In the News

Changing of the Guard
Seven distinguished individuals from Singapore to Wall Street have been named to the Rice University Board of Trustees, as five current members, ranging from the 61st U.S. secretary of state to the owner of the 32nd National Football League team, wrapped up their terms June 30. The new members are Alfredo Brener, Robert T. Brockman, Bruce W. Dunlevie, Lynn Laverty Elsenhans, Karen Ostrum George, Marc Shapiro, and L. E. Simmons. The five retiring board members are James A. Baker, III; Raymond D. Brochstein; Lee Hage Jamail; Robert C. McNair; and Harry M. Reasoner.

Former Board Member Dies
Rice University alumnus and former board member George R. Miner Jr. died February 28 at M.D. Anderson Hospital from complications of cancer. He was 75 years old. Miner, who graduated from Rice in 1950 with a degree in engineering, was a generous supporter of the university, where he served on the board of governors from 1985 to 1987 and from 1991 to 1995. He is survived by his wife, Elaine; six children; and 12 grandchildren.

Gillis Named to Governor’s Task Force
Rice president Malcolm Gillis recently was appointed to the Governor’s Task Force for Economic Growth. The task force was formed by Gov. Rick Perry to advise him on ways to ensure long-term economic growth in Texas.

The group will develop recommendations to actively recruit businesses to the state, foster and promote free competitive enterprise, avoid or mitigate economic fluctuations, and maintain employment, production, and purchasing. Task force members also will propose methods to assist the governor in responding to fluctuations and cycles within the state economy and to enhance the ability of the executive branch to respond to economic downturns.

Members were chosen for their expertise in business as well as their leadership in their respective communities. In addition to Gillis, Perry named Rice alumnus Hector de J. Ruiz ’72, president and chief operating officer of Advanced Micro Devices, to the 29-member team.

Professor Emeritus Honored for Invention
Distinguished professor emeritus Bill Gordon recently received recognition from two major engineering groups for his creation, the Arecibo radiotelescope. In a ceremony in November 2001, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers gave the telescope its Milestone award and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers gave it the Landmark award. Only five projects have jointly received both awards.

According to Rice professor of physics and astronomy Paul Cloutier, “the telescope is simultaneously the most powerful radar and most sensitive receiver we have. Arecibo put us in touch with the rest of the galaxy. Bill Gordon basically invented the first long-distance telephone where E.T. could phone home.”

Two Professors Named to Top Academic Rank
Two of Rice’s most distinguished faculty members, Ken Kennedy and Richard Smalley, have been named to the position of university professor, the institution’s highest academic title.

Ken Kennedy

Richard Smalley

Kennedy and Smalley join Neal Lane as the only members of Rice’s faculty ever to hold the title of university professor, an appointment that entitles the holder to teach in any department in the university. Lane received his appointment as university professor in 2000 when he returned to Rice after serving first as the director of the National Science Foundation and later as President Clinton’s chief science and technology adviser.

“The title ‘university professor’ is one of the highest honors available in the American universities having such a rank,” said President Malcolm Gillis. “At Rice, the Board of Trustees awards the title only after receiving strong endorsements from the president, the provost, and the deans. The addition this year of Rick Smalley and Ken Kennedy constitutes further evidence of their long-standing and fundamental contributions to their disciplines and to Rice University.”

Emeriti
Ten Rice faculty members whose cumulative time with the university totals more than 160 years are joining the ranks of professors emeriti: John Ambler, professor of political science; William Camfield, the Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor of Art History; John Dennis, the Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics; Frank Fisher, professor of biology; Alan Grob, professor of English; Robert Jump, professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science; Kenneth Laughery, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Psychology; David Minter, the Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English; Gordon Smith, professor of economics; and Richard Wolf, professor of physics and astronomy.

Rice Professor Named ‘Brilliant Young Innovator’
In the June 2002 issue of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s magazine Technology Review, associate professor of computer science and bioengineering Lydia Kavraki was named as one of the 100 top “brilliant young innovators” under 35 years old. According to the magazine, the innovations of those in the top 100 “will have a deep impact on how we live, work, and think in the century to come.”

Chemist Earns Award for Pioneering Efforts
Rice University chemist John Margrave has been recognized for his extraordinary achievements in the field of chemistry with a Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Chemists (AIC). AIC’s mission is to advance the chemical sciences by establishing high professional standards of practice and to emphasize the professional, ethical, economic, and social status of its members for the benefit of society as a whole.

