Natural Sciences welcomes 16 new faculty for the 2024-25 academic year. They are:
- Mathematics Assistant Teaching Professor Richard Wong and Lecturers Isabel Harris and Jose Pastrana, who were recruited thanks to a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Driving Change initiative that allows Rice to teach math courses in an accessible way that is inclusive to all students and promotes equity in STEM;
- Chemistry Associate Professor Lea Nienhaus, a Rice Advanced Materials Institute Fellow who has a joint appointment in Physics and Astronomy, Associate Professor David Sarlah, who was recruited thanks to a Rising Star grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), Assistant Professors Kushal Bagchi, Yuan Ma and Quanbing Mou, and Lecturer Roslynn Nankya;
- Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences (EEPS) Professor Brandon Schmandt, who’ll join Rice Jan. 1, and Assistant Professors Sahar Bakhshian, Noemi Vergopolan and Bidong Zhang;
- Kinesiology Assistant Teaching Professor Paul Gerardo Yeh and Lecturer Bradley Eng;
- Physics and Astronomy Assistant Professor Vir Bulchandani.