rice university | fall 2015

The Magazine of Rice UniversityFALL 2015

Also: Advocating for coral reefs,

a big boost for Rice research, following in the footsteps of

Lewis and Clark, college traditions

and six degrees of Valhalla —

mathematics edition

Peering Under the HoodHow the brain shapes your life and your life shapes the brain

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | R i c e M AgA z i n e 1

20 HAVE IDEA, WILL TRAVELOne-of-a-kind fellowships lead Rice students to explore topics from an international perspective.BY AMANDA SWENNES

24THE INNER COSMOSDavid Eagleman ’93 reveals the joys and challenges of creating a TV series about the brain.BY RACHEL FAIRBANK

28IT’S A SNAPRakesh Agrawal ’97 calls SnapStream “a DVR on steroids.” We call it an engine of great late-night TV.BY RYAN HOLEYWELL

32TIME TRAVELHistorian John Boles ’65 reflects on his experience leading Rice alumni’s Traveling Owls in the footsteps of famed explorers Lewis and Clark.BY JOHN BOLES

ContentsF e at u r e s

The Magazine of Rice University

FALL 2015

Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Intersections,” Rice Gallery’s newest installation, casts intricate shadows

on the walls, ceiling and floor. See Page 45 for more about the exhibit.

Photo by Jeff fItlow

2 R i c e M AgA z i n e | FA L L 2 0 1 5

O n t h e c O v e r

Stuart Briers is a London-based illustrator who creates imagery for a diverse

range of advertising and publishing clients

throughout the U.S. and U.K. “My intention with

the cover illustration was to create an image that

was both representative of the work of David Eagleman, while being

thought-provoking in its own right. With major themes, including

the brain and human senses, I came up with the idea of taking

what could be seen as a conventional head and shoulders portrait

and then disrupting it so the viewer would have to look a little

closer to ascertain exactly what they were looking at — almost like

questioning one’s own senses.”

Rachel FaiRbank (“The Inner Cosmos”) is a science writer with a background in genetics and development.

Her byline has appeared in the Houston Chronicle and many other publications.

Ryan holeywell (“It’s a Snap”) is the senior editor at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. He previously

worked as a reporter with the Houston Chronicle, Governing magazine and other news outlets. A native of Houston, Holeywell earned his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University.

Tommy laVeRgne(“Time Travel”) is Rice’s senior photographer and accompanied John Boles ’65 on his final

Lewis and Clark guided expedition for the Association of Rice Alumni’s Traveling Owls program. His favorite part was seeing so much unspoiled countryside as well as witnessing Boles’ passion for history.

amanda SwenneS (“Have Idea, Will Travel”) is a writer, editor and list-maker in Houston. She has an

undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Hollins University and a master’s in journalism and mass communication from the University of Georgia.

on the web

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# w ay b a c k w e d n e s d ay

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“A Hallowed Hall”

Decades have passed and students have come and gone, but the Baker College Commons, one of the four original buildings on campus, is still a place of gathering for studying, eating, meetings and theatrical performances. This #waybackwednesday shot was taken during a homecoming luncheon in 1951. Rice senior Connor Stuart-Paul willingly held the photo even though his college is Brown. Uh oh!See more Rice photos: instagram.com/riceuniversity


E’RE TRULy ExCITEd TO SEnd yOU THE fALL ISSUE Of RICE MAGAzInE. While the season of autumn remains just out of reach here in Houston (currently recording above-normal temps), the fall academic term is well underway. Signs of the season can be found, if not in our tree canopy, then in the swirl and churn of student life. Soon, freshmen will receive

their “pumpkin grades,” midterm evidence of where they stand in their transition to college life. Other evidence: boots are sneaking up on sandals, pumpkin spice lattes have returned to the Rice Coffeehouse menu and nOd is on deck at Wiess College.

no matter the season, we hope you’ll enjoy reading the stories we bring to you — stories we think are worth sharing. for example, when we learned about John Boles’ valedictory trip, tracing the Lewis and Clark expedition with the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA) Traveling Owls, we knew we had to be there. (Boles will continue to lead other Traveling Owls trips.) Our senior photographer Tommy LaVergne accompanied the merry band of Owls on the 11-day adventure in July. By the time you finish reading Boles’ first-person account of leading this tour and his experiences over the last 20 years, you may be reaching for the 2016 ARA trip catalog. We also recorded the adventures of three seniors who dreamed, planned, fundraised and served as their own tour guides last summer in “Have Idea, Will Travel.” These fellowships were all made possible by alumni who created “only-at-Rice” opportunities for today’s students. Each trip celebrates the possibility of self-directed travel to open the mind and the heart.

If you’re in Texas, you may have heard of Rakesh Agrawal ’97, the founder and CEO of SnapStream, whose technology searches for and extracts clips of videos via keywords. The service has been put to use most famously by late-night talk shows like “The daily Show,” whose comedic sketches you can enjoy with a new sense of Owl pride.

We took the occasion of this fall’s PBS special, “The Brain with david Eagleman” to sit down with the neuroscientist, educator and best-selling author. Inspired by Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series, Eagleman ’93 has been working the past couple of years on writing and producing a six-part series that asks big questions: “What is reality? Who is in control? Who am I?” Our recommendation: Watch and learn. Oh, and read and enjoy.

foreword

The Magazine of Rice University

FALL 2015

Rice Magazine is published four times a year and is sent to university alumni, faculty, staff, parents of undergraduates and friends of the university.

Published by the Office of Public AffairsLinda Thrane, vice president

Editor

Lynn Gosnell

Art dirEctor

Tanyia Johnson

crEAtivE SErvicES

Jeff Coxsenior director

Dean Mackeysenior graphic designer

Jackie Limbaughgraphic designer

Tracey Rhoadeseditorial director

Tommy LaVergnesenior university photographer

Jeff Fitlowuniversity photographer

Tina Nazerian ’16intern

Letty Treviño ’16intern

contributing StAff

B.J. Almond, Kenny Bybee, Jade Boyd, Holli Ryan Clements, Jeff Falk, Amy McCaig, Brandon Martin, Tracey Rhoades, David Ruth, Ted Walker, Mike Williams

Stories You’ll Fall For

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letters

reader response

To The ediToR: Got to the radio station before the end of my freshman week in 1969, was made music director by the time classes started and stayed

involved until 1974 graduation. John Doerr was there with me from the beginning and after he became program director, we had many lively discussions about music choices and programming decisions. I don’t think too many alums went on to radio careers, but my involvement with the station led me to a most exciting 30-plus year career in the record business.

—Rob sides ’74

“Before there was KTRU ... there was KOWL” (family Album, Spring 2015) generated more than a dozen responses from readers who recognized some of the students in this photo, circa 1969. We especially liked the tear sheets with names scribbled on them. We’ve included the photo with all of the names we could match to faces. Although everyone agreed that the person on the far left was Tom Greene ’71 (we heard from the man himself), there was serious disagreement as to the identity of others. for example, is that John Doerr ’73 or John Bartmess ’70 or Larry Marple ’69 or Bob Wilson ’71 to Greene’s right? (Our money’s on Wilson.) However, the biggest mystery remaining may be more sartorial: Why the sunglasses, gents?

mySTeRy almoST SolVed: kowl Radio We’D Like To Thank The foLLoWinG Who heLPeD uS iDenTify aLuMni in The koWL PhoTo, To DaTe:

John boweRs ’69Liz howARd cRoweLL ’76ed PoLk dougLAs ’70ARthuR FoLsoM ’69Jon gLAzieR ’72thoMAs b. gReene iii ’71scott gRegoRy ’63RodgeR LiLJestRAnd ’69Rob sides ’74bRAdLey soRte ’04John soRte ’69RichARd wARd ’71MARtin winkLeR ’72becky gReene udden ’73

Rice STudenTS

1 Jolie Bain Pillsbury ’71

2 John Bartmess ’70

3 Robert Patrick “Pat” Baum ’70

4 John Bowers ’68

5 Tim Bratton ’68

6 Lee Buddrus ’70

7 Carl DeLong ’69

8 John Doerr ’73

9 Brad Etherton ’72

10 Tom Greene ’71

11 Dan Guthrie ’71

12 George “Mac” Grunert ’69

13 Larry Marple ’69

14 John Sorte ’69

15 Michael “Stewart” West ’70

16 Richard Smith ’70

17 Rob Quartel ’73

18 Robert Wilson Jr. ’71

19 James Woodward ’69

20 Walter L. Young ’71

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Most-read departments: A tie! Abstract (research findings) Sallyport (campus and student news)

SelecT commenTS

Cover illustration

“It put a grin on my face.”“Kinda silly and gaudy.”“Playful.”

Cover story

“Summer a to Z: The Rice Campus is still in high gear during the summer months.”

“Had no idea what happens during summer, so great topic.”

“The summer was a dead time at Rice when I was a student. It was interesting to see what is going on during the summer.”

“fun and informative.”

sCene

“The Tastes of Summer”“I love photos of campus and activities. I live in Seattle and don’t visit Rice often, so pictures of campus and campus life are always appreciated.”

deaR ediToR:What a treat for me to see your photo of the old lecture hall where I spent so many 8 a.m. classes trying to stay awake on the back row (as my name starts with a W). Even after returning from the navy Air Corps until graduation in 1948, I was subjected to some great lectures in that hall — such as when dr. Pattie [psychology] tried to hypnotize the entire class and some students stumbling a little down the steps.

At age 92, I am still not a “morning” person, so many of those classes in Math 100 and Chemistry 100 were pure torture for me. I started out in chemical engineering, having no idea what that entailed. I was not suited for that major at all, but thank goodness I returned after the war in premed. It was my cup of tea, and I was even a student assistant in the embryology class, trying to help dr. davies [biology] with his animal house filled with feral cats.

I thoroughly enjoy your periodic publications summarizing the activities of your great faculty and students, so much more comprehensive and in such wonderful facilities unheard of in my day. Thank you for selecting materials for your publication that we old alumni really appreciate.

—FLetcheR “steve” wALteRs JR. ’48

eDiToR’S noTe: This letter made our day.

letters

thE ricE univErSity

boArd of truStEES

Robert B. Tudor III, chairman; Edward B. “Teddy” Adams Jr.; J.D. Bucky Allshouse; Keith T. Anderson; Doyle Arnold; Nancy Packer Carlson; Albert Chao; T. Jay Collins; Mark Dankberg; Doug Foshee; Lawrence Guffey; Patti Kraft; Charles Landgraf; R. Ralph Parks; David Rhodes; Lee H. Rosenthal; Ruth Simmons; Jeffery Smisek; Amy Sutton; Gloria Meckel Tarpley; Robert M. Taylor Jr.; Guillermo Treviño; Randa Duncan Williams; Huda Zoghbi. AdminiStrAtivE

officErS

David W. Leebron, president; Marie Lynn Miranda, provost; Kathy Collins, vice president for Finance; Klara Jelinkova, vice president for IT and chief information officer; Kevin Kirby, vice president for Administration; Caroline Levander, vice president for Strategic Initiatives and Digital Education; Chris Muñoz, vice president for Enrollment; Allison Kendrick Thacker, vice president for Investments and treasurer; Linda Thrane, vice president for Public Affairs; Richard A. Zansitis, vice president and general counsel; Darrow Zeidenstein, vice president for Development and Alumni Relations. EditoriAl officES

Creative Services–MS 95P.O. Box 1892Houston, TX 77251-1892Phone: [email protected]

PoStmAStEr

Send address changes to:Rice UniversityDevelopment Services–MS 80P.O. Box 1892Houston, TX 77251-1892

©October 2015 Rice University

Reading Rice Magazine will put a grin on your face and remind you of campus life. Write to us at the address to the right, or simply email comments to [email protected].

write to us

SummeR 2015 SuRVey FindingS

noTe: This letter references the fall 2014 issue, as here: ricemagazine.info/306


ith a look of determination, breion Allen ’16 charges toward the goal line to help bring hanszen a Powderpuff victory in a game against martel. Powderpuff, or flag

football, began as an official intercollegiate sport at Rice in 1965, shortly after Brown College was created. It

started as match play between the all-girls colleges of Jones and Brown and grew as more residential colleges

on campus became coed. A campus favorite, Powderpuff teams draw large crowds and support each fall. The

student-coached, college-based teams (including a Graduate Student Association team) practice long hours, with many students returning

to the field year after year. This game, played in September, saw Hanszen bring home a 6-0 victory midway through the season.

