Rice: Wiess School of Natural Sciences

Professional Master's Program: An Unconventional Career TrackProfessional Master's Program
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RICE University
Prof. Master's Program
6100 Main Street, MS-103
Houston, TX 77005
713.348.3188 (phone)
713.348.3121 (fax)
profms@rice.edu

PMP Small Logo
www.sciencemasters.com


Initial Funding by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
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Alumni

Bill Schleizer,            EADM graduate 2004, was promoted to  Associate Director of the Delta Institute in Chicago!
Avanti Tamhane,      EADM graduate 2006, was promoted from the URS Houston office to the URS San Francisco office.
Varun Anand,           EADM graduate 2006, became engaged to be married in India in 2009.
Takumi Shiraishi,     EADM graduate 2008, was married in Kyoto, Japan in September 2008.

 

 

Danny Mills and Myriam McChargue, both 2007 graduates of the EADM program, became engaged!  Myriam and Danny met during their studies at Rice and are our first Professional Master’s “couple” with a wedding to come in 2009!
Rachelle Petrovik,   EADM graduate 2008, took a break from work with Element Markets to spend more time with her family.

JOB UPDATE ON SPRING 2008 GRADUATES

Rachelle Petrovic accepted employment with Element Markets in Houston.

Summer Eidson continued employment with Geosyntec Consultants

Takumi Shiraishi accepted a position with a Japanese company based in Tokyo.

Glennis Claxton will be working for ConocoPhillips in Midland, Texas.

Jeremy Mardembek took a position with ConocoPhillips in Houston.

JOB UPDATE ON FALL 2007 GRADUATES

Danny Reed accepted a position with SHELL Corp. in Houston, Texas

Yi Ye continued working with ExxonMobil, she completed the Subsurface Geoscience Program on a part-time basis.

Adriana Valerio received an offer from Marathon Oil.

JOB UPDATE on SPRING 2007 GRADUATES

Danny Mills accepted a position with HOK Architectural and Engineering Services in Houston, Texas

Myriam McChargue is working for CDM Environmental Consulting in Houston, Texas

Matt Slezak stayed with his internship provider IVG Green Energy Trading until end of 2007 when he accepted a new position with BP as Power Risk Analyst.

Ed Miles accepted the offer of his internship provider Quantum Logic Devices and is working for them on full-time in Austin, Texas

Will Lee accepted a position with PROS Revenue Management Consulting in Houston, Texas

Aditya Patel decided to stay with Schlumberger after finishing his internship with them.

 

JOB UPDATE on SPRING 2006 GRADUATES

(See more detailed bios below)

Varun Anand familiarized himself with the environmental consulting field during his internship with CDM, and accepted a full-time position with Trinity Consulting.

Sylvia Centanni had participated in an internship with Lynn Inc. in Houston, and accepted a full-time position with Schlumberger's office in Bryan, Texas.

Ellice Lin fulfilled her internship requirement with an Orange County municipal organization in California. Ellice secured a position as Air Quality Specialist at Tetra Tech in California, headquartered in Pasadena.

Sarah Mason pursued her internship with the Houston Wilderness Organization. After her graduation, she started as Environmental Analyst in the Mayor's Office of the City of Houston in their Environmental Programming Department.

Shawna McLallen interned with Lynn Co. in Houston and accepted a position as a Geologist with Anadarko in their new Woodlands office. Shawna started a new job with HydroStatOil Co beginning of 2008.

Avanti Tamhane worked during her internship with Argent Consulting in Houston. She accepted a full-time Environmental Consultant position with URS in Houston.

JOB UPDATE on SPRING 2005 GRADUATES 

Four graduates received the M.S. in Environmental Analysis and Decision Making in 2005:

Iain Cowie interned at the Houston based Groundwater Services Inc. and after graduation accepted a job offer to start working with the company full-time as of June 2005. Due to family reasons, Iain relocated to Brea, California in Spring 2006 and accepted a position with Paulsson Geo-physical Services, Inc. as an Operations Manager.

Andrea Crumpacker accepted a temporary job assignment with a Canadian-based consulting company called Archipelago Ltd based in Victoria, B.C. at one of their offices in Newport, Oregon. As of November 2005 she has accepted a position as Environmental Statistician for Weston Solutions in Carlsbad, California.

Christy Mak started working for Sage Environmental in Houston, Texas after interning with Trinity Consultants in Houston.

