People, papers and presentations

A Rice University-produced video featuring research by Professors Enrique Barrera and Satish Nagarajaiah is highlighted on the 25th anniversary Web page of the journal Nanotechnology. The video, which will be featured through April 7, focuses on the researchers’ work on strain sensing with single-wall carbon nanotubes. Their paper on the topic, published in 2004, has proven to be one of the most popular in the journal’s history. Barrera is a professor of materials science and nanoengineering and of chemistry. Nagarajaiah is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of mechanical engineering and materials science.

Shayak Sengupta, a civil and environmental engineering major, has won the Greene Prize for original environmental writing. The Center for the Study of Environment and Society and the Rice Environmental Club present the prize to a Rice student for original research, fiction or other environmentally themed work. Sengupta won for his research on life-cycle emissions and the costs of conventional and alternative fuel vehicles for the city of Houston’s fleet. He is a member of the research group of Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. The family of David Greene ’92 endows the prize.

Physics graduate students Eteri Svanidze and Scott Carr participated in the third Super-PIRE REIMEI Workshop on Frontiers of Condensed Matter Physics (CMP) in Beijing March 17-21. More than 70 graduate students from the United States, Japan, China and other countries were selected to participate, thanks to their participation in innovative CMP courses like last fall’s Frontiers in Condensed Matter Physics, a one-credit course jointly taught and attended by graduate students from Rice and Columbia universities.