News and Updates from CampUs

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You know it’s fall when cooler temperatures make the outdoors more user-friendly, leaves turn autumn colors, pumpkin spice lattes appear on coffee shop menus and … assorted university rankings and lists are announced.

Rice ranked no. 18 in u.S. news & World Report’s “Best Colleges” guidebook for national universities, tying with Notre Dame in a category that emphasizes research, graduation and retention rates; assessment by academic peers and high school guidance counselors; faculty resources; selectivity; financial

resources; alumni involvement; and more. also, Rice garnered some other interesting rankings

in the guidebook, for example, tying for No. 10 on a list of national universities with an unusually strong commitment to teaching; No. 14 for best value; No. 14 for best national university for veterans; and No. 25 for ethnic diversity.

Got rankings fever? Go here for more: http://news.rice.edu/2015/09/14/rice-featured-in-multiple-rankings/

Su Voto, Su VozOn Sept. 12, the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice (HACER), along with the Emerging Latino Leader-ship fellowship, Mi familia Vota and the Student Government Association at the University of Houston-downtown, hosted a mayoral forum in Sewall Hall. Candidates Chris Bell, Adrian Garcia, Ben Hall, Marty McVey and Sylvester Turner attended.

Myrna Garza ’16, president of HACER, was the lead organizer for the forum. Garza was given an internship with Mi familia Vota this summer through the Leadership Rice Mentorship Experience sponsored by Rice’s Center for Civic Leadership.

“Mi familia Vota focuses on letting the community know that it’s not just about filling out a voter registration card, but actually knowing what you’re voting for and that even if you can’t vote, there are so many ways to be engaged,” Garza said.

The forum was primarily geared toward Latino voters, focusing on students in high schools and colleges across Houston. Out of the 160 in attendance, 85 were students.

The candidates were presented with questions and issues that concerned students (like low-level policing, economic inequality and immigration concerns). After the forum, Rice’s Melissa J. Marschall,

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Brochstein Pavilion. for two packed days, alumni can mix and mingle via a variety of happenings, including campus tours;

class year and affinity-group mixers, receptions, dinners

and events; lectures by Rice’s renowned faculty members; family-friendly tailgate parties; and, of course, a football game

(Rice vs. Southern Mississippi). Reunion co-chairs are Dave

freeman ’91 and Melissa kidonakis ’07. Registration and advance ticket purchase is recommended, but you can register on site, too. A full schedule and parking map can be found here: alumni.rice.edu/homecoming/programming

professor of political science, led a discussion and analysis of candidate responses.

“We wanted the forum to be a two-way conversation,” Garza explained, “and for students to share their stories. Usually you go to a forum for the candi-dates. We wanted to change the attitude: the candidates are here for us.” Houston’s mayoral election is scheduled for nov. 3, 2015.

—Letty tReviño ’16

Homecoming. See You Here!Homecoming & Reunion 2015 kicks off friday, nov. 13, with a welcome at

Every year, the Rice Program Council hosts Screw Your Roommate,

a popular event in which students set up their roommates on blind dates.

on the night of the event, by prearrangement, two students dress up

their roommates in a themed costume. The costume will be the clue in

finding their date among a sea of students. This year, the event was held

Sept. 11. Here, andrew huie ’16 and farah imtiaz ’16 are dressed up as

the Pokémon characters Raichu and Dawn. Popular costume ideas from

the past include: Han Solo and Princess Leia from “Star Wars,”

salt and pepper, Beauty and the Beast, and rival soccer teams.



CoRaL Reef 101A coral colony on the reef is part rock, part animal and part plant. The rock part is a calcium carbonate, a limestone skeleton that the living coral animal lays down. It calcifies a little cup for itself, a corallite, and the living animal sits inside of that. The coral tissue in a colony is all one genetic individual. The reef itself is this massive limestone structure that can extend sometimes for kilometers, made up of these different colonies and other organisms, like sponges. All of this supports a massive diversity of life.

WhaT i STuDyMy research focuses on symbioses — some help coral reefs grow large, others contribute to coral death and destruction. I’m particularly excited about the small algae that live inside of coral tissues, photosynthesize sugars and dump them into their animal hosts. Corals then use that energy to build large reef frameworks.

Adrienne Simões corrêa is on a quest to engage landlocked Rice students in the study of coral reefs — complex and fragile ecosystems found in tropical marine environments. As a faculty lecturer in ecology and evolutionary biology in Rice’s department of BioSciences, Corrêa teaches Coral Reef Ecosystems and Introduction to Aquatic Ecology with Scuba Lab. In 2014, she was the recipient of a Brown Teaching Grant in support of teaching coral reef ecology.

u n c O n v e n t i O n a l w i s d O M

The MaRine eCoLoGiST

On the dark side, I’m fascinated by coral viruses and animals that bore into and break apart reefs.

... anD WhyShallow water coral reef ecosystems occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor, but they harbor more than 25 percent of marine diversity, including about 5,000 species of fish. They also protect shorelines, so if you have hurricanes or tsunamis coming in, coral reefs will take some of the brunt of the wave energy that’s associated and reduce the amount of shoreline that’s eroded. Many coral reefs are in decline due to human impacts. It’s death by a thousand cuts. I want to understand and help limit reef degradation.

CoRaL Reef one-LineRSCoral reefs are the rain forests of the sea. Coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine of the ocean. There are a million one-liners about them. Reefs are an early warning

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system of significant environmental changes happening in the ocean.

The MoRe you Look aT CoRaL ReefS ... When you’re watching a documentary about coral reefs, you’ll see beautiful images with lots of organisms in them — waving sea fans and coral heads, fish and maybe a shark. When you go out and start looking specifically at a reef “benthos” or the reef floor, there’s even more complexity. If you have the opportunity to get up close to a single coral head in person, you’ll see how many different organisms are packed into this really small space. It’s pretty fascinating.

The unDeRWaTeR CLaSSRooMyou can learn a lot in the classroom. But, for me, one of the things I enjoy about Rice is the support we get to develop curricula that take us out into the field or the lab experiencing authentic elements of the biosciences. We have courses that use some traditional classroom elements with complemen-tary courses that will take you out in the field.

no PReTTy DiVe MoVeSIn both classes, I use these giant 2-d coral reef ban-ners. They show areas of reef benthos, printed at 1:1 scale on 8-by-12 or 7-by-11 foot outdoor waterproof

advertisement banners. In the lab, we purpose-fully work with those in the pool, before we work in an outdoor environment. I give students the challenge of trying to get the banners into the pool and sink them. That’s my first chance to let them know that getting the job done out on the reef will often involve something technically challenging

underwater. It may not involve your prettiest diving move, but as long as you work safely, you just get it done. Under good condi-tions, scientific diving is a lot of fun in its own right. It is physically and mentally challenging. As a bonus, it also helps you develop handy life skills, like focus, planning ahead, communi-cation, etc.

i WouLD LoVe To Take STuDenTS …to see the real flower Garden Banks national Marine Sanctuary (fGBnMS) after they have worked with the 2-d coral banners depicting fGBnMS. It has some of the highest coral cover on the Atlantic side, and it is right near us. That would be incredible.

on DiVinG in BeLiZe I co-teach Tropical field Biology in Belize with evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon, where we spend one week on a coral reef doing field ecology and one week in the rain forest doing analogous work in a terrestrial setting. for the reef, I always emphasize to the students that we’re diving around the second largest barrier reef in the world. It’s a UnESCO World Heritage site, an atoll that contains 800 patch reefs. It’s gorgeous, and while we are there, we might see one other boat. That doesn’t happen on more accessible reefs in the world.

WhaT She SeeS When She SeeS The SeaOne of the reasons that I was drawn to the ocean is that you can stand on the beach and look at the water and have no idea what might be under the waves.

—ted wALkeR

unDeR GooD ConDiTionS, SCienTifiC DiVinG iS a LoT of fun in iTS oWn RiGhT. iT iS PhySiCaLLy anD MenTaLLy ChaLLenGinG.

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n O t e d a n d q u O t e d

edward Djerejian, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and israel and director of the Baker institute, discussing the Syrian

Refugee Crisis on Bloomberg TV.

Life is hell in Syria. It’s an outright civil sectarian war and

several of these migrants or refugees that are leaving are

from the middle classes. The very rich, frankly, have already

departed.

This idea of money and job security being a problematic, morally questionable way of

making a career decision butts up against the idea that we can use college as a tool for social

and economic mobility.

erin Cech, assistant professor of sociology, speaking on career choice and

occupational inequality at the Scientia 2015 fall lecture series.

Traditionally there has been a view that as cities become more urban, and as we live a more urban life, life is less

healthy than if we lead a different suburban or rural life. I think the fact of the

matter is that cities have never been cleaner and they’ve

never been more ripe with opportunities for fitness.

Bill fulton, director of the Kinder institute,

opens the Houston Mayoral forum on Urban Health and fitness, hosted by the Kinder institute and Shape Up Houston.

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Seniors Logan Crowl and Juan Sebastian Cruz designed the sets for Rice Theatre’s fall production,

“Much Ado About nothing.” The unique staging locates Shakespeare’s romantic comedy in, of all places, 1840s Texas. Visiting director Amelia fischer provided the vision for the frontier setting. Mark Krouskop, Rice Theatre Program lecturer and production manager, mentored the students. The following tandem interview was conducted via email with Crowl and Cruz during the play’s busy opening week.

What does a set designer do? Creates the world the director has

envisioned. We create plans and models, paint elevations, and select or create set pieces, like furniture, or pick props.

What kind of research did you do? Amelia provided some sample research

images, which the designers could use as inspiration.

We researched Spanish missions for Leonato’s house. [Editor’s note: In the original play, Leonato is the governor of Messina, a city in Renaissance Italy. In

Rice’s production, Leonato is “an open-minded patriarch whose fruitful ventures in the West have made his family comfortable and happy.”]

What was the biggest challenge and the most fun?

