Rice Magazine | Fall 2022

A DAY TO REMEMBER

Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Rice Stadium that launched the nation into an era of human space exploration. Rice alumni and friends share their memories.

Photos by Bob Gomel

“It seemed so abstract at the time. It means so much more now than it did then.”

— Geoff Winningham ’65

“As an editor of the Thresher, I assigned myself the story and sat at the press table on the field. In fact, my friend covering the story for the Daily Texan and I sat next to Pierre Salinger, JFK’s press secretary, and had a bird’seye view.”

— Eugene Keilin ’64

“I clearly remember that bright, beautiful day, as the whole freshman class sat waiting for his arrival. All of us were dressed in white short-sleeve shirts with skinny ties, now seeming to foreshadow Mission Control and the guys who would eventually engineer the president’s proposal.”

— Charles Helpinstill

“I remember him saying ‘It is haahhd.’ Just over a year later, as an airman complet

ing a Reserve stretch, I saw him off from Carswell AFB to Dallas on his last day. I had joined after the Cuban Missile Crisis to help him save the world. I don’t think we succeeded.”

— Barry Kaplan ’70

“As I recall, the stadium was packed, and the wait ing crowd was growing restive under the broiling sun. Texas was strongly Democratic then but not necessarily friendly toward JFK’s liberal politics. A small plane was circling the stadium towing a banner saying ‘Enforce the Monroe Doctrine,’ a reference to the Soviet Union’s ties to Fidel Castro’s Communist regime in Cuba. An open-top limo came out of the south end zone entry with JFK in the back seat. The crowd went wild, cheering him. It was a remarkable demonstration of his charisma before he even said a word.”

Homer

“I was 15 years old and rode to Rice Stadium by bicycle. When the president stood at the podium, I could see and hear him. The president’s words were an emotional and intellectual call to ac tion for all Americans; I felt it as a deep, personal call to duty. For me, it was a direct follow-up to his inaugural address: ‘Ask what you can do for your country.’”

— Terry O’Rourke ’68

“It was the first time I had seen a president. I had just entered Jack Yates Senior High School, an all-

‘Negro’ school, during the Jim Crow era. A selected group of us boarded a yellow school bus to come across town. The yellow bus rolled into Rice Stadium and rolled into history as well. What is also memorable on that sunny day is President Kennedy asked, ‘Why does Rice play Texas,’ and answered, ‘because it is hard.’ His witty analogy and call to action about the difficulty of the future moonshot endeavor got my attention.”

— Rodney Griffin (spouse of Jan West ’73 )

ON THE COVER

We took to the skies in September to commemorate the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice Stadium Sept. 12, 1962. Our photo and “spelfie” (aka space selfie) gathered hundreds of visitors — some who were at Rice Stadium six decades ago — to mark the occasion.

Photo by Brandon Martin

CONTENTS

26Fresh Faces, New Spaces Rice’s newest Owls describe how it feels to be a part of the campus community.

30

Pleased to Meet You, President DesRoches

Getting to know Rice’s eighth president.

34 We Choose to Return to the Moon

Rice celebrates a 60-year collaboration with NASA — past, present and future.

PHOTO

NASA

Sallyport

workshop

creating reeds, Owls in Paris, study abroad returns, the essential Beth Leaver, Dungeons & Dragons

the workplace,

of 2026, felony stigma, neuroscience, books, baby formula short age, Kinder Survey

Alumni

Casey Michel

kleptocrats,

civic engagement,

books

Last

Wisdom, wisecracks, superb Owl puns: We want to hear what you really think. Send your feedback, criticism or appreciation via email to ricemagazine@rice.edu or surprise us with a letter or postcard.

Letters to the Editor

The Architect’s Mind

Being an architect is not a profession, but a wide-ranging mindset that was captured beautifully in your Spring 2022 article, “Think Like an Architect.” A contractor I once worked with pointed to a space we were building and said, “It looks so simple, but it was so complicated to build.” One thing I am certain of is that I, and my fellow alums, are particularly good architects. Our professors demanded rigor and objective reasoning behind our design choices. In the studio, we encouraged and empathized with each other’s struggles as best we could. This unceasing intensity is why Rice Architecture produces such great architects.

Tania Min ’90, ’92 (Wiess)

On an Educational Mission I read with keen interest the article “Living Voyages” by Laura Furr Mericas [Summer 2022]. I graduated from Rice in 1977, and my wife and I have been missionaries in Africa since 1988. In 2006, we built and continue to operate an eye clinic along with numerous community development programs in a remote village in Sierra Leone in West Africa. Sierra Leone was also an active location for West African slave trade. Ms. Mericas’ article inspired me to learn more about the Center for African and African American Studies and its groundbreaking historical discoveries via the SlaveVoyages database.

Thomas Lewis ’77 (Lovett)

Top 5

While we know you love receiving issues of our printed magazine, did you know that we offer an online version? Check out Rice Magazine on the web to easily share your favorite articles and view additional content and videos that further enhance our stories. Here are our top-read online stories from the Summer 2022 all-research issue.

1. “Flood of Emotions”

2. “Energy in Transition”

3. “In Pursuit of Big Questions”

4. “Living Voyages”

5. “A Rather Intelligent Helmet”

If you missed any of these stories, go to magazine.rice.edu to catch up.

RICE MAGAZINE

Fall 2022

PUBLISHER

Office of Public Affairs

Linda Thrane, vice president

EDITOR

Lynn Gosnell

ART DIRECTOR

Alese Pickering

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

Lisa Yelenick

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Tracey Rhoades

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Ashley Kilday

PROOFREADER

Jenny West Rozelle ’00

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jeff Fitlow | Brandon Martin

CONTRIBUTORS

Hanna Barczyk, Eric Berger, Debbie Blumberg, Anya Bolshakov ’15, Sam Byrd, Gabriel Diamond, Rachel Fairbank, Bob Gomel, Sarah Brenner Jones, Melissa Kean ’96, Savannah Kuchar ’22, Jennifer Latson, Delphine Lee, Amy McCaig, Alex Eben Meyer, Paddy Mills, Jenny West Rozelle ’00, Boris Séméniako

INTERNS

Emma Korsmo ’24 | Mabel Tang ’23

Rice Magazine is published four times a year and is sent to university alumni, faculty, staff, parents of undergraduates and friends of the university.

© October 2022 , Rice University

THE RICE UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Robert T. Ladd, chair; Elle Anderson; Bart Broadman; D. Mark Durcan; Michol L. Ecklund; Wanda English Gass; Terrence Gee; George Y. Gonzalez; James T. Hackett; Patti Lipoma Kraft; Holli Ladhani; Lynn A. Lednicky; Elle Moody; Brandy Hays Morrison; Asuka Nakahara; Brian Patterson; Byron Pope; David Rhodes; Gloria Meckel Tarpley; Jeremy Thigpen; Claudia Gee Vassar; James Whitehurst; Lori Rudge Whitten; Randa Duncan Williams; Michael Yuen.

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS

Reginald DesRoches, president; Amy Dittmar, provost; Paul Cherukuri, vice president for Innovation; Kathi Dantley Warren, vice president for Development and Alumni Relations; Kelly Fox, vice president for Finance and Administration; Caroline Levander, vice president for Global and Digital Strategy; Paul Padley, vice president for Information Technol ogy and chief information officer; Yvonne Romero Da Silva, vice president for Enrollment; Omar A. Syed, vice president and general counsel; Allison Kendrick Thacker, vice president for Investments and treasurer; Linda Thrane, vice president for Public Affairs.

POSTMASTER

Send address changes to: Rice University Development Services–MS 80 P.O. Box 1892

Houston, TX 77251-1892

EDITORIAL OFFICES

Creative Services–MS 95 P.O. Box 1892

Houston, TX 77251-1892 Phone: 713-348-6768 ricemagazine@rice.edu

FROM THE EDITOR

FALL, Y’ALL

READERS, WELCOME BACK to our bustling campus — we hope this issue captures a sense of excitement as we return, thoughtfully and carefully, to many pre-pandemic routines.

More than 1,200 new undergraduates and 1,280 graduate students arrived on campus in mid-August to begin their studies. For members of the Class of 2026, that meant experiencing Rice’s legendary O-Week in person — from the high emotions of move-in day to the packed schedule of introductions to college culture, academic opportuni ties, health and wellness resources, and student activities. We caught up with new students and asked them a few questions about their brand-new home. (See “Fresh Faces, New Spaces.”)

On Sept. 12, 2022, we marked a milestone anniversary in Rice’s history. Sixty years ago, a president visited our campus and delivered a history-making speech. The speech by President John F. Kennedy at Rice Sta dium set in motion a quest, heretofore unimaginable, to send astronauts to the moon — an achievement buoyed by the work of Rice engineers and scientists. Today, NASA is setting a course to return to the moon, and far beyond, to Mars. Space science writer Eric Berger

More than 1,200 new undergraduates and 1,280 graduate students arrived on campus in mid-August to begin their studies. For members of the Class of 2026, that meant experiencing Rice’s legendary O-Week in person.

reminds us how we got to this pivotal moment in human exploration. (See “We Choose to Return to the Moon.”)

We asked historian Melissa Kean ’96 to interview President Reginald DesRoches on behalf of the magazine. The result is a lively and candid conversation that touches on where Rice is now and DesRoches’ vision for our future. (See “Pleased to Meet You” in print and expanded online.)

Our fall departments are brimming with stories about campus life, like the return of study abroad programs, for example, and the enduring nerdom that is Dungeons & Dragons; with stories about research, like Brielle Bryan’s findings on the consequential stigma of felony convictions and the latest data from the Kinder Institute’s Houston Area Survey; and alumni stories, such as our profile of Maryana Iskander ’97, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation.

As always, I’d like to hear from you — send your feedback, gripes and/or appreciations to ricemagazine@rice.edu.

A NEW MISSION — FROM STUDENTS TO MARS

ACCORDING TO THE Princeton Review’s recent survey and other national rankings, Rice students really do have the best of both worlds. Among the accolades are that Rice offers a great quality of life, has happy students and, all the while, provides a top-notch education.

The student experience and culture of care at Rice are second to none, from our academic offerings to excep tional faculty, staff, alumni and supportive community partners. While I experienced these things firsthand as a professor, dean, provost and parent of a Rice Owl, I was still overwhelmed by the caliber of excellence at Rice when, as the university’s president, I participated in O-Week and recently spoke to a crowd of 5,000 at Rice Stadium about the university’s longstanding relationship with NASA and space exploration.

Rice Stadium was, after all, where President John F. Kennedy stood 60 years ago and boldly proclaimed that his generation would choose to make what seemed impossible a reality — traveling to the moon. Within months of Ken nedy’s speech, Rice provided NASA the land for the Johnson Space Center and became one of the nation’s first

universities to establish a Depart ment of Space Science. Within 18 months, satellites built at Rice were being launched into orbit atop American rockets. By the time Apollo 11 landed, several dozen graduate students and countless undergraduates had helped build instruments that made historic breakthroughs and remain on the surface of the moon today.

Over the last six decades, the ties between NASA and Rice have continued to grow and support our nation’s exploration goals of human and robotic spaceflight advancement. Rice researchers played a key role in

everything from academic advising sessions to fun annual traditions, it not only introduces our new students to Rice, but also welcomes them into the Rice family.

