Brittany Utting, an assistant professor of architecture at Rice, has received a MacDowell Fellowship for Architecture. While in residency in Spring 2024, she will work on an ongoing research project titled “Deep Geologies” that examines the relationship between resource extraction and the built environment. This project positions geology as a critical framework for design thinking, relating architecture to a complex infrastructure of capital, energy and material, Utting said. Through writing and drawings, the project will speculate on emerging spatial practices of environmental research and terrestrial care, she said.
Laszlo Tihanyi, the William Alexander Kirkland Professor of Strategic Management at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, has been appointed editor liaison for the Academy of Management’s portfolio of journals. Tihanyi was previously the editor of the Academy of Management Journal.
Poets&Quants named Dean Peter Rodriguez its 2025 Dean of the Year, recognizing his transformation of Rice Business since 2016. Under his leadership, the school has advanced in academics, reputation and innovation.
Peter Rodriguez, the Houston Endowment Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business and the Virani Undergraduate School of Business at Rice University, has been named the 2025 Poets&Quants Dean of the Year, a national honor recognizing visionary leadership and outstanding contributions to business education.
In less than a decade, Rodriguez has transformed Rice Business in nearly every dimension. Beyond creating a thriving undergraduate offering, he has overseen a 192% increase in student enrollment. The growth stems from a doubling of MBA students and the launch of an online MBA—the university’s first online degree—along with a hybrid MBA option.