Dr. Carey Croneis, Rice University Provost, Acting President and later Chancellor, 1954-1970

Dr. Carey Croneis was born in 1901 in Bucyrus, Ohio, and received his B.S. degree from Denison University in 1922, followed by an M.S. in Geology from the University of Kansas in 1923, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1928. He was an instructor at Radcliffe and lecturer at Wellesley in 1927-1928; assistant and then full professor at the University of Chicago, 1928-1944; and a member of the National Defense Research Council, 1942-1944. He then served as President of Beloit College from 1944 until he came to Rice.

Dr. Carey Croneis came to Rice (then Institute) in 1954 as Provost, and also as Harry Carothers Wiess Professor of Geology, charged with designing and organizing a Department of Geology at Rice.

He served as Provost under President William V. Houston  until 1960 and at that time assumed the additional responsibilities of Acting President following Pres. Houston's resignation due to ill health.

He served in both capacities until the appointment of Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer as President in July 1961. In that year, Dr. Croneis was named Chancellor, and held that position until his retirement in 1970.

Dr. Croneis was named Wiess Professor Emeritus of Geology and Chancellor Emeritus. He died in January 1972.

Online guide to the Croneis papers at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, Rice University Provost, 1970-1980

Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, Harris Masterson, Jr., Professor of History, was appointed Rice University Provost in 1970. He served until 1980. The vice-presidential title was added in 1975.

Dr. Vandiver, one of the nation’s foremost military historians, received a Master of Arts Degree from the University of Texas in 1949, and his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1951. He was awarded a Master of Arts Degree from the University of Oxford in 1963.

Dr. Vandiver came to Rice University in 1955. He served as Rice University’s acting president between 1969 and 1970, the year he was appointed Provost. He also served as Chairman of the History Department. In 1972 he started a six-year term on the National Council on the Humanities, the policy-making arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In January 1973, the Secretary of the Army appointed Dr. Vandiver to a five-year term as chairman of the United States Army Military History Research Collection Advisory Committee, which oversees one of the nation’s most important military history collection efforts. In 1969 Dr. Vandiver also served on the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee and in 1971, he was named to the Fort Leavenworth Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He taught Civil War History for two years at Oxford in England. He also served as Visiting Professor of Military History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, 1973-1974.

When Dr. Vandiver left Rice in 1980, he took the presidency of what is now University of North Texas, and then served as president of Texas A&M from 1981-1988.

Vandiver served at Rice under President Hackerman.

Online guide to the Vandiver / Cooper provost papers at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. Joseph Cooper, Rice University Acting Provost, 1973-1974

While Dr. Vandiver was at West Point (1973-74), Dr. Joseph Cooper, Professor of Political Science, was appointed acting provost by President Hackerman. He became a member of the Rice faculty in 1967. He was a graduate of Harvard where he received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. He served as chairman of the Department of Political Science from 1967 to 1972 and was the founding dean of the School of Social Sciences from 1979-88. He is a specialist on the U. S. Congress and has appeared as a witness before Congressional committees on several occasions. In 1976 Dr. Cooper served as staff director of the U. S. House Commission on Administrative Review in Washington, D.C.

Cooper served under President Hackerman.

Online guide to the Vandiver / Cooper provost papers at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. William E. Gordon, Rice University Provost and Vice President, 1980-1985

William E. Gordon’s appointment as provost and vice president of Rice University began July 1, 1980. He retired July 1, 1985, although he continued to serve as provost until his replacement reported to work in spring 1986.

Gordon came to Rice from Cornell University in 1966 and taught space physics and astronomy, as well as electrical engineering, during his 19 years on the Rice faculty. Prior to his becoming provost and vice president in 1980, he served as dean of natural sciences (1975-80) and dean of science and engineering (1966-75).

He attained international prominence through his work on the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory in Puerto Rico, a project he conceived, planned and directed during the first years after its completion, 1960-65. It is the world’s largest radar-radio-telescope, sometimes described as earth’s ear turned to outer space.

Recipient of numerous honors and awards, Dr. Gordon had the rare distinction of being a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. He was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Geophysical Union, and past president of the International Union of Radio Science (1981-84).

Excerpted from press release of Rice University Information Services 2/22/1985; 4/2/1980.

William E. Gordon served 1980-1985 under Presdient Hackerman.

Online guide to the Provost Gordon records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. Neal Lane, Rice University Provost, 1986-1993

Dr. Neal Lane served as Provost of Rice University from 1986-1993. He joined the Rice Physics Department in 1966 and was made full professor in 1972. He was made chairman of the department in 1977. While chair, Lane spent 1979-80 serving as director of the division of physics at the NSF. He left Rice in 1984 to become Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He then returned to Rice to take on the job of Provost.