Planning for that week begins months ahead of time. Students from all 11 residential colleges spend much of their spring and summer working on the event and arrive on campus early to work through the final details. I sincerely appreciate their time, effort and dedication. Their commitment undoubtedly made an impression on our 1,200 new Owls this fall.

building the Hubble Space Telescope. Rice faculty were co-investigators on numerous robotic explorations of the sun and planets, and they have a sup porting role in NASA’s current mission to the moon — Artemis.

Rice’s work with NASA is indicative of the research and scholarship we do across campus. It’s also a reflection of the collaborative and supportive culture we have here at Rice, both in the classroom and out.

A perfect example of how we support our students outside the classroom is the way we bring them into the Rice community during O-Week, Rice’s orientation program held before classes start in August. Packed with

At Rice, we strive for excellence in everything we do. That drive, along with a genuine desire to find solutions to big problems, continues to draw people to Rice for their undergraduate and graduate educations. National rankings indicate the same sentiment. Rice has risen to No. 15 among the nation’s top universities ranked in the 2023 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges guidebook. Rice also ranked No. 6 on the list of the nation’s best values for higher educa tion, and the university tied for No. 3 in the rankings of institutions whose students graduate with the least debt.

Rice landed at No. 6 on the national 2023 rankings issued by Niche, another closely followed barometer of excellence among U.S. universities. Additionally, Niche ranked Rice No. 7 in the nation for the best value, No. 9 on the list of colleges with the best professors and No. 10 on the list of best campuses.

Getting to where we are as a univer sity of national distinction has taken hard work, dedication, collaboration and innovation. I am excited to be part of where Rice goes next, and I am confident we will break new ground and continue to evolve as we have since our beginnings more than 100 years ago.

I am excited to be part of where Rice goes next, and I am confident we will break new ground and continue to evolve as we have since our beginnings more than 100 years ago.

Future Chefs May Apply

A culinary collaboration with HISD students provides a full-circle career path for one former intern.

BY TRACEY RHOADES

Chef Millan was one of H&D’s first HISD interns.

SALLYPORT

BASTING, BARDING (to cover meat with slices of bacon) and broiling are all in a day’s work for Rice’s Housing and Dining (H&D) team of more than 90 chefs and cooks who provide meals to accommodate any palate and whip up innovative creations to tempt more adventurous eaters in five serveries across campus. But for Iris Millan, being a part of Rice’s culinary world started off at a slow boil years ago.

In 2013, as a Lamar High School senior, Millan, who was an aspiring culinarian, started interning at Rice as part of an enrichment program between Houston Independent School District and H&D. Launched in 2012, the internship was created to provide hands-on training to high school students with an interest in pursuing a career in the culinary arts. In addition to Lamar, 85 students from Barbara Jordan Career Center and Northside High School have gone through the program since its inception, with six receiving scholarships to

attend culinary schools.

Millan, one of the initial interns, remembers her first taste of Rice. “I was amazed by the size of the kitchens. I didn’t really know what to expect, but the chef at that time encouraged me to learn every station,” she said.

That advice paid off, and following high school graduation, Millan was hired as a full-time employee. A member of the West Servery team, Millan has been inspired by many mentors along the way, especially Johnny Curet, senior executive chef and director of campus dining. As part of their training,

students are asked to prepare mystery baskets, in a similar format to the Food Network’s “Chopped,” to assess their skill level. “My team judges the results and identifies top candidates,” Curet says. “A panel of chefs then interviews each student, giving them experience for future job searches.”

The Rice chefs’ mission is to share their knowledge and experience with the students. “The staff in each kitchen quickly welcomes them [the interns] as part of the team,” Curet says. “One of my proudest achievements is to help just one student have the chance to succeed.”

That encouragement gave Millan the motivation to continue learning and expanding her culinary skills. “I tell everyone in the program to learn anything and everything and be open to try new things, even if you fail, because it’s all a learning process.”

Now a chef de cuisine, Millan spends most of her time baking pizzas, desserts and breads, but confesses to having a favorite. “Cakes! I admire a good cake with lots of layers.”

“T he staff in each kitchen quickly welcomes them [the interns] as part of the team. One of my proudest achievements is to help just one student have the chance to succeed.” — Johnny Curet

Chef Millan pipes icing onto a tres leches cake in the West Servery kitchen.

The Reed Room

A compact workshop in Alice Pratt Brown Hall is where student oboists practice the skill of reed making.

EVERY ORCHESTRAL perfor

mance begins with the sound of an oboe, a steady A-note that tunes the orchestra. The oboe’s double reed is crafted from a piece of cane that is split and folded in half, carefully shaped, then tied together to a metal tube; a cork attached to the tube fits into the top of

the instrument. “It’s like the soul of the oboe,” says Robert Atherholt, profes sor of oboe. Because oboe reeds are so delicate and ephemeral — lasting about the length of a single concert — they are in need of constant replenishment. For years, Atherholt’s studio served as the de facto reed room; today, students have a compact workshop in Alice Pratt Brown Hall. A sturdy wooden table bears brass machinery, task lamps and other tools — bags of unprocessed cane, imported from Southern France, are stored nearby. “It’s communal, and it makes it a lot more efficient to have one room [for reeds] so that there’s not cane shavings all over the school,” says Jacob Duff ’24. “I think so much of reed mak ing is the knowledge that’s passed from oboist to oboist.”

— LYNN GOSNELL

The oboe’s double reed is crafted from a piece of cane that is split and folded in half, carefully shaped, then tied together to a metal tube; a cork attached to the tube fits into the top of the instrument.

Student Jacob Duff tests out the pitch of a reed in prog ress, which is called “crowing the reed.”

STUDY ABROAD

Away We Go!

Priceless experiences give study abroad students expanded worldviews.

SELENA GUO ’22 WAS THRILLED to beat Cambridge University as a member of Oxford’s volleyball team last year, then celebrate at a local pub. More than 2,000 miles away, Elaine Zhang ’23 spent a memorable spring afternoon in Jordan baking Easter cookies with her host family.

For Guo, Zhang and dozens of other Rice students, the return of Rice’s study abroad program is a welcome development after being shut down in 2020 due to COVID-19, causing some 50 students to rush to return to the U.S. Since fall 2021, however, study abroad has started a steady comeback.

“Students are really gung-ho about studying abroad again,” says Yahaira Verdejo ’13, assistant director of Rice’s Study Abroad Office. “They’ve found they can still have a great experience even with protocols in place.”

Above: In fall 2021, Lizzy Gaviria ’22 learned about Denmark’s sustainability culture and energy infrastructure.

Above and right: Political science major Elaine Zhang ’23 spent spring 2022 taking courses in inter national relations in Jordan.

Left: Economics major Selena Guo ’22 spent the 2021–2022 school year build ing lasting friendships in her Oxford dorm and travel ing with her volleyball team.

In England, Guo, who majored in economics, spent the 2021–2022 school year building lasting friend ships in her Oxford dorm and traveling with her volleyball team. Free COVID-19 test kits from the U.K.’s National Health Service made regular self-testing seamless. “I felt very safe.” Now in medical school, she’s focused on global health.

Zhang, who’s majoring in political science and managerial studies, spent spring 2022 taking courses in international relations in Jordan’s capital. While paperwork took time and her pre-flight COVID results were delayed, “overall the process was relatively smooth,” she says. “I’m so happy I went.”

In fall 2021, Lizzy Gaviria ’22 learned about Denmark’s sustainabil ity culture and energy infrastructure while living in Copenhagen. She lived in a “kollegium,” a building that houses students from different universities, and had a host family she visited often. One memorable day she went on a walking tour of the city with fellow students that ended in a dip in the canal. Another highlight was visiting an electricity transmission company. “I learned to appreciate things I’d taken for granted, but also came back inspired to change things here by implementing what I learned abroad.” These lessons inform her current work at Tennessee’s state energy office on infrastructure plan ning to bolster the electric grid.

Study abroad these days does require some flexibility, says Verdejo. For example, a student who originally planned to go to Singapore in 2020 pivoted to the U.K. in 2021 instead, given the lockdowns in Asia. “COVID may be around for a while and there may be more challenges to study abroad,” Verdejo says. “But overall, the experience is worth it in the end. You go as one person, and you come back as another. Students say it’s the best experience they ever had.”

BEHIND THE SCENES

Head of Hospitality

Beth Leaver captains the home team

on and off campus.

COLLEGE ATHLETE. FOODIE.

Hospitality expert. There are many ways to describe Beth Leaver, Rice’s senior director of operations for residential and dining offerings. Her job, just like her varied interests in life, touches several areas around her. And through it all, the detail-oriented Leaver keeps her focus on transitioning the campus rom a brick-and-mortar location into a comforting home for more than 8,500 undergraduate and graduate students as well as campus visitors.

How has your sports background influenced your current role?

I have always been a leader on and off the soccer field. It was my job to motivate those around me before, during and after the game. I needed to be adaptable in all those phases, and that has prepared me for this position in how I lead others, whether that be in our day-to-day work or the moments that are unplanned. In a sport like soccer, it is very much about speed of thought and the action that follows. Operations is much the same in that regard.

You care deeply about hospitality, enough to earn a master’s degree in the subject. Tell us why. Providing quality service and a great experience motivates me. In hospitality, you can create an experience by simply anticipating someone’s needs. I am a food aficionado — good service and food quality are the main factors I pay

attention to when choosing to frequent a local restaurant. Likewise, I imagine the hospitality Rice provides, from the variety of dishes that satisfy different backgrounds to the clean college spaces and our approachable staff, adds to the overall student experience.

Do you have any favorite dishes at the serveries?

I am mostly vegetarian. By having an international group of chefs, I am drawn to the Mediterranean and Asian cuisines we offer. At West Servery, Chef Roger’s fresh pita bread and hum mus is delightful. At North Servery, Chef Kim’s wok station has a variety of dishes like ramen, mapo tofu, sushi and poke.

What’s your most memorable achievement?

The relationships built in this community stand out. I connected with Frank Liu ’78 and John Wawrose ’78, two Lovett alumni who envisioned starting a residential development company that would also give back to the university. We worked to turn that dream into a reality by building town homes for graduate students in the Rice Village area. This project was mean ingful, collaborative and memorable because of the thread to the mission and core values at Rice.

What is your secret to success in this role?

I never imagined I would be work ing at the same place for 14 years, but I’ve had considerable latitude to foster creativity, which ranges from grow ing the university’s housing capabili ties to developing new and noteworthy food offerings. My team consists of more than 100 people, spanning from culinary masterminds to housekeep ing mavens. I greatly appreciate that the multifunctional teams coalesce to remain highly focused, output driven and accomplished. Rice is a place I look forward to going to every day because of the strong community, connection and distinction.

— SAM BYRD

Beth Leaver at the new Rice Village graduate student townhomes

CAMPUS LIFE

Every Student Welcome

A new O-Week Q&A panel focuses on accommodations for students with disabilities.

