Rice Magazine

Research

THE ISSUE

Accelerators

New “moonshots” are tackling critical global challenges.

AI

The next great tech revolution is fueling breakthroughs at Rice.

Institutes

Rice’s institutes create opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Nobel Prize

Louis Brus ’65 receives the prize in chemistry for “quantum dots.”

Lane Martin Director, Rice Advanced Materials Institute

Rebecca Richards-Kortum Director, Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies

David Satterfield Director, Baker Institute for Public Policy

Elaine Howard Ecklund Director, Boniuk Institute

David Alexander Director, Rice Space Institute

Caroline Ajo-Franklin Director, Rice Synthetic Biology Institute

Ruth N. López Turley Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research

Solar Eclipse

Pat Reiff ’74, ’75 is leading a project to photograph the sun’s corona. Pathbreakers

Exceptional alumni like Karen Lozano ’96, ’99 are leaving their mark.

Rice is helping founders develop gamechanging companies. O’Connor Building

Rice’s newest hub for research innovation opens its doors.

Caroline Masiello Director, Rice Sustainability Institute

Lydia E. Kavraki Director, Ken Kennedy Institute

Pedro J. Alvarez Director, Rice WaTER Institute

Kirsten Ostherr Director, Medical Humanities Research Institute

Bernard “Bernie” Banks Director, Doerr Institute for New Leaders

Junichiro Kono Director, Smalley-Curl Institute

Research

Rice’s Growing Research Ecosystem

New institutes, centers and accelerators will bring brilliant minds together to tackle the world’s most significant challenges.

WELCOME TO the new Rice University, where research and innovation are the foundation for unprecedented discovery. Our breakthroughs will be achieved by a portfolio of new and existing interdisciplinary institutes, thoughtfully focused centers, and agile accelerators that will enable the translation of our innovations into the marketplace.

The launch of our new institutes is part of a comprehensive ramp-up in Rice’s strategic research aspirations in health care sciences and technologies, data science and machine learning, and energy, environment and sustainability. Complementing the institutes, we recently announced Rice’s investment in five research centers that are more focused in scope.

The Rice Center for Nanoscale Imaging Sciences will work in tandem with the Texas Medical Center and the Rice Advanced Materials Institute to

drive new discoveries in imaging sciences, impacting biology, biomedicine, energy, sustainability and national security. The Synthesis X Center also builds on collaborations with the Texas Medical Center and has important applications for cancer prevention, detection and treatment.

The Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience and the Center for Environmental Studies will focus on the Gulf Coast’s intersecting social and environmental challenges, working synergistically with the new Rice Sustainability Institute. Importantly, the centers will partner with leading community development organizations, allowing Rice researchers to more effectively engage with Houston’s vulnerable and underserved communities.

The new Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies builds upon the work of the Initiative for the Study of LatinX America at Rice and aims to further collaborations with academic institutions in Latin America and the United Coast center major American Additionally, tors, the pathways speed pad concept Rice convert added The centers exciting building growing the hedges street

— Ramamoorthy vice Cherukuri,

Lovett Hall, on Rice’s campus, centrally located next to the Texas Medical Center

Cover photo by Michael Starghill

INNOVATION

United States, especially in the Gulf Coast region and the U.S. South. The center aims to address and research major challenges affecting Latin American and Latinx communities.

Additionally, our two new accelerators, with five-year missions to reach the market, will provide us with the pathways to develop technology at speed and scale: The Biotech Launchpad is taking Rice biotechnology from concept to clinic, and the WoodsideRice Decarbonization Accelerator will convert greenhouse gases into valueadded products.

The dynamic goals of our institutes, centers and accelerators reflect the exciting future we envision and are building together as a university. It is a growing part of Rice’s ethos to improve lives of those outside the university’s hedges — whether they are just down the street or across the world.

Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research, and Paul Cherukuri, vice president for innovation

Top: Photo by Brandon Martin

Above: Photo by Jeff Fitlow

DEPARTMENTS

9 Sallyport

Undergraduate research opportunities flourish, a new engineering and science building debuts, and students practice communicating science.

79 Alumni

Meet four innovative Owls: a techie, a Nobel Prize winner, a pathbreaking nanoengineer and a visionary architect.

FEATURES

26

Meet the Institutes

Rice’s growing portfolio of research hubs expands opportunities for discovery.

40

The Next Tech Revolution

At Rice, AI is fueling research breakthroughs and debate about the public good.

50 ‘Not Because It Is Easy’

Two “moonshots” aim to transform health care and energy transition technology.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PHOTO BY MICHAEL STARGHILL, ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN TAYLOR,

PHOTO BY 123RF.COM, ILLUSTRATION BY ANTOINE DORÉ

52 Research Roundup

News briefs, numbers, Q&As and more about research and creative achievements in our academic schools

68

Total Eclipse of the Sun

A rare celestial event creates research opportunities for scholars and citizen scientists alike.

76 Go for Launch

Rice equips the next generation of entrepreneurs with resources to translate discoveries into startups.

FEEDBACK

Readers Respond Winter 2024

I enjoyed reading the latest Rice Magazine. Two favorites were the essay from the cancer doctor and the interview with the stage manager — loved the photo with all her gear.

— ROSE CAHALAN ’10

I really enjoyed the article about Cite Magazine and the book and record reviews by Hilary Ritz. They are very interesting and fun to read.

— CATHY CASHION ’74

RICE MAGAZINE

Spring 2024

PUBLISHER

Office of Public Affairs

Melinda Spaulding Chevalier, vice president

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Alese Pickering

EDITOR

Lynn Gosnell

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Tracey Rhoades

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Hilary C. Ritz

PHOTO/VIDEO

Jeff Fitlow

Brandon Martin

Gustavo Raskosky

FEATURE DESIGN

MWM

PROOFREADERS

Jennifer Latson

Jenny W. Rozelle ’00

CONTRIBUTORS

Top Reads Online

1. “Looking Back To Look Forward”

Q&A with historians Alexander Byrd ’90 and Caleb McDaniel about their research and publications on Rice’s founding and desegregation

2. “The Wine Writer”

Ray Isle ’86 has traveled the world to bring us a book on artisanal and sustainable wines.

Addendum

Rice University’s students consulted with Dr. Ngozi Mbue, assistant professor of nursing at Texas Woman’s University, early on in the project written about in the Summer 2023 Rice Magazine article titled “Two Steps Ahead.” Dr. Mbue is named as an inventor on a patent application relating to a sock that wirelessly delivers electrical signals to the foot. We appreciate Dr. Mbue speaking with Rice’s students about the invention disclosed in her published patent application and the technology in general.

Please send your feedback, constructive criticism or thoughtful appreciation to ricemagazine@rice.edu — or surprise us with a letter or postcard! If you missed any of these stories, go to magazine.rice.edu to catch up.

Andrew Bell, Deborah Lynn Blumberg, Jade Boyd, Silvia Cernea Clark, Adam Cruft, Antoine Doré, Julia Engebretson, Amy C. Evans, Rachel Fairbank, Norie Guthrie, Rebecca Hasler, Portia Hopkins, Emily Hynds, Sarah Brenner Jones, Kako, Melissa

Kean ’96 ’00, Leanne Kroll, Amy McCaig, Alex Eben

Meyer, Islenia Mill, Katy Munger, Nico Oved, Robyn Ross, Jenny West Rozelle ’00, Michael Starghill, Brian Taylor, Mike Williams

INTERNS

Zeisha Bennett ’25

Nithya Ramcharan ’25

Rice Magazine is sent to Rice alumni, faculty, staff, parents of undergraduates and friends of the university.

© April 2024, Rice University

THE RICE UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Robert T. Ladd, chair; Elle Anderson; Bart Broadman; D. Mark Durcan; Josh Earnest; Michol L. Ecklund; Terrence Gee; George Y. Gonzalez; James T. Hackett; Jennifer R. Kneale; Holli Ladhani; Lynn A. Lednicky; Elle Moody; Brandy Hays Morrison; Asuka Nakahara; Vinay S. Pai; Brian Patterson; Byron Pope; Gloria Meckel Tarpley; Jeremy Thigpen; Claudia Gee Vassar; James Whitehurst; Lori Rudge Whitten; Randa Duncan Williams; Michael B. Yuen.

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS

Reginald DesRoches, president; Amy Dittmar, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs; Stephen Bayer, vice president for Development and Alumni Relations; Paul Cherukuri, vice president for Innovation; Melinda Spaulding Chevalier, vice president for Public Affairs; Kelly Fox, executive vice president for Finance and Administration; Ken Jett, vice president for Facilities and Capital Planning; Caroline Levander, vice president for Global; Tommy McClelland, vice president and director of Athletics; Paul Padley, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer; Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for Research; Yvonne Romero Da Silva, vice president for Enrollment; Omar A. Syed, vice president and general counsel; Allison Kendrick Thacker, vice president for Investments, treasurer and chief investment officer.