It’s always fun when you get to create a large set piece that actors can work on top of, so designing a second floor for all the balcony scenes was great. The archways were an interesting challenge, as neither one of us had ever built something similar to it, and they not only had to be aesthetically pleasing, but also structurally stable as people were walking above them.

Do you have a favorite line from Shakespeare? LC: for ‘Much Ado,’ it is dogberry’s line ‘yet forget not that I am an ass.’ It always cracked me up during run-throughs. JC: ‘Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him!’ from ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ I like the passion and enraged emotion behind it. Simply put, it’s a badass line.


s t u d e n t q + a | s e t d e s i G n

Designers Logan Crowl and Juan Sebastian Cruz on the set of "Much ado about nothing"


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t r a d i t i O n s | s i d r i c h a r d s O n c O l l e G e

SiD RiChaRDSon CoLLeGe, WhiCh oPeneD in 1971 as a men’s residential college, is now home to 250 Sidizens. Housed in the tallest structure on campus, it should not be surprising that the residents of Sid Rich thought to use the college’s height advantage to blast loud music

to all of Rice. The biggest question may be why the concert is limited to friday afternoons.Phil Rosegrant ’79 and roommates Clay Crawford ’78, ed Pierce

’77 and Chris Jagmin ’78 had a suite on the fourth floor in fall 1975. Joined by kevin Mckenna ’79 and nick Supron ’78, they conceived a plan to broadcast what Rosegrant described as “music and commentary” from their window.

“ed Stone ’78 provided a public-address speaker similar to what is found in stadiums,” Rosegrant recalled. “We connected this speaker to a stereo provided by Pierce and got started.” They played music interspersed with insults hurled at the men of nearby Lovett and Will Rice colleges. after

a few nights of this roguish behavior, college president Bruce Marcus ’77 knocked on their door and told them to stop.

They did not. “We moved the speaker to the roof of Sid Rich,” Rosegrant said. “We ran the speaker wires through the HVaC duct from our room across the hall, into the elevator shaft and up to the elevator equipment room on the roof. This gave us the ability to broadcast without any connection to our room.”

But the ruse did not last long. J. Venn Leeds, the college master, called Rosegrant in to his office and instructed him to halt the invective. “i had a Texas country accent that was easily identified so it was difficult to deny my involvement,” Rosegrant said. The music portion continued, and in fall 1976 Sid Rich purchased a pair of large speakers and a powerful amp that allowed “Radio free Sid” to be heard across campus on TGif afternoons to this day.

—FRAnz bRotzen

Radio free Sid

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Malcolm understood in an extraordinary way that in universities and education broadly, both the big picture and the individual matter, or in economic parlance, the macro and the micro. As a development economist, Malcolm was an adviser to governments who sought to better the lives of their people on a large scale by accelerating economic development. He played a leadership role in the establishment of at least three private universities in somewhat unlikely places: Germany, Vietnam and north Korea. He taught legions of students at Harvard, duke and Rice. But he never lost sight of the importance of helping individuals along the way. One of those was Marie Lynn Miranda, whose career he nurtured and supported, and who now serves as the provost of Rice.

In the 11 years since he stepped down as president, Malcolm continued to serve the university as teacher, scholar, ambassador and adviser. At the time of his death, he was busy working to finalize a new digital textbook on development economics — with plans to donate it to OpenStax, Rice’s digital textbook platform. not knowing that his health was about to take a dramatic turn for the worse, I had asked Malcolm recently to help me on an internal university matter. In my last conversation with him, two days before he died, he wanted to assure me that he had taken care of it.

Rice has been fortunate in having only seven presidents since Edgar Odell Lovett was first appointed in 1909. Even taking into account President Lovett’s 38 years, counting the more than three years before the Rice Institute opened its doors, that’s an unusual record of stability. At Rice, each of us tries to live up to the standard that President Lovett set. We build on the work that has come before us, and it has been my great privilege and fortune to build on Malcolm’s incredible contributions to the trajectory of Rice.

It is often said that the job of a university president is to leave the institution better than he or she found it. That’s actually the minimum standard. The job is to leave it much better than you found it. Malcolm did that, and then some. And then did more. We miss him already.

presideNt’s Note

a compelling, coherent narrative of the incredible story of Rice.

I first met Malcolm in december 2003, the day I arrived on campus for the public announcement of my appointment as his successor. He and his wife, Elizabeth, greeted Ping and me warmly at what was then O’Connor House, the residence of the president. Malcolm’s warmth and enthusiasm enveloped me. He presented me with my first owl tie, knowing no doubt it would be my first of many.

It took years of engagement at Rice to fully appreciate all that Malcolm had contributed as president. It was under his watch that the Baker Institute was launched and the Jones School of Business began its ascent. Malcolm renewed and expanded the commitment to nanoscience and nanotechnology. He made Rice a forceful participant in the Texas Medical Center and helped start organizations in Houston and Texas that leveraged Rice’s contributions to and engagement with the city and state.

The job of a university or college president is an odd one. as with any leadership position in a major organization, developing a strategy and then successfully executing it are critical elements. But universities are passionate communities, especially our students and alumni, and I am not sure you can do the job of president solely on the basis of strategy and results. More is demanded and expected. The university president must be a true part of that passionate community.

no one represented that passion more than Malcolm Gillis. Being president of Rice wasn’t just a job for Malcolm, it was a calling — a calling he felt destined for. dedication and enthusiasm characterized all he did for Rice. Universities are unusual in their breadth, encompassing an array of endeavors that sometimes seem not to be rooted in a common vision. Malcolm embraced every part of the university, from athletics to music to nanotechnology and everything in between, and he linked them together into

remembering President emeritus malcolm gillis

d av i d w. l e e b r O n


Power hitterice junior outside hitter Leah Mikesky powers home a kill in the Owls’ 3-0 win over Louisiana-Lafayette Sept. 11. Mikesky, a Sid Richardson resident, is the Owls’ top offensive player and current leader in kills.

The Owls, with 10 returning team members this season, have recorded some exciting victories, but none perhaps as big as their home match at Tudor fieldhouse Sept. 12, when they defeated then-no. 23 Colorado for the team’s first win over a Top 25 opponent since 2009. Individually the Owls have (as of press time) earned nine C-USA Player of the Week awards, the most garnered by any team in the conference. Sophomore Portia okafor is one of the nation’s top blockers and senior kimberly Vaio surpassed 1,000 career digs earlier this season. The

sports News and profiles

Owls also rank in the top 10 in the nation in both team assists and team kills. On Senior day, nov. 12, the Owls play the University of Texas at El Paso, which will be followed by one final road match and then the C-USA Championship Tournament in San Antonio, nov. 20–22. In the 2014 C-USA title game, the Owls lost a grueling five-set match to Western Kentucky, and Rice fans may see a rematch this season. you can follow the action here: ricemagazine.info/305

—kenny bybee

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a passionate baseball fan, Mark coached his son in Little League and

scheduled family vacations around the College World Series. “Those were our summer trips when I was growing up,” Matt said. They were in Omaha when Rice won the national championship in 2003. needless to say, Matt was raised an Owls baseball fan. His love for the sport led him to play for Lamar Consolidated High School, where he was a catcher — but really wanted to pitch.

“I was exclusively a catcher my freshman through junior years in high school,” he said. “I pitched when I was in Little League and Pony League, so I knew I had a good arm. I kept telling the coach ‘I think I can do it.’” Matt would get his

shot at pitching, albeit on a limited basis, his senior year when Lamar Consolidated got a new head coach.

When Matt was accepted at Rice, there was no promise he’d play for Owls head coach Wayne Graham. To continue his baseball career, Matt entered the program as a walk-on.

“My expectations were probably far-fetched,” Matt said. “Coming in, the coaches told me that I would have the opportunity to catch as well as pitch. At that point, since I had exclusively done catching, I thought that’s where my immediate impact would be.”

His freshman year, he threw a bullpen session — a pitching session — during which the coaches assessed him.

from bullpen catcher to major league pitching prospectin 1996, when Matt Ditman ’15 was 4 years old, his father, Mark, moved the family from San Diego to become Rice’s college food service manager. Three years later, he became associate vice president of Rice’s office of Housing and Dining.

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a Two-Team StarterRice Owls starting quarterback Driphus Jackson ’16 is joining another team — the 2015 Allstate AFCA good Works Team. Jackson, along with 21 other college football players from across the country, was named to this year’s roster. Selected by the Allstate Insurance Company and the American Football Coaches Association, the Allstate AFCA good Works Team comprises athletes who have volunteered time and service throughout their respective communities. Being chosen for the team is one of the most esteemed off-the-field honors in college football. This year, the program had an all-time record high of 197 nominations from colleges and universities.

Jackson is only the third Owl to be named to the team since its inception in 1992, joining Corey Seymour ’94 (1993) and Raymorris Barnes ’04 (2004).

One of the Owl team captains, Jackson is actively involved with the Nehemiah Center, a small preschool in Houston’s Third Ward that serves as a safe haven from gangs, drugs and violence. Earlier this year, he was a speaker at their “Have a Heart” ceremony.

Jackson also works with the Sunshine Kids, mentors two local students and is a leader of “Team ziggy,” an Owl team effort that provides support for 7-year-old Fre’derick “ziggy” Stovall-Redd, who is battling leukemia. From playing football to watching Superman with ziggy, Jackson has become a surrogate big brother.

Jackson and the other honorees will be invited to participate in a community project in New Orleans before the 2016 Allstate Sugar Bowl.

—tRAcey RhoAdes


“It went absolutely terrible. It was awful,” he said. He resigned himself to being a catcher. In the pecking order, though, Matt was behind catchers Craig Manuel ’12 and Geoff Perrott ’13. He learned quickly he wasn’t going to play at all his freshman year, and instead, he would be relegated to bullpen catcher.

The prospect of getting on the field didn’t look any better his sophomore year. In the 2013 season, Hunter Kopycinski ’16 — a prized recruit — was coming into the program, and Perrott was returning.

But that fall, Matt had an opportunity that would prove life-changing. “They let me throw another bullpen session,” he said, “and it went 10 times better than the year before.”

“He had a strong arm, and he had some pitching experience in high school, so we just decided, what do we have to lose,” said Pat Hallmark, Owls assistant coach and pitching coach. His performance piqued the coaches’ interest. “Matt had three above-average pitches for our level, but the curveball really is a major league pitch,” Hallmark said. That spiked curveball would serve Matt well, as he would go on to become the Owls’ full-time closer.

At the end of his junior year, the St. Louis Cardinals selected Matt in the 15th round of Major League Baseball’s draft. But he decided to stay at Rice. “I wanted to come back and finish my degree and complete this phase of my life before beginning the next,” he said. By the end of

his senior season, Matt ranked second all-time in saves at Rice. And he earned his degree. The Kansas City Royals provided Matt a graduation gift by selecting him in the 2015 draft.

“If you would have told me or my parents 10 years ago that I’d be closing for Rice, that’s really just a dream come true,” he said. “Everything that’s happened along the way, it’s just been a blessing for all of us.” Within two days of getting drafted by the Royals, Matt was on a plane to Arizona to start his minor league career.

