of their apping wings to the lift and thrust generated.
The aerodynamic performance, we learned, is sensitive to
wing deformations. Flying locusts exhibit a large range of collision
avoidance behaviors that depend on distinct aerodynamical
characteristics, said Tezduyar, who works closely with Kenji
Takizawa, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda
University in Tokyo and an adjunct associate professor at Rice.
In another application, Tezduyar uses the computer modeling of
uid-structure interactions to help NASA optimize the parachute
system of its next-generation Orion crew exploration vehicle. With
the aid of the supercomputer systems at Rice, Tezduyar and his
Team for Advanced Flow Simulation and Modeling have provided
NASA engineers with computational analysis of various aspects
of the parachute system that brings the capsule safely to earth.
As though to illustrate the ubiquity of uid dynamics
in the world, Tezduyar has found a medical application
for the same eld of researchthe cerebral aneurysm, the
ballooning of a blood vessel in the brain. If the vessel
ruptures, the patient suffers a potentially fatal stroke.
Thanks to a modeling procedure developed by Tezduyar and
his research group, surgeons have more detailed information
on the effectiveness of stents in reducing blood circulation in
the aneurysm and the resulting thrombosis. His techniques
simultaneously solve the equations governing blood ow and
arterial deformations. Combining computational analysis
and uid-structure interactions, with the capacity of Rices
supercomputer, Tezduyar is helping to save lives.
Our objective is more than just to show a picture of the
blood ow patterns in the aneurysm, he said. With an accurate
representation of the stent in the ow analysis, doctors will be able to
make predictions about the impact of stents on the blood circulation
in the aneurysm and the proper way to proceed with treatment.
Tezduyar earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from
Caltech in 1982, and joined the Rice faculty in 1998.
RESEARCH
23
A STANDOUT I N THE FI ELD
Tayfun Tezduyar was one of six members of the Rice University
engineering faculty included in Thomson Reuters 2014 Highly Cited
Researchers list, the frst update of the prominent citation ranking in
10 years. His work ranked high in two categories, engineering and
computer science.
The James F. Barbour Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Tezduyar
has published more than 210 ISI-indexed journal articles, many
devoted to the focus of his research, fuid dynamics and fuid-structure
interactions. According to Google Scholar, his work has been cited more
than 15,500 times, with more than 8,500 citations in the last fve years.
Our work is very diffcult, very complicated and, in some categories, Im
not aware of anyone else in the world who can do it, said Tezduyar,
giving much credit to his frequent collaborator Kenji Takizawa, associate
professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo and
adjunct associate professor at Rice.
About his work analyzing fuid-structure interactions in spacecraft
parachutes for NASA, Tezduyar said: Reliable engineering analysis like
this requires a careful working out of complex equations that govern the
fuid and structure, and accounting for the airfow through hundreds of
slits built into the parachute design. With the methods weve developed,
we are the only group in the world that can provide a highly accurate
engineering analysis of those parachutes.
In 2013, Wiley published Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction:
Methods and Applications, co-authored by Tezduyar and Takizawa,
with Yuri Bazilevs, professor of structural engineering at the University of
California, San Diego. A reviewer called it a comprehensive reference
for researchers and practicing engineers who would like to advance
their existing knowledge on these subjects. The text reached #3 on the
fuid dynamics bestseller list of Amazon-USA, and in Amazon-Japan, #1
in mechanical engineering, #1 in civil engineering and #3 in technology.
Tayf un Tezduyar
Materials science and nanoengineering are two faces of the same
coin and should reinforce each other in our future efforts in both
research and education.
So says Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood
Anderson Professor in Engineering and chair of the newly minted
Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering (MSNE) at
Rice University.
Materials science has been an independent discipline for decades,
and most major universities have independent departments for the
feld. It was time for us to act on what others had already noticed,
he said, referring to a 2010 Times Higher Education survey that
ranked Rice No. 1 in the world for materials science, and a 2013
study by the Max Planck Society in Germany that also put Rice on
top, based on citations of research papers.
The new department at Rice starts with a core faculty of six, with
three faculty fellows and several joint faculty members with primary
appointments in other departments. MSNE is in the process of
hiring an assistant professor in the feld of computational materials
science, Ajayan said, and he expects to hire at least two more
faculty members in the next two years. Ideally, he said, our
target will be to have ten fulltime tenured faculty.
He coninued, We also plan to have several adjunct faculty
from local industry and institutions to engage in teaching and
establishing industry relationships.
Among the areas of concentration in MSNE research are
carbon nanomaterials, two-dimensional materials, composites,
computational materials science, electron microscopy, electronic
materials, energy conversion and storage, nanomechanics,
photonics and nanoplasmonics, coatings and thin flms, and
light-weight, ultrahigh-strength materials.
The new department gives Rice an opportunity to capitalize on the
strong reputation it already has in materials and nanotechnology
research. It will also serve as an important home base for Rice
researchers and students in other schools and departments who
are interested in these areas, said Jun Lou, associate professor
and associate chair of MSNE.
Materials science as a discreet discipline is nothing new. It
came to Rice in 1952 with the hiring of the late Franz Brotzen
as assistant professor of metallurgy. The new disciplines home
became the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Materials
science was accredited in 1962, and the department was renamed
the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.
25
Ajayans goals for the new department are ambitious:
We want to increase enrollments for undergraduate and
graduate students by a factor of two. We want to build a
curriculum that refects the evolving interdisciplinary nature
of materials science and nanotechnology. We want to build
facilities and a strong research platform that provide the best
training for our students.
The Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, with
its home offce in George R. Brown Hall, was offcially created
in November 2013. It continues to offer the bachelors, masters
and doctoral degrees in materials science that Rice has awarded
for more than 30 years.
Mechanical Engineering is an autonomous department chaired
by Professor Andrew Meade, and will continue its work in
robotics, control systems, smart structures, aerodynamics, fuid
mechanics and heat transfer.
Materials science at Rice has a great reputation, and that
can only get better with a department dedicated to its
advancement, said Edwin L. Ned Thomas, a materials
scientist and the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of
Engineering. Its a key component of new technology, and
its important to the country and the economy. President
Obamas Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) is a good indicator
of how seriously the nation takes what we do.
Rice hosted an MGI regional workshop for academia, industry
and government last April. The purpose of the event was to
accelerate the discovery and commercialization of advanced
materials, position the U.S. for global manufacturing
leadership and create high-value jobs in manufacturing.
COLLABORATING ATOM-BY-ATOM
Emilie Ringe, the newest faculty member in materials science and
nanoengineering (MSNE) at Rice University, likes to describe her
research group as the atom-by-atom nanoengineering lab.
We have projects in many areasplasmonics, alloys, catalysis and
so on, all at a very small scale. We aim to solve materials problems,
from sensing to catalysis, by identifying how the structure and
composition of materials affect their properties and performance,
said the assistant professor of MSNE, and of chemistry. Before
coming to Rice, Ringe was a Royal Society-funded research fellow
in the electron microscopy group in the Materials Science and
Metallurgy Department at Cambridge University.
Ringes approach to the still-emerging, interdisciplinary feld of
nanoengineering uses a variety of characterization strategies,
including state-of-the-art electron-beam spectroscopy, theoretical
modelling and optical techniques. As a member of the Laboratory
for NanoPhotonics (LANP) at Rice, Ringe says her research is
rooted in the belief that future innovations in materials will rely on
the development and understanding of processes at the nanoscale.
We have ambitious goals, and the interdisciplinary nature of
the projects means that we have to tackle them as a team; we
collaborate with other groups in the department, but also with
chemists, biologists, engineers and physicists across campus,
nationally and internationally, she said.
Among Ringes research interests is the effects of nanoparticle
structure and composition on optical properties, such as localized
surface plasmon resonance energy, decay and refractive index
sensitivity. Part of a strong plasmonic effort at Rice, her unique
electron microscopy expertise will allow her team to characterize
the response of particles with nanometer spatial resolution.
She builds on the feld explored in her doctoral thesis, Building
the Nanoplasmonics Toolbox through Shape Modeling and
Single Particle Optical Studies, and on her postdoctoral studies
at Cambridge University.
Another effort involves the characterization of single-layer
materials. In this work she collaborates with Pulickel Ajayan,
the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor
in Engineering and chair of MSNE. They recently published
an article about the refnement of a scalable method for
making one-atom-thick layers of molybdenum diselenide, a
semiconductor similar to graphene but with properties more
suitable for use in such electronic devices as switchable
transistors and light-emitting diodes.
