In the News

— Vicki Whamond Bretthauer — Janice Suber McNair — Robert McNair — David Alexander — Eva Haverkamp — Caroline Levander — Randi Martin — Richard Tapia — Michael Deem — Rebekah Drezek — Marcia O’Malley — Sidney Burrus — Robert Curl — Joyce Farwell — Graham Glass — Werner Kelber — William Leeman — Ronald Sass — Gale Stokes — Sandra Gilbert — Greg Williams — Cynthia Wilson — Ronda Platt Vicki Whamond Bretthauer Robert McNair Eva Haverkamp Caroline Levander Randi Martin Richard Tapia Michael Deem Rebekah Drezek Marcia O’Malley Sidney Burrus Robert Curl Werner Kelber Ronald Sass Gale Stokes Greg Williams Cynthia Wilson

Alumna Bretthauer Joins Board as ARA Representative
Vicki Whamond Bretthauer ’79 was named to the Rice University Board of Trustees as the representative of the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA). She will serve a four-year term.
A 22-year veteran of the airline industry, Bretthauer is a consultant with DLS Associates, a transportation consulting firm specializing in resource planning, scheduling, and operations management. She also is an advisor/investor with Waverly Capital on an airline start-up in China.
An active alumna, she is a member of the alumni board, past president of the ARA, and chairs the Rice alumni group in Chicago. She also serves on the Council of Overseers for the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and has served on the Rice board committee on resource development and alumni affairs.
Bretthauer, who lives in Florida and Chicago, has an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University in marketing and operations. She is a member of the business advisory committee for the transportation center at Northwestern and is a frequent lecturer at the center.

Jones School Building Named for McNairs
The newest building on the Rice campus, the 167,000-square-foot home of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, has been officially named Janice and Robert McNair Hall by the Rice Board of Trustees.
Robert McNair, chair and chief executive officer of the McNair Group and majority owner of the Houston Texans, served on the Rice Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2002 and as honorary co-chair of the Rice: The Next Century Campaign, which concluded last year. He and his wife, Janice, who serves with him as a Rice Associate and member of the William Marsh Rice Society, made the largest gift to the $502.7 million campaign in support of the Jones School. Through the Houston Texans, the McNairs also helped to underwrite a sports management program at the Jones School.

McNair is perhaps best known in the business community as the founder of Cogen Technologies, one of the world’s largest cogeneration companies, which was sold in 1999. The McNair Group oversees an investment portfolio that includes cogeneration assets in the eastern United States.

Active in the Houston community, McNair is a current or past member of the boards of trustees of a number of institutions in addition to Rice, including Baylor College of Medicine; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Houston Grand Opera; Greater Houston Partnership; Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau; the Free Enterprise Institute; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Janice Suber McNair also is well known in the Houston community for her philanthropic and civic commitment. With her husband, she established the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, which provides significant support to a wide variety of charitable, scientific, literary, educational, and religious organizations. She also is a strong supporter of the Houston Zoo, where the Janice Suber McNair Asian Elephant Habitat has been open since 1994.
The McNairs’ past gifts to Rice include funding to endow the chair of the director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Astrophysics’ Alexander Earns White House Honor
Rice University astrophysicist David Alexander has been named a recipient of the 2004 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, one of the nation’s foremost honors for professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.

Alexander, the Andrew Hayes Buchanan Associate Professor of Astrophysics and associate professor of physics and astronomy, was one of 58 researchers honored in a White House ceremony June 13.
A member of the Rice faculty since 2003, Alexander specializes in the study of the sun. His work in the fields of solar and solar terrestrial physics spans theory, modeling, simulation, and data analysis. He has helped develop models of solar flares and worked on a range of other problems, including coronal heating, 3-D simulations of the corona, large-scale eruptions, coronal mass ejections, and magnetic reconnection.

Throughout his career, Alexander has been active in the areas of education and public outreach. He works regularly with NASA’s Sun–Earth Connections Education Forum, and he created the successful Solar Week educational program, which offers teachers a weeklong series of web-based educational activities designed to spark students’ interest in science. For more information, visit www.solarweek.org.

Haverkamp Named Radcliffe Fellow
Eva Haverkamp, the Anna Smith Fine Assistant Professor of History, recently was named a 2005 Radcliffe Institute fellow at Harvard University. She was among 51 women and men selected from a pool of 782 applicants.

