Meet The Rice Jones MBA Class Of 2025

P&Q: Sustainability has emerged as a major attraction to prospective MBA students. How does your full-time MBA program integrate sustainability across its curriculum?

Rodriguez: “Our Houston location and faculty expertise position us to be the top school for the study of energy transition and the decarbonization of the economy. Amidst the energy transition, renewables, clean energy, and sustainability are top of mind with students and faculty. Rice Business integrates sustainability across its curriculum through courses, faculty research and hands-on participation.

Courses:

Renewables and the Energy Transition is a course that examines long-term projections of world and U.S. energy markets to 2050. Students will analyze the impact of input assumptions on modeled trends in the energy sector, with an emphasis on renewables. Teams will assess the risk, uncertainty, and relative impact of economic growth, demographics, oil price, oil and gas supply, renewables cost, policy, and other assumptions. Students will also consider how policies, investment, and technology advances could drive energy trends to lower emissions.

Renewables and the Energy Transition Lab is a course that gives students the opportunity to apply their knowledge, skills, and experience to explore an energy topic of their choice. Topics could include energy security, economic competitiveness, environmental responsibility, the integration of oil, natural gas, and renewable power, or the use of information and communication technologies in the energy sector. Working in teams of 2-3, students will research their chosen topic and identify a relevan NGO, government, or industrial organization. They will develop a project plan that outlines the potential impact of actions, investments, and policies on future outcomes.

Faculty Research:

Is It Time For Corporations To Rethink Their Views Of The Environment?

How Well-Placed Reminders Help Consumers Build Sustainable Habits

Participation:

Rice Energy Finance Summit (REFS) is an annual student-led conference promoting forward-looking discussions on the most relevant energy finance, investment and strategy topics affecting the global energy industry.

Students can attend functions hosted by the Center for Energy Studies at Baker Institute, right next to McNair Hall.

MBA student teams from around the world convene to showcase their answer to a particular case prompt at Energy Case Competitions, providing many opportunities to network with corporate sponsors, learn about the industry and maybe even win prize money.

Students can find out about the 4,600 energy-related firms in the Energy Capital of the World through “Energy Treks” in Houston.”

P&Q: What are some key elements in your teaching of leadership? What types of options does your school offer that deepens student experience with leadership and makes them more competitive in the marketplace?

Zhou: “Our approach to leadership focuses on building self-awareness, adaptability, and a coaching mindset. We help students understand their own leadership styles and tendencies through assessments and reflection. There is no “one size fits all” approach. Students learn to read situations and flex their style to meet the needs of their teams and organizations.

Coaching skills are woven throughout our curriculum. We want students to lead with empathy, ask good questions, listen deeply and develop others. Beyond coursework, we offer numerous leadership development experiences, such as the annual student-led Women in Leadership Conference (WILC). By graduation, our students have a robust understanding of leadership, along with the self-knowledge to lead in a range of roles and settings.”

P&Q: Two years ago, P&Q asked you to share how you’ve integrated AI, STEM, analytics, and digital disruption into your programming. Since then, what types of enhancements have you made in these areas?

Ostdiek: “We’re building out our curriculum to keep nimble in our ability to offer courses around emerging topics, such as the energy transition and how organizations are using AI. We also created an open-source digital library focusing on the historical evolution of financial reporting standards and regulations, based on research from one of our top accounting professors.

We want to stay relevant to our students and high impact in our scholarly research. With these new courses, we’re able to blend foundational knowledge with hands-on learning to gain experience using cutting-edge applications like ChatGPT and python plug-ins to acquire data, perform analysis and prepare reports. These skills, along with theoretical discussions and real-world case studies around the strategic integration of AI into modern businesses, are vital for the students to learn so they can walk away with the knowledge and confidence to spearhead AI initiatives in their organizations.

For specific offerings, we have a few directly related new elective courses:

genAI: Strategy and Integration

AI Assisted Financial Analysis

New Product Development and Management

Entrepreneurship in the Era of Energy Transition

Food Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Operations of Healthcare Systems

Operations Improvement I: Toolkit

Operations Improvement II: Methodology

Energy Transition Investing

Technology Commercialization Lab

And existing but relatively recently added elective courses:

Introduction to Data Mining for Business Analytics

Digital Transformation

Tech Product Management

Energy Markets in Transition

Data-Driven Investments Lab

AI Tools for Business Decision-Making

Introduction to Python for Business Analytics

Data-Driven Investments: Equity

AI for Customer Analytics

Capital Themes in Climate Tech

Creating the Data Driven Business

Older Courses

Blockchain: Digital Assets and the Internet of Value

Applied Operations Optimization

Strategic Innovation and Competitive Advantage

Digital Marketing

Strategy in Technology Ecosystems

Leading for Creativity and Innovation

The Money Revolution: Digital Disruption in Finance

P&Q: What is your biggest student-run event of the year and what does it reflect about your school?

Parker: “We have competition for the biggest student-run event of the year between the Rice Energy Finance Summit and the Women in Leadership Conference. Both are open to the public, and in 2023, REFS had 400 attendees and WILC had 510, reflecting the range of our students’ broad interests and the willingness of the business community in Houston to come to campus and engage. Both events serve as distinguished platforms for senior executives to share their perspectives with industry professionals and students, alumni, faculty and staff.”

P&Q: Rice ranks as the #1 MBA program for entrepreneurship according to The Princeton Review? What sets your entrepreneurship program apart from peer schools, in terms of philosophy, programming, and resources?

Hochberg and O’Connor: “Our top rankings in entrepreneurship are a testament to our long-standing commitment to cultivating innovators and visionary leaders. We emphasize an entrepreneurial mindset in everything we do. Our curriculum, community, and industry connections empower students to take risks, think strategically, and launch impactful startups. Rice students have access to world-class competitions, incubators, courses, collaborations, and venture studios. The Liu Idea Lab and Rice Alliance help students spark creativity and accelerate their ventures.

Ultimately, our goal is to ignite entrepreneurial minds across every discipline so graduates can learn to ideate and implement innovative solutions, and mobilize resources to make the world more just and sustainable, regardless of their career aspirations.”

Click on the links below to access 12 in-depth profiles of the Class of 2025. 

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Diana Katherine Carrillo Romero	Bucaramanga, Colombia	Universidad Industrial de Santander	Cenit Logistica y Transporte de Hidrocarburos
Simon Cormack	Houston, TX	Texas A&M University	Petro Ledger Financial Services
Anthony Hall	Mount Vernon, NY	Pace University	Deloitte / U.S. Navy
Darien Hinson	San Antonio, TX	Texas A&M University	Baylor College of Medicine / Texas Children’s Hospital
Chakib Khechai	Algiers, Algeria	University of Science & Technology Houari Boumediene	Unilever
Botagoz (Bota) Kumasheva	Atyrau, Kazakhstan	KIMEP University	Chevron
Charles Ping-Hsu Chen	Taipei, Taiwan	New York University	Uber
Kiran Putti	Hyderabad, India	IGNOU	Texas Review
Stephanie Sulapas	Fayetteville, GA	University of Georgia	CVS Health
Archana (Archie) Thapa	Houston, TX	University of Wyoming	Houston Methodist Hospital
Supriya Yasam	Hyderabad, India	Osmania University	Deloitte
Kyle Zarosky	Houston, TX	Southwestern University	U.S. Marine Corps