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Houston, center of the petroleum industry and home to NASA's Johnson Space Center and the Lunar and Planetary Institute, has the largest number of Earth Scientists of any city on Earth. As a consequence the Rice Earth Science community is large and diverse, consisting of many of our former alumni who reside in Houston, as well as current students, active and emeritus faculty, the research, technical and office staffs, and a large group of adjunct faculty from consulting, industry and NASA. Although we are a relatively young department (founded in the 1950's) Rice alumni and former faculty are found throughout academia, government, and industry (including petroleum exploration and production, water resources, mining, environmental, and litigation). Department endowments and industry funds, in addition to federal and state research grants, facilitate our research and educational programs.
A faculty of 15 are engaged in research in all areas of the Earth sciences, in locations ranging from Antarctica to Alaska. Our geophysics faculty are members of the Rice Center for Computational Geophysics, a cross-disciplinary program with researchers in the Computational and Applied Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments.
Except for introductory courses, undergraduate classes are typically small; we generally have fewer than 10 majors in any class. In contrast approximately 45 graduate students are working for Masters or PhD degrees. Roughly two thirds of our graduating students are employed in the petroleum or environmental industries, while one third continue in academic research. Active links with industry are also maintained by a strong tradition of adjunct faculty who collaborate on both research projects and teaching classes.