Ringe received her Ph.D. in materials chemistry in 2012 and a
Kellogg Certifcate in Management for Scientists and Engineers
in 2011, both from Northwestern University.
She was a Gott Junior Research Fellow in the Materials Science
and Metallurgy Department at Cambridge University, as well as
a Newton International Research Fellow (the Royal Society, U.K.),
before joining the Rice faculty in January 2014.
Emilie Ringe, center, with engineers in
the FEI maufacturing plant clean room in
Eindhoven, the Netherlands, where Rices
new electron microscopes were built.
27
UPGRADING RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
To complement the formation of the new Department of
Materials Science and NanoEngineering (MSNE), the George R.
Brown School of Engineering is assembling a state-of-the-art
electron microscopy (EM) facility, a multi-million-dollar upgrade
to its current research capability.
Housed in the basement of Brockman Hall, the EM center will
include the latest generation of electron microscopes, providing
atomic resolution imaging, high-resolution electron spectroscopy,
nanometer-scale nanopatterning, and imaging of both hard
and soft materials. Researchers will use the devices to study
nanoplasmonics, carbon materials and solar cells, as well as
low-dimensional materials such as graphene and nanotubes.
Electron microscopes have evolved dramatically in recent years,
and the new capabilities of these microscopes will allow us
to perform state-of-the-art imaging and spectroscopy, said
Pulickel M. Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood
Anderson Professor in Engineering and chair of MSNE. Such
capabilities are essential if were to remain competitive in such
felds as materials science and nanotechnology. The acquisition
of this equipment is going to put us on the map of high-end
microscopy centers in the U.S.
The TEM (transmission electron microscope) is a Titan Themis
manufactured by FEI, a global producer of high-performance
microscopy instruments, with a probe corrector for sub-Angstrom
resolution STEM (scanning transmission electron microscope), an
image corrector for sub-Angstrom resolution TEM, an electron
monochromator yielding powerful energy resolution, a quad x-ray
detector for compositional mapping, and a fast, large feld-of-
view imaging camera. A sample-holder and software will permit
nanometer-resolution three-dimensional reconstructions of
nanostructures and composites.
Im thrilled by this purchase. This is the best, most versatile system
I can imagine, said Emilie Ringe, assistant professor of materials
science and nanoengineering. The quality of the results obtained
by the Titan Themis is remarkable. The EM center will solidify
Rices position as a leader in nanotechnology.
The EM center will also house a Helios Nanofab, a multi-purpose
instrument capable of imaging with low-energy electrons,
patterning and milling with gallium ions, as well as depositing
various elements, including carbon and tungsten. Applications
include fabrication of devices and deposition of electrical contacts,
patterning of complex structures for prototyping optical sensors
and devices, failure analysis, and imaging and characterizing
the composition of complex polymers, biological samples and
corroded materials.
The complementary imaging and milling capabilities make
possible the three-dimensional reconstruction of large samples
through stepwise slicing, a feature critical for multiphase materials,
complex rocks and oil-deposit analysis. Researchers from Rice
and elsewhere will have access to the facility and to a bi-annual
workshop hosted by Rice and FEI.
Emi l i e Ri nge
DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND NANOENGINEERING
CORE FACULTY
In addition to the six core faculty in the Department of
Materials Science and NanoEngineering, faculty from across
engineering and science work in materials research. They are:
Materials Science and NanoEngineering
Wade Adams, Senior Faculty Fellow
Robert Hauge, Distinguished Faculty Fellow
Alberto Pimpinelli, Faculty Fellow
Robert Vajtai, Senior Faculty Fellow
Bioengineering
Antonios G. Mikos, Louis Calder Professor
John T. McDevitt, Brown-Wiess Professor
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Lisa Biswal, Associate Professor
Matteo Pasquali, Professor
Rafael Verduzco, Louis Owen Assistant Professor
Michael S. Wong, Professor
Chemistry
Andrew R. Barron, Charles W. Duncan, Jr.-Welch Chair
Angel Marti-Arbona, Assistant Professor
Gus Scuseria, Robert A. Welch Professor
James M. Tour, T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor
Bruce Weisman, Professor
Peter G. Wolynes, Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science
Eugene Zubarev, Associate Professor
Pulickel M. Ajayan, Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering, and of Chemistry and
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Department Chair
Enrique Barrera, Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and of Chemistry
Jun Lou, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and of Chemistry
Emilie Ringe, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and of Chemistry
Edwin L. Ned Thomas, William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and
NanoEngineering, and of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and of Chemistry
Boris Yakobson, Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and of Chemistry
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Pedro Alvarez, George R. Brown Professor Engineering
Qilin Li, Associate Professor
Rouzbeh Shahsavari, Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Naomi Halas, Stanley C. Moore Professor
Junichiro Kono, Professor
Isabell Thomann, Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Yildiz Bayazitoglu, Harry S. Cameron Chair
Satish Nagarajaiah, Professor
Pol Spanos, Lewis B. Ryon Professor
Physics and Astronomy
Emilia Morosan, Associate Professor
Doug Natelson, Professor
Peter Nordlander, Professor
29
The George R. Brown School of Engineering celebrated the
establishment of its ninth department, Materials Science and
NanoEngineering (MSNE), with an open house on Dec. 9, 2013.
Rice President David Leebron recalled his frst meeting with
Richard E. Smalley, the Rice researcher who shared the Nobel
Prize for chemistry in 1996 for his discovery of a new form of
carbon he named buckminsterfullerene. Before his death in
2005, Smalley championed the promise of nanotechnology. His
conviction that nanotechnology had the potential to transform
our world has been proven again and again, Leebron said.
We have the advantage of not starting from scratch. Already we
have people who are world-class experts in their feld at Rice,
said Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood
Anderson Professor in Engineering, and professor and founding
chair of MSNE.
Neal Lane, Senior Fellow in Science and Technology Policy at
the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Malcolm
Gillis University Professor, moderated a panel discussion,
Future Outlook for Materials Science and Nanoengineering.
Participating were Ajayan; Michael Meador, project manager for
NASAs Structures and Materials Division; and Edwin L. Ned
Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering,
and professor of MSNE.
The open house concluded with a reception and poster session
with students from several departments who do research in
materials science and nanoengineering.
CELEBRATING THE NEW DEPARTMENT
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
RESEARCH
30
Predi ct i ng soci al behavi or
Discernable through the smudges on the white board in the ofce of
Illya V. Hicks, professor of computational and applied mathematics
(CAAM), are graphs, lines, numbers and fragments of equations
suggesting plans for an elaborate football play.
Hicks and the six graduate students and a post-doc who make
up his research group see something else in the seeming confusion
cliques, k-plexes and k-clubsgraph structures that represent
cohesive groups. And how might these groups behave?
We use graphs to show the relationships between different
people, he said. Or even different objects. Maybe the relationship
between them isnt obvious, but we can see similarities by the
vertex-edge relationships of these graphs.
Such information can be useful to marketers who want to predict
consumer behavior. To illustrate the point, Hicks cites a grocery
store that groups hot dog buns, chips and potato salad in a single
display. They seem to have little in common, but together they make
a picnic. Hicks suggests a grocer might discount one of the items,
raise the cost of the others slightly, and consumers might buy the
whole package.
Hicks squeezes real-world applications out of mathematical
abstractions. His research focus includes combinatorial optimization,
integer programming, graph theory and matroid theory, often
applied to such areas as social networks, cancer treatment and
network design. Graphs caught his interest, in part, because hes a
self-described visual learner.
Thirty years ago or more, marketers and demographers
gured out that things had minor similarities, and there were
a few efforts to gure them out. Now, with social media and
networking, its fascinating to see how people who are very, very
different have one or two things in commonand we can record
the data using graphs and use these graphs to target advertising
or services. Companies can learn what their audience might want
from this data.
Using mathematics to predict social behavior is a byproduct
of social science studies in the 1970s, when researchers charted
behavior and opinions on graphs. Today, Hicks and his colleagues
model networks in data drawn from internet analytics, systems
biology, social networks, computational nance and telecommu-
nications. Their goal, he said, is to detect cohesiveness in spite of
missing information.
Every time you swipe your loyalty card at the grocery store,
someones keeping track of what you buy and how youre
behaving, Hicks said. I use math to help companies and people
better understand that information.
Hicks earned his Ph.D. in CAAM from Rice in 2000 and for
six years taught industrial and systems engineering at Texas A&M
University. He joined the Rice faculty in 2007.
31
Expl or i ng t he st r uct ure of net wor ks
In the vast, uncharted, forever-expanding universe of Big Data,
Michael Schweinberger dwells in a galaxy characterized by what
he calls the systematic deviation from pure randomness.
