Awards

Lydia Kavraki

  • IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Pioneer Award
  • Outstanding Faculty Research Award, George R. Brown School of Engineering
  • ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award
  • National Academy of Medicine, Elected Member
  • International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, Member
  • The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST), Member
  • AAAS Fellow
  • ACM Fellow
  • IEEE Fellow
  • AAAI Fellow
  • AIMBE Fellow
  • WTN Fellow
  • ACM Athena award
  • Presidential Mentorship Award, Rice University
  • Anita Borg ABIE Technical Leadership Award
  • BioHouston’s Women in Science Award
  • ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
  • Charles Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, Rice University
  • IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award
  • 100 World’s Top Young Innovators by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine
  • Brilliant 10 Scientists, Popular Science Magazine
  • Sloan Fellow
  • NSF Career Award

Current Members (Postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students)

Dinler Antunes

  • One of the 35 researchers selected for the Immuno-Oncology Young Investigators’ Forum (IOYIF), Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), 2020
  • Awarded by the Future Faculty Fellows Program of the Rice University’s School of Engineering, 2019
  • Fellowship from the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program (CCBTP), funded by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT, grant number RP170593), 2019
  • Member of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), 2019
  • Poster award, 22nd Sealy Center Structural Biology Symposium, 2017
  • Best poster award in the Development of Novel Therapies Through Fragment Based Drug Discovery, 2016
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship through the Brazilian Scientific Mobility Program (Ciências sem Fronteiras, CNPq), 2014
  • Best poster award in Biomedicine and Immunoinformatics, International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), 2012

Rahul Shome

  • Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020
  • Paper invited to a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering 2020
  • Paper invited to a special issue of Autonomous Robots 2019
  • Nominated for the Best Paper in Automation award at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2019
  • Best Paper award at IEEE International Symposium on Multi-robot and Multi-agent Systems 2017

Zachary Kingston

Andrew Wells

  • NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF), 2017.

Eleni Litsa

  • Ken Kennedy Institute Andrew Ladd Fellowship (2018)
  • Hellenic Professional Society of Texas Scholarship (2017)
  • Thomaidis Foundation Award - Best Diploma Thesis (National Technical University of Athens) (2014)
  • Thomaidis Foundation Award - Best Conference Publication (National Technical University of Athens) (2013)

Cannon Lewis

Constantinos Chamzas

  • Nominated for the Best Paper in Cognitive Robotics award at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2022)
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2019)
  • Hellenic Professional Society of Texas Scholarship (2018)
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship (2017)

Sarah Hall-Swan

  • National Library of Medicine Predoctoral Training Fellowship, 2020
  • Sue H. And Harold R. Galloway Graduate Student Fellowship/Award. Rice University, 2018
  • CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award for PhD-granting institutions Runner Up, 2018
  • The Benjamin G. Brown Scholarship. Tufts University, 2018

Thomas Herring

  • 2020 Pollard Graduate Fellowship in Engineering
  • 2020 Distinction in Undergraduate Research
  • 2019 Fayez Sarofim International Scholarship for Innovation Winner
  • 2018 Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics Robot Guru Scholarship Winner
  • 2017 Bybee Scholarship Award for Innovation
  • Willy Revolution Award winner for 2020 Engineering Design Showcase
  • Excellence in Engineering award for 2018 Engineering Design Showcase
  • Excellence in Freshman Engineering award for 2017 Engineering Design Showcase
  • Rice University Distinguished Trustee Scholarship winner

Past Members (Postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students)

Jayvee Abella

  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2015
  • National Library of Medicine Predoctoral Fellowship, 2016-2017

Nicole Mitchell

  • Adobe Research Women in Technology Scholarship, 2019.
  • Rice Computer Science Graduate Research Fellowship. Rice University, 2019.

Juan David Hernandez Vega

  • Outstanding Cum Laude Distinction in PhD Thesis. University of Girona, 2017.
  • PhD Scholarship Program awarded by Colciencias (Colombian Science and Technology Department), 2013-2017.
  • Honor Distinction for Excellence in Graduation Work. Universidad Javeriana Cali, 2009.
  • Honor Distinction for Academic Excellence, Universidad Javeriana Cali, 2009.

