Rice Magazine Fall 2007

8/14/2019 Rice Magazine Fall 2007

1/52The Rice Brand Campus Construction The Houston Area Survey Diplomat Michael Owen


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RICE SALLYPORT The magazine of rice universiTy faLL 2007

D e p a r t m e n t s

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7 Excuse me, my ribs arerattling. Id better takethis call.

4 You might have more incommon with zebra shthan you think.

5 Its bigger. Itsbolder. Its boron.

46 The womens swim team pools its talentsas it strokes toward the championship.

12 Theres predator andprey, and then theresmutuality.

11Plasmas are ound inthe middle o whitedwar stars. So, howdo you get them intoa lab? Freeze them,o course.

17 They may not be BurtReynolds, but theyrein the same race.

41Hes not deacing books hes re-acing them.

6 Its good to be at thetop o the trash heapwhen youre in arecycling contest.

9 Call it alternative uelsalternative uel.

9Nanodevice, buildthysel.

42What the heck is that?Is it an instrument?


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F e a t u r e s

18 Competition, Collaboration and the Rise of

Global Higher Education

B D a d W . L b o

20 Words of Wisdom

When you want to be the best, youve got to stand up

and make yoursel known.

22 Building on a Vision

Rices Vision or the Second Century already exists on

paper, but Facilities, Engineering and Planning is turning

the touchstone into the tangible.

28 Whats Your College?

Introduced 50 years ago, Rices college system has

become a dominant eature o undergraduate student lie.

B C h o p h D o w

34 On a Mission

Michael Owen has never let cultural dierences

slow him down in a Foreign Service career that has

taken him to Europe, Arica and India.

B K M a k

38 Enduring Reflection: The Houston Area

Survey

Most o us have a hard time taking stock o our

own lives. Stephen Klineberg keeps tabs on an

entire city.

B C h o p h D o w

38

2228

What Sau Bew, Vice Aira JaesStcae, Aen Ginsberg, Jhn Irving, JuianBn an T Stppar have in cn?


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Rice Saprt

Fall 2007, Vol. 64, No. 1

Published by the Oceo Public Aairs

Linda Thrane, vice presidentSuzanne Gschwind, director of

Communications Services

EditorChristopher Dow

Editorial DirectorTracey Rhoades

Creative DirectorJe Cox

Art DirectorChuck Thurmon

Editorial StaMerin Porter, staff writer

Jenny West Rozelle, assistant editor

Desin StaTommy LaVergne,photographerJe Fitlow, assistant photographer

Te Rice University Boardo Trustees

James W. Crownover, chairman; J.D.Bucky Allshouse; D. Kent Anderson;Teveia Rose Barnes; Alredo Brener; Vicki

Whamond Bretthauer; Robert T. Brockman;Albert Y. Chao; Robert L. Clarke; BruceW. Dunlevie; Lynn Laverty Elsenhans;Douglas Lee Foshee; Susanne MorrisGlasscock; Carl E. Isgren; K. TerryKoonce; Robert R. Maxeld; Steven L.Miller; M. Kenneth Oshman; JeeryO. Rose; Hector Ruiz; Marc Shapiro;L. E. Simmons; Robert B. Tudor III;James Turley

Administrative OfcersDavid W. Leebron, president; EugeneLevy, provost; Kathy Col l ins , vice

p r e s id en t f o r F inance ; DarrowZeidenstein, vice president for ResourceDevelopment; Kevin Kirby, vice president

for Administration; Chris Muoz, vicepresident for Enrollment; Linda Thrane,vice president for Public Affairs;Scott W.

Wise, vice president for Investments andtreasurer; Richard A. Zansitis, generalcounsel.

It is the policy o Sallyport to run lettersthat respond to a particular article only

within one year ollowing the articlespublication. All submissions to Sallyportare subject to editing or length, clarity,accuracy, appropriateness and airness tothird parties.

Sallyport is published by the Oce oPublic Aairs o Rice University and is sentto university alumni, aculty, sta, graduate

students, parents o undergraduates andriends o the university.

Editorial Ofces

Communications ServicesMS 95P.O. Box 1892

Houston, TX 77251-1892

Fax: 713-348-6751E-mail: [email protected]

Postmaster

Send address changes to:Rice University

Development ServicesMS 80P.O. Box 1892

Houston, TX 77251-1892

DeCeMBer 2007 riCe University

ChristopherDow

Think o Rice as an excellent little university residing quietly behind its hedges?

Think again about the quiet part, at least. Inside the hedges, something is cooking. No matter whereyou look rom campus acilities to programs to international collaborations theres activity as theingredients o President David Leebrons Vision or the Second Century begin to simmer.

One ingredient were adding more o this year is students. The V2C recipe calls or an increase in thesize o the student body by approximately 30 percent during the next decade. This all, Rice saw thebeginnings o that with our 742-member reshman class. In addition to being Rices largest-ever groupo rst-year students, they were selected rom the largest applicant pool in Rices history. You can read

about them in more detail in this issue, and a pretty impressive bunchthey are. Its encouraging to know that these exceptional young womenand men will leave Rice with the tools to become the kind o infuentialleaders so necessary or the coming century. But rest reassured that, at3,002, our undergraduate class is only seven larger than last years. Theprojected growth will occur gradually over the next decade.Were also adding more cutting-edge acilities or learning and research

to the mix. Youll be hearing a lot more about them during the nextcouple o years, but a perect example is the Collaborative Research

Center, introduced in our last issue. When completed, this state-o-the-art teaching and research acilitywill bring a new dimension to bioengineering and biomedical sciencesby combining, or the rst time in one place, researchers rom Rice and

multiple institutions rom the Texas Medical Center.Ingredients arent all were adding. Were kickin it up a notch, too.

At a recent town hall meeting where President Leebron updated acultyand sta on the progress o the V2C, he related an incident in which astudent approached him and commented on how much more vibrantthe campus seemed than in the past. The president replied thats becauseall the campus construction is limiting space and orcing people intocloser contact. The audience laughed in appreciation o the joke andbecause they knew it isnt strictly true. Lie on campus isnt more vibrantbecause o connement but because boundaries are alling and excitingpossibilities are opening up.

Research is part o those possibilities, but we have our exceptionalstudents to thank or much o the excitement in the air. Theyre per-orming better than ever in the classroom which is saying a lot andmaking groundbreaking discoveries even while undergraduates. Equally

impressive, theyre taking their burgeoning expertise to an internationallevel as they travel to learn and serve in countries the world over.

And back at home, no student space is more vibrant or nearer and dearer to the hearts o studentsand alumni alike than the colleges. Well keep you abreast o the construction o Rices 10th and11th colleges McMurtry and Duncan, respectively but in the meantime, we help celebrate howthe colleges enhance student lie at Rice with a retrospective on the college systems 50th anniversary.

As any good cook knows, a tasty dish is more than ingredients and seasoning. It deserves stunningpresentation, and youll be seeing a lot more o that, too, as Rice steps more boldly into the world. Justas the CRC extends Rices ootprint outside the hedges, our new marketing campaign is working tomake people across the country and around the world aware o Rice and all the wonderul research andeducational opportunities going on here. And along with Rices greater visibility is a makeover o theRice look, complete with a new logo and a resh design or our Web sites.

So, the next time you think o Rice, dont think aloo, behind the hedges and quietly smart. Thinkpassionate, unconventional and, at nearly 100 years o age, all the wiser. Thats the Rice recipe or doinggood and achieving greatness.

S, the next

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Rice, nt thin

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an, at near

100 ears age,

a the wiser.

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[ T h R O U g h T h E S A L L Y P O R T ]

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Called Rice 360: TechnologySolutions or World Health,the plan was announced duringthe annual meeting o the Clin-ton Global Initiative in New

York. It will ocus on establish-ing an institute to create, testand disseminate new technolo-gies and educational programsthat help achieve the UnitedNations health-related Mil-lennium Development Goals.

These include halting the spreado HIV, slashing the mortalityrate o children under 5 by two-thirds and reducing the num-ber o women who die romcomplications o pregnancy andchildbirth.

Studies estimate that nearly10 million children under age5 die each year in develop-ing countries because they donot have access to appropriatehealth technologies tech-nologies that we oten take orgranted here, said Rebecca

Richards-Kortum, who is step-ping down as bioengineeringdepartment chairwoman at theend o the academic year tospearhead the Rice 360 initia-tive. Rices strong commit-ment to its undergraduates isone o our unique strengths.Rice 360 will capitalize on thiscommitment by blending engi-neering, education and servicein a way that ignites studentsimaginations to change their

lives and the lives o the worldsmost needy patients.

Rice 360 is designed to tapstudents and aculty memberscreativity and their desire tomake a dierence, serve oth-ers and save lives. It buildson Rices successul BeyondTraditional Borders program,in which students learn aboutglobal health issues and designtechnologies in response to

problems doctors ace in thedeveloping world. BTB is sup-ported by a grant to Rice romthe Howard Hughes MedicalInstitutes Undergraduate Sci-ence Education Program.