He designs complex statistical models and methods for
exploring the structure of networksnot things but the
relationships between them. Look at Facebook. Every subscriber
can choose any other subscriber as a friend. The number of
possible friendships is more than 10 to the 18th power, said
Schweinberger, assistant professor of statistics at Rice University.
His working assumption is that in so enormous a volume of
relationships, patterns, not strict randomness, are discernable. For
example, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,
hundreds of organizations rushed to the World Trade Center to
conduct rescue and relief operations. They collaborated, but the
collaborations were not formed by ipping a coin.
Organizations, consciously or otherwise, formed a network
which systematically deviated from simple random networks.
It had more redundancy than what would have resulted from
simple randomness, and was less vulnerable to shocks that
could have reduced the capacity of the core organizations to
coordinate disaster response.
What interests me is making mathematical represen-
tations of complex and high-dimensional network data
and extracting the most salient structural features
from networks, he said.
Understanding the underlying structures
of a network is critical to understanding
such real-world events as the resilience of
terrorist networks, the spread of infectious diseases and
the systematic risk in nancial markets. In order to
advise public health ofcials on how to curb the spread
of disease, for example, scientists need to understand
their sub-surface structures.
Schweinbergers core research focuses on
development of more sophisticated statistical models
that can deal with the complexities of massive, real-world
networks. Simplistic models can lead to less reliable
predictions and decisions by organizations. More complex
models can improve the
accuracy of predictions. We
hope that our more complex
statistical models and methods will
help scientists, engineers and policy
makers improve the understanding
and model-based predictions of many
real-world phenomena, he said.
Schweinberger, a native of Germany,
earned his Ph.D. in statistics from
the University of Groningen, the
Netherlands, in 2007. He worked as
a postdoctoral research associate at the
University of Washington, Seattle and
Pennsylvania State University before joining
the Rice faculty in 2013.
Mi chael Schwei nberger
Summer of desi gn
For ve weeks they brainstormed, analyzed, drew plans. They
designed, welded, cut and built. And, when it was all over, they
had completed design projects with real-life applications. The 10
engineering students who were part of this program were rising
sophomores, and all of them had taken ENGI 120, the design class in
which several of the projects were launched.
This internship allowed them to completeor in some cases,
redesignengineering projects that theyd worked on as freshmen,
said Renata Ramos, lecturer in bioengineering and coordinator of this
summers internship program. All of them were ENGI 120 projects,
but they were not all the ones these students had worked on.
Five projects were selected for the interns, with subject matter as
varied as creating a new feeding system for tigers and giraffes at the
Houston Zoo to building a rock wall for pediatric rehabilitation.
The projects teach them teamwork, give them design experience
and help them gain more familiarity with the Oshman Engineering
Design Kitchen, said Ramos. For the rst week of the program,
they attended workshops that gave them a refresher on the
components of the Kitchen, such as the available tools, 3-D drawing
and printing, laser cutting and casting. Then they were assigned their
projects, and spent the last four weeks building.
Austin James, mechanical engineering, is part of the Rice Balance.
Last year, that team built a walker for Special Olympics gymnast
Macy Bouchard, which allowed her do a routine on the balance beam.
The wheeled device enabled her to perform by holding onto bars
rather than her coach.
Her condence level just soared over having that kind of
independence, said James. Over the summer, he and teammates
Nikhil Shamapant, bioengineering, and Lauren Wood, computer
science, took that design and improved on it but also kept it
affordable so it could be used by other Special Olympics athletes.
My moms a nurse, so I knew I wanted to work on something that
would help people. Its been great to be part of this project.
The members of Rock-Wall-E, Alex Dzeda, electrical engineering,
Kevin King, mechanical engineering, Sharon Ghelman,
bioengineering, and Anoosha Moturu, bioengineering, also loved
the idea that their design project would help people, in this case,
children with muscular development issues. Their adjustable rock
wall is angled, allowing patients physical therapists to custom design
exercises that increase their muscle capability. Weve had to think
through all kinds of things on this project, explained Moturu.
Because its for kids, we needed to be sure there were no pinch
points, no sharp corners, and that the device would hold the weight
of a small child. Those are real problems, and having to consider
them gives us an idea of the sorts of things well encounter in an
industry setting.
Working on projects like these gives the students a chance to learn
how to prioritize and problem solve, said Ramos. And knowing that
people will really be using their designs is priceless.
Tiger Zip Line
Client: Houston Zoo
Keepers at the Houston Zoo have noticed that their Malayan tigers are
bored because natural behaviors like chasing, stalking and leaping are
not possible in their environment. Design a feeding system that requires
more physical challenges for the cats than the current method.
Helen Little, Archana Mandava, Isaac Phillips
Adjustable Rock Wall
Client: Pediatric Therapy Center
Create an adjustable angle rock wall that will allow therapists to
individualize patients therapies.
Alex Dzeda, Sharon Ghelman, Kevin King, Anoosha Moturu
Balance Beam Device for Special Olympics
Client: Gregg Sholeen
Design an assistive device that allows special Olympics gymnasts to be
more independent while performing balance beam routines.
Austin James, Nikhil Shamapant, Lauren Wood
33
Rices Engineers without Borders (EWB) chapter is one of
the most active in the country, with engineering students
building bridges and improving water supplies in Nicaragua
and El Salvador. Now, the chapter has been honored with
two national awards.
For its efforts to bring clean drinking water to a small town in
Nicaragua, Lucidia Mantilla, the chapter was honored with
a 2014 EWBUSA Premier Project Award and a Student
Project Award from the American Academy of Environmental
Engineers and Scientists.
The EWB-USA Rice University Chapter has really excelled
over the past few years, said Scott Hammond, chapter
relations manager, EWBUSA. Its been a pleasure to see
the level of enthusiasm and commitment to our mission
and vision within the chapter. This has led to a high quality
project and strong collaborations with the chapters
community partners.
Its the best possible feeling an engineer can have, knowing
that something hes done has improved life for a group of
people. I know I made the right decision when I chose to be
an engineer, said Adrian Bizzaro, mechanical engineering,
who is co-leader of the project and president of the EWB
chapter at Rice.
Other members of the Nicaragua travel team (called NICA I)
are: Ethan Ardern, civil engineering; Rico Marquez, electrical
and computer engineering; Siddharth Arun Mullick,
mechanical engineering; Kyle Shepherd, civil engineering;
and Rachel Sterling, mechanical engineering. Marquez and
Mullick were the original co-leaders for the Lucidia Mantilla
work, and Sterling is now a co-leader.
The Rice chapter worked with ENACAL, the national water
company of Nicaragua, and residents of Matagalpa, a
department in the northwestern portion of the country, to
build a potable water system for some 450 residents of
Lucidia Mantilla, an impoverished area in Matagalpa. The
improvements included storage tanks, 400 meters of pipe,
a pumping unit with an integrated control system and a tap
in each home.
About 80 percent of the project cost, which amounted to
$40,000, was funded by the Rice EWB chapter. The rest
came from Nicaragua, including ENACAL.
Bizzaro said the organization is gearing up for this years
projects. At a recruiting event in August, he and fellow
chapter members provided an overview for students who
are interested in getting involved with the group, and
throughout the fall, they are working on design elements for
their projects. Teams are expected to travel to El Salvador
in December, and theres a possibility that another team will
travel to Nicaragua in October.
Ri ces Engi neer s Wi t hout Border s
wi ns t wo nat i onal awards
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG 34 RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
STUDENT AWARDS
NDSEG selections are made by the Air Force Research Laboratory/
Air Force Offce of Scientifc Research, the Offce of Naval
Research and the Army Research Offce. The American Society for
Engineering Education (ASEE) administers the NDSEG Fellowship.
Alred, a rst-year graduate student in materials science and
nanoengineering, focuses his research on the theory and modeling
of the structure, kinetics and properties of materials derived
from macroscopic and fundamental molecular interactions. He
explores the physical properties of nanotubes, in particular their
electro-mechanics, and also works with graphene, graphane and
hexagonal boron nitride. His adviser is Boris Yakobson, the Karl F.
Hasselmann Chair of Engineering, professor of materials science and
nanoengineering, and professor of chemistry. Alred earned a B.S. in
mechanical engineering from the University of Houston in 2013.
Landry, a second-year bioengineering student in Assistant Professor
Jeff Tabors laboratory, will advance his investigations into the synthetic
biology and engineering of bacteria found in the human gastrointestinal
tract. The new work builds off previous advances from the Tabor lab,
published in the January 23, 2014 issue of Nature Methods, which
used an ultra-high-precision method for creating and measuring gene
expression signals in bacteria. The downstream applications for Landrys
research can impact diverse areas of the national defense, such as the
production of synthetically engineered microbes that improve soldiers
nutrient utilization and overall tness on the battleeld. Landry has a
B.S. in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.
