The George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Rice Engineering Alumni board have awarded the Distinguished Service Medal to John Jaggers ’73.
Established in 2012, the Distinguished Service Medal recognizes an alumni for visionary leadership and extraordinary service to Rice Engineering and its alumni community.
Jaggers received his B.A. and master’s in electrical engineering from Rice and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard before launching a career in the venture capital industry. As a board member, investor and partner at Sevin Rosen Funds, he has focused on helping early-stage technology companies bring cutting-edge technologies to market.
As part of the Rice University Board of Trustees, he served as the Chair of the Information Technology Committee and Chair of the Digital Learning and Scholarship Trustee Advisory Committee (now the Digital Learning Committee), where he is still an Emeritus Trustee member. He currently serves on the Innovation Subcommittee of the Research and Innovation Committee of the Board of Trustees at Rice.
Jaggers has had a lasting impact on Rice-developed startups as one of the charter members of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. He has been an advisor to the student group founding OwlSpark, which provides students, faculty and recent alumni with entrepreneurship experiences. Jaggers has also shared his insights with students directly as a guest lecturer for senior engineering classes focused on entrepreneurship.
Jaggers has provided invaluable guidance to the George R. Brown School of Engineering by chairing the school’s Engineering Advisory Board, the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department Advancement Committee and the ECE Visioning Committee. He and his wife, Rusty Jaggers ‘73, generously support the school financially, including a leadership gift to name The Jaggers Family Collaboration Area in the Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science.
Beyond Rice, Jaggers volunteers on the board of Theatro Labs, a software company serving retail and other similar industries, and Impact Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on empowering entrepreneurs in the North Texas BIPOC community. He has also served on Southern Methodist University’s Lyle School of Engineering Executive Board and a member of and Chair of the board of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.
Jaggers will be honored along with the rest of the 2024 class of award recipients and the 2023 honorees at the George R. Brown School of Engineering Alumni Awards Celebration on September 12, 2024.