“I spent a week at a Royals minicamp to get all the new draft guys acclimated before being shipped out to Burlington, n.C., to play a short season,” he said. “Everything happened so quickly, but I enjoyed every second of it. I think my Rice experience perfectly prepared me to enter a major league farm system. Everything we covered in minicamp were things I’d been exposed to in my time at Rice. Playing for Rice definitely taught me how to approach the game in a professional manner.”

Matt will continue his dream of making it into the big leagues when he reports to the Royals’ spring training in 2016.

“My first goal for next season is to have a good showing at spring training,” he said. “I plan on working hard this off-season, so I want to show the coaches and staff that I’ve improved as a pitcher.” After Burlington, Matt was sent to Idaho falls to pitch for the Royals’ club there and to put a wrap on his first summer in the minors.

“I really enjoyed my time in both places,” he said. “In Burlington, I was lucky enough to have both my mom and dad come visit and watch a few games. They came at different points in the summer, and as it turned out, my dad was there to see my first professional save, and my mom was in town to see my first professional win. I was able to give each of them the ball from the last out as a cool keepsake.”

—dAvid Ruth

David Ruth is both an avid sports fan and director of national media relations at Rice, where one of the perks of the job is following Rice Athletics. C

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after finishing up as Rice’s second all-time saves leader and obtaining his degree, Ditman was drafted by the kansas City Royals.

Mark Ditman visits son Matt for a Burlington (n.C.) Royals game. over the summer, dad witnessed Matt’s first professional save as a pro.

MaTT haD ThRee aBoVe-aVeRaGe

PiTCheS foR ouR LeVeL, BuT

The CuRVeBaLL ReaLLy iS a

MaJoR LeaGue PiTCh.


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nanotechnology enabled Water Treatment Systems, or neWT, is houston’s first nSf engineering Research Center (eRC) and only the third in Texas in nearly 30 years. It is funded by a five-year renewable nSf grant for $18.5 million. nEWT brings together experts from Rice, Arizona State University (ASU), yale University and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) to work with more than 30 partners, including Shell, Baker Hughes, UnESCO, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and nASA.

“We envision using technology and advanced materials to provide clean water to millions of people who lack it and to enable energy production in the United States to be more cost-effective and more sustainable in regard to its water footprint,”

said Pedro alvarez, nEWT director and the grant’s principal investigator. Treated water is often unavailable in rural areas and low-resource communities that cannot afford large treatment plants or the miles of underground pipes to deliver water. Moreover, large-scale treatment and distribution uses a great deal of energy. “About 25 percent of the energy bill for a typical city is associated with the cost of moving water,” said Alvarez, who also is Rice’s George R. Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and professor of chemistry and of materials science and nanoengineering.

The new modular water-treatment systems, which will be small enough to fit in the back of a tractor-trailer, will use

nanoengineered catalysts, membranes and light-activated materials to change the economics of water treatment.

“nEWT’s vision goes well beyond today’s technology,” said Paul Westerhoff, nEWT deputy director and vice provost of academic research at ASU and co-principal investigator on the nSf grant. “We’ve set a path for transformative new technology that will move water treatment from a predominantly chemical treatment process to more efficient catalytic and physical processes that exploit solar energy and generate less waste.”

Watch a video: ricemagazine.info/301 —JAde boyd

n a n O t e c h n O l O G y

nSf center to use nanotechnology to transform economics of water treatment

Compact water treatment plant that fits in the back of a truck

A Rice University-led consortium of industry, university and government partners has been chosen to establish one of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious Engineering Research Centers at Rice to develop compact, mobile, off-grid water-treatment systems that can provide clean water to millions of people who lack it and make U.S. energy production more sustainable and cost-effective.

NaNoteChNology eNabled Water treatmeNt SyStemS


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Rice gets $150 million boostRice is preparing to invest more than $150 million in strategic initiatives aimed at in-creasing research competitiveness, creating a world-renowned data sciences program and strengthening its celebrated molecular nanotechnology research.

The plans call for a $49 million rein-vestment in molecular nanotechnology, a traditional area of strength for Rice, as well as a $43 million investment to establish a program in data sciences. These two initia-tives build on existing strengths and include funding for 21 new faculty positions, as well as technical staff positions, start-up funds and associated support.

The third initiative will promote re-search competitiveness broadly across the university and includes $58 million for an enhanced postdoctoral program; a “re-search venture capital” fund for high-risk, high-return initiatives; strengthened sup-port services for grant writing and grant management; improved faculty networking for interdisciplinary team building; and investment in information technology for grant and data management.

“We must do everything possible to ensure that our faculty are positioned to succeed in an increasingly competitive research environment,” said President David Leebron. “We sought areas where we could make important contributions both to knowledge and to the betterment of our world. The ability to secure external funding was another key, as was the ability to leverage interdisciplinary and interinstitutional support,” he added.

“The most valuable resources of any research university are the time, ideas, initiative and leadership of its faculty and students,” said Provost Marie Lynn Miranda. “These initiatives are designed to support the extraordinary faculty who are already here in each department across our campus and to fill critical gaps that will allow us to achieve our aspirational goals.”

Read more: ricemagazine.info/303—JAde boyd

e n G i n e e r i n G

Category 3 = catastrophePast discussions of hurricane-protection options for the Houston-Galveston region have focused on constructing a floodgate at the mouth of either Galveston Bay or the Houston Ship Channel. In its latest analysis of options that federal, state and local officials might consider, Rice experts offer a third alternative: a midbay gate halfway between the previously discussed sites.

Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from disasters (SSPEEd) Center’s latest report describes how the new alternative could provide storm-surge protection for the heavily populated communities on the west side of Galveston Bay as well as for the industrial complex along the Houston Ship Channel.

“The midbay gate strategy is designed to reduce storm surge in the ship channel’s industrial complex as well as in west bay communities like Clear Lake, Kemah, Bayview and Seabrook,” said Phil Bedient, SSPEEd director and Rice’s Herman Brown Professor of Civil Engineering. “The former represents the most significant economic and environmental threat from a hurricane and the latter represents the most significant threat to human life.”

Of the many scenarios studied, the one that most closely resembles the federal Emergency Management Agency’s (fEMA) benchmark 100-year storm-surge flooding event for Galveston Island is a storm with wind speeds 15 percent stronger than Ike’s that makes landfall southwest of Galveston near freeport. Such a storm would be

a Category 3 hurricane, and SSPEEd’s simulations show the storm’s surge would go over the Galveston Seawall, inundate the Houston Ship Channel with about 25 feet of seawater and flood hundreds of square miles of densely populated suburbs along west Galveston Bay.

“More than 100 Category 3 hurricanes have made landfall on the coastlines of the Gulf of Mexico since 1900,” said Jim Blackburn, SSPEEd co-director and professor in the practice of environmental law at Rice.

SSPEEd first began studying regional hurricane protection in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008. The sprawling 600-mile wide Category 2 storm struck Bolivar Peninsula northeast of Galveston Sept. 13, causing $29.5 billion in damages, most of it due to surge flooding. Watch a video: ricemagazine.info/302

—JAde boyd

abstraCt

MoRe Than 100 CaTeGoRy 3 huRRiCaneS haVe MaDe LanDfaLL on The CoaSTLineS of The GuLf of MexiCo SinCe 1900


Pax americanaby Paul Otremba (Four Way Books, 2015)

The book-length sequence of poems, “Pax Americana” (Four Way Books, 2015), presents an anti-hero’s perspective born out of the disillusioning, violent and often pessimistic opening to the 21st century. Of this collection, poet Rick Barot wrote, “More than just sounding the alarm, Otremba upholds the poet’s task of identifying meaning out of the glut and spectacle that would otherwise merely define our times.”

This is the second poetry collection published by Otremba, an assistant professor of English at Rice. Otremba teaches Introduction to Poetry Writing, among other courses. He’s also active as a book reviewer, essayist and blogger. His recipe-rich blog on food, Avant-Table: Eating, Cooking & Creative Work, chronicles “the pursuit of an obsessed amateur.” He is widely published in journals, including The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Literary Imagination and Witness.

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e n G i n e e r i n G

Why uhf is cool again Rice engineers have demonstrated the first system that allows wireless data transmissions over ultrahigh frequency (UHf) channels during active TV broadcasts. If the technology were incorporated into next-generation TVs or

smart remotes, it could significantly expand the reach of so-called “super Wi-fi” networks in urban areas.

“due to the popularity of cable, satellite and

Internet TV, the UHf spectrum is one of the most underutilized portions of the wireless spectrum in the United States,” said lead researcher edward knightly. “That’s a bitter irony because the demand for mobile data services is expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, and the UHf band is perfectly suited for wireless data.”

Knightly, professor and department chair of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Rice Wireless network Group, said signals in the UHf spectrum, which range from

400 to 700 megahertz, carry for miles and are not blocked by walls or trees, unlike the higher frequency signals used for existing Wi-fi hotspots. Because of these advantages, wireless data hotspots that use UHf are referred to as “super Wi-fi.”

“There are already more people in the United States who require mobile data services than there are people using

broadcast-only TV. By showing that these two communities can coexist, we hope to spur innovation and a public debate about how this valuable resource could be used,” Knightly said. The research is supported by the national Science foundation, Cisco Systems and the Keck foundation. Read more: ricemagazine.info/304

—JAde boyd

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Rice researchers used WaRP, the wireless open-access research platform, to build the first system that allows wireless data transmissions over uhf channels during active TV broadcasts.

http://knightly.rice.edu/


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s i x d e G r e e s O F va l h a l l a

DaManik , the Robert L. Moody Sr. Chair in Mathematics, was advised by Joachim

Weidmann (1939– ) at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in frankfurt (Germany) and informally advised by Barry Simon (1946– )

at Caltech.WeiDMann , together with his Ph.D. adviser, konrad Jörgens (1926–1974), and Jörgens’ doctoral adviser, franz Rellich (1906–1955), published a textbook on differential

equations from Rellich’s lecture notes.

ReLLiCh’S adviser was

Richard Courant (1888–1972), key developer of the finite element method, a way of solving complicated equations by modeling a system as a series of smaller, simpler systems.

CouRanT’S adviser was David hilbert (1862–1943), famed (among many other

things) for compiling a list of 24 fundamental mathematical problems in 1900, several

of which remain unsolved to this day.

hiLBeRT’S adviser was Carl

Louis ferdinand von Lindemann (1852–1939), who proved that the number ∏

(pi) is transcendental, and therefore, that

a square cannot be geometrically

converted to a circle of equal area.

LinDeMann’S adviser was felix

klein (1849–1925), who is famous for

describing the Klein bottle, an object

with no distinction between the “inside”

and “outside” surfaces.

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S i x D e g r e e S o f Va l h a l l a is inspired by Stanley Milgram’s experiments in social networks; actor Kevin Bacon’s eponymous parlor game; the stellar academic genealogies of Rice graduate students, alumni and faculty; and the enduring awesomeness of Valhalla, Rice’s graduate student pub. In this issue, we take a peek into the academic genealogy of Rice graduate student in mathematics Vitalii Gerbuz.

ViTaLii GeRBuZDepartment of mathematics

GraDuate stuDentStudies spectral properties of quasicrystals under

the chair of Rice’s Department of Mathematics, David Damanik

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by AmAndA SwenneS

Many Rice students study abroad through established university exchange

programs or pursue international internships or service-learning courses.