Sarah Kim

  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2013
  • Goldwater Scholar, 2011
  • Harrison Undergraduate Research Award, UVa, 2011

Mert Akinc

  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 2002
  • President’s Honor Roll, 2000, 2001
  • National Merit Scholar

Elliot Anshelevish

  • NSF Graduate Fellowship, 1999
  • Cornell University Fellowship, 1999

Kostas Bekris

  • Paper invited to a special issue of the ACM/Springer Mobile Networks and Applications Journal (MONET), 2008.
  • Best Student Paper award at the First International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination (ROBOCOMM), 2007.
  • First place at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Univ. 2007
  • Nettie S. Autrey Graduate Fellowship, associated with an award of $12000, 2006.
  • First place at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting (joint work with Konstantinos Tsianos), Rice Univ. 2006.
  • Paper invited to the collection Imaging Beyond the Pinhole Camera, 2006.
  • Paper invited to ACM Journal on Special Topics in Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET), 2005.
  • Honorable mention at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Uni. 2005.
  • Recipient of the “George R. Brown Fellowship” by Rice University, 2004.
  • Paper invited to Eleventh International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) , 2003.
  • Hellenic Professional Society of Texas Scholarship, 2002.
  • Paper invited to the Special Issue “Intelligent Sensing, Image Processing and Applications” of the Journal “Image Processing and Communications”, 2001.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2001.
  • University of Crete, Computer Science Department, Best Student Award 2001.
  • Greek Institute of State Fellowships student award for 4 consecutive years: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001.

Drew Bryant

  • Schlumberger Graduate Fellowship, 2011
  • Best Poster Award, 3DSIG (ISMB satellite conference), 2010
  • Andrew Ladd Memorial Fellowship, 2009
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2008
  • John and Ellen Tietze Fellowship, 2008
  • Janessa Shapiro Award, 2007
  • James S. Waters Creativity Award, 2007
  • First Place, Engineering Division, Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium Poster Contest, 2007
  • Outstanding Senior Design Project Award for ”Nanosorter: A High-Throughput Nanoshell Sorting Device”, 2007
  • Rice Bioengineering Outstanding Contributions to Research Award, 2007
  • Texas Space Grant Consortium Scholarship Award, 2006
  • W.M. Keck Center Undergraduate Research Training Program Fellowship, 2005.
  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 2004

David Carr

Brian Chen

  • Travel Fellowship, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, 2005.
  • Fellowship, Computational Biology and Medicine Training Program (NLM / Keck), 2004, renewed 2005. (NLM 5T15LM07093).
  • NLM Fellowship through the Keck Center for Computational and Structural Biology of the Gulf Coast Consortia, 2003.
  • Travel Fellowship, RECOMB 2003, 2001.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2000.
  • Awarded membership, Mensa Society, Sept 1998.

Annie Christian

  • CRA-W Distributed Mentor Program Award, 2002
  • Schlumberger undergraduate fellowship, 2002

Amanda Cruess

  • Computer Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) Distributed Mentor Project Award, Summer 2005
  • Rice University Trustee Distinguished Scholarship, 2003-present
  • National Merit Finalist, 2003

Tim Danner

  • CRA Honorable Mention. See related article.
  • James S. Waters Creativity Student Award, Rice University, 2000. See related article.
  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 1999

Katherine Davis

Didier Devaurs

  • Poster award, 9th ACM International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (BCB), Sep 2018
  • Poster award, 4th Smalley-Curl Institute Summer Research Colloquium, Aug 2018
  • Poster award, 23rd Sealy Center Structural Biology Symposium, Apr 2018
  • Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) startup allocation, NSF, Mar 2018 - Mar 2019
  • Poster award, 27th Annual Keck Center Research Conference, Oct 2017
  • Poster award, 22nd Sealy Center Structural Biology Symposium, May 2017
  • Keck postdoctoral fellowship (CCBTP) funded by CPRIT, Apr 2017 - Mar 2019
  • Selection for ComSciCon Houston (communicating science workshop), Mar 2017
  • Poster award, 21st Sealy Center Structural Biology Symposium, Apr 2016
  • Leopold Escande PhD award, INP Toulouse, France, Oct 2014

Ankur Dhanik

  • Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Keck Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-2012
  • Outstanding Research Poster Award, Stanford University, 2010
  • Research Fellowship, National University of Singapore, 2004-2005
  • Student Scholarship, EPFL, Switzerland, 2002
  • Innovative Robot Design Award, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 2001
  • National Child Scientist Award, India, 1996

Brad Dodson

Nicolas Feltman

  • 3rd place in ACM ICPC South Central Regional USA Programming Contest
  • Century Scholar

Bryant Gipson

  • National Library of Medicine (NLM) Keck Fellowship, 2010
  • Distinguished Scholar Award (DSA) from the Microbeam Analysis Society (MAS), 2008
  • Judge Selected Talk, Gordon Research Conference on 3DEM, 2007
  • 3rd Place, Mu Alpha Theta Math Competition, 2002

Max Glick

  • Recipient of Brown Undergraduate Research Fellowship, summer 2005.

