GSA recognizes supporters of grad students

Each year the Graduate Student Association (GSA) recognizes faculty, staff, students and friends of the university for their strong support of Rice graduate students. This year’s awards and recipients are:

GSA Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award, which is presented to faculty members who demonstrate outstanding service to graduate student education, went to Leo Costello, assistant professor of art history, and Helena Michie, the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of English.

The GSA Faculty/Staff Service Award is presented to staff members who have gone beyond the call of duty to improve the quality of life for graduate students at Rice. This year’s recipients are Kay McStay, associate editor and business manager for Studies in English Literature, and Rita Riley, department coordinator for Linguistics.

The Friends of Rice Graduate Student Award, which is presented in recognition of efforts to enhance the lives of graduate students, was presented posthumously to Alex Ferrance. He was a longtime Facilities, Engineering and Planning staff member who died Oct. 20 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

The Robert L. Patten Award, which is given in honor of Robert Patten, the Lynette S. Autry Professor Emeritus in Humanities, professor emeritus of English and former GSA faculty adviser, recognizes graduate students who might not otherwise have been honored for their service and achievement on behalf of graduate students. This year’s recipients and the departments in which they are studying are Arunima Ray, Mathematics; David Solis, Applied Physics; Heng Ji, Physics and Astronomy; and Jeff Ahern, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

The GSA Service Award honors recipients for the contributions of time, effort and service to improving graduate life and education at Rice. This year the award went to  graduate students Anne Hellebust in Bioengineering and Kiri Kilpatrick in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.