WHEN NEW STUDENTS enter the Rice community, independence is thrust upon them. Having someone to help navigate the transition is invalu able. O-Week provides a unique experi ence of support via O-Week families, advisers, academic planning, campus wide presentations and fun bond ing activities. For several years, Q&A panels featured speakers who covered specific student identities, such as LGBTQ+ or international students, educated new students about resources and connected them with O-Week advisers who share their identities.

During O-Week 2022, a new panel for students with mental and physical dis abilities was added to the Q&A roster.

Advisers underwent extensive training to understand the experiences of students with mental and physical disabilities and the resources available to them. “Part of my responsibility is to ensure that all aspects of diversity are considered on campus,” explains O-Week diversity facilitator Christie Vieux ’24. “However, it wasn’t until this year that I got a chance to hear about the experiences of a Rice student with a dis ability through a disability panel. I found that there was information regarding re sources and how the Disability Resource Center works. I would have never known without hearing it firsthand.”

Not all disabilities are visible, and some new students may find it difficult to advocate for themselves and discuss their needs. “Advisers interact with new students on a personal level,” says campuswide O-Week coordinator Savannah Parrot ’23. “They support the new students with disabilities by pointing them to helpful resources and ensuring that they feel included and are accommodated during O-Week.”

O-Week is about welcoming students into their new homes, and nothing makes a student feel more welcome than being heard and getting the assistance they deserve.

OWL LA LA

Housed in the historic Hôtel Raoul de La Faye, and only a 15-minute walk from Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle, Rice’s Paris Center, the university’s next international campus (after Rice Architecture Paris, celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall, and a facility at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur) will include four levels, a courtyard and six classroom spaces. Caroline Levander, Rice’s VP for global and digital strategy, spearheaded the new center. “This building is an ideal educational space conveniently situated in one of the most historically significant areas of Paris,” Levander said. “It looks and feels like a private university campus.” Opening an overseas location offers new research opportunities in art, architecture, business and politics for Rice students and faculty by working with European partners across different disciplines. —A.K.

I’M A NERD ABOUT ...

Dungeons & Dragons

A classic collab orative storytelling game is once again a campus favorite.

DUNGEONS & Dragons came (back) into the public eye thanks in part to Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” but it’s been around since 1974. Now in its fifth edition, the game has experienced a renaissance.

Liliana Abramson ’24 got into Dungeons & Drag ons (D&D) after watching the popular YouTube show “Critical Role.” “When I got to Rice, I missed my D&D group from home,” Abramson says. “I thought running a game would be a good way to connect with other people.” Throughout her daily interactions, from Jones O-Week sibs to other classmates, Abramson picked up interested players, confirming that she hasn’t met a lot of strangers in the process.

From the outside, D&D can seem like dice rolls, numbers and rules, but that is merely a framework for collaborative story telling. Players create heroes and work through adventures, governed by a dungeon master. While pre-made adventure modules exist, Abramson says she prefers to “homebrew.” She knows a rough overall plot, but she mostly improvises. The nature of the game brings existing players closer together. “You learn new things about your friends, and you can connect with new people, even someone passing by. If you’re out there wear ing a D&D T-shirt,” she says, “you have something in common immediately.”

READY TO ROLL?

CHECK OUT DnDBeyond, Roll20, Foundry or Tabletop Simulator online.

At a school like Rice, it’s no surprise there are players across campus. Ian Mellor-Crummey ’17, one of those players, works for Rice’s Digital Media Commons. His experience with tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) started his freshman year of college when a group of friends in Wiess College wanted to put a campaign together for Path finder, a gaming system alter native to D&D. The group took turns running sessions while at Rice, and they still play using online resources like Roll20 even though they are now spread across the country.

USE FREE online resources like the Wizards of the Coast 5e Systems Reference Document.

PURCHASE “The Player’s Handbook” (Wizards of the Coast) at Amazon. Target carries Dungeon Master starter kits, which include copies of the handbook and character sheets.

“The best play style is where the game master and the players are creating the story together. There is something in TTRPGs that appeals to everyone, from math and statistics to role playing. Anyone who says they’re not interested prob ably hasn’t tried it.”

D&D doesn’t require a certain age, major, occupation or background. It’s groups of friends hanging out and making each other laugh.

WISDOM

BUSINESS Between Story and Stereotype

Visible tattoos, increasingly common, draw scrutiny and invite conversation in the workplace.

BY LYNN GOSNELL AND AMY MCCAIG

IS IT OK TO SHOW off tattoos in the workplace? It depends on the workplace culture or brand and perceptions about tattoos, according to recent findings by Rice and University of Houston researchers — and observations by Rice leaders.

Enrica N. Ruggs ’11, an associate professor of management in the C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, and Mikki Hebl, the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychology and professor of management at Rice’s Jones School of Business, recently studied the shifting perceptions of tattoos in the workplace and published their findings in the

Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Ruggs and Hebl write that the prac tice of tattooing “has become popular across a wide swath of the American population.” A 2019 survey found that 30% of U.S. respondents indicated hav ing at least one tattoo, up from 16% in a 2003 survey. While tattoos are increas ingly common and visible, research about how people perceive tattoos in the workplace reflects mixed attitudes.

Their research dives into the role stereotypes play in perceptions of tattoos in workplace contexts. This is important, they say, because past studies have associated some negative stereotypes — being impulsive or

lacking in judgment — with tattoos. Simultaneously, tattooed individuals may also be the beneficiaries of positive stereotypes — being creative, imagina tive and artistic. “Our findings show that people often have both negative and positive stereotypes about tattooed individuals,” Ruggs says, “and these stereotypes influence customers’ attitudes about tattooed employees to varying degrees.”

How do these findings square with the experiences of campus leaders and their attitudes about their own or others’ tattoos in the workplace?

As executive director of the Doerr Institute for New Leaders, Lillie Besozzi ’16 has some practical advice for students and young alumni. A U.S. Army veteran who earned an MBA from the Jones School, Besozzi advises job seekers to “read the room” before exposing tattoos in an interview or networking event. “It could call your judgment into question — not for getting a tattoo, but for not being able to discern the times and places when you need to elevate your attire to project professionalism,” she says.

Twenty-five years ago, Matthew Taylor ’92 started work as dean of Campus Life at Pomona College while also pursuing a serious side hustle as a drummer in Los Angeles. He didn’t think about tattoos as “a workplace issue” — until his boss made them one. “She and I would meet with a different group of freshmen every week, where she would say, ‘Do you believe the dean’s got tattoos?’ At a small college of 1,800

Brad Blunt shows off his McMurtry crest tattoo — the result of a Beer Bike fundraiser.

Visible tattoos might be a disadvantage when applying to industries like investment bank ing or the oil and gas industry, but in creative industries “tattoos would be much less of an issue — if any at all.”

students, it was my job to be someone they could trust. I think that helped a little bit.”

Taylor’s Rice experience runs deep — he’s been an R.A., earned a Ph.D. in history and served as a faculty member before joining the administration. As associate provost, he is front and center on major academic and institutional projects. Today, he’s a “coat-and-tie guy” who prefers to keep his tattoos less visible. “A lot of folks make decisions about displaying them in the workplace that I wouldn’t, but again, I think that may be both age and the circles I [run in] at Rice.”

For Brad Blunt, who works as the director for academic processes in the Office of the Provost, tattoos are stories. In his various roles at Rice — as admissions director at the Shepherd School of Music, an academic adviser and, memorably, an R.A. at McMurtry College, tattoos were often a way to engage with students. “I have a tattoo of the McMurtry crest right here,” he says, pushing up his right sleeve for the reveal of the purple lion rampant on the Scottish crest. Long story short: Getting the tattoo was a result of a Beer Bike fundraiser. Like Taylor, he main tains an awareness of potential negative connotations in professional settings. “I certainly don’t want to do anything that’s going to potentially make a bad impression on myself or the office.”

While these administrators don’t recall a time when tattoos impacted the hiring process, Nicole van den Heuvel ’81, executive director of the Center for Career Development, would caution job applicants to “do the research” before displaying tattoos. She says that visible tattoos might be a disadvantage when applying to industries like investment banking or the oil and gas industry, but in creative industries — as Ruggs and Hebl found — “tattoos would be much less of an issue — if any at all.”

Based on stories in Rice News and Rice Business Wisdom. Find a link to this research at magazine.rice.edu.

BY THE NUMBERS

Class of 2026

Rice welcomed its most selective class of freshmen

students in history — an impressive and

group of Owls who are now calling Rice home.

and 46

represented

states are

Island, Vermont,

Virginia and

Top

States

(448)

(94)

(36)

York

Countries

China (58)

South

Locked Out of Housing

Felony convictions hinder efforts to access stable housing even if no prison time is served.

EVEN IF THEY’VE NEVER served time in prison, people with felony convictions have difficulty accessing stable housing, according to new research from Rice sociologist Brielle Bryan.

While other research has shown that imprisonment leads to housing instabil ity, Bryan found that felony status alone was enough to cause “housing instabil ity” — defined as residence in temporary

housing (homeless shelters, motels or on the street) or moving frequently.

“Unfortunately, the stigma of a felony conviction doesn’t appear to die off with time,” Bryan said. “When someone is incarcerated, they have to deal with being removed from their neighborhood, their

social network and the labor market. Eventually, individuals can recover from the disruption of incarceration and begin to rebuild their lives. How ever, this doesn’t seem to be the case with felony convictions — my work shows that they follow these individuals and seriously disrupt their housing trajectories.”

What can be done? Bryan noted that while there have been significant bipar tisan criminal justice reform efforts, they have largely focused on reducing the size of the prison population through shorter sentences and increased use of community-based corrections. However, this does nothing to change the number of people marked with felon status or alter the stigma they face.

“More investment in reentry pro grams, as President Biden and others have pushed for, is a great way to help ease the transition from prison back to society, but they don’t help the 12 mil lion Americans with felony convictions who’ve never served time,” Bryan said. “If we’re serious about giving people second chances, we need to do things like remove barriers to getting occupa tional licenses, enact more automatic record sealing laws like Colorado and Pennsylvania have, and work to limit the use of unregulated and often inaccurate online criminal background check services. Until we take these sorts of steps to lessen the stigma around prior felony conviction, these individuals will face great hurdles as they try to rebuild their lives.”

The study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and was supported by funding from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Harvard Multidisciplinary Program in Inequal ity and Social Policy.

AMY MCCAIG

The open-access paper, “Housing Instability Following Felony Conviction and Incarceration: Disentangling Being Marked from Being Locked Up” is available at magazine.rice.edu.

“Unfortunately, the stigma of a felony conviction doesn’t appear to die off with time. When someone is incarcerated, they have to deal with being removed from their neighborhood, their social network and the labor market.”

NEUROSCIENCE

Take a Risk

Huda Zoghbi received the Kavli Prize for pioneering research into brain disorders.

RICE TRUSTEE emeritus Huda Zoghbi was awarded the prestigious 2022 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for her pioneering work in “the discovery of genes underlying a range of seri ous brain disorders.” This includes her work on the genetic basis of spinocere bellar ataxia type 1 and Rett syndrome. Zoghbi splits the Kavli Prize with collaborators Dr. Jean-Louis Mandel of the University of Strasbourg, Harry Orr of the University of Minnesota Medical School, and Dr. Christopher Walsh of both Howard Hughes Medi cal and Harvard Medical School.

