Rice Architecture: Senior Executive Assistant

Camilla Mei-Fang Kao
XXXXXXXXXX
Houston, TX 77036-5524

July 13, 2024

Rice University
RE: Senior Executive Assistant at Rice Architecture (Job ID 3777)

Dear Hiring Manager:

I am applying for the position of Senior Executive Assistant in the Office of the Dean at Rice Architecture. A former high-level administrative staff member in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University, I possess the intellectual capacity and the technical skills necessary to support the Dean well. My love for architecture would cause me to push our team towards success.

As Senior Faculty Administrator of Biochemistry at Stanford between 2018 and 2021, I sought to free up time for the department chair and for faculty members by doing for them high-level administrative tasks that they otherwise would have needed to do for themselves. I am a former faculty member myself, which makes me familiar with the demands that faculty members face. My work as an administrative staff member at Stanford was characterized by impeccable standards. I conducted faculty affairs, leading the administrative work for appointment and promotion packages for departmental faculty members. I was the administrative lead for a faculty search led by Professor Pehr Harbury, my duties going far beyond those typical of administrative assistants. During the pandemic, I participated administratively in a project led by Professor Rhiju Das to stabilize COVID-19 vaccines. Concurrently, I executed recurring tasks and projects in the department, such as organizing the annual departmental conference that was held offsite.

My goal as an administrative staff member of any team is to execute the work necessary to make the team function the best that it can. This work will include smaller but important tasks such as calendaring and communications, along with more complex efforts such as events and the administrative support of major projects. My work at Stanford described here allowed me to help a whole department operate. The same would be true for Rice Architecture as a school.

My background in science and early success with my doctoral research led to an assistant professorship of chemical engineering that I held at Stanford between 2000 and 2006. While it turned out not to be my calling, science began for me an involvement with academia that spanned more than three decades and included the roles of undergraduate student, doctoral student, postdoctoral student, faculty member, and staff member. Successfully comprehending how universities function makes me able to navigate the requirements of the job advertised.

My resumé lists three references. Aaron F. Straight, Department Chair of Biochemistry at Stanford, supervised me for much of the work recounted in this letter and would be able to describe my performance in his department. Chaitan Khosla was my PhD adviser in the chemical engineering department at Stanford and has followed my professional progress since 1992. Gerald G. Fuller was Department Chair when I was an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford and also has known me since 1992, when my doctoral studies began.

Thank you for considering my application.

Sincerely,

Camilla M. Kao