Rosa Bañuelos

Statistics

Expected Graduation Year: 2010

Rosa is a second-year student in the department of statistics and she has just passed her A-exams. Her current advisor is Dr. Keith Baggerly at UT MD Anderson and their research involves analysis of exon arrays.

Lissett Bickford

Bioengineering

Expected Year of Graduation: 2010

Lissett is a first-year graduate student in the department of bioengineering at Rice University. She received her B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and her M.S. degree in biomedical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Lissett’s advisor is Dr. Rebekah Drezek and her work entails using nanotechology and biophotonics for the development of superior cancer diagnostic and treatment tools.

William Bryant

Expected Year of Graduation: 2011

William is a first-year student in the department of statistics at Rice University. He received his B.S. degree in mathematics at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. William is currently preparing for the Statistics A-exams scheduled for the Spring of 2008. His academic advisor is Dr. Kathy Ensor.

Juli Carrillo

Expected Year of Graduation: 2011

Juli is a first-year student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology. She received her B.S. degree in economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Juli’s advisor is Dr. Lisa Meffer and she is currently assessing the linkage between behavioral traits in the house fly including larval foraging, latency until copulation, and predator evasion. Additionally, she is analyzing the effects of sexual conflict within this system to determine the role of male harassment on female mate choice and offspring fitness.

Jamie Chatman

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Jamie is a fourth-year student in the department of statistics. She graduated with a degree in mathematics from Spelman College in 2003. Her advisors are Dr. Rudy Guerra and Dr. Katharine Donato. Her research utilizes at cluster analysis techniques to test a program that aids university admissions.

Michael Contreras

Michael is a second-year student in the department of civil and environmental enginerring at Rice University and his current advisor is Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah. His current research lies in the area of structural health monitoring and smart material applications. His thesis spans the topics of fault detection and isolation using neural networks, real time damage detection using wavelet based neural network training, and experimental validation of fault-tolerant neural controllers. Upon graduation he plans to pursue a career in academia.

Marvin Cummings

Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Marvin is a second-year student at Rice University. He received his undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University in chemical engineering. Marvin’s advisor is Dr. Enrique Barrera, and he is currently working on an evaporation system that deposes of magnetic ultra-thin film materials. These thin films will be vital in the development of Smartcard applications. This system will also be used to develop heat-activated ultra-thin film Shape-Memory Alloy materials for bio-medical applications.

Philip Graves

Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

Philip is is a fifth-year student in the department of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University. He received a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Texas at Permian Basin in 2002. In Dr. John Olson's lab, Philip addresses the challenge of low rHb production yield when over-expressed in E. coli by the rational design to increase stability of recombinant human apohemoglobin (rHb) using the ultra-stable sperm whale hemoglobin as a model. Hemoglobin is responsible for the transport of oxygen throughout the body and, in extracellular form, is being used to develop O2 delivery pharmaceuticals for use as a blood substitute. With the reduction of rHb degradation and the increase of the heme prosthetic group readily available for incorporation to apohemoglobin, higher production and yield of recombinant human hemoglobin can be achieved making blood substitutes economically viable. He was recently awarded best gradutate oral presentation in biochemistry/biology at the SACNAS 2006 meeting in Tampa Bay, Florida. Immediately after graduation, he will pursue a post-doc position and a career in academia.

Kary Green

Computational and Applied Mathematics

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Kary is a fourth-year student in the department of computational and applied mathematics, and his advisor is Dr. Matthias Heinkenschloss. Kary completed his undergraduate studies at Henderson State University where he majored in mathematics and minored in physics. He also holds a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. Upon completion of his Ph.D. at Rice, Kary plans to pursue a career in industry. Last year he completed his master’s research project on optimal sensor placement for parameter identification.

