Rice’s Higgs to testify before Congress Wednesday

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice’s Higgs to testify before Congress Wednesday

HOUSTON – (June 23, 2017) – Rice University’s Fred Higgs, the John and Ann Doerr Professor in Mechanical Engineering, professor of mechanical engineering and faculty director of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership, will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Joint Subcommittee on Energy and Subcommittee on Research and Technology at the hearing “Materials Science: Building the Future” at 10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, June 28, in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

According to the committee, the purpose of the hearing is to review federally funded research in materials science and related areas and to highlight the broad economic impact of basic research in this area. “New materials can improve the generation, storage and use of energy, reduce the environmental impact and improve safety of energy production technologies, and provide the foundation for new technologies in medicine, transportation, manufacturing, protective systems and computing,” the announcement said. The hearing will also examine the benefits of user facilities, science-prize competitions and public-private partnerships to speed the development of advanced materials.

Higgs will provide remarks and then answer questions from the committee.

Who:  Fred Higgs, the John and Ann Doerr Professor in Mechanical Engineering, professor of mechanical engineering and faculty director of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership at Rice University.

What: Testimony before the U.S. House Joint Subcommittee on Energy and Subcommittee on Research and Technology.

When: 10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, June 28.

Where: Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Joining Higgs to testify before the committee will be Matthew Tirrell, deputy laboratory director for science and chief research officer, Argonne National Laboratory; Laurie Locascio, acting associate director for laboratory programs and director, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Adam Schwartz, director, Ames Laboratory.

Higgs received a B.S. (1995) from Tennessee State University and an M.S. (1997) and Ph.D. (2001) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; all degrees were in mechanical engineering. From 2001 to 2003, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a faculty member in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University from 2003 to 2016. Higgs joined Rice in 2016. He is also the faculty director of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership.

Higgs received a National Science Foundation CAREER Young Investigator Award in 2007. In 2010, he was presented with the Burt L. Newkirk Award for his notable contributions to the field of tribology, and in 2013 he received the Benjamin Teare Award, the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering’s top teaching award. He was elected a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2016, and is also a member of the Society of Tribology and Lubrication Engineers, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers. He is also the co-founder, chief technology officer of InnovAlgae LLC, an algae-based technology startup company.

For more information or to schedule an interview with Higgs, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at 713-348-6327 or david@rice.edu.

-30-

Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews.
Follow Higgs on Twitter @higgsf

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,879 undergraduates and 2,861 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for happiest students and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.