Neal Lane served as Provost of Rice University from 1986-1993. He joined the Rice Physics Department in 1966 and was made full professor in 1972. He was made chairman of the department in 1977. While chair, Lane spent 1979-80 serving as director of the division of physics at the NSF. He left Rice in 1984 to become Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He then returned to Rice to take on the job pf Provost.
In 1993, Lane was nominated by President Clinton as Director of the NSF and in 1998, he was nominated by President Clinton to be his new presidential science and technology advisor.
Dr. Lane, assistant to the president of the United States for science and technology, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, and former director of the national Science Foundation, rejoined the faculty at Rice University in Spring 2001.
Lane, a specialist in atomic physics, earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees, including his Ph.D., from the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960’s.
From the guide to the Rice University Provost's Office Records: Neal Lane Rice UA Provost Lane., 1986-93, (Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX)