Last summer, seven under-graduates took their technolo-gies and educational programsto Arica or real-world testingand implementation in clinicsrun by the Baylor InternationalPediatric AIDS Initiative.

Kim Bennett, a senior whointerned this summer in Malawi,

was on a team that designed apump to dispense liquid medi-cation accurately according to achilds individual needs. Calledthe ABC pump, the device aimsto eliminate human error associ-ated with current syringe andmedicine cup techniques.

I brought the ABC Pump toMalawi to show it to the doc-tors in the clinic where I was

working, Bennett said. It metwith rave reviews. One doctor

wanted to know when it wouldbe available there.

A Rice student team en-rolled in this alls class alreadyis working on developing abattery-powered IV drip moni-tor that can warn nurses anddoctors in time to prevent pedi-atric deaths. Hospitals currentlyare reluctant to use liesavingfuids because they are unableto control the volumes given to

patients.Sophie Kim and ChristinaLagos, two Rice undergradu-ates who interned this summerin Lesotho, taught a health andHIV-awareness class o theirown design in an orphanage.They also worked with social

workers and doctors at a clinicto revamp the counseling pro-gram that teaches HIV patientsand their caregivers how to takeantiretroviral medications.

Our goal was to make ad-herence counseling much more

educational by teaching theconcepts o drug resistance,how antiretroviral therapy worksand the importance o strictdrug adherence, Kim said.

Kim and Lagos trained about40 volunteer counselors to en-sure that the program wouldcontinue long ater they let.

Seeing what I saw thekids that were dying and theiramilies you cannot be com-placent ater that, Kim said. I

always knew I wanted to go tomedical school and work towardending health disparities, but itreally put a re in me, particu-larly in the arena o health pol-icy. Im very determined to getinvolved in public policy andhealth policy now.

This sort o grassroots dedi-cation is one o the reasonsRice President David Leebronbelieves the Rice 360 initiative

will be successul. Rice has allthe elements to make a dier-ence in solving urgent globalhealth problems, he said. Ourbrilliant and gited students arean enormous asset to Rice 360.The universitys bioengineering

and nanotechnology programsare among the worlds best. Wehave strong and growing ties

with the worlds largest medi-cal center, and Rices Baker In-stitute is home to world-classexperts in public policy andglobal science policy. Anotheradvantage is provided by RicesJesse H. Jones Graduate Schoolo Management, which has a

wealth o expertise in entrepre-neurship and micronance.

Rice has committed to secur-ing $100 million rom a vari-

ety o sources over the comingdecade to und the institutesprograms.Rice 360 already hasreceived $2 million in unding,including a git to seed researchin cost-eective health technol-ogies rom Rice Board o Trust-ees Chairman Jim Crownoverand his wie, Molly.

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Rice University unveiled plans on Sept. 28 or a $100million initiative to combat pressing health problems

in the developing world.


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Zebra sh cost about a dol-

lar each at the pet store, adults

can lay up to 500 eggs at once

and the sh grow rom eggs tohunting their own ood in just

three days. Even so, humans

and zebra sh arent that dis-similar, said assistant proes-

sor o biochemistry and cell

biology Mary Ellen Lane, whois Rices resident zebra sh ex-

pert. For every zebra sh gene

we isolate, there is a relatedgene in humans.

Zebra sh like rats and

ruit fies beore them are

becoming regular contribu-

tors on research ranging romcancer to cocaine addiction.

For example, zebra sh were

used in a landmark 2005 studythat led scientists to the human

gene that regulates skin color.

It helps that zebra sh embryosgrow rom just a single cell to

having a orebrain, hindbrain,

spinal column and eyes in ascant 24 hours. It also helps

that the embryos are transpar-

ent and develop outside their

mothers bodies and thus

can be observed under a micro-

scope during every step o theirdevelopment.

Its a beautiul organism or

experiment, Lane said. It de-velops in a very regular way, so

any abnormality is easy to spot,

even or undergraduates withonly a ew days o training.

Lanes zebra sh studies ex-

plore one o the major unex-plained areas in developmental

biology: how the brain and

central nervous system develop.In her latest work, Lane, as-

sisted by graduate students

Catherine McCollum and Shi-vas Amin and undergraduate

Phillip Pauerstein, zeroed inon a gene called LMO4 thats

known to play roles in both cell

reproduction and breast cancer.Using the tools o biotechnol-

ogy, the team studied zebra

sh that couldnt transcribethe LMO4 gene and observed

marked enlargement in both

the orebrain and optical por-tions o the embryos. When the

sh overexpressed the LMO4

gene, making more proteinthan normal, those same areas

shrank. The ndings appeared

in the journal DevelopmentalBiology.

The study suggests that

LMO4 independently regulatestwo other genes that promote

growth in those areas o the

embryo, said Lane. It lls inanother piece o the bigger pic-

ture o whats going on during

neurological development.Lane established Rices zebra

sh program six years ago. She

said the program got a major

boost in 2003, when ellow ze-bra sh researcher Dan Wagnerjoined the aculty. Their acility

houses 18,000 zebra sh and

employs a ull-time sh caretak-er. They recently won unding

rom Rices Faculty Initiatives

Fund to hire a research scien-tist to oversee collaborative

research with partners in the

Texas Medical Center.

Jd Bd

Size is RelativeI someone told youRice is a large researchuniversity, you mightwonder how they de-fne the word large.

But Academic Analytics,

which named Rice the most

productive large research

university in Texas, recogniz-

es that Rice strides across

the academic landscape in

seven-league boots.

A collaboration between

Stony Brook University

aculty and researchers

at Educational Directories

Unlimited to rate univer-

sity programs, Academic

Analytics compared doc-

toral programs at research

universities by measuring

the scholarly productivity

o aculty based on their

book and journal publica-

tions, citations o journal

articles, ederal grants and

awards and honors. To be

considered a large research

university or Academic

Analytics Faculty Scholarly

Productivity Index, an insti-

tution must have at least

15 Ph.D. programs across

multiple disciplines. Rices

ranking was based on 27

Ph.D. programs. In addition,

Rice was the only Texas in-

stitution to make the top 25

list nationally, where it ranks

No. 22.B. J. Almond

Not Your Average Lab RatWhen you look in the mirror, youwouldnt expect to see a zebra sh star-ing back, but you have more in com-mon with them than you may realize.

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A new study by Boris Yakobson, pro-

essor o mechanical engineering and

materials science and o chemistry,

and his associates Nevill Gonzalez

Szwacki and Arta Sadrzadeh, predicts

the existence and stability o anotherbuckyball molecule consisting entirely

o boron atoms. The paper was an edi-

tors selection in the April 20 issue o

Physical Review Letters.

The boron buckyball is structurally

similar to the original buckyball, a

cage-shaped molecule o 60 carbon

atoms, but it has an additional atom

in the center o each hexagon, which

signicantly increases stability. This

is the rst prediction o its possible

existence, Yakobson said o the boron

A new study by Boris Yakobson (right), proessor o

mechanical engineering and materials science and o

chemistry, graduate student Arta Sadrzadeh (let) and

colleagues predicts the existence and stability o another

buckyball consisting entirely o boron atoms.

buckyball, or B80. This has not been

observed or even conceived o beore.

We hope it may lead to a signicant

breakthrough.

In the earliest stages o its work, the

team attempted to build a buckyballusing silicon atoms but determined

that it would collapse on itsel. The

search or another possible atom led

the researchers on a short trip across

the periodic table.

One reason we tried boron was

because it is one atomic unit rom

carbon, Yakobson said. Boron also

has the ability to stick together better

than other atoms, which made it even

more appealing.

Initial work with 60 boron atoms

ailed to create a hollow ball that

would hold its orm, so another boron

atom was placed in the center o each

hexagon or added stability.

Yakobson said it is too early to

speculate whether the boron buckyballwill prove to be as useul as its Nobel

Prize-winning sibling. All we know,

he said, is that its a very logical, very

stable structure and likely to exist. It

opens up a whole new continent to

explore. There should be a strong eort

to nd it experimentally. That may not

be an easy path, but we gave them a

good road map.

Following the papers acceptance,

there was some debate with the

journals editors about whether the

structure could be termed a buckyball.

Yakobson mentioned this to Robert Curl,

co-discoverer o the original buckyball

along with Harold Kroto and the late

Richard Smalley.

