The Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL) is proud to announce the appointment of Ebony Wiley to Associate Director and George Webb to Industry Relations Director. Wiley will work to expand RCEL’s outward reaching programs, including K-12 initiatives and professional education programming, while Webb will continue to increase RCEL’s corporate outreach opportunities through partnerships and sponsorships.
“I am very proud to have both Ebony and George on the RCEL team,” said RCEL Faculty Director Fred Higgs. “As former corporate professionals, both with at least two degrees in engineering, they have worked extremely hard to expand RCEL’s reach, and their new appointments allow them to develop even further the ability of RCEL to educate Rice students to be leaders as well as young professional engineers. Ebony and George are dedicated to the RCEL mission of preparing Rice engineers to be ethical leaders in technology and engineering.“
A former GE executive, Ebony Wiley joined RCEL in January 2020 as manager of Leadership Initiatives. She served as project manager for RCEL’s COVID-19 Response Team to rapidly meet the needs for face shields at the Texas Medical Center and surrounding areas, as well as camp director for Rice ELITE Tech Summer Camp, a virtual summer camp for highs school students. Both projects involved assembling large teams of faculty, staff, and students to rapidly respond to challenges (e.g., emergency need for PPE, cancelled corporate internships, dearth of technical leadership opportunities, etc.) created by the Covid-19 landscape.
In her new role as Associate Director of RCEL, Wiley will oversee all outward facing projects and non-degree programs for RCEL, including K-12 initiatives (i.e. Rice ELITE Camps) as well as develop and promote non-degree granting professional education programming for engineering in technical fields. Wiley will continue to develop and co-teach courses in the RCEL Certificate in Engineering Leadership program for undergraduate students. She will work with George Webb to grow RCEL’s professional network to give students exposure to real-world engineers, while teaching them how to build their own professional networks.
George Webb ’88, ’91, has served as Industry Relations Liaison since March 2017, creating a vast network of “Engineers in the Room” to visit RCEL classes to interact and mentor students through exercises and lectures, as well as recruiting speakers for RCEL panel events and courses. He had active roles in RCEL’s COVID-19 Response Team, serving as head of customer relations to identify personal protection equipment (PPE) needs of the 11 major hospitals in the Texas Medical Center and local non-profit organizations. He also coordinated instructor training and camp curriculum for the Rice ELITE Tech summer camp.
As Industry Relations Director, Webb will continue to reach out to corporations to establish partnerships and sponsorships, as well as work with companies in and around Houston to identify ways to collaborate, including professional education and internship opportunities for Rice engineering students. He will continue to grow the “Engineer in the Room” network as new and exciting virtual opportunities that allow alumni and professionals to interact with RCEL students from anywhere in the world.
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The Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL) was established in 2009 with a gift from John ’73, ’74, and Ann ’75 Doerr. The official Engineering Leadership Certificate was approved in 2014. RCEL’s mission is to inspire, educate, and develop, ethical leaders in technology who will excel in research, industry, non-engineering career paths, or entrepreneurship. RCEL’s programing enhances a traditional engineering education by providing skills not typically covered in the Rice engineering curriculum. Through a series of curricular and co-curricular learning experiences, RCEL students learn to create and communicate a vision, build a high-performing team, form and execute collaborative plans, and create innovations that endure.
Contact:
Amanda Prestia
Marketing and Events Specialist
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
aprestia@rice.edu