Devin Grady

  • Second Place, Rice CS Club Hackathon, 2012 & 2013
  • Schlumberger Graduate Fellowship, 2012
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2010
  • Best Poster Design Award: Corporate Affiliates Meeting (jointly with Ioan Sucan), Rice Univ. 2009
  • Texas Instruments Fellowship, 2008
  • Member of Sigma Pi Sigma (National Physics honor society), 2007

Allison Heath

  • Shell Center for Sustainability Fellow, 2011
  • Keck Center Biomedical Discovery from Large Scale Data Sets Training Program, Predoctoral Fellowship, 2009
  • Best Oral Presentation Award: Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Univ. 2008
  • Google Anita Borg Scholarship, 2008.
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2004.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2004.
  • CRA-W Distributed Mentor Program Award, 2003
  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 2002

Julia Hossu

  • Century Scholar
  • 2011 National Winner, National Center for Women in Computing
  • 2011 DFW Affiliate Winner, National Center for Women in Computing
  • 2015 Chahin Excellence Award, Department of Computer Science, Rice University

Andrew Ladd

  • Paper invited to ACM Journal on Special Topics in Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET), 2005.
  • Fellowship to pursue research at the Doctoral level from the Quebec government ( Fonds de recherche sur la nature et les technologies ) , $20000(CAN) per year for three years (Fall 2002 – Summer 2005).
  • International Conference on AI Planning Systems (ICAPS 2004). Invited to give a half-day tutorial session on Robot Motion Planning.
  • Paper invited to International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2004.
  • NITC Bursary from McGill University and the Quebec Government. See related article.
  • Paper invited to Eleventh International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) , 2003.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2000
  • Fellowship to pursue research at the Master’s level from the Quebec government ( Fonds de recherche sur la nature et les technologies ), $15000(CAN) per year for two years (Fall 2000 – Summer 2002).
  • National Science and Engineering Research Counsel of Canada Summer Undergraduate Research Award, $5000(CAN) for the summer, received separately in Summer 1999 and in Summer 2000.

Ryan Luna

  • Andrew Ladd Graduate Fellowship for Excellence in Computer Science, Fall 2014
  • NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF), 2013-2015.
  • Outstanding MS Thesis Award: University of Nevada, Reno, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 2011.
  • Full scholarship: JAIST international summer school on Locomotion and Cooperative Robotics, 2010.
  • Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship Award, 2009.

Matt Maly

  • Charles Babbage & Ada Lovelace Computing Award, Trinity University, 2010.
  • Outstanding Senior Research Award, Trinity University, 2010.
  • Mach Student Research Fellow, Trinity University, 2009.
  • Outstanding Junior Research Award, Trinity University, 2009.

Thomas Mowad

  • Louis J. Walsh Engineering Scholarship
  • Rice University President’s Honor Roll

Paul Murphy

  • Fellowship for the MD/PhD program at the University of Washington-Seattle, 2002
  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 2001
  • Keck Undergraduate Research Trainee, 2000

Santiago Neira

  • Brown Undergraduate Research Fellow, Fall 2010

Chengwei Peng

Jeff Phillips

  • Draper Fellowship, 2003
  • James S. Waters Creativity Student Award, Rice University, 2002 (see related article)
  • NASA/Texas Space Grant Consortium Undergraduate Scholarship, 2002 (see related article)
  • Brown Undergraduate Research Internship Award, 2001
  • Vice President’s Appreciation Award for Community Service, 2001
  • Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges, 2000-2001

Erion Plaku

  • George R. Brown Fellowship, Rice University, 2006. Highest GPA during each of 1st–4th year of graduate studies in Computer Science.
  • George R. Brown Fellowship, Rice University, 2005.
  • George R. Brown Fellowship, Rice University, 2004.
  • Paper invited to International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Siena, Italy, 2003.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2002.
  • Clarkson University Fellowship for studies leading to a Master’s degree, 2000-2002.
  • Recipient of the George Soros Scholarship, 1996-2000.
  • John Beck Scholarship, SUNY Fredonia, 1998. Academic excellence and outstanding work in Computer Science.
  • Phi-Mu-Epsilon, SUNY Fredonia, 1997. National Honorary Mathematics Society.
  • Ruth Tice Callahan Award, SUNY Fredonia, 1997.
  • International Mathematics Olympiad, Mumbai, India, 1996. Albanian National Team.
  • Balkan Olympiad of Mathematics, Bacau, Romania, 1996. Albanian National Team.
  • Balkan Chess Championship, Durres, Albania, 1992. Albanian National Team U21.