Bob said with a chuckle that it wasmore o a buckyball than his buckyball,

Yakobson said, adding that C60 was

named or amed architect Buckminster

Fuller because the molecule looked like

conjoined geodesic domes, a structure

Fuller invented. When Fuller made his

domes, he made them rom triangles

because hexagons would collapse,

Yakobson explained. C60 is made

up o hexagons, but in B80, we ll the

hexagon with one more atom, making

triangles.Mark Passwaters

fll 07 5



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Top o the HeapIts good to be at the top o

the trash heap when youre

in a recycling contest.The contest was Recycle-

Mania, which drew more than

200 colleges and universities

nationwide, including eight in

Texas. Rice contended in six

dierent categories, nishing

rst among Texas universities

in per capita paper recycling

and 14th out o a national eld

o 111. In the Per Capita Clas-

sic category, which measured

the total amount o recyclables

collected per person, Riceplaced 54th out o 175.

This was our second year

to compete in RecycleMania,

said Rice sustainability planner

Richard Johnson. We showed

real improvement and partici-

pated in more categories this

year. We again demonstrated

that we could compete with

the best, including schools

that are well-known or their

environmental programs.

Rice was the only Texasparticipant in RecycleMa-

nia in 2006. Johnson said

the increased participation

statewide indicates greater

visibility o environmental

issues in Texas. This years

participating Texas universi-

ties included Baylor, Southern

Methodist, Texas Christian,

UT Austin, UT Dallas, UT

San Antonio and UT Medical

Branch at Galveston.

Ending BiodieselsGlycerin Glut

Call it an alternative uelsalternative uel.

U.S. biodiesel production is atan all-time high, and a record

number o new biodiesel plantsare under construction, but theindustry is acing an impendingcrisis over waste glycerin, the

major byproduct o biodieselproduction.

The biodiesel business hastight margins, and until re-cently, glycerin was a valuablecommodity one that produc-ers counted on selling to en-sure protability, said RamonGonzalez, the William W. Akers

Assistant Proessor in Chemicaland Biomolecular Engineering.

But that dynamic haschanged. One pound o glyc-erin is produced or every 10

pounds o biodiesel, he said,and that has caused a glyceringlut. Many manuacturers notonly are unable to sell glycerin,but also must pay to dispose o it.

Researchers across the globeare racing to nd ways to turn

waste glycerin into prot. Someare looking at traditional chemi-

cal processing, such as usingcatalytic reactions that breakglycerin into other chemicals,

while others are ocusing on bi-

ological conversion, in which amicroorganism is engineered toeat a specic chemical eedstockand excrete something useul.Many drugs are made this way,and the chemical processingindustry is increasingly ndingbioprocessing to be a greener,and sometimes cheaper, alterna-tive to chemical processing.

Gonzalez and his colleaguesmight have ound such a solu-tion to the glycerin glut. Weidentied the metabolic pro-

Ramon Gonzalez (let) and Syed Shams Yazdani have identied the metabolic processes and conditions that allow a strain o E. coli to convert

glycerin into ethanol.

cesses and conditions that allowa strain o the bacterium E. colito convert glycerin into etha-nol, Gonzalez said. Its also

very ecient. We estimate theoperational costs to be about 40percent less that those o pro-ducing ethanol rom corn, andthe process will show higher

yields and lower cost than canbe obtained using common sug-ar-based eedstocks like glucoseand xylose.

Gonzalezs report on theresearch, co-authored by post-doctoral research associate SyedShams Yazdani, appears in Cur-rent Opinion in Biotechnology.Graduate students Yandi Dhar-madi and Abhishek Murarkaassisted with the research, whichis unded by the U.S. Depart-ment o Agriculture and theNational Science Foundation.

Jd Bd

We ientife the etabic prcesses an cnitinsthat aw a strain the bacteriu E. ci

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9/52

Cell phones have vibrators in them now, and manyo the newer models have sensors that could be used

to receive our signals, so its easible to think o the

devices we are already carrying as a platorm or

this technology, said Zhong, assistant proessor

o electrical and computer engineering.

This explains why Microsot awarded Liebschner

and Zhong a grant to develop OsteoConduct, the

technology the two invented last year. OsteoConduct

transmits digital inormation through bones using

acoustic sound patterns. The sounds can be created

by anything that vibrates.

In the lab, the researchers use hand-held and

bench-mounted gadgets. The vibrations can be

imperceptible in some applications, such as healthmonitoring or simple data exchange, and perceived

in others. For example, a patient wearing a drug-

release system might benet by sensing when drugs

are administered.

Microsot is interested in computing applications

related to both health care and mobile devices, and

this hits both o those, said Liebschner, assistant

proessor o bioengineering.

The idea or OsteoConduct came ater Zhong heard

Liebschner present results rom his lab at last alls

Texas Instruments Innovation Fund Day, a conerence

highlighting TI-unded research at Rice. Liebschner

described the development o a new hand-held

system or diagnosing osteoporosis with low-levelsound waves. Zhong, sitting in the audience, thought

immediately o work he was doing.

Teeth Cics

During a research internship just beore joining Rice,

Zhong worked with several Microsot researchers

who devised solutions to improve voice recognition

by ltering out the sounds created when people click

their teeth together during speech.

At the time, I thought, This is inormation that

they are throwing away, and I wondered i there

might be another way to use it, Zhong said. Ater

joining Rice, Zhong and graduate student TamerMohamed built a hands-ree method o using teeth

clicks to control a computer.

At the TI conerence, Zhong asked Liebschner

i his ndings suggested that the sound o teeth

clicks might travel through a persons skeleton.

Liebschner thought they might, and the two agreed

to test the idea.

Liebschner said one o the most exciting dis-

coveries about this research has been just how

clearly sound travels through bone. In one o the

earliest tests, a signal rom the wrist was clearly

detected at the hip, having traveled the length o

the arm and spine.

We were all surprised to see these signals

propagate through 20 or more joints, Liebschner

said. It worked much better than wed anticipated

or the power levels we used.

Unique Seeta Ientifcatin

Liebschner said one probable reason the discovery

went unnoticed or so long is the variability o human

bone tissue. Sound vibrations are commonly used totest the skeletal structures o buildings ater earth-

quakes, but no two people have exactly the same

acoustic pattern in their bones. However, Liebschner

said, this variability has an upside, too.

Because every person has a unique acoustic

signature in their bones, we believe we can develop

that or security authentication, Liebschner said.

For example, you might grab a door handle in a

secure acility, and it would only allow you inside

i it recognized your prole. The acoustic signature

o the skeleton is thought to be more secure than

ngerprints or retina scans.

Other applications Zhong and Liebschner are

considering include hands-ree operation o mobilephones and other devices, secure data transmission,

health monitoring and diagnostics, and commu-

nication with implantable transducers.

Bioengineering graduate student Michael

Cordray and undergraduate Mimi Zhang are co-

inventors o the technology. Researchers include

electrical and computer engineering graduate

students Brett Kauman and Tamer Mohamed and

bioengineering graduate students Dania El-Daye

and Nick Tobaoda.Jade Boyd

Te Wrist Bones Connected to te Cell Pone

Michael Liebschner and Lin Zhong perorm research to develop a new technology that lets mobile electronic devices communicate by sending vibrations through bones.

Michael Liebschner and Lin Zhong make no bones about rattling cagesrib cages,that is. The two engineering aculty members are involved in joint research to de-velop a new technology that lets mobile electronic devices communicate by send-ing vibrations through bones.

fll 07 7



10/52

Neurobromatosis is characterized by the ormation otumors o peripheral nerve cells. Scientists know the dis-ease is caused by deects in a gene called N1, but they

have yet to nd out precisely how the deective genescause tumors to orm.

In seeking biochemical pathways responsible orneurobromatosis tumors in humans, Sterns researchgroup compiled evidence rom dozens o painstak-ing experiments on mutant ruit fies, each with a spe-cic genetic faw that testied to the power o the oneor more proteins involved. The researchers used ruitfies or several reasons: The insects genome has beensequenced, it takes only two weeks to grow a new gen-eration o ruit fies, and scientists know which ruit fygenes are analogous to the human genes associated withneurobromatosis.

Our results suggest that having a deect in N1 beginsa kind o biochemical domino eect that eventually leadsto tumor growth, said Stern, proessor o biochemistryand cell biology.

In their experiments, the researchers created more thantwo dozen mutant strains o ruit fies, including variet-ies that were either missing the genes to make one o theour proteins or were encoded to over express, or makeextra amounts o, one o the our. Some mutants weredesigned to carry more than one deective trait.

Nerves rom each mutant strain were examined. Bycomparing the mutant strains each with a specic de-ect or set o deects the researchers built a case thatthe absence o neurobromin allows several proteins to

work in concert to inhibit a regulatory group o proteinsthat are key players in regulating genes responsible or

programmed cell death and DNA repair two commonculprits in cancer.Stern says the project required an enormous amount

o work in the lab and wouldnt have been possible with-out the dedication and motivation o research techni-cian William Lavery. A paper on the research appearedin the Journal o Neuroscience, and Stern and Laverysco-authors include research technician Michelle Wells,postdoctoral research assistant Veronica Hall, graduatestudent James Yager and undergraduate Alex Rottgers.The research is supported by the Department o DeenseNeurobromatosis Research Program.

