A LU MN I
2016 Outstanding Young Engineering Alumnus
Lihong Wang
David Allison
2016 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus While Lihong Wang ’92 was studying for his master’s degree in his native China, one of his professors recommended he continue his studies at Rice. “He’d been a visiting scholar working for Professor Frank Tittel at Rice and he told me, ‘It’s the best university,’” said Wang, who holds the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professorship of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). So Wang applied to Rice. It was the late 1980s and gaining Chinese authorities’ approval to study abroad took so long that Rice rescinded its offer of admission. Wang contacted Frank Tittel, the J.S. Abercrombie Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and explained the situation. The application was re-submitted and Wang began studies the following fall, working in chemistry professor Richard Smalley’s lab under the supervision of three faculty—Tittel, Smalley and Robert Curl, professor of chemistry and now University Professor Emeritus. Smalley and Curl shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sir Harold Kroto of the University of Sussex for their discovery of buckyballs, which were first generated at Rice in 1985. Wang recalls the atmosphere in the lab being intense and exciting. “The training at Rice was world-class,” said Wang. “All three mentors were great role models and really, there were two of us grad students working with three mentors, so it was an environment where we could learn a lot. I learned something invaluable for my career from each of them.” That experience helped Wang decide to work in academia. Today, his research focuses on optical imaging, especially how the combination of light and sound can be used to show more detailed tissue structures, which can help better detect disease. His lab was the first to develop functional photoacoustic tomography and three-dimensional photoacoustic microscopy, which have driven the exponential growth in the field of photonics. His lab recently invented the world’s fastest camera that can image an ultrashort laser pulse in real time. After earning a Ph.D. from Rice, Wang worked for the MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas A & M University. He joined the WashU faculty in 2006. Wang will move to Caltech in the spring of 2017 but anticipates continuing his collaboration with WashU researchers. Wang said that one of the most important things he learned at Rice was the importance of good writing. “Before Rice, I never realized you have to be able to deliver your message as an engineer,” he said. “I learned that writing benefits your labs, your ability to win grants, your research. It’s a skill I was encouraged to learn, along with my engineering studies, and I encourage my students to do the same.”
When David Allison ’08 was an undergraduate biomedical engineering major at the University of Iowa, he accepted a National Science Foundation internship at the Cleveland Clinic. There, he met his mentor, Jane Grande-Allen, a member of the Heart Valve Laboratory, who is now the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering at Rice. Allison was so impressed with her that he decided to join her lab at Rice, working toward his Ph.D. “Jane introduced me to scientific and clinical research,” said Allison, now a rising star in biotechnology venture capital. “Working with her was truly rewarding. She was patient and eager to share her passion for science—a passion many of her students find contagious. Those of us fortunate enough to have worked with Jane know that although you start as her student, you finish with a strong advocate and close friend.” Allison created organ culture systems and studied the mechanisms of disease in heart valve tissue. The autonomy Grand-Allen gave him helped him discover his strengths, and the department’s requirement that Ph.D. students take an internship helped him find his passion. He interned at Houston’s PTV Healthcare Capital, a life science venture capital firm. Allison knew very little about venture capital at the time but thought he’d learn a different side of the biomedical industry in his six-months with PTV. After his internship, he was hooked; this was the career path he wanted to pursue after graduation. “My internship gave me the opportunity to work closely with entrepreneurs and clinicians—deepening my understanding of the role venture capitalists can play in translating innovation and clinical science into the formation of new companies,” he said. “My bioengineering background was essential in this process—from understanding the fundamental science, to evaluating new companies and possible investment opportunities, to helping entrepreneurs refine product concepts. That internship also taught me how to evaluate companies and concepts with an eye toward a practical commercial application beyond what we’d normally consider from working in an academic research lab.” Following his internship, Allison worked part time with PTV while finishing his Ph.D. After graduation, he joined the firm full-time in Austin for a year, before moving to California. He’s now based in San Francisco, serving as a principal at 5AM Ventures, identifying new investment opportunities and managing investments across healthcare sectors. “Much of our focus is very early stage innovation,” he said of the companies who seek capital. “So, having a technical background is important. It’s quite common for those in healthcare venture capital to have scientific or clinical, instead of financial, backgrounds. I could never have predicted this would be my career path and I wouldn’t have even known it existed if it wasn’t for Rice.” R IC E E NGI NE E RI NG
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