Board approves emeritus status for nine retiring faculty

Board approves emeritus status for nine retiring faculty

Nine Rice University faculty members will join the ranks of the university’s professors emeriti. With each having served more than 20 years at the university, the professors represent a wide variety of disciplines, from classics and anthropology to engineering and biology.

Constantine Armeniades, professor emeritus in chemical engineering, has spent 37 years at Rice. Armeniades’ work has included the modeling of stress distribution in collagenous and elastic tissue and the design of instrumentation to control intraocular pressure during eye surgery. In addition to his research, he has developed consulting practice in equipment and process design, operation and safety. Armeniades is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Society of Plastics Engineers and the American Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery. He received his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University in 1961, his master’s degree from Case Institute of Technology in 1967 and his doctorate from Case Western Reserve University in 1969.

William Wilson, professor emeritus in electrical and computer engineering, has worked in the area of semiconductor and electro-optic devices. Most recently, his lab has been developing a new way to manufacture zinc selenide, a material that can produce blue light as a light-emitting diode and as a laser. A member of the faculty since 1972, Wilson became known as “Dr. Bill” during his 28 years as a resident associate of Wiess College. His dedication to Rice students helped him win numerous teaching awards during his 34 years at Rice. Wilson came to Rice from Cornell University, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering.

Margret Eifler, professor emeritus of German and Slavic studies, came to Rice from Stanford University in 1973. Her areas of research and teaching cover the German novel in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as European film studies. Eifler served as chair of the German and Slavic studies department from 1990 to 1996. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the American Association of Teachers of German, the Southern Central Modern Language Association, Women in German and the Society for Cinema Studies. Eifler attended the University of California–Berkeley to receive her Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and doctorate.

Patricia Seed, professor emeritus of history, has been lauded for her use of technology in the classroom during her 24 years at Rice. She encouraged her students to turn in images and maps as an alternative to written reports. Her research areas have included comparative world navigation and cartography, the art or technique of making maps or charts. Seed has published numerous articles and books and has held several editorial positions. She received her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in 1971, her master’s degree from the University of Texas–Austin in 1975 and her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1980.

Julie Taylor, professor emeritus of anthropology, has recently been working on the aesthetics of violence and their interrelations. She received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2000 to research the tango, a Latin American ballroom dance. Using her research on how tango in Argentina relates to violence in Argentine life, Taylor published the book “Paper Tangos.” Her research focuses on the multilayered vehicle that some forms of art offer for the contemplation and elaboration of violence. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford.

George Marcus, professor emeritus of anthropology, has centered his research on the ethnography of elite groups, the middle class and intellectuals. He became chair of the anthropology department in the late 1970s, a position he held for 25 years. Marcus co-authored “Anthropology as Cultural Critique,” which became a standard textbook for anthropology courses and brought recognition to Rice’s department. Marcus took a leave of absence last year and is now a professor at the University of California–Irvine. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his doctorate from Harvard.

Manik Talwani, the Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Advanced Studies and Research in Earth Science, is widely known for his studies of the Earth’s crust and the dynamics of continental margins and ocean basins. He was appointed the first president of IODP Management International in 2003. He led a team of geophysicists in conducting a first-of-its-kind experiment on California’s San Andreas Fault in 2004. His scientific honors and awards include the Krishnan Gold Medal from the Indian Geophysical Union and the Macelwane Medal and Ewing Medal, both from the American Geophysical Union. Talwani is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Delhi University and doctorates from Columbia University and Oslo University.

Hans Avé Lallemant, professor emeritus of Earth science, has researched the kinematics of deformation in plate boundaries. He has worked in Venezuela and Guatemala, where plate convergence has recently caused displacement partitioning. In his 36 years at Rice, Avé Lallemant was named a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, a guest professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and a presenter at many workshops and symposiums. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Raymon Glantz, professor emeritus of biochemistry and cell biology, has focused his research on the synaptic mechanisms by which neuronal networks filter, compute and encode sensory information. He is affiliated with the Gulf Coast Consortia through the Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Bioscience Training. Recently he has given invited talks at Bates College and the University of Texas–Austin. Glantz has also worked on several publications on neurophysiology. He received his bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Syracuse University.