Faculty Join Ranks of Professors Emeriti

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– May 9, 2002Posted in: Current News

Faculty
join ranks of Professors Emeriti
…………………………………………………………………

Ten Rice faculty
members whose cumulative time with the university total
more than 160 years are joining the ranks of professors
emeriti: John Ambler, William Camfield, John Dennis, Frank
Fisher, Alan Grob, Robert Jump, Kenneth Laughery, David
Minter, Gordon Smith and Richard Wolf.

Ambler, professor of political science, came to Rice 39
years ago and has taught courses in British and American
government and politics, electoral behavior and public policy.
An active member of campus, he served on the Faculty Council
and as an associate of Brown College and won the George
R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 1993, 1996, 1997
and 2001. Ambler is this year’s winner of the George
R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching, an honor that
he enjoyed in 1994 as well.

Camfield, the
Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor of Art History,
joined Rice in 1969.

An expert in Dada and modern art, he is a past winner of
the Brown Award for Superior Teaching and has received grants
and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical
Society.

Dennis, the Noah Harding Professor of Computational and
Applied Mathematics, came to Rice in 1979.

He has served as chair of the Department of Computational
and Applied Mathmatics (CAAM), of the Department of Computer
Science (CS) and of the CRPC Optimization Project.

He is active in his field of expertise, serving as editor
or chair for several jour nals and professional organizations.
He has also been a Fulbright lecturer to Argentina and given
many featured invited addresses at international conferences.

Fisher, professor
of biology, joined the Rice faculty in 1963 and has dedicated
his career to studying wetlands and the wildlife and marine
life along the Gulf Coast.

He has served as chairman of the Scientific and Technical
Advisory Committee of the Galveston Bay National Estuary
Program, of the Animal Resources Branch of the National
Institutes of Health and of the board of directors of the
Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority. He is currently vice
president of the Wetland Alliance of Texas and a member
of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (NOAA/USMFS).

Grob, professor
of English, has been illustrating the power of literature
for 41 years at Rice.

He has been the recipient of multiple Brown Awards for Superior
Teaching as well as the George R. Brown Prize for Excellence
in Teaching.

Grob has taught courses in Shakespeare, British Romantic
poetry, Wordworth and Keats and Victorian literature.

Jump, professor of electrical and computer engineering and
of computer science, joined Rice in 1968 and has dedicated
his career to investigating parallel computation and simulation
computer architecture.

His professional accolades include fellow of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the IEEE
Meritorious Service Award.

His service at Rice includes chair of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering and master of Lovett
College. He has served as editor of IEEE Transactions on
Parallel and Distributed Systems and IEEE Transactions on
Computers and director of the National Science Foundation
Microelectronic Systems Architecture Program.

Laughery, the
Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Psychology, has dedicated
his career to investigating risk perception in consumer
safety, responsibility allocation for consumer safety and
safety communications.

He has edited several books on these topics and has served
on the editorial boards of the International Journal of
Cognitive Ergonomics, the International Journal of Occupational
Safety and Ergonomics and the IEA Journal of Ergonomic Research.

Minter, the Bruce and Elizabeth Dun-levie Professor of English,
has been an active member of the Rice community during his
19 years on campus.

Minter has been recognized many times for his accomplishments,
receiving a national Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship,
the Brown Award for Superior Teaching multiple times, an
honorary Phi Beta Kappa Award, Rice’s Student Association
Mentor Recognition Award and, this year, a Graduate Student
Association Meritorious Service Award.

Minter and his wife, Caroline, twice served as college masters,
and in 2001, Rice established the Caroline S. and David
L. Minter Endowment in honor of his love of teaching and
American literature.

Smith, professor of economics (photo unavailable), joined
the Rice faculty in 1968. During his 34 years on campus,
he has distinguished himself as an expert in the areas of
international trade, economic development, industrial organization
and the banking industry.

He has served as chair of the Department of Economics and
was co-director of the Socioeconomic Analysis of the Superconducting
Super Collider for the State of Texas, senior international
economist for the Treasury Department and consultant to
the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. State Department,
the Overseas Development Council, the United Nations Association
of the United States and The World Bank.

Wolf, professor
of physics and astronomy, came to Rice in 1967 and is best-known
for his work with the Rice Convection Model, a computer
program that simulates Earth’s magnetosphere. He also
helped write the Magnetospheric Specification Model, a program
used by the Space Environment Center of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration for space-weather reports.

Wolf has written extensively about the magnetosphere, is
a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and served on
the National Research Council’s Committee on Solar
and Space Physics investigating radiation and the International
Space Station.

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