Jd Bd

Genetic Flaw StartsNeurofbromatosis

Biochemical Domino EectMichael Sterns latest research into theormation o neuroibromatosis tumorsreads something like a ederal racketeer-ing indictment, except that Stern is tracingproteins instead o laundered money, andhes looking not at oshore accounts but atbiochemical paths o cause and eect.

The need was heightened even more

when the Texas State Board or Educa-

tor Certication added Chinese to the

certications or languages other than

English. In act, a College Board survey

showed that nearly 2,400 high schools

would have liked to oer the AP Chi-

nese course in 200607 but did not

have qualied teachers.

Rice has stepped in to ll the gap

with plans to establish the Institute or

Chinese Language Teaching, an en-

deavor supported by a $400,000 grant

rom the Freeman Foundation. Initially,

the ICLT will train individuals who

already are procient in speaking Chi-

nese, due to heritage or education, and

who want to teach in middle and high

schools. The program eventually will

recruit, train and produce teachers o

Chinese or kindergarten through 12th

grade. No other such certicate pro-

grams are oered in the South.

The institute builds on the priority

set orth in the Vision or the Second

Century to make tangible contributions

in the K12 area and increase interna-

tional understanding at Rice.One o the missions o Rice is to

serve the community, said Lilly Chen,

senior lecturer at the Center or the

Study o Languages and director o the

ICLT. By establishing the certicate

program, we are answering that call.

Through a series o online and ace-

to-ace courses, the ICLT will oer a

low-cost, two-year summer program

designed to t into teachers schedules

and budgets. The institute will not pro-

vide state certication; instead, it will

prepare teachers to be certied through

classes that arent oered elsewhere

in the South and grant them scholar-

ships to pursue certication at Rice or

elsewhere.

As our lives become more globaland China continues to be astrong economic partner, ouryoung people need to be equippedto collaborate across borders.It is increasingly important orpeople to have a rich and deepunderstanding o other cultures.We want to prepare teachers tocommunicate that understandingto their students, who could workwith Asia in the uture.

Steven Lewis, director o Asian Studies

Responsibilities or launching the

ICLT will be shared by the School o

Humanities, the Asian Studies program,

the Center or the Study o Languages

and the Susanne M. Glasscock School o

Continuing Studies. The project team

also is working with institutions aroundthe state, including the Region IV Educa-

tion Service Center, the national Chinese

Language Association o SecondaryEl-

ementary Schools and regional and local

Chinese language teachers associations.

Also, the ICLT plans to work with local

schools to implement Chinese language

courses beginning with the schools 2008

summer school programs.

Find out more about the program at

www.teachers.rice.edu.

J stk

Opening the Doors to Asia through LanguageLike many other large cities, Houston has a high demand orwell-trained Chinese language teachers or its local schools.

8 r sllpt



11/52

That problem may have been solved byresearch conducted at Rices Center orBiological and Environmental Nanotech-nology. Our work knocks down a bigbarrier in developing quantum-dot-basedphotovoltaics as an alternative to the con-

ventional, more expensive silicon-basedsolar cells, said principal investigator Mi-chael Wong, assistant proessor o chemicaland biomolecular engineering.

Quantum dots are megamolecules osemiconducting materials that are smallerthan living cells. They interact with light in

unique ways giving o dierent-coloredlight or creating electrons and holes

due partly to their tiny size, partly to theirshape and partly to the material theyremade o. Scientists have studied quantumdots or more than a decade, with an eyetoward using them in medical tests, chemi-cal sensors and other devices.

One way to achieve cheaper solar cells isto make them out o quantum dots. Priorresearch has shown that our-legged quan-tum dots called tetrapods are manytimes more ecient at converting sunlightinto electricity than are regular quantumdots. But Wong said that current methodso producing tetrapods lead to a lot o par-

ticles with missing arms or arms that areo uneven length or crooked. Even in thebest recipe, 30 percent o the preparedparticles are not tetrapods.

CBENs ormula, developed by Wongand graduate student Subashini Asokan

with CBEN director Vicki Colvin andgraduate student Karl Krueger, producessame-sized particles, more than 90 per-cent o which are tetrapods. Signicantly,these tetrapods are made o cadmiumselenide, a compound that has been verydicult to produce in this conguration.

The method is not only cheaper but saerthan conventional methods because it uses

cetyltrimethylammonium bromide insteado the normally used alkylphosphonic acidcompounds. Cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide is used in some shampoos, andor producers looking to ramp up tetrapodproduction, this means cheaper raw mate-rials and ewer purication steps.

The research was unded by the Nation-al Science Foundation, 3M Corp., Ad-

vanced Aromatics LP, the Air Force Oceo Scientic Research and Rice University.It appeared online May 1 in the journalSmall.

Jd Bd

Quantum Dot Solar PanelsBetter, cheaper solar energy panels may soon be possible thanks to arrays o molecu-lar specks o semiconductors called quantum dots. The idea o quantum-dot-basedvoltaics is not new. Its long been known that our-legged cadmium selenide quan-tum dots, in particular, are eective at converting sunlight into electrical energy. Theproblem has been in fnding a manuacturing method that makes high-quality dots insufcient quantities.

Our wor nocs down a bi barrier in developin quantum-dot-based

potovoltaics as an alternative to te conventional, more expensive

silicon-based solar cells. ml W

Nanodevice, Build ThyselRice University chemists have discoveredthat tiny building blocks known as goldnanorods spontaneously assemble them-

selves into ring-like superstructures.

The nding, which was published in the chemistry journal

Angewandte Chemie International Edition, could poten-

tially lead to the development o novel nanodevices like

highly sensitive optical sensors, superlenses and even

invisible objects or use in the military.

Finding new ways to assemble nano-objects into

superstructures is an important task because, at the

nanoscale, the properties o those objects depend on

the arrangement o individual building blocks, said

principal investigator Eugene Zubarev, the Norman

Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator and assistant

proessor o chemistry.

Although ringlike assemblies have been observedin spherical nanoparticles and other symmetrical

molecules, until now such structures had not been

documented with rod-shaped nanostructures.

Like many nanoscale objects, gold nanorods are

several billionths o a meter in size. The nanorods

Zubarev used have a central core o inorganic crystal,

and attached to their suraces are thousands o fexible,

chainlike organic polymer molecules. The combination

o inorganic and organic eatures results in a hybrid

structure that proved to be critical to the research.

Working with Rice graduate student

Bishnu Khanal, Zubarev placed

the nanorods in a solution

o chloroorm, which is an

organic solvent. As thechloroorm evaporated,

its surace temperature

dropped low enough

to cause condensation

o water droplets rom

the air, much like what

happens when dew orms.

As thousands and thousands

o microdroplets o water con-

densed on the surace o the chloroorm,

the nanorods that had been suspended in the solution

started to press up against the droplets and orm rings

around them. The polymer coating prevented the rods

rom being absorbed into the droplets because it is

insoluble in water. Ater the droplets evaporated, the

nanorods remained in their ring ormation.

Thousands o well-dened rings can be produced in a

matter o seconds using this method. It is surprisingly

simple and can be used or organizing nanocrystals o

various shapes, size and chemical compositions into

circular arrays, Zubarev said. When nanorods are

organized into a ring, signicant changes occur in their

optical and electromagnetic properties.

The research was unded by the National Science

Foundation and the Welch Foundation.

B. J. ald

fll 07 9



12/52

When one o the ounders o afeld says youve made a majorbreakthrough, you can prettywell bet youve ound somethingimportant.

The breakthrough in this caseis a new way to analyze themoving parts o large proteins,

which will make it easier orstructural biologists to clas-

siy and scrutinize the activesites o proteins implicated incancer and other diseases. Theresearchers used a mathemati-cal algorithm to narrow downall the possible ways a proteinmight fex and bend in conjunc-tion with inormation captured

via X-ray crystallography, a tech-nique in which protein crystalsare bombarded with X-rays, toreveal the precise three-dimen-sional arrangement o everyatom in the protein.

The interinstitutional research

involved scientists rom BaylorCollege o Medicine and Rice,led by Jianpeng Ma, who holds

joint appointments at both insti-tutions. Increasingly, Ma said,our discipline is aced with de-ciphering the structure o large,complex proteins in which someparts are constantly moving,even when the protein is lockedin a crystal orm.

According to Harvard Uni-versitys William Lipscomb, aNobel laureate who co-ounded

protein crystallography, Thissuccess is revolutionary or theeld o structure biology and isone o the largest technical leapsorward in X-ray renement inthe last two decades. It will un-damentally change the way peo-ple do structural renement orlarge and fexible complexes.

A protein is a chain o aminoacids strung end-to-end, andMa said current techniques aregood at deciphering all but themost fexible parts o proteins.

However, the most fexible partsoten are those most vital to theproteins unction such as thesite where an enzyme catalyzesa reaction or where a signalingprotein docks with its partners.