Radcliffe Institute fellowships, which run from September to June, are designed to support scholars, scientists, artists, and writers of exceptional promise and accomplishment who wish to pursue work in academic and professional fields and in the creative arts. Fellows live in the Boston area as they pursue their projects, chosen by the selection committee for their quality and long-term impact.

Haverkamp’s project, Christians and Jews at the Time of the First Crusade: Contours of Interactions, continues her research of the Jewish and Christian historical experience in medieval Northern Europe.

Levander Chosen as Director of Center for the Study of Cultures
Now in its 18th year, Rice’s Center for the Study of Cultures has welcomed Associate Professor of English Caroline Levander as its new director. The center’s goal is to bring together faculty and scholars from the humanities and social sciences to discuss common interests and connect them with the greater world through conferences, lectures, symposia, and workshops.

Levander, a member of the Rice faculty since 2000, will work to increase the center’s national profile and initiatives and oversee its existing programs, which include postdoctoral fellowships supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and graduate seminars sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Scholars and the Autrey Visiting Professors, as well as workshops and conferences.

Since her term began in July, Levander has been involved in the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes, an association of more than 150 centers and institutes from around the globe aimed at fostering cross-disciplinary activity. She also joined the world’s leading thinkers on the humanities at the third International Conference on New Perspectives in the Disciplines at the University of Cambridge, U.K., where she gave a talk on the role of centers in international research initiatives.

Levander’s research areas include 19th-century American literature and race, gender, and cultural studies. She is the author of numerous articles appearing, most recently, in American Literature, American Literary History, and Studies in American Fiction, and she is the author or editor of several books and anthologies.

Psychology Chair Named Journal Editor
Randi Martin, the Elma Schneider Professor of Psychology and chair of the Department of Psychology, has been named editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (JEP:LMC).
She is the first female editor of this scientific journal and its first editor specializing in neuropsychology. The American Psychological Association (APA)—the largest association of psychologists worldwide, with 150,000 members—publishes the monthly peer-reviewed journal. JEP:LMC features original experimental studies on basic processes of cognition, learning, memory, imagery, concept formation, problem solving, decision making, thinking, reading, and language processing—fields that dovetail with Martin’s areas of expertise.

Martin’s research focuses on the cognitive mechanisms involved in language comprehension and production in people with brain damage as well as in people with healthy brains. A long-standing research interest in her lab is the relation between short-term memory and language processing. She also studies speech production and the processes involved in word, phrase, and sentence production. She conducts research on the structure of reading and writing systems as well, examining patients with different types of reading disorders to test models of reading.

A fellow of the APA, the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Martin has been associate editor of the journals Cognitive Neuropsychology and Psychonomic Bulletin and Review and has served on a number of other editorial boards.

Hispanic Pioneer Tapia Earns University’s Top Academic Title
Rice University has announced the promotion of Richard Tapia to the school’s highest academic title of University Professor. He becomes only the sixth person and the first mathematician to be given that title.

Tapia, who joined Rice’s faculty in 1970, is an award-winning mathema-tician and the first Hispanic named to the nation’s highest scientific governing body, the National Science Board. He also is the first Hispanic elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering.

“Appointments to the rank of University Professor are reserved for exceptionally eminent faculty whose experience and interests suit them for a broad role in the intellectual life of the university,” Rice president David Leebron explains. “The stature of Richard Tapia’s scientific accomplishments is matched by his passion for and commitment to improving the opportunities for underrepresented minorities in science and engineering education.”

Tapia also has been awarded Rice’s Maxfield and Oshman Professorship in Engineering. He serves as associate director of graduate studies at Rice and director of the university’s Center for Excellence and Equity in Education.

“Rice University has provided an excellent environment for me to pursue my dreams and objectives,” Tapia says. “Over the years, the administration has been unusually supportive of my programs and ideas. I am deeply honored by this recognition. It validates the activities that I believe in and represent.”

Tapia is internationally renowned for his research in numerical optimization methods. He has authored or co-authored two books and more than 80 research papers and directly supervised 31 doctoral students. His service to Rice includes a longstanding commitment to the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM), which he helped found and build. Tapia served as chair of CAAM from 1978 to 1983.

Nationally, Tapia is best known for his efforts to increase participation of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. In 1996, his longtime efforts earned him the Presidential Award for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. That same year, he again earned White House recognition when he was appointed by President Clinton to the National Science Board.

Tapia is a founding member of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science; an original member of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas; and a member of the Texas Science Hall of Fame.

