People, papers and presentations

Ruth Lopez Turley, a professor of sociology at Rice, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium and associate director of research for Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, has been appointed by the Texas State Board of Education’s Long-Range Plan for Public Education Steering Committee. She is one of only 10 people selected from a pool of more than 600 applicants.

Rice School of Architecture faculty members Jesús Vassallo and Reto Geiser are playing key roles in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, which opens Sept. 15. Vassallo, an assistant professor of architecture, is curating the photography exhibit “A Love of the World,” and Geiser, the Gus Wortham Assistant Professor of Architecture, is curating and designing the installation “Rooms for Books” with his practice, MG&Co. Vassallo and Dean Sarah Whiting, the William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture at Rice, authored essays for the biennial catalog, while Michelle Chang, an assistant professor of architecture, will have a diptych called “Deep Color; or the Casting of Shadows by Electric Light” in the show. The Chicago Architecture Biennial is the largest architecture and design exhibition in North America and showcases the transformative global impact of creativity and innovation in these fields.