When proteins move, theydo it or a reason, said Ma. It

is perhaps ironic that currenttechniques give us the uzziestdetail in the regions where wedesire the most clarity.

Ma rst imagined developinga new mathematical algorithmto zero in on these mobile sitesabout a decade ago, and ater

our years o working the prob-lem himsel, with very littleprogress, he assigned it to Ricegraduate student Billy Poon inmid-2001. The success o thisproject, Ma said, is really astory about Billys perseveranceand determination.

Poon never lost aith in thebasic premise o the project,although producing results tooksome time. All indications

were that it should work, hesaid. I did start to get worriedin the ourth and th years be-cause I needed to nish.

The projects pieces startedto all into place last all, but ahuge hurdle remained: The pro-tein Ma and Poon were using asa test case had to be tted tothe map that Poons programhad produced. This nal step

was like an enormous puzzle,

and to solve it, students puton special goggles that allowedthem to see computerized 3-Drepresentations o both the mapand the protein. They wouldthen t the parts o the protein

within the mapped area, al-though in doing so, they oteninadvertently moved a dierentpart o the protein out o align-ment elsewhere. The problem

was magnied by the act thatonly a small raction o the en-tire puzzle was visible on thescreen at one time.

The task o tting the proteinell to BCM student XiaoruiChen, who joined Mas groupas part o her medical schoolrotation. Protein tting is an artor which Chen has an enor-mous talent, Ma said, in partbecause she has studied proteinssince high school.

When the problem nally wassolved, Poon was overjoyed atbeing able to publish the resultso his long years o study. Ianything, I was even happier,

Ma said. Nobody was sure itwould work out beore that,and its a rare treat when a sci-entist gets to witness a successlike this one.

Other co-authors o the pa-per were BCM aculty membersFlorante Quiocho and Qinghua

Wang. Poon was supported bythe Houston Area MolecularBiophysics Predoctoral Train-ing Program. Other undingagencies that contributed to the

work were the National Insti-tutes o Health, the National

Science Foundation and theWelch Foundation, as well asHewlett Packard and Intel viatheir support o the Rice Teras-cale Cluster. The research ap-peared in the Proceedings o theNational Academy o Science.

Jd Bd

PrteinPueFas int

Pace

Chen ts together 3-D representations o proteins.

Jianpeng Ma, Billy Poon and Xiaorui Chen

This success is revolutionary or the eldo structure biology and is one o thelargest technical leaps orwards in X-rayrenement in the last two decades. It willundamentally change the way people dostructural renement or large and fexiblecomplexes. Wll Lpb, hd ut

10 r sllpt



13/52fll 07 11

Rice University physicist TomKillian remains unazed. Hes

one o a growing group oresearchers worldwide who are

unlocking some o the mysterieso plasmas by doing something

nature never does reezingthem to less than a degree

above absolute zero.Our plasmas behave dier-

ently because theyre cold, Kil-lian said. The particles inside

them slow down to the pointthat they eel one another and

interact with their neighborsmuch more strongly than stan-

dard plasmas, and we have thetechnology to take pictures o

them while they do it. Hehopes to make his cold plasmas

give up some o the secretso their dense, hot, energetic

cousins.

The eld sprang into exis-

tence only recently, when tech-nology advanced to the point

where we could make exoticstates o nature that were previ-

ously limited to the realm otheory, Killian said. There are

ewer than a dozen laboratoriesin the world working on ultra-

cold neutral plasmas, but theeld is growing quickly because

technology is bringing previ-ously unperormed experiments

within reach.Ultracold plasmas are some-

thing o a conundrum. To startwith, matter in a plasma state

doesnt exist as discrete atoms.Instead, plasma is a kind o

atomic soup that contains aboutequal numbers o ree-fowing

electrons and ions. Plasmashave some o the properties o

a gas but dier rom gases inthat they are good conductorso electricity and are aected bymagnetic elds.

In Killians laboratory,plasmas are created and cooledby lasers. They exist only orabout one-thousandth o a

second, but thats long enoughto be photographed. By slightly

varying the conditions o theplasma and by photographingit at various points throughoutits short liespan, Killian andhis colleagues are opening a

window on a bizarre placewhere matter behaves inundamentally dierent waysthan are normally observable.

Researchers already havemade liquidlike systems thatresemble the interiors o gas

giant planets like Jupiter. Now,several research groups aroundthe world, including Killians,are racing to become the rst tocreate a solid neutral plasma a bizarre state o matter believedto exist in the crust o super-dense neutron stars.

The concept o a solidplasma is counterintuitive, Kil-lian said. How can you havethis fowing mix o ions andelectrons in a solid orm? In

nature, the answer lies in the

density o the material. In a

neutron star, or example, a tea-

spoon o matter has a mass o

about 100 million metric tons.

So a plasma there becomes solid

due to the crushing density o

its surroundings. In the lab, Kil-

lian hopes to get the same eect

by making the plasma ultracold.

People ask what applications

there are, Killian said. Its a

natural question, and though

there are some indications o

ways we might use ultracold

neutral plasmas to improve

electron microscopy, or ex-

ample researchers in this

eld are primarily inspired by a

desire to explore new realms o

nature that no one has ever seen

beore.

Killians team includes post-doctoral researcher Hong Gao,

graduate students Jose Castro

and Sampad Laha and ormer

graduate students Priya Gupta

and Clayton Simien. Killian was

invited by the editors o Science

magazine to summarize the

state o the emergent discipline

in a review article.

Jade Boyd

Deep Freezing PlasmasForget solids, liquids and gases. Plasmas are, by ar, the most abun-dant state o matter, accounting or about 99 percent o the visiblematter in the universe. But youre not likely to encounter plasmahere on Earth. Strongly interacting plasmas naturally occur only in

very dense and energetic environments where it isnt possible toset up a laboratory, such as a white dwar star.

There are ewer than a

dozen laboratories in theworld working on ultracoldneutral plasmas, but thefeld is growing quicklybecause technologyis bringing previouslyunperormed experimentswithin reach.



14/52

Its not a good idea to put allyour eggs in one basket unless youre a senita moth.

Found in the parched SonoranDesert o southern Arizona andnorthern Mexico, the senitamoth depends on a single plantspecies the senita cactus both or its ood and or a placeto lay eggs. The senita cactus isequally dependent on the moth,the only species that pollinatesits fowers.

Senita cacti and senita mothshave a rare, mutually depen-dent relationship, one o onlythree known dependencies in

which an insect actively polli-nates fowers or the purpose oassuring a ood resource or itsospring.

Mutualistic relationships likethis present a problem or eco-logical theory, said Nat Hol-land, Rice assistant proessor oecology and evolutionary biol-ogy. Holland co-discovered thesenita mothsenita cactus mutu-alism in 1995 and has studied itever since.

The problem is that themoths lay their eggs inside the

cactis fowers immediately a-ter pollination, and when theeggs hatch, the moth larvae eatthe ruit, destroying the plantschances to produce seeds. The-ory predicts extreme ecologicalinstability or this relationship:

As moth populations increase,more ruits are destroyed andewer new cacti appear, and thespiral continues until both spe-cies disappear. But in this case,that hasnt happened.

Holland, who quipped that

his real lab is 1,500 milesaway, spends several monthseach year observing the moths

and cacti at several locations inthe Sonoran Desert, includingOrgan Pipe Cactus NationalMonument in southern Arizo-na. But his primary research siteor more than a decade has beena desolate, 30-acre patch o des-ert straddling three ranches nearBahia de Kino on the Gul oCaliornia. Holland and his stu-dents sometimes go weeks with-out seeing other people at thesites, aside rom stray cowboys.

empirically to nd out howwell they predict what reallyhappens.

Traditional theory o suchmutualistic interactions leadsto predictions o unboundedpopulation growth or instabil-ity and eventual doom due toone species overexploiting an-other. These predictions clearlydont square with what Hollandand his students see happeningin the Sonoran Desert, whereboth species thrive. His modelssuggest that one mutualist mayexert some control over the

others population increases,such that neither unboundedgrowth nor overexploitationensue.

Ive always been interestedin the community ecology omutualism the larger puzzle and this mothcactus re-lationship is just one piece othat, Holland said. When wediscovered the relationship, Iimmediately thought o usingit to look at the bigger picture,but I wound up spending a de-

cade working on the populationecology o mutualisms, a pre-requisite or understanding the

larger puzzle.Now Holland is returning

to his earlier interests in com-munity ecology. We want tounderstand how the structure omutualistic communities infu-ences the stability and dynam-ics o individual species and o

whole networks o species, hesaid. The results suggest thatthe structures o mutualisticcommunities complement thoseo predatorprey ood webs, a

nding that presents the tanta-lizing possibility o developingan overarching scheme that in-corporates elements o both.

Hollands research has beenunded by the National ScienceFoundation, the National Geo-graphic Society and the Nation-al Park Service.

