Faculty Proposals from Previous Years 

The following are links to project proposals that were offered for the Rice University Century Scholar program in previous years. You can peruse these proposals to see what has been offered in the past. You can select a project link and it will take you to a page with the project proposal as well as to links to the faculty member's web page (where applicable) and their department web page.

Asian Studies

Dr. Steven Lewis

* Energy Security and Demand Reduction Policy Formation in China and India
* Advertising and Collective Identity Formation in Asian Cities

Biochemistry and Cell Biology

Dr. George Bennett

* Microbial Production of Chemicals
* Developing Methods for Forming and Assembling DNA Fragments

Dr. Janet Braam

* Environmental Responses of Plants

Dr. Richard Gomer

* Human Disease and Development

Dr. Yousif Shamoo

* Structural Studies on Human recQL4
* Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance

Dr. Jonathan Silberg

* Fe/S Proteins: Biogenesis, Evolution, Proteomics, and Role in Redox Homeostasis

Dr. Charles Stewart

* Bacteriophage SPO1

Dr. Dan Wagner

* Forming Fish: How Does the Embryo Shape Itself?

Bioengineering

Dr. Tony Mikos

* Bone Regeneration

Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum

* in vivo Imaging of HPV Induced Cervical Carcinogenesis

Dr. Ka-Yiu San

* Pathway design, implementation and metabolic engineering
* Chemicals from renewable resources

Chemical Engineering

Dr. George Hirasaki

* Surfactant Based Enhanced Oil Recovery

Dr. Matteo Pasquali

* Flows of Micro and Nanostructured Fluids
* Study Complex Flows of Complex Fluids

Dr. Michael Wong

* Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Nanoparticle Materials
* Water Purification through Nanocatalysis

Chemistry

Dr. Robert Curl

* Development of a Whole Chip Imager for Biological Applications

Dr. Ken Whitmire

* Organometallic Compounds

Computer & Applied Mathematics

Dr. Steve Cox

* Rational String Design

Computer Science

Dr. Lydia Kavraki

* Robot Motion Planning
* Computer Assisted Drug Design

Dr. Walid Taha

* Understanding Mathematica
* Super Circuits
* The Fastest Turtle in the West
* The Monty Python

Earth Science

Dr. Carrie Masiello

* Human Influence on the Chemistry of Our Environment

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Dr. Julian Holland

* Reciprocal Beneficial Interactions between Plants and Insects

Dr. Jennifer Rudgers

* Could Fungi Promote Exotic Grass Invasions?
* Cooperation and Conflict Between Fungi and Plants
* Lifestyles of the Rich and Symbiotic
* All dried up? Host a fungus.

Dr. Joan Strassmann

* Conflict and Cooperation in Social Amoebae

Dr. Kenneth Whitney

* Plant-Animal Interactions ­ from Genetics to Ecology

Mechanical Engineering and Material Science

Dr. Tayfun Tezduyar

* Computer Modeling in Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics
* Computer Modeling of Parachute Aerodynamics

Physics and Astronomy

Dr. Reginald Dufour

* Astronomical Observations with a Computerized Telescope

Dr. Paul Padley

* High Energy Physics

Political Science

Dr. Keith Hamm

* The Impact of Campaign Finance Laws in the U.S. States and Canadian Provinces

Dr. Brett Ashley Leeds

* Democracy and Foreign Policy Consistency

Dr. Ric Stoll

* Events Data Project
* Economic Tools Used by States to Pursue Foreign Policy

Psychology

Dr. Michael Byrne

* Usability Barriers to Voting
* Interruptions in Memory Retrieval

Dr. Tatiana Schnur

* Language Production in Unimpaired and Brain-Damaged Populations

Dr. James Pomerantz

* Visual Perception

Religious Studies

Dr. Jeffrey Kripal

* Esalen, the New Age, and the History of American Religion

Sociology

Dr. Michael Lindsay

* The Social Dynamics of Leadership
* Religion and Public Life

Dr. Elizabeth Long

* Books into Movies: Gender in the Transformation of Cultural Media
* Sexuality, the Body, and Appearance in the Second Wave Women's Movement
* New Social Movements