A few coveted fellowships also offer students the opportunity to write their own

ticket for a potentially life-changing experience abroad. This fall, we contacted

two students and one alumna who did just that with funding provided by the

Dr. John E. Parish Fellowship for Summer Travel, the Goliard Scholarship and

the Amici di Via Gabina Traveling Fellowship. The recipients were selected

based on their answers to a deceptively simple question:

If you hAd the money And tIme, where would you go And whAt would you do?

hAve IdeA, Will Travel

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mItch mAckowIAk ’16, a Lovett College junior studying architecture, has been fascinated by the night sky since he was a kid following a comic on stargazing in odyssey Magazine and reading Walt Whitman’s “When i Heard the Learn’d astronomer.”

When he heard about the Goliard Scholarship, he knew he wanted to apply to spend time with the stars. The problem was figuring out where to do it.

“Houston has a lot of light pollution, so i wanted to go somewhere dark where i could really see the stars,” he said. finding it tough to pinpoint a location, he remembered a childhood game he played with his brother called “opposite animal.”

“of course, there’s no such thing as an opposite animal,” he said, explaining that they’d try to think of something with a long nose versus a short nose and build from there. “So i played ‘opposite Houston.’” Houston is a sprawling, flat city, so he thought of rural places with hills and mountains where he could hike and get away from light pollution. To avoid humidity, he thought of dry places with little atmospheric moisture to blur the stars. The result? Chile’s atacama Desert.

from July 5 through aug. 1, Mackowiak found himself living Whitman’s poem, backpacking across Chile and Peru alone, “in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”

The detailed itinerary he’d developed as part of his scholarship proposal, however, fell by the wayside almost as soon as he landed in Santiago. and what he thought would be the highlight of his trip — a week in San Pedro de atacama — turned out to be a mega-bus tourist mecca

blotted out by a three-day windstorm. once the storm passed, he managed to rent a bicycle and spend one night semilegally camped on a riverbank nine miles outside of town in below-freezing temps. He didn’t see another soul for about 24 hours, but he had a magnificent night surrounded by billions of stars and a few chirping birds.

“i definitely had that ‘last man on Earth’ feeling,” he said. “it was solo travel on an extreme.”

The highlight of his stargazing journey came after he ditched his plans entirely and found himself on Taquile, a tiny island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, where he stayed with one of the island’s 200 families.

“There were only sheep, cows and cats. it was so peaceful, and so different from anywhere else i’ve ever gone,” he said. “it’s what i’d hoped San Pedro would be.” He spent a night atop a hill, sleeping beneath an incomprehensibly starry sky, recalling Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and letting his soul “stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

“Part of why this trip was incredible is that it was improvised. it wasn’t about what i did, but what i got out of it,” he said. “i now have these really special experiences that i want to share, and hopefully someday i’ll go back.”

… to sleep under the stars.

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GoliARD ScHolARSHiP The goliard Scholarship aims

to help students “dream off-

campus dreams” by providing

a stipend to “encourage

international understanding.”

The scholarship is inspired

by the tradition of medieval

goliards — wandering

students and clerics who

wrote satirical verses in praise

of, well, various sorts of ribald

fun. Since 1986, more than

35 students have wandered

the world as goliard scholars.

www.goliard.org


spencer sebAllos ’16 has had medical school in his sights for a long time. as a Brown College senior double majoring in biochemistry and cell biology and Hispanic studies, his view of what medicine means has begun to shift from a purely scientific approach to one that also encompasses culture and politics. in his Parish fellowship application, he proposed a six-week immersive

study of the health care system in Laos, Southeast asia, through a partnership with Resource Exchange international, a nonprofit humanitarian development organization already working in-country through an agreement with the Laos Ministry of Health. His reason for choosing Laos was that as a communist country with a predominantly Buddhist population and relatively undeveloped health care infrastructure, it would provide the perfect environment to study how science, culture and politics influence health care.

The intensive, six-week program helped him realize that the often-romanticized stereotype of doctors working in rural clinics to cure poor, remote villagers of their ailments isn’t quite as dramatic as it seems. The job

comes with a variety of cultural and administrative responsibilities as well.

Between the twice-a-week Lao language lessons, shadowing physicians, attending morning meetings to discuss complex cases and participating in physicians’ World Health organization continuing education sessions, Seballos also taught

conversational English to Lao health sciences students.Because medical school in Laos is relatively inexpensive,

many of the students Seballos met came from poorer, agrarian backgrounds and would go home to their villages during school breaks to help tend the family farm.

“That felt like the opposite of here in the U.S., where medical school can be cost-prohibitive,” he said. “in Laos, doing well on one exam can open up possibilities for students who are bright but may not come from a prosperous background.”

Ultimately, the time he spent on tasks not directly related to patient care taught him the most about the crossroads of culture, politics and health care.

“i came away [from this fellowship] appreciating the diversity we have in the U.S. as well as an appreciation for global health and the challenges and unique experiences medical workers face while they’re practicing in still-developing areas of the world,” he said. “and i left with more questions than answers.”

… to learn about global health care.

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DR. JoHn E. PARiSH FEllowSHiP FoR SuMMER TRAVEl

Named in honor of a beloved English professor and Wiess

resident associate, the Parish Fellowship supports up to two months of “travel

and reflection” for a Rice undergraduate. The purpose

of the fellowship is simple: to enhance students’

education through unique and purposeful travel experiences.

The fellowships, which are open to students in all

academic disciplines, have been awarded since 1982.

parish.rice.edu


emmA hurt ’15, a former Duncan College history major, may have graduated in May, but she’s still taking advantage of every opportunity Rice has to offer. as the first recipient of the amici di Via Gabina Traveling fellowship, which was established by a group of alumni in honor of emeritus art history professors Walter Widrig and Phillip oliver-Smith, Hurt spent two weeks in June traveling to a little-known corner of italy.

“i’d already been to Venice, florence and Rome,” she said. “i wanted to go somewhere different and chose the austro/Slovenian border regions specifically because they’ve got such interesting histories and they’re a part of italy that people forget about.”

fully annexed after World War i, South Tyrol and friuli-Venezia Giulia are semiautonomous regions in northern italy that still hold tight to their German and Slovenian heritage.

“italy has such a strong international image,” Hurt said, “but in these regions there’s such a fluidity of language and culture. it’s not the stereotypical italy at all.”

for the first week, Hurt lived and worked on a small farm in Sfruz, a town in the German-speaking region of South Tyrol with about 200 inhabitants. in exchange for room and board, Hurt helped the family with their hay and potato crops, six horses and household chores.

“i learned how tangible their work is,” she said. “They know exactly what they grow and what they use — hoeing the potatoes their family is going to eat and baling hay for the horses they feed everyday. That efficiency and connectedness to the land is part of the reason people in South Tyrol are so proud of being ‘not’ italian,” she said. “They consider themselves

people of the mountains and very efficient. if you don’t do manual labor in your life, you don’t realize how lazy most of us really are. after six days, i was exhausted.”

it wasn’t until Hurt reached Trieste, the capital of the Slovene-speaking region, that she also realized just how much she didn’t understand about this little corner of italy and began to experience those

“transformational” moments the fellowship’s creators had envisioned for its recipients.

“i went in with no contacts and just immersed myself,” she said. “This trip allowed me to take something very abstract — reading about the region and seeing it on a map — and bring it to life in a way i’d never expected.”

Learning something new — about both a place and yourself — and being transformed by that experience is at the crux of the amici di Via Gabina Traveling fellowship, which was named for the 14-year Via Gabina archaeological excavation project that inspired the Rice alumni who spent time there as students to establish the scholarship.

as the fellowship’s first recipient, Hurt said her italian travels definitely hit the inspiration mark. She’s already planning another open-ended independent study trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos this fall through the history department’s Garside Scholarship.

… to explore languages and cultures.

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AMici Di ViA GAbinA TRAVElinG FEllowSHiPThis is the first summer the alumni-funded Amici di Via gabina Traveling Fellowship has been awarded. The fellowship honors Walter Widrig and Phillip Oliver-Smith, professors emeritus of art history, who led the Via gabina excavation project for 14 years. The professors’ former students began planning the travel fellowship in 2012, raising funds from participants on the Via gabina dig toward the goal of giving other students the opportunity for a life-changing international experience. Both undergraduates and graduate students are eligible for this award. alumni.rice.edu/groups-networking/alumni-networks#amici-di-via-gabina


Trying to characterize david eagleman’s hyperactive

mind can quickly turn into a reductionist exercise.

That’s because the lines of inquiry pursued by the

neuroscientist, best-selling author of literary fiction

and popular science, TED presenter and brian

Eno collaborator are the stuff of wonder. At Rice,

Eagleman started out as a double major in English

and electrical engineering, switching to space physics

before graduating with a degree in English literature.

but his college route was circuitous, to say the least. He took time off to serve in the israeli army, attend school at

oxford and — somewhat endearingly — to pursue a career on stage, as a stand-up comic in los Angeles. upon

his return to campus life, the decision to seek out neuroscience as a career was fueled by a seminar he took with

Sydney lamb, now a professor emeritus of linguistics and cognitive science and the author of “Pathways of the

Brain: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language” (John Benjamins Publishing Company,1999). “That was the first

domino for me in the series of dominoes that led me to becoming a neuroscientist,” Eagleman said.

At baylor college of Medicine, he directs the laboratory for Perception and Action and oversees the initiative

on neuroscience and law. His ongoing studies of time perception, synesthesia and sensory substitution

demonstrate that the mind is an unreliable narrator. Eagleman’s public profile soared in 2009 after he published

the best-selling “Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.” In 2011, The New Yorker published “The Possibilian,ˮ an

entertaining and widely read profile about Eagleman.

Even so, we might not know as much about Eagleman’s intriguing brain research if it weren’t for his public role

as a science educator. And that role is about to be amplified through a new six-part PBS series, “The Brain with

David Eagleman,” which airs this fall (wednesday evenings, oct. 14–nov. 18, 9 p.m., cST).

Eagleman serves as producer, writer and presenter for the program. Science writer Rachel

Fairbank recently caught up with Eagleman in his baylor School of Medicine lab for a preview

of the series (which features Houston and Rice in a starring role), what he hopes audiences

will learn, how he balances the roles of researcher and public scientist, and why iHoP is the

best coffeehouse for getting work done. —l.G.

Following in the footsteps of carl Sagan and neil deGrasse Tyson,

neuroscientist David Eagleman ’93 is taking to the airwaves to teach his favorite subject — the brain.

The inner Cosmos

interview by RACHEL FAIRBANK


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What was your inspiration for your PBS series, ‘The Brain with David eagleman’?When I was a child, we didn’t watch any TV in my house except for Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos.’ That was such an inspiration to me. Essentially everybody from my generation was really turned on to science by the beauty and simplicity with which Sagan turned us on to big ideas. That was the seed of my inspiration. Also, I really love teaching, but if I’ve only got 30 to 100 students in a classroom, then it’s limited as to the sort of reach that I have. [Television] is a completely different medium by which I can reach tens of millions of people at the same time, instead of just a small classroom. I love engaging minds on brainy topics because they are fundamentally at the heart of everything that matters to us as individuals and societies and civilizations. The brain is right there at the center.

how did the opportunity to do this series come about?Over the last several years, I had talked with probably a dozen production companies about doing an epic series on the brain inspired by ‘Cosmos.’ I ended up meeting with a production company in England called Blink films, and it was a great match. We flew out to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who had a special fund set aside to do a big series, and we won that grant. It got rolling two-and-a-half years ago. We hooked up, got the budget to do the show and then started with index cards. I was essentially just doing a data dump. We arranged the series into six one-hour episodes on big questions:

What is reality?Who is in control?Who am I?How do I decide?Do I need you? Who will we be?

