Meet the Team

Staff

Victor Saenz Executive Director

Victor Saenz is Executive Director of the Houston Institute. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Rice University in August 2018.
James Prather Director of Operations

James Prather is Director of Operations of Houston Institute. He has a BA in Comparative Literature and MA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University.
Monique Close Controller

Monique Close is Controller for the Houston Institute. She has over 10 years of experience in the financial sector.

Jacob Kasner Vice President of HI Student Club

Jacob is a senior at Rice University studying Operations Research Student in the Department of Computing and Applied Mathematics. Recognized in 2021 as top 50 within the Major League Hacking (MLH) community of 135,000 college programmers, he excels at time-saving optimization, automation, and simulation. Jacob Kasner has worked during the summer as a Cloud Consultant at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where his focuses include defense and environmental innovation.
Jahnavi Mahajan President of HI Student Club

Hi, I am Jahnavi Mahajan! I am a sophomore at Rice University, studying Philosophy and Computer Science. My areas of interest in Philosophy are philosophy of mind, and metaethics. In addition to that, you can also find me working on problems in Human Computer Interaction, and education.

Pablo Yepes Senior Fellow

Associate Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and at the T.W. Bonner Nuclear Lab at Rice University.

Ewa Thompson Senior Fellow

Research Professor of Slavic Studies and former Chairperson of the Department of German and Slavic Studies at Rice University.

Pawel Stankiewicz Senior Fellow

Professor, Molecular & Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine; Assistant Lab Director, Cytogenetics Laboratory.

Paul Fortunato Senior Fellow

Associate Professor of English at the University of Houston Downtown, where he teaches a wide variety of literature and composition courses.

Mark Dulworth Board Director

Mark is President & CEO of Dulworth & Company, Inc., a family-owned consultancy focused on growing wealth and income responsibly. He served on several non-profit boards, including the Houston Food Bank and Foundation for the Retarded. He and Carole have four sons, and one is a Rice University alumnus.

Mark earned liberal arts degrees at University of Notre Dame (BA) and St. John’s College (MA). He is committed to the Houston Institute’s core principles of truth-seeking and free exploration of ideas, within an atmosphere of friendship and good will.
Luis Tellez

Luis is founder and president of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. Raised in the Sonora desert in northern Mexico, he completed his engineering and business degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He likes to play tennis, enjoys hiking, and has devoted forty years of his life to mentoring college students.

Pablo Yepes

Pablo is a research professor at Rice University, specifically studying particle and nuclear physics. For his doctoral dissertation and post-doctoral training, he worked at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), in Geneva, Switzerland. He has carried research in particle and nuclear physics in a variety of national labs. His current work focuses on proton therapy for cancer treatment, in close collaboration with University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he holds a visiting professor position.
Jeffrey Polzer

Jeff was an executive in the energy industry, before his recent retirement, having spent over 30 years in the O&G and Petrochemicals businesses in a variety of technical and leadership positions. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University. With three of his children currently enrolled in higher education and more on the way there, he has a very personal interest in the way universities are supporting the intellectual and moral development of today’s students.

Peter Busher

Peter is an aviation and insurance lawyer. Peter holds a BA in History from the University of Southern California, a JD from the University of the Pacific, and an MBA from Rice University. He is married to Patty who is an oncologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and they have three young children.
Davis Thames

Davis founded Western LNG in 2015. Prior to that he held several senior positions at Cheniere Energy Inc., the industry pioneer in exporting liquefied natural gas from the lower 48 US states. Mr. Thames has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and is a registered Professional Engineer. He and his wife have three children.

Keith Fullenweider

Keith is Chair of Vinson & Elkins and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and Princeton University. Keith and his wife Pam have been involved for many years in the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Houston, among various other charitable organizations. They have three children.
Michael Youtt

Michael works as a Executive Vice- President& General Counsel at Aquinas Companies. Michael is a graduate of the University of Georgia Law School and Georgia Tech. Michael and his wife Salli have been involved for many years in various other charitable organizations. They have four children.

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