Tenured/Tenure track:

Kushal Bagchi is an assistant professor of chemistry and a Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator. His highly interdisciplinary research seeks to understand and control molecular organization and dynamics in functional organic and soft materials like semiconducting organic glasses, pharmaceutical solids, and photonic and luminescent liquid crystals. In postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, Bagchi directed the self-assembly of photonic and charge-conducting liquid crystals using nanostructured surfaces that were lithographically defined. He earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he used synchrotron X-ray scattering and spectroscopy to establish methods of probing molecular organization at buried interfaces in organic semiconductor glasses.

Sahar Bakhshian is an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences. Her group uses computational modeling, microfluidics experiments and data analytics to explore the physics of fluid flow in porous media, with a specific focus on energy-transition topics like below-ground storage of carbon and hydrogen. Sahar received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California. She joins Rice from the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she spent six years, advancing from postdoctoral research fellow to research assistant professor.

Vir Bulchandani, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is a theoretical physicist whose work seeks to understand systems composed of many quantum particles. His research explores key questions in the rapidly growing fields of quantum information and quantum computation. Bulchandani earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. Prior to joining Rice, he spent time as a visiting researcher at Leibniz University Hannover in Germany, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley and the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore.

Yuan Ma joins chemistry as an assistant professor, a Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Junior Faculty Chair and a Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator. Her postdoctoral research at both the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin focused on the development of bioimaging techniques for the study of glycoRNAs and metabolites, the screening of novel nucleic acid aptamers, and the design of biosensors for on-site detection. Yuan completed her Ph.D. at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, conducting research related to DNA nanotechnology and the development of innovative nanomedicine technologies for biomedical applications.

Quanbing Mou is an assistant professor of chemistry and a Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Junior Faculty Chair. His research group works to understand nucleic acids in biological systems and to promote their applications in biosensing, disease detection and treatment. He earned his Ph.D. at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and held postdoctoral appointments at both the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin. Mou has previously created or developed: innovative caging strategies for functional nucleic acid-based biosensing; CRISPR/Cas systems for biosensing and biomedicine; in-situ biosensors to image plant metabolites and bioproducts; and a super-resolution imaging technique to detect metal ions in living systems.

Lea Nienhaus is an associate professor with joint appointments in chemistry and in physics and astronomy. She joins Rice as both a Norman Hackerman-Welch Investigator and a Rice Advanced Materials Institute Fellow and was previously an assistant professor of chemistry at Florida State University. Her lab uses a combination of scanning probe microscopy and optical spectroscopy to investigate complex structure-property relationships that underlie light-matter interactions in materials relevant to photovoltaics.

Nienhaus earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Doctoral research on single-molecule absorption of nanomaterials piqued her interest in quantum dots, and she was introduced to the realm of photon upconversion during a postdoctoral stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nienhaus’s previous honors include a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

David Sarlah joins Rice as both a professor of chemistry and a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research thanks to a recruitment grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. He was previously an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Sarlah’s speciality is total synthesis, the complete chemical synthesis of complex molecules, and his lab focuses on natural molecules, found in plants and other organisms, that are used to treat cancer. His research interests also include synthetic methodology and synthesis-related chemical biology.

Sarlah earned his doctorate from Scripps Research Institute, where his Ph.D. advisor was total-synthesis icon K.C. Nicolaou, who joined Rice in 2013. Sarlah's postdoctoral training was at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His previous honors include a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

Brandon Schmandt will join Rice Jan. 1 as a professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences. Schmandt is a geophysicist and seismologist who uses the tools of seismology to study Earth’s interior structure and the processes that create seismic signals. He often studies questions related to both tectonic and volcanic processes and has studied earthquakes in tectonic, magmatic and industrial settings. Schmandt has advanced methods to distinguish the seismic signals of earthquakes, explosions and mechanical processes in the environment, and his research has provided insights into Earth’s geologic history and contemporary state.

Schmandt earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon and conducted postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology. He joins Rice from the University of New Mexico, where he is a professor of Earth and planetary sciences. Schmandt’s honors include the top early-career awards from both the Geological Society of America (Donath Medal, 2015) and the American Geophysical Union (Macelwane Medal, 2020).

