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In the News
Architecture Dean Lars Lerup Wins AwardLars Lerup, dean of the School of Architecture and the William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture, received the 2005 Educator of the Year Award from the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Lerup was chosen for the award to honor his outstanding leadership as dean of the Rice School of Architecture, his architectural publications, and his support of continuing education for Houston architects through the Rice Design Alliance, the Sally Walsh Lecture Series, and other educational programs. AIA is a national professional association whose 1,500 members include architects, interns, associates, affiliates, and architecture students. In addition, Lerup was invited to present the 2005 Megacities Lecture in the Netherlands on the basis of his book After the City. Bongmba to Serve as Editor of Journals of Religion, TheologyRice is now home to two important journals for those studying religion and theology, and Elias Bongmba, associate professor of religious studies, will serve as managing editor of both of them. Last summer, the office of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion (CSSR) moved to Rice. Bongmba will supervise the production of its quarterly journals: Religious Studies Review and the CSSR Bulletin. CSSR is a federation of several learned societies in religion and aims to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas about the academic study of religion, which it does, in part, through these two journals. The council office, previously based at Valparaiso University, is set to remain at Rice for at least five years. Religious Studies Review is a review of publications across the whole field of religious studies and related disciplines. Reviews of more than 1,000 titles appear annually, as well as bibliographies and an ongoing registry of dissertations completed or in progress. The Bulletin features articles about research and teaching in the fields of religion, religious studies, and theology, as well as information about the work and programming of the 10 constituent societies, grant programs, upcoming seminars, and other announcements. Bongmba will be responsible for the journals’ production, from editing to distribution of books to managing reviewers to prepress production. Mary Ann Clark, who recently earned her PhD in religious studies from Rice, will serve as administrator of CSSR. Earth Science’s Lee Wins Packard FellowshipCin-Ty Lee, assistant professor of earth science, is one of just 16 top young scientists and engineers tapped for 2005 Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. The five-year, $625,000 unrestricted research fellowships are among the most coveted in science, both in terms of funding and prestige. Packard Fellows are nominated from a highly select list of 50 universities. Lee is the third Rice faculty member to win a Packard since Rice earned a place on the nominating list in 2002. The fellowship will support an expanding intellectual horizon that includes studies of the origin and evolution of continents, the chemical and physical differentiation of the Earth and other rocky planets, and the chemical exchanges between the Earth’s interior and the ocean–atmosphere system.Lee’s lab is simultaneously working on topics that include continent formation and preservation, soil formation, the global oxygen cycle, the environmental chemistry of trace metals, and the fluxes of water between the oceans and Earth’s deep interior. Rice Faculty Named Fulbright ScholarsJohn Boles and Keith Hamm have been awarded 2005–06 Fulbright Scholar grants. Boles, the William Pettus Hobby Professor of History, was appointed to the Fulbright–Leipzig Chair in American Studies at the University of Leipzig for the 2005 fall semester. He is well known in the field of Southern history, has served as editor of the Journal of Southern History for more than 20 years, and has authored several books on the South. From September through February, Boles lectured German students on U.S. Southern history. He also led a graduate seminar analyzing the most significant and influential historical scholarship on the South. Hamm, professor of political science, is interested in how campaign finance laws affect the behavior of political candidates and parties. During the first half of 2006, he will assume the Fulbright–Carleton Chair in North American Politics at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he will conduct an analysis of campaign finance systems in the provinces. He will collect data from candidates, members of parliament, and political scholars throughout Canada, where the next national election will take place this spring. About 850 U.S. faculty and professionals received Fulbright grants in 2005 to lecture or conduct research abroad. The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Tour, Pasquali Tapped to Lead Nanotechnology LabJames Tour has been named director of Rice’s Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory (CNL), and Matteo Pasquali has been selected co-director. The pair succeed the lab’s founding director, Rick Smalley, who died last October. Tour, the Chao Professor of Chemistry, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, and professor of computer science, is one of Rice’s leading experts in carbon nanotechnology, especially in the functionalization of carbon nanotubes. Pasquali, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is a leading expert on the processing of nanotubes, particularly the spinning of pure nanotube fibers. CNL currently is engaged in at least a half-dozen major research initiatives, ranging from basic studies of the molecular science of fullerenes to more applied research aimed at producing quantum wires and other advanced materials. The lab also plays a critical role in providing high-quality, research-grade nanotubes for fullerene research labs across the globe. Faculty Elected AAAS FellowsRice University faculty members Eugene Levy, Sallie Keller-McNulty, and Naomi Halas have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS Fellows are honored for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. Levy, the Howard Hughes Provost and professor of physics and astronomy, was elected in the astronomy section for three decades of leadership in the fields of the electrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics of astrophysical systems, both in the solar system and the distant universe. Keller-McNulty, dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering and professor of statistics, was elected by her peers in the statistics section for distinguished research in the area of confidentiality, for leadership of the statistics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and for her service to the statistical community. Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, was elected by her peers in the chemistry section for the design and fabrication of nanoshells and for groundbreaking applications of nanoshells in biomedicine and optical physics. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. Founded in 1848, it includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science serving 10 million individuals. Henry Named Foundation’s Distinguished FellowDrawing a “living blueprint” for libraries that continue to morph in the rapidly changing world of digital information is the challenge Rice’s Geneva Henry will take on as the Digital Library Foundation (DLF) Distinguished Fellow during 2006. The traditional library has facilitated the exchange of scholarly communications, but advances made possible by the Internet have raised a number of issues that need to be addressed to ensure the emerging libraries of the 21st century are headed in the same direction. The DLF, a consortium of libraries and related agencies pioneering the use of electronic information technologies to extend collections and services, has established a framework to understand and communicate the business processes of emerging libraries. As Distinguished Fellow, Henry will oversee development of that framework. DLF membership includes about 40 leading research institutions, mostly within the United States. Baker Institute’s Jaffe Appears on Esquire ListRice University’s Amy Myers Jaffe is on Esquire magazine’s 2005 “best and brightest” list, which appeared in its December issue. Jaffe, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate director of the Rice Energy Program, is one of 12 honorees in the society category. The magazine’s write-up about Jaffe includes her views on seven ways to fix the oil crisis. For more than a year, Esquire editors researched and interviewed scores of experts for its annual list showcasing the top minds in the worlds of science, culture, education, and the arts. Jaffe was one of four honorees invited by Esquire to speak in New York at its 2005 Best and Brightest Imagination Session. The magazine describes Jaffe as “a rarity among energy policy experts” and “a voice of honest, nonpartisan reason.” —Reported by B. J. Almond, Jade Boyd, Margot Dimond, and Jennifer Evans |
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