Rice Professors Receive $4 Million in State Grants

Rice Professors Receive $4 Million in State Grants

RICE NEWS
December 9, 1999

Rice received almost $4 million in grants from the state of Texas for 18 projects ranging from a study of high- speed networks to research in environmental and industrial monitoring of trace gases.

The grants were distributed through two programs, the Advanced Research Program (ARP) and the Advanced Technology Program (ATP).

In 1999, ARP/ATP awarded more than $60.5 million in grants to 44 state and private institutions. As a private university, Rice participated in ATP.

ATP grants are complementary, statewide research programs based on peer-reviewed, competitive grants to researchers in Texas institutions of higher education.

Rice had a 27 percent success rate for grants applied for and awarded. The University of Texas and Texas A&M both had an 18 percent success rate.

The organization is designed to promote the state’s economic growth and diversification by increasing the number and quality of scientists and engineers in Texas, including minorities and women, enlarging the technology base for industry, creating new projects and services and attracting new industries to Texas.

The 18 Rice projects are listed below by principal investigator or lead researcher, where appropriate, and by project topic.

* Behnaam Aazhang, professor in electrical and computer engineering–high-speed wireless local area networks.

* David Applegate, associate professor of computational and applied mathematics–a library for network optimization.

* Philip Bedient, professor of environmental science and engineering–multipurpose water management technology for the Texas-Mexico border. Hanadi Rifai with the University of Houston is the principal investigator for the project. Bedient is one of four other researchers involved in the program.

* Robert Cartwright, professor of computer science–NextGen: a programming environment for generic Java.

* Joseph Cavallaro, associate professor in electrical and computer engineering–implementation of W-CDMA networks: advanced mobile and base station receiver prototyping. This project received matching funds from Nokia Corp. and Texas Instruments.

* Walter Chapman, associate professor in chemical engineering–mechanisms and kinetics of gas hydrate decomposition.

* Scott Collis, assistant professor, mechanical engineering and materials science–optimal control of flow-induced noise.

* William Cook, the Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics–large scale mixed-integer programming. This project received matching funds from Compaq Computer Corp.

* Keith Cooper, associate professor of computer science–compiling for energy efficiency in embedded systems.

* Peter Druschel, assistant professor of computer science–resource management for cluster-based Web servers.

* Lydia Kavraki, assistant professor of computer science–geometric reasoning methods for molecular docking and computer-aided drug discovery.

* Edward Knightly, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering–development of integrated multimedia wireless networks. Nokia Corp. and Texas Instruments provided matching funds.

* John Margrave, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemistry–preparation and applications of derivatized carbon nanotubes.

* Larry McIntire, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering–targeted gene expression in areas of low flow in vascular cells.

* Thomas Rabson, professor of electrical and computer engineering–nonvolatile memory cell consisting of one ferroelectric gate transistor. Matching funds were provided by Motorola.

* Richard Smalley, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics–production of functionalized fullerene nanotubes.

* Charles Stewart, professor of biochemistry and cell biology–bacteriophage genes as the basis for new antibiotics.

* Frank Tittel, the J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering–environmental and industrial monitoring of trace gases with novel quantum cascade lasers.

For more information about the ARP/ATP, visit the official Web site at http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/divisions/research/arpatp/arpatp.htm. The site includes information about past grants and how to apply for research grants.