In 1993, Lane was named by President Clinton as Director of the National Science Foundation and in 1998, he was chosen by President Clinton to be his new presidential science and technology advisor.

Dr. Lane, assistant to the president of the United States for science and technology, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, and former director of the national Science Foundation, rejoined the faculty at Rice University in Spring 2001.

Lane, a specialist in atomic physics, earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees, including his Ph.D., from the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960’s.

Lane is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Women in Science. He has been awarded more than a dozen honorary degrees and received several other honors, including, in 2009, the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the American Institute of Physics K.T. Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics and the Association of Rice Alumni Gold Medal for service to Rice University. In 2013 Dr. Lane was awarded the National Science Board’s Vannevar Bush Award.

Dr. Lane served as Provost under President George Rupp.

Online guide to the Provost Neal Lane records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. James Kinsey, Rice University Interim Provost, 1993-1994

James Kinsey, Dean of Rice University's Wiess School of Natural Sciences, was named interim provost by university president Malcolm Gillis in July 1993. The provost position had been vacated by Neal Lane when he left Rice to become director of the National Science Foundation.

Kinsey came to Rice in 1988 as Dean of Wiess School of Natural Sciences after 25 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a chemistry professor. He also served as Chairman of MIT's chemistry department for five years during his tenure.

Excerpted from Rice University News Release, July 23, 1993.

Kinsey's tenure as Interim Provost, 1993-1994, was simultaneous with the tenure of President Malcolm Gillis, who served 1993-2004.

Online guide to the Kinsey and Auston records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. David Auston, Rice University Provost, 1994-1999

Dr. David Auston was named provost by university president Malcolm Gillis in August 1994. He was Columbia's dean of engineering and applied science and the Morris and Alma Schapiro Professor of Engineering. He was member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He earned his undergraduate and master's degree from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Excerpted from Rice University News Release, May 19, 1994.

Auston's tenure as Provost, 1994-1999, was simultaneous with the tenure of President Malcolm Gillis, who served 1993-2004.

Online guide to the Kinsey and Auston records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. David Minter, Rice University Interim University Provost, 1999

English Professor David Minter was appointed by President Malcolm Gillis to serve as interim provost in Spring 1999. Then current provost David Auston left Rice on July 1, 1999 to take the presidency of Case Western University.

Minter first came to Rice in 1967 after lecturing at Yale University in English and American Studies. In 1980 he left Rice  and took a position as dean of Emory College and vice-president of arts and sciences at Emory University. He returned to Rice in 1990, served at interim vice-provost and university librarian in 1995-1996, and then as interim provost in 1999. He is the author of many articles and books in his area of research, American literature in the period of 1880-1940.

Dr. Minter was honored by alumni in 2011 with the Caroline S. and David L. Minter Endowment, Rice's first endowment to specifically support undergraduate excellence in the English major. The endowment supports student prizes for research, student trips to libraries and archives for senior theses, students working with faculty on research projects and the development of new courses for the English major.

Dr. Minter served as interim provost under President Malcolm Gillis.

Online guide to the Provost David Minter Records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. Eugene Levy, Rice University Provost, 2000-2010

Dr. Eugene H. Levy, Rice University- Professor Levy served as Provost of Rice University from 2000-2010, as well as Professor of Physics & Astronomy.

His research encompasses areas of planetary geophysics, magnetohydrodynamics, solar and space physics, and electrodynamics.  He has investigated the generation and behavior of magnetic fields in natural bodies, including the Earth, Sun, and the planets; origin of the geomagnetic reversal; theory of cosmic rays; theory of physical processes associated with the formation of the solar system, stars, and other planetary systems. He has also worked on the development of observational techniques for the discovery and study of other planetary systems.  Before coming to Rice, Professor Levy held appointments at the University of Arizona and as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  He established the NASA/Arizona Space Grant College Consortium and served as its director for 11 years.  He is a recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and has served as member of the Board of Trustees of the Associated Universities, Inc., on the Space Telescope Institute Council, and as a member of the previous NASA Planetary Protection Advisory Committee (2002-05).  http://science.nasa.gov/science-committee/members/dr-eugene-h-levy/

Dr. Levy served as Provost 2000-2010 under university president Malcolm Gillis (1993-2004) and David Leebron (2004- ). 

Online guide to the Provost Eugene Levy's records at the Woodson Research Center.

Dr. George McLendon, Rice University Provost, 2010-2015

Dr. George L. McLendon served as Provost of Rice University from 2010-2015, and as Professor of Chemistry.

