Tapia Honored by Clinton

Source: The Rice Thresher, September 20, 1996
By Tiffany Cochran

Tapia was named Engineer of the Year by Hispanic Engineer Magazine; he is the first academian ever to receive the distinction.

In addition, President Bill Clinton has announced his intention to nominate Tapia for the National Science Board, the 24-member governing body of the National Science Foundation.

Tapia, as Engineer of the Year, was chosen from 225 engineering nominees nationwide, said Ray Mellado, chairman of the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards. Because of his efforts, Rice's Computational and Applied Mathematics Department leads the nation in graduating women and minority Ph.D.s.

Tapia is the director of outreach programs for the Center for Research on Parallel Computation. He also directs the Spend a Summer with a Scientist program which allows minority students to work with faculty doing research.

As a member of the NSB, Tapia will work to recommend broad national policies for promoting basic science and engineering research. Members of the NSB are selected for their distinguished service in research, education or public service.