An Unknown Genetic Disorder

When Zoghbi first started working on Rett syndrome, the disorder had only been described a couple of times in medical literature and was thought to be extremely rare. “It was an encounter with a child that really intrigued me,” Zoghbi said. “She started life doing everything a typical girl will do, using her hands, walking, singing along with nursery rhymes, learning a few words, being very sociable, but then at 2 years of age, that stopped.” Patients with Rett syndrome develop normally in the first 6 to 18 months of life, only to hit a de velopmental plateau, after which they start regressing, with their symptoms affecting their ability to speak, walk, eat and breathe. One of the hallmark symptoms is near-constant, repetitive hand movements.

As it happened, the very next week, “another girl walked into my clinic, wringing her hands,” Zoghbi said.

“Those were the two critical patients.”

Although there were only a few described cases at the time, Zoghbi was soon able to locate additional patients with Rett syndrome, which suggested that it was much more common than previously thought.

An X Chromosome Pattern

When Zoghbi met her first Rett syn drome patients, it was in the mid-1980s. At the time, all she had to go on was the hunch that because the disorder was primarily found in girls with a pat tern of recognizable symptoms, it was probably caused by a single gene on the X chromosome. Although her hunch would later turn out to be correct, it was risky research to take on, because the techniques to locate the causative gene just weren’t there yet. Eventually, Zoghbi and her collaborators were able to identify the MECP2 gene, which is located on the X chromosome, as being responsible for causing the syndrome.

Rett Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder

“Up to that point, people would tell me to stop working on Rett syndrome, to work on autism instead, because it is more common,” Zoghbi said. “I said, ‘no,’ because with Rett I know I am working on the same disease (or on a uniform disease). The patients are teaching me.” As it turns out, Rett syn drome is now recognized as one of the top genetic causes of autism spectrum disorder. “Today, we know of 1,000 genes that can cause intellectual dis ability and autism,” Zoghbi said.

Looking back, Zoghbi is grateful that she was able to take her chances all those years ago. “I want young scientists to take a risk and to go into uncharted territory because that’s the only way we are going to make discov eries.”

— RACHEL FAIRBANK

Faculty Books

A Trail of Marvels/ Sendero de Maravillas

A Memoir of Mexico and Days of the Dead Geoff Winningham ’65

Press,

GEOFF WINNINGHAM , a professor of photography and the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Humanities at Rice, first traveled to Mexico with his father in 1965, but credits his subsequent trips and exposure to Mexican culture to his newfound understanding of both the country and “life itself.”

In his new book, “A Trail of Marvels,” Winningham documents several steps along the path, including his trip to explore Mexico in 1983, and his decades spent documenting Day of the Dead celebrations in different regions (including Michoacán, Puebla and Oaxaca) and, of course, stories about the people he met along the way. Through evocative images of colorful festivities, markets, graveyards, flowers, dances and food, Winningham reflects on the sacred rituals and beliefs of those who welcome the spirits of loved ones to return home.

Winningham opens the book with an anecdote about a student who explained that the Spanish word for marigold, “maravilla,” is the same word for miracle or marvel. “‘Un sendero de maravillas’ is what you are sharing, both liter ally and figuratively,” he recalls the student saying. “A Trail of Marvels. Sendero de Maravillas. Pick your language, but that should be your title.”

Opposite page, from top: a traditional Day of the Dead “ofrenda” in a shop window on the Plaza Grande in Pátzcuaro; sugar candy skulls for sale displayed on a table in Pátzcuaro.

This page, left: flower petals scattered on a gravesite at the cemetery of the Convento de San Martín Caballeros, Huaquechula, Puebla; above: the cover of Winningham’s book; below: a trail of marigold (cempasúchil) petals in a home.

PUBLIC HEALTH

The Explainer

Why is there a shortage of baby formula?

AT RICE UNIVERSITY’S Baker Institute, Alexandra E. Bello studies the impact of economic policy on health outcomes, particularly related to emerging technologies and the food industry. We asked her to explain what factors led to the baby formula shortage — and what policy changes may help alleviate such shortages in the future.

What event triggered the formula shortage?

Abbott Laboratories closed in February 2022 after the FDA received nine reports of babies who died after having been fed Abbott’s powdered formula. The CDC wasn’t able to confirm links in any of the cases, but they had all been fed formula from Abbott Laboratories, so they went ahead and issued a voluntary recall. This exposed the fragile market, causing the shortage.

Why would a voluntary recall of formula at Abbott Labs cause such a ripple effect, causing families to struggle to find enough formula?

About 90% of formula sales in the U.S. are controlled by four companies. Abbott is one of them, along with Nestlé, Mead Johnson and Perrigo. The reason behind that is in part due to the USDA WIC program, which is responsible for about half of the formula sales in the U.S. With the WIC program, each individual state is required to award a formula contract to the lowest bidder.

[The company with] the WIC contract in a state dominates the market.

Why is that so problematic in terms of when these shortages might happen?

It creates a really difficult barrier for other companies to come in. There was a startup that was approved in March 2022, when all this was going on, and it was the first new formula manufac turer in 15 years. It’s not worth it for companies to try to compete when 90% of the market is going to four compa nies already.

It’s also difficult for companies outside of the U.S. to compete. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement of 2020 restricts formula from Canada as an effort to protect U.S. dairy farmers.

What are some potential public policy solutions that can help guard against this happening again?

Not being able to import from Canada and having a really high (17.5%) tax on formula from Europe is a problem. We know the formula is safe, we are importing it now, but for some reason, by the end of the year, it’s going to be a lot harder to get.

What are some of the changes that you’re hoping to see?

I think one of the most important changes is being able to import from international suppliers, because we’ve relied on them for the last few months for most of the formula supply. Another change would be evalu ating the WIC program and seeing what needs to change, in terms of mak ing it more flexible, so that there is more competition.

— INTERVIEW BY RACHEL FAIRBANK

Alexandra E. Bello is a research manager with the Baker Institute’s McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. She has a master of public health from Texas A&M’s Health Science Center.

Not being able to import from Canada and having a really high (17.5%) tax on formula from Europe is a problem. We know the formula is safe, we are importing it now, but for some reason, by the end of the year, it’s going to be a lot harder to get.

Future Forecast

Houston, We Have Opinions

THE 41ST KINDER

Houston Area Survey used new methodologies to recruit and survey Harris County residents about their priorities and aspirations.

In 1982, Stephen Klineberg, founding director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research and Rice professor emeritus of sociology, led a survey of Houstonians as part of a class project. The survey set out to measure how residents felt about explosive, oil-fueled growth amid rising concerns about traffic, pollution and crime. Since then, the now-annual survey has documented how Houston has transformed from a majority Anglo, oil-based town to one of the most diverse U.S. cities. This year’s 41st Kinder Houston Area Survey — Klineberg’s last to lead — reflects the views of several thousand Harris County residents on the economy and hot-button political issues. Findings highlight an increasing political divide, a desire for more public school funding and a call for the government to do a better job of addressing society’s rising inequalities.

Read more about the findings, methodology and history of the Kinder Houston Area Survey at kinder.rice.edu/ houstonsurvey2022.

HIGHLIGHTS

2022 Kinder Houston Area Survey

Brighter Future

The percentage of Houstonians who foresee a better future for themselves dropped to an all-time low of 50% from a peak of 65% in 2017.

TOP ANXIETIES:

Cost of living, especially gas and housing prices (28%)

Soaring rates of violent crime (25%)

COVID pandemic (15%)

Traffic congestion (12%)

Voter Access

81% of Houstonians are in favor of drive-thru polling locations

83% support 24-hour polling places

85% support opening more temporary voting locations

Marijuana

65% of Houstonians are in favor of legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes and 90% are in favor of legalizing marijuana for medical reasons.

Teaching

Public Schools

In the 1990s, around 60% of Houstonians believed public schools had enough money.

In 2022, that number fell to 34%, with 67% calling for more investment in public schools.

63% are in favor of raising taxes to provide universal access to early childhood education.

25% of Houstonians support Texas’ ban on teaching about inequality and race in Texas schools.

Reproductive Rights

81% of Democrats and 33% of Republicans say abortion for any reason should be legal.

64% of those surveyed support a woman’s right to an abortion if she wants one for any reason.

92% of those surveyed support abortion if the woman’s health is seriously endangered.

Equity and Opportunity

Fewer Houstonians believe minorities have the same opportunities as whites: Anglos fell from 64% in 2020 to 49% in 2022; Hispanics from 66% to 43% and Blacks from 29% to 17%

FRESH FACES, NEW SPACES

How do you say “welcome” to new students? On move-in day, Aug. 14, the answer was loudly, joyfully and helpfully as O-Week advisers and coordinators ushered arriving students into their college homes.

“O-Week is forever for our new students,” said Lingkun Guo ’23, who worked with Savannah Parrot ’23 for 10 months to prepare for the intense week of activities.

“We had almost 700 student leaders on campus for this week, across the 11 colleges,” added Parrot. The efforts of the O-Week staff were not lost on students.

“All anyone tells you before you get here is you won’t get any sleep; it will be a lot of fun. But [O-Week] is preparing you for college life,” said freshman Imaje Harvey. Later that day, during an address to new undergraduates, President Reginald DesRoches added words of reassurance: “When you are met with challenges, and there will be many, do not be dismayed. … At Rice, you’re a part of a family that is invested in you and your future.”

FROM NEW STUDENTS THOUGHTS AND IMPRESSIONS AS THEY EXPERIENCED O-WEEK

PHOTOS BY JEFF FITLOW

JADIR DASILVA, WIESS COLLEGE

Hometown: Houston, Texas

What’s your first impression of Rice?

Everybody just knows Rice. It’s like the school of Houston, even of the South. When I came here, I really got an understanding of it beyond just as a nice school. You see the campus, you se e the trees that are beautiful, and you’re just like, wow, that’s an actually awesome campus. It was really inviting.

ALINA NGUYEN, LOVETT COLLEGE

Hometown: Wylie, Texas

In one or two words, describe how you are feeling today.

Initially, stressed and nervous, but then I got a really warm welcome from Lovetteers.

CELESTE URIBE, BAKER COLLEGE

Hometown: Edinburg, Texas

Why Rice?

Rice feels like home. It is a small enough community to really be inclusive to everybody.

XAYVION DAVIDSON, WILL RICE COLLEGE

Hometown: LaVergne, Tennesee

Did you bring something to remind you of home?

My mom made a photo album and added pictures of the family and someone really close to me. It lives on my desk.

TARIK PRICE, JONES COLLEGE

Hometown: Gulfport, Mississippi

What are you looking forward to about living in a residential college?

The freedom, being on my own and learning how to take care of myself. And enjoying hanging out with other people my age and going through the same new experiences.

SOFI BABIRENKO, MARTEL COLLEGE

Hometown: Moscow, Russia

What’s your first impression of Rice? Overwhelming in a good way; so much to offer and so much to be grateful for.

AMY-PATRICIA AMMA TOTOE , BROWN COLLEGE

Hometown: Abilene, Texas

Did you bring something to remind you of home?

