The Rice Board of Trustees recently recognized Rebecca Salinas ’14 for her nearly eight years of service on the university’s Human Resources team.
Salinas, a lead compensation and data analyst, was a member of Duncan College and the Owls cheerleading team as a student at Rice. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computational and applied mathematics, Salinas joined Rice’s staff full time in June 2014.
Her responsibilities include administering Rice’s compensation programs and advising campus leaders on job design, reorganizations and employee rewards, as well as performing market studies and developing workforce data reports.
“In addition to being a data whiz and assisting multiple areas on campus with her technical and analytical skills, she’s also an extraordinary colleague to her partners in Human Resources,” wrote Angela Lipari — interim executive director of HR operations, director of talent acquisition and compensation operations, and Salinas’ supervisor — in a letter to the board supporting her recognition.
Salinas was a pivotal part of Rice’s response to COVID-19, working regularly with the Department of Information Technology and the Crisis Management Team to prepare employee data for tracking testing and vaccination efforts. She also volunteered at campus testing and vaccination sites.
Salinas was an integral player in the implementation of Rice’s imagineOne (iO) system, quickly becoming a go-to source of information and assistance for her colleagues in HR and across campus. Salinas tirelessly trained HR staff on the new software in the months leading up to Rice’s iO implementation, “all while shouldering a heavy load of preparing data from various systems to be loaded to iO before it launched,” wrote Lipari. “She continues to be an invaluable member of this community providing training, one-on-one support and continuing to work to make improvements to iO to benefit Rice.”
“She’s an integral part of the Human Resources team and the university. Rebecca is considerate, clever, innovative, resourceful and, above all, committed to Rice and service of the highest quality,” Lipari added.
“She makes it look effortless, always helping others with a smile on her face.”