Christine Robichaud conducted her internship at Rice researching the environmental impact of nanomaterials with Rice professor Dr. Mark Wiesner. She returned from an assignment as  General Manager for American Bio Fuel, Inc back to Rice to continue her doctoral studies in Spring 2006.                                         

Nd Nebo accepted a temporary work assignment with Burlington Resources, and started working for Pason Systems, USA  in Spring 2006.

UPDATES on Fall 2004 Graduates 

Padraig Moloney earned his MS in Nanoscale Physics while simultaneously working at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC).  He is now leading JSC's NanoMaterials Applications R&D, which includes work in advanced power and energy storage, regnerable life support and radiation shielding technologies. He is  pursuing his PhD at Rice at the same time!


Doug Thompson earned his MS in Environmental Analysis and Decision Making.  As owner of a management consulting firm, Doug plan to focus on developing sustainability strategies for small and medium-sized companies. He relocated to Washington D.C. in Summer 2005.

Bill Schleizer, who graduated with a Master of Science in Environmental Analysis and Decision Making in May 2004, is now an associate for the Delta Institute, an environmental nonprofit organization in downtown Chicago. 

Natalie Irwin accepted a position with EIP Water Resources Group in California which merged with PBS&J in 2007.

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PSM STUDENT BIOGRAPHIES:

SUBSURFACE GEOSCIENCE

Enrolled in Fall 2003:

Ndubuisi Nebo

Mr. Nebo graduated in 1995 with a B.S. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Nigeria.  Before entering the Professional Master’s Program, he worked as a database administrator for seven producing and drilling platforms in Nigeria.  He intends to focus on Geophysics within the Subsurface Geoscience track.

Enrolled in Fall 2004

Sylvia Centanni

Ms. Centanni earned a B.S. in Geology in 1975 and a master’s in environmental science in 1999. She comes to Rice with over twenty years experience in domestic and nternational oil and gas exploration, development geology, and interpretation geophysics. She seeks to complete her industrial training in geophysics to round out her education.

Shawna McLallen

Ms. McLallen is our first student attempting to achieve a five-year combined BS/MS degree plan. She will finish her B.S. in Geophysics in spring 2005 and started to take courses required by our PSM program in fall 2004. She graduated in December 2005 with an M.S. in Subsurface Geoscience. Her ultimate goal is to find a position in seismic processing.

 

NANOSCALE PHYSICS

Enrolled in Fall 2002:

Padraig Moloney

Padraig Moloney graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently working as an aerospace engineer for NASA.  He has been fascinated with the broad scientific area of nanotechnology for many years.  He has experience with carbon fiber composites and microengines and has been published in Aviation Week (Sept. 6, 1998).  Padraig wanted to use his knowledge of nanotechnology in order to pursue aerospace applications. He graduated in December 2004 and is now leading JSC's NanoMaterials Applications R&D, which includes work in advanced power and energy storage, regenerable life support and radiation shielding technologies. He is pursuing his PhD at Rice at the same time.

Enrolled in Fall 2003:

Ilia Geltser

Mr. Geltser graduated with a M.S. in Metal Physics from the Moscow Iron and Steel Institute in 1990.  He continued his studies at the University of British Columbia where he received his master’s degree in materials engineering in 1993.  He has 10 years experience in equipment for deepwater oil and gas, petrochemical, power generation and aerospace. He has experience in metallic materials applications, manufacturing, new product development, new markets, patent development, and strategy/operational improvement consulting.  He is fluent in English, Russian, Polish, and Czech.  His goal was to apply his new knowledge to industrial nanotechnology applications within a start-up company.  He graduated in 2004 and has been working as a consultant.

ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING

Enrolled in Fall 2002:

Bill Schleizer

Mr. Schleizer graduated magna cum laude from Tulane University in 2000 with a B.S. in Ecology, Evolution & Organismal Biology and Environmental Studies.  The interdisciplinary and intrinsically complex nature of environmental issues has sparked his interest over the past decade.  Prior to entering the Professional Master's Program, he worked as an environmental consultant tackling compliance issues for many industries ranging from wastewater treatment to petrochemical transmission.  Current interests include the interactions of government, industry, and the public in the creation of effective environmental policy; and the development of sustainable business models.  Following his interest in aiding corporations in the development of sustainable business practices he accepted a full-time position with the Delta Institute in Chicago.