Yes, I did. My brother gave me a picture of when we went to Turkey with our parents.

GIULIO VALFRE ZAYDENMAN,

SID RICHARDSON COLLEGE

Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts

What are you looking forward to about living in a residential college?

Meeting a lot of new people; the traditions seem really fun.

KENDRICK LOUNSBURY, HANSZEN COLLEGE

Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia

Did you bring something to remind you of home?

I brought a medallion that was given to me at graduation and has my indigenous name on the back of it — the name that was given to me when I came of age — and my PlayStation to play with my buddies back at home.

SWAHA ROY, DUNCAN COLLEGE

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Why Rice?

I chose Rice because of the ability to dive into STEM, while taking humanities courses, too.

MAX LAI, MCMURTRY COLLEGE

Hometown: Westmont, Illinois

In one or two words, describe how you are feeling today.

Welcomed. Every single adviser knew each of our names. That was a little weird at first, but seeing people address you by name and be happy to see us, it felt good.

Pleased to Meet You, President DesRoches

Melissa Kean ’96, Rice’s former centennial historian, sat down with Reginald DesRoches, the soon-to-be inaugurated eighth president of Rice University, for a wide-ranging interview. DesRoches, the former provost and dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering, stepped wholeheartedly into his new leadership role July 1, 2022. Kean, whose knowledge of Rice’s institutional history runs as deep as it does wide (see her blog, Rice History Corner), brought this knowledge to bear in an hourlong candid conversa tion. “I was most impressed with President DesRoches’ clear understanding that there are some things at Rice that need to change and some things that need to be preserved — and his thoughtfulness on finding a path through those choices,” Kean said.

Melissa Kean: So, let’s begin with who you are. Tell me about your family.

Reginald DesRoches: I was born in Haiti and came to the U.S. when I was a year old. I’m the youngest of four children — three boys and a girl — my oldest brother is nine years older than me. At the time, in the late 1960s, Haiti was under the dictatorship of Papa Doc [François Duvalier], and a lot of people were leav ing the country.

There was a nursing shortage, so my mom, a nurse, was able to get a visa and come to the U.S. She actually came by herself at first, and after about nine months, she was able to get the kids and my dad to come over. When she first arrived, she didn’t know the language and didn’t have a lot of people here — that speaks to my mom; she’s just an incredible person.

We settled in Brooklyn first, before moving to Queens when I was about 5 years old. There were always other relatives coming in and out, like every traditional Haitian family. My parents were very hardworking people of faith — Catholic. My mom worked two nursing shifts almost her entire life to be able to put us through school and provide for us. She’d also cook and do all the things that women in that generation did. She was extremely strong and super smart.

‹

YOUNG ENGINEER: Reggie DesRoches, age 12, in grade school in Queens, the youngest of four siblings who, along with their parents, immigrated from Haiti.

MK: Did your parents push you academically?

RD: Yes, they did. I think they wanted all of us to be doctors, but I had it easier, in many ways, because I was the youngest. By the time I came along, I was able to study engineering and go away to school — to Berkeley. The others went to nearby St. John’s. My parents didn’t know about going away and living in a different place for college. By the way, my oldest brother is a doctor, my sister’s a lawyer, and my second oldest brother studied account ing, earned an MBA and is now the chief financial officer of AT&T.

MK: One keystone of your plan is increasing Rice’s research profile. How are you going to do that?

RD: Multiple ways. As we grow the student body, we’re going to grow the faculty to make sure that we commit to the same student-faculty ratio. Bringing in really good people is the foun dation of a strong university, and we have to commit ourselves to hiring the very best and keeping them here. We need to provide them with the resources and environment to be successful. When we talk about environment, we are talking about both the right level of staff support and the physical infrastructure.

I’ve talked to a number of faculty, and a common message that I hear is that even if we didn’t grow the faculty, if we were to make sure we provide the appropriate staff support and had the appropriate physical infrastructure to have a premier research university, that alone would substantially increase our produc tivity and impact.

MK: It’s fairly easy to see how you can significantly grow the research profile in engineering and science. It’s a little harder to see what to do in the humanities. Do you have any thoughts about that?

RD: Yes, research looks different in the humanities. We can’t expect faculty to bring in the same level of research dollars, but we can expect them to undertake great scholarship, includ ing scholarship that has an impact. There are many examples of that, including historian Caleb McDaniel’s Pulitzer Prize research and recognition. Tony Pinn is the first person in the humanities to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I believe it hasn’t been part of the Rice culture to figure out how we get our faculty nominated for some of these most prestigious awards, like inductions to the national academies. If you look at our peer institutions, they’re seeing five or six faculty getting elected to one of the national academies each year. We’re in the process now of coming up with an infrastructure so we can do better because we have

a lot of talented faculty members who are deserving of such recognition.

MK: Part of this involves a perennial issue at Rice: the state of the graduate programs. And graduate students have always been sort of second-class citizens on this campus. RD: I think that one of the most important things I can do as president is to make sure that the distinction of our gradu ate programs is equal to the distinction of our undergraduate programs. And they’re not right now, at least not in a consistent manner.

For us to continue to recruit and keep the very best faculty talent, we have to improve the quality of the graduate programs and graduate students. Part of that is continuing to hire excel lent faculty, part of it is building the research enterprise and part of it is just creating a culture where it is clear that we support our graduate programs as much as our undergradu ate programs. And some things are as simple as having places that are open at night on campus for graduate students to have coffee and meals because they want to work in their labs at 9 o’clock. We don’t do enough of that right now.

I think there are some people who will be concerned that if we focus on having better graduate programs, it will diminish the undergraduate programs. Actually, it’s just the opposite, because as we improve the graduate programs, we’re going

I think that one of the most important things I can do as president is to make sure that the distinction of our graduate programs is equal to the distinction of our undergraduate programs.”

to see an improvement in the undergraduate programs, just because of the tie between the two.

MK: That brings me to another perennial topic. What are your thoughts about the future of Rice athletics?

RD: Recently, I had an interview with Brian Smith from the Houston Chronicle. He wanted to hear my thoughts on where Rice athletics is going. One of the things I have said is that our goal is to be excellent in everything we do, and that includes

[change] will move us forward in a way that allows us to reflect the true breadth of the history of the university — as well as allows us to continue to have dialogue and discussions. I’d love to see the quad be a place where people hang out and spend time and have discussions and debates. And right now, it’s not designed to be able to do that.

I know, there’s angst out there. I just think it’s important that we continue to have the dialogue and that we make sure that we respect the range of opinions that exist out there. And not

A RUNNING START: President DesRoches, Paula DesRoches and daughter, Shelby ’23, go for a jog around the Inner Loop on his first day as president.

athletics. We have 14 sports — we’re going to commit to being as good as we can in all those sports. I’m going to support my AD and support student-athletes and give them what they need to be successful.

It has absolutely gotten more challeng ing with the NCAA’s new name, image and likeness policy, new transfer rules and the constant movement of schools into new conferences. Rice’s invitation to the Ameri can Athletic Conference presents a wonderful opportunity. That being said, what’s exciting is to meet these young men and women who are just unbelievable in the way they balance their athletic commitment with the demands of one of the most rigor ous schools in the country. There’s a place for athletics at Rice.

MK: A topic that’s generated sometimes heated conversation recently is the future of the statue of William Marsh Rice. It’s clear that we have a very diverse community with a wide range of opinions on this. How do we move forward, together?

RD: There was an announcement earlier this year of the inten tion of redesigning or reimagining the quad and relocating the statue within the quad. I think that process is ongoing. Now, it’s coming close to the end of the first phase where the Board of Trustees picks a design that best achieves the objec tives outlined in the trustee letter. I’m very hopeful that this

just on this topic, but on a range of topics on campus where we know there are vary ing opinions. You can have disagreements, and we will, but we need to be a place where you can have this kind of discourse as a university.

O-WEEK: President DesRoches greets new students in Founder’s Court during the annual President’s Welcome event.

MK: So you’ve moved from one end of the hallway as provost down to this end of the hallway as president. What’s different?

RD: A better view of campus, for one thing! I hear the music louder, every Friday, from Radio Free Sid. I think the job has a very different cadence. There are a lot more events where I have to be.

MK: And I believe that personal interaction is truly valued on this campus.

RD: Yes, it’s funny. I had lunch with Ruth Simmons the other day. She’s going to be the speaker at the inauguration and is giving me advice. She said that she had given the Princeton president advice when he was starting out, and he’s been there for about nine years. She said, ‘I’m giving you the same advice. Go to everything. Go out there and see everybody, especially in the first year.’ She talked about how it’s important to get out and see people and have them see your face. It sends a message that will pay dividends over the long term. So that’s what I’m doing. It is energizing and exhausting at the same time. ◆

NASA has set a course for returning humans to the moon to live, work and explore, laying the groundwork for the heretofore impossible — human missions to Mars.

By Eric Berger

CHOOSE TO RETURN TO THE MOON

Nearly everyone knows Kennedy’s line about going to the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard. Another part of his speech is less often quoted, but in hindsight stands out.

“To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money,” the president said. “This year’s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined.” The U.S. space budget

Above: President John F. Kennedy delivers his famous moon speech at Rice Stadium, Sept. 12, 1962.

of $5.4 billion, he said, was a staggering sum. And soon, the budget would swell. Every man, woman and child would pay the equivalent of, in presentday dollars, $5 a week. It was a lot to ask, he admit ted, especially without any clear, immediate benefits from the exploration effort. But to do it, and do it right, he said, the nation must be bold.

The Apollo program did cost the nation a stag gering sum, and its price tag was so high that after the first few moon landings the political firmament in Washington, D.C., decided the nation could no longer afford to send humans into space. Accord ingly, NASA turned its focus closer to home, first developing the space shuttle for low-Earth orbit and then building the International Space Station to give that vehicle, and its astronauts, someplace to go. Only now, nearly 50 years after the final lunar landing, have U.S. and interna tional interests aligned to support a viable plan to return to the moon, and possibly send humans into deep space.

PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE PHOTOS: COURTESY OF NASA

Six decades have come and gone since President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous speech at Rice Stadium about sending astronauts to the moon.

BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

TO THE MOON …

In March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence formally announced the new moon plan during a speech at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Pence said NASA had moved too slowly for too long and with too much timidity. It was time for the U.S. space program to be bold again and make a “major course correction” to speed up efforts to go back to the moon. He announced that NASA would return humans to the moon by 2024 and establish a sustainable lunar presence.

By the end of the Trump presidency, this program, named Artemis after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, was so well ingrained that it took the Biden administration just two weeks to confirm

HOW CAN WE SEE BETTER IN SPACE?

In addition to support from the White House, a grow ing number of nations have signed the Artemis Accords — bilateral agreements that allow these countries to participate in the Artemis program while agreeing to abide by the norms of peace ful space exploration.

Spectral imaging, which collects information across a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, has long been used to collect information about a region of interest, whether it’s imaging the Earth from the upper atmosphere or obtaining images of planets and galaxies.