Margrave, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemistry, was being honored for his groundbreaking work in the field of fluorine chemistry and for his work with high-temperature liquid metals. He is one of three noted academics honored with an AIC Chemical Pioneer Award this year.

Professor’s Essay Included in Alley Theatre Program
“Gifts from My Father,” an essay by Rice’s William Martin, was among the literary works read by actors during the Alley Theatre’s Texas Bound program in June.

Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religion and Public Policy in the Department of Sociology and a senior scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, wrote the essay in 1978 while spending time with his father, who was dying.

Meade Named Outstanding Alum in Academia
Andrew Meade, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, received the 2002 Outstanding Alumni in Academia Award this year from the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science Inc. (GEM). Meade and other GEM award winners were honored at a banquet at the GEM annual conference in Chicago.

Meade said winning the GEM award is special because the organization played a critical role in his education. “They were instrumental in my getting into graduate school,” said Meade, who earned his master’s at the University of California at Berkeley while on a GEM fellowship. Meade completed his undergraduate work at Rice in 1982. He joined the Rice faculty in 1989.

Mathematician Inducted into Texas Science Hall of Fame
Richard Tapia, the Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics, was chosen to be inducted into the Texas Science Hall of Fame for his many contributions to mathematics and education, including the nationally recognized program he established to produce more women and underrepresented minority Ph.D.’s in mathematics. Thirty-one mathematics students have received Ph.D. degrees under Tapia’s direct supervision.

Tapia and 10 other Texans, including astronaut Mae Jemison and Nobel laureates Hans Deisenhofer, Michael Brown, and Joseph Goldstein, were inducted at a ceremony in January in San Antonio.

Vardi Becomes Rice’s 12th NAE Member
Rice computer science professor Moshe Vardi has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his contributions to the formal verification of hardware and software correctness.

Moshe Vardi with Students

Vardi, the Karen Ostrum George Professor of Computational Engineering and chair of Rice’s computer science department, is among 74 engineers elected to NAE membership this year. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made important contributions to engineering theory and practice and those who have demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. Vardi becomes the 12th NAE member on Rice’s engineering faculty.

Veteran Rice Actor, Senior Lecturer of German Makes It Big
Wearing a black wig with a few streaks of gray, a trim moustache, and a double-breasted suit, Rick Spuler was hardly recognizable in his debut with the Houston Grand Opera (HGO).

A veteran actor of dozens of Rice plays and a senior lecturer in the German and Slavic studies department, Spuler took on the challenge of acting in his first opera, a 20th-century adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, last spring. He played the lead character of Pasha Selim, a high-ranking military official from Turkey who falls in love with Konstanze, a beautiful Spanish maiden.

In addition to all the routine activities of the theater, Spuler also worked with the rest of the cast on their diction, teaching them how to speak their dialogue with the appropriate pronunciation and inflection. Spuler said he enjoyed having the dual roles and being able to work with the cast on different levels. “It’s a natural extension of teaching German,” he said. “It was a really good working relationship.”

Amborski Named Manager of Cohen House
As a Rice undergraduate, Julia Amborski used to joke that she majored more in the Cohen House than in her declared fields of psychology and sociology. The 1991 graduate spent four of her five years on campus waiting tables at the dining club and during that time found her true calling. Today she no longer is taking orders at Cohen House; she is giving them. She was named manager of the club in January.

Amborski looks forward to a fruitful future here and is cooking up plenty of ideas for Cohen House.

New Human Resource
Elaine Britt, who oversees benefits offered to Rice employees, wants to emphasize the “human” in human resources. Since starting her job as an assistant director for human resources at Rice in November, Britt has had a lot to deal with—a new tax law that impacts the university’s retirement program and the open-enrollment period for health benefits, for example.

But one aspect of her job has taken priority: customer service. “Most of the focus since I started has been on creating more of an atmosphere of customer service,” Britt said. “I want people to know that they can come into the human resources office when they need to talk about their benefits, whether it be resolving a health insurance claim or discussing their retirement plan.”

Britt brings to Rice a strong background in working with organizations to develop and implement healthcare and other benefit programs, automate benefit systems, and understand the healthcare market. She has been part of teams at MethodistCare, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, and Synhrgy HR Technologies.