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History

rice engineering history

Jump to: 1912 -1940s | 1950 - 1980s | 1990 - 2000 | 2001 - present

1912 - 1940s

  • 1912  September 23 Edgar O. Lovett gives first matriculation address, officially opening the Rice Institute
    • Mechanical Engineering lab completed
  • 1913 Lovett’s outreach involves engineering faculty giving talks to public groups
  • 1914 Students form Engineering Society
  • 1916 First engineering degrees awarded: six in chemical, electrical and civil. Institute awards total of 35 BS degrees
    • All engineering majors required to work in the engineering test lab as part of curriculum
  • 1917 First master’s degree in engineering awarded (Chemical Engineering)
  • 1920 First Rice Engineering show held, drawing 10,000 visitors. Some later shows reportedly draw up to 48,000
  • 1929 First woman engineering graduate (Chemical Engineering)
  • 1933 Rice Engineering Alumni group formed, Rice’s oldest alumni special interest group
    • Tau Beta Pi chapter formed
  • 1941 Chemical Engineering is first chemical engineering department in Texas to earn accreditation
  • 1948 Abercrombie Engineering Lab completed

1950s - 1980s

  • 1957 Chemical Engineering installs nuclear reactor at cost of $150,000 ($1.3 million today)
  • 1958 First computer on campus, Litton LGP-30 becomes operational
  • 1959 First engineering doctorate awarded (Chemical Engineering)
    • Parts of the R1, Rice Institute Computer begin functioning. The computer is fully operational in 1961
    • LeVan Griffis named Dean of Engineering
  • 1960 The Rice Institute was formally redesignated William Marsh Rice University
  • Sixty engineers attend a chemical engineering continuing education class in the first Rice summer engineering session
  • 1961 In Rice stadium address, John F. Kennedy commits to U.S. landing men on the moon by 1970
    • Franz R. Brotzen named Dean of Engineering
    • Materials Science receives accreditation and new department is named Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
    • Professor L.B. Ryon gives $750,000 estate to Rice for civil engineering lab (($6 million today)
  • 1964 The Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, directed by W.W. Akers, is established
  • 1965 Ryon Engineering Lab completed
    • Rice, Texas Medical Center researchers develop first artificial heart
  • 1967 William E. Gordon becomes first dean of both science and engineering
  • 1968 Department of Environmental Science and Engineering established
    • William E. Gordon elected to National Academy of Sciences
    • Brown Foundation awards $4 million to School of Engineering ($27.7 million today)
  • 1969 Academic side of digital signal processing (DSP) born at Rice University
    • Rice-Baylor project results in first implantation of artificial heart
  • 1970 Precursor to CAAM, Mathematical Sciences, established
  • 1971 Mary Wheeler ’71 becomes first female instructor in engineering at Rice
  • 1975 Science-Engineering division divided into George R. Brown School of Engineering and School of Natural Sciences (five engineering departments)
    • William E. Gordon elected to the National Academy of Engineering
    • Alan J. Chapman named Dean of Engineering
  • 1978 Rice Engineering Design and Development Institute opens
  • 1979 Anestis S. Veletsos elected to National Acadmey of Engineering
  • 1980 J. David Hellums named Dean of Engineering
  • 1984 Mechanical Engineering building opens, completing the Engineering Quad
    • Departments of mathematical science and computer science incorporated into School of Engineering
  • 1985 45°, 90°, 180° installed in Engineering Quad
  • 1986 Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) formed to foster cross-disciplinary research and education programs encompassing the biological, chemical and engineering disciplines
    • Computer and Information Technology Institute founded to foster interdisciplinary research in information technology, computational science and engineering, and high-performance computing
  • 1987 Statistics Department formed from Mathematical Sciences Department
    • Michael M. Carroll elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1988 Michael M. Carroll named Dean of Engineering
    • Engineering students pull off the jack of the century, turning the one-ton statue of William Marsh Rice in the Academic Quad 180°
  • 1989 The Center for Research on Parallel Computation established to make massively parallel computing systems as usable as conventional supercomputing
    • Ronald P. Nordgren elected to National Academy of Engineering

1990s - 2000

  • 1990 Statistics Department becomes part of the School of Engineering
    • Ken Kennedy elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1991 Mathematical Sciences becomes Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics
    • G. Anthony Gorry elected to National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine
  • 1992 Richard A. Tapia elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1994 Angelo Miele elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1995 Riki Kobayashi elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1996 Duncan Hall dedicated, housing Computer Science, Computational and Applied Mathematics, Statistics and part of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • 1997 Robert E. Bixby elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1998 Dell Butcher Hall dedicated as new home of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, housing members of the chemistry, physics and electrical and computer engineering departments
    • Rice undergraduates win 27 Nationals Science Foundation Fellowships, placing Rice first in the nation
    • Rice creates Department of Bioengineering with 7 faculty and 20 undergraduate students
    • C. Sidney Burrus named Dean of Engineering
    • J. David Hellums elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 1999 Rice establishes Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory
    • Center for Cellular and Tissue Engineering founded

2001 - present

  • 2001 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering created, bringing together the departments of civil engineering and environmental science and engineering
    • Gulf Coast Consortia is founded, bringing together six member institutions to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programs
  • 2002 NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, adjunct professor in mechanical engineering and materials science, and other astronauts perform spacewalks to service Hubble Space Telescope
    • Moshe Y. Vardi elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 2004 Rice becomes a member of the Texas Medical Center
  • 2005 Sallie Keller-McNulty named Dean of Engineering
    • Pol Spanos elected to National Academy of Engineering
  • 2006 William Sick family endows engineering dean chair
  • 2007 Rice announces plans to build 10-story, 477,000-square-foot Collaborative Research Center as a home for joint research programs with TMC institutions
  • 2008 Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen dedicated in former Central Kitchen
    • Rebecca Richards-Kortum elected to National Academy of Engineering
    • John ’73, ’74 and Ann Doerr ’75 donate $15 million through their Beneficus Foundation to establish an engineering leadership center
  • 2009 BioScience Research Collaborative completed and Bioengineering Department moves in
    • Rice Center for Engineering Leadership established
    • Edwin L. Thomas elected to National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    • Naomi J. Halas elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2010 Moshe Y. Vardi elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2011 Edwin L. Thomas named William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering
    • Richard A. Tapia receives National Medal of Science
    • Herbert Levine elected to National Academy of Science
  • 2012 Antonios G. Mikos elected to National Academy of Engineering
    • Lydia A. Kavraki and Antonios G. Mikos elected to National Academy of Medicine
    • Herbert Levine elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2013 Richard A. Tapia elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    • Naomi J. Halas elected to National Academy of Sciences
    • Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science made into two departments: Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and NanoEngineering
  • 2014 Naomi J. Halas elected to National Academy of Engineering
    • Pol D. Spanos elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    • Rice Center for Engineering Leadership begins awarding Certificate in Engineering Leadership, the first of its kind in Texas and one of a handful in the U.S.
  • 2015 Moshe Y. Vardi elected to National Academy of Sciences
    • Titan Themis Scanning/transmission electron microscope, one of the most powerful in the U.S., comes online
  • 2016 Rebecca Richards-Kortum receives MacArthur Award
  • 2017 Reginald DesRoches named William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering
    • Richard Baraniuk elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2018 Pedro Alvarez elected to the National Academy of Engineering
    • Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge (D2K Lab) launches
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