Headlong Dive into the Edge of Biotech Make Her Peers Take Notice

Dr. Rupa Iyer is the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Houston’s College of Technology

Dr. Rupa Iyer is the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Houston’s College of Technology

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: Trailblazing can be a heady pursuit, fraught with hazards and pitfalls that few can predict or be prepared for. But when you have a burning desire to take on the challenge and only a murky idea of what to expect along the way, it takes a headlong dive – a leap of faith – to take on the challenge and make headway, especially in the demanding field of academia where each step is scrutinized not just by your peers but also those who come to partake of your knowledge.

Rupa Iyer had to make that choice when she interviewed for a position at the University of Houston’s College of Technology eleven years ago in 2005 and wound up being offered an opportunity to start up the Biotech program. Marriage to her husband Sridhar, a chemical engineer who had just joined Shell, had led her from her alma mater Michigan State University to do post-doctoral work at MD Andersen Cancer Center. The couple settled in Sugar Land with their three boys – Nikhil, Raj and Jay – and Iyer joined the faculty at nearby Wharton County Junior College where she taught for 13 years.

Iyer took on the challenge, commuting daily to the UH Central Campus some 25 miles away, and with the zeal of an entrepreneur shaped the program, guided it through the university’s tough approval process, developed the curriculum and even got commitments of $2 million in grants as seed money. In 2009, when the Biotech program was approved, Iyer got it off the ground, teaching many of the classes to the six undergraduate students who had enrolled.

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Dr. Rupa Iyer was honored for receiving University of Houston’s prestigious 2016 Distinguished Leadership in Teaching Excellence Award during the football game between the UH Cougars and Tulsa Golden Hurricane at TDECU Stadium on Saturday, October 15.

Thanks to her dogged determination and growing reputation in the burgeoning field, the program has grown to 571 undergrads and ten master’s degree candidates. More changes are on the way as the program will become a full-fledged department and move to the Sugar Land Campus in 2017. “I will continue to have my research lab and office at the main campus,” said Iyer one morning as she hurried for an early meeting, “but will also teach in Sugar Land which will have three other faculty: Brian Iken, Program Coordinator and Assistant Professors Albert Flavier and Sivakumar Ganapathy. We are looking to hire two more and a lab manager too.”

The success and growing pains of the program haven’t escaped the notice of the close-knit circle of academics worldwide and has burnished Iyer’s reputation as a well-respected and sought out instructor and a trailblazer, especially for developing a database on the geographic distribution of environmental contamination. Over seven years, this database has grown to include several strains of bacteria and the location of pesticides degrading activity. Iyer hasreceived funding to sequence the DNA of the bacteria and hopes to commercialize the results.

For her work, Iyer was promoted to Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in 2014. She is also a 2015 Fulbright Specialist who went to the Khawayn University in Irfane, Morocco this past summer to collaborate on a research project. And in April of this year, she received the University of Houston’s prestigious 2016 Distinguished Leadership in Teaching Excellence Award given to a recipient, who in ten or more years of teaching, has made sustained and significant contributions to education.

The award was given to Iyer at a Faculty Excellence Award Dinner on April 14 at the UH Hilton, but UH also celebrates the achievements of its faculty during home football games at the TDECU Stadium. Iyer was honored during the game between the UH Cougars and Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Saturday, October 15, attended by the Provost and the Chancellor. Iyer was in awe when she stepped onto the field and received a football and her name and work were declared over the stadium’s sound system. Few in the crowd of revelers may have realized the trailblazing work of the petite woman on the field in developing a program that will teach students long after most of them would have graduated.