Message from the Dean

Welcome to the Wiess School of Natural Sciences. Detailed information on our Departments, Institutes and Centers can be found at the corresponding sites on our home page. I encourage you to visit these sites and learn more about our exciting research and educational programs and activities. There are many opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students as well as post-doctoral fellows within each of our departments, institutes and centers. Faculty searches underway at various levels offer very competitive packages and unique opportunities to collaborate with superb colleagues on our campus as well as at other institutions in Houston, the fourth largest city in the US and an international center of technology and commerce.
 
I enter as Dean of the Wiess School at an extremely exciting time in the history of the University. President Leebron has formulated Rice’s Vision for the Second Century to echo President Lovett’s vision in 1912 of “a university standing of the highest grade” with “no upper limit”. We have initiated an aggressive capital campaign with goals to significantly enhance virtually every aspect of the research and educational endeavors at Rice. We are building the new Brockman Hall for Physics to provide state-of-the-art laboratories and to create a locus for interaction in the sciences.

In addition, Rice is committed to greatly enhancing its interactions with institutions located in the adjacent, world-renowned Texas Medical Center to expand further the research and educational opportunities for our faculty and students. To this end, a new ~500,000 sq. ft research building dedicated to collaboration, the BioScience Research Collaborative, is nearing completion and will house researchers from Rice University as well as various institutions of the Texas Medical Center to foster interactions among our faculty and students. I hope you’ll have a chance to visit our campus to see some of these exciting new initiatives in addition to exploring our website.

Daniel D. Carson, Ph.D.
Dean, Wiess School of Natural Sciences
Schlumberger Chair of Advanced Studies & Research
Professor of Biochemistry & Cell Biology

About Dean Carson

Dr. Carson received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, his Ph.D. from Temple University and performed his post-doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1983-1998 where he was the H.E.B. Professor of Cancer Research. He then became Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences and Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Delaware through 2008. Dr. Carson also has been the recipient of a prestigious NIH MERIT Award in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of reproductive biology. He currently is Schlumberger Chair of Advanced Studies and Research and Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University. His field of research is the regulation of expression and function of cell surface and extracellular matrix components in the context of mammalian embryo implantation and cancer biology. Dr. Carson has been a member of many federal grant reviewing panels, is currently on the editorial boards of multiple journals in the field of reproductive biology and is a member of the Society for the Study of Reproduction, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. He also serves on a number of external advisory boards.

Dan Carson's CV