Give us a preview into one of the episodes.The fifth episode of this series, ‘do I need you?,’ is all about this young field called social neuroscience, which is about how brains are fundamentally wired to interact with other brains. We are extraordinarily social creatures and that’s got all kinds of upsides in terms of collaboration to build universities to civilizations but it’s also got this downside, which is that we are very prone to having in-groups and out-groups.

One of the things that I really take a deep dive on in that episode is genocide. I traveled to Sarajevo, where there was a genocide during the Bosnian War. I went up to Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed, slaughtered by Serbians. I went there to really try to understand what happened. People typically look at genocide through the lens of history and politics and economics, but for a complete picture there is another lens that’s useful, which is neuroscience.

This series is described as a trip into the inner cosmos. What are you hoping viewers will take away?An understanding of their own identity, which is an ever-shifting phenomenon. We have this illusion of continuity, that we are the same person. This illusion is helped along by the fact that we have the same name, the same hometown, the same résumé throughout our lives, but in fact who you are is a constantly moving part.

We come into this world and we get told so many stories about what everything is about. One of the things that science can bring to the table is a deeper understanding of what’s really going on.

What special insights do you think neuroscience can lend to this idea?One of the ideas that I am hoping to communicate clearly in this series is the way that your decisions — your beliefs, your actions — are all generated under the hood of your awareness. This gives people a whole different kind of insight about thinking about themselves and their lives and why they do things that they are not aware of. If I had to pick one thing that is at the heart of this whole series for me, it is ‘know thyself.’ A big part of knowing thyself in modern times is understanding the machinery under the hood that makes you who you are.

So there’s a difference in what we know and what we think we know.We all believe we know the reasons why we think this way and why our political opinions are fundamentally right and the people that don’t believe this, that there is something wrong with them. We believe that we have insight about ourselves and our lives, but one of the most valuable things that we can do is cultivate a deeper level of introspection that begins with understanding the perceptual machinery by which we view the world. What’s actually driving us and forming our identity.

One of the things the show is about is how your life shapes your brain — all your life experiences shape and mold who you are — and how your brain shapes your life, because that navigates what you do next and what choices you make in your life. These are in a constant feedback loop.


i see a lot of glimpses of houston in the trailer. yes! More than glimpses, the whole show is full of Houston. The crew kept coming out from London to film here. Some of the filming days in the middle of summer were really catastrophic. We spent a whole day filming at the zoo right in the middle of last summer and between every take, I had to sop up my face.

I don’t know the answer to how Houston shaped the series, but I am really pleased that we got to put Houston front and center. There is a scene where I am playing baseball. So we got Rice baseball players in the Rice stadium, and we are playing there.

anywhere else on campus and around town? We filmed a whole day in the Rice Art Gallery, also here at Baylor and in downtown Houston. We filmed along north Boulevard, the really pretty street with the esplanades, and at the Houston zoo. We also filmed at the dan flavin Gallery and Glenwood Cemetery, which is quite a beautiful cemetery. Seventy percent of the filming happened in Houston; the rest happened around the world. We went to Arizona and California, and overseas in Switzerland, London, Sarajevo. At some point, I should probably write down everywhere we went.

When did you first become interested in studying the brain?It was in my senior year at Rice. At the time, Rice had no classes at all about the brain, but there was one professor — Sydney Lamb — who taught a class on neurolinguistics. (Editor’s note: Lamb is professor emeritus

of linguistics and cognitive science.) There were just eight of us around a little conference table and what we did was read literature, read for source material and discuss papers. That class was the first domino for me in the series of dominoes that led me to becoming a neuroscientist. I took lots and lots of science, but I ended up finishing my major in literature.

how did you balance science and literature? That balance has always felt very natural to me. In a sense, science and literature, I mean fiction, are just different ways of knowing the world. Science is a way of studying the blueprints around us, and literature is a way of understanding our own lives from a different angle. They can illuminate different facets of the diamond, so to speak. I spend a lot of time running a lab, and I spend a lot of time sitting in IHOP writing fiction.

So that’s your coffee shop?When I go to Starbucks, there are all these people coming in and out at a certain timescale, so it ends up being distracting. But at IHOP, it’s a slower pace. I can just go in there and crank for eight hours. And it’s not just fiction.

now I just write lots of nonfiction books. I just finished my cognitive neuroscience textbook. It’s funny to do these things at the same time, because writing a textbook, every sentence you have citations, it’s super dense data. And then a television show is really on the opposite end of the spectrum, where it is just as rooted in the state of the science, but it is a very different medium of telling stories with pictures and images and demonstrations. There’s just

a completely different way of telling the same material.

What are the benefits of being both a researcher and a public scientist?The public dissemination of a science piece, I find, actually helps with my research a lot because when you are going to talk to an audience that doesn’t already share all the jargon and background knowledge, it forces you to distill down what the really important pieces are, and it improves one’s understanding of which problems remain unsolved. So when you go back into the lab, you have a more clear trajectory. It’s so easy in science for people to go down rabbit holes for years, where they are pursuing some little detail that they are preoccupied with that actually doesn’t help the world at all. I think having this public communication can, in the best circumstances, serve as a rudder to make sure that one stays on course.

What’s next? I have my next four books lined up. It’s a moronic way to work, but it’s just the situation I got myself into. One of them I am co-authoring with a good friend and colleague at Rice, Anthony Brandt [associate professor of composition and theory]. Every Sunday morning we meet at my house, and we work on this book. The working title is ‘The Innovation Manifesto’ and it’s all about the cognitive software that’s running under the hood that absorbs the world, processes it and spits out something new. I am really excited about that book.


It’s a snap

Behind all those media montages on late-night television is a search and retrieval company founded by Rice alumnus Rakesh Agrawal ’97.

But there’s more to the platform than political commentary

and comedy shows.

by RyAN HOLEyWELL

photos by TOMMy LAVERgNE


“That’s my company!” Agrawal blurted out. After some back-and-forth with Stewart, the comedian jokingly asked Agrawal, SnapStream’s founder and CEO, for a discount. It was a fitting moment for Agrawal, since nothing has done more to raise the profile of his company than its association with Stewart’s program and similar political comedy offshoots.

Though Agrawal formed his company in 2000, shortly after graduating from Rice in 1998, it gained increased notoriety as the media figured out it was the “secret sauce” behind shows like “The daily Show,” “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” and “The Colbert Report,” which ended its run last year. All those shows rely on video clips from news broadcasts to make points about media sensationalism and the hypocrisy of politicians.

“It was a turning point for us,” Agrawal said of the company’s relationship with “The daily Show,” which it announced in 2009. “It was definitely an inflection point in our business. This is a niche business we’re in, and everyone knows ‘The daily Show.’ They’re so influential.”

Agrawal is modest. He said the show’s staff members still must develop the concept behind the clips. But there’s no doubt SnapStream has made their job exponentially easier.

As he frequently describes it, SnapStream is essentially a “dVR on steroids.” In that regard, the service is not unlike the traditional digital video recording devices that have become ubiquitous in homes. But unlike a consumer system, Agrawal’s devices don’t connect to televisions. Instead, they connect to networks that allow owners to store huge quantities of footage and build their own archives. Most critically, the content of the shows can easily be searched.

That’s because SnapStream figured out a way to take advantage of closed-captioned data contained within the broadcasts. The result is a system that allows customers

to pinpoint the precise moment in a recording where a specific word or phrase is mentioned, then easily extract a clip. It’s like Google for television. “Search is at the center of what we do,” Agrawal said.

The platform replaces a previously cumbersome process in which broadcasters would have to search through transcripts and see how they corresponded

to video recordings. Today, senators use SnapStream to see how the media describe their political positions. Major League Baseball uses it to find and distribute highlights. KHOU uses it to track competing newscasts. The Houston Police department and Harris County Sheriff’s Office use it to see how their messages are playing with the

public. “They all want to control their story,” Agrawal said.

The company currently has hundreds of customers. “We’re profitable and growing,” Agrawal said. Similar products exist, but Agrawal said they are more geared toward a process called “broadcast verification,” in which networks check to see whether their broadcasts are conforming to certain standards.

The product has made the process of sifting through vast troves of video much simpler, said Paul niwa, an associate professor of journalism at Emerson College in Boston, which is a longtime client. “Before SnapStream, we had a similar product that we stitched together ourselves … it was a nightmare,” niwa said, citing poor video quality and a clunky interface. He praised SnapStream’s efforts to continually improve and refine its products.

Today, niwa and his colleagues use the service to record coverage of major news

stories and discuss with students the different approaches taken by various news outlets. “It’s great to show students not just the comparison between channels but how the story evolved with time,” niwa said. “It enhances our ability to teach them news judgment.” (Agrawal also donated a SnapStream dVR appliance to fondren

WHEn RAKESH AGRAWAL ATTEndEd A TAPInG Of “THE dAILy SHOW” LAST yEAR, he didn’t expect to briefly become the star. As Agrawal tells the story, then-host Jon Stewart was warming up the crowd with some Q&As before the taping began, when an audience member asked how he makes the television montages that have become a mainstay of the program. Stewart

mentioned SnapStream, a device and software platform that makes it possible to record multiple channels at once then easily search for just the right clip.

www.snapstream.com

SnapStream Express, introduced earlier this year,

records two to four channels and has helped university athletic departments, NFL

teams and online media companies.

SnapStream records 10-plus channels and delivers a more robust, server-grade platform for broadcast customers, government entities, such as the U.S. Senate, and educational institutions, including Emerson College and Syracuse University.


THE OFFICENerf GuN WaLL: When SnapStream’s director of engineering celebrated 10 years with the company, his coworkers marked the occasion with a NERF gun battle, resulting in this shrine.

a vieW of HouStoN’S SkyLiNe from the company’s office. It’s an office “meta” joke to put the word Houston on Houston.

Pac MaN ruBik'S cuBe art is an ode to the many gamers in SnapStream’s office.

Library’s digital Media Commons for faculty and students to use for research and video presentations.)

Interestingly, Agrawal’s company — in its current form — was born out of an early business model that proved unsustainable. Originally, SnapStream created a consumer dVR that was designed to connect to consumers’ home PCs. That device emerged around the same time TiVo, a digital recorder that connects to televisions, started to gain traction. despite TiVo’s popularity, retailers, including Best Buy, fry’s and Micro Center, eventually sold about 150,000 copies of SnapStream’s software, dubbed Beyond TV.

While Beyond TV was popular with tinkerers, Agrawal wasn’t optimistic it would make the leap to the general public. But he remembered businesses had always inquired whether there was a souped-up version available for professional uses. That demand led Agrawal to steer the direction of SnapStream to its current incarnation. “We’re in our second life as a company,” Agrawal said.

