Who We Are

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.  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.  He received a B. Eng. Degree in Civil Engineering from McGill University and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Vicki Colvin, Ph.D.

Vicki Colvin is Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor, Vice Provost for Research, and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. Dr. Colvin’s research explores how nanoscale particles interact with the environment and living systems, drawing on both synthetic chemistry and physical chemistry. Currently her projects draw on the unique and responsive behavior of nanoparticles to solve problems related to water purification and targeted cell death, developing nanotechnology-based tools to treat and disinfect water without expensive infrastructure.  Dr. Colvin earned her B.S. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Doug Schuler, Ph.D.

Doug Schuler is Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. His research focuses on business-government relations, globalization of business, and social enterprise. He also has taught Senior Engineering Design over the past two years in Rice’s Brown School of Engineering, directing two teams of mechanical engineers. With colleagues in engineering, Dr. Schuler works on projects related to the development and implementation of small-scale solar thermal technologies that can be used for medical instrument sterilization in off-grid locations. He and his colleagues have taken one such device to the field in Haiti, have published a peer-reviewed article about the device, and have been invited by the government of Sierra Leone and two health services NGOs to deploy the device into a governmental hospital located in an off-grid district.  Dr. Schuler studied at the University of California, Berkeley (B.S., Business Administration) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., Strategic Management, School of Management).

John McDevitt, Ph.D.

John McDevitt is the Brown-Weiss Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice. His research focuses on developing “lab-on-a-chip” technology to diagnose cancer, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS using a drop of saliva. 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. The system is being commercialized for use in both the United States and resource limited setting.  Using this device to guide treatment can improve life expectancy by providing accurate results sooner and faster than current technologies.  Dr. McDevitt earned a B.S. from California Polytechnic State University, a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina.

Maria Oden, Ph.D.

Maria Oden is Professor in the Practice in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the 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, mentoring close to 200 students and more than 50 design teams. Her student teams have filed for more than 10 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.  She earned a B.S. and Ph.D. from Tulane University

Nia Georges, Ph.D.

Nia Georges is Chair and Professor of Anthropology at Rice. Her major interests include medical anthropology, the cultural study of reproduction, labor migration and economic development. She is currently interested in researching new reproductive technologies, medicalization of the life cycle, relationships among social class, ethnicity, and disease. In 2010, Dr. Georges won the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, chosen by recent Rice graduates.