Chris Metzler, a rst-year graduate student in electrical and
computer engineering, researches efcient compressive sensing
recovery algorithms for use in radio frequency and high speed imaging
applications. His recent work has been in collaboration with Richard
G. Baraniuk, the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Engineering at
Rice, and Arian Maleki, formerly a postdoctoral scholar at Rice
and now assistant professor of statistics at Columbia University. A
paper on their results has been submitted to IEEE Transactions
on Information Theory and is awaiting approval for publication.
Metzler earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rice in 2013.
NDSEG f el l owshi ps
John Al red
Br i an Landr y
Chr i s Met zl er
John M. Alred, Brian Landry and Chris Metzler have received prestigious
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowships.
Sponsored and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the engineers are
three of 200 doctoral students selected out of approximately 3,200 applicants
nationwide. The three-year fellowship covers tuition and provides a stipend of
$31,000 per year.
35
Eleven current undergraduates and graduate students, as well as engineering alumni are the winners of 2014 National
Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program grants. They are among 2,000 students from across the country
to receive the prestigious fellowships. The annual awards support outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science,
technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees.
The four current engineering graduate students and the undergraduate student awarded the 2014 fellowships and their
departments are:
The six Rice alumni who also received NSF GRFP awards and their current graduate institutions are:
More than 14,000 students applied for NSF GRFP awards this year. The oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, NSFs Graduate
Research Fellowship Program provides recipients with a three-year annual stipend of $32,000 as well as $12,000 for tuition and fees.
Boris Brimkov, graduate student, Computational and Applied Mathematics
Elaa Hilou, graduate student, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Sarah Michelle Kim, graduate student, Computer Science
Chelsey Smith, graduate student, Bioengineering
Stephanie Tzouanas 14, Bioengineering
Brandon Chalifoux, (08, Mechanical Engineering), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Amy Liao, (12, Electrical Engineering), University of California, Berkeley
Scott Nauert, (13, Chemical Engineering), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andrew Owens, (12, Mechanical Engineering), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andria Remirez, (13, Mechanical Engineering), Vanderbilt University
Thi Dinh Vo, (12, Chemical Engineering), Columbia University
NSF Graduate Fel l owshi ps
Stephanie Tzouanas 14 has received a prestigious 2014
Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship Award for
graduate education.
Each year, the highly competitive Hertz Fellowship is given to
15 students pursuing careers in the applied physical, biological
and engineering sciences. Tzouanas was selected from among 50
nalists from 29 universities. Some 800 students applied.
Valued at more than $250,000 per student and lasting up
to ve years, the Hertz Fellowship is ranked as the nations
most generous.
In 2012, Tzouanas was named a Goldwater Scholar by the
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education
Foundation. In 2011, with the aid of a Global Engineering
Research Scholarship, she worked in the National University of
Singapores Tissue Modulation Laboratory. The following year
she took part in the NSF Cellular Engineering Summer Research
Experience for Undergraduates at Rice, and in 2013 she worked
at MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.
Tzouanas received the Society for Biomaterials 2014 Student
Award for Outstanding Research in the undergraduate category.
She was a Rice Century Scholar, which enabled her to study
bone-regeneration materials and techniques in the lab of
Antonios Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering.
Tzouanas is pursuing a doctorate in bioengineering at
Stanford University.
Hertz Foundati on Fel l owshi p
St ephani e Tzouanas
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
STUDENT AWARDS
36
Ant oni a Sebast i an
Nat han Li u
In the Netherlands, I want to look at the increased
food risk posed by climate and land use change
in densely populated areas. The methodology I
develop will help us quantify the increased risk.
Antonia Sebastian
A Rice graduate student and recent alumnus have received Fulbright
Scholarships. Antonia Sebastian and Nathan Liu are winners of the
prestigious awards.
Sebastian, a third-year graduate student in environmental
engineering, will use her NetherlandAmerica Foundation Fulbright
Fellowship in Water Management to spend nine months in the
Netherlands researching ood mitigation and risk.
Sebastian earned a B.S. in civil engineering from Rice in 2011
and began her research at the Delft University of Technology
in September. The Dutch have been dealing with ooding for
centuries, she said. Thirty percent of their country is below sea
level, and 60 percent is at risk of ooding. They have the premier
ood-control system in the world.
In the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008, Sebastian worked in
partnership with the Clear Lake City Water Authority to examine the
effects of ooding and storm surge on coastal bayous. Her adviser is
Philip Bedient, the Herman Brown Professor of Engineering.
In the Netherlands, I want to look at the increased ood risk
posed by climate change and land use in densely populated areas.
The methodology I develop will help us quantify the increased
risk, Sebastian said. A large part of the study will focus on
communicating the scientic results to end-usersthat is, the
decision makers in Houston.
Nathan J. Liu, 14, bioengineering, will use his Fulbright to
conduct research at Imperial College London, focusing on developing
nanoparticle-based clinical tests to predict how cancer patients will
respond to medications before they begin therapy.
This will allow oncologists to select drug regimens personalized
to work for individual patients, helping to prevent unnecessary side
effects, improve quality of care and save health-care dollars, said Liu,
who is also afliated with the Whitaker International Program and
will work toward a masters degree in clinical research/translational
medicine from Imperial.
He plans to enter medical school and continue collaborative
research in experimental medicine. For three years, Liu has worked in
the lab of Rebekah Drezek, professor of bioengineering, researching
gold nanoparticles for applications in cancer immunotherapy.
In 2013, Liu was a Wagoner Foreign Research Scholar at
Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. He was also a Clinical
Research Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Ful bri ght Schol arshi ps
37
Rice engineers Hutson Chilton and Zach Bielak have been
awarded 2014 Udall Scholarships. The awards, presented by
the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, are
given to students who show passion for careers committed to
the environment. Chilton and Bielak are among 50 students
nationwide to win the $5,000 scholarships.
Chilton is a senior majoring in bioengineering with a minor in
energy and water sustainability. She works in the lab of Professor
Ka-Yiu San engineering bacteria to overproduce free fatty acids.
Free fatty acids (FFAs) are conventionally harvested from palm
oil, leading to deforestation in Southeast Asia, said Chilton. We
optimize microbial production of FFAs so that these important
compounds can be sustainably produced using bioreactors instead
of unsustainably harvested from palm forests.
Chilton is president of the Environmental Club, a leader of
the Rice University Biodiesel Initiative, a Real Food Revolution
member, Environmental Committee co-head and EcoRep at
McMurtry College.
Chilton plans to attend graduate school to study chemical and
biomolecular engineering or bioengineering.
Receiving the Udall allows me to pursue my dreams and
reafrms that my goals are considered worthwhile, not only by me
but by environmental leaders across the nation, she said.
Bielak is also a senior, majoring in mechanical engineering. He
participated in the Public Diplomacy and Global Policymaking
Program through the Baker Institute, which took him to Doha, Qatar
over spring break. He has conducted research in the lab of Professor
Pulickel Ajayan analyzing the technical feasibility of sustainable,
organic lithium-ion batteries. He leads a sub-committee within
Engineers Without Borders, working to create a water distribution
system in El Salvador, is the Head EcoRep for Rice, and is music
director for the Rice Philharmonics a cappella group.
Bielak plans to pursue a career in technical sustainability,
combining his engineering skills and love for the environment to
create a more energy-efcient, equitable, and resource-conscious
world for future generations, he said.
The Udall scholarship is important because it will connect me
with similarly dedicated scholars across the nation, from whom I can
learn and with whom I can share my passion, Bielak said. I have
dreamed about entering this community of environmental leaders
since I rst heard of the scholarship, and I cant believe that this
dream has nally come to fruition.
The Udall Foundation is an independent federal agency
established by Congress to honor former Arizona congressman
Morris K. Udall and former Arizona congressman and Secretary of
the Interior Stewart L. Udall.
Udal l Schol arshi ps
Receiving the Udall gives me the opportunity to pursue my dreams and reaffrms that my goals
are considered worthwhile, not only by me but by environmental leaders across the nation
Hutson Chilton
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
FACULTY AWARDS
38
Rice University Professor Naomi Halas has joined the elite
club of scientists elected to both the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Engineering
(NAE). She was one of 67 new NAE members announced in
2014, after being elected to the NAS in 2013.