Unlike traditional imaging, which only collects electromagnetic information in the red, green and blue wavelengths and combines them to present a color image, spectral imaging collects information across a wide frequency, including infrared and ultraviolet frequencies, breaking these into many narrow bands.

its intention to continue the plan to send humans to the moon in the 2020s and to eventually develop the tools and techniques needed for human explora tion on Mars. This policy decision was significant because, since the Apollo program, not a single NASA program to send astronauts into deep space has survived the transition from a president of one major political party to the other.

In addition to support from the White House, a growing number of nations have signed the Artemis Accords — bilateral agreements that allow these countries to participate in the Artemis program while agreeing to abide by the norms of peaceful space exploration. As of August 2022, more than 20 nations had signed on, with negotiations continu ing for dozens more.

“I am confidently optimistic that the Artemis program is going to happen,” said David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute and professor of physics and astronomy. In terms of the scien tific potential, Alexander thinks Artemis will help

“Instead of three colors, you can get 10, 50 even 200 colors for each pixel,” says bioengineer Tomasz Tkaczyk. These “spectral fingerprints” can offer additional information about the chemical composi tion of objects. For example, when you image plants using a spectral imager, “if it’s dying, it will have a different color than if it is well-watered and has enough nutrients,” Tkaczyk says. “Depending on what part of the spectrum you use, you can get more direct chemical imaging.”

Most spectral imagers obtain this information by scanning a region of interest point-by-point, sequen tially building an image in each pixel. Tkaczyk and his collaborators are working on a spectral imaging system that can take snapshot images, rather than needing to scan an area line-by-line.

With this capability, “you can collect dynamic events,” Tkaczyk says. A snapshot imaging system makes possible longer exposures, allowing research ers to collect more light. Tkaczyk and his collabora tors are also working on making imagers small enough to be easily carried around. “It’s portable today, but it’s still relatively big,” Tkaczyk says. “We are trying to miniaturize it.”

— RACHEL FAIRBANK

Tomasz Tkaczyk is a professor of bioengineering and electrical engineering and computer science in Rice’s Department of Bioengineering.

OUR SPACE SCIENCE FUTURE WHAT CAN MARTIAN GEOLOGY TELL

US ABOUT EARTH?

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater on Mars in February 2021 with the goal of helping scientists understand what kind of ancient life may have once existed there. “The overarching goal of the mission is to find, collect and describe the environment for each of the samples of Mars that we will intentionally bring back to Earth,” says geologist Kirsten Siebach, one of 13 participating scientists selected to help NASA operate the rover and collect samples.

Currently, the only samples of Martian rocks that scientists have available to study come from me teorites that landed on the surface of Earth, which only gives us limited information about conditions on Mars. These meteorites “are selective,” Siebach says. “The rocks that are most interesting for life are not usually the hard volcanic rocks — the ones that survive the journey to Earth.”

The information from the Perseverance mission will provide a more thorough understanding of Martian geology, which in turn can inform our understanding of Earth. “Mars is a planet-scale example of how geology works under different conditions,” Siebach says.

By studying Martian geology, we can gain a better understanding of what the early conditions on Earth may have been like when life was just starting to form. “The surface of Mars is preserved from about 3 to 4 billion years ago,” Siebach says, whereas Earth is constantly changing — only about 2% of Earth’s crust from that time period is still intact. “Mars has an excellent record of a time period we are really interested in.” — R.F.

Kirsten Siebach is an assistant professor in Rice’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.

scientists “understand the origins of the solar system and our place within it.”

The program also appears to be on firm political ground in Congress, which is important, because while a president can set policy for NASA and appoint its administrators, lawmakers must provide the budget for those priorities. During the budgeting process for fiscal year 2023, both the U.S. Senate and House budget templates provide full funding for the space agency’s human exploration initiatives, indi cating a broad level of support not seen for decades for NASA’s deep space exploration plans.

The NASA administrator under President Trump, Rice alumnus Jim Bridenstine ’97, worked closely with his senior science officials to include their priorities in Artemis. As a result, scientific research will be included in both precursor missions to the moon as well as during human landings.

Alexander noted that the scientific community has largely bought into the Artemis program as well. The NASA administrator under President Trump, Rice alumnus Jim Bridenstine ’97, worked closely with his senior science officials to include their priorities in Artemis. As a result, scientific research will be included in both precursor missions to the moon as well as during human landings.

For example, NASA plans to send precursor robotic missions to the moon in the early 2020s. These will primarily consist of small scientific experiments to answer a variety of questions, such as how much ice might be present in the perma nently shadowed craters of the South Pole. These missions will be paid for by NASA’s science direc torate. Then, astronauts will be able to follow up with in-situ investigations. “This collaboration between science and exploration has really added some luster to the Artemis program and helped it garner more support,” Alexander said.

Bridenstine also managed to stitch together the space community in another important way. Since

BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

at least the 1990s, there have largely been two camps in the community of astronauts, space scientists, policymakers and space advocates. One group has wanted NASA to focus on a return to the moon, with a more permanent presence than the flags-and-footprints achievement of Apollo. The other group held a “been there, done that” attitude toward the moon and wanted the space agency to bypass the moon and send humans directly to Mars.

Bridenstine and other leaders at NASA sought to meet the objectives of both communities. Artemis, he said, would focus on going to the moon initially. Astronauts would visit the moon’s South Pole, far from the equatorial regions of the Apollo missions. And they would fly several increasingly long and complex missions to the lunar surface. But at the same time, NASA would develop technologies such as space-based nuclear power, surface habitats, rovers and more that would apply to both the moon and Mars. In this way, the Artemis program would focus on lunar exploration in the near term, while laying the groundwork for eventual human missions to Mars. This approach assured that much of the space commu nity would be on board for Artemis, rather than engaged in an

Above: The Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion space craft, atop the mobile launcher in preparation for a wet dress rehearsal to practice timelines and procedures for launch, June 2022

either-or food fight over the moon or Mars.

Alexander believes Artemis offers the best solu tion to this moon versus Mars debate because Mars advocates could scuttle a moon-only program; and from a funding and technology standpoint, a straightto-Mars program was likely never going to happen.

“Artemis is a serious endeavor, and it does provide us with the means of developing the requisite tech nologies for deep space exploration,” Alexander said. “Maybe it will only be used for the moon, but it would also provide those technologies that would give us the opportunity to go to Mars one day if future congresses or administrations want to fund it.”

The Artemis program is not without concerns, of course. The date for landing humans on the moon, during the Artemis III mission, has already slipped from 2024 to 2025, and that date almost certainly will be even later. Independent councils, such as the NASA Advisory Council and independent observ ers, have also raised concerns about the technologi cal readiness of various elements of the program, including a lunar lander and surface spacesuits. Nevertheless, these programs are funded and moving ahead.

FROM MOON ROCKS TO MARS MATERIAL

So, if NASA does send astronauts to the South Pole of the moon and on to Mars one day, what is there for them to do?

The six Apollo missions returned 382 kilograms of lunar rocks, core samples and other material from six different sites, and the study of these rocks continues to provide valuable data about the early history of the moon, its relationship to Earth and the formation of the inner solar system. Analysis of these lunar rocks has buttressed the scientific theory that the moon formed from debris in the aftermath of Earth being struck by a planetary body about the size of Mars. Additionally, radia tion trapped in lunar soil provides a record of solar output going back more than 4 billion years.

From a scientific standpoint, there remains much more to be learned from studies of these rocks, which can give us a clear picture of the nature of the early solar system. Artemis will go to different regions of the moon than previously explored by the Apollo astronauts, bringing fresh and distinctive samples back to Earth for study.

There are other good reasons to send humans to the moon. Scientists are increasingly convinced that a significant amount of ice exists in the permanently shadowed regions of craters at the lunar poles, particularly the South Pole. This ice provides a potential source of oxygen and hydro gen, which are useful to propel rockets, as well as for other purposes. The silicon-rich lunar soil may

also provide a valuable feedstock for the production of solar panels, which could provide power on the moon and, potentially, back on Earth from beamed microwaves. Because the moon is only three days away, it could eventually become a tourist destina tion after the first pioneering scientists, engineers and other explorers pave the way.

MANAGING MARS

The case for human exploration of Mars is more complex. Most importantly, Mars is not days away, but rather six to eight months away, even during optimal launch windows. This journey is fraught with radiation risk, and with rockets powered by chemical (versus electric) propulsion, there is no hope of turning around in an emergency. Unlike the moon, from which astronauts can return in about three days, a crew launching to Mars is committed to at least an 18-month journey. The breakage of a toilet or water reclamation system could be fatal.

Above:

This artist concept features NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory

Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars’ past or present ability to sus tain microbial life. The rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of the rover’s arm.

There also is the risk of landing on a world with a decent amount of gravity and a thin atmosphere, surviving in the harsh irradiated environment and then launching from a distant planet to rendezvous with a return spacecraft. Design ing such a mission, with a requisite safety factor, would cost more than President Kennedy’s “good deal of money.” Unless the U.S. commercial space industry delivers on revolutionary transportation technology, such as a fully realized version of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, undertaking a Mars program could cost five or even 10 times as much as a human lunar program.

There are also risks of contamination for Mars. Humans cannot help it — we are covered in bacteria and other microbes that could, pretty easily, escape into the Martian environment. These foreign microbes might contaminate the surface of Mars. And that’s a problem because the primary scientific justifica tion for the exploration of Mars is to determine whether life existed there in the past or possibly remains below ground today. It will be a challenge to devise human missions to Mars that don’t spoil the scientific investigations.

Kirsten Siebach, an assistant professor of Earth, environ mental and planetary sciences at Rice, who specializes in Mars’

BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

geology, said she believes this problem could be overcome — but it’s something that NASA should be researching long before humans launch to the red planet.

“I think it’s a question worthy of detailed study prior to sending humans to Mars,” she said. “It may be that there are certain sites we should send people to on Mars where we would not contaminate impor tant parts of the planet. We certainly don’t want to hinder future exploration in our efforts to advance.”

NASA has sent more than half a dozen landers and rovers to Mars during the last quarter century, and they have performed increasingly sophisti cated geological investigations. But robots have their limits, said Siebach, who is helping operate the Perseverance rover on Mars. Humans are much more mobile and capable of making quick decisions. If an astronaut spies an interesting rock, they can walk over and pick it up or break it with a hammer

HOW DOES A PLANET BECOME HABITABLE?

The case for human exploration of Mars is more complex. Most importantly, Mars is not days away, but rather six to eight months away, even during optimal launch windows.

to perform a chemical analysis. It might take a rover a week to perform such an operation, after careful planning and programming by Earth-based engi neers, while a human could do the same tasks in minutes or hours at most.

NASA has announced no timeline for when it might send humans to Mars, although realistically the space agency is unlikely to do so for at least 15 or 20 years. The agency’s work on the moon will easily fill that time, and lawmakers are unlikely to increase NASA’s budget in the near future to encom pass all of the work it will take to assemble a Mars exploration program. If that sounds disappointing, it should not be. NASA has gone half a century, since the end of Apollo, without a meaningful plan to return humans to space. With Artemis, it is finally taking the first steps back. Starting with the moon makes sense. If NASA and its commercial part ners can execute on lunar missions, it will lay the foundation for exploration of Mars and perhaps beyond.