Jd Bd

The solitude provides valu-able time or Holland to syn-thesize what hes learned inthe desert, which is importantbecause his ultimate goal is aundamental rethinking o eco-logical theory or such mutu-alistic interactions. I developtheoretical models that attemptto explain mutualistic relation-ships like the one between themoth and the cactus, he said,and I take those models intothe eld and examine them

Theres More to Lie Than Predator Eats Prey

PhotographybyGregoryDijimian

12 r sllpt



15/52

When Nagarajaiah was in highschool in Bangalore, India, theBBC ran a series on dierenttypes o bridges that showed howscientists study their vibrations todetermine i they are sae. Oneprogram analyzed in great detailthe 1940 collapse o the Tacoma

Narrows Bridge in Washington,he recalled. That really red myimagination and made me wantto know more about how struc-tures behave dynamically.

Today, the Rice proessor omechanical engineering stud-ies the structural integrity obridges and monitors theirsaety. Careul examination andtesting o ailed structural com-ponents coupled with computermodeling might help determinethe cause o the collapse in Min-neapolis, Nagarajaiah said, but

recreating the scenario will be apainstaking process that couldtake months.

By eliminating certain typeso causes, such as the piers notailing, engineers might be ableto estimate the possible cause othe collapse, Nagarajaiah said.Photos show that the two pierso the steel three-span truss archbridge are still intact, so I sus-pect that atigue racture in oneo the trusses is likely to havebeen a contributing actor.

how Brides Are

Inspected

Structural damage on bridges,such as atigue cracks and rac-tures in hidden members and

joints, are not always visible tothe eye. Engineers assess struc-

tural integrity by monitoring thesoundness o the entire bridgeand then zeroing in on specicsections. Sensors placed on sam-ple areas o the bridge recordstrains caused by vibrations andmovement o the bridge andany excessive strains or orce instructural members. These mea-surements are incorporated intoa computer model developedon the bridges original design.I analysis reveals problem areasthat need closer inspection, theareas in question can be exam-

ined with ultrasonic sensors.Once the inspection o a

bridge has been completed,engineers rate the structuresoverall condition on a scale es-tablished by the Federal High-

way Administration. A score o9 indicates excellent condition.

A rating o zero is assigned toa ailed bridge, which means itis beyond corrective action. Ascore o 1 indicates imminentailure, and 2 indicates criti-cal condition. Nagarajaiah said

scores below 3 require shuttingdown a bridge immediately.

The eight-lane Interstate 35W

bridge that crossed the Mis-sissippi River near downtownMinneapolis received an averagescore o 5 when it was inspectedin 2005. An overall score o 5represents air condition and in-dicates that all primary structuralelements are sound but mayhave minor section loss, crack-ing, spalling or scour (erosion osoil around the base o the pierthat may cause the pier to tilt).

Obviously there were somedeciencies, but none seriousenough to warrant closing the

bridge, Nagarajaiah said. Itsvery rare or an entire bridge tocollapse. Usually only one ortwo sections collapse.

He attributed the collapseo the whole bridge to its de-sign, which, he said, is typical obridges built in the 1950s and1960s. The 40-year-old I-35Wbridge was built with a continu-ous truss across two supports,the overhang at each end con-necting to the ramps rom theroad. These overhangs creatednegative bending orces to bal-ance the positive bending orcesin the center span, but the de-sign did not include redundantspans, components or supports.So when one overhang ailed,there was nothing let to holdup the center span.

The ailure probably startedon the south-end span and thenprogressed to the center span andnorth-end span, Nagarajaiahsaid. The piers look ne, so Isuspect one o the trusses ailed,causing the domino eect.

Fascinate b Briges

Nagarajaiah, who recently was

appointed to chair the nonprotU.S. Panel on Structural andHealth Monitoring and Con-trol, is expanding his interest instructural assessment o bridgesand buildings to aerospace sys-tems, including the Internation-al Space Station.

The backbone o the spacestation is a large truss, similar toa bridge, he said. NASA wantsus to monitor it and come up

with a real-time assessment othe structures condition.

Nagarajaiah said the trag-

edy in Minnesota will serve asa wake-up call or more careulmonitoring o bridges. Federalregulations require that mostbridges be inspected every two

years, but Nagarajaiah advocatesmore requent and careul in-spections using new structuralmonitoring techniques in addi-tion to visual inspection.

The U.S. has about 590,000bridges, and 162,800 o themhave been identied as being de-cient, Nagarajaiah said. Struc-tural deciencies were oundin 81,300 bridges, and 81,500are unctionally obsolete. I weexpect bridges to last 100 years,the ederal government needsto spend the money to maintainthem, he said. Its not some-thing we can ignore.

B. J. ald

Rice Enineer Sares Insit onBride Inspections

A bridge collapse, such as the one in Minneapolis on Aug. 1,is the last thing Satish Nagarajaiah wants to see, even thoughflm ootage o a amous bridge collapse is what sparked hisinterest in the behavioral structure o bridges.

Beore and ater photos o the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis

fll 07 13



16/52

The entering class o reshmen that arrivedor 2007 O-Week is one or the record books.

In addition to being Rices largest group o rst-year students,

the 742 reshmen were selected rom the largest applicant

pool in Rices history 8,972 students.

The incoming class represents a 4 percent increase over

the 715 reshmen enrolled last year and demonstrates

Rices commitment to gradually expanding undergradu-

ate enrollment by 30 percent as part o the Vision or the

Second Century.

There are other distinguishing eatures o the newcom-

ers to Rice, as well:

Underrepresented minorities account or 20 percent o

the new class a gure that has been on the rise over

the past ew years. For example, the 57 Arican-American

reshmen represent a 50 percent increase over the 38

in last years class.

Forty-eight percent are Texans, and 45 percent are rom

other parts o the U.S. or are U.S. citizens living abroad.

Seven percent are oreign nationals. The latter is a 15

percent increase over the number o rst-year oreign

nationals in last years entering class and refects the

V2C goal o Rice becoming a more internationally o-

cused university. There are 397 males and 347 emales in the entering

class. One actor that contributed signicantly to the

higher number o males was an 18 percent increase in

the number o students planning to major in engineering,

a eld traditionally dominated by men.

The SAT middle 50 percent score range or the incoming

class is 1,330 to 1,500; the ACT middle 50 percent score

range is 29 to 34. Seventy percent o the students were

in the top 5 percent o their high school class.

Eighty percent o the reshmen were involved in some

orm o community service in high school.

Forty percent speak more than one language. Thirty-three percent served as president o a club or other

organization.

Fity-eight percent were varsity athletes.

The class o 2011 brings a high degree o academic

achievement and intellectual vitality, said Chris Muoz,

vice president or enrollment. Their contributions to school,

amily and community are signicant. We are delighted to

welcome them to Rice.

B. J. Almond

Rices Largest Class o FreshmenArrives or O-Week

14 r sllpt

[ S T U D E N T S ]


17/52

Composed o ice crystalsthat melt into a gas thatcan ignite, methane hy-drates have been dubbedice that burns.Theyre ormed tens to hun-dreds o meters below theocean foor, where tempera-tures plunge and the weight

o the water above exerts pres-sures o thousands o poundsper square inch. As much as20 trillion tons o methane areestimated to be locked away ingas hydrates on the outer edg-es o the Earths continents,and according to the Depart-ment o Energy, commercialdevelopment o just 1 percento the United States hydrateresources would more thandouble the nations provedgas reserves.

The problem is nding it.But that may have gotten

a little easier thanks to theaward-winning research oRice graduate student GauravBhatnagar, who works in thelab o George Hirasaki, the

A.J. Hartsook Proessor inChemical and BiomolecularEngineering.

Bhatnagar has developeda way to use a single variable the depth o the interace

Locatin Ice Tat Burns

between sulate and methanein marine sediments as ashorthand measure to eec-tively predict where hydrates

will occur and the quantity othe hydrate accumulation.

Sulate can be measuredmore accurately than othergeochemical data and maybe a better indicator o the

presence o gas hydrates,Bhatnagar said. Moreover,sulate data can be obtainedrom shallow cores, which alsoavoids the complications aris-ing rom drilling through hy-drate layers.

The importance o Bhat-nagars work hasnt goneunnoticed. In 2006, he wonthe Society o Petroleum En-gineers Gul Coast RegionalStudent Paper Contest, theSPEs International Stu-

dent Paper Contest and anOutstanding Student PaperAward rom the AmericanGeophysical Union. The re-search is supported by RicesShell Center or Sustainabilityand by a Kobayashi GraduateFellowship.

For more inormation aboutRices gas hydrate research,

visit www.ru.rice.edu/~hydrates.

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fll 07 15

[ S T U D E N T S ]


18/52

This summer, a dozen Rice Uni-versity students let the countryand their comort zones to em-bark on a service trip to San LucasTolimn, Guatemala, to work onprojects requested and directedby indigenous people. Arrangedthrough the International ServiceProject program developed byRices Community Involvement

Center, this is the seventh tripto the site.

