Dr. Richard Tapia

A recipient of the National Medal of Science, Dr. Richard Tapia is a mathematician in Rice University’s Computational and Applied Mathematics Department. In 1992, Tapia was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the first Hispanic to receive this honor. Two professional conferences have been named in his honor: the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference and the Blackwell-Tapia Mathematics Conference. Tapia served on the National Science Board from 1996 to 2002.