What were the key ingredients and conditions that made the formation of life on Earth possible and what might that look like on another planet? This question forms the basis of the CLEVER Planets (Cycles of Life-Essential Volatile Elements in Rocky Planets) collaboration, an interdisciplinary team made up of scientists from multiple institutions, led by geolo gist Rajdeep Dasgupta, with the goal of identifying what conditions are required for planets to become habitable.

“There is a diversity of planets,” Dasgupta says, including gas-rich planets, ice-rich planets and rocky planets — such as Earth. Dasgupta’s focus is on un derstanding what factors are needed for the formation of life on other rocky planets. “What was the history of our planet early on that allowed life to form?” Dasgupta asks. Scientists believe that a planet has the capacity for sustaining life when it has the right amount of energy, called thermal balance, and the necessary chemicals available on the surface of the planet. This balance can be affected by several factors, including whether a planet is volcanically active or not.

“Many essential elements that are needed to make life on the surface actually are supplied by the interior of the planet, through tectonic and volcanic processes,” Dasgupta says. The lack of tectonic plates and active volcanism may have contributed to the lack of life on Mars. It’s not like Mars was never habitable,” Dasgupta says. “[It] clearly did have liquid water on the surface.”

This may have meant that although early conditions were favorable for the formation of life, there just wasn’t a large enough supply of the essential ele ments like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus on the surface of the planet.

Rajdeep Dasgupta is the Maurice Ewing Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. CLEVER Planets is funded by NASA.

— R.F.

WEATHER EVENTS?

As climate change causes more severe weather events, better weather forecasting models are needed. One weather pattern, which can cause deadly heat waves or affect where a hurricane might come ashore, is called a blocking event. “A blocking event is a high-pressure system that shows up and just doesn’t move,” said fluid dynamicist Pedram Hassanzadeh. “These patterns, when they show up, can become very destructive.”

In 2017, when Hurricane Harvey made landfall and spent five days dumping historic levels of rain over Houston, a blocking event in the Western United States kept the storm stalled in one place, rather than allowing it to move inland. “Harvey is an example of a hurricane whose impact was intensi fied because of a blocking event,” Hassanzadeh said. More recently, the heat waves that have been hitting California and the Pacific Northwest, causing weeks of historic high temperatures, are also caused by a blocking event. “There’s a lot of interest in understanding how they might change with climate change,” Hassanzadeh said. “Forecasting blocking events is also important.”

In 2012, when Hurricane Sandy was menacing the Atlantic coast in its move northward, the U.S. model predicted that it would remain over the ocean, while the U.K. model predicted it would make landfall. The reason for this difference, Hassanzadeh said, is that “there was a blocking event over Newfoundland that pushed Hurricane Sandy toward land. The U.K. models were very good in capturing these blocking events, but the U.S. model didn’t capture it.”

“The major challenge of capturing these blocking events is the question of how to represent the smallscale winds,” Hassanzadeh said. However, increasing the resolution by 20 times isn’t a matter of increasing your computing power by 20 times. Instead, it’s “hun dreds, or even thousands, of times more expensive,” Hassanzadeh said. “This is not a linear problem.” — R.F.

Pedram Hassanzadeh is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of Earth, environmental

ALL EYES ON ARTEMIS

NASA will need all the help it can get, especially from nearby institutions like Rice, whose scientists and engineers helped the agency during Apollo with planning, execution and scientific results, and are positioning themselves to do so again.

The work of Apollo scientists and engineers remains influential today. Among the Rice alumni inspired by Apollo was Shannon Walker ’87, who attended the university as an undergraduate and again in the 1990s for a master’s and Ph.D. in space physics. Walker recalls standing in her backyard with her sister, in 1969, at the age of 4, as her parents pointed to the moon and said people were up there at that very moment. This experience kindled a dream in Walker to become an astronaut. She attended Rice for its intimate setting and challeng ing coursework and later fulfilled her dream of flying into space, becoming the first native Housto nian to join NASA as an astronaut. She has flown to the International Space Station two times, once on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and a second time aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle.

As the Artemis age dawns, Walker said there is a new energy in the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center about the possibilities ahead. To reach NASA’s goals will require contributions from people of all backgrounds and skills, she said. Rice, with its proximity, can play a key role.

Walker encourages present-day Rice students to come work in the space industry. “We need good people at NASA,” she said. “If you have an interest in just about anything, NASA is probably doing it. If NASA’s not what you want to do, there are some great space companies. There is so much going on, and there’s just going to be so much more opportu nity by the time students at Rice graduate.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

Shannon Walker ’87

Who’s Behind Wikipedia?

Maryana

BY ANYA BOLSHAKOV

WHEN LOOKING for quick, reliable information, we often turn to Wikipedia. It’s a resource that many people take for granted. Maryana Iskander ’97, the nonprofit’s CEO, is not one of those people.

One of the top 10 websites in the world, Wikipedia is distinctive in that it is hosted and supported by a non profit — the Wikimedia Foundation. This past January, Iskander joined the foundation as its new leader and is now championing the organization’s goal to make knowledge freely accessible.

For Iskander, it’s simple: By increas ing access to free, reliable information, people are empowered to decide for themselves. “My goal is to remove barri ers so that people can decide what they want and make their own choices.”

The Wikimedia Foundation supports a movement of hundreds of thousands of volunteer contributors who are

working to preserve information and fill in knowledge gaps. There are groups devoted to adding women’s biographies, groups focused on racial equity and racial justice, and others who focus on historic documents and how those get added to the repository of free knowl edge. At the end of the day, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia.

“It’s not a social media platform. It’s not focused on what you think and what I think. It’s about a way of sharing credible, accurate, verified information that can be cited with reliable sources,” says Iskander.

Improving access to opportunity as a means of self-empowerment has been a theme of Iskander’s career and leadership roles, whether as COO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she advocated for access to health care, or as CEO of the Harambee Youth Employment Accel erator in South Africa, where the focus was economic opportunity.

Rice has been a significant thread in

this journey, she says, fondly recalling beloved professor Chandler Davidson (1936–2021), a sociologist who was instrumental in her understanding of the issues in society that matter. “I had learned, from my time as an undergrad at Rice, that being able to think and communicate effectively were two of the most important skills,” she adds.

After Rice, Iskander studied compara tive social policy as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Along the way, she also earned a J.D. from Yale.

It is important to Iskander that information is not only available but accessible. Between 2017 and 2020, Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey; and this past June, Wikimedia was fined by the Russian government for not remov ing content related to the invasion of Ukraine. Wikimedia has appealed the decision.

“A free society, an open society, gives more people access to opportunity and autonomy and dignity — all the things that I hope we wish for, not just for ourselves, but for our families, for the next generation and for everybody,” Iskander says.

“Anyone can be a part of the effort to increase global access to free knowl edge. This idea that we can all contrib ute to knowledge — not just consume knowledge — I think is really exciting and a way to invite others to join us.”

“A free society, an open society, gives more people access to oppor tunity and autonomy and dignity — all the things that I hope we wish for, not just for ourselves, but for our families, for the next generation and for everybody.”

PHOTO BY GABRIEL DIAMOND

Dirty Laundry JOURNALISM

Analyst and investigative journalist Casey Michel is hanging money launderers out to dry.

CASEY MICHEL ’10 has never been afraid to delve into tough subjects. After graduating from Rice, he served in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan, then returned to the U.S. and earned his master’s degree in Russian, Eurasian and East European studies at Columbia University. An adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initia tive, Michel’s expertise on oligarchs, corruption and illicit finance have led

to his first book, “American Kleptoc racy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History.”

What prompted your focus on the individuals in your book?

There were many candidates to choose from, which is an unfortunate reality. But I ended up choosing two for a simple reason: They’re using identical finan cial pathways to hide and launder their money, but I viewed them as bookends to the phenomenon.

On the one hand, you have Obian [Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue of Equatorial Guinea], whose father is the longest-serving dictator in the world. He fits a caricature of

crass consumerism: private jets, yachts, cars. He’s got the biggest collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia in the world, and he is moving and hiding much of his money in the U.S., using American loopholes and services to do so.

Then you have [Ukrainian oligarch Ihor] Kolomoisky, who uses similar financial networks, but he’s not buying mansions, supercars or yachts. He’s buying property in these small towns across the Rust Belt that we would never associate with modern interna tional money laundering, and no one’s paying any attention to it whatsoever.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought a new urgency to this discussion. You recently testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Department of Justice’s Task Force KleptoCapture. Tell us about that.

The threats of modern and unchecked kleptocracy, and the U.S.’s role within that, have a sudden salience to them.

The DOJ’s new task force is seizing as sets from all these oligarchs. I was [in Washington, D.C.] testifying on how these oligarchs should be understood as wider prongs of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime, what the Kremlin is attempting to do, both in Eu rope and in the U.S., and why we need to expand the toolbox of available tactics.

Are we on the right path?

When I was working on the book in 2020, if you’d asked me about where things were going, I would not have been nearly as optimistic as I am now. It has been remarkable to see how much has changed over the last year and a half. It is very clear that both Democrats and Republicans are fully in support of these policy responses moving forward.

—

To read more of this interview, visit magazine.rice.edu.

LIFE AFTER RICE

Closing the DivideDigital

Jasmin Silva brings a passion for public service to a career in technology.

CONNECTING HER FORMAL education with a passion for public service has been the ongoing puzzle of Jasmin Silva’s ’16 life.

“I’m always thinking about how I’m going to apply that [academic educa tion] to the underlying problem, which is how am I going to build equity in my country?” said Silva, who earned her bachelor’s degree in cognitive sciences. After Rice, Silva joined the Harris County Public Library’s (HCPL) growing engineering team. Going into that position felt like “learning how

to walk,” she said. “I didn’t go into the space knowing what the needs were.”

Following a project of making library cards more accessible, Silva helped address the community’s digital needs that librarians had observed during the pandemic. “When COVID hit, they were seeing aggregate numbers of children just sitting outside of libraries,” Silva said. “They couldn’t open the doors to the libraries, and they were just trying to get access to the internet so that they could do their homework.”

In response to these visible dispari ties, the program HCPL Connected was born and launched earlier this year, with Silva managing the program’s technical component. Because the library’s exist ing technology was primarily designed to check out books, Silva and her team developed a new application that could be used on the go. Supported by a $26 million federal grant from the Emer gency Connectivity Fund — the largest ever given to a library system — HCPL Connected allows patrons to indefi nitely check out Google Chromebooks

and T-Mobile hot spots.

“Having access to the internet is, these days, your passport to society,” Silva said. “If you want to do any work in marginalized communities, you’re going to find yourself working more and more with digital literacy and digital access.”

This June, Silva moved to a new role as a technical program manager at Twitch, a livestream service focused on video gaming. “Before, I was trying to get people access to the internet. Now, I’m trying to make the internet safe,” Silva said. Though in Houston for now, Silva will be relocating to Seattle in the coming months.

A feeling of responsibility to help bridge the digital divide stems from Silva’s identity as a woman of color, she said, as well as from her parents, who both come from underserved communi ties. “Although I have been able to go to private school and get a private educa tion, I’ve never been more than one step removed from the most disadvantaged portions of our society,” Silva said.