POSTMASTER

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THE BIG READ

WHEN WE BEGAN planning our 2024 research issue, we could not have imagined the ambitious and beautiful issue you hold in your hands. Coming in at a record-breaking 88 pages, Rice Magazine’s spring issue is our most comprehensive, timely and engaging (we hope!) research roundup to date. Here are a few highlights.

Fittingly, we begin with a portrait of leadership. We invited the heads of Rice’s research institutes to join us in the stately Gibbs Convocation Center to be photographed for this issue’s cover. It was a rare and rewarding opportunity to convene lauded scholars who are seeking solutions to research challenges in science, the humanities, engineering, religion, public health, social policy and, especially, the environment. Each of the institutes has a full page in our special “Meet the Institutes” feature. But first, we share a story about Rice’s success in growing research opportunities for undergraduates, then reveal a few of Rice’s unique research and creative spaces — including a special illustration of the brand-new Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science.

We hope you come away with a new appreciation for research as a catalyst for curiosity, learning and discovery, across campus and far beyond.

corona, led by Rice space physicist Pat Reiff ’74, ’75. With the help of historians and archivists from the Woodson Research Center, we created a historical timeline of Rice’s research through the years — look back at where we’ve been! Then, for a peek at the astonishing variety of research projects happening within each of Rice’s academic schools, check out our “research roundup” of news briefs, Q&As, faculty publications and milestones. Finally, to round out the issue, we feature profiles of accomplished alumni, including a Nobel Prize winner, an innovative entrepreneur and a beloved architect.

Capturing the dynamic story of research at Rice is both a challenge and a pleasure — in any number of pages or pixels. We hope you come away with a new appreciation for research as a catalyst for curiosity, learning and discovery, across campus and far beyond.

TX 77251-1892

Phone: 713-348-6768

ricemagazine@rice.edu

Elsewhere in our features, we explore Rice’s AI research portfolio and the debates swirling around the use of generative AI in the classroom. In a fascinating feature about the April 8 total eclipse, we introduce readers to Citizen CATE — a citizen science project to gather images of the sun’s

Curious to know who’s who in Rice research? We named over 140 researchers in this issue. Go to magazine.rice.edu/titles for the complete list.

HARNESSING THE POWER OF DISCOVERY

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I HAD the opportunity to travel to Malawi with a wonderful group from the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies. My time in the “Warm Heart of Africa” really opened my eyes to the incredible work Rice360 is doing there, especially for moms and their newborn babies.

More than 1 million newborns die in sub-Saharan Africa each year because hospitals lack the lifesaving resources that have been available for decades in developed countries like ours. Rice360, through its Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies program, is on a mission to change that narrative. They’re proving that with trained staff and the right equipment, data systems and facilities, we can dramatically decrease newborn mortality rates.

Since kicking off in 2019, they’ve partnered with government and medical leaders in Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria to train tens of thousands of medical professionals and to supply hospitals with lifesaving technology, some of it designed and developed by talented Rice engineering students.

When people ask me about Rice’s standout institutes, I always point to this kind of impactful work. Our institutes are where distinguished researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines come together to tackle big problems and advance fresh ideas and real-world solutions — often by teaming up with community and industry partners.

When people ask me about Rice’s standout institutes, I always point to this kind of impactful work. Our institutes are where distinguished researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines come together to tackle big problems and advance fresh ideas and realworld solutions — often by teaming up with community and industry partners.

Rice’s institutes are not just about research and discovery — they’re also about developing the next generation of scholars and leaders. Through hands-on training, classes, seminars and workshops, they’re preparing graduate students and postdocs for impactful careers in academia, government, research, industry and beyond.

This past year, Rice launched five new institutes: Medical Humanities, Advanced Materials, Sustainability, Synthetic Biology and WaTER. These new institutes will harness Rice’s

expertise in these critical areas to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges in health and medicine, energy and climate, urban resilience, and much more. These are problems that can only be solved by bringing together people from disparate disciplines — engineering and science, architecture, business, the humanities, music, and social sciences — to tackle these problems from different perspectives and with different skill sets and tools.

Rice is also supporting five new research centers. Like the institutes, but on a smaller, more focused scale, these centers bring people together to tackle big issues like coastal safety and improved cancer care. Rice has also launched several accelerators. In addition to serving as a home for discovery and fundamental research, universities like Rice are increasingly seen as places where faculty and students can turn their discoveries into real-world solutions that can be quickly brought to the marketplace.

At Rice, we’re harnessing the power of discovery to make the world a better place. And with these new institutes, centers and accelerators, we’re primed for collaboration, innovation and impact. I can’t wait to see how they’ll shake things up at Rice and around the world.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

A Spirit of Inquiry

Research is accessible to all Rice students who have a passion for digging deeper into specific topics.

BY JENNY WEST ROZELLE ’00

WHEN IT COMES

to research at a university, many people visualize engineers and biochemists with beakers and microscopes. But at Rice, undergraduates from all majors are given ample opportunities to conduct multidisciplinary research on campus, around the globe or across the street at the world’s largest medical center. Various fellowships, funds and scholarships — such as Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships, which offer $5,000 to under-resourced students working on research during the summer — help level the field for students who require financial assistance to participate in research or design work. And Rice’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry sponsors workshops like Research

101 and Research Ethics in addition to communication workshops with tips on how to present research.

Here are a few accounts from current undergraduates who are honing in on their research niche.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

America Salas

What limits women and minorities in the workplace?

Through her summer undergraduate research fellowship, America Salas ’25 was able to not only study a topic that was important to her but also learn to “navigate professional settings without lessening my cultural identity,” she says. “My research topic served as a way

for me to venture into the professional world with those I could identify with.” Salas, a psychology major, was matched with a mentor in the business and entrepreneurship field. “I explored inherent workplace limitations that tend to be placed on women and minorities,” she says. Through interviews and literature reviews, Salas created a summary of common experiences in a magazine format. “My goals in this research were to further my design and creation skills but, more importantly, create an outlet for these individual stories.”

Now a junior, Salas feels that research opportunities at Rice are invaluable. “The research experience allows undergraduates to sharpen their skills for future endeavors and also allows them to interact with field experts.”

America Salas

SOCIAL SCIENCES

LeGrand Dudley

What makes automated driving different?

As a psychology major, LeGrand Dudley ’24 has been conducting research that affects more and more drivers on the road today — automated vehicles, or AVs.

“I am involved in automated driving research surrounding behavioral adaptation — how drivers of automated vehicles adapt to the automation’s driving performance,” he says. As AVs are integrated onto our roadways, key dynamics will change — people will supervise the AVs rather than making independent driving choices — potentially degrading driving performance.

Dudley’s work also feeds his intellectual curiosity. “Through my prior undergraduate research about driver

hazard detection, it felt like the next step to create my own experiment within the honors thesis program about AVs,” he says. “Human factors research led me to develop my own discipline, satisfy my own curiosity, and contribute to the scientific literature about fascinating new projects.” This research has cemented Dudley’s plans to pursue a graduate degree in psychology.

LeGrand Dudley

NATURAL SCIENCES

Autumn Hildebrand

What can fruit fly behavior tell us?

Undergraduate research is what prompted neuroscience major Autumn Hildebrand ’24 to transfer to Rice.

“I was at Lone Star College my freshman year and saw an ad from Rice

graduate student Marina Hutchins, who works in the lab of Julia Saltz, associate professor of biosciences,” she says. “I got the position with her and eventually transferred. I focus on Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly — I expose young male flies to certain early life experiences, such as isolation, and once they become adults, I determine whether that isolation impacts their propensity toward aggressive behaviors.”

Prior to working with Hutchins, Hildebrand had not seen Rice in her future. Now, the senior pre-med looks for ways to give similar opportunities to others.

“I work with the Take Flight STEM Pathway program, which involves community college students from Lone Star and San Jacinto College doing research at Rice. I find it very rewarding to give back in that way because researching at Rice as a community college student changed my life.”

Autumn Hildebrand

ENGINEERING

Callum Flemister

What’s the best way to optimize heat transfer?

Last year, the summer research fellowship program enabled Callum Flemister ’26 to further their interest in engineering. “I want to go into environmental engineering with a mechanical engineering background and focus on power production and conservation,” Flemister says. “One application is heat optimization.” After learning about Rice’s Nanoscale Heat Transfer Lab — led by mechanical engineer Geoff Wehmeyer — Flemister reached out to begin a conversation about joining the lab. Wehmeyer suggested the summer fellowship program.

