George R. Brown School of EngineeringAdministrators’ Forum

Ned Thomas, Dean of Engineering, May 15, 2012

NEW FACULTY AS OF JULY 1, 20111 new dean, 1 professor, 4 assistant professors

Dean Ned Thomas, NAE, MEMS Materials for extreme environments, phoXonics (X = t + n)

Herbert Levine, NAS, BIOE Biological physics

Swarat Chaudhuri, CS Programming languages, logic in computing

Rouzbeh Shahsavari, CEE Atomistic and multi-scale modeling, nano mechanics

Caleb Kemere, ECENeuroengineering

Ashok Veeraraghavan, ECEComputational imaging, computer vision, robotics

Aydin Babakhani, ECEHigh-speed wireless communication, medical imaging and bio

sensing

Richard Tapia, National Medal of Science

Tony Mikos elected to NAE 2012

Antonios G. Mikos,Louis Calder Professor

of Bioengineering, Professor of Chemical

and Biomolecular Engineering

2012 Marshall, Udall, Truman, Goldwater Scholarships!

Some 2011 OEDK Winning Design Teams

Team Dragon: Third place, mobile game design in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup International Competition

Equiliberators: National Top Five Finalist (highest honor), RESNA Student Design Competition

Electric Owl: First place, Texas Instruments Analog Design Competition ($10,000!)

InfantAIR: Multiple competition winner now field testing in Malawi

GRB Vision Statement (2012)• Make a difference. Develop leading research and educational

programs in areas where Rice is well-positioned to make a difference: health, energy, water, and information technology and processing.

• Enhance our strengths in computational engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials science and robotics.

• Develop leaders. Be pre-eminent in engineering education and the education and development of tomorrow’s leaders and entrepreneurs.

• Be open. Open ourselves to the world by building on our unique strengths to increase our opportunities in the US and abroad while improving our rankings.

• $38.8M FY 2012 Annual Budget• $50M FY 2011 Research Expenditures (Rice: ~ $100M)• $5M OEDK Design Facility 2009• $5M Brochman Hall for Physics 2011: (SoE Faculty and

GS offices and research labs, 20K ft2)• BRC: BIOE Space: Lab 46K ft2, office 18K ft2 • Rice Capital Budget Projects Completed

– UG Bioengineering Dry Lab 2009 ($150K)– Abercrombie space renovated for RCEL 2011 ($340K)

• 2012: expansion of OEDK II ($600K+ $200K endowment)

A Glimpse at Current GRB SoE Finances and Projects

OEDK II Expansion Plans

AY05/06 AY06/07 AY07/08 AY08/09 AY09/10 AY10/11 AY11/120

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400Engineering Undergraduates

2.3%9.3%

18.3%26.7%

44.1%52.2%

Enrollments

AY05/06 AY06/07 AY07/08 AY08/09 AY09/10 AY10/11 AY11/120.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

% of UG at Rice in Engineering

Enrollments

BIOE CHBE CEE CAAM CS ECE ENGI MEMS STAT0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Total Enrollments (Students in Classes) by Department (UG + G)

Spring 2009Fall 2009Spring 2010Fall 2010Spring 2011Fall 2011

Growth is across the entire GRB SoE and not just Engineering Majors!

ME and MSCIare low

201220112010200920082007200620052004200320022001200015

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

USNWR UG Rankings for GRB SoE

~ 20% Improvement in a decade

FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY110

10,000,000

20,000,000

30,000,000

40,000,000

50,000,000

60,000,000

SoE Research Expenditures

$50Mand ~ 8% + growth this current year…

ChBE ECE CEE MEMS CS CAAM BIOE STAT0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

9,000,000

10,000,000

YTD R Fund Expenditures as of March 31

FY10FY11FY12

AY06/07 AY07/08 AY08/09 AY09/10 AY10/110

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

PhDs Awarded - AY06/07 to AY10/11

STATMEMSECECSChBECEECAAMBIOE

Relatively few PhDs from MEMS

USNWR Graduate School Rankings – GRB School of Engineering

~25% decline since 20002000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

20

25

30

35

40

34

Competition is getting better faster…

RICE ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE

PREPARES YOU FOR YOUR FUTURE

Learn how to learn—quickly!