It is not about us comingto help them, said seniorJane Sundermann, one o theprograms student co-coordi-nators. It is about all o us

working together to achievemutual goals. Our job there isto work where we are neededor as the community leaderssee t. I am so excited to workside by side with the members

o the community and talk tothem about their lives.

In the past, groups haveworked on developing a cen-trally located womens cen-ter. Rice students also havehelped build a medical clinic,a dental clinic, a school anda childrens park and havecontributed to a reorestationproject. Each project was builtrom the ground up, includingmoving boulders to clear landand participating in building

construction.Rice has been intimately

involved in the community,and that is what makes thistrip so unique: the long-stand-ing relationship with the peo-ple o San Lucas Tolimn,said Christa Leimbach, as-sistant director o the Com-munity Involvement Center.The opportunity to stay ortwo weeks in the same placereally enables the students to

learn about the culture and, inturn, learn about themselves.

Leimbach, who accompa-nied the students, acilitatedpretrip education and triplogistics, but she gives mosto the credit to the student

volunteers. Its a student-ledtrip and a student experience,she said. These are incrediblestudents who are helping oth-ers on their own time, in themidst o their busy academiclives. Im grateul or the op-portunity to go with them,

watch them grow and seewhat they are capable o.

Under the leadership ostudent co-coordinators Sun-dermann and Karina Rad-ulescu, the students spent thespring semester learning aboutGuatemala and raising undsor the trip by baking cook-ies, washing cars, organizinga dodgeball tournament and

writing countless letters re-questing support rom riends,amily and the Rice commu-nity. For many o the students,none o it elt like work.

Ive learned that service re-ally can be a way to live oneslie; a way to approach everyday. And I like that liestyle,said Sundermann, a psychol-ogy major rom St. Louis. Shehas been involved with a num-ber o service projects rangingrom English as a Second Lan-guage tutoring to orphanageoutreach in the DominicanRepublic to constructing class-rooms in Mexico.

Service has been one o themost important educationalexperiences I have had in mytime at Rice, Sundermannsaid. Its one thing to learnin the classroom, but to goout into the community andapply my knowledge and skillsis an incredibly rewarding andeducational experience.

To learn more about theCommunity InvolvementCenter, visit www.ru.rice.edu/~service.

J stk

CommunityService as

Liestyle

16 r sllpt

[ S T U D E N T S ]


19/52

Cannonball One, instituted in

1984, is the legal successor to

the abled Cannonball Run, an

illegal coast-to-coast road race

o the 1970s made amous by

the 1980 movie o the same

name. Rice student members o

the Rice chapter o the Society

o Automotive Engineers have

participated in the new ver-

sion o the event since 2005.The goal o the club is to give

students practical experience

in engineering automobiles or

optimal perormance and cre-

ating innovative automotive

technologies.

Now, rather than race across

the country over public high-

ways, Cannonball One par-

ticipants drive an equivalent

distance on 18 dierent race-

tracks in 11 states during eight

days in May. Rankings are based

on the amount o time driv-

ers take to complete the given

distance. The event is oremost

one o endurance and vehicle

preparation. There are no sup-

port crews, each team is allowed

only one set o street tires and

competitors drive nearly 24

hours a day.

The Rice team, known as theRacing Owls, included David

Carr 07, Damen Hattori, Kevin

Hirshberg, Nikolay Kostov, Lu-

cas Marr and Will Pryor. The

students invested more than

2,000 hours in the car during

the 200607 school year. This

was our opportunity to enjoy

our work and see i, and how, it

improved the race car, Hattori

said. Beore we even made it

back to Houston, we were talk-

materials science, who teaches

the automotive engineering

course or the Department o

Mechanical Engineering andMaterials Science, began Rices

One Lap tradition as an exercise

or students to gain hands-on

experience in working on a real

race car. His many contributions

include nding donated cars,

providing car insurance, letting

club members work in his pri-

vate garage and working on the

cars himsel.

His industry contacts and

consistent high level o involve-

ment have been some o the key

reasons or the clubs success,Hattori said. Without him, we

wouldnt even be near the level

were at now.

The Racing Owls are looking

or more sponsors to support

the clubs eorts. Learn more

about them at the Rice Society o

Automotive Engineers Web site at

www.ru.rice.edu/~rsae/.

J J Pl

This was our opportunity

to enjoy our work and seei, and how, it improved the

race car. Beore we even

made it back to Houston,

we were talking about how

we could make the car bet-

ter or next year.

Take a handul o Owls, one 1989 Ala Romeo, a dash o ingenuity

and a lot o endurance. Mix thoroughly and spread across 5,000

miles o road. Thats the Rice recipe or the Cannonball One Lapo America race.

ing about how we could makethe car better or next year.

The hard work paid o:

The team nished 54th out o

87 total competitors, up rom

85th out o 95 entries in 2005.

Country Music Television was

so taken with the Racing Owls

that it eatured the team in its

coverage o the race.

Andrew Barron, the Charles

W. Duncan Jr.Welch Proessor

o Chemistry and proessor o

D htt

Cannnba Running

fll 07 17

[ S T U D E N T S ]


20/52

One way to overcome the tendency othe quotidian demands to push out theneeded time or refection is to acceptoccasional invitations to join other uni-versity presidents or meetings aimedat discussing more ar-reaching trendsaecting our uture. For that reason, I

was very pleased to be invited to twosuch gatherings: one in Seoul, SouthKorea, hosted by Seoul National Uni-versity on the occasion o the 61st an-niversary o its ounding, and the otherin Mumbai (ormerly Bombay), In-dia, hosted by the Indian Institute oTechnology.

For the conerence in Seoul, the topicwas the global vision and strategy o theresearch university in the 21st century.The next decades will see increasingpressure on research universities as they

come to be viewed as essential drivers

o the innovation or idea economy.Nations and industrial enterprises alikewill seek to derive rom universitiesa competitive advantage in the inter-national economy. And although thisrecognition o the central importanceo the research university will, in some

ways, be to its benet, other societaland global orces will cause the researchuniversity to experience increasing stressin ullling its traditional missions.

This stress will derive primarily romtwo sources: escalating competition invirtually all aspects o the education andresearch enterprise and greater di-culty in securing unding to support therising costs o research. The competi-tion will be or aculty, or students, orunding, or intellectual property rightsand or recognition and visibility, and

each aspect o this competition will be

global. In part because o the democ-ratization o higher education (in thesense o being open to all regardlesso their economic means), there willcontinue to be intense pressure againstrising tuitions, even as resources arestretched. In addition, many (but notall) governments will be reluctant to usetax revenues to support increasingly ex-pensive research, especially research thatyields uncertain returns when measured

in local and national economic ben-et. In the United States, or example,ederal support o university-based re-search is expected to decline in real dol-lars next year. This occurs at the sametime that other countries are pouringunds, essentially, into trying to replicatethe American research university at itsheight.

These orces, as well as others, willcontinue to drive most research univer-sities to be three things that they tra-ditionally have not been: competitive,

collaborative and global. The escalatingcompetition is likely to orce universi-ties to rationalize their operations. Thethreat rom or-prot educational en-terprises and other parts o the educa-tional establishment that do not join theresearch endeavor with the educationalendeavor will cause the reduction ocross subsidies that may exist betweenthe research and educational parts otheir operations. This eort to com-pete simultaneously as ecient provid-ers o higher-educational services and

as contributors to the production o

Competition, Collaboration and the Rise o Global Higher Education

My days, like those o most university presidents,tend to get lled by the everyday tasks o oper-ating the university, engaging with the variousparts o our university community and keepingthe implementation o our strategic plan, theVision or the Second Century, on track. Little

time seems available to refect on some o thebroader trends that will aect universities in thecoming decades.

B Dd W. Lb, Pdt, r ut

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21/52fll 07 19

knowledge through research will strainnancial resources. Collaboration withindustry in research is likely to increase,but this may lead to increased confictover intellectual property rights and ablurring o research missions betweenuniversity and industry that could bedetrimental to basic research.

The increase in competition in virtu-ally every market in which universitiesoperate (or students, or aculty, or

research unding) will orce universitiesto become more eective internationalactors as they seek to create the bestopportunities or both students andaculty. In other kinds o enterprises,the result has been a rationalization andconsolidation o the industry (account-ing, legal services and retailing cometo mind). With universities, however,the barriers to consolidation (mergersand acquisitions) and, in most cases, tooreign direct investment (the establish-ment o oreign branches) will remain

high. (A notable exception is the es-tablishment by some governments oeducation cities such as that in Qa-tar.) Instead, the orces o competitionand globalization will encourage themajority o research universities to buildstrategic alliances and international col-laborations rather than establish over-seas branches.

As we consider the models likely toemerge, the most probable are the con-sortium model (now evident primarilywith business schools), the global stra-

tegic alliance (along the lines o airline

ties to establish the oundations o suchrelationships.