“Professor Wehmeyer’s lab works to develop heat transfer devices that use magnets to create moving connection pieces capable of transferring thermal energy from a heat source to a heat drain,” says Flemister. “I built an apparatus to confirm simulation data on the devices’ effectiveness.”

Flemister, who plans to continue research at Rice and pursue a master’s degree, says the fellowship program “allowed me to be on campus and pay for my necessities so I could focus on the research I was here to do.”

The Big Number

70%

Out of 860 graduating seniors surveyed in May 2023, almost 70% report having participated in research activities, broadly defined, during their years at Rice. Those experiences include research in STEM fields and in the humanities, arts and social sciences, as well as across disciplines. Importantly, such experiences may be completed in a course or independently and take place on or off campus. “We define research, design and creative work as a form of experiential learning that involves a systematic inquiry, investigation or iterative process to make an original intellectual or creative contribution or to identify and solve a problem,” says Caroline Quenemoen, associate provost.

At Rice, the benefits of these experiential learning activities are well documented. For example, of the undergraduates who participated in research activities, 86% say the experience helped develop skills important for their career goals and 76% say it increased their confidence in their coursework.

Rice continues to expand access to research opportunities by integrating research into

the undergraduate curriculum and creating programs for students without prior research experience — like the new Moody Sustaining Excellence in Research Scholars program (an academic-year, faculty-

We define research, design and creative work as a form of experiential learning that involves a systematic inquiry, investigation or iterative process to make an original intellectual or creative contribution or to identify and solve a problem.

mentored research program in business, humanities and social sciences) and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program. Funding from the Moody Foundation supports disciplinary research pathways in many of Rice’s schools, while many department and university funds provide resources for students to conduct research domestically and internationally, Quenemoen adds.

Callum Flemister

Material Worlds

New realms of discovery are anticipated for Rice’s interdisciplinary engineering and science building.

WITH THE OPENING OF THE EXPANSIVE Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science, Rice takes a giant step forward in fostering research innovation and breakthroughs in the material sciences. Occupying the longtime site of the Abercrombie Engineering Laboratory, the 250,000-square-foot building is the largest research facility located in the university’s core campus and the second largest overall. Dedicated last September, the building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, honors the late Ralph S. O’Connor, a trustee and one of the most generous donors in Rice’s history.

With four stories above ground and a full basement, the building will ultimately house approximately 50 labs where faculty, postdocs and graduate students from the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and Rice’s interdisciplinary research institutes will conduct research, mentor and teach.

“As we build out, you’re going to see a whole lot of intermingling of people and ideas, and that’s what this building was built for — to mix people up in a smart way to do interesting research in materials, energy, sustainability research and more,” says chemical and biomolecular engineer Michael Wong, whose lab was one of the first to move into the new building.

The illustration to the left captures the depth and breadth of the world of discovery that’s underway for the O’Connor Building. For example, among the many academic labs on the basement level, one can find materials science — including those dedicated to the new Rice Advanced Materials Institute — and nanoengineering research, with optics labs. Also here, Rice’s Shared Equipment Authority provides key support and research capabilities for scholars.

The ground floor includes many collaborative study spaces, large classrooms and an already bustling cafe, as well as Tomás Saraceno’s stunning sculpture, Crux Australis 68.00, which was commissioned by Rice’s Moody Center for the Arts. On the second floor, researchers in civil and environmental engineering, chemical and biological engineering, and chemistry are among the academic labs flanking a central hallway. Engineering and science labs share the third floor with the Rice University National Security Research Accelerator, and computer science and engineering labs find homes on the fourth floor. The top floor features a multipurpose event space and an outdoor terrace overlooking the campus and beyond.

— LYNN GOSNELL

Art and Craft

A makerspace within the Moody Center for the Arts empowers all students and faculty to take projects into their own hands.

WITH THREE EXHIBITIONS a year in its galleries, the Moody Center for the Arts is always an enticing visual and sensory experience. But tucked away within the Moody’s soaring interiors is another kind of creative space — the Moody Makerspace, a home for graduate and undergraduate students to create and design projects using a variety of media and machines.

“Our goal is to help faculty and students learn something new through the process of creating,” says Rob Purvis, Makerspace director. “We’re building and leveraging a community of people who have an appreciation for fabrication and hands-on making as well as broad knowledge of materials, best practices and external resources.”

Industrial-level equipment and a variety of tooling options encourage cross-disciplinary experimentation and collaboration using materials like wood, metal and paint. Unlike the OEDK, which is for undergraduates only, all students can explore research and personal projects at the Makerspace, ranging from artwork to engineering prototypes.

Students who use the Makerspace quickly come to understand the material complexities of the equipment and what works with their required research. Mitch Roddenberry, a graduate student in electrical engineering, sought to create an ergonomic keyboard. After working with Purvis and undergoing laser-cutting training, Roddenberry fashioned a keyboard specifically outfitted for his hands. “I was impressed with how usable all the equipment is and how helpful it was to have someone there to open the door,” Roddenberry says. — TRACEY RHOADES

PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW

SPACES

A Pitch-perfect Space

Rice’s sophisticated rehearsal hall brings performing artists and students together for creative collaboration and discovery.

THE DEAN’S REHEARSAL HALL , an expansive room within the Shepherd School of Music’s Brockman Hall for Opera, serves as a premier space for both rehearsals and master classes. Its sound-absorbing draperies and wall and ceiling panels contribute to its well-controlled acoustical environment. Large doors on the backstage side of the room make it possible to bring in set pieces from the stage for opera rehearsals, and its ample size facilitates a seamless transition for students come performance time.

“The Dean’s Rehearsal Hall is a true gem of a space in that it transitions expertly from an intimate coaching studio for a small ensemble to a substantial classroom space or even a full-fledged opera rehearsal and performance hall,” says Joshua Winograde, director of opera studies at the Shepherd School of Music.

All Shepherd School opera students attend and perform in master classes to gain valuable lessons from top performers and their peers. Recent esteemed guest artists include Ryan McKinny, bassbaritone and frequent star at The Metropolitan Opera; Rodell Rosel, tenor; and Isabel Leonard, three-time Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano. All three took time out to coach Shepherd students despite busy rehearsal schedules at Houston Grand Opera, where they performed in “Parsifal,” “Madame Butterfly” and “The Sound of Music,” respectively.

The Dean’s Rehearsal Hall helps facilitate the collaborative creative work of composers and performers, too. For example, the world premiere concert performance of “Music for New Bodies,” an exciting first collaboration between the brilliant young composer Matthew Aucoin and legendary director Peter Sellars, started here, with workshops and rehearsals. After its premiere at Brockman Hall for Opera in April, it will be performed at LA Opera and the Aspen Music Festival and School. — REBECCA HASLER

PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW

Controlled Chaos

Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen fosters undergraduate inventions with a social impact.

IN SOME SENSE, the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen resembles the high school home economics classrooms of the past. But just a glance around the 20,000-square-foot facility registers a space where undergraduate students have the support and equipment necessary to address today’s real-world challenges. With full access to an assortment of tools (including sewing machines), prototyping equipment and on-site engineering design assistants, students work in interdisciplinary teams — 1,673 of them since the facility opened in 2009 — to tackle problems posed by partners from industry, the Texas Medical Center and beyond.

“The OEDK is a vibrant hub that fosters innovation, collaboration and hands-on learning to support students with training, tools and supplies as they solve important engineering design challenges,” says Z. Maria Oden, director of the OEDK. “Projects range from assistive devices for people with disabilities to converting high-emission vehicles to run with sustainable power.”

To date, nearly 13,000 students have used the facility, many of them to successfully develop and deploy solutions to important engineering challenges, such as an open-source design for a ventilator for COVID patients and a CPAP device that was designed through a partnership with the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies and is now used to assist babies in respiratory distress in over 50 developing countries. Through the annual Huff OEDK Engineering Design Showcase, student teams present these designs and compete for monetary awards. But regardless of the outcome of any given project, the OEDK has revolutionized engineering education for Rice’s students. — TRACEY RHOADES

PHOTO BY GUSTAVO RASKOSKY

Brain Gains

The Rice Neuroengineering Initiative fosters research to restore and extend the capabilities of the human brain.

WITH OVER 25,000 SQUARE feet of labs and experimental spaces within Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative, the Rice Neuroengineering Initiative is home to groundbreaking research among faculty, graduate students and

undergraduates in biosciences and engineering.

