The library invited Houston pet therapy organization Faithful Paws (www.faithful pawshouston.com) to bring its pets to the reference area. Four to five therapy dogs and their owner–volunteers came to offer students a chance to take a break from sitting in the stacks and to meet new friends. For some dogs, this study break was a repeat visit — it was back by popular demand after successful visits during last semester’s final exams. Tilly, a rescued standard poodle, came with her owner, Sarah Hazel, to greet students with tail wags and hello licks. Tilly’s job as a therapy dog keeps her busy; she works once a week at the Methodist Hospital in addition to doing special projects like study breaks at Rice. “She’s an expert at this type of thing,” Hazel said. During the three-day study break, numerous breeds of dogs (and two cats) came to lounge on Fondren’s first floor. Students “pawsed” for the break, and as for the animals, the hours of attention and petting were well received. —Johanna Ohm ’13
Six new members — and one re-elected member — to the Board of Trustees brings a range of experience and leadership. The Rice University Board of Trustees has elected six new members with expertise ranging from banking and investments to the airline, energy, product distribution and satellite communication industries. The board also re-elected one current member. New trustees are Doyle Arnold ’70, vice chairman and chief financial officer of Zions Bancorporation; Mark Dankberg ’77, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of ViaSat Inc.; returning board member Doug Foshee ’92, chairman, president and CEO of Sallyport Investments LLC; Jeffery Smisek, chairman, president and CEO of United Continental Holdings Inc.; B.B. “Ben” Hollingsworth Jr. ’64, chairman of BBH Capital; and Guillermo “Memo” Treviño ’83, president of Southern Distributing Co. Re-elected to another four-year term was Randa Duncan Williams ’85, chairwoman of the board of directors of Enterprise Products Holdings LLC. —B.J. Almond Read the full story at ricemagazine.info/155.
8 R i ce M a g a z i n e · S u m m e r 2 0 1 3
Talk about a win-win Rice University bioengineering faculty members Rebecca RichardsKortum and Maria Oden used their $100,000 prize from a major international award to launch the Day One Project (rice360.rice.edu/ dayoneproject), an ambitious effort to build a new neonatal ward at the African hospital that has helped Rice implement low-cost studentdesigned health care technologies since 2007.
Richards-Kortum and Oden launched Day One after winning the 2013 $100,000 Lemelson–MIT Award for Global Innovation May 1. Within the first week, Day One had raised 70 percent of the $375,000 needed to build the new neonatal facility at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre, Malawi. The country’s premature birthrate — 18 percent — is the world’s highest. In addition to providing excellent care for premature babies, the new facility will also serve as an innovation hub for the design, evaluation and implementation of new technologies designed by students from Rice 360°: Institute for Global Health Technologies. Ultimately, Rice 360° aims to use the Day One Project to create a collection of low-cost, neonatal technologies that a district hospital serving 250,000 people can implement for about $5,000. Oden and Richards-Kortum won the prestigious award in honor of their life-saving inventions and pioneering efforts to inspire and lead Rice students to invent and deliver cost-effective global health technologies in developing nations. The pair co-founded both Rice 360° and its award-winning, hands-on engineering education program Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB). More than 10 percent of Rice
undergraduates have participated in BTB, which has produced 58 health technologies that are already helping an estimated 45,000 people in 24 countries. “When Maria and I learned we had won this award, we both knew exactly how we wanted to use the prize money,” Richards-Kortum said. “QECH is an extraordinary place that is committed to caring for the world’s most vulnerable patients. The physicians there have shown us how simple innovations can dramatically improve neonatal health, and they’ve inspired us to engage our students in solving the challenges of newborn care in low-resource settings.” “We are accepting the $100,000 Lemelson– MIT Award for Global Innovation on behalf of all of the people at Rice, the Texas Medical Center and around the world who have helped to make BTB’s work possible,” Oden said. “Our decision to donate the prize money to QECH is a way to recognize the efforts of our students and collaborators, while ensuring that more life-saving technologies will be used to improve neonatal care in the developing world.” —Jade Boyd Watch the Day One Project video online at ricemagazine.info/156. The MIT video can be seen at ricemagazine.info/157. Photo: Jeff Fitlow