What inspires you to remain so engaged with Rice?
I'm proud to be an Owl. Other Rice alumni helped me by interviewing me when I was applying to Rice, and providing advice and career guidance when I was a student at Rice, so I've always been happy to give back in the same ways. I've also been motivated to help promote fellow alumni who are deserving of various awards or positions on different boards, especially those from underrepresented demographic groups.
How have you evolved in your Rice journey since receiving the award?
Since I won the Builders Award in 2014, I've been able to give back to fellow alumni and students in new and existing ways. I served on the Builders Award Selection Committee in 2018, which allowed me to help select two outstanding young alumni winners. I served a 2nd term on the Association of Rice Alumni Nominations Committee (2015-18); the work I'm most proud of was successfully encouraging specific alumni to apply whom I had identified as strong candidates from underrepresented demographic groups, speaking on their behalf during committee meetings, and garnering enough committee and board member votes to get those alumni spots on the ARA Board. I hosted a Rice student as part of the OwlEdge Externship Program in 2015, gave an informational interview to a Rice student in 2016, hosted a Rice student doing a job shadow in 2017, and hired a Rice student to work with my company in 2018. Two years in a row (2016 and 2017), I judged the Graduate Student 90-Sec Thesis Competition, which allowed me to help recognize groundbreaking research at Rice. I've also continued volunteering with Rice Alumni Volunteers for Admission (RAVA) in Houston, serving on the Center for Career Development (CCD) Board, and donating to the Rice Annual Fund. In February 2020, I got to tour the new Kraft Hall for Social Sciences, where my name is on an Economics Faculty Office (room 419) because of a major gift I was honored to contribute to my degree department.
Julie’s advice:
Find places to contribute your time and resources in ways that are meaningful to you or where your help is most needed — whether it's a department or school in which you studied, an alumni Affinity or Regional Group with which you identify, or a group like RAVA that always needs more volunteer interviewers. Contribute every year to the Rice Annual Fund, even if it's just $20, because the more alumni who donate, the bigger the boost in Rice's ranking in U.S. News & World Report.
What’s next for you?
I'll continue volunteering with RAVA and on the CCD Board. I'm open to any other volunteer opportunities with Rice, both new and previous roles in which I've served. My husband, Saqib Farhaan Siddik ’04 (Hanszen), and I had our first child in December 2018. We've already taken him to the Rice campus and are looking forward to taking him to more Rice events, and even just to walk around and experience the place where we met as classmates, became friends, started dating, and eventually got married (we were the first couple ever to have a wedding in the Rice Media Center — specifically, in the theater)!