“The brain is endlessly fascinating and unfathomably complex, and the range of expertise we are able to bring together as part of the Neuroengineering Initiative allows us to examine and understand that complexity in ways that we simply couldn’t do working apart, each in our own disciplinary siloes,” says Behnaam Aazhang, director of the initiative.

equipment such as a 3D printer that prints electronic and organic objects using liquid media. Other spaces include a walk-in refrigerator room called the Invertebrate Lab.

The program’s four key research focus areas include neural regeneration and repair, neural sensing and actuation, data-driven discovery of neural circuits and behaviors, and closedloop control technologies for neural circuits.

In addition to housing more than half a dozen research labs, the facility includes a “brain kitchen,” a makerspace that labs can use to facilitate their work with the help of sophisticated

Electrical and computer engineer Valentin Dragoi, a core faculty member of the initiative, recently tracked in real time the activity of neuron populations in the brains of freely moving primates — a type of knowledge previously unattainable due to technological limitations — and published his team’s findings in Nature and Nature Neuroscience. In other research, Rice scientists have developed a noninvasive way to monitor gene expression dynamics in the brain, making it easier to investigate brain development, cognitive function and neurological diseases, according to a study published in Nature Biotechnology. — NITHYA RAMCHARAN ’25

Talking Science

NSCI 320/520

Public Science Communication Seminar

DEPARTMENT

Department of Natural Sciences

DESCRIPTION

The goal of the weekly seminar is for students to understand effective scientific communication and public engagement techniques, as well as the breadth of careers available in STEM fields.

FROM SHARK TIKTOKS TO squid facts by text (just send “SQUID” to 1-833-SCI-TEXT), science can be presented through many unconventional channels. In the Public Science Communication Seminar, teachers Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist, and Lauren Kapcha, assistant dean for communications in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, have filled the syllabus with guest speakers who bring science to the public in new and exciting ways. The speakers are selected with the aim of representing various modes and fields of science.

“We have a great mix of undergraduate and graduate students coming from all different fields of science,” Solomon says. “One of the things that’s fun about [the course] is that there are students with different levels of knowledge and experience with science.”

This semester, guest speakers include

the esteemed vaccine developer Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and a fellow in disease and poverty at Rice’s Baker Institute; Rice marine biologist Kory Evans; and behavioral ecologist Kelly Weinersmith, co-author of “A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?”

In addition to keeping a journal to reflect on speaker presentations, students are required to find and present examples of both effective and ineffective popular science communications in any media.

Junior Madeline Belknap wanted to take this course to supplement her biomedical research experience and her work as a manager with Fun With Chemistry, a student organization that conducts chemistry shows for children.

“It’s really important to be able to communicate science and give back to the community, which is why this class is interesting to me,” she says.

Solomon and Kapcha are working to grow the science communication program. Plans include an introductory course that teaches students best practices in communication, an internship with community partners, and an undergraduate certificate program. Solomon wants students to leave the course with knowledge about the range of careers available in the field, including more traditional research careers in science, which require effective communication skills. “We’ve had several students we’ve kept in touch with who have taken the class over the years who have in fact gone on to do science communication themselves, and that’s really fun,” Solomon says.

— NITHYA RAMCHARAN ’25

Our journey to reveal the big questions and discover innovations in the lab, the field, the classroom and more

what does research at rice look like? This big question took us on a journey through our institutes, departments, archives, classrooms, labs and performance spaces where learning, experimenting and innovating happen.

We spoke to esteemed academics ranging from sociologists, engineers and psychologists to architects, inventors, musicians and physicists — and faculty who think and work outside these categories altogether.

We delved into Rice’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem that brings discoveries out of the lab and into the world, were genuinely impressed by the new interdisciplinary institutes that are boosting Rice’s discoveries, and visited spaces where risk and reward are on display in science and in the arts. As a result of our research, we came away with a new appreciation for the genius, dreams and persistence of our scholars. And now, like all researchers, we want to publish our findings. We hope you’ll enjoy our lineup of feature stories, research news, interviews, student stories and so much more.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL STARGHILL

52 Research Roundup

Faculty members across Rice’s seven academic schools share their explorations and discoveries.

68

Total Eclipse of the Sun

During the total solar eclipse this spring, space physicist and alumna Pat Reiff ’74,’75 is leading an ambitious citizen science project — and collecting new images of the sun’s corona.

74 A Head Start

A growing number of younger Rice faculty are earning attention — and critical funding — from the National Science Foundation.

76 Go for Launch

Rice professors and alumni advance research from the lab into the world.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW, ILLUSTRATION BY KAKO,

PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW, ILLUSTRATION BY ANTOINE DORÉ

an inTEr DiSCiPLinarY POWEr HOUSE

Rice’s Synthetic Biology Institute will create new tools for living systems.

By Mike Williams

I think students want to come to a university where they know that when they leave with a Ph.D., they’re going to be leaders in their field of choice.

CAROLINE AJO-FRANKLIN DIRECTOR, RICE SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY INSTITUTE

in recent years, synthetic biology research at Rice has grown astronomically — or, more to the point, bacteriologically. The new Rice Synthetic Biology Institute, led by Caroline Ajo-Franklin, aims to take this growth even further.

Synthetic biology is the art and science of making living systems and devices able to perform essential tasks. One example, from the labs of Ajo-Franklin and Rice colleague Jonathan “Joff” Silberg, is an engineered bacteria that spots and immediately signals the presence of contaminants. The project was the subject of a 2022 paper in the scientific journal Nature.

“What made the institute necessary is that, in some ways, we’re starting to become victims of our own success,” Ajo-Franklin says. “The community here grew quite a bit over the pandemic, with 18 faculty members who are card-carrying synthetic biologists spread across five departments and five buildings. The institute is going to be an umbrella organization for faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate programs, including our flagship Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology program.”

Partnerships with other Rice initiatives, including the Ken Kennedy Institute, known for its expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the new Biotech Launch Pad, with its many connections to Houston’s medical community, will be critical in bringing Rice’s synthetic biology technologies to the public.

“I think students want to come to a university where they know that when they leave with a Ph.D., they’re going to be leaders in their field of choice, whether that’s academia, government labs, entrepreneurship, science policy or tech transfer,” Ajo-Franklin says.

Ajo-Franklin sees great potential for new applications and opportunities as the discipline of synthetic biology grows. “We need to develop partnerships that extend outside of Rice that involve translation and commercialization,” she says. “And we need to make sure that policymakers in D.C. are aware of our capabilities — and the challenges we’re encountering, too.”

Learn more at synbio.rice.edu.

It’s about understanding how to communicate in ways that match the world that we live in today.

KIRSTEN

OSTHERR DIRECTOR, MEDICAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE

THE mEDiCaL EXPEriEnCE, HUmaniZED

Rice’s new Medical Humanities Research Institute expands the conversation around health care and disease.

By Mike Williams

rice’s medical humanities Research Institute, formed in 2023, studies how people experience medical care amidst the steady advance of science and technology, paying special attention to the cultural factors that shape health and illness.

“A lot of what happens in biomedicine addresses the physiological ailments or injuries of the patient without

really looking at the whole person,” says Kirsten Ostherr, the institute’s director. “We look at the whole person and factor that in to how we define, understand and experience health and disease. This can include prevention, but it can also include recovery and therapeutic interventions.”

The institute seeks ways to train clinicians and patients about what they need from each other — and how to get it.

“I want people across the whole span of biomedical research to understand there are many deeply relevant questions to all human beings that cannot be answered by scientific forms of analysis alone,” Ostherr says.

For example, the program is partnering with Texas Children’s Hospital to gather insights from patients and caregivers about pain management. Rice students will listen, observe and document these conversations. “Over time,” Ostherr says, “they will gather enough information for clinicians to analyze and hopefully draw insights that will really improve patient experiences and outcomes.

“There is research showing a huge disconnect between what physicians think patients need to be told and what [patients] most wish to learn, for instance, about a specific diagnosis,” Ostherr adds. “In many cases, it’s about understanding how to communicate, in a full multimedia sense, in ways that match the world that we live in today.”

Learn more at mhri.rice.edu.

THE rigHT TO CLE an WaTEr

New institute focuses on the intersection of water and public health, energy transitions and resilient infrastructure.

“clean water can save more lives than doctors,” says Pedro J. Alvarez, the director of Rice’s new Clean Water Technologies Entrepreneurship and Research Institute (WaTER). But the challenge of accessing clean water for all becomes more extreme by the year.

“The increasing demand for clean water exerted by a growing population, compounded by climate change and the complexity of pollution, represents a growing need for innovation,”  Alvarez says. Currently, 43 million Americans lack access to municipal water, and 1 in 10 people globally do not have access to safe drinking water. The newly launched institute aims to

address this and other complex water-related challenges.

