Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D. Founding Director Rebecca Richards-Kortum is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University. She founded Rice 360° in September 2007 as part of the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2005, with the support of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, she founded the Beyond Traditional Borders initiative (BTB), a new minor in global health technologies. BTB encourages undergraduates from all academic backgrounds to work together to design solutions to specific global health challenges. To date, close to 100 students have participated in BTB design projects, and their designs have been used by healthcare providers in six international healthcare settings, reaching more than 6,200 people. Dr. Richards-Kortum’s research group is developing miniature imaging systems to enable better screening for oral, esophageal, and cervical cancer and their precursors at the point-of-care. More recently, her group has worked to integrate advances in nanotechnology and microfabrication to develop novel, low-cost sensors to detect infectious diseases, including cryptosporidium, malaria, and tuberculosis. In 2008, she was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. | | 
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Lauren Vestewig Executive Director Lauren Vestewig joined Rice as the Executive Director of Rice 360° in 2007. Prior to that, she served at the White House in Domestic Policy Council and the Staff Secretary's Office, where she participated in the development and roll-out of many global health policies, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative. Prior to joining the White House staff, Lauren served as a speechwriter for Secretary of Education Rod Paige. | | 
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Yvette Mirabal Director of Beyond Traditinal Borders Yvette Mirabal joined Rice as the Director of Beyond Traditional Borders, in October 2005. Before joining Rice, Yvette was at Université National du Rwanda - Ecole du Santé Publique conducting research on HIV prevention of mother-to-child transmission and voluntary counseling and testing. Prior to that, she was a clinical research engineer at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center Biomedical Engineering Center working on cervical cancer point of care screening technologies. She earned a B.S. from The University of Texas in 1999 and a MPH from Tulane University in 2004. Ms. Mirabal is a dual citizen of the United States and Ecuador. | | 
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Cheryl Morehead Program Coordinator Cheryl joined Rice in January 1990 as secretary in the Fondren Library, where she was promoted to administrative assistant for university librarian in 1992. In 1995, she became assistant editor at Feminist Economics in August 1995. In November 2006, she joined Department of Bioengineering. She has been Program Coordinator of Rice 360° since 2008. | | 
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Executive Committee
Pedro Alvarez, Ph.D.
Pedro Alvarez is the George R. Brown Professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. He received the B. Eng. Degree in Civil Engineering from McGill University and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan. His research focuses on environmental applications and implications of biotechnology and nanotechnology, including bioremediation of contaminated aquifers, phytoremediation, fate and transport of hazardous substances, and nanomaterial-bacterial interactions and related disinfection approaches. His teaching interests include principles and applications of Environmental Engineering and biological treatment processes.
Vicki Colvin, Ph.D.
Vicki Colvin is Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and Director of the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) at Rice University. CBEN was one of the nation's first Nanoscience and Engineering Centers funded by the National Science Foundation. One of CBEN's primary areas of interest is the application of nanotechnology to the environment. Professor Colvin's research focuses on developing nanotechnology-based tools to treat and disinfect water without expensive infrastructure.
Marc Epstein, Ph.D.
Marc Epstein is Distinguished Research Professor of Management at the Jones School of Management. He is a leading international expert in microfinance and the use of commerce models to improve health and promote development in poor regions. Drawing on extensive expertise in performance metrics, Professor Epstein has developed a system to allow microfinance organizations to objectively measure their success. Based on experience ranging from Nicaragua to Ghana, he advocates a “client-centered” approach to microfinance, which focuses primarily on meeting individual client needs. In partnership with Riece 360°, he teaches an MBA class on commercializing technologies in developing countries, in which students are developing business plans to commercialize global health technologies developed by Rice undergraduates.
John McDevitt, Ph.D.
John McDevitt is the Brown-Weiss Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice. He has developed “lab-on-a-chip” technology to diagnose and treat patients with HIV/AIDS. This technology replaces a flow cytometer, which is prohibitively expensive for developing countries, with a toaster-sized device that costs about the same as a digital camera. This technology has been commercialized and will be available within the next year in developing countries. Using this device to guide treatment can triple the gains in life expectancy due to ARVs.
Amy Myers-Jaffe
Amy Myers-Jaffe is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Jaffe leads the Baker Institute Energy Forum, which promotes discussion and research on the energy-related challenges facing society in the 21st century. Jaffe's energy programs support projects in 13 departments and five centers at Rice. In partnership with Rice 360°, Jaffe teaches a class focused on the relationship between improved energy efficiency, health, and global development, in which undergraduates design and implement projects to promote energy efficiency and better health in communities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Maria Oden, Ph.D.
Maria Oden is Professor in the Practice in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the new Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. She coordinates the technical design efforts of undergraduates participating in the Beyond Traditional Borders initiative and Global Health Technologies minor. She has developed and taught a two-semester Bioengineering Capstone Design course sequence for the past five years at Rice, mentoring over 160 students in 43 design teams. In the past 4 years her student teams have filed for 5 patents on their inventions. Professor Oden’s prior research and teaching experiences were in the area of orthopedic biomechanics and computational modeling as a senior research associate at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and a faculty member at the UT Health Science Center at Houston.
Nia Georges, Ph.D.
Eugenia Georges joined the Rice faculty in 1988. Her major interests are in medical anthropology, the cultural study of reproduction, labor migration and economic development. She is currently interested in researching the new reproductive technologies, medicalization of the life cycle, relationships among social class, ethnicity, and disease. In July 2008, as part of Rice 360, she traveled with a team of Rice undergraduates to Lesotho to perform three community assessments focused on identifying challenges to sustainable development.
Other Affiliated Faculty
Rich Baraniuk – Civil and Environmental Engineering
Lisa Biswal – Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
George Bennett – Biochemistry
Elias Bongmba – Religious Studies
Brad Burke – Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
Rebekah Drezek – Bioengineering
Jane Grande Allen – Bioengineering
Mike Gustin – Biochemistry
Vivian Ho – Economics
Brent Houchens – Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Rachel Kimbro – Sociology
Qilin Li – Civil and Environmental Engineering
Karoline Mortenson – Political Science
Kirsten Ostherr – English
Krishna Palem – Computer Science
Rob Raphael – Bioengineering
Ka-Yiu San – Bioengineering
Doug Schuler – Jones School of Management
Laura Segatori – Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Ron Soligo – Baker Institute for Public Policy
Junghae Suh – Bioengineering
Tomasz Tkaczyk – Bioengineering
Mason Tomson – Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jennifer West – Bioengineering
Michael Wong – Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Lin Zhong – Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kyriacos Zygouris – Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering