Susana Berrios-Rivera

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Ka-Yiu San

Susana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Chemical Engineering Department at Rice University. Over the summer, she worked with Dr. Ka-Yui San on her thesis project in the area of metabolic engineering of E. Coli

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer West

Maia is a student at Michigan State University. During the program, she assisted Kristyn Bohl, a graduate in the Bioengineering Department with the "Nitric Oxide Releasing Polymers for the Prevention of Thrombosis and Restenosis" Project. Maia was the recipient of the Woodrow Stanley Academic Award, Fall 1999-2000

Advisor: Dr. Richard Massey

Quenton is an Alabama State University undergraduate student. During the summer program, Quenton was assigned to design an electronic audio amplifier that would operate at 20hz - 20,000hz, have a gain of at least 160, have less than 2% THD, and powerful enough to be driven into an eight ohm load. Quenton's interest in the summer program was to gain the opportunity to learn more about electrical engineering and different types of people.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Erin, a Ph.D. candidate in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University, was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She worked to combine Dr. Tapia's 20+ years worth of notes from his optimization theory class in to one latex document that will serve as a first draft of a textbook to be published. This work assignment gave Erin a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Advisor: Dr. William Cook

William is a Ph.D. candidate in applied math at Rice University. His AGEP project was the development of an algorithm to solve combinatorial optimization problems using branch decompositions. He also wanted to participate in outreach and mentoring programs.

Advisor: Robert Cartwright

A student at Carnegie Mellon University, Sherae joined the program to enhance her understanding of the classes she took. Over the summer, she strengthened her programming skills and was taught a systematic approach to problem solving. Sherae also learned and practiced using UNIX commands while developing her personal web site.

Advisor: Dr. W.E. Billups

Michael is pursing his Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry at Hampton University. He joined the program to see organic chemists at work. Over the summer, Michael worked with Dr. W.E Billups in successfully conducting research that dealt with the synthesis of 2-Chloromethlencyclclopropane, with a 7% yield.

Advisor: Dr. Keith Baggerly

Nancy, a Ph.D. candidate in the Statistics Department at Rice University, was a mentor to other students in the program. She worked on her thesis, which is based on the empirical likelihood function. She studied and demonstrated how the empirical likelihood is used to construct confidence intervals.

Advisor: Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah

Christina is a Ph.D. candidate in the Civil Engineering Department at Rice University where she is a member of the President's Honor Roll. She believes the AGEP Summer Program gives students a good opportunity to talk about a wide range of issues, including but not limited to the graduate school experience. Over the summer, Christina studied the effect of base uplift on structures subjected to dynamic excitation.

Advisor: Dr. Alan Levander

A graduate student in mathematics at Washington State University, Katherine wanted to work at another university to gain a different perspective on graduate school. During the program she learned about Fourier Transforms, correlation, convolutions and data sampling phenomena. Katherine learned how to program in Matlab and how to use Latex to create mathematical documents.

Advisor: Dr. William J. Cook

A Ph.D. candidate in operations research at Rice University, Illya participated in the program for the outreach activities. Over the summer, his research was involved in constructing branch decompositions for general graphs.

Advisor: Dr. William W. Symes

Regina is a student in the Computational and Applied Math (CAAM) Department at Rice University. She joined the program because of its mentoring aspects and to further her research. Her mentor was Dr. Mark Gochenbach. Regina worked on a code to compare two families of finite difference stencils on two forms of the wave equation, which is the topic of her master's thesis.

Advisor: Dr. William Wilson

Jesse is studying electrical engineering at Prairie View A&M University. His AGEP research project dealt with the "Characterization of Semiconductor Devices" where he tested the strength of silicon material vs. numerous voltages and frequencies.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Diane is a Ph.D. candidate in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department at Rice University. Diane's summer research involved plots of objective functions for development of an algorithm to solve the molecular replacement problem from X-ray crystallography used to determine protein structures.

Advisor: Dr. Evan Siemans

Chanda is an undergraduate student pursuing her Bachelor of Science degree in Geographic Information System from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi. Her summer research surrounded the Chines tallow tree. This project involved trying to understand why the tallow tree invades so aggressively and what can be done to prevent further damage to coastal prairies and other native North American habitats. Her long term goal is marine biology. The program was a good opportunity for her to work in the field.

