In the News

Two Join Rice Board of Trustees

Houston businesswoman and volunteer Susanne Glasscock and distinguished Texas physician Dr. Edward A. Dominguez, both Rice alumni, have been named to the university’s board of trustees for four-year terms that began July 1.

Glasscock ’62, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, served as vice president of Texas Aromatics until her retirement in 2000. She has been a member of the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA) board, the Shepherd Society advisory board and governing council, and the Rice University fund council. Other committee participation includes the Leadership Committee at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the National Endowment for the Humanities Professorship Committee, and the Founder’s Club Committee. She was vice president of special events for Friends of Fondren Library and chaired the library gala in 1999.

She and her husband, Mel ’61, are Rice Associates and members of the Lovett and William Marsh Rice societies. Together, they have funded six scholarships and are supporters of the School of Continuing Studies. Glasscock is active in the wider Houston community as well, serving as a member of the Bayou Bend advisory committee for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and volunteering at St. Mark’s School, St. John’s School, Palmer Memorial Church, Harris County Heritage Society, and the Fish Organization at Texas A&M University.

Dominguez ’82, specializes in internal medicine and infectious diseases at his practice in Tyler, Texas. A native of San Antonio, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Rice and a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1986. During his stay in Houston, Dominguez was a resident and research fellow in infectious diseases at Baylor and chief medical resident at Veterans Affairs Medical Center. While living in Omaha, Nebraska, he was on the faculty at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and served on the staff at several hospitals.

Dominguez, who will be an alumni trustee nominated by the ARA, served a three-year term on the ARA board and was its president in 1999–2000. He was the alumni association regional group leader in Omaha and has chaired both the ARA nominations and honors committees. He has served more than 10 years as an alumni interviewer of prospective students and has been an alumni mentor to Rice students. In 2001, Dominguez spearheaded the “Gift of Life” blood drive in his area in cooperation with the ARA, the American Blood Centers, and the American Red Cross.

Baker Institute’s Djerejian to Chair Federal Advisory Group

Edward Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, will chair a new group to advise the U.S. administration on public diplomacy approaches and programs related to the Arab and Muslim world.

The advisory group, assembled at the request of Congress, will comprise 10 to 12 members with expertise in public diplomacy, public relations, the media, and the Arab and Muslim regions of the world. It will study the efficacy of the Department of State’s public diplomacy efforts in this region, recommend new ideas and initiatives, and report its findings to Congress this fall.

A leading expert on the complex political, security, economic, religious, and ethnic issues of the Middle East, Djerejian has played key roles in the Arab–Israeli peace process, the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, successful efforts to end the civil war in Lebanon, the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and the establishment of collective and bilateral security arrangements in the Persian Gulf.

Henry Awarded Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant

Charles Henry, vice president and chief information officer at Rice, was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant in library science to lecture in New Zealand this past summer. Through public lectures and private meetings at the National Library of New Zealand, the Humanities Society of New Zealand, the Ministry of Culture, various universities, and other locations, Henry shared his insights on the emerging phenomenon of digital libraries and their potential impact on teaching and research and the organization of higher education. Henry also received a Fulbright grant in the 1980s to conduct research in comparative literature in Vienna, Austria.

Halas Earns DOD’s Prestigious Innovator Award

The Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program has chosen Rice’s Naomi Halas to receive the prestigious Innovator Award for ongoing research into novel ways to use nanotechnology to diagnose and treat breast cancer. The award includes a four-year, $3-million grant, which Halas will use to develop new noninvasive methods of detecting and eradicating tumors.

Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, is the inventor of metal nanoshells, a novel type of nanoparticle with “tunable” optical properties.

The Innovator Award is administered by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. First presented in 2001, the award is explicitly designed to encourage the most creative individuals in all areas of research to pursue innovative and novel approaches that may significantly contribute to the conquest of breast cancer.

“Dr. Halas’s nanoshell technology offers just that kind of opportunity,” said Col. Kenneth A. Bertram, director of the congressionally directed Medical Research Programs of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. “The team she has assembled to develop it is an impressive, multidisciplinary group that includes physicists, biologists, and engineers.”