Joel Huegel

Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Expected Year of Graduation: 2009

Joel is a second-year student in the department of mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice University. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering technology at LeTourneau University in 1993 and M.S.M.E. at University of Washington, Seattle in 1996. He is a member of the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab (MAHI) under Dr.Marcia O’Malley. Joel’s primary interest is in human-robot shared control in collaborative haptic environments for training and rehabilitation. During the 2005-2006 school year, Joel completed a haptic device for forearm and wrist hemiparetic stroke rehabilitation. His future work will examine using various haptic devices to study motor learning factors in an expert-novice training scenario. Prior to his tenure at Rice, Mr. Huegel taught in Guadalajara, México at ”Tecnológico de Monterrey” in the Mechatronics department. After completing his degree at Rice, he plans to continue teaching in México.

Marcos Huerta

Physics and Astronomy

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

Marcos Huerta defended his dissertation in November of 2006. He received his B.A. in astronomy from the University of Texas in 2000, and his M.S. in astrophysics from Rice in 2004. For his dissertation he worked with Dr. Chris Johns-Krull and Dr. Patrick Hartigan. His research included a radial velocity survey of T Tauri stars examining low mass companions, a simulation of the effect of star spots on the radial velocities of young stars, and a new determination of effective temperature of weak line T Tauri stars. He is now a post-doc in the astronomy department at the University of Florida.

Jennifer Jamison

Chemistry

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

Jennifer is a fourth-year student in the department of chemistry at Rice University. She received her B.S. degree in chemistry at the University of Texas at Arlington. Jennifer’s advisors are Dr. Vicki Colvin and Dr. Kathleen Matthews, and her research focuses on characterizing solution-phase nanomaterials via analytical ultracentrifugation. The nanomaterials used in her research ranged from metal and semiconductor particles to nanoparticles coated with polymers and proteins. Additionally, she is exploring the nano/bio interface by probing and manipulating antigen-antibody recognition in nanobioconjugate materials. Upon graduation, first she plans to pursue a postdoctoral position, and afterwards, a career as a professor.

Mackale Joyner

Computer Science

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Mackale is a fifth-year student in the department of computer science at Rice University. He received his B.S. degree in computer science at Rice in 2002. Mackale’s advisor is Ken Kennedy and his research involves developing compilation strategies for object-oriented languages in high-performance scientific computing. Upon completing his Ph.D. at Rice, Mackale plans to pursue a position in academia.

Jennifer Luna

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Expected Year of Graduation: 2011

Jennifer is a first-year graduate student in the department of mechanical engineering and materials science. Jennifer’s advisor is Dr. Enrique Barrera, and her research project focuses on incorporating nanotubes in metals to improve their mechanical properties. Upon graduation, Jennifer intends to work in industry.

Aramis Martinez

Physics and Astronomy

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

Aramis has extensively re-developed rpiProfiler, a program for estimating electron number density in the polar cap of the earth’s magnetosphere as a power law in geocentric distance along a magnetic field line. When combined with the Tsyganenko 2004 storm-time magnetic field model, this provides a powerful framework for analyzing large numbers of satellite soundings and evaluating the results statistically. Aramis is now investigating the influence of geomagnetic activity level on the parameters of these density power laws and will expand the database of radio soundings to investigate the variation of these density power laws during the solar cycle.

Yenny Martinez

Physics and Astronomy

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Yenny Natali is a fifth-year graduate student in the department of physics and astronomy at Rice University. Her research entails laser cooling and trapping of strontium atoms. Her advisor is Dr. Thomas Killian.

Jarret Mathwig

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Jarret’s is a seventh-year student in the department of mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice University. He received his B.S. degree in physics at Loyola University in New Orleans and his M.S. from Rice University. Jarret's advisor is Dr. Angelo Miele, and his work examines the optimal collision avoidance trajectory for an aircraft in abort landing.

Sheila Moore

Bioengineering

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Sheila is a fourth-year graduate student in the department of bioengineering at Rice University. She received her B.S. degree in bioengineering at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Sheila’s advisor is Dr. Mikos, and her research entails optimizing a poly (ethylene glycol) based construct that would promote cartilage regeneration.

