Three departments in the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice will have new departmental chairs, two of them to become effective July 1 and another on Jan. 1, 2025.
On July 1, Ashok Veeraraghavan, professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), will take over leadership of that department, succeeding Ashutosh Sabharwal, who has served as ECE chair since 2019.
Also on July 1, Cynthia Reinhart-King will join the Rice faculty and succeed Gang Bao as chair of bioengineering (BIOE), a position he has held since 2020. She previously served as University Distinguished Professor, senior associate dean for research, the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and professor of cell and developmental biology at Vanderbilt University.
Karen Lozano will join Rice as department chair and Trustee Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering (MSNE) on Jan. 1, 2025, succeeding Pulickel Ajayan, Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor, who has served as the founding chair of MSNE since 2014. Lozano currently serves as the Julia Beecherl Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and founding director of the Ph.D. program in materials science and engineering at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV).
“Department chairs play a key role in leading strategic planning for the departments and being part of the school leadership. Under the new budget model, the role of the chair has expanded. The school gains more autonomy in terms of decision-making, so chairs will play an even more important role,” said Luay Nakhleh, William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering.
Veeraraghavan earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in ECE from the University of Maryland in 2004 and 2008, respectively, and joined the Rice faculty in 2010. He is co-developer of FlatCam, a thin sensor chip that replaces lenses in traditional cameras, and part of the team that developed FlatScope, a lightweight microscope that can image large fields of view at high resolution.
As a cellular bioengineer, Reinhart-King’s work on extracellular matrices has contributed to breakthroughs in understanding tumor formation. Her lab has played a key role in showing how the matrix, or non-cellular glue in most tissues, can stiffen as tumors form to promote tumor growth and interfere with the effectiveness of cancer treatments.
Lozano graduated from Rice with her M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and materials science in 1996 and 1999, respectively. She went on to pioneer a research transformation at a former teaching institution, developed the Forcespinning technology and led research in nanofibers at UTRGV, where she is the founding director of its Nanotechnology Center.
In 2023, Lozano was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for her “contributions to nanofiber research and commercialization, and mentoring of undergraduate students from underserved populations.” That same year, the Rice School of Engineering honored her with its Outstanding Alumni Award.
“It is important to me that department chairs are team players at the school level, while also being leaders and respected scholars. The new chairs have ticked all these boxes, and I am looking forward to working with all of them,” Nakhleh said.
On July 1, Christopher Jermaine and Illya Hicks will begin their second terms as departmental chairs of computer science, and computational applied mathematics and operations research, respectively.