The institute will focus on three key areas: public health, energy transitions and resilient infrastructure. Within those areas, researchers will tackle seven major challenges related to water: safe water quality for a growing population, distribution of water between humans and their environment, water disaster protection, water infrastructure (distribution and collection), enough food for all, water to produce energy, and solutions for water conflicts and a fair share for all.

Alvarez notes that one of the most important achievements in the last century was effective water treatment and sanitation, which increased the life expectancy of Americans from age 47 to 78. Further progress will require modular systems that produce clean water on demand while minimizing energy and chemical requirements.

Alvarez is uniquely positioned to lead the new institute. Since 2015, he has directed the multi-institutional Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment Center — aka NEWT — funded by the National Science Foundation. NEWT has worked with academic and industry partners to develop affordable, mobile, modular, high-performance water treatment systems that are enabled by nanotechnology.

The WaTER Institute’s work will cut across natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and engineering and connect with Rice’s other research institutes. “Our collaborative structures and culture are a major competitive advantage,” Alvarez says. – MW

Learn more at water.rice.edu.

Clean water can save more lives than doctors.

PEDRO J. ALVAREZ DIRECTOR, RICE WaTER INSTITUTE

A VIBranT LanDSCaPE FOr EXCHangE

The Rice Advanced Materials Institute builds collaborations on energy, electronics and the environment.

By Mike Williams

The

LANE MARTIN DIRECTOR, RICE ADVANCED MATERIALS INSTITUTE

the rice advanced materials institute established itself at the Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science with the arrival of materials scientist Lane Martin, who became its director in July. The institute’s efforts will help supercharge the campus ecosystem to innovate in next-generation materials solutions to challenges in the energy transition — a global shift in how we make, use and store energy.

Martin, who joined Rice from the University of California, Berkeley, sees the institute as a catalyst that complements departments across campus and provides a space for shared research. “We’re focused on identifying the gaps where we need one or two people to create bigger teams that cross disciplines,” he says. To that end, he’s conducting searches to fill nine faculty positions, including two endowed by the Welch Foundation. “The goal is to hire across the entire landscape of academia,” he adds.

Martin expects the O’Connor Building will be a “vibrant landscape for exchange” among scientists, students and outside collaborators focused on materials innovations across three broad areas: next-generation electronics, energy systems and the environment.

In the first area, Martin says, researchers will ask: “How do we lower energy costs to do computation, memory,

sensing — all these kinds of things that are pervasive in everything we use? We don’t know how to function without them at this point.”

The second area of focus, energy systems, encompasses more than just energy storage. “There are a lot of materials problems in dealing with how we store and harvest and convert energy,” he says. “How do you make sure they’re sustainable, and that we can make them at scales that have an impact?”

The third area is centered around environmental stewardship, Martin says, noting that remediation and the creation of future technologies to ensure clean air, water and soil will require sophisticated materials.

Computational approaches increasingly “touch the entire spectrum of natural sciences and engineering,” he says. “The way materials research has evolved in the last decade or so, there’s increasing interest in having not just experimental work but also theoretical simulation. We have great people here, but we could probably have a few more to mesh with the experimentalists doing material synthesis and characterization and devices. They give insights we often can’t get any other way.”

Learn more at rami.rice.edu.

goal is to hire across the entire landscape of academia.

an IMPACT amPLiFiEr

“Think global, act local” drives the new Rice Sustainability Institute.

sustainability. We are also a vehicle to connect Rice to external funding, communities and stakeholders.”

Houstonians are flexible and pragmatic, making this a great place to both test new ideas and critically evaluate solutions.

CAROLINE MASIELLO DIRECTOR, RICE SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE

building successful, sustainable solutions to our urgent climate and energy challenges means balancing communities’ technical, economic, environmental and social needs. These goals are at the core of Rice’s new Sustainability Institute. Led by Professor Caroline Masiello and executive director Marie-Nathalie Contou-Carrere, the institute’s strategy is to link science and technology, economics and policy, and social sciences and the arts to effect real change.

“There are crucial problems in the sustainability space that require the ability to think about problems simultaneously from multiple disciplines, using this systems perspective,” Masiello says. “Our job is to enable scholarship that addresses the economic, technical and human dimensions of

The institute will support all sustainability scholarship on campus, complementing Rice’s existing strengths in the areas of coastal, carbon and sustainable energy futures. “Working in each of these spaces involves fundamental discovery and the development of new technology, all built on the basis of a strong understanding of people and their needs,” Masiello says.

“For example, what does it mean to develop solutions for flood-prone coastal communities that get people out of harm’s way in a timely as well as economically and politically feasible manner? Or, how do we develop new carbon dioxide-free energy technologies that people want to use?

“Houston is well situated to build these solutions because of our experience coping with natural disasters as well as our central place in the global energy industry,” she adds. “Houstonians are flexible and pragmatic, making this a great place to both test new ideas and critically evaluate solutions.”

The institute will be an “impact amplifier,” Contou-Carrere says. “It’s not about the vision of one person or one school. It’s about doing a lot more with the resources we have.”

Beyond fostering multidisciplinary research, the institute will bring in visiting scholars, host workshops and sponsor a postdoctoral program. “Our aspiration is for Rice to be a source of scholarly excellence for the city, the state, the country and the world in thinking holistically about solving problems in the energy, climate and environment space,” Masiello says. – MW

Learn more at si.rice.edu.

These days it’s hard to say ‘space’ in Houston without people thinking about Rice.

DAVID ALEXANDER DIRECTOR, RICE SPACE INSTITUTE

WiDE OPEn SPaCE

The Rice Space Institute extends its reach.

By Mike Williams

space exploration is at a tipping point, and the Rice Space Institute is right where it needs to be — in the center. With support from Rice’s Office of Research, the institute connects the university with public and commercial space exploration communities in Houston and around the planet.

“It’s hard for people to fathom how much is going on and how much needs to be done,” says Rice astrophysicist David Alexander, the institute’s longtime director. “Houston is home to both NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the world’s first truly urban commercial spaceport. If we can’t do space here, we can’t do it anywhere.”

Along with hosting public lectures and events, the institute supports research on planetary formation and habitability to understand the origins of life in the universe, as well as human systems integration, which is key to supporting a human presence in space, on the moon and, ultimately, on Mars.

Rice’s long history with NASA and its strong connections to public and private space initiatives, including the recently announced Texas Space Grant Consortium, make it a draw for international visitors, Alexander says. “We are seeing a huge increase in international space delegations coming to our city, all of whom see Rice as a high-value partner.”

The institute has extended its reach through a partnership with the University of Edinburgh and a recent workshop at the Rice Global Paris Center. And through a Space Act Agreement with the Johnson Space Center, Rice will host up to 200 graduate students for the eight-week International Space University program this summer.

The institute has long been a key partner of the Houston Spaceport, a growing hub at Ellington Field, which is the joint installation shared by NASA and various military units near the Johnson Space Center. “Companies there are building spacesuits for microgravity and for the surface of the moon and Mars,” Alexander says. “They’re building a commercial lander for the moon and what may be the first-ever private space station. This has all happened in eight years. Things take time, but this is amazingly quick.”

Above all, the institute serves as a resource for students who wish to work on, or in, space. “These days it’s hard to say ‘space’ in Houston without people thinking about Rice,” he says. “That gives us great opportunities for our students.”

Learn more at rsi.rice.edu.

POLiCY anD PEOPLE

Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy

delivers data-driven research and independent, nonpartisan discourse on critical foreign and domestic issues.

By Tracey Rhoades

for 30 years, the Baker Institute for Public Policy has served as a nucleus for public policy research, engaging with scholars from across campus and throughout the world. Today, it’s home to over 200 experts on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues and has a reputation as one of the country’s premier university-affiliated think tanks.

The institute’s namesake, James A. Baker III, former U.S. secretary of state, said his initial hope for the institute was to bring together “statesmen, scholars and students” and serve as “a bridge between the world of ideas and the world of action.”

“The institute has built an extraordinary reputation — in Houston, in the nation’s capital and beyond the United States — as a trusted, independent, nonpartisan source of expert, actionable insights,” says David Satterfield, the institute’s director.

Home to six centers, the institute brings renowned experts to campus to participate in lecture series and panel discussions fitting each center’s focus. One of these, the Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East, has been involved in conflict resolution for years, with research focused on the civil war in Syria, security in Afghanistan and, most recently, the Israel-Hamas

Two prominent experts are addressing health care and U.S.-Mexico relations.

