The George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Rice Engineering Alumni board recently announced Cassandra McZeal ’98 ’99 as the recipient of the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.
Recipients of this prestigious award are selected based on a lifetime of professional achievements, leadership, and contributions to society. This is the highest honor bestowed by the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Rice Engineering Alumni board.
McZeal has a distinguished career as a mathematician, working at the forefront of computational and data sciences in the energy sector. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in computational and applied mathematics at Rice.
Since joining ExxonMobil in 2000, she has held multiple technical and leadership roles, creating mathematical optimization models for oil and gas investment portfolio planning and management. She has served as a trusted advisor on computational and data science matters across the ExxonMobil upstream sector and currently oversees the Modeling, Optimization & Data Science team in the company’s Opportunity Evaluation & Analysis organization focusing on mathematical models that support strategic decision making and business development.
McZeal has also demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing the quality of engineering education at Rice. She has brought her expertise directly to the classroom as an adjunct professor in Rice Engineering’s Department of Computational Applied Mathematics and Operations Research (CMOR) and as a keynote speaker for CMOR’s inaugural Putcha Lecture Series.
As a member of Rice’s Engineering Advisory Board, she provides guidance to the dean of engineering to support strategic priorities. She also serves as an External Advisory Committee member for REINVENTS (Rice Engineering INitiatiVe for ENergy Transition and Sustainability), which helps advance the energy transition through Rice University and industry partnerships.
Her dedication to the community extends beyond engineering, as is evident through her volunteer roles with Southwestern University, where she serves as a trustee, The United Way Women of Greater Houston, Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council and St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.
She will be honored along with the rest of the 2024 class of award recipients and the 2023 honorees at the George R. Brown School of Engineering Alumni Awards Celebration on September 12, 2024.