The research team includes Jennifer West, associate professor in bioengineering and chemical engineering; Rebekah Drezek, assistant professor in bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering; and Renata Pasqualini, associate professor of genitourinary medical oncology and cancer biology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

“Wonderful technological advances have allowed doctors today to detect breast cancer sooner and treat it more effectively, and yet 40,000 women died in the United States last year from breast cancer, and another 1 million aren’t even aware they have it,” said Halas. “Nanoshells offer a completely new technological approach that we hope will make breast cancer easier to diagnose, less painful to treat, and ultimately, more survivable.”

Only slightly larger than molecules, nanoshells consist of a nonconducting core covered by a thin metal shell. By changing the thickness of the shell, Halas’s team can precisely tune a nanoshell’s electric and optical properties. Halas and West have successfully attached proteins to the surface of nanoshells—including proteins that bind only with tumor cells. Since the shells can be “tuned” to react to near-infrared light, which passes harmlessly through the body, they can be used as tumor-seeking nanoparticles. After they are injected into the patient, a doctor would shine a low-power light at the patient. The nanoshells would give off a signal in response, and any place there was a tumor, the doctor would “see” a cluster of nanoshells. By increasing the power of the laser, the doctor could heat the nanoshells just enough to destroy the tumor without harming healthy tissue.

Engineering’s Spanos Wins ASCE’s von Karman Medal

Pol D. Spanos, the Lewis B. Ryon Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil Engineering, has been awarded the prestigious Theodore von Karman Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The medal is given annually for distinguished achievements in engineering mechanics that are applicable to any branch of civil engineering.

Spanos is the youngest recipient of this prestigious award, which was established in 1960. He was recognized for his contributions to innovative analytical and numerical tools for studying a wide spectrum of civil engineering systems that exhibit nonlinear behavior and are subject to deterministic and stochastic loads.

Spanos joined Rice in 1984 and has held the L.B. Ryon chair since 1988. He has written more than 250 papers and written or edited 17 books on dynamics and vibrations of elastic or rigid structural and mechanical systems. Currently, he directs a group of 16 graduate students sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research, and industrial firms.

His numerous previous honors include the NSF’s Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Prize, and membership in the National Academy of Greece.

West Named Among 100 Top Innovators

Jennifer West, associate professor in bioengineering and chemical engineering, has been named one of the world’s 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT’s magazine of innovation.
The annual list recognizes individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on today’s world. Nominees are recognized for their contributions in transforming the nature of technology in industries such as biotechnology, computing, energy, medicine, manufacturing, nanotechnology, telecommunications, and transportation.

West is internationally recognized for research in two cutting-edge areas of bioengineering: nanotechnology and tissue engineering. In nanotechnology, she is studying several noninvasive medical applications for metal nanoshells, ultrasmall spheres with unique optical properties. Nanophotonic applications West is co-developing with nanoshell inventor Naomi Halas include photothermal treatments for cancer, implantable photo-activated drug-delivery systems, light-activated “tissue-welding” technology for wound closure, and a method for conducting rapid whole-blood immunoassays.

West’s research in tissue engineering involves the development of bioengineered arteries that can be used to combat heart disease and problems that arise after angioplasty. She has developed biodegradable materials that can be used as templates to grow new blood vessels. West also is developing polymers that can be applied to the interior surface of arteries and release nitric oxide, a clot-reducing agent that helps blood vessels heal.

Schuler Named Among 100 Key Women in Energy

For her research in energy, Emmanuelle Boubour Schuler, a postdoctoral research associate in chemistry, recently was named among RaderEnergy’s 100 “Key Women in Energy—Americas,” a distinction that celebrates women who have made exceptional contributions to their company or country or to the energy marketplace.

Boubour was one of only 10 women recognized in the category of “innovation/creativity” for her research into ways that nanotechnology can assist in the framing of solutions for current and future energy needs. RaderEnergy, a Houston-based energy consultancy, created the honors program to recognize excellence in individual performance among women in the energy industry.

“The future of energy is small,” Boubour says. “Typically, we think of energy in terms of something big, like a huge new discovery of oil reserves in some remote part of the world. However, we know that given the present rate of energy consumption, even these new finds will be unlikely to get us past the next 50 years. Advances in materials, particularly at the nanoscale, might allow us to find new and better ways to harvest energy from wind, oceans, and the Earth’s crust and to make energy transmission more efficient. There is no doubt that nanotechnology will offer new opportunities to provide abundant, cheap, and renewable energy for this new century.”