George L. McLendon was dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke University, a position he assumed in July 2004.  He was also professor of Chemistry and professor of Biochemistry and Experimental Cancer Therapeutics in the School of Medicine.  In July 2008, he was also named dean of Trinity College, the undergraduate administrative unit of Arts and Sciences.  Dr. McLendon was previously the R.W. Moore Professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University.  A Texas native, he received his BS from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1972 and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M in 1976.  He also taught at the University of Rochester, where he was the Tracy H. Harris Professor of Chemistry and professor of Biochemistry in the School of Medicine.

McLendon’s research is focused on inorganic and physical biochemistry.  He has published over 200 peer reviewed papers and received national research awards, including the American Chemistry Society Pure Chemistry Award, the Eli Lilly Award in Ecochemistry, Sloan Dreyfus Award, and Guggenheim Fellowships.  His publications range from solar nanotechnology to cell death pathways.  His most recent research has direct implications for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases.  He has been involved in launching several biotech startups, including Tetralogic Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. McLendon served as Provost under President David Leebron.

Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda, Rice University Provost, 2015-2019

Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda became the Howard R. Hughes Provost and Professor of Statistics for Rice University in July, 2015 and served until June 2019.

Miranda is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Duke University, where she earned her A.B. in mathematics and economics and was named a Truman Scholar.  She has a Ph.D. and M.A., both in economics, from Harvard University, where she held a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She served on the faculty at Duke from 1990-2011, and then as dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan for four years.

Dr. Miranda specializes in research on environmental health, especially how the environment shapes health and wellbeing among children. She is the founding director of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative, a research, education, and outreach program committed to fostering environments where all people can prosper. Dr. Miranda's formal educational background is rooted in mathematical, statistical, and economic modeling; her professional experiences integrate environmental health sciences with sound social policies.  She has taught courses and conducted research on children's environmental health, with a particular emphasis on reproductive and developmental toxicants, childhood lead exposure, and allergen and asthma triggers. She is a leader in the rapidly evolving field of geospatial health informatics.

Miranda teamed with Vice President for Administration Kevin Kirby and the Crisis Management Team to guide the university during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. After the storm, Miranda played a key role in establishing the Hurricane Harvey Registry, which surveys survivors to help design intervention programs and help officials refine their responses to future disasters, a goal in line with Rice’s Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade.

Dr. Miranda has applied spatial analytic approaches to a wide range of scientific issues. She also has extensive experience running training, research translation, and outreach programs, especially as they relate to disadvantaged populations.  Dr. Miranda maintains an active research portfolio, with a funding history that includes the USEPA, NIH, CDC, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, the USDA, the State of North Carolina, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Wallace Genetics Foundation, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and The Duke Endowment.  She maintains a deep and abiding interest in environmental and social justice.  Her research group received the 2008 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Award.

Dr. Miranda served as Provost under President David Leebron.

Dr. Seiichi Matsuda, Rice University Interim Provost, 2019-2020

Dean Seiichi Matsuda was named acting provost after Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda announced she was stepping down from the position in 2019. Dean Matsuda graduated with a B.A. in chemistry from Bethel College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard. Matsuda, who is also the E. Dell Butcher Professor of Chemistry and a professor of BioSciences, has been a member of the Rice faculty since 1995.

Matsuda served as chair of the Department of Chemistry from 2007 to 2013 before becoming dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies in 2014. A recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching,  Matsuda conducts research on terpenoids, the most numerous and structurally diverse group of small molecules synthesized by plants.

Under Matsuda’s leadership as dean, the applicant pools for Rice’s graduate programs have expanded as academic departments have gained greater recognition. New matriculants to Rice graduate programs have brought more than double the number of major national awards, such as Goldwater Scholarships and Fulbright Scholarships. Rice graduate students have won 86% more major fellowships, such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Matsuda has also strengthened Rice’s position as a major academic destination for Latin American scholars by tripling the number of doctoral students from that region. His focus on improving all aspects of graduate education at Rice is a key component of the V2C2 — the university’s Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade initiative.

Dean Matsuda served as Interim Provost under President David Leebron.

Dr. Reginald DesRoches, Rice University Provost, 2020-2022

Dr. Reginald DesRoches, Professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Professor of mechanical engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering, was named the university’s Howard R. Hughes Provost in 2020 and served untill 2022, when he became the eighth President of Rice University.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Queens, DesRoches said his love of science and math and his interest in “tinkering with things” led him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Berkeley. He was at Berkeley when the San Francisco area was hit with a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 1989, and he witnessed firsthand the structural damage in the Bay Area. Dr. DesRoches joined the faculty of Georgia Tech in Atlanta in 1998 after completing his Ph.D. in structural engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2002 he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given to scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers.

