Message from the Chair

For 13 years, I have had the privilege of being part of the Department of Bioengineering; seeing it grow from initial inception to a robust and exciting program for undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers. I am also honored to be part of a university with outstanding leadership, solid financial footing, dedicated employees, and a history of prudent fiscal management. In these tough economic times, my optimism in maintaining our forward momentum as a top-tier teaching and research institution remains strong.

Rice is a leading institution in competing for government and private research dollars, with $13.9 million dollars in research expenditures for our department in the last fiscal year. Our graduate program is ranked 7th among bioengineering/ biomedical programs in the nation by U.S.NEWS & World Report’s 2009 rankings.

We have outstanding faculty members; many of whom have had notable successes this year, including a NSF CAREER Award for Dr. Oleg Igoshin, promotion to full professor for Dr. Rebekah Drezek, and fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science for Drs. Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Jianpeng Ma.

While we are proud of these accomplishments, we also continue to strive to improve and expand our programs.

In July, we begin our next big move – relocating to the BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC). This new 477,000 square-foot building, which is located at the interface between the Rice campus and the adjacent Texas Medical Center, will facilitate stronger collaborations between our faculty and researchers at institutions such as Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children’s Hospital, and the Methodist Research Institute. The building will also provide ample space to accommodate our goals and long-term growth projections.

This summer we welcomed two new faculty members. Dr. John T. McDevitt as the Brown-Wiess Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering, and Amina A. Qutub as an assistant professor of Bioengineering.

Dr. McDevitt's leadership in nano-bio-chip platform technologies will significantly add to our depth of research and innovation in biomedical imaging and diagnostics, as well as our focus in developing sustainable global health technologies.

Dr. Qutub (Rice B.S. 1999) has returned to her alma mater to launch a new research program in biocomplexity with long-term applications in cancer therapy; treatments for ischemia, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease; and increased understanding of cellular and sub-cellular organization in vascular biology.

This spring, 50 undergraduates received a B.S. in bioengineering – our largest class ever – and 14 bioengineering graduate students will receive their Ph.D. degree. Our students have received numerous honors, including two NSF Graduate Fellowships, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship, a Whitaker International Fellowship, a Marshall Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and two Goldwater Scholarships. We are proud of their accomplishments and wish them continued success as they move forward in their careers.

This was another outstanding year for graduate recruiting as 14 of the nation’s most talented students joined our ranks this August. And in anticipation of another record-breaking year of undergraduate enrollment, we continue to take several measures to expand our laboratory and engineering design programs so that we offer the advantages of small classes, an outstanding student-to-faculty ratio, access to cutting-edge laboratory facilities, and a collaborative culture that integrates teaching and research.