At Rice, Agrawal majored in mechanical engineering and computer science. He continues to recruit for the school and praised his friends from Rice who are “doing really cool and inspiring work in their respective fields.” Among them, he said, is White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest ’97, who was a member of Sid Richardson College alongside him. In 2014, Agrawal received the Outstanding young

Engineering Alumnus award from Rice Engineering Alumni.

As a student, Agrawal served as an assistant photo editor of the Rice Thresher. More recently, his photography gained notoriety when footage of the Memorial day Houston flooding he shot with his drone went viral and was distributed on the Web by the Houston Chronicle.

Since he graduated, Agrawal also has become something of a startup junkie, making investments in more than 55 businesses. Agrawal gained attention in tech circles when it was revealed that he, a limited partner in a fund that invested early on in Uber, briefly worked as a driver for Lyft, a ride-share service, in order to learn more about the industry. He ferried passengers around in his Tesla.

SnapStream recently added a service that integrates TV clips into social media outlets like facebook and Twitter. But the biggest challenge facing the company is recruitment. Today, the company has about 30 employees, and they’re critical to its success. “Business all comes down to the people at the company,” Agrawal said. “you have to have a good product and strategy, but all of those things are driven by people.”


Time Travelhistorian John Boles ’65, the william pettus hoBBy professor,

refleCts on his long experienCe of leading the assoCiation of riCe alumni’s traveling owls in the footsteps

of explorers lewis and Clark.

by John boles ’65 photos by tommY laVerGne


AAbouT 20 yeArs Ago, rose sundin, who then managed travel for the Association of rice Alumni, asked if I would be willing to accompany a Lewis and Clark trip up the Columbia river and offer lectures about the Corps of Discovery. I hesitated, because even though I had enjoyed lecturing on similar trips before, they had always been to the u.s. south. After all, I taught u.s. southern history.

Then it occurred to me that the Lewis and Clark expedition was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson and that both Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had been born in Virginia — in a way, their famous exploration of the West in 1804–1806 could be seen as a geographical extension of southern history. So, in the most fortuitous act of rationalization of my life, I agreed to go on the trip, developing a number of lectures built outward from Jefferson’s lifelong fascination with the West.

My goal would be to provide background on the rationale of their exploration, describe their interactions with native Americans, discuss their scientific curiosity about dozens of plants and animals new to Europeans, and try to give a sense of how arduous and dangerous their experience was two centuries ago.

The result, over the next 19 years, has been a series of trips with different formats, each celebrating the most illustrious explorers in American history. That first trip was on a small boat from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia River to the Snake River in Idaho. Then came two trips through Montana, featuring visits to yellowstone and Glacier national Parks, and two days and nights on a historic, narrow-gauge train.

Beginning in 2004, the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, came six river trips that closely followed their trek through central and western Montana and into Idaho. These trips have been wonderful adventures

for my wife, nancy, and me, and for more than 200 Rice travelers over the years.

The trips after 2004 have included two-and-a-half days of canoeing on the Missouri River along its scenic White Cliffs section; camping out at documented Lewis and Clark campsites; following the duo’s arduous 19-mile portage around impassable waterfalls; and taking a motorboat trip where towering cliffs hug the water’s edge before opening like a giant door to reveal the river and mountains beyond. The explorers called this place “the gates of the rocky mountains.”

Lewis and Clark left detailed journals of their trip, but one has to see the terrain to appreciate the difficulty of their travel, to understand the vastness of the West that threatened to overwhelm them, and to sense the awe that both challenged and inspired them.

Our most recent expedition began and ended in Great falls, Mont. We ventured to a site where three smaller rivers — the explorers named them the Gallatin, the Madison and the Jefferson — come together to form the Missouri. further westward, we saw the Beaverhead Rock that Sacagawea recognized. We hiked over the Lemhi Pass, crossing the Continental divide near where the explorers met Sacagawea’s people, the Shoshone, and then hiked or rode horseback over a tremendously rugged section in Idaho called the Lolo Trail, picnicking at the top at a place the native Americans called the Smoking Place. There we witnessed stunning views of mountains in every direction — just a few highlights of our travels.

The realization that we were seeing places that were literally unchanged from the way Lewis and

StAtue oF meriWetHer

LeWiS (in hat), william clark and Sacagawea,

along the bank of the Missouri River in Fort

benton, Mont., where the Rice trip began.

PREViouS PAGE A rePLicA of a

native American tepee at the First Peoples buffalo

Jump State Park, near Great Falls, Mont. The tepee is located at the

visitors center at the base of the jump, where

bison were tricked into stampeding off of a

steep cliff.


JoHn BoLeS reading from the journals of lewis and clark at the bluff above where the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson Rivers — all three named by lewis and clark — come together to form the Missouri River.

Clark described them in their journals 200 years ago made our trips a fascinating exploration of the geography and history of the nation. And what beautiful scenery — sheer cliffs of remarkable variety and color, unusual geological formations, and a wide variety of plants and flowers, including plentiful bitterroot and bear grass. Travelers never tire of seeing American bald eagles soaring overhead or the occasional glimpses of snowcapped mountains in the distance (in July!). At night, we were amazed at the brightness of the stars and the Milky Way. In the mornings, we woke to the sound of birds, the smell of coffee and hearty breakfasts prepared by youthful crew members.

Our travel throughout these trips has been wonderfully augmented by a skilled and personable tour director, Barbara Batey, who seemingly knew everything about the geology, flora and fauna of the region and kept us miraculously on schedule. On most trips, we have been ferried from place to place by a colorful bus driver, Bob Laird, who kept his bus immaculate and provided water, candy and corny jokes that evoked plentiful groans.

But I think what ultimately most impresses every Rice traveler are their fellow Owls. nancy and I have discovered over and over again how pleasant, intelligent, curious, interesting and good-spirited the participants are, even when some of the episodes — sleeping in a tent, using primitive toilets, hiking along a mountain trail — provided ever-so-brief moments of authenticity with Lewis and Clark’s intrepid journey. friendships were renewed or newly made that last for life. natural beauty, a sense of history, the camaraderie of good people enjoying one another’s company: the Traveling Owls’ Lewis and Clark trips have become a pleasant memory for

dozens of Rice travelers. for me, seeing and

experiencing this portion of the Lewis and Clark adventure has given added depth to their journal writings. These explorers had never seen such openness, such “tremendous” mountains, such strange outcroppings of igneous rock, and they struggled to explain what they saw. Even today, it seems impossible they

could have successfully completed such a trip — and Sacagawea carried a small baby the entire way. The magnitude of their accomplishment cannot be grasped until one has seen at least a part of their journey, which did indeed require “undaunted courage.”


clocKwiSE

An AutHentic LeWiS And cLArk cAmPSite at Eagle creek on the Missouri River, where the group spent the night. From this location many of the travelers hiked to see an ancient native American pictograph of a horse.

A FieLd oF dAndeLionS glowing in the sunset near the Missouri River.

during A morning Lecture, John boles recounted the experiences of lewis and clark along this stretch of the river. The large, dark column in the background is la barge Rock, which rises 150 feet from the edge of the Missouri River.

deciSion Point, a historical site where lewis and clark came upon a fork in the river; which branch was the continuation of the Missouri? From this perspective, the crew members believed it was the muddy right fork. The two captains correctly reasoned that the clearer left fork had to be the river coming from the mountains.


cAmP FortunAte, where the group of explorers

met the Shoshone indians, now is beneath this reservoir.

After the rendezvous, the corps of Discovery crossed

the continental Divide at lemhi Pass; the Traveling owls also hiked the pass.


clocKwiSE

on tHeir return triP from the Pacific, lewis and clark came to this spot along the lolo Trail in idaho, which the native Americans called the Smoking Place.

A Striking diorAmA in the lewis and clark interpretative center depicts the almost superhuman effort required to pull heavy dugout canoes up from the Missouri River for a 19-mile portage around five waterfalls.

tHe rice trAVeLerS camped along this beautiful stretch of the Missouri River, as had the corps of Discovery. lewis and clark named the site Slaughter River because they (incorrectly) believed the cliffs were a buffalo jump used by native Americans.

AFter cAnoeing ALL dAY and then eating a delicious meal, sitting around a campfire talking and singing was a perfect way to end the day. The Milky way offered a visual dessert.


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Arts & letters Creative ideas and eNdeavors

hree Shepherd School alumni — David Connor ’13, anthony Parce ’09 and hellen Weberpal ’12 — are putting down roots as a part of the Houston Symphony’s new Community-Embedded Musician

program, which aims to increase the impact of the orchestra’s education and community engagement efforts and better serve Houston’s immensely diverse population.

The symphony announced the hiring of four string players after a nationwide audition and interview process. Connor (double bass), Parce (viola) and Weberpal (cello), along with violinist Jenna Barghouti, will act as artist-teachers and performers in the city’s schools, neighborhoods and health care settings while performing approximately 25 concerts per year onstage with the Houston Symphony.

All three Rice alumni bring a wealth of community education and outreach experience to their new positions.

“It is so inspiring to work for the Houston Symphony,

an orchestra that has made such a great connection to its community and actively seeks to deepen that connection,” said Connor, who has worked with children with neurological disorders at Houston’s Monarch School and taught students abroad through the new World Symphony’s cultural exchange program.

“With demand for our services rising dramatically, adding these new positions will allow us to extend what we’re doing throughout the Houston community and beyond,” said Mark C. Hanson, Houston Symphony executive director and CEO. “This initiative is part of an array of actions we’re taking to not only expand and strengthen our work outside of the concert hall, but also to pursue our shared artistic goals.ˮ

Connor, Parce and Weberpal join a pool already rich with hometown talent: Shepherd School alumni and faculty comprise nearly 35 percent of the Houston Symphony’s current roster.

—hoLLi RyAn cLeMents

Locally GrownBoasting one of the country’s premier schools of music, Rice takes pride in seeing its alumni land music careers across the globe. It’s no less thrilling when they cross the Sallyport only to remain in Houston, enriching the city’s cultural landscape.

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WhiLe She WaS aT WoRk one afTeRnoon aT The RiCe GaLLeRy, GaBRieLa ZaMBRano SaT DoWn, taking in the bright light, intricate black woodwork and reflection in front of her.

“This room makes me want to sit down and just kind of enjoy it,” zambrano said. zambrano, a Will Rice College senior, has been working at the gallery since her freshman year and was admiring its newest installation, Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Intersections,” as she stood guard.

Agha got the idea for the artwork after she visited the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. There, she thought about growing up in Pakistan, where women pray at home because they cannot do so in mosques.

“To my amazement [I] discovered the complex expressions of both wonder and exclusion that had been my experience while growing up,” Agha said, describing her trip to the Alhambra.

Christine Medina, Rice Gallery manager, said the installation, which is co-sponsored by the the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance,

is the gallery’s first installation drawing inspiration from Islam. “What is beautiful about Agha’s piece,” she said, “is how it interacts with the whole space and the

shadows it casts on the walls.” This makes it what Agha calls an “immersive experience,” rather than an object hanging in the middle of the room.