Where does all this leave a compara-tively small research university locatedin Houston? Because o our small size(refected in the correspondingly smallsize o our individual departments),international collaboration in teachingand research is even more important toour success and to our ability to remainamong the worlds great universities.

Due to our outstanding reputation, weat Rice have opportunities to build in-ternational strategic relationships thatbelie our size. We must continue theprocess o leveraging our strengths andseeking out diverse sources to und theresearch endeavor. O critical impor-tance will be the development o col-laborative relationships with industry,and these are likely to involve both theresearch and teaching missions andto take place in the global context oboth our and our partners endeavors.But even as we pursue advancemento Rices scientic and technologicaldisciplines, we must keep in mind ourdistinctive commitment both to a liberalundergraduate education that includesthe humanistic as well as the scienticand practical and to research that isdriven by curiosity and a aith that allcontributions to knowledge and under-standing have the potential to improvethe human condition.

partnerships) and the occasional jointventure. However, because o the de-centralized, qualitatively variable andintellectually diverse nature o the re-search university, we can anticipate thatthe cooperation between parts indi-viduals, departments and schools willcontinue to dominate collaborative en-terprises between universities or some

time to come. Ultimately, however,and certainly within this century, wecan expect to see universities developmuch more deeply embedded rela-tionships that will cause us to look ontodays typical, vague Memorandumo Understanding between universi-ties as a quaint antecedent. Indeed, Ithink it could be said that we are now

seeing a global scramble by universi-

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Dd W. Lb

Dd W. Lb


22/52

In addition, a new 30-second public service

announcement appeared on Fox TV, ESPN

and Rices own Jumbotron during ootball

games. The PSA eatures permeable side-

walks, the School o Architecture and the

Shepherd School o Music using a Who

Knew question-and-answer approach.

Then theres the rice.edu Web site sport-ing a vibrant new shield that pops o o

the page and a growing number o pages

with new looks that include ocial brand-

ing, clean new design and sharper content.

Publications coming rom dierent parts o

the institution are clearly declaring their Rice

aliation by using the new logo. Even the

Rice University Police Departments Tahoes

sport the new look.

Rices owls look great on a tie, and Ive

got a ew hundred to prove it, said Bucky

Allshouse, chairman o the board o trustees

Public Aairs Committee. But the owl on

the shield in the new Rice logo is a beautiul

statement o what were about our un-

conventional ways o approaching opportu-

nities and problems, the wisdom that comes

out o our teaching and research. This is one

more way to unite us as a community and to

tell the world about what we stand or.

You hear it more and more oten: Whats

going on at Rice? It seems more vibrant.

Well, theres a lot going on. The Vision

or the Second Century is under way, and

Rice is being transormed: new acilities

built, older ones renovated, the student pop-

ulation expanded, international and research

programming enhanced, urban outreach

magnied. And alongside is a stepped-up

communications campaign anchored in Un-

conventional Wisdom and highlighted by

Who Knew anecdotes.

In this competitive academic market-

place, the need to establish a recognizable

brand one that stands out and refects

the institutions unique character has

never been greater, said Rice President

David Leebron. I we want recognition as

a great research university, we need to com-

municate our strengths clearly, convincingly

and oten.

The hundreds o people we consulted in

developing this initiative said the same thing

again and again: Rice needs more sizzle. Un-

conventional Wisdom is our secret sauce,

said Linda Thrane, vice president or Public

Aairs. Our positioning and marketing ini-

tiative also will spice up our news media cov-

erage, community outreach, publications,

Web presence and other communications.

The initiative also includes a comprehen-

sive identity standards manual (www.rice.

edu/ricebrand), the Who Knew Web site,

Web templates and an online storeront or

ordering branded stationery and business

cards. Topping it o is the NPR campaign,

eatured on more than 1,440 stations dur-

ing the popular Morning Edition and All

Things Considered programs, plus Rice

banners on npr.org.

NPRs audience o leaders in business,

government and education are just the

people we want to reach to raise awareness

about Rice and its distinctive education, re-

W o R d S o F W I S d o m

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Rice University.Committed to transorming theworld with an uncommon approachto research and education.Rice Unconventional Wisdom rice.edu

The new Rice brandstrategy is designedto dierentiate theuniversity rom other

educational andresearch institutionsby communicatingwhat makes Riceunique the wisdomthat emerges romits research andteaching, embodiedin the Athenian owl

mascot and thedistinctive, sometimesquirky, way Rice goesabout its business.Together, those addup to UnconventionalWisdom.

Dd W. Lb

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24/5222 r sllpt


25/52

All the construction on campus is part o theimplementation phase o the V2C, said Kevin

Kirby, vice president or administration Thereare lots o things being implemented, such asaculty initiative programs. The construction

just happens to be something that people cansee and touch.

The construction is partially inspired by amaster plan developed in 2002 with the help oaward-winning architect Michael Graves. Thestudy was commissioned with an eye towardembracing the opportunities presented by theclose proximity o the Texas Medical Center. Itdelineates Fondren Library as the campus axisand suggests the relative placement o build-

FE&P has taken extra steps to keep the cam-pus and surrounding communities inormedabout current and planned construction proj-ects, Bryson said, and its recently opened Con-struction Inormation Center is an example.Located in a cluster o temporary buildings atthe corner o College Way and Alumni Drive,this is the place to ask questions, see architec-tural models o planned buildings and view an

inormative PowerPoint presentation aboutwork under way all over campus.The CIC is intended to be a place where

our campus community, as well as visitors, canpop in and see whats going on, said Bryson.The center will stay on campus until currentconstruction projects are completed in three

years.Ultimately, it will be wonderul to have

those acilities added to the campus, and theywill serve our research and teaching missionvery, very well, she said. However, duringthis period, there are going to be some growingpains, and we want people to know where theycan go when they have questions or concerns.

Visitors to the CIC will have an opportunityto learn more about the sustainability eatureso the planned buildings, which are designed tobe green.

Weve made a commitment that all newbuildings will be able to be Leadership in En-ergy and Enviornmental Design certied, whichis the industry standard or certication relatedto construction, said Bryson. We like to becreative about each project and try to think ininnovative and original ways so that were reallycoming up with the right sustainable answer oreach project.

LEED certication is a nationally acceptedstandard or the design, construction and op-

eration o buildings promoting sustainable sitedevelopment, water savings, energy eciency,environmentally riendly materials selection andindoor environmental quality.

For more inormation about FE&Ps plannedand current construction projects, visit the CICor the construction update Web site at acilities.rice.edu. Updated images rom construction

webcams also are available online.

m Pt

ings, paths, elds and structured parking.Campus plans done prior to 2002 did not

include any sort o physical engagement with theTexas Medical Center, said Barbara White Bry-son, associate vice president o FE&P. We askedMichael Graves to show us how, instead o turn-ing its back on the Texas Medical Center, the uni-

versity can actually turn around and shake hands.The plan has been revised several times since

its initial inception, most recently to accom-modate the goals o the V2C. The V2Cs as-piration to increase the undergraduate studentbody by 30 percent has resulted in considerablechanges to the study by creating the need toexpand existing colleges and to add new ones.

Rices Vision or the Second Century already exists on paper, but Facilities,

Engineering and Planning is turning the touchstone into the tangible. Across

campus and even well beyond passersby can see the signs o prog-

ress in the orm o new buildings, construction ences and groundbreakings.

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Taing a Bigger Bte

Most o us have a hard time keeping ourhome computer working. Imagine what itslike organizing and maintaining a complexuniversity network that serves 7,400 aculty,sta and students.

Thats what network administrators inRices Oce o Inormation Technologyace every day. But the task has just gottena little easier with the opening o Ricesnew state-o-the-art Data Center. Locatedon South Main, the Data Center is the

most recent and visible element o a holisticthree-year project designed to create a tech-nological oundation to support teaching,learning and research into the next decade.

Titled From Megabyte to Petabyte andBeyond: Future-Ready Network at RiceUniversity, the project has included amajor, simultaneous overhaul o academic,administrative and research cyber-inra-structure, said Kamran Khan, vice provostor Inormation Technology. Reliability,security and quality o service were the bigdrivers or this project. With the new inra-structure, the possibilities are endless.

The projects accomplishments haventjust been noticed on campus. CampusTechnology magazine recently named Ricea Campus Technology Innovator and cited

the university as the rst academic institu-tion to use multiprotocol label-switching

virtual private networks. Rice was one oonly 13 universities chosen or the 2007award out o a pool o more than 330nominees.

When making our selections, we lookor true innovation projects that involve

not only a solid technology implementa-tion, but also something more that reallymakes the school stand out, said RheaKelly, managing editor o Campus Tech-nology. Rice is being recognized or itsorward-looking networking project its

decision to orego traditional switched net-working

Rice Magazine Fall 2007

Documents

Transcript of Rice Magazine Fall 2007