In the year o our 35th anniversary as a school, the George R. BrownSchool o Engineering at Rice continues to grow in size as we moveinto our newest building, the Biosciences Research Collaborative.This beautiul building takes us to a new level o commitment tohealth, wellness and medicine in collaboration with our partners inthe Texas Medical Center. We continue to get stronger, too, throughthe eorts o our outstanding aculty, students and sta, as wewelcome six new aculty members this year.Our research prole continues to expand, and we congratulate ouraculty and researchers on new unding through the MURI andDARPA programs. This unding signicantly increases our alreadysizeable portolio o research in support o national security. Critical toour research enterprise is an increase in the number o our graduatepopulation; this year we welcome a greater number o graduatestudents than ever beore.We are celebrating the rst year o operation o the OshmanEngineering Design Kitchen by recognizing the ingenuity and hardwork o our students, especially those whose teams won nationalawards or their designs. We applaud the team o Rice studentsthat has worked so hard on its beautiul entry in the DOE’s SolarDecathlon and we wish them the best o luck in the competition.We are seeing a tremendous interest in engineering rom ourundergraduates, as 1/3 o Rice’s class o 2013 has entered asengineers. These students will benet rom a greater emphasis onleadership, design and communication throughout the engineeringcurriculum, spearheaded by the Rice Center or EngineeringLeadership, which we are launching this all.With the growth in the undergraduate program, we have a15 percent increase in international students, a development thatbodes well or our goal o increasing international engineeringexperiences or our students. We believe that more exposureto students rom other cultures will eed our American students’interest in studying, working, or doing research abroad.As the economy has contracted and more people return to schoolto improve their viability in the job market, we have seen a 67%increase in the number o proessional master’s students thisall. Through this program, we are working to help meet NationalAcademy o Engineering goals or graduating more engineers withve years o schooling.In citing each o these landmarks or the school, I would like tohonor the dedication and contributions o the previous Deans oEngineering, as their vision and guidance have been instrumental inbringing us these years o continued success.

Sallie Ann Keller

William and Stephanie Sick Dean o Engineering

 

CONTENT

New acultyCenter or Leadership: The game changerPaving the way to optimization researchBRC: The school o engineering expands into new territoryA summer o encouraging engineeringDSP, nanotech drive MURI success$16

M

in DARPA unding picks up the PACERice reines biouels researchJim Thompson: It’s all in the dataWireless at WARP speedVIGRE reshapes the uture o math researchDesign spotlightAwardsAlumni

24568101112141516172536

Mechanical Engineering Building, the rst engineering building at Rice.