Less than 5 percent of NAS and NAE members have
dual membership, and Halas is one of 12 women chosen for
the honor. Election to these academies is one of the highest
distinctions conferred on U.S. scientists and engineers.
Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical
and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical
engineering, chemistry, and physics and astronomy. She is the
founding director of Rices Laboratory for Nanophotonics and
director of the Rice Quantum Institute. She is the rst person
in the universitys history to be elected to both the NAS and
NAE for research done at Rice.
Election to a national academy is an honor bestowed
by ones peers in the academy, and the fact that Naomi
has earned the rare distinction of being elected to both
the NAE and the NAS is testament to her sustained and
fundamental contributions to cross-disciplinary science,
said Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean
of Rices George R. Brown School of Engineering and
professor in materials science and nanoengineering
and in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Halas research straddles applied physics, chemistry,
electrical engineering, medicine and optics. She joined Rice in
the rst wave of researchers recruited by the late Nobel Laureate
Richard Smalley to explore the frontiers of nanotechnology.
Halas, who worked at IBMs T.J. Watson Research Center
and at Bell Laboratories, was well positioned for nanoscience
because of her training in both chemistry and physics.
She rapidly rose through Rices academic ranks, but it was
her invention of gold nanoshells in the mid-1990s that rst
drew international attention. Halas nanoshells were among
the rst optically tunable nanoparticles, and the discovery
established her as a pioneer in nanophotonics, a then-nascent
eld dedicated to the exploration of nano-optics.
About 15 years ago, Halas and Rice bioengineering
researcher Jennifer West hit upon the idea of using nanoshells
to treat cancer. Nanoshells have the capacity to convert light
into heat. By tuning them to interact with near-infrared light,
an invisible wavelength that shines through skin and muscle,
Halas and West showed they could use nanoshells to destroy
cancer with heat. The method is now in clinical trials.
Her accomplishments resulted in her election to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, the Materials Research
Society, the Optical Society, the American Physical Society, the
International Society for Optical Engineering and the Institute for
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Halas has a B.A. in chemistry
from La Salle College, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in physics from
Bryn Mawr College. She joined the Rice faculty in 1989.
Nati onal Academy of Engi neeri ng
Naomi Hal as
39
Nati onal Sci ence Foundati on CAREER Award
Three junior faculty members in the George R. Brown School of Engineering
have received 2014 CAREER Awards from the National Science Foundation
(NSF) to further their research.
Honored with the prestigious grants were Caleb Kemere, assistant
professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of Rices
Realtime Neural Engineering Laboratory; Isabell Thomann, assistant
professor of electrical and computer engineering and of materials science and
nanoengineering; and Rafael Verduzco, assistant professor of chemical and
biomolecular engineering.
About 400 CAREER Awards are given each year by the NSF. The ve-year
awards, which come with about $400,000 in research funding, are given to
junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding
research, excellent education and the integration of education and research
within the context of the mission of their organizations.
Kemeres NSF-funded research focuses on improving the effectiveness
and durability of deep-brain stimulators (DBS), devices that counter the
tremors associated with Parkinsons disease by sending an electrical current
into nerve centers near the brain stem. Kemere said todays DBS systems must
periodically be manually adjusted by neurologists.
In his next-generation DBS, such adjustments would be made
automatically, many times a second. The batteries in current DBS systems last
for about 10 years, and achieving comparable battery life for a more dynamic
system will require development of low-power embedded microprocessors.
Thomanns research focuses on using sunlight to reduce the carbon
produced by power plants. We are interested in improving photocatalysis, a
class of processes in which we use light to drive chemical reactions, she said.
This grant will focus on the reduction of carbon dioxide using sunlight, but
the methods that we study have many applications.
Part of her work focuses on designing and testing photocatalytic
nanomaterials, tiny bits of matter that interact with light to foster chemical
reactions. Thomanns research could allow chemical engineers to optimize
solar-powered CO2 conversion systems.
Verduzcos research explores the use of organic materials in wearable and
even disposable electronics. His research group is developing exible organic
solar cells that could be used in electronic applications and devices. Though
not as efcient as silicon-based solar cells, organics could reduce the cost of
solar energy in many applications. Recently, his lab produced a cell based
on block copolymers, organic materials that arrange themselves into distinct
nanoscale layers.
These materials are cheaper than silicon, he said. They can be painted or
inkjet-printed on a surface. Organic solar cells are not going to compete with
current technology, but we believe theres a new set of applications that will
come about from their development.
Cal eb Kemere
I sabel l Thomann
Raf ael Verduzco
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
FACULTY AWARDS
40
Pol Spanos, the Lewis B. Ryon Professor
in Mechanical and Civil Engineering,
and one of the worlds leading experts
on the dynamics and vibrations of
structural and mechanical systems,
was elected a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).
A member of the National Academy of
Engineering since 2005, Spanos research
focuses on devising computational
models with applications in vehicle
and robot dynamics; estimation of
seismic spectra; ow-induced vibrations
of offshore rigs, marine risers and
pipelines; certication of payloads in
space shuttle and space station missions;
directional oil-well drilling; vibration
and aseismic protection of structures and
equipment; wind loads simulation; and
signal processing for electrocardiograms,
electroencephalograms and bone mechanics.
Spanos has published more than 350
technical papers, authored or edited
18 books and supervised the theses of
more than 75 masters students and the
dissertations of more than 55 doctoral
students. He is a member of the Academy
of Europe, the National Academy of Greece
and the Indian National Academy of
Engineering. He is a fellow of the American
Academy of Mechanics, the American
Society of Civil Engineers and the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
He has twice received Rices George R.
Brown Award for Superior Teaching.
Spanos earned a Ph.D. in applied
mechanics from the California
Institute of Technology in 1976
and joined the Rice faculty in 1984.
Founded in 1780, the AAAS is among
the oldest and most prestigious
honorary societies in the country.
Ameri can Academy of Arts and Sci ences Fel l ow
Pol D. Spanos
Ri chard Tapi a
Richard Tapia, University Professor, the Maxeld-Oshman
Professor in Engineering and a professor of computational and
applied mathematics, has earned the National Science Boards
(NSB) 2014 Vannevar Bush Award.
The award is given annually to leaders in science and
technology who have made contributions to the welfare of the
nation through public service activities in science, technology and
public policy. The NSB is the governing board of the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and policy advisers to the president
and Congress.
Tapia joined the Rice faculty in 1970, and his research has
focused on optimization theory and numerical analysis. As
director of Rices Richard Tapia Center for Excellence and Equity,
he has directed or co-directed more underrepresented minority
and women doctoral students in mathematics than anyone in
the country. Tapia also directs the NSF-funded Empowering
Leadership Alliance, which engages underrepresented minority
students in computing at research institutions nationwide.
Nati onal Sci ence Board Vannevar Bush Award
Tapia was the rst Hispanic elected to the National Academy of
Engineering, in 1992. Four years later he received the inaugural
Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and
Engineering Mentoring. That same year he earned a presidential
appointment to the NSB, the nations highest scientic governing
body. Among his many other honors, Tapia received the National
Medal of Science from President Obama in 2011.
41
The Optical Society (OSA) honored
Rebecca Richards-Kortum with the 2014
Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award in
recognition of her exceptional contributions
to advancing the applications of optics in
disease diagnosis and inspiring work in
disseminating low-cost health technologies
to the developing world.
Richards-Kortum is the Stanley C. Moore
Professor of Bioengineering and a professor
of electrical and computer engineering. She
is director of Beyond Traditional Borders
and Rice 360: Institute for Global Health
Technology and oversees the Optical
Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory.
Aydin Babakhani, assistant professor of
electrical and computer engineering, and
director of the Rice Integrated Systems and
Circuits Laboratory, has won the Northrop
Grumman Innovation Award for research
into miniaturized THz radars using silicon
technology. He was the only recipient of
Northrop Grummans challenge on Future
Radar Waveforms.
Babakhani, who describes the project as
radar on a tiny silicon chip, received the
one-year, $100,000 award from the Amer-
ican global aerospace and defense technol-
ogy company. He earned a masters degree
and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from
Opti cal Soci ety Fel d Bi ophotoni cs Award
Established in 2012, the Feld Biophotonics
Award honors researchers for their
contributions to biophotonics. It is named in
honor of photonics pioneer Michael Feld, and
will be presented at OSAs Frontiers in Optics
Annual Meeting in Tucson.
In 2013, Richards-Kortum was elected a
fellow of the OSA, the leading professional
society for scientists, engineers, students
and business leaders who fuel discoveries,
shape real-world applications and accelerate
achievements in the science of light. She
was elected to the National Academy of
Engineering and the American Association for
the Advancement of Science in 2008.
