Mittleman named interim faculty director of Smalley Institute

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Daniel Mittleman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been named interim faculty director of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University, effective Jan. 16, 2012.

Selected by a faculty advisory committee, Mittleman succeeds Director Wade Adams and Co-director Vicki Colvin. Colvin was appointed vice provost for research in July.

DANIEL MITTLEMAN

“Dan will be a very strong interim director,” McLendon said. “Among his many achievements, he has been involved with undergraduate research internships in nanotechnology as a co-principal investigator for the National Science Foundation grant that enabled Rice to expand its summer NanoJapan program.

“And his significant research contributions to terahertz radiation imaging, sensing and spectroscopy were acknowledged by his peers, who selected him as a 2011 fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.”

Mittleman joined the Rice faculty in 1996 after working at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. He received a Bachelor of Science in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in physics from the University of California-Berkeley. He is also a fellow of the Optical Society of America.

McLendon has appointed a committee to conduct a national search for a permanent faculty director.

McLendon also announced that Adams is stepping down after 10 years as director of the institute to become an associate dean in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.

“I want to thank Wade Adams and Vicki Colvin for their superb leadership of the Smalley Institute, which has become one of the most respected and accomplished centers of nanotechnology research in the country,” McLendon said. “They now take those skills into new assignments that will continue to serve Rice, and the research enterprise, well. And they

WADE ADAMS

leave the Smalley Institute well-positioned to expand its contributions to the field of nanotechnology research.”

An outside panel of experts recently reviewed the institute. Their report commended its long history of achievement, including the creation of shared instrumentation facilities and developing the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN). The report noted the institute’s success in attracting industrial and federal funding and raising Rice’s profile as a leader in the field of nanoscience.

Along with an internal faculty review committee, the provost, the vice provost for research and Adams agreed that the timing was right for a move toward new leadership to take the institute toward a broader mission.

“The past 10 years have been a dream job for me, tempered by the untimely passing of Rick Smalley,” Adams said. “Guided by Rick’s vision, we have grown the institute from 42 members in 2002 to 150 in 2011, encompassing 16 departments across the campus. The Smalley Institute is now primed for a higher-profile director who can drive it forward on the strength of Rice’s world-class faculty of nanoscientists and engineers.”

The review recommended ways the university can build on the institute’s successes, such as expanding its research focus even deeper into nanophotonics, nanomedicine, nanophysics and other areas of nanotechnology. Another recommendation involved pursuing more opportunities for collaborative research.

“Wade and his team have pioneered the collaborative model — with examples like LANCER and CONTACT — and have set the stage for Rice researchers to do more of what they do best:

VICKI COLVIN

solve humanity’s most pressing problems through science and engineering,” McLendon said.

LANCER is a research center funded by the Lockheed Martin Corporation; CONTACT is a federally-funded consortium of Texas universities and national corporations that collaborate on nanoscale research to solve aerospace problems.

After Colvin was named vice provost for research, she began to transition out of her role as the Smalley Institute’s co-director. Colvin is Rice’s Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Chemistry and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and also served as director of CBEN, the first academic research center dedicated to studying the interaction of nanomaterials with living organisms and ecosystems.

“Vicki spearheaded substantial international efforts that created consensus among industrial, regulatory, academic and nongovernmental leaders on the research agendas for safe nanotechnology,” McLendon said. “She also has advised Congress on nanotechnology and works with the National Academy of Sciences to fine-tune science-based regulatory policy.”

Adams, who spent 37½ years with the U.S. Air Force, retired in 2002 from his post as chief scientist of the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials Directorate to join Rice as director of what was then the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. He will begin his new role as associate dean of engineering in January.

“Wade provided the institute with great leadership after the death of its founder, Rick Smalley,” McLendon said. “He counseled students and organized many lecture series and events to help educate others about the increasingly important field of nanoscience. Just as importantly, he led the institute to new sources of funding and new relationships with industry and government, as well as serving as a vital public advocate for nanoscale research. The institute is as strong as it is today because of his leadership.”

Smalley received the Nobel Prize in chemistry with fellow Rice researcher and alumnus Robert Curl in 1996 for the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, which launched the new research field of nanotechnology. Smalley founded the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology institute in 1993; Rice renamed the center as the Smalley Institute after his death in 2005.

“Wade brings additional leadership, enthusiasm and a great set of people and organizational skills to our engineering school, and I am really excited to have him join our team,” said Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering. “He will be instrumental in enhancing infrastructure development, fundraising, student leadership and engineering competitions.”