Tapia’s leadership also has earned Rice national accolades for its minority outreach programs. He is the director of the university’s Alliances for Graduate Education in the Professoriate Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. This highly recognized program provides opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students in science, math, and engineering to participate in university activities and work during the summer under the guidance of Rice faculty researchers.

Rice Garners Three Invites to Coveted Symposium
Three of Rice University’s top young engineering faculty—Michael Deem, Rebekah Drezek, and Marcia O’Malley—were selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s 11th annual Frontiers of Engineering symposium in September. The event draws talent from academia, industry, and government, and in 2005 only 88 engineers ages 30 to 45 were invited to attend.

No institution received more than three invitations for general participants, and only three institutions—Rice, Cornell University, and GE Global Research—had three invited participants.

The event brings together young engineering researchers who are performing cutting-edge work in a variety of disciplines. The participants were chosen from a field of 220 applicants nominated by fellow engineers or organizations.

The symposium explored aspects of identification and verification technologies, the engineering of complex systems, engineering for developing communities, and energy.

Deem, the John W. Cox Professor in Biochemical and Genetic Engineering and professor of physics and astronomy, specializes in statistical mechanics, specifically the computer simulation of complex molecular systems. He is interested in four main areas of research: the adaptive immune system response, cancer vaccines, protein structure and drug discovery, and zeolite structure and nucleation. His group uses both simulation and analytical statistical mechanics to attack these problems.

Drezek, the Stanley C. Moore Assistant Professor in Bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, conducts translational biomedical research at the interface between nanobiotechnology and biophotonics. In particular, her laboratory is developing new molecular imaging technologies for improved detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancer.

O’Malley, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and materials science, is director of the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab, which studies the use of robotic devices in virtual and remote environments. Her current research interests include the development of new techniques for the display of augmented feedback in virtual environments; the implementation and study of haptic feedback in simulated and remote environments, including associated control issues; and the design and control of wearable robotic devices for rehabilitation and training.

Board Approves Emeritus Status for Eight Faculty Members
Eight faculty members have joined the ranks of professors emeriti. They are Sidney Burrus, the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Engineering; Robert Curl, University Professor Emeritus and the Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences; Joyce Farwell, professor emerita of voice; Graham Glass, professor emeritus of chemistry; Werner Kelber, the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies; William Leeman, professor emeritus of earth science; Ronald Sass, the Harry C. and Olga Keith Wiess Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Gale Stokes, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor Emeritus of History.

Sandra Gilbert Receives Award for Work in Humanities
Rice’s Center for the Study of Cultures (CSC) has been called “the intellectual backbone of the humanities.” If that’s true, Sandra Gilbert gives that backbone its muscle. Since 2001, she has served as associate director of the CSC, organizing and administering about 50 academic events, from lectures to symposia and conferences; managing the center’s visiting-scholar, teaching-release fellowship, and postdoctoral programs; and handling CSC public relations.

For this dedication and hard work, Gilbert recently was recognized with Rice University’s Distinguished Employee Award. The award is given by the human resources department on behalf of the university to recognize employees who perform above and beyond their job descriptions to the benefit of the Rice community.

Alum Williams Named New Head Women’s Basketball Coach
Rice alumnus Greg Williams ’70, who has been a head coach at two major colleges and in three professional leagues, is the new head women’s basketball coach for the Owls.

Williams was a three-year letterman for the Owls basketball team under head coach Don Knodel from 1967 to 1969, earning all-Southwest Conference honors in 1969. Williams replaces Cristy McKinney, who was named head coach at Clemson University.

Wilson Named New Assistant to the Board
After spending a year as the executive assistant to the president, Cynthia Wilson has been appointed the new assistant to the Rice University Board of Trustees. She still will have duties in the Office of the President, acting as a liaison between the office and the board.

Wilson came to Rice in 2003 during the search for the seventh president of the university, then stayed to work in the office of the new president to help with the transition. Her position as assistant to the board also will be during a time of transition. Jim Crownover took over the position of board chair July 1.

Wilson previously worked as an executive search consultant, leading high-level searches for Fortune 100 companies. Before that, she served as communications specialist for McKinsey & Company Inc., designing and executing communications and cultural change strategies for Fortune 500 clients.

Since Wilson no longer will be devoting all of her time to the president’s office, a new executive assistant has been named. Ronda Platt will provide administrative support for President David Leebron and will be the primary contact for all scheduling, logistics, and travel needs.

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