Caltech in 2005 and 2008, respectively. In
2010-2011, Babakhani worked as a research
scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research
Center, and joined the Rice faculty in 2011.
In 2012, he received a Young Faculty Award
from the Defense Advanced Research Proj-
ects Agency, the research and development
arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Among the other applications for
the sensor technology Babakhani is
investigating are security, consumer
electronics (gesture-capturing devices
like Microsofts Xbox, for instance), oil
and gas exploration, and medical im-
aging (including hand-held devices).
Rebecca Ri chards- Kor t um
Northrop Grumman I nnovati on Award
Ameri can Academy of Arts and Sci ences Fel l ow
Aydi n Babakhani
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
FACULTY AWARDS
42
Ameri can Soci ety f or Engi neeri ng Educati on Fel l ow
Ann Saterbak, professor in the practice of bioengineering education,
associate chair for undergraduate affairs in the Department of
Bioengineering and associate dean for engineering education, has been
elected a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education
(ASEE) for her contributions to undergraduate engineering education.
ASEE is the largest U.S. engineering education society. Election as
a Fellow is conned to one-tenth of one percent of its members in any
year. ASEE currently has 262 fellows.
Saterbak earned a B.A. in chemical engineering and biochemistry
from Rice in 1990 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995. She joined the
Rice faculty in 1999 as a lecturer and director of laboratory instruction.
With the support of a National Science Foundation Division of
Undergraduate Education grant, Saterbak co-authored the textbook
Bioengineering Fundamentals, published by Prentice Hall in 2007.
She won the Robert G. Quinn Award (2007) and the Theo
Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award (2013) from ASEE, the
George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2011) and the
George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching (2013) from the
Association of Rice Alumni, and the Department of Bioengineering
Teaching Award (2012).
Saterbak became a member of ASEE in 2000, and is a frequent
presenter at the organizations conferences and expositions. She was
elected to ASEEs National Board of Directors in 2009, and has
served in various positions within the organization, including chair of
the Biomedical Engineering Division, member of the Awards Policy
Committee and reviewer for the Journal of Engineering Education.
Ann Sat er bak
Ashutosh Sabharwal, professor of
electrical and computer engineering
and founder of the Wireless Open-
Access Research Platform (WARP)
at Rice, was elected a fellow of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) for his contributions
to the theory of and experimentation
in wireless systems and networks.
The IEEE names fellows from among
its members who make signicant
contributions to the discipline.
Sabharwals primary research is in the
development of theory and protocols
for wireless networks, including a recent
breakthrough in full-duplex wireless
technology for cellular networks.
As founder of the WARP project, he has
helped develop an open-source research and
education platform for advanced wireless
network prototyping and experimentation
in use at more than 125 research
organizations worldwide. More recently,
he has expanded his research into the
application of mobile technology to address
global health problems. He is the founder
of the Rice-based Scalable Health Initiative,
the purpose of which is to develop
innovative medical devices and applications.
Sabharwal earned his masters
degree and Ph.D. in electrical
engineering from Ohio State University
in 1995 and 1999, respectively. He
joined the Rice faculty in 1999.
I nsti tute of El ectri cal and El ectroni cs
Engi neers Fel l ow
Ashut osh Sabhar wal
43
Opti cal Soci ety Fel l ow
Ameri can Chemi cal Soci ety PMSE Fel l ow
SPI E Fel l ow
Rebecca Richards-Kortum has been elected a fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) the leading
professional society for scientists, engineers, students and business leaders who fuel discoveries, shape
real-world applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. She is one of 71 OSA fellows
named this year.
OSA fellows are nominated by current fellows and selected for their overall impact on optics as
gauged through specic scientic, engineering and technological contributions, a record of signicant
publications or patents related to optics, technical leadership in the eld and service to OSA and the
global optics community.
Richards-Kortum is Rices Stanley C. Moore Professor and a professor of electrical and computer
engineering. She is director of Beyond Traditional Borders and Rice 360: Institute for Global Health
Technology and oversees the Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory.
For two decades, Richards-Kortum has focused on translating research that integrates advances in
nanotechnology and molecular imaging with microfabrication technologies to develop portable optical
imaging systems that are inexpensive and provide point-of-care diagnosis. This basic and translational
research is highly collaborative and has led to new technologies to improve the early detection of cancers
and other diseases, especially in impoverished countries.
Edwin L. Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the George R. Brown School of
Engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Chemical Societys Polymeric Materials: Science and
Engineering (PMSE) Division.
The honor recognizes Thomas for seamlessly integrating and advancing polymers and materials,
particularly in the area of structural control of waves in polymer-based materials. Thomas holds joint
appointments in the Departments of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Chemical and Biomolecular
Engineering, and Chemistry, and collaborates with scientists and engineers in the Richard E. Smalley
Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice.
His current research focuses on using 2-D and 3-D lithography, direct-write and self-assembly techniques
for creating metamaterials with unprecedented mechanical and thermal properties. He is author of the
undergraduate textbook, The Structure of Materials, has coauthored more than 425 papers and holds 17
patents.
Thomas is the former head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, a position he held from 2006 until his appointment at Rice in 2011. He is the
founder and former director of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology (2002-2006), and was elected
to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.
Frank K. Tittel, the J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, professor of
bioengineering, and a pioneer in the development of laser technology, has been named a fellow of the
SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering.
A member of the Rice University faculty for 46 years, Tittel is being honored for his clear
demonstration of signicant technical contributions in one or more elds of optical, photo-optical and
optoelectronic applied science and engineering.
Tittel earned three degrees in physics from Oxford University, culminating in a Ph.D. in 1959. He
went to work for the General Electric Co. in Schenectady, N.Y., and on his rst day was asked to
recreate the laser (Light Amplication by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) rst built by Theodore
Maiman in May 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, Calif.
At Rice, Tittel created one of the worlds rst tunable lasers, with a wavelength that could be set to
specic frequencies. It became critical to many advances in laser applications and critical to the
development of spectroscopy.
Tittel is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. SPIE,
formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, was founded in 1955 and has more
than 17,000 members.
Rebecca Ri chards- Kor t um
Edwi n L. Ned Thomas
Fr ank Ti t t el
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
FACULTY AWARDS
44
Ameri can Soci ety of Mechani cal Engi neers Fel l ow
Associ ati on of Computi ng Machi nery Fel l ow
Marcia K. OMalley, associate professor of mechanical engineering,
has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME).
Edwin L. Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of
Engineering, said of OMalley: Her work in robotics, particularly the
human-robot interface and the important role of haptic feedback, is
well recognized nationally. Her team of students, both graduate and
undergraduate, is helping her create the next generation of medical
robotic devices.
In her citation from ASME, OMalley is singled out for her
contributions to the dynamics and control of mechanical systems,
particularly those designed to physically interact with humans.
These include the design and clinical implementation of robotic
exoskeletons for upper limb rehabilitation after neurological injury,
the use of haptic feedback to enhance skill acquisition, training and
interaction in virtual environments, and the use of interactive haptic
devices for education at the undergraduate level.
OMalley earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from
Vanderbilt University in 2001 and joined the Rice faculty that year. In
2004, she was named an Ofce of Naval Research Young Investigator,
and the following year she received a National Science Foundation
CAREER Award. She earned the George R. Brown Award for Superior
Teaching at Rice in 2008.
ASME has 140,000 members in 158 countries, of whom about
3,300 have been named fellows.
John M. Mellor-Crummey, professor of computer science and of
electrical and computer engineering, has been named a fellow of the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his contributions to
parallel and high-performance computing.
Mellor-Crummey is one 50 ACM members from universities,
corporations and research labs so honored by the organization this
year. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of
Rochester in 1989, and that year joined Rice as a research associate in
computer science and the Center for Research on Parallel Computation.
He became a Faculty Fellow in 1992, a Senior Faculty Fellow
in 1998, an associate professor in 2004 and full professor in 2008.
Mellor-Crummey served as deputy director of the Center for High
Performance Software Research at Rice.
His research focuses on software technology for high-performance
computing, including performance analysis, performance modeling,
parallelizing compilers, programming tools and applications of
high-performance computing to science, engineering and medicine.
According to Google, Mellor-Crummeys scholarly papers have been
cited 7,200 times, of which more than 2,700 have been since 2009.
Marci a O Mal l ey
John Mel l or- Cr ummey
STAFF AWARDS
45
El i zabeth Gi l l i s Award
Hardy Bourl and Award
Debra Purtee, executive administrator in the Department of
Bioengineering, received the 2014 Elizabeth Gillis Award for
Exemplary Service.
