Faculty

Halas, Nordlander win prestigious Eni Energy Transition Award

Rice’s Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander have won the prestigious 2022 Eni Energy Transition Award.

Cherukuri named Rice University’s first vice president for innovation

Paul Cherukuri, the executive director of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering, has been named Rice University’s first vice president for innovation. 

Ramesh named Rice University’s vice president for research

Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a condensed matter physicist and materials scientist with more than 25 years in academia, industry, national labs and government service, has been named Rice University’s vice president for research. 

RSVPs requested for Aug. 4 memorial celebration honoring longtime mathematics professor John Hempel

Rice will host an Aug. 4 memorial celebration to honor the life of longtime math professor John Hempel.

Ten new professors join Rice Business

The Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University has added ten faculty members with expertise ranging from management to marketing. It’s a record number of new tenured and tenure-track professors for the school.

The DesRoches era begins as Rice’s eighth president takes office

Reginald DesRoches started his first day as Rice University’s newest president the same way he starts most Fridays: with a run around campus, on this particular dewey Houston morning, accompanied by his wife Paula and daughter Shelby, a Rice senior. Later, just as he has during his term as provost, he strolled into Allen Center. But on this Friday, he walked in as President DesRoches.

Nobel laureate, beloved Rice professor Robert Curl dead at 88

Nobel Prize-winning chemist and beloved Rice University Professor Robert Curl died July 3 at age 88.

Rice community hits the streets for LGBTQ Pride celebrations

Dozens of members of the Rice community hit the streets of downtown Houston June 25 to walk in the city’s 44th annual LGBTQ Pride parade. This year’s parade and festival marked the first in-person iteration of the yearly event held in two years due to COVID-19.

Stephen Klineberg: A retrospective

Through most of the 20th century, Houston thrived. It was a one-horse industrial town, riding its location near the East Texas oil fields to continued prosperity. The city was also world-famous for having imposed the least possible controls on development of any city in the Western world. Houstonians proclaimed themselves to be the epitome of what Americans can achieve when left unfettered by zoning codes, government regulations or excessive taxation.

Casbarian, Doty, Leebron and Sun receive ARA’s Gold Medal at 2022 Laureates Awards

At the Association of Rice Alumni’s 2022 Laureates Awards ceremony May 7, the group bestowed its highest honor — the Gold Medal Award — to Rice Architecture’s John Casbarian ’69 ’72 and Janice Doty ’60. Rice President David Leebron and wife Y. Ping Sun were also awarded the ARA’s Gold Medal for their 18 years of service to the university.

Daniel Preston wins NSF CAREER Award

Daniel Preston wins a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to develop textile-based wearable robots.

Rice Architecture faculty among New York’s finest

Rice Architecture's Wortham Fellows are among recipients of this year's Architectural League of New York Prize for Young Architects.

Houston birdwatcher turned to listening in the pandemic

A Rice geologist’s birding hobby branched out into citizen science during the pandemic.

Faculty recognized with award for superior teaching

Nine faculty received the 2022 George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, which honors top Rice instructors by votes from alumni who graduated within the past two, three and five years.

‘Awesome in every possible way’

To understand why Statistics’ Philip Ernst won this year’s George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Rice’s top teaching award, one need only read a few of the student comments in anonymous evaluations of his STAT 310 course.