Two Rice engineering alumni, Varun Mehta and Jesse Rothstein, have joined the Engineering Advisory Board (EAB) and will serve as advisers to the dean, applying their experience and expertise to the advancement of engineering.
“The EAB plays a critical role in advising me on important issues, including development, alumni engagement and entrepreneurship. As we establish an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the school and seek to amplify the role of computing in engineering, Varun and Jesse with their technical backgrounds will provide us with invaluable advice,” said Luay Nakhleh, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering.
Mehta earned his M.S. in electrical engineering (EE) from Rice in 1988, and Rothstein his B.A. in computer science and B.S. in EE, both in 1997.
“The Engineering Advisory Board members and I have enjoyed partnering with Luay and supporting his vision for the school of engineering. I am excited to welcome our newest board members, Varun and Jesse, who are seasoned technologists and accomplished entrepreneurs,” said Vinay Pai, ’88,’88, ’91, chair of the EAB.
Mehta is an adviser and investor in several technology startups. He was previously CEO of Sneller Inc., a cloud analytics service, and general manager of AI analytics for the storage division of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Inc. He founded Nimble Storage and served as its vice president of engineering, and held management positions with NetApp, Data Domain and Sun Microsystems.
In 2019, Mehta received the Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award from the school of engineering at Rice. In 2021 he established the Mehta Family Scholarship at Rice.
“My goal is to form links between industry and academia. With new technologies come changes in how we do our jobs. Curriculums have to evolve to prepare students for these changes. With my long career in Silicon Valley, I’m happy to provide input to the engineering school on such topics. Also, I want to give back. Rice prepared me well for my career. I want to return the favor,” Mehta said.
For more than 16 years, Rothstein was at ExtraHop, the cybersecurity company based in Seattle that he co-founded in 2007, which today has more than 600 employees. He served as CEO of ExtraHop for more than nine years and then as CTO, when he led the research-and-development and product teams. Before founding ExtraHop, Rothstein was a senior software architect at F5 Networks, an early pioneer in development of intelligent enterprise network devices.
“What I bring to the Engineering Advisory Board is my experience with intrapreneurship within an existing company as well as entrepreneurship, starting a company, nurturing it, making it a success,” Rothstein said. “I consider myself a technologist. I’m passionate about building great products.”
Nakhleh said of the new board members: “Varun and Jesse boost representation to our board from the West Coast, which has a large concentration of alumni.”
EAB members are appointed to two- or three-year terms by the dean in consultation with already-seated board members. On July 1, 2024, four EAB members transitioned to emeritus status: Michael Colglazier, Mark Durcan, Wendy Hoenig and Tommie Huie.