The award, named for the wife of former Rice President
Malcolm Gillis, recognizes Rice staff members who demonstrate
unagging commitment and service to the university. Gillis and
President David Leebron presented Purtee with the award at the
April 2 town hall meeting in Rice Memorial Center.
Purtee went to work for Rice in 1994 in the Computer Science
Department as its senior administrator. Moshe Vardi, the Karen
Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor of Computational
Engineering and professor of computer science who was chair of
the department then, described her as a fantastic administrator
who professionally juggled numerous responsibilities: overseeing
the departments staff, managing the department budget,
supporting the faculty in research proposal submission and seeing
to the welfare of our graduate students.
In 1996, Purtee was recruited to the newly created Ofce
of the Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies as an
assistant vice provost. In 2007, that ofce split into two divisions
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Ofce of Research.
Purtee assisted the newly hired Vice Provost for Research, Jim
Coleman, and was charged with the management of all supporting
business activities of the division. She joined the Department
of Bioengineering in 2011. Purtee was recognized with the
Centennial Star Award in 2012.
Kathryn OBrien, events administrator for the George R. Brown
School of Engineering, was presented with the Hardy Bourland Award
at the annual School of Engineering/School of Natural Sciences ice
cream social in April.
OBrien joined the Rice University staff in 1998 as an executive
assistant in the Center for High Performance Software Research. In
2002, she was promoted to conference coordinator, and was hired by
the dean of engineerings ofce in 2006. There she is responsible for
planning events hosted by the schools nine academic departments.
The award is named for Hardy Bourland, who served as associate
dean of engineering from 1975 until his retirement in 2000. It
honors a member of the school staff whose contributions signicantly
improve his or her department, the school of engineering or the
university as a whole. OBrien was also the recipient of the 2010
Outstanding Employee Award, cited for her dedication and expertise.
Debr a Pur t ee Kat hr yn O Br i en
I n Memori am
Joe Hi ghtower
Joe Hightower, a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at Rice University who pioneered
the felds of catalysis and chemical kinetics and advanced development of the materials essential
to the catalytic converters now mandated in motor vehicles, died July 25 at the age of 77.
Hightower earned his bachelors degree at Harding University in Arkansas and a doctorate in
chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. After postdoctoral studies at the Queens University
in Belfast and the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, he joined the Rice faculty in 1967, became full
professor in 1970 and retired in 2002.
He served as department chair, director of sponsored research, a member of the University
Council and secretary of the faculty. He was a faculty adviser to the Student Chapter of the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Hightower co-founded and for more than 40 years served Hospitality Apartments, a volunteer-
run, 46-unit Texas Medical Center facility providing free housing for families coming to Houston
for medical care. Hightower received the Jefferson Prize for Public Service in Houston in 1982.
His companys rather cryptic name, Bromium, is dense with
implications, as Gaurav Banga and his co-founders intended.
First, there is bromineamong the non-metallic elements, the
only one that remains a liquid at room temperature. It evaporates
readilydisappears from sight, like effective computer security. Its
useful as a re-retardant and disinfectantpowerful stuff. And a
bromide is a pithy bit of conventional wisdom.
We wanted a name that got people thinking, that would suggest
something powerful and maybe a little bit mysterious, said Banga,
who earned his masters degree and Ph.D. in computer science from
Rice University in 1998 and 1999, respectively.
Banga has developed a new approach to computer security. Its
based on hardware isolation of unknown computer code and content
and uses novel virtualization technologies. He seems to have a success
story on his hands. Bromium has attracted almost 100 customers
since its founding in 2010, including the New York Stock Exchange,
Automatic Data Processing and BlackRock, the multinational
investment management corporation. Twenty of its clients are
Fortune 500 companies.
Banga came to Rice in 1994 after earning a bachelor of
technology degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of
Technology in Delhi that year. As an undergrad, I was attracted to
the eld of parallel computing. Some of the most cutting-edge work
being done in that eld was at Rice, under Ken Kennedy. He was
number one, said Banga, referring to the late Ken Kennedy, the
John and Ann Doerr University Professor at Rice and director of the
Center for High Performance Software Research.
Peter Druschel, now a member of the Distributed Systems Group
at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany, was
Bangas adviser at Rice.
Gaurav was my very rst Ph.D. student after I joined Rice as an
assistant professor. He and I were my group during the rst year, so
we worked together very closely. He spent day and night at the lab
during those years, living on pizza and Coca-Cola. Not accidentally,
those are the names he gave the two lab computers he was working
with at the time, Druschel said.
Bangas doctoral thesis at Rice was titled Operating systems
support for server applications. Druschel recalled:
I saw plenty of the entrepreneurial spirit that would mark
Gauravs later career. His resourcefulness even got him into a bit
of trouble when he used some computing equipment without
authorization.
There was no ill intent. He just wanted to do an experiment in the
middle of the night rather than wait until the morning.
The freshly minted Ph.D. moved to Silicon Valley in 1998, and
his timing was superb. Thats where all the action was happening.
There was no better place to be for working on the bleeding edge,
he said.
Banga had contemplated a career in academia, but said, I
started having so much funresearch fun. I found more focus and
more freedom in industry, he said.
Before founding Bromium, Banga was chief technology ofcer
and senior vice president of engineering at Phoenix Technologies
Ltd. There, he drove the transition from the traditional BIOS
(Basic Input/Output System) product, which loads the operating
system, to the UEFI (Unied Extensible Firmware Interface)
standard. While at Phoenix he also led the creation of HyperSpace,
NEW APPROACH
TO COMPUTER
SECURITY
47
the worlds rst rmware-integrated client hypervisor, also known
as a virtual machine monitor.
Before joining Phoenix, Banga was vice president of product
management at Intellisync. He was also co-founder and CEO
of PDApps, the creator of VeriChat, a mobile instant-messaging
solution acquired by Intellisync in 2005. Banga started his industry
career at NetApp, where he worked for more than ve years on the
Data ONTAP system and led creation of the virtual ler (vFiler)
product.
Bromium is a venture-backed startup headquartered in
Cupertino, Calif., in the backwaters of Apple, Banga says. It
was named one of CNBCs 50 Disruptorscompanies that will
change the way we do things. Bromium is in the Enterprise
Security category. It uses a patented micro-virtualization
approachisolation as opposed to detectionto upend existing
security models.
Its designed to protect an executive working in his hotel room
or a salesperson connecting from a coffee shopa highly mobile
work force that is extremely vulnerable to cyber-attacks. With
Bromium, each web page, document or computer program runs its
own disposable (and invisible) virtual computer. You end up with
hundreds of virtual PCs being created and destroyed behind the
scene as the user does their work. A bad program or web page cannot
compromise anything because it is isolated in a dedicated virtual
computer. Since Bromium works invisibly, and automatically, this is a
solution for everybody, Banga said.
Bromium now has more than 160 employees and revenues are
increasing rapidly.
All the detection-based security technologies have proven
ineffective. Theyve been unable to keep up with new developments
like BYOD, cloud, smartphones and tablets. As the market embraces
our approach, well be able to get closer to our ultimate goal
restoring trust in computing, Banga said.
His former Rice adviser, Peter Druschel, remembered a story
Bangas father shared at the commencement festivities: He informed
his family as a little boy that he would become a doctor, as in Ph.D.,
and referred to himself as Gaurav Banga Doctor. He seems to have
had his priorities straight pretty early.
phot o: Chr i s Chowani ec
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
ALUMNI
48
It was a Bell Laboratories mentor who encouraged Sandra Johnson
88 to apply to Rice for her Ph.D. work in electrical engineering.
While earning her masters degree from Stanford, she realized she
enjoyed research, and she trusted her mentor when he suggested Rice.
Once here, she fell in love with the small, neighborly campus.
Im from Lake Charles, so it was near to home, she said. The
department size at Rice made it an intimate learning experience.
Johnsons research focused on computer hardware and high-
performance computer design; specically, memory sub-systems in
supercomputers. She looked for ways high-end computers could
improve shared memory without compromising the machines power.
That research led her to IBMs Thomas J. Watson Research Center,
where she did cutting-edge computer research and design.
Its so interesting to me that I was on the bleeding edge of research
at that time and now we see how quickly our computing capabilities
have developed; you have your computer on your phone now.
Johnson left IBM last February, after 25 years with the company.
Instead of retreating to her home in North Carolina, she decided to
use her retirement to begin a second career. SKJ Vision Engineering,
LLC was born in April.