CNST Awards Two J. Evans Attwell–Welch Postdoctoral Fellowships

Rice University and its Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) recently announced the award of J. Evans Attwell–Welch Postdoctoral Fellowships to Glenn Goodrich and Choong-seop Lee.

The two-year fellowships enable preeminent young scholars to work with dozens of leading nanoscientists at Rice. The fellowship program was established in 1998 by the Welch Foundation in honor of J. Evans Attwell to attract the best Ph.D. recipients in nanoscience and nanoengineering.

Goodrich earned his doctorate in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University and bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and computer science from the University of Iowa. He has served as a research assistant at Penn State since 1998, conducting original research in nanoparticle-amplified bioassays and DNA-based assembly of nanostructures.

Lee earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Notre Dame, his master’s in physics from Western Illinois University, and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Seoul National University. Lee joined Rice after serving two years as a research assistant professor in physics at the University of Houston.

Keck Receives Shapiro Award for Innovative Work at Fondren Library

Kerry Keck’s multiple efforts to improve services at Fondren Library have been acknowledged with this year’s Shapiro Library Staff Innovation Award. The award pays tribute to a Fondren Library staff member who has developed an innovative program to provide library services at Rice or has shown exemplary service to the university community. The recipient receives a cash award and a plaque. Among Keck’s many contributions were introducing the concept of a “collection management and development council,” forming a steering committee for electronic resources, and developing distribution management procedures and tools.

Religious Studies’ Sylvia Louie Joins Ranks with Local Leaders

As a board member for several community organizations, Sylvia Louie recently was accepted into the Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Leadership Forum (ALF).

“Acceptance into the ALF was an affirmation of what I’ve been doing to give back to the community,” says Louie, the senior department coordinator of religious studies. “I was absolutely ecstatic.”

The ALF was founded in 1981 to offer a new leadership model for those in the forefront of the community. It uses a yearlong leadership program to develop local leaders’ skills. Each year, 20 to 25 community leaders from all sectors are chosen to participate in the program after a rigorous selection process. Louie said after she was invited to apply, William Parsons, department chair and associate professor of religious studies, supported her decision to go forward.

The program year begins with an orientation, followed by a weeklong wilderness experience during which members face the challenge of scaling a mountain.

This year, Louie and her classmates went to the Flying L Ranch in Glenwood, Washington. After spending a day on a 40-foot-high ropes course, the group embarked on the one-day mountain climb followed by a day of reflection. On “solo day,” each person spent four hours alone thinking about the previous days’ impact.

“I never thought I would climb a mountain,” she says. “The trip strengthened my power of self-belief and encouraged me to use my intuition and go with the flow even though the unexpected is just around the corner.”

In addition to personal growth, Louie said the group developed a deep trust and respect for one another. These skills will be necessary to collaborate on the community project that each class must organize next.

At the program’s conclusion in April, Louie and her classmates will graduate and become senior fellows. They’ll join Class X’s Stephen Klineberg, professor of sociology, and Class XIII’s Colleen Morimoto, assistant to the provost. “I feel so honored to be rubbing shoulders with them and representing Rice at the same time,” Louie says.

At the end of the wilderness adventure, each participant was presented with a certificate signed by all the class members and facilitators. Each certificate had a note on the back from a small group of classmates.
Their message to Louie: “So petite, yet so strong. In her quiet determined manner, she conquered the mountain and our hearts.”

Staff Song Bird

Kimberly M’Carver, a staff assistant in the economics department, is wowing critics across the nation with her CD, Cross the Danger Line. “M’Carver is such a sweet, heart-grabbing singer and accomplished songwriter,” wrote Daniel Gerwetz of the Boston Herald. “Her new Cross the Danger Line is simply one of the finest Americana albums of 2001.” M’Carver said she had been touring extensively until last fall promoting the CD but took a break to spend more time with her husband and dogs and to work up new material.

Martel Chef Earns Chef de Cuisine Certification

Martel servery managing chef Chris Shepley has earned a prestigious chef de cuisine certification from the American Culinary Federation, joining South Servery managing chef Roger Elkhouri, who received his chef de cuisine certification in December 2002. Shepley said the certification is a product of wanting to learn more about the career he has chosen. “It puts you at a higher level,” he says. “It’s a group that really cares about what they do and strives to learn what’s going on in the industry.”

—Reported by B. J. Almond, Jade Boyd, Margot Dimond, Jennifer Evans, Lindsey Fielder, Trish Leggett