Luis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department at Rice University. In the past, he worked on a research project titled, "Muscle Micro-mechanics of the Diaphragm." This summer he spent his time preparing for qualifying exams. He joined the program to get exposure to research and to discuss issues affecting scientists of color.

Corpus Christi, TX

Advisor: Dr. Kate Beckingham

Clara is in pre-medical studies and computer science at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi. During the summer program, her research project was in the field of gravitational biology. The project utilized fruit flies to figure out how organisms sensed gravity. The goal of the experiment was to find the gene that responds to gravity and then clone it.

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Yin Zhang

Sheila, working towards a bachelors of science degree at Syracuse University, attended the AGEP Summer Program to gain more knowledge about the field of computational biology. In her summer project, she calculated the root mean squared deviation of simulated and known protein structures using the distance geometry optimization software.

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Frank Jones

Alena is a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at Rice University. Desiring to brighten the visibility of underrepresented groups in math and science, Alena joined the summer program for the great support it provides. Her summer study topics were in point set topology and abstract algebra. In algebra, she found solutions of different Galois groups to isomorphism.

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Devika Subramanian

Paul is pursing studies in computer science at Rice University. Over the summer, he worked with a face recognition program to analyze how it worked and which variables to adjust in order to make it run best. During the summer program, he got a head start on his freshman year at Rice University.

Advisor: Dr. Richard A. Tapia

Melisa is a student at Rice University in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department. She joined the AGEP Summer Program to learn more about diversity issues in the math and sciences. During the summer, as an advisor consultant, she organized and set up math workshops. She also served as a graduate mentor to an undergraduate student.

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Marek Kimmel

A Ph.D. candidate in Rice University's Statistics Department. Alex participated in the AGEP Summer Program to start research in his study area. He developed statistical methods for analyzing the distribution of DNA Micro-satellite alleles in human populations. He also had the opportunity to compare results from simulations with data from the Genome Database.

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Yin Zhang

Kymberly is in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department at Rice University. Her interest in the summer program was to do research and gain experience in a multicultural environment. Kymberly’s research involved studying the various methods used in geophysics to approximate the conductivity structure of Earth.

Advisor: Dr. Barry Dunning

Leonard is a Ph.D. student at Rice University where he is pursuing a degree in physics (Rydberg Atoms). He joined AGEP Summer Program to gain insight on different perceptions with respect to current racial issues. His summer research project consisted of working with laser to study transient lifetimes of excited molecules.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia and Dr. Yin Zhang

Omar is a Hampton University student seeking the Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. Omar joined the program to discuss the issues of diversity. His project was related to dragsters and their acceleration rates.

Advisor: Dr. Tayfun Tezduyar

Victor is a graduate of Harvard University. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and materials science. Victor joined the AGEP Summer Program to work with a professor and do research. He wanted to see what a career in research involved. Over the summer, he worked on computing the airflow around skydiving paratroopers on one type of U.S. Army cargo plane that had been having problems with the divers crossing its wake. Victor also worked with airflow problems on the plane. It was pushing the jumpers so they, from the opposite sides, would cross below the plane and hit one another.

Advisor: Dr. Sidney Burrus

A Ph.D. candidate at Rice University in electrical engineering, Ricardo participated in the summer program for exposure to the experiences of other graduate students and faculty. His research project involved working with Interactive Re-weighted Least Squares methods to design digital filters according to least-p optimality.

Advisor: Dr. Dan Sorensen

Rachel is a Ph.D. Candidate in Rice University's Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Program. During the summer she participates in mentoring undergraduate students in the program. She also spent time preparing for the computational and applied mathematics numerical analysis qualifying examinations. She says that the AGEP Program has intensified her resolve to assist in the incorporation of more underrepresented people into research and academic communities.

Advisor: Dr. Richard A. Tapia

Donald is a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department. He joined the AGEP program to interact with individuals in a culturally diverse environment while receiving the financial support needed to continue with his thesis research. His summer research project was the development of object-oriented interior-point optimization software for geophysical applications.

Advisor: Dr. Nathaniel Dean

A Ph.D. candidate at Rice University in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department. Nikki participated in the AGEP program to interact with other students of color while mentoring and forming a support group and network. During the summer she prepared for her qualifying exams.

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele and Dr. Andrew Meade

Powtawche is a Ph.D. candidate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Rice University. Her interest in the AGEP Summer Program was to continue her thesis research while commencing studies in the doctoral program. Powtawche also wanted to develop skills in computer programming and obtain a support network among other professors and other graduate students.