Natalie Irwin

Natalie Irwin graduated from UC-Berkeley in 2000 with a BS in Integrative Biology with an emphasis in plant ecology.  She has had an interest in the environmental sciences since high school when she was involved in a program that restored degraded lands to a natural state.  After graduating from UC-Berkeley, Natalie worked in the biotechnology industry. She graduated in Spring 2004 and is now working for EIP Water Resources Group in California.

Enrolled in Fall 2003:

Iain Cowie

Mr. Cowie earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical/electronic engineering in 1989 at Aberdeen University in England.  For the past twelve years he has worked as an acquisition manager and field engineer for READ Well Services, an oil field service company specializing in cased hole logging and borehole seismic logging services.  He intended refocus his career toward energy and the environment. He graduated in 2005 and is now working with Paulsson Geophysical Services in California.

Andrea Crumpacker

Ms. Crumpacker graduated from Truman State University in 1999 with a B.S. in Biology. She has field work experience collecting data related to fishery management. She intended to focus on advanced computation and was most interested in how different aspects of statistics may be used to improve resource management. She is now employed as an Environmental Statistician for Weston Solutions in California.

 

Matt Hotze

Mr. Hotze received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Business from the University of Notre Dame in 2003. He gained work experience with several consulting companies during semester breaks. He plans to pursue a career related to business and environmental concerns. Matt decided to pursue a PhD during the 2nd semester of attending the PSM prorgram.

 

Christy Mak

Ms. Mak received her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science in 1999 from the School of Environmental Science & Engineering at Sun Yat-sen University. In addition to working for the Environmental Protection Bureau in Guangzhou, China, she has been actively involved in the Green Youth Organization supported by the Guangzhou Municipal Environmental Bureau and the School of Earth and Environmental Science at Sun Yat-sen University.  Her goal was to work for the Chinese government in the field of environmental protection. After graduation, she accepted a position with Sage Environmental in Houston, Texas

Christine Robichaud

Ms. Robichaud graduated in 2000 from Texas A& M University with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering. After graduation she worked as a business consulted for Arthur Andersen in the energy industry, identifying and implementing supply chain process improvements. At Rice she hopes to gain an interdisciplinary view of the policies, economics, and technological challenges involved with environmental protection, with the goal of building a business case for sustainable development.  Christine graduated from the PSM program in May 2005 and is now pursuing a PhD with Dr. Wiesner.

 

Douglas Thompson

Mr. Thompson earned his bachelor’s degree in geology in 1976 from Western Michigan University.  He continued his education at Pennsylvania University where he earned a M.S. in Mineral Economics in 1980.  Mr. Thompson’s professional life as a geologist focused on hydrology studies, geotechnical analysis, and coal mining.  He conducted economic evaluations and financial modeling for mining and explorations projects at Exxon for 11 years before starting his own management consulting firm in Houston in 1991.  He has provided strategic planning and organizational design to the engineering and architectural community. He has also given presentations and speeches at various national conferences on business and ethics. His goal was to enhance his consulting practice by working directly with corporate clients in the development of sustainability strategies. After graduation, Doug relocated his consulting business to Washington D.C.

 

Enrolled in Fall 2004

Varun Anand

Mr. Anand received his Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) in Chemical Engineering in May 2004 at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi, India.He has gained practical work experience through employment at a nitric acid/ammonia/sewage treatment plant and The Energy and Resources Institute in India.  He was also involved in developing a process for producing single walled carbon nanotubes.  His goal was to start his own environmental consultancy firm, after his graduation in 2006 he started employment with Trinity Consultants in Houston, Texas.

Ellice Lin

Ms. Lin graduated from University of California in Irvine with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2003.  She was interested in environmental policy and laws, and is seeking to increase her skills in effective water management, natural resource and environmental management, and preservation. After her graduation in 2006 she intended to return to California to work for a government agency there.

 

Sarah Mason

Ms. Mason earned her Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences at Clemson University, South Carolina in 2003. Sarah gained practical work experience by working throughout her undergraduate years.  She developed an interest for environmental protection during her studies at Clemson. She seeked involvement  with industries in developing more sustainable practices in production and development. Her long-term goal is to become active in government to assure that sustainable practices become law. She has accepted an Environmental Analyst position with the Mayor's Office of the City of Houston.

Avanti Tamhane

Ms. Tamhane received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 2004 at Rice University in 2004. During her two internships with BP she gained practical work experience enhancing her engineering, analyzing and communication skills.  She was interested in learning more about the decision making processes behind major environmental issues. Avanti accepted employment with URS in Houston, Texas.