Raquel Adham

Houston, TX

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

This summer Raquel continued work on her Masters' project: Molecular and Genetic Analysis of Auxin Homeostasis and Action in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Advisor: Dr. Pat Reiff

An incoming first-year graduate student in the Physics and Astronomy Department, David researched magnetic field line tracing and oriented himself with Rice during the Summer of 2002.

Advisor: Dr. Mary Ellen Lane

Researching in the Biology Department, Mercedes worked on coordination of cell proliferation and cell-type specification in vertebrate embryos: the role of dynamic regulation of the cdc25 phosphatases in Zebrafish, Danio (Brachydanio) rerio.

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer West

Torey researched the efficiency of liposomal and retroviral transfection of vascular smooth muscle cells.

Advisor: Dr. Antonios Mikos

Carla is a bioengineering undergraduate major at Rice. This summer she researched the effect of biomaterial properties on bone tissue formation as characterized by the localization of growth factors using immunohistochemical techniques.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Fenwick, a second-year graduate student in the Computation and Applied Mathematics Department, worked on examination of rear axel gear ratios.

Advisor: Dr. Phil Bedient

As a graduate student in the Environmental Science and Engineering Department, Natalie investigated the hydraulic effects of hydrogen delivery for treatment of chlorinated DNAPL this summer.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Edward is a second year graduate student in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department. This summer he worked on the reconstruction of structured gene networks.

Erica Corral

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Erica performed research on nanotube ceramic nanocomposites at Sandia National Laboratories this summer and interacted with the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Program at New Mexico State University.

Advisor: Dr. Min-Ying Leung

An incoming first-year Statistics Graduate Student, Daniel's research project was titled "Palindrome Occurrence Around the Replication Origins of the Herpesvirus."

Advisor: Dr. Dennis Cox

Talithia, an incoming first-year graduate student, spent the summer studying spatial statistics and spatio-temporal stationary covariance functions with Dr. Dennis Cox.

Advisor: Dr. Dennis Cox

Kalatu, a second-year Statistics Graduate Student, worked on medical decision analysis.

Nikki Delk

Advisor: Dr. Janet Braam

Nikki continued her thesis research in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology department on defining the function of the TCH2 protein in Arabidopsis.

Advisor: Dr. Andrea Berndt

Hector, an incoming Statistics Graduate Student, explored ANOVA assumptions and multiple comparison procedures in business, psychology, sociology, and political science journals.

Advisor: Dr. Javier Rojo

A Statistics Ph.D. Candidate, Musie studied the bivariate proportional mean residual life model.

Advisor: Dr. Alan Cox

Romer, a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science, studied the implementation of an asynchronous zerocopy TCP this summer.

Advisor: Dr. Bob Curl

A Rice University Undergraduate Student, Claudia studied single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection using pulse-multiline excitation (PME).

Advisor: Dr. Lon Wilson

Victoria studied vancomycin amino[60]fullerenes as osteopathic treatment precursors.

Advisor: Dr. Yin Zhang

Ed, a graduate student in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department studied the "Lane Assignment Problem in BMX Bicycle Racing" this summer. Ed received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Advisor: Dr. John Olson

An incoming graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Philip studied the construction of genetically engineering hemoglobin.

Advisor: Dr. Michael Orchard

This was Gerrick's second summer with the AGEP Program. A computer science major and LSAMP Scholar at Texas Southern University, Gerrick studies optimal image compression via wavelet transformers.

Advisor: Dr. Janet Braam

Sam studied the use of reporter constructs to gain insight into TCH function.

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer West

Jeremy studied "The Effects of Bovine Aortic Enothelial Cells on Human Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells."

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

Robin Lopez studied "Genetic Analysis and classification of indole-3-butyric acid response mutants in Arabidopsis-thaliana." Robin also traveled to the New Mexico AGEP and SACNAS conferences to present her summer research

Tara Mahan

Advisor: Dr. Michael Liebschner

Tara, an undergraduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madision, studied "Loading Path Simulation of Temporomandibular Joint."

Advisor: Dr. James Tour

Aaron, an incoming Chemistry Graduate Student, studied "Phenylene Ethynylene Diazonium Salts as Potential Self-Assembling Molecular Devices."

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele

Jarret, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and materials science, researched numerical optimization of problems. Jarret also coordinated AGEP social activities for the summer.

