People, papers and presentations

Computer scientist Erez Aiden of Rice and Baylor College of Medicine was named one of the world’s 30 most extraordinary scientists under 40 by the World Economic Forum for his contributions to molecular biology, polymer physics, historical linguistics, wearable computing and mathematics. Aiden is an adjunct assistant professor of computer science and computational and applied mathematics at Rice and an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics at Baylor, where he directs the Center for Genome Architecture. He is also a member of the Rice-based Center for Theoretical Biological Physics.

A team of Rice engineering students won third place and a $10,000 prize in the annual Odebrecht Awards for Sustainable Development for their design of a rack to transport three bicycles at a time via a METRO bus. Bioengineering students Ken Groszman and Sharon Ghelman, mechanical engineering students Max Hasbrouck and Annabelle McIntire-Gavlick and chemical and biomolecular engineering students Kivani Sanchez and Brian Barr previously won the Texas Department of Transportation’s College Challenge for their freshman design project.

Dennis Huston, the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English and a frequent instructor in the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) program, was selected to receive the national Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Program’s 2014 Faculty Award. The annual award recognizes “outstanding faculty who exemplify the qualities of interdisciplinary, liberal teaching and who have participated significantly in teaching or advising students and/or have actively participated in other faculty service in a graduate liberal studies program.” A committee of current and past MLS students led by program alumnus Carlos Fernandez ’10 nominated Huston for the award.

Alumnus Dennis Sullivan ’63 won this year’s Balzan Prize for pure or applied mathematics. The annual prize is awarded to innovative researchers in the humanities and sciences. Sullivan and three other winners were each awarded $800,000, with half designated to further their research. In 2009 Sullivan, the Albert Einstein Chair at the Graduate Center at City University of New York and a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University, won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, one of the highest honors in the field. Sullivan has a B.A. in mathematics from Rice.