Core Team

College Magister

Ken Whitmire

Ken is a native of the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia. He obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from Roanoke College before doing his doctoral work at Northwestern University. After finishing a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cambridge University (UK), he joined the Rice faculty in the Department of Chemistry. His research has involved inorganic, organometallic and materials chemistry. Later, he received an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship that allowed him to do research (as well as learn some German and experience German cuisine) at the Universität of Göttingen (Germany) and was in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell (not to mention the last two times that Germany won the Soccer World Cup). He had a long collaboration with researchers at the Université de Rennes (Brittany, France) and spent a summer teaching at Korea University (Seoul, South Korea). Additionally, he is an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences. During his time at Rice he has taught both semesters of General Chemistry and Honors General Chemistry, the Chemistry of Art (in collaboration with the MFAH) Transition Metal Chemistry, Introductory Inorganic Chemistry and Instrumental Methods in Inorganic Chemistry, as well as special topics in organometallic chemistry and single-crystal X-ray diffraction.

Ken is a first-generation collegian, having grown up in a family with a strong sense of family and a do-it-yourself mentality. His mother was into genealogy, and he can trace some of his ancestry to Germany (back to the early 1600s), England, and Scotland. His childhood was spent learning gardening, woodworking, sewing, cooking, baking, and canning. His mother set him up in business baking and decorating cakes for her colleagues. He learned quilting from a friend's mother when she organized a friendship quilt for her daughter, one of Ken's high school friends. He is still an avid quilter and owns two computerized quilting machines. He enjoys cooking and baking, finding inspiration in his international travels. In addition to quilting, he enjoys oil painting, playing piano, baking, and attempting not to kill his growing collection of orchids. He has three children, all of whom have attended Rice: Rachel (Jones, 2006), Anna (Hanszen, 2008), and Kenton-David (McMurtry, 2018). Fun fact: he has a grandson named Phoenix. He lives with two adorable puppies, Lady and Stella. Stella is a border collie- golden retriever mix who has assumed the position of the matriarch of the family in her old age. She is mostly annoyed by her younger sister, Lady, an affectionate, exuberant, and hyperactive Australian shepherd. Lady is technically now a senior dog, too but shows no signs of slowing down. Both feed on attention and expect unconditional love and adoration. Students interested in having play visits with the dogs, taking them for walks, or doing some dog sitting should let Ken know of their interest.