$4 trillion

What the U.S. spends each year on health care — far more than any other developed country

Economist Vivian Ho has devoted her career to examining health economics and its impact on governments, organizations and people, particularly the impact that health care costs can have on the lives of those forced to prioritize rent, food and medical care. She also leads multiple research projects aimed at addressing the high cost of hospital care and the effect of inflation

war. Satterfield, the former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey, was appointed special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues by President Joe Biden in 2023 and is currently leading U.S. diplomacy to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, in coordination with the United Nations and U.S. partners.

Student involvement is an integral part of the institute’s mission. Hundreds of undergraduates have benefited from the Baker Institute’s robust internship program as well as participation in the Summer in D.C. Internship Program. The institute partners with the School of Social Sciences to offer a master’s degree in global affairs, and its experts teach undergraduate and graduate courses across campus.

“Today, our work is more important than ever. In a polarized society, the institute provides space for discussion and informed recommendations. Our experts apply rigorous, fact-based analysis to a broad spectrum of foreign and domestic policy topics,” Satterfield says. “We embrace interdisciplinary collaboration and remain flexible to address the most pressing issues of the day.”

Today, our work is more important than ever.

DAVID

SATTERFIELD DIRECTOR, BAKER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

on medical decisions. Governments and policymakers around the world rely on her analysis to make informed decisions on regulatory frameworks, public health initiatives and more. As the cost of health care continues to rise, Ho’s work will be critical in shaping economically sustainable policies that improve health outcomes.

— Katy Munger

“Most of [what’s happening at] the border is actually legal activity that benefits all of us.”

— TONY PAYAN

Fellow for Mexican studies

Tony Payan analyzes the dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico border, from border governance and population flows to security, crime and economic dependencies. Grounded by a practical understanding of the relationships between the U.S. and its southern neighbors, he educates the public about border issues through podcasts, seminars and media appearances that bring clarity to hot-button issues often influenced by rumor rather than facts. Payan’s work is helping build more effective policies involving such critical areas as national security, immigration, trade partnerships, public health and regional stability. — KM

Learn more at bakerinstitute.org.

Big STEPS FOr LiTTLE OnES

Rice360 is helping improve newborn care across Africa.

By Mike Williams

the most vulnerable babies around the world have a better chance of survival today than they did five years ago. Over the next five years, their odds should improve even further, as the Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST360) alliance, co-founded by Rice360, embarks on the second phase of its quest to protect newborns in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, led by bioengineers Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Z. Maria Oden, was founded to train students to develop innovative solutions to health challenges in low-resource settings around the world. Today, innovation that began at Rice360 has attained global reach, in large part through NEST360, an international alliance of clinical, biomedical and public health experts.

NEST360 helped establish a network of nation-led programs in Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania — and has

newborn deaths to no more than 12 per 1,000 live births by 2030.

Rice360 supports NEST360 in identifying and deploying effective, rugged and affordable medical technologies for newborn care. Where no such solution exists, Rice360 has invented medical technologies that can be built economically and maintained locally. Ultimately, the goal is for engineers and inventors across Africa to meet the needs of newborns.

Rice360 has identified 22 sustainable technologies to prevent newborn deaths, including diagnostic and respiratory support devices. Among them are the Ricedeveloped BiliDx, Celsi Monitor, Celsi Warmer and Pumani devices, all of which started as student projects. Pumani, a lowcost bubble CPAP unit for newborns, now deployed in over 50 countries, was an early success that defined the path to design and develop more health care devices.

Improving quality for small and sick newborn care in NEST360-implementing countries and beyond requires a systems-change approach that cuts across all levels of care.

REBECCA RICHARDS-KORTUM DIRECTOR, RICE360 INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES

“As I think about how one device designed by a Rice360 undergraduate team, with partners from Malawi and guided by the fundamental principles of the engineering design process, led us toward building an alliance to support newborn survival across Africa, I have so much hope for the future of global health innovators and newborn care,” Oden says.

now expanded to Ethiopia. The organization relies on government, health and commercial partners in the U.S., United Kingdom and Africa to support its goal of transforming how newborn care is provided in African hospitals. “Improving quality for small and sick newborn care in NEST360-implementing countries and beyond requires a systems-change approach that cuts across all levels of care,” says co-founder Richards-Kortum.

In January, NEST360 announced $65 million in new foundation and donor funding — more than two-thirds of the $90 million needed to launch a five-year Phase 2 to build on its progress in aligning with the United Nations’ goal to limit

The Rice360 team continues to explore new ways to close health equity gaps and address needs in lowresource settings around the globe, including in rural and urban communities in Texas, she adds. To that end, they also recently launched the NIH-funded Center for Innovation and Translation of POC Technologies for Equitable Cancer Care, leveraging nearly two decades of collaboration with partners in Houston, Brazil and Mozambique. The center will develop point-of-care tests for oral, cervical and gastrointestinal cancers, adding to the Rice360 portfolio of innovation to meet the health needs of underserved communities.

Learn more at rice360.rice.edu.

We envision a world where research in AI, data and computing empowers all people and contributes to solving global challenges.

LYDIA E. KAVRAKI DIRECTOR, KEN KENNEDY INSTITUTE

THE nEW DigiTaL agE

Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute takes on challenges within artificial intelligence.

the ken kennedy institute , founded by its namesake in 1987 to revolutionize science, engineering and medicine through computation, finds itself on the leading edge of an upheaval. With the steady rise of artificial intelligence and its ethical and social implications, the institute’s dedication to the transformative power of computation and data has never been more important.

“AI technology is taking off, and it is becoming readily accessible to individuals and organizations,” says Rice computer scientist Lydia Kavraki, the institute’s director since 2020. “As AI further develops, it will transform our world. Its impact will extend well beyond image understanding and text generation to sectors that include education, health care, energy, transportation, financial technology and security, to name a few.

“The rate of change in AI just in the last three years has been astounding,” she adds. “We connect faculty for large research efforts and provide forums to

exchange their ideas and mechanisms for fostering interdisciplinary research that transcends traditional boundaries.”

This research often incorporates partnerships with other universities as well as industry collaborators, including institutions at the Texas Medical Center and within Houston’s vast petrochemical industry.

“Solving complex problems in computational health care, social informatics and urban infrastructure requires novel methods to manage large and diverse data sets and reason with noisy data,” Kavraki says. “Our faculty excel in generative AI and machine learning, including deep learning, distributed learning and machine learning for scientific computing. We envision a world where research in AI, data and computing empowers all people and contributes to solving global challenges.” – MW

Learn more at kenkennedy.rice.edu.

We have a growing number of researchers across campus working on cutting-edge quantum materials.

JUNICHIRO KONO DIRECTOR, SMALLEY-CURL INSTITUTE

nanOSCiEnCE BranCHES OUT aT riCE

The Smalley-Curl Institute has expanded to include quantum science, physics, advanced materials and more.

By Mike Williams

named for nobel laureates Richard Smalley and Robert Curl ’54, the Smalley-Curl Institute has maintained Rice’s high profile in nanoscience and nanotechnology research while expanding with the times. At its heart lies the mantra Smalley himself offered when he founded the then-Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology: “Be a scientist; save the world.”

Under the longtime leadership of Naomi Halas — an engineer, chemist, physicist and pioneer in the field of light-activated nanomaterials, who stepped down this year — the institute’s membership has grown to incorporate researchers in advanced materials, quantum magnetism, plasmonics and photonics, biophysics and bioengineering, ultracold atom physics, and condensed matter and chemical physics.

The new director of the institute, physicist Junichiro Kono, leads Rice’s applied physics graduate program, which is ranked in the top 10 nationally. “The Smalley-Curl Institute has a long history of world leadership in

nanoscience research. Also, we have a growing number of researchers across campus working on cutting-edge quantum materials and quantum information science and engineering,” Kono says. “Combining these traditional and new fields through collaborations facilitated by the institute to increase our prominence is an exciting prospect.”

Of primary importance are the 10 active thematic working interest groups organized by the institute to bring faculty from various disciplines together to discuss new directions for research, write proposals for grants, and foster collaborations and mentorship between junior and senior faculty members.

The institute will continue to sponsor master classes on publishing in high-impact science journals, offer research opportunities for undergraduates through the National Science Foundation’s REU Sites program, and host visiting faculty for talks and residencies.

Learn more at sci.rice.edu.

LOCaL imPaCT, naTiOnaL r EPUTaTiOn

The Kinder Institute for Urban Research develops solutions to help all Houstonians prosper.

By Tracey Rhoades

the kinder institute for urban Research has earned national attention for its work to understand the Houston region’s biggest challenges by developing research partnerships with community organizations working to improve lives. Founded in 2010 with a $15 million gift from Houston philanthropists Rich and Nancy Kinder, it remains focused on improving quality of life for those who live here.

