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The Certificate in Engineering Leadership requires all students to complete a qualifying internship. Here's a look at where our students have been this summer!
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Jack Lynch
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
United Airlines • Chicago, Illinois
"During my time with United, I have had the opportunity to lead the early stages of a project to upgrade a specific aircraft to a new type of Satellite Communication for security and reliability improvements. This is a very important upgrade to the fleet that will extend the life of the aircrafts. I was surprised by the importance of the work I have been able to do at my internship. I expected busy work that nobody wants to do, but instead I made meaningful contributions to my team."
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Ciara Simmons-Pino
Senior, Civil Engineering
CH2M Hill • Washington, D.C.
"CH2M is one of only 25 Fortune 500 companies that have a female CEO. I had the opportunity to meet and interview her. We talked a lot about her path to becoming CEO, what it was like to run a Fortune 500 company, her goals, challenges she faced, and everything else under the sun. I could tell that she is truly passionate about making the world a better place and staying true to her values. She was not afraid to tell me about her struggles and I could tell that she was genuine. Women like her continue to pave the way for young female engineers like me. She has inspired me to continue pushing and in her words, 'reach for the stars.'"
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Jesus Duran
Senior, Chemical Engineering
Newhuadu Business School (Minjiang University) •
Beijing, China
"I was very pleased to find out that my internship mentor thought I did an excellent job of working with my team. The information he received from the client (Besunyen Holdings Company Lt.) indicated that they were very pleased with my team's contributions. Of course my team made a few mistakes, but my mentor says these mistakes are typical in consulting and especially common in international work."
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Nicole Moes
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
BP • Houston, Texas
"For one of my projects, I worked primarily with two contractors to develop requirements for data transfer between two stages of a project. I was a leader for this project - I organized and ran meetings, set the timeline, integrated smaller pieces, considered how people could contribute to the document, and was ultimately responsible for delivering a final product. One of the challenges I faced during this project was effectively communicating with my team in the office while I was offshore on an installation vessel for a week in the middle of the project."
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Manuel Arenas
Junior, Chemical Engineering
Bayer Material Science
Rachel Gray
Senior, Electrical Engineering
LyondellBasell
Emma Gray
Junior, Computer Science
Navy ROTC
Austin James
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Orbital ATK
Joshua Kaye
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Project Consulting Services
Kelly Kidder
Junior, Chemical Engineering
USDA Agriculutral Research Services
Alison Lindsay
Senior, Chemical Engineering
ExxonMobil
Drew Petty
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Air Liquide
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Colin Shaw
Senior, Statistics
Boston Consulting Group
Jared Shull
Senior, Chemical Engineering
Goldman Sachs
Julia Sunderland
Senior, Chemical Engineering
BCG
Martin Torres
Junior, Civil Engineering
MLAW Engineers
Cassie Wang
Junior, Computer Science
Google
Lily Wen
Junior, Computer Science
Facebook
Xiaoran (Randy) Zhang
Junior, Electrical Engineering
BlueStamp Engineering
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RCEL students participate in OwlSpark Startup Accelerator
This summer, two RCEL students participated in OwlSpark, a 12-week summer experience for startup teams from Rice University and the University of Houston ( Red Labs Startup Accelerator). The program allows Rice students, faculty, staff, and recent alumni to launch companies based on innovative business ideas. RCEL's Senthill Natarajan (junior, Electrical Engineering) and George Zhu (junior, Mechanical Engineering) - successfully completed the program and launched their start-up companies at the 2nd Annual Bayou Startup Showcase. At the Showcase, teams had the opportunity to pitch their companies and products ( watch the pitches here!), demonstrate their innovations, and make valuable connections. Read more about the RCEL student teams below: |
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Ziel Solutions
Ziel Solutions develops wearable devices for reducing the risk of injury from physical activity. Their first product is a patent-pending sensory sleeve for baseball pitchers. Utilizing sensors that combine muscle and motion analysis, the sleeve provides real-time feedback about muscle fatigue and stress exerted on an athlete's arm. Both of these factors are major contributors to injury.
Both electrical engineering undergraduates at Rice, founders RCEL's Senthil Natarajan and Alex Dzeda (junior, electrical engineering) met at a bonfire gone horribly wrong. Details spared, the victim was Senthil’s car.
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Arovia
When you hear the name Arovia, you likely aren’t thinking of the Spontaneous Pop Up Display (SPUD). Founders Alex Wesley (Rice MBA student), Rocky Wu (junior, electrical engineering) and RCEL's George Zhu are creating SPUD, the only 20+ inch electronic display that collapses roughly to the size of a handful of tater tots. Backed with an eight-hour battery life, SPUD is a high-resolution monitor display that connects to a device wirelessly, designed to increase productivity for the mobile professional.
The idea of SPUD came from Wesley, with Wu and Zhu joining the team in the spring. With expertise in electrical and rapid prototyping, the pair have been instrumental in designing and optimizing the first proof of concept.
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RCEL senior Colin Shaw named
President at Duncan College
This year, RCEL senior Colin Shaw, Statistics, will serve as President for Duncan College. In the residential college system at Rice, each college has its own government, run by a cabinet, and led by a president. Congratulations, Colin, and good luck!
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Rice O-Week '15: Welcome Freshmen!
