Nakhleh wins Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize

Luay Nakhleh, an expert in the growing fields of bioinformatics and computational biology, is this year’s recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize.

Each year, students honor a nontenured assistant professor whom they feel demonstrates outstanding commitment to education in the liberal arts or sciences with the Phi Beta Kappa prize. Students in his classes on computability theory chose Nakhleh for the award, which comes with a $1,000 prize.

Nakhleh, assistant professor of computer science, called the honor “the proudest moment of my professional career,” and equated the thrill to winning the Texas Excellence Teaching Award when he was a graduate student at the University of Texas-Austin. “I received both awards for teaching a course on computability theory, which is almost never counted among the popular courses in a computer science curriculum, as the material it covers is very theoretical and challenging,” he said.

“This is a confirmation, by the students, that I am doing something right,” he said.

The award was presented at Rice on May 8 at Phi Beta Kappa’s annual initiation ceremony.

Mike Williams, Rice News