Noemi Vergopolan, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, is a computational hydrologist who develops scalable computational approaches for high-resolution hydrological prediction. Her research leverages advances in satellite remote sensing, land surface modeling, machine learning, data fusion and high-performance computing, and aims to aid actionable decision-making by improving the monitoring and forecasting of hydrological extremes, like droughts and floods, and their impacts at local scales. Vergopolan earned her Ph.D. at Princeton University and completed her postdoctoral training there as a visiting research scientist in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Bidong Zhang is an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences whose research interests include cosmochemistry, geochronology and meteorites. Zhang studies the early evolution of the solar system using meteorites and materials returned to Earth by space missions. He is specifically interested in using and developing radiometric tools that can improve understanding of the moon’s magmatic and impact histories, and he has used chemical analysis and numerical modeling of iron meteorites to unravel the core-formation processes of asteroids and the dynamical evolution of our solar system's protoplanetary disk. Zhang earned his Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Non-Tenure track:

Bradley Eng, lecturer in kinesiology, is a dedicated physical therapist and experienced educator who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his role at Rice. He earned a doctorate in physical therapy from A.T. Still University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively, from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Prior to joining Rice, Eng taught courses on a range of subjects, including anatomy and basic patient care, for the Houston Community College’s Physical Therapist Assistant program. His academic interests are deeply rooted in the intersection of theory and practical application, aiming to prepare students for the complexities of clinical practice.

Isabel Harris, lecturer of mathematics, received her Ph.D. from Auburn University. Her recruitment arose from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant Rice received to participate in the institute’s Driving Change initiative. As a doctoral student, Harris gained significant teaching experience that maps naturally to Rice classes that are focal points of the initiative. At Auburn, she was the recipient of individual teaching awards and helped the Department of Mathematics and Statistics win the university’s annual Departmental Award for Excellence in Education in 2022.

Rosalynn Nankya, a lecturer in chemistry, joined Rice in 2022 as a postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biomolecular engineering, where she worked in the lab of Haotian Wang to design novel, efficient, low-cost and eco-friendly electrocatalysts for the conversion of carbon dioxide into useful liquid fuels. Nankya trained as an industrial chemist in Uganda prior to earning her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea, where she specialized in hetero-atom doped mesoporous graphene for diverse applications. Prior to joining Rice, she conducted postdoctoral research on electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution at Korea’s SookMyung Women’s University.

Jose Pastrana, lecturer of mathematics, received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and has served as both a lecturer at Loyola University Chicago and a postdoctoral lecturer at Northwestern University. His recruitment arose from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant Rice received to participate in the institute’s Driving Change initiative. Pastrana’s long-standing interest in teaching began during his undergraduate studies. He has taught a wide range of classes, and his skills and experience map to Rice classes that are focal points of the Driving Change initiative.

Richard Wong, assistant teaching professor of mathematics, received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He joins Rice from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was an adjunct assistant professor of mathematics, and was recruited via a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for Rice’s participation in the institute’s Driving Change initiative. Wong has a long-standing interest in teaching, and has teaching experience over a range of courses that are focal points of the Driving Change initiative. At UCLA, he also oversaw the development and teaching of a math course for the Division of Physical Sciences’ summer bridge program for incoming students from traditionally excluded groups.

Paul Gerardo Yeh, assistant teaching professor of kinesiology, has training in preventive medicine, health economics, epidemiology and health behavior promotion, as well as experience teaching courses for physician assistant students, medical students and graduate public health students in the University of Texas system. Yeh joins Rice from the UT Health Science Center at Houston, where he both earned a Ph.D. in public health and completed a National Cancer Institute postdoctoral research fellowship after earning his M.D. from the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. His teaching and research synergistically integrate clinical medicine and public health through preventive medicine precepts. His research interests include quantitative, health economic and decision science modeling evaluations of the health outcomes for community-based interventions among Hispanic, racial/ethnic minority youth, border and rural populations.