“you’re not looking at a box in the middle of the room, you’re looking at the whole room, you’re looking at the walls and the ceiling and the floor,” Medina said.

zambrano finds the installation reminiscent of the Rothko Chapel.

“It looks like a chapel to me,” zambrano said. “The ceiling, it almost looks like a vaulted ceiling if you let your mind kind of slip, and I just really enjoy this place.”

Sometimes, zambrano has observed visitors who will stop talking once they see “Intersections.” The visitors are not alone — zambrano herself had a memorable first reaction. “I actually kind of stopped breathing for a second.”

—tinA nAzeRiAn ’16

light and Shadow

interSectionSby Anila Quayyum Agha

SePT. 24–DeC. 6Sewall Hall (ground floor)

free and open to the public. www.ricegallery.org

arts & letters

Quartet Rising

how do you follow a clean sweep of awards at a major international string quartet competition? If you’re the Dover Quartet, the answer is simple: keep winning.

This indomitable foursome — all 2013 Rice graduates — includes Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violins; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; and Camden Shaw, cello.

“The Dovers” catapulted to the forefront of the chamber music world at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013, soon after graduating from the Shepherd School of Music, where they studied with faculty members James Dunham, norman fischer and kenneth Goldsmith.

They now are the latest recipients of the Cleveland Quartet Award, given by Chamber Music America to promote a rising young string quartet whose artistry dem-onstrates that it is in the pro-cess of establishing a major career. Their win holds special meaning for Dunham, profes-sor of viola at the Shepherd School, who was a member of the Cleveland Quartet when it established the eponymous award in 1995. “I could not be more proud for the Dover Quartet to receive this award in its 20th-anniversary year,” he said. Learn more: www.doverquartet.com

—hoLLi RyAn cLeMents

“Intersections” draws inspiration from sacred spaces, women and religion


occupancy facility. Supported by Beyoncé Knowles, this facility provides occupants who would otherwise be homeless with shelter, but also with community and the opportunity to transform their life circumstances.

What were a couple of favorite stories you uncovered?One of the great things about writing a book is all the research. While I did read exhaustively from an archive that covered materials as diverse as casino hotels’ account practices to Immanuel Kant, one of the funniest aspects of this book’s research was the stories that people shared when they learned I was writing ‘Hotel Life.’ All I had to do was mention that there was a chapter on ‘hotel hell,’ for example, and people were sharing stories about their worst-ever hotel experiences.

hotels often play a role in the entertainment and the news we consume. What were some of the ways you invoked current events in your book?While I was writing this book, movies, news and politics all featured hotels in important ways. The Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal at the Sofitel happened, toppling the head of the IMF. Movies like ‘Hotel Budapest’ provided delightful depictions of grand hotels of a bygone era. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a century-old ordinance requiring hotels to hand over information about patrons without a warrant came to light. The list goes on and on. Showing just how hotly contested and volatile a place the hotel continues to be for those who enter its doors.

you’ve mined a rich symbol of modern economic and cultural life for study. What do you hope readers take away?So many of us stay in these institutions without really thinking about it. That is, until an author brings the topic to our attention — then we all learn how much we have to say about hotels.

—L.g.

on the surface, the topic “hotel life” sounds unconventional for a professor of english and humanities scholar. how did the research relate to your scholarly interests?As someone broadly interested in American culture and as a writer who likes to encourage readers to see their environments with new eyes, hotels were a natural draw for my scholarly attention.

one of your sources called hotels “a third place.” What does that mean?Hotels have long been a ‘third space’ — somewhere not quite ‘home’ or ‘private’ and not quite ‘public’ either, but a blend of the two. They are places that don't only offer a place to sleep for travelers but also offer guests new ways of imagining their lives.

The book is chock-full of anecdotes and minihistories of hotel life. What are some examples of hotels as a third or transformational space?When I interviewed Caroline Rose Hunt, of the Rosewood Hotel group, she described how she became a permanent hotel dweller by chance. The recently divorced Hunt was in downtown Dallas for a social event in the mid–1970s, and her daughter encouraged her to stay in a hotel rather than drive all the way home. She checked in, and she described her conversion as immediate: She ‘never checked out,’ but sold her house and has lived in the Dallas Crescent ever since.

In the process, she went from living what she describes as a very private life to a public career in the luxury hotel business. The Mansion on Turtle Creek was her first hotel — and one that she transformed from a private home into a boutique luxury hotel.

But hotels are transformational spaces for those at the other end of the economic spectrum as well, as I learned when I spent time in Houston’s Knowles-Temenos single-room

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review and Author Q&A“Hotel Life: The Story of a Place Where Anything Can Happen” by Caroline Field Levander ’86 and Matthew Pratt Guterl

(The University of North Carolina Press, 2015)

arts & letters

Caroline Field Levander ’86

Read more about

“Hotel Life: The Story of a Place

Where Anything Can Happen”

atlevanderguterl.com/

hotel-life.

Usually when we think of hotel research we think of cost comparisons, services provided and whether or not the continental breakfast comes with a waffle maker. What have other travelers said about the hotel, and will we earn (or use) points by staying? Focusing on space, time, scale and effect, Levander and guterl move past everyday, practical concerns and delve into the social significance of a hotel and its role in modern life. “Hotel Life: The Story of a Place Where Anything Can Happen” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015) draws from ethnography, history, travel literature and sociology. Hotels, say the authors, “cut to the core of what it means to be human in modern times.” guterl is professor of Africana studies and American studies at Brown University. Levander is vice president for Digital Education and Strategic Initiatives, Carlson Chair in the Humanities and professor of English at Rice. She teaches a variety of courses in American literature and culture.


“In Their Right Minds” examines the lives and atypical minds of poetic geniuses — including William Blake, John Keats, Victor Hugo, W. B. yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke, James Merrill, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Drawing on the latest research, Platt brings neuroscience to the humanities, connecting diverse topics (a genetic predisposition to an enhanced right hemisphere, childhood trauma, paranormal experiences and occult practices) to exceptional poetic accomplishment. Platt graduated from Rice with a doctorate in French and also has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the Sorbonne and georgetown University.

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on the bookshelf

“Brain Camp”by Charles Harper Webb ’70 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015)

A professor of English and creative writing instructor at California State University at Long Beach, Webb has received numerous awards and honors for his poetry. In his latest collection, Webb tilts from love to hate, tenderness to brutality, lyricism to street-speak. Poet Terrance Hayes described Webb’s new work as “imaginative, sly and perceptive.” Webb graduated from Rice with a bachelor’s degree in English.

“Gliese 667Cc”by Tim Murray ’63 (FastPencil, 2015)

This science fiction novel tells the story of Captain Adam Truman, who returns from a space voyage to find that Earth has suffered an event of radiation that affects males’ reproductive ability. The story follows the struggles of Truman as he tries to maneuver in a society that is foreign to him and how he overcomes adversity to be with his love. Murray earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Rice. He has previously published a series titled “Memoirs of a Texan: War” (Fast Pencil, 2010) that follows the life of VMI cadet Jim Cobb through the Civil War.

arts & letters

in Their Right Minds: The Lives and Shared Practices of Poetic Geniuses

by Carole Brooks Platt ’89 (Imprint Academic, 2015) White house honors novelist

Larry McMurtry, the acclaimed American novelist, essayist, screenwriter and bookseller who earned his master’s degree in English from Rice University in 1960, has received a 2014 National Humanities Medal for outstanding achievements in his field.

“Mr. McMurtry’s work evokes the character and drama of the American West with stories that examine quintessen-tially American lives,” the White House’s official citation read.

President Barack Obama pre-sented the award to McMurtry in the White House’s East Room Sept. 10. McMurtry is one of 10 recipients of this year’s award, which honors an individual or organization whose work has “deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens’ engagement with history and literature, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources,” accord-ing to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

McMurtry is the author of 29 novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Lonesome Dove,” three memoirs, two collections of essays and more than 30 screenplays, among them the Academy Award-winning adapted screenplay for “Brokeback Mountain.” He lives in Archer City, Texas.

—JeFF FALk

http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/larry-mcmurtry


family albUm

CaMPuS TRaDiTionS aRe CoMPLiCaTeD ThinGS. Some are carefully planned and thought out, but others are born in unpredictable ways. Some vanish with the times, others evolve and endure. for each new crop of students a tradition is anything that the seniors remember. “Hello, Hamlet!” is one of those traditions that arrived unexpectedly. Written in 1967 by Wiess sophomore George Greanias ’70, this irreverent “musical travesty in too many acts” instantly struck a chord on campus. It is now performed every four years by the Wiess Tabletop Theater, giving each student the chance to see it only once during their time at Rice. The next performance takes place in spring 2016. This image, taken at a rehearsal for an early performance, gives us a glimpse of a tradition being born.

by

MeLissA FitzsiMons keAn ’96Centennial Historian

hello Tradition!

aRe you in ThiS PhoTo? The world must know who you are. Write to us: [email protected]

in her popular blog, Rice History Corner, Melissa Kean solves puzzles and unearths the stories behind the photos, objects and ephemera that reside in Rice University archives. Read the blog: ricehistorycorner.com


“I really appreciate the chance to work with such amazing people and contribute to research that has real-world applications.”

Jessica Ha ’18 + Biofilm investigator

+ Chemical and biomolecular engineering major and STEM mentor

+ Rice Annual Fund Scholar

The Rice Annual Fund Scholars

program enables students to pursue

their greatest ambitions today.

Jessica Ha ’18 is grateful for the

opportunities she’s had to do

meaningful research as a Rice

undergraduate. Working alongside

graduate students in the lab of faculty

member Qilin Li, she explores ways to

prevent the growth of harmful biofilms

in water pipelines.

“Working in Dr. Li’s lab to figure out the

mechanisms that trigger disassembly in

biofilms has showed me how

engineering research can really help

people,” she said.

Current-use scholarship support gives

her the chance to do this impactful work

early in her academic career. “Without

financial aid,” said Ha, “I simply wouldn’t

be here.”

>> owledge.rice.edu

The newly enhanced Rice Annual Fund Scholars program, launched through the Initiative for Students, connects you with a student through all four years of their Rice education.

To learn more, visit giving.rice.edu/rafscholars.

service, then lessonsPhoto illustration by TAnyIA JOHnSOn

Rice University, Creative Services–MS 95

P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892

Nonprofit Organization

U.S. Postage

PAID

Permit #7549

Houston, Texas

in 2011, MBa STuDenT anD foRMeR naVy SeaL JiMMy BaTTiSTa ’13 founDeD The JoneS SChooL’S VeTeRanS in BuSineSS aSSoCiaTion (ViBa), a support group for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, the Jones School is a national leader in recruiting and supporting military veterans through programs like the Military Scholars Program, which provides scholarships that cover the full cost of tuition, fees and living expenses. The Jones School now enrolls a higher percentage of military veterans — around 13 percent of the class — than any other business school in the country. “Rice valued my background in the military,” said Steve Panagiotou ’16, VIBA president. “When I came down for a visit and got to meet some of the Rice supporters and current students, that clinched it. The support was overwhelming from alums who had been successful in their careers. At that point, it was a no-brainer for me.” Look for a profile on VIBA — including a look at their creative programming with veteran writers, in the Winter 2016 issue.

rice university | fall 2015

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