Evan Roseman

David Schwarz

  • Presidential Fellowship, Rice University 2001-2004
  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, 2001-2004
  • Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society, 1998.
  • National Merit Scholar, 1995.

Amarda Shehu

  • Recipient of a training fellowship from the Keck Center Nanobiology Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia (NIH Grant No. 1 R90 DK071504-01), 2007.
  • Recipient of a training fellowship from the Keck Center Nanobiology Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia (NIH Grant No. 1 R90 DK071504-01), 2006.
  • NSF ADVANCE Workshop on Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position, Rice University, 2006; Selected as one of 55 attendees from a group of over 730 applicants.
  • Recipient of a training fellowship from the Keck Center Nanobiology Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia (NIH Grant No. 1 R90 DK071504-01), 2005.
  • Invited Talk to the 10th Structural Biology Symposium at UTMB, Galveston, TX, May, 2005.
  • First place at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting (joint work with Jessica Wu), Rice Univ. 2005.
  • Winner of poster competition at the Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Univ. 2003.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2002.
  • Best poster in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), 2002.
  • Presidential Scholarship, Clarkson University 2000-2002.
  • Honors Scholarship in recognition of academic excellence, Clarkson University, 2002.
  • Phi-Mu-Epsilon Fellowship Award to the Best student in Computer Science and Mathematics, Clarkson University 2001.
  • Recipient of the University Recognition Day award, the Hamlin/Darraugh award, in Mathematics and Computer Science, Clarkson University, 2001.
  • International Student Excellence Award, Clarkson University 2001.
  • Honorable mention at the International Competition of Mathematics, Turkey 1997.

Hernan Stamati

  • Recipient of a training fellowship from the Keck Center Pharmacoinformatics Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia (NIH Grant No.5 T90 DK070109-02), Rice University, 2006.
  • Third place at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Univ. 2006.
  • Recipient of the “George R. Brown Fellowship” for highest GPA in Computer Science (2005).
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2004.
  • ITBA Diploma and Medal of Honor - best in class award (2001).
  • R&D prize for “Speech Recognition Using Genetic Algorithms” (2001).

Ioan Alexandru Sucan

  • Best Poster Design Award: Corporate Affiliates Meeting (jointly with Devin Grady), Rice Univ. 2009
  • Best Technical Contribution Award: Corporate Affiliates Meeting, Rice Univ. 2008
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2006.
  • Member of presidents lists, International University Bremen (IUB), academic years 2003-2006.
  • Selected for the Rice-IUB student exchange program for fall 2005.
  • Honorable mention at the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, 2005.

Sujay Tadwalkar

  • “Makes Life Easy” Award, HackRice 2014
  • President’s Honor Roll, 2015

Miguel Teodoro

  • Paper invited to Current Pharmaceutical Design, 2003
  • Paper invited to Journal of Computational Biology, 2003
  • W.M. Keck Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 2002-2003
  • Nettie S. Autrey Graduate Fellowship. See related article.
  • Doctoral Research Fellowship, Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology

Konstantinos Tsianos

  • Paper invited to a special issue of the ACM/Springer Mobile Networks and Applications Journal (MONET), 2008.
  • Best Student Paper award at the First International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination (ROBOCOMM), 2007.
  • Hellenic Professional Society of Texas Scholarship, February 2007
  • First place at the poster competition of the Corporate Affiliates Meeting (joint work with Kostas Bekris), Rice Univ. 2006.
  • Rice University Doctoral Fellowship, 2005.

Konstantinos Varvarezos

Caleb Voss

  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (for graduate work Caleb will be pursuing at Georgia Tech), 2016–2021. See related article
  • Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Finalist, 2016
  • Rice Engineering Alumni Outstanding Research Excellence Award, 2016
  • James S. Waters Creativity Award, 2016. See related article
  • Trustee Distinguished Scholar, 2012–16
  • Century Scholar, 2012-14
  • Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, inducted 2015
  • Fazoli’s Pursuit of Excellence Scholarship, 2015
  • President’s Honor Roll, 4 semesters
  • National Merit Scholar, 2012

Bryce Willey

Martha Witick

  • NIST fellowship

Karen Wong

  • Century Scholar
  • President’s Honor Roll, 2014, 2015
  • Best poster award, Rice undergraduate research summer session, 2015

Jessica Wu

  • CRA-W Distributed Mentor Program Participant, 2005
  • ExxonMobil Temple Scholarship, 2004, 2005
  • Louis J. Walsh Engineering Scholarship, 2003, 2005
  • George S. Cohen Memorial Scholarship, 2003, 2005
  • Emma S. McGree Scholarship, 2003, 2005