Putting that calling into action began at Rice, where Silva, a Sid Rich ardson College “Sidizen,” was Student Association president her senior year. “That was the first time that I felt like I had something to offer people around me. And it was the first time that I felt the joy of having purpose.”

As president, Silva established the Critical Thinking in Sexuality (CTIS) workshop for first-year students.

“Getting that off the ground was the most impactful program I’ve taken on to date,” Silva said. That experience cemented Silva’s interest in pursuing public service. “I still get a deep sense of fulfillment and accomplishment when I think about CTIS, and I’ve tried to recreate this feeling through other projects that I’ve taken on since Rice.”

“Having access to the internet is, these days, your passport to society.”

Terrestrial Biota, Rice’s Midshipmen and a NASA Podcast

Excerpts from Owlmanac

1950s

“We work with ROCK, Ride On Center for Kids (rockride.org), a 60-acre equine-assisted therapeutic center where horses change the lives of challenged children, youth, adults and service members returning from combat. ‘Healing through horses’ and ‘miracles in the dirt’ express what happens in ROCK’s arena and pastures.”

— Contributed by George Brightwell ’57 (BA)

1960s

“I’ve taken up the study of lepidoptera, specifically moths. My process is to take photographs at a black light at night and then spend time the next morning trying to identify what I saw. That can be daunting since there are about 14,000 species of moth in North America. Moths are relatively easy to study. Being nocturnal and attracted to light, they come to you!”

— Contributed by Ann Hendrickson ’60 (Jones: BA)

1990s

“On a boat of just 16 travelers, it was a wonderful surprise to share my Galapagos experience with a fellow Owl, Kitty Schild ’69 (Brown: BA). When I’m not swimming with sea turtles, I’m mostly focused on farmed animals these days, serving as the chief operating officer of the national nonprofit Animal Outlook.”

— Contributed by Sharon Discorfano ’92 (Wiess: BA)

1960s

“I conduct a monthly Zoom meeting for Rice graduates in six states who are also Navy veterans, including my Rice roommate. We have a lot of fun recalling Rice memories, Navy exploits and tall tales. Any Rice graduates who were in the Navy are welcome to attend as well as those midshipmen currently at Rice and those who are serving on active duty.”

— Contributed by Ed Ettel ’62 (Will Rice: BA)

2010s

“I work on a podcast called ‘NASA’s Curious Universe,’ and this season we have a featured episode with fellow Rice alumna and NASA astronaut Shannon Walker ’87 (Baker: BA; MS, 1992; PhD, 1993). It was a joy to be able to share our mutual love of the university while I chatted with her to create the episode. As is often the case, it was a great day to be part of the Rice community.”

— Contributed by Christina Dana ’14 (Martel: BA)

To submit a Classnote to Owlmanac, contact your class recorder or log on to the Rice Portal at riceconnect.rice.edu and click “Submit a Classnote.”

Now Reading

Peach Blossom Spring Melissa Fu ’95 Little, Brown and Company, 2022

JADE TRINKETS, antique carvings, a hand-drawn scroll — “Peach Blossom Spring” is a work that posits simple objects and ancient fables as a way to momentarily escape the horrors of war and manage the realities of lived experi ence. Three generations of the Dao family tell their stories — moving from China to Taiwan and on to the U.S. — while navi gating political unrest, physical dangers and the minefields of familial relation ships. Ultimately, Melissa Fu’s debut novel relates a moving story of the very human need to find home.

Your career has spanned physics, education and now writing. How did you arrive at writing this novel?

At Rice, I was a physics and English major, and then for years afterward, I bounced be tween the two.

I’ve worked in physics

as a researcher, teacher and outreach coordinator. And I’ve worked in Eng lish as a teacher, tutor and now, writer. Throughout it all, I’ve written in jour nals and filled notebooks. It was only after having kids, teaching and living in many places that I made the leap toward writing more publicly. And slowly, as I improved my craft, I started to build a publication record. Until writing “Peach Blossom Spring,” I really hadn’t writ ten anything book length. But this was

a story that just demanded more space, needed more pages to unfold. I decided to let it be as big as it wanted to be, and it turned out to be a novel!

There is a complicated tension between holding things and people and memories close and then let ting things go in the novel. How do you balance these two ideas?

I love this question. This balance is dif ficult to find, and I think it’s a dynamic balance, constantly adjusting as new experiences arise and old ones take on different meanings. Maybe we hold things close until we need to let them go, and I think it’s both a personal task as well as a multigenerational pursuit. I’ve often wondered why there are so many novels that seem to need three generations to tell stories involving major trauma and displacement. In some ways, I think the first generation lives it, the second generation tries to live beyond it, and the third generation

has enough distance to look back and try to make sense of it all.

Peach Blossom Spring is a hidden paradise that is found and then lost forever. Would you choose to happen upon a hidden paradise or to build your own peach orchard?

When I was younger, I’d take off on an adventure to find a hidden paradise in a heartbeat. So many paradises must be waiting just beyond the horizon! And over the years, I’ve been lucky to have experiences of finding, if not paradises, then people and places that I’ve treasured. Now, I think I would find great joy in tending an orchard. It might have to be metaphorical, though, because I’m a terrible garden er. The experience of having searched for paradises would enable me to mar vel at my own.

— SARAH BRENNER JONES

Read an expanded version of this interview at magazine.rice.edu.

BY SOPHIE DAVIDSON

The Author as Cannibal

Rewriting in Francophone Literature as a Postcolonial Genre, 1969–1995 Felisa Vergara Reynolds ’00, ’02 University of Nebraska Press, 2022

THE TROPE OF THE SAVAGE cannibal is one of the most problematic relics of European colonialism. By classifying non-European popula tions as subhuman and fixating on the “fantasy of cannibalism,” as Felisa Vergara Reynolds puts it, Western colonists justified the sub jugation, exploitation and outright massacre of indigenous people they en countered in the so-called New World.

“The Author as Cannibal” is a study of literary cannibalism, which Reyn olds defines as a formerly colonized author “consuming” canonical works of literature in an effort to criticize postcolonial society — and to dismantle the legacy of colonialism. Studying four representative works by authors from former French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean during the decades following the end of colonialism, Reyn olds examines the ways the authors appropriate, revise and rewrite texts including Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” as an act of protest, resistance and revolt.

Freedomland

Co-op City and the Story of New York Annemarie H. Sammartino ’96

Cornell University Press, 2022

SITUATED ON THE EDGE of the Bronx with 35 high-rise towers and more than 40,000 residents, Co-op City could be a city of its own. While this massive housing development, the largest in the U.S., was designed to be a panacea for New York’s affordable housing crisis in the 1960s, its legacy is more complicated. In “Freedomland,” Oberlin College his torian Annemarie H. Sammartino calls it a “monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice.”

When the development first opened in 1965, New Yorkers were eager to join its waiting list. Although racial turmoil roiled the city, residents of all ethnic backgrounds tended to see Co-op City as a paradigm of successful integration, according to Sammartino. But problems simmered beneath the surface, starting with construction defects and cost overruns that led to rent increases, provoking a 1975 rent strike in which residents ultimately gained control of the housing cooperative. But full control meant full responsibility for the develop ment’s debts, which drove rents even higher. Rising crime in the 1980s spurred white flight, and gentrifiers of the 1990s scorned the high-rise towers in favor of housing with more “character.”

Despite its troubles, however, Co-op City has fulfilled at least some of its founders’ vision for a haven of affordability for the middle and working classes. Sammartino writes, “The people who live there enjoy the privilege of affordable housing in an increasingly unaffordable city.”

The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion

Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca and Georgeen Theodore ’92, ’94, written and edited with Riley Gold Actar Publishers, 2021 (second edition)

WHEN AN UPSCALE shopping center pipes classical music through outdoor speakers, it’s not just setting a mood. The objective isn’t so much to attract customers as it is to repel the kinds of people most likely to find the music off-putting — such as teenagers who might skateboard in the parking lot, loiter outside the shops or other wise deter the shopping center’s target demographic of well-heeled adults.

In “The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion,” classical music is listed as one of 202 “weapons” used by architects, planners, policymakers, developers and others to restrict access to urban space. The book, produced by Interboro, a New York-based architecture, planning and research collective led by Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca and Rice alumna Georgeen Theodore, examines how tools ranging from classical music to fences to eminent domain have been used as weapons to keep out unwanted types. Part encyclopedia, part mani festo, the book also proposes ways to counter those anti-accessibility efforts and make more people feel included and welcome in public spaces.

— J.L.

A microscopic solution to a worldwide problem

Ming Yi, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, studies exotic quantum materials — hightemperature superconductors and topological matter whose properties are not yet well understood. Her research is critical to quantum materials science, a key field in the pursuit of renewable energy. The superconductors she studies could one day be used to make power grids more efficient, transmitting energy without waste.

“Our goal is to use different types of experimental techniques to probe electrons to see why they behave the way they do in these microscopic quantum worlds,” Yi explains. “We’re trying to predict, understand and make quantum materials that can contribute to the future.”

giving.rice.edu/quantum

Be Bold: The Campaign for Rice is an ambitious $2 billion fundraising initiative to expand the pathbreaking work of our students and faculty and to seize every opportunity to make an impact on our world.

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

Urban Life Through Art

THE MOODY CENTER FOR THE ARTS’ FALL EXHIBITION,

“Urban Impressions: Experiencing the Global Contemporary Metropolis,” features an international selection of artists whose works address the complexities of urban life. Anchored in the Moody galleries, the exhibi tion will also include site-specific visual and multisensory elements — from sculpture and painting to video and installation — across campus. The works, which also include contributions from Houston-based artists such as Rick Lowe, Charis Ammon, Tiffany Chung and Mary Flanagan, will address collective memories of urban life that impact our minds and bodies and structure our lives in unexpected ways.

Organized by Frauke V. Josenhans, curator at the Moody, the center also is collaborating with Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh and Houstonbased Astral Brewing to commission an original beer encapsulating the various tastes and cultures of the city. “The works in the exhibition pose the question, ‘What makes the contemporary metropolis?’ They illustrate the underlying histories that inform a city’s infrastructure and influence the social interactions of the people who live there,” says Josenhans.

Go to moody.rice.edu for a full schedule of public programming, campus events and additional details.

ON THE WEB magazine.rice.edu

VIDEO Itsy, Bitsy, Dead

Rice mechani cal engineers are breathing new life into dead spiders by manipulating their legs for use as mechanical grippers. A study, conducted in the innovation lab of Daniel Preston, an assistant profes sor of mechanical engineering, and authored by graduate student Faye Yap, outlines the process by which the spider’s physiology was harnessed in the novel research area of “necrobot ics.” Wolf spiders were used in the testing, revealing that they were able to reliably lift more than 130% of their own body weight and manipulate a circuit board, move objects and even lift other spiders. Watch a video that demon strates how hydraulic pressure brings spiders back to life.

VIDEO A Career Wrap

This year, Stephen Klineberg, found ing director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research and professor emeritus of sociol ogy, concluded his involvement with the Houston Area Survey, which he launched four decades ago. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to track systematically the transformations of this remarkable city, to share the survey findings with the wider com munity and to know that the work will continue into the next 40 years of the Houston story,” Klineberg said. Watch a video about Klineberg’s career and the city he loves.