IR Staff

John M. Cornwell, Ph.d joined Rice in March 2007 to lead Rice University’s newly established Office of Institutional Effectiveness. Effective July 1, 2018, John leads both the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and the Office of Institutional Research. Both units are now joined under the Office of Institutional Effectivenss. Prior to joining Rice, Dr. Cornwell spent five years at Loyola University New Orleans where he led the effort to achieve Loyola’s reaffirmation of accreditation in December 2006. He reports jointly to the Provost and the Vice President for Finance and holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Dr. Cornwell received his PhD degree in Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology from the University of Tennessee – Knoxville. He has held faculty positions at the University of Georgia in Athens and Tulane University in New Orleans. Before coming to Rice, Cornwell was Assistant Provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment at Loyola University in New Orleans, where he was also a professor in the Department of Psychology. He taught courses on tests and measurements, statistics, I/O psychology and human-resource development.

Adele James joined Institutional Research in 2013, conducting research analyses for both internal and external requests, with a focus on faculty resources and program reviews. She serves as Rice's primary contact for Academic Analytics and for IPEDS surveys. Before OIR, Adele came to Rice in 2007 as the project administrator for a longitudinal study following the same nationally representative sample of adults over time to understand the impact of religion in everyday life. 

Adele’s prior experiences were as a planning analyst in health care and the natural gas industries. She holds an MBA from the University of Houston, and a BA from Rice University.

Christy Witt joined Institutional Research at Rice University in December 2013. Prior to working at Rice, Christy conducted economic research at Applied Economics Consulting Group, Inc. in Austin, TX, and provided non-profit development direction and database management to a number of non-profit organizations in Austin and Houston. Christy is passionate about data analytics and modern business intelligence and enjoys translating data assets into actionable insights to inform mission-aligned strategic and policy decisions at Rice University.

Christy holds a BA in French and Psychology from the University of Kansas and a MA and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Louisiana State University.

Derrick Dupuis joined Institutional Research in September 2018. He comes to Rice University with a prior background in institutional research as well as experience in academic advisement and instruction. In his prior positions he has consistently focused on ways to better use software automation to improve efficiency and accuracy in service of a better student experience. Most recently he worked as a data analyst for a consortium of community colleges on a “First in the World” grant to validate the effectiveness of proactive advising.

Derrick holds a BS in Biology and an MS in Computational Biology from the University at Buffalo.

Mingyu Lu joined Institutional Research and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness in May, 2020. She currently handles ad hoc reporting requests, and updating reports and data visualizations. She also regularly contributes to the Common Data Set, produces IPEDS related reports, and handles other projects involving student survey data.

Mingyu holds a BA in Applied Psychology, and a PhD in Educational Psychology and Quantitative Methods from the University at Buffalo in New York.