Travis McPhail

Advisor: Dr. Joe Warren

This summer Travis researched methods in subdivision and implicit modeling.

Advisor: Dr. Javier Rojo

Josué is an incoming Statistics graduate student. His summer research wa titled, “On the Convergence of a Series Solution to the Axial Convective-Diffusion Equation for the Rotating Disk Electrode.”

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

Karen's summer research was titled "Auxin-Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) function in Arabidopsis thaliana." This was her second summer in the AGEP Program.

Advisor: Dr. David Scott

Alena's research this summer focused on using mixtures for wavelet thresholding. As a Ph.D. Candidate in the Statistics Department, Alena has been a member of the AGEP family for four years.

Nicholas Parras-Vasquez

Advisor: Dr. Matteo Pasquali

Nick, an incoming Chemical Engineering Graduate Student from the University of California at Berkeley, spent his summer researching rheology and phase behavior studies of single wall carbon nanotubes in solution.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Jessica, an undergraduate LSAMP mathematics major from Texas Southern University, worked on numerical experimentation with various algorithms for symmetric eigenvalue problems.

Advisor: Dr. Michael Wong

A Rice University chemical engineering major, Crystal spent the summer experimenting with fabrication of gold nanoshells using the self-assembly technique.

Advisor: Dr. James Young

Paul researched laser action in random scattering media.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Betty received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. This summer, as an incoming Rice graduate student, Betty researched heat transfer nanofluids containing single-walled carbon nanotubes

Advisor: Dr. Mike Stern

Melissa spent the summer investigating drosophila melanogaster Eag mutant mapping.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia and Dr. Matthias Heinkenschloss

Josef works directly with Dr. Richard Tapia investigating numerical solutions to solve a lowrider car simulation as rigid body model with a spring, damper and impulse force. Josef exhibits a wide variety of interests ranging from art to science and engineering.

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

Illeana is a graduating senior in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology Department. She spent her summer working with Dr. Bonnie Bartel investigating genetic analysis of IBA metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Advisor: Dr. Tom Killian

Clayton is a Physics and Astronomy Graduate Student, and his summer research focused on second harmonic generation of light at 461nm.

Advisor: Dr. Barry Dunning

Leonard, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, investigated the measurements of the lifetime of long-lived, autodetaching negative ions. Leonard will receive his Ph.D. this year.

Advisor: Dr. Lisa Meffert

Is outbreeding always the best solution? Aramis, an incoming Environmental Science and Engineering Graduate Student from the University of New Mexico, spent her summer answering this question which involved a study of the alligator snapping turtle.

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer West

Lakeshia, a Biochemistry and Cell Biology Graduate Student, spent the summer researching synergistic inhibition of smooth muscle cell proliferation by nitric oxide and YC-1 releasing materials.

Advisor: Dr. William Symes

Jesse spent his summer investigating partial differential equations in optimal control problems. Jesse is an incoming first-year graduate student it the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department.

Advisor: Dr. Tayfun Tezduyar

Victor's summer research involved Computational Aerodynamic Simulation of a Paratrooper Separating from an Aircraft. Victor received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and came to Rice University to study fluid and solid mechanics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

Advisor: Dr. C.S. Burrus

Ricardo's work, investigating the design of Lp IIR digital filters, focused on a component of his thesis research. Ricardo should receive his Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering this year.

Advisor: Dr. Kyriacos Athanasiou

Charles spent the summer researching culturing articular chondrocytes on PLA and PCL scaffolds subjected to compressive loading and media perfusion.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Donald investigated the formulation of a Newton method for American option valuation under stochastic volatility. A Computational and Applied Mathematics Department Ph.D. Candidate, Donald should receive his doctoral degree this year.

Advisor: Dr. Williams Symes

Dwayne's work was titled "The Implementation of the Newton-CG Method Using Trust Regions." Dwayne is a second-year graduate student in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department.

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele

Powtawche spent this summer experimenting with optimal trajectories to mars using electrical propulsion. Powtawche received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and came to Rice to study in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department.

Advisor: Dr. Andrew Meade

Josué worked with Dr. Meade of the Mechanical Engineering Department researching exploration of artificial neural networks for the application to an intelligent dynamic data system.

Advisor: Dr. Nate Dean

Jessica received a B.S. in Mathematics from Rice University. She spent the summer investigating the square cycle problem. She also used the summer to learn more about what graduate study entails as she prepared to pursue her Ph.D. at Cornell University.