Rice O-Week '15 officially began on August 16 as over 1,000 freshman and new students arrived on Rice campus. The School of Engineering welcomed more than 400 incoming freshmen with an Engineering Orientation event where students had the opportunity to learn about different engineering majors, the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership, and the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). RCEL also attended the annual Academic Fair, where over 160 Rice engineers stopped to talk to RCEL students and staff about the program requirements and benefits.
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RCEL faculty mentor at OwlSpark
RCEL's Kaz Karwowski and Dr. David Van Kleeck taught multiple sessions at OwlSpark. Workshops concentrated on leadership, with a focus on team-building, decision-making, negotiation, management, communication, motivation, and ethics. RCEL's communications faculty Beata Krupa, Gayle Moran, and Beth O'Sullivan provided extensive presentation coaching for all OwlSpark teams presenting at the Bayou Startup Showcase.
Founded in 2013, OwlSpark is a 12-week summer experience for startup teams from Rice University and the University of Houston ( Red Labs Startup Accelerator). The OwlSpark program allows Rice students, faculty, staff, and recent alumni to launch companies based on their innovative business ideas.
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RCEL hosts, sponsors Drone Camp for middle school students
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In August, RCEL partnered with BP and Trumball Unmanned to host the Rice Drone Camp on the Rice campus. Through a sponsorship by BP, the camp was free to 21 middle school students from schools in the Houston Independent School District. Admission was highly selective - over 120 students applied to take part in the camp.
Instructors and speakers included Air Force fighter pilots, industry experts, BP engineers, NASA researchers, and Rice faculty. The diverse group of students spent three days learning how to design, engineer, and operate drone aircraft as well as gaining hands-on experience piloting drones. The intensive camp also explored the ethical and socio-cultural implications of this emergent technology.
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Krupa facilitates communication
training and coaching in Warsaw, Poland
Rice alumni are everywhere, even in Poland!
While traveling in Poland this summer, RCEL communication faculty Dr. Beata Krupa provided business communication training and coaching to a group from Polish nonprofit organizations supported by White Star Foundation (WSF). WSF is a brainchild of Rice University alumnus Brian Patterson, an entrepreneur, who lives and works in Poland.
A native Polish speaker, Beata worked with a group of young executives on how to design and deliver strategically effective messages, how to persuade, and concisely write in business style. Polish style of communicating in business is indirect and less focused on achieving specific goals. Beata's ability to translate American business communication style into Polish and vice versa helped to make this workshop a lively and useful experience. At one point, in the heat of discussions, the group spoke half in Polish, half in English, sometimes even mixing the two languages in the same sentence!
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Van Kleeck named Professor in the Practice
RCEL's Dr. David Van Kleeck has been named a professor in the practice in Engineering Leadership. Dave came to RCEL in August 2014 and teaches two Certificate required courses for the Center. Congratualtions Dr. Dave!
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Karwowski trains to teach Rice I-Corps Node
As part of the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) Southwest Node, RCEL and the Rice Alliance participated in one of the National I-Corps cohorts this summer. Kaz Karwowski attended the July cohort in Washington D.C. as Rice's representative and was trained to train other instructors. Kaz will continue to recruit research teams and promote the program across the southwest region. I-Corps is a set of activities and programs that prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and broadens the impact of select, NSF-funded, basic-research projects.
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Welcome to our New Hires!
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Tom Phalen, M.A.
Lecturer, Engineering Leadership
Tom Phalen joined RCEL in July after a 38 year career with Fluor, a Fortune 100 Engineering and Construction Company. He brings proven leadership and management skills to the Center, having led large multi-cultural and multi-discipline teams in executing projects. Tom combines technical engineering expertise with experience in project planning and control, and as an RCEL member, he strives to bring to the classroom the practical lessons learned from leading teams and managing people in today's global environment.
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Gayle Moran, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Professional Communications
Gayle Moran joined RCEL in June and has more than 20 years of professional communication expertise in a variety of industries including information technology, telecommunications, educational software, and travel technology. She has worked for major Fortune 500 companies including Electronic Data Systems (EDS), Nortel, Alcatel, and Xerox. Most recently, she served as Lecturer in Business Communication at the Jones Graduate School of Business. Gayle held prior positions in executive coaching and communication, internal/employee communication, marketing communication, and technical writing.
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Beth O'Sullivan, M.B.A.
Lecturer, Professional Communications
Beth O’Sullivan is piloting a class on Communication for Engineers in RCEL. She holds a joint appointment with the Jones Graduate School as a Senior Lecturer in Communication, where she has taught full time since 2000. In addition to her work with RCEL, she will be teaching in the Executive MBA and the MBA for Professionals programs. Beth brings over ten years of corporate communication experience, having served as Manager of Corporate Communication and Investor Relations for Oceaneering International, Inc., and as Corporate Communication Manager for a Houston-based independent oil and gas exploration company.
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Wright wins Community Impact Award
Cesare Wright, Outreach/Leadership Specialist for RCEL, was awarded the Community Impact Award from the World Youth Foundation, a local group that mentors underrepresented students in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) areas. Cesare has worked with the group as part of RCEL's outreach activities and has given his personal time to the organization as well. Thank you, Cesare, for representing Rice so well!
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FRESHMEN! Register now to attend!
Sponsorship opportunities available! Contact Kaz Karwowski for more information.
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