Research Support Shop

Who knew there is a full-time team of highly skilled technicians and their full service machine shop behind the scenes of the innovative research performed at Rice?

Dwight Dear, Senior Department Administrator at Rice’s Research Support Shop, runs an entirely unexpected kind of laboratory. Like the scientists he supports, with precision, patience and skill, he and his teammates create tools and machines to help Rice scientists complete their research and experiments. 

Dwight came to the Rice campus 21 years ago after working as a machinist in an oilfield service company and has never looked back. “This is a great and absolutely unique job. There is no outside pressure and I can use the skills God gave me every day to help others,” he adds. Dwight is joined by his staff, scientific instrument makers Jack Gless and Eliberto Batres. Gless came to Rice from Texaco where he worked as a research and development technician. Batres is a graduate from the Tool and Die Institute in Chicago, Illinois, and was in research and development at MicroMed Technology before coming to Rice.

The Research Support team provides services ranging from simply drilling a hole to creating complex scientific instruments. Almost every job completed is one-of-a-kind, created to serve a unique purpose in a specific lab for a particular piece of research. Some of the services they provide are finished in less than an hour, while others may take weeks.

Dwight describes the process of providing his services: “In many cases, we get handmade drawings and work on creating what the customer wants from that. Usually the scientists know in their minds exactly what they want and how it needs to work, and it is our job to make that vision a physical reality.” And they are highly successful: Dwight and his team are the proud manufacturers of the High Pressure Carbon Monoxide (HipCo) machine, one that is revered on campus by faculty, staff and visitors alike. HipCo was designed and developed by the late Dr. Richard Smalley, a Rice professor and Nobel laureate, to produce carbon nanotubes.

Shop team members pictured here are (left to right):
Dwight Dear, Eliberto Batres and Jack Gless

The shop is self-supported by revenue earned by providing services to all schools and laboratories on campus, although Natural Sciences and Engineering are high volume users.  Dwight also leads an annual six-week class for graduate students seeking an introduction to his team’s services and products. In the 36 hour course, students learn basic machine shop tool skills and how to make simple machine parts for their experiments.

“What is amazing about this position is that I am able to see what the hot research areas are from a completely unexpected vantage point. For example, as nanotechnology grew, so did our nanotechnology projects, and at one point, the Smalley Institute was our top customer,” reflects Dwight.

During the week of this interview, Dwight was working on a small sheet metal part for Civil/Mechanical Engineering as well as Teflon parts and stainless steel rings to help Physics and Astronomy conduct black hole experiments. The team thoroughly enjoys the variety of tasks they have to complete. “No day is the same,” says Dwight. Even better, he reminds us that “what we see here in the lab, the general public won’t see for 15 years. It is this job that has enabled me to see how the science created here at Rice reaches the masses.”

location: B5 Space Science & Tech. Bldg., MS106
phone: 713-348-4051

Dwight Dear
Senior Department Administrator
ddear@rice.edu

Eliberto Batres
Scientific Instrument Maker III
Eliberto.Batres@rice.edu

Earl Gless
Scientific Instrument Maker III
Jack.Gless@rice.edu