“Through research, we can develop solutions that eliminate need and ensure that everyone has an opportunity to build and share in Houston’s prosperity — an inclusive prosperity,” says Ruth N. López Turley, director of the Kinder Institute.

The institute’s five research centers focus on housing, education, economic mobility, community health and population. Through partnerships with community organizations, this research helps solve critical challenges in the

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE KINDER INSTITUTE FOR URBAN RESEARCH

1. The institute’s National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships helps support over 70 partnerships between education agencies and research institutions across the U.S.

2. The Community Bridges program supports small-scale research partnerships by pairing Houston nonprofits with Rice undergraduates who undertake

It’s time to move beyond research that identifies problems to research that identifies solutions.

RUTH N. LÓPEZ TURLEY DIRECTOR, KINDER INSTITUTE FOR URBAN RESEARCH

Greater Houston area. For example, insights from the Houston Education Research Consortium — 11 area school districts representing 700,000 students — have fostered wraparound services, early education efforts, career and technical education programs, and bilingual initiatives.

New organizational partners include the United Way of Greater Houston, the Harris Center for Mental Health and the Houston Housing Authority. In 2024, researchers will release the fifth annual State of Housing in Harris County and Houston, the definitive local report on the local housing system.

“It’s time to move beyond research that identifies problems to research that identifies solutions — and not just solutions that address symptoms, but solutions that address root causes,” Turley says.

Learn more at kinder.rice.edu.

internships and carry out research-driven projects that enable them to confront realworld problems head on.

3. The annual Kinder Houston Area Survey, which has tracked the city’s social and demographic changes since 1982, is the longest-running metropolitan study of its kind. The institute has expanded its survey capabilities with the Greater Houston Community Panel, comprising 7,500 Harris County residents, making it possible to capture Houstonians’ perspectives on city policy, housing and many other topics at a neighborhood level.

4. The institute is home to the Urban Data Platform, a curated data library focused on the Houston region, as well as Houston Community Data Connections, an interactive public dashboard capable of visualizing over 120 local indicators at the ZIP code, neighborhood and school district level.

5. The Kinder Institute Forum lecture series brings thought leaders from around the world to Houston to share ideas about pressing urban issues, while the Urban Edge digital news platform publishes fresh ideas about the ways cities work.

Advancing Religious pluralism

A selection of the Boniuk Institute’s current programs and initiatives

Conducting global research to analyze and understand how the conditions and consequences of religious tolerance, understanding and pluralism shape and are shaped by interactions, practices, policies, discourse and trends at each level of society around the world.

Mapping the civic capacity of Houston’s religious communities to discover how religious communities approach inequality and how they see religious pluralism and tolerance as relevant to their work.

Research on the topics of religious pluralism, tolerance, violence and discrimination has never been more needed.

ELAINE HOWARD ECKLUND DIRECTOR, BONIUK INSTITUTE

The Boniuk Institute fosters religious literacy through research and education.

By Tracey Rhoades

the boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance experienced major growth

in 2022. Founded in 2013 with a gift from Houston philanthropists Milton and Laurie Boniuk, the institute received an expanded mandate to become a premier interdisciplinary research and scholarly institute focusing on religious pluralism and tolerance as well as conflict and violence. Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, took the helm as director, and Rice moved its Religion and Public Life Program, which facilitates cutting-edge research on religion to “build common ground for the common good,” under the institute’s purview.

In its current form, the institute discovers new knowledge through original research, convenes thought leaders across disciplines and sectors, and disseminates that knowledge among local, national and global communities in order to promote meaningful change.

Today, Ecklund says she is honored to “lead the institute in an expansion of its research at a time when research on the topics of religious pluralism, tolerance, violence and discrimination has never been more needed.”

Developing new interdisciplinary research centers to be launched this summer and fall, with collaborative agreements with additional Rice programs.

Organizing an annual scholarly gathering to spur interdisciplinary efforts and energize the intellectual climate around issues of religious pluralism.

Presenting an annual Senior Scholar Award honoring excellence in public scholarship on religious pluralism and tolerance and/or work to combat religious conflict and discrimination.

Organizing the Reading Religion Graduate Salon to explore current and relevant books

on issues related to religious pluralism, violence and discrimination, as well as religion in the public sphere from different disciplinary perspectives.

Providing opportunities for academic and professional growth for graduate and undergraduate research scholars and postdoctoral fellows in all aspects of the research and outreach process.

Providing continuing education to secondary social studies educators and studentfacing professionals through educator professional development religious literacy workshops.

Learn more at boniuk.rice.edu.

FULL POTEnTiaL

The Doerr Institute for New Leaders looks forward to a new era.

created by a then-record $50 million donation in 2015 by alumni John Doerr ’73 and Ann Doerr ’75, the Doerr Institute is committed to elevating the leadership abilities of Rice students by providing development driven by evidence-based approaches and resulting in measurable impacts. The institute, now led by Bernard “Bernie” Banks, serves all Rice students — undergraduate and graduate — regardless of age or experience, and at no cost.

CURRENT RESEARCH: LEADERSHIP AND HONOR CULTURES

By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Social psychologist and data scientist Ryan Brown ’93, along with postdoc Aaron Pomerantz, is studying the relationship between leadership and socalled “honor cultures” — those that place a greater emphasis on defending their reputations. Classic examples include Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, Brown says, as well as countries around the Mediterranean and throughout Central and South America.

In ongoing research, Brown is looking at the extent to which people will tolerate misbehavior by leaders who uphold the core values of an honor culture. “If leaders are tough, and they’re willing to go to great lengths to defend people, the hypothesis is that people will be a lot more tolerant of misbehavior, including perhaps illegal and immoral behavior,” he says.

Q&A

BERNARD “BERNIE” BANKS, DIRECTOR, DOERR INSTITUTE

By Andrew Bell

A noted expert on leadership and organizational change, a sought-after speaker, and a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army, Banks joined the Doerr Institute as its director in January. We spoke with him about the institute’s mission.

How important is it to develop leadership skills in students on campus?

One of the things that I’m fond of helping anyone to understand

It’s research that’s timely right now, as countries worldwide grapple with a litany of leader misbehaviors, from campaign financing transgressions to sexual misconduct. “Current events are convincing me that it takes a pretty high level of severity to say ‘enough is enough,’” says Brown.

is that leadership is not simply a role you occupy. It’s a way that you are. There have been countless definitions that have been crafted [to describe] the phenomenon we call leading, and not one of them says ‘must be in charge.’ It’s about helping students to understand that when we talk about leading, we’re simply talking about amplifying one’s ability to be successful in their influence attempts with others.

What is your vision for the Doerr Institute moving forward?

The Doerr team’s vision is to be Rice’s catalyst for ensuring the university is the absolute best in the world at using empirical science to develop the leadership capabilities of its community in a very intentional way. When the world thinks about who excels at intentional leader development, ours is a name that should always come to the fore right away.

Learn more at doerr.rice.edu.

THE nEXT grEaT TECH rEVOLUTiOn

AI research at Rice is fueling significant breakthroughs, plus debate about the public good.

By Hilary C. Ritz

Illustrations by Antoine Doré

angela Wilkins, until recently the executive director of Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute, is definitely pro-artificial intelligence. Even over our Zoom call, her enthusiasm about it is uplifting, and it’s entirely with that kind of positive energy — not distrust or anxiety — that she says AI has “seeped into everything.”

“It’s in every field now. Everybody’s doing it,” she adds. “They’re either making AI that works for them, using AI that works for them, or they have a collaborator that’s doing it for them.”

When I ask her why AI is so important, she says, as if it were perfectly obvious, “It’s important because science is important. AI allows us to do better science.”

For Wilkins, who is newly appointed to the Texas AI Advisory Council, AI is simply the next great technological revolution, following the printing press, the personal computer and the internet. “Now we can see something that might help make the world a better place,” she says. “Hopefully fix climate change and hopefully make the world more equitable. I’ve never seen anything quite like what’s going on now in the context of, just, people see what the possibilities are.”

But Wilkins’ enthusiasm isn’t blind faith, nor blind optimism. “We need explainability, we need responsibility. We need to make sure that it’s fair, it’s equitable. For technology to influence the way we do things, it has to be done right,” she says. “This is something we really, really care about.”

All this is really prelude to the conversation I set out to have with Wilkins, which was to understand the full breadth and depth of AI research on campus at Rice. As it turns out, this is a challenging task. “We have people who do everything,” Wilkins says. “As a whole, we’re covering the entire field.”

I decide to focus on several key projects from disparate areas in order to showcase the full range of research at Rice. When I ask Wilkins to suggest projects, she exclaims, “It’s so hard to choose! I love everybody!” But she

admits that she’s particularly excited about the collaboration between Rice and Houston Methodist, where robots will be used to train nurses, and soon I’m off to the brand-new Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science to learn more.