Joanna Papakonstantinou

Computational and Applied Mathematics

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Joanna is a fifth-year student in the department of computational and applied mathematics at Rice University. She received her B.A. degree in art and art history with a coherent minor in math in 1992 and a M.A.T. degree in Math in 2002 from Rice University. Joanna’s advisor is Dr. Richard Tapia and in her research, she desires to provide a plausible explanation of why the BFGS Method is the preferred secant update method for unconstrained optimization. She is currently writing her thesis on the historical development of the BFGS Secant Method including some of its uniqueness properties and previous characterizations. She wants to derive a new characterization that demonstrates an interesting robustness property of the BFGS Secant Method that may explain its superior behavior. Upon graduation she plans to work in academia or industry.

Matthew Peña

Biochemistry and Cell Biology

Expected Year of Graduation: 2011

Matthew is a first-year graduate student in the department of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University. He received his B.S. in physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Matthew will be working with advisor Dr. Yousif Shamoo in studying molecular evolution.

John-David Rocha

Chemistry

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

John-David is a fourth-year student in the department of chemistry at Rice University. John-David recently developed instrumentation hardware and software for the real-time fluorimetric analysis of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) that have been patented and transformed into a commercial scientific instrument. His fundamental research in the area of SWNT spectroscopy will assist in transitioning this important optical tool from a qualitative to quantitative method useful for process/quality control as well as the ability to utilize SWNT in various biological applications. John-David looks forward to a post-doctoral research position while searching for a tenure-track research faculty position.

Johannah Sanchez-Adams

Bioengineering

Expected Year of Graduation: 2011

Johannah is a first-year bioengineering student in Dr. Kyriacos Athanasiou's Musculoskeletal Bioengineering Lab. She earned a dual degree in biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering from Duke University in Durham, NC. Johannah plans to integrate her knowledge of biology and mechanics to conduct research in cartilage tissue engineering. She would like to investigate alternative cell sources such as skin cells that may be induced to produce cartilaginous tissue. After graduation, Johannah would like to pursue a professorship.

Pedro Santacruz

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Expected Year of Graduation: 2010

Pedro is a first-year student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University. He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 2004 from the University of Texas at El Paso, and in 2006, he received a M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the same institution. After the completion of his Ph.D., Pedro plans to join academia. His advisor is Dr. Ashutosh Sabharwal and he is currently working in the Center for Multimedia Communications on the analysis of two-way channel communication networks where channel state information is not perfectly known.

Richard Thibault

Chemistry

Expected Year of Graduation: 2010

Richard is a first-year bioengineering graduate student at Rice University and is currently working in Dr. Antonios Miko’s lab. He has received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in biomedical engineering. He is currently learning techniques in operating the bioreactor and electrospining various polymers. His research will focus on osteogenic differentiation of marrow cells via culturing in a bioreactor.

Jesse Turner

Computational and Applied Mathematics

Expected Year of Graduation: 2008

Jesse is a fifth-year graduate student in the computational and applied mathematics department at Rice University. He received his undergraduate degrees from Rice University in mathematics and statistics. His advisor is Dr. Dennis Cox, and his research involves the time dependent behavior of a chemical reaction system in a cellular environment. There are several mathematical models for predicting the time trajectories of chemical concentrations. However, the effectiveness of each model depends on the system under examination. Therefore, hybrid models have arisen that provide the optimal match for cellular reaction systems. Upon graduation he plans to work in industry.

Chemistry

Expected Year of Graduation: 2010

Wesleyne is a first-year student in the department of chemistry at Rice University. She received her B.S. in chemistry at Alcorn State University. Wesleyne’s advisor is Dr. Zachary Ball, and her work entails designing metalloenzymes as bioorthogonal catalysts.

Talithia Williams

Statistics

Expected Year of Graduation: 2007

Talithia is a fifth-year student in the department of statistics at Rice University. She received her B.S. degree in mathematics at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and her masters in mathematics from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Talithia’s thesis advisor is Dr. Kathy Ensor, and her work involves spatial-temporal modeling of rainfall data. Upon graduation, Talithia plans to work in industry.

Nicole Wylie

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Expected Year of Graduation: 2009

Nicole Wylie is a second-year student in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. She received her BSME at University of Houston and her MSME at Rice. Nicole's advisor is Dr. Pol Spanos. She is currently taking several civil engineering courses in preparation for her qualifying exam.