Design systems and devices to solve real-world problems

Create new knowledge through research

Take fundamental discoveries out of the lab into the World

Understand engineering in global/social context

Develop leadership and teamwork abilities

• Strategy and Tactics• Planning – early, sustained• Down-select, Focus, and…• Key Attitude:

– Make It Happen No Matter What !

OK, how do we do better?

Question: What is “It” ?

Some aspects of Health related research going strongEnergy/Environment research is still in small pieces here and there… But! TAMU, UT, others (even UH) are strong, getting stronger!

Rice is in catch-up mode & now Federal funding is contracting…How we can succeed:

Focus on a few key areasPlace bets on future areas and hire accordinglyGo after industry and DOE fundingInspire donor(s) for chairs and more . . .

Inspire the Graduate Students !!Inspire the faculty !!

Energy, Environment, Health, Energy & Health

Science and Engineering Collaboration

Wiess School of Natural Sciences

Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Chemistry

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Earth Science

Mathematics

Physics & Astronomy

Brown School of Engineering

Bioengineering

Chemical and Biomolecular Eng.

Civil & Environmental Eng.

Computational & Applied Mathematics

Computer Science

Electrical & Computer Eng.

Mech. E and Materials Science

Statistics

Nanotechnology

Computation

Applied Physics

Biomedical

(New) Energy-Environment(New) Health-Energy

Rice Initiatives

Collaboration is a Force Multiplier

Oil & Gas Energy Research

AbuDhabiSchlumberger

Baker-HughesBGBP

Petrobras

Ongoing

ChevronShell

PEMEXAbuDhabi

SchlumbergerSaudi Aramco

Expanding Emerging

Lots of relevant MEMS challenges:Materials in Extreme Environments

Mechanical PropertiesMechanics – Vibrations/Sensing

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 1310

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

Research Expenditures by Principal Investigator

FY11- $50MFY10 - $44MFY09 - $40M

The Path Forward (GRB SoE)

• Select a few focused research thrusts: Energy, Environment, Health, Energy-Health

• Combine Engineering and Science + others• State Objectives and Metrics for Success

– What is the delta @ (2, 5 and 10 yrs)? – Make Donors/Supporters care about success and the delta

• Develop Business Plan for each Center– Nucleation funds t = 0 to 24-36 months– Steady-state faculty generated funding in out years (or die)

• Make It Happen !• Example: PSSB launches Fall, 2013

– Physical Systems and Synthetic Biology

The Path Forward GRB SoE• Upgrade Infrastructure, Facilities and Equipment

– Planning is time well spent; 5 – 10 year Scope• Continue to recruit minorities and women to engineering• Create Advisory/Review Boards

- (SoE, Departments, Centers)– Measure, benchmark, evaluate, act and get better – re-measure… “What gets measured, matters.”

• Emphasize professional communication, leadership and entrepreneurial skills at both UG and G levels, “T-shaped” Engineers

• Create undergraduate & graduate links to Business/Entrepreneurship

• Continue Hands On – Design, Teamwork and Leadership with local and global implementation (SoS, SoA want in…)

Summary• Rice (SoE) can help solve society’s biggest challenges• Rice excellent in

Nano/Materials/Medical/Computation• Rice is highly collaborative: Multidisciplinary faculty teams• Key is to connect People + Ideas -> Impact

• Remember: How to succeed - Focus on a few key areasPlace bets on future areas and hire accordinglyCreate new unit(s) with high visibility (Rice is doing something new)Go after industry, foreign government and DOE fundingInspire donor(s) for chairs and more . . .Promote Leadership and Entrepreneurship

Questions?

Thank you !