Focus on Learning

University of Houston-Clear Lake Associate Professor of Biology Larry Rohde (seated, far left) was selected as the 2006-07 nominee for the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation Professor Program from a group of seven finalists. Pictured are the finalists with UH-Clear Lake President William A. Staples (standing, far left) including (standing l to r) Lecturer in Communication and Manager of Student Publications Taleen Washington; Associate Professor of Art History Vivian Atwater; Associate Professor of Psychology Sharon Hall; Assistant Professor of History Barbara Hales; (sitting, l to r) Rohde; Lecturer in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems Wei Ding; and Professor of Decision Sciences Ken Black.

UH-Clear Lake announces Piper nominee

The Piper award is given for commitment to teaching excellence and noteworthy contributions

From the Office of Communications at University of Houston-Clear Lake

May 8, 2007

University of Houston-Clear Lake Associate Professor of Biology Larry Rohde was selected as the UH-Clear Lake 2006-07 nominee for the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation.

The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, a non-profit, charitable corporation that began in 1950, recognizes 15 professors from around the state of Texas each year for their dedication to the teaching profession and outstanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement. Each college or university in the state of Texas may submit only one nomination regardless of the size of the student enrollment.

Rohde joined the UH-Clear Lake faculty in 1999 after a four-year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in genetics development biology, tissue culture and genomics sequencing as well as oversees the analysis laboratory and molecular biology laboratory. He was instrumental in the university’s establishment of the Master of Science in Biotechnology, a degree he believed was necessary because of the university’s location in the biotech corridor between University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the Texas Medical Center in Houston.

“Dr. Rohde worked very hard in establishing this very important new degree program at UH-Clear Lake ,” said UH-Clear Lake School of Science and Computer Engineering Interim Dean Sadegh Davari. “In addition to serving as the founding chair of our biotechnology program, Dr. Rohde has also been very successful in his research work.”

Rohde’s research includes work with the p53 tumor suppressor. He has received numerous awards and scholarships for his work including a three-year $208,513 award from the National Institute of Health-National Cancer Institute and a two-year $40,000 joint award with his NASA co-investigator, Radiobiologist and Laboratory Manager Honglu Wu from Johnson Space Center ’s Institute for Space Station Operations.

“I was elated and surprised to find out that first, I was a finalist, and second, that I would be the university’s nominee,” said Rohde. “This is a tremendous honor to be nominated by my students.”

Rohde was chosen from seven finalists. Other UH-Clear Lake finalists included Lecturer in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems Wei Ding, Lecturer in Communication and Manager of Student Publications Taleen Washington ; Assistant Professor of History Barbara Hales; Associate Professor of Psychology Sharon Hall; Associate Professor of Art History Vivian Atwater; and Professor of Decision Sciences Ken Black.

Official announcement of candidates chosen by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation Selection Committee to receive the awards will be made May 1, 2007. They will receive certificates naming them “Piper Professors of 2006, ” as well as a cash honoraria of $5,000.

Photo credit: UHCL