I consult with enterprises to assist C-level executives (CFOs,
CEOs, CIOs) develop tech solutions to help drive the economy of
sub-Saharan Africa, she said. She saw the need for such a venture
while traveling to Africa for IBM. I get to work one-on-one,
helping people develop their objectives and improve conditions for
commerceand livingin their countries.
Though shes been in business for herself only a short time, shes
has already discovered it suits her. She enjoyed working for IBM, but
nds that devising creative solutions to clients problems is gratifying.
I bring ideas to bear without having to be part of the global
corporate identity of a parent company, she says. Its tremendous
freedom.
The future is what Rakesh Agrawal 98 was thinking about in
his third year at Rice, when he decided to stay on for a fth year
instead of graduating in four. He wanted to take classes outside
the engineering core and distribution requirements. Agrawal took
art history and never regretted the decision to stay another year at
Rice. He graduated with a double engineering major, mechanical
engineering and computer science.
It was great for me. I didnt feel like I was rushing, and I real-
ized that in 10 years it wouldnt matter much if I walked in 1997
or 1998.
Agrawal is founder and CEO of SnapStream, a company com-
bining digital television recording with a search engine component
so companies can monitor TV coverage. Its the tool The Daily
Show uses to create its montages. Any viewer of Jon Stewarts riffs
has seen the fruit of Agrawals labor.
He didnt set out to be an entrepreneur but planned to enter
his fathers business, Piping and Technology Products, which he
did. He continues to divide his time between SnapStream and the
family company. While traveling for the family business, he won-
dered, What if you could watch what was on your own television
from anywhere in the world? He and a high school friend devised
a product that would permit viewers to do that.
Agrawal admits the product wasnt as consumer-friendly as
todays comparable devices. It required a bit of tech savvy: install-
ing hardware and software on a computer. But it did turn a users
home computer into a recording device.
It sold well, but we knew it was too complicated to sell in the
millions, he said. So we began to look at new directions we might
take the company.
The friends launched a TV social network called Couchville.
They contemplated building a TV recording product for business-
es instead of consumers. Over the years, the company had been
contacted by a variety of organizations that wanted an enterprise
version of SnapStream.
The present version of SnapStream was born, and Agrawal
shifted his focus from the consumer to the enterprise market. The
company customizes its TV search appliance device to the needs
of individual clients, allowing them to search, record and store as
many channels as needed.
We have a few hundred customers and its a group thats
constantly growing, he said. Theres a lot that Im proud of at
SnapStream.
Agrawal has become an angel investor, providing entrepre-
neurs with start-up capital, and he credits Rice with nurturing his
ideas and introducing him to an amazing peer group.
REA names 2014 Outstandi ng Engi neeri ng Al umna and
Outstandi ng Young Engi neeri ng Al umnus
Sandr a Johnson Rakesh Agr awal
49
REA presi dent, Mi chael Evans, speaks out
The most important thing for the Rice Engineering Alumni
(REA), Michael Evans 65 (MECH) feels, is to continue
evolving into a more impactful organization as the bridge
between the university and engineering alumni.
Over the last three years, the REA has given a lot of
thought to the kind of organization it needs to be and how it
can increase the engagement of alumni for the benefit of the
George R. Brown School of Engineering and its students,
Evans said.
To that end, REA has increased the number of
scholarships it has awarded and taken on sponsorship of
student design teams. The group has also worked with the
Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen to determine what is
necessary for continued student success, such as donating
money for a table saw with special safety features.
Our members are able to see their donations going to
tangible things that have a direct impact on future engineers,
Evans said.
He notes that there will be some changes within REA
over the coming year, the most significant of which will be
allowing members who are not on the Board of Directors
to serve on committees. Committee structure will also
be streamlined. Those changes are meant to build a sense
of community among Rice engineers and to ensure that
any alumni who want to give time or skills to help the
organization support Rice can do so.
Since moving back to Houston in 2005, I have had the
opportunity to get involved in a number of organizations on
campus, including the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen,
OwlSpark, the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship,
and of course REA, Evans said. It is very rewarding and
stimulating to see what our engineering students are doing today.
I think there are many engineering alumni with strong
connections to Rice who want to engage with the School. Over the
years, the REA has made the transition from a social organization
to one that looks for ways to assist the School and its students.
Members have been judges at the Design Showcase and mentored
students. Theyve donated to scholarship funds. And, as we
continue to grow as an organization, we want to keep that kind of
giving and mesh it with the needs of the School.
Evans feels that fostering a stronger connection between
engineering alumni and the School of Engineering is beneficial to
everyone involved; alumni see they have a lasting relationship with
their alma mater, and the School of Engineering can tap into the
groups expertise for projects and resources.
When I graduated in 1965, there were only about 400
people in the entire graduating class, he said. This past spring,
338 undergraduates got their degreesjust in the School of
Engineeringso the need for alumni engagement has never been
greater. Engineering has always been a part of Rice, and still plays
a huge role in academic life on campus. The way I see it, the REA
has an important role to play as well.
RI CE ENGI NEERI NG
ALUMNI
50
For a complete list of recipients of 2014 REA awards and
scholarships, see http://engr.rice.edu/REA_scholarships.
A pi cni c f or the record books!
The REA has had a very good year. As if achieving a record-breaking year with fundraising wasnt enough, the annual Rice
Engineering AlumniSchool of Engineering picnic set two records this yearfor attendance and for scholarship dollars awarded.
At this years event, $112,100 in engineering scholarships and awards were presented. That translates to nearly 40
scholarships, merit awards and grants for engineering students who were recognized for scholastic excellence and innovation.
The picnic set record attendance, with 250 students, faculty, staff and alumni taking part in the afternoons activities.
Organizers said they were pleased to see so much representation from across all engineering disciplines. In his remarks,
Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering, thanked the REA for supporting the School, not
only by offering generous scholarships to its students, but also in serving as mentors and judges for competitions.
This years endowed award winners were:
The Buckley-Sartwtelle Scholarship in Engineering
Erika Danckers
MECH
Endowed by Jack Boyd Buckley, 48 and Helen
Sartwelle Buckley, 44 in memory of their parents
The Bob Dickson Endowed Prize
Sonia Garza
BIOE
Endowed by H. deForest Ralph, 55 and his wife Martha, with
additional funding from Dale Dickson Johnson and others
The Thomas Michael Panos Family
Engineering Students Award
Matthew Horn
MECH
Endowed by Michael Panos, 52 and his sister, Effe
The Harrianna Butler Siebenhausen Award
Jason Gaspar
CEE
Endowed by C.H. Siebenhausen, 50 in
honor of his wife, Harrianna Butler
The Ralph Budd Thesis Award
Mark William Knight
ECE
In memory of Ralph Budd
The James F. Waters Creativity Award
Blaine Rister
ECE
Endowed in 1968 by an anonymous donor in honor of
James S. Waters, 17
The Hershel M. Rich Invention Award
Neelam Singh, Charudatta Galande and Pulickel Ajayan
MSNE
Endowed by Hershel M. Rich, 45, 47 and his wife, Hilda
The Willy Revolution Award and the REA Oshman
Engineering Design Kitchen Team Grant
White Mirror Virtual Fitting Room
Xuaner Zhang and Lam Yuk Wong
ECE
Established by Brian Sweeny 88, part of the team of
students who rotated the William Marsh Rice statue
in 1988, from which the award takes its name.
Leadership Excellence Award
Vivaswath Kumar, ECE and Shaurya Agarwal
MECH
Research Excellence Award
Stephanie Tzouanas
BIOE
Outstanding Senior
Stephanie Tzouanas, BIOE
Distinguished Seniors
Nathan Liu, BIOE and Melody Tan, BIOE
Outstanding Junior
Ravi Sheth, BIOE
Distinguished Juniors
Kamal Shah, BIOE and Thor Walker, MECH
51
Be an REA Sponsor
Support Engi neeri ng Desi gn
Last year, the REA gave more than $15,000 in support of
engineering design at Rice, enabling teams like BoxyClean, who
began work on a low-cost transportable medical instrument
sterilization unit for use in low-resource parts of the world. The
teams concept is to compact existing sterilization systems
into a 20-foot shipping container with the goal of minimizing
energy costs and maintenance and maximizing affordability.
BoxyClean will provide decontamination, steam sterilization
and storage of general surgical tools.
Help students unleash their engineering potential!
Become an REA sponsor today!
For more information, see:
http://alumni.rice.edu/rea/support-rea.
FALL 2014
ENGINEERINGS NEW DEPARTMENT:
MATERIALS SCIENCE
AND NANOENGINEERING

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FALL 2014

ENGINEERINGS NEW DEPARTMENT:

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