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.
An all-veteran ownership team, Summit Point Leadership LLC, which launched through the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University and its Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) Lab, has acquired the business of LDR Leadership LLC, a nationwide leadership, management and supervisory training firm.
Congratulations to Robert J. Gaudette on being named President of NRG Energy, and on his appointment as Chief Executive Officer, effective April 30, 2026. Rob is a distinguished Rice Business alum and continues to give back to the school through the Board of Advisors and joined us this year as a speaker at the Rice Energy Finance Summit.
A new study co-authoered by Rice Business’ Tommy Pan Fang provides the first large-scale statistical analysis of data center location strategies across the United States. It offers policymakers and firms a clearer starting point for understanding how different types of data qcenters get located in response to economic and strategic incentives.