He joined the Rice faculty in 2017, and served as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering from 2017 to 2020. As dean, DesRoches led a comprehensive strategic planning process for the School of Engineering, expanded the engineering faculty by nearly 20% and strengthened collaborations with the Texas Medical Center. Under his leadership, the school launched a new minor in data science as well as the Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge, which provides students immersive learning opportunities working with companies and community organizations. DesRoches also established a Master of Computer Science online program and led several international initiatives in China and India to bolster research and recruiting efforts.

Dr. DesRoches was named to the National Academy of Engineering in 2020. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Arnold Kerr Lecturer Award in 2019, the John A. Blume Distinguished Lecturer award in 2018 and the 2018 Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Distinguished Lecturer Award, one the highest honors in the earthquake engineering field. He is also a recipient of the 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award.

DesRoches serves on the National Academies Resilient America Roundtable, the Board on Army Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Advisory Committee, the Global Earthquake Modeling Scientific Board and the advisory board for the Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management Research Center. He has chaired the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Seismic Effects Committee as well as the executive committee of the Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering.

Dr. DesRoches’ research focuses on the design of resilient infrastructure systems under extreme loads and the application of smart and adaptive materials. A fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), he has published more than 250 articles in the field of resilience and seismic risk assessment, and served as the technical leader in the U.S. response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Dr. DesRoches served as Provost with President David Leebron.

Dr. Amy Dittmar, Rice University Provost, 2022-present

Dr. Amy Dittmar, a distinguished scholar with an extensive background in economics, finance and university administration, became the Rice University Howard R. Hughes Provost on Aug. 1, 2022.

Dittmar comes to Rice from the University of Michigan where she has held a series of top-level administrative roles. In 2019, she served as acting provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, the chief academic and budgetary officer with direct reporting relationships for 19 schools and colleges as well as other units and key staff. Since 2020, she has served as senior vice provost, a position in which she has overseen policy decisions and implemented a wide range of strategic, academic and budgetary areas of the university. Dittmar has been responsible for setting budgetary policy and allocating resources, including the university’s general fund budget, totaling $2.6 billion, and major capital projects. From 2016 to 2020, she served as the vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs.

During her tenure in the provost’s office, Dittmar was instrumental in establishing the Go Blue Guarantee in 2017, one of the first guarantees of free tuition for lower-income students at a public institution. She also planned and led the development of a new classroom building centered around enhancing engaged learning, and she was one of the leaders of a shift to a more holistic approach in the university’s support for student mental health and well-being. She also played a key role in the university’s decision-making process during the COVID-19 pandemic, including serving as the academic representative on the COVID health response committee and maintaining a balanced budget that prioritized people’s needs throughout the crisis.

Dittmar also served as the University of Michigan Ross School of Business’ senior associate dean for graduate programs. In that role, she was primarily responsible for all graduate programs, the office of student life and finalizing the school’s diversity strategic plan. She also directed curriculum review, admissions, strategic planning and budgets for graduate programs, including full-time and part-time MBA, global MBA, executive MBA, master’s of management, master’s of accounting and master’s of supply chain management.

Dittmar held a number of other administrative and academic roles in Michigan, including as a board member and secretary of the Michigan Health Corp., chair of a behavioral science research initiative task force, co-chair of the Student Mental Health and Well-being Implementation committee, member of the CFO search committee and board member of the Michigan Mobility Transportation Center.

Dittmar earned her bachelor’s degree in finance and business economics from Indiana University and Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina. She is a scholar of corporate finance, governance and gender economics. Her research centers around studying the complex interactions between ownership, governance, individual preferences and financial structure in public and private organizations to understand the role of incentives in decision-making and performance.

She served as an associate editor at the Journal of Financial Economics, one of the top journals in the field, and a councilor for the Society for Financial Studies, the organization that oversees three top finance journals including the Review of Financial Studies. She also served on selection committees and provided service to numerous journals and academic associations in finance, economics and accounting.

Dittmar was appointed the prestigious Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow at Michigan from 2012-2015. She was a finalist for the Brattle Prize, awarded for the best paper in corporate finance in Journal of Finance 2007, won the Law and Economics Consulting Group Award for Best Paper in Corporate Finance at the 2007 European Finance Association Conference and won Best Paper at the 2001 Financial Management Association European Conference. She has published numerous papers in top journals and her work has been cited more than 10,000 times.

Before her career at the University of Michigan, Dittmar was an assistant professor at Indiana University and a financial analyst and real estate officer at First Chicago Corp. (now part of JPMorgan Chase).

Dr. Dittmar serves as Provost with President Reginald DesRoches.