Embodied AI for better health care

at the o’connor building, computer scientists Lydia Kavraki and Vaibhav Unhelkar and grad students Pam Qian, Qingxi Meng and Carlos Quintero Peña meet me in their fourth-floor lab. There, Kavraki tells me, “The health care field lost one-third of its workforce since COVID-19, so this means that there is a shortage, and they don’t have the instructors to train the nurses.” According to their partners at Houston Methodist — Shannan Hamlin, Nicole Fontenot and Hsin-Mei Chen — it’s a real problem.

Enter a robot that looks less like what I imagined when I thought “robot” and more like a Roomba with a tall camera stand on top of it. But I soon understand that the minimalism is by design, making the robots unobtrusive, maneuverable and cost effective. Their first application will be to help nurse trainees learn how to maintain a sterile field while applying dressings to wounds. Qian and Meng demonstrate how the system tracks hand and body movements and flashes a warning when trainees break rules, such as reaching across the sterile field.

Many of the techniques that have been developed in AI really get their final tests in the embodied AI systems.

Many milestones are yet to come, like programming the robot to continuously position itself to get the best view of the trainee’s movements while staying safely out of the way. “There are a lot of systems that

LYDIA KAVRAKI

have to come into play,” Unhelkar says, listing areas of research such as “imitation learning” and “perception-aware motion planning.”

Kavraki adds, “Many of the techniques that have been developed in AI really get their final tests in the embodied AI systems, because there you cannot afford to make mistakes. You cannot afford to have this robot collide, even if it is 1% of the time.”

As far as the team knows, this is a unique application of embodied AI. And sterile field training is critically important, considering that, according to the CDC, one in 31 U.S. patients acquires an infection in association with their health care every day. But this is just the beginning of what these robots will be able to do.

This is an exciting project, and I soon discover that the potential impacts of my next research subject could be equally significant.

Predicting floods faster

the focal point of Arlei da Silva’s small, tidy office in Duncan Hall is a huge white board filled with formulas and diagrams that I find incomprehensible. Luckily, the softspoken professor of electrical and computer engineering is skilled at explaining complex ideas, even if he’s so quiet I’m worried that my voice recorder won’t pick him up.

Da Silva is working on multiple grantfunded projects that will make cities of the future more resilient in the face of dangers like floods or cyberattacks. One key project aims to improve flood prediction in complex urban environments, with Houston as the major case study.

“The current approaches for flood prediction are based on mathematical models that try to capture approximately the physics of the problem,” da Silva explains. “But the problem is that these approaches are very slow.” Using AI and machine learning, da Silva and his graduate student Arnold Kazadi have shown in some of their recent results that these calculations can be done “a

hundred times faster than some of the best existing solutions.”

Instead of, perhaps, an hour, a flood prediction model can now be run in seconds, and while that raw difference might not sound too impressive out of context, “if you’re thinking about evacuation, it makes a huge difference,” da Silva says. “The water goes up so fast, that might say who can evacuate and who can’t. Also, if you’re trying to account for multiple possible outcomes, if it takes a few seconds versus one hour, you can look at a hundred more outcomes.

“And if you know how bad flooding will be in certain areas, now you can combine that with demographic data to see how many people will be impacted, and then you know how many firemen should go there to help these people evacuate, or to rescue them.”

The best part is that these new lightning-fast calculations are very close in accuracy to the ones made by classical methods, at least when looking up to a few hours ahead, da Silva says. His team is working to improve the accuracy even more and to extend how far into the future the predictions extend.

He says they have a lot of “confidence” in how the project will go, then humbly corrects himself to “hope” — but perhaps that’s just the kind of quiet confidence that doesn’t need to shout to be heard.

Democratizing AI

i soon learn that da Silva isn’t the only humble faculty member on Rice’s campus. Data scientist Christopher Jermaine twice refers to his AI research as “plumbing,” meaning that it’s the unglamorous stuff that happens behind the scenes, but in reality, his current research project could make AI dramatically more accessible to organizations around the world while also diverting millions of older computer processors from landfills.

There’s all sorts of used hardware floating around that people are discarding because they want to get these newer, bigger [processors].

CHRISTOPHER JERMAINE

The problem he’s addressing, Jermaine explains, is that training AI has become cost-prohibitive for many organizations. This task typically uses processors called GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), and to process the sheer volume of data required, an organization might need a cluster of anywhere from eight to a thousand state-of-the-art GPUs that cost as much as $30,000 apiece.

The solution is to “break apart the training task and get it to run on a lot of older devices,” Jermaine says. “There’s all sorts of used hardware floating around that people are discarding because they want to get these newer, bigger ones, and they’re actually incredibly capable computationally. You can buy a used but very capable server on eBay for, say, $4,000.” Using his solution, two of those could deliver roughly the same computing power as a new GPU.

I calculate that an organization needing about 100 new GPUs’ worth of computing power could reduce its costs from roughly $3 million to about $640,000. Jermaine believes that these cost savings could help democratize access to top-ofthe-line AI models.

So what’s involved in getting AI software to run on these lower-power devices? Jermaine explains that while old processors are capable of making the calculations needed, their memory is too limited. He and his team of grad students, led by Daniel Bourgeois and including Zhimin Ding, Xin Yao, Sleem Abdelghafar and Sarah Yao, have developed a working prototype of software that addresses this limitation. The program automatically analyzes and breaks apart the computation tasks, using a type of advanced math called “Einstein summation notation” to specify the computations, and loads them into memory just as they’re needed, making the best use of the memory available.

Importantly, Jermaine’s “einsummable” method can work for any type of AI training software — and, potentially, any type of high-performance computing. Not bad for plumbing.

Assessing AI assessments

as i’m wrapping up my story, Provost Amy Dittmar gives me another name not to miss: data scientist Fred Oswald. Unlike the other experts I’ve spoken to, Oswald is in the School of Social Sciences and the Jones School of Business, where he teaches industrial/ organizational psychology. He has also devoted much of his career to employment testing, going back to when tests were given with paper and pencil, so he has a long-range perspective on the snazzy new AI-powered tests that analyze and score gamified assessments and asynchronous video interviews.

Oswald’s guidance is that the new AI tests, for all their innovations, are not and should not be exempt from the professional standards that have been refined over decades. Tests need to be reliable, valid and fair — the trinity, he calls it — regardless of the methods used.

“We have thought, as employment test developers, long and hard about what makes for a good test,” he says. “The technologists are thinking more about the problem of ‘How do I get these data to this technology to then produce scores through the algorithm?’ Whereas we’re coming at it from the perspective of ‘How do we develop scores that are based on content that is relevant to jobs and relevant to selection?’

“To the extent that algorithms are not transparent, to the extent that data are messy, and, frankly, to the extent these principles are being ignored, we need to say, ‘Hey, listen. We don’t expect tests to be perfect. We do expect tests to be developed responsibly.’”

Oswald is currently working with grad students to assess what kinds of promises vendors are making about these new tests — and what kind of evidence they offer to support those promises. He’s also working on an NSF-funded project, along with principal investigator Julia Stoyanovich at New York University, to discover how HR professionals are

My left brain is doing [all this research]. My right brain is in a panic: What is going to happen?

actually reviewing, choosing and utilizing these tests — and what kind of pitfalls they’re encountering. “You can imagine a company without knowledge of AI or of tests, even; they just want better, faster, sooner, cheaper,” he says. “How does the company know the vendor is providing a tool with reliability, validity and fairness? Sometimes they don’t even know the right questions to ask.”

MOSHE VARDI

and slow thinking.”

Vardi is quick to tell me that his own brain is split on the topic of AI, fueling more big questions. “My left brain is doing [all this research]. My right brain is in a panic: What is going to happen? Because people in computing and AI see very, very clearly how the center of gravity has moved to industry. And industry is not going for the most good, it goes for the most profit. So that’s what I lose sleep over. What will it do to humanity? What will it do to the planet?

The big questions

these kinds of concerns are shared by my final interviewee, Moshe Vardi, albeit at a larger scale. A chaired professor of computational engineering, Vardi has been studying AI at a fundamental level for decades. He asks the big questions, like “What is the nature of intelligence?” Of late, his research has been in understanding and modeling, through neural networks, the evolutionary split in human intelligence between the so-called lizard brain at the base of the skull, which provides us with quick instinctual responses, and the large forebrain, which allows us to deliberate and reason through logic. “I’m trying to be in the middle,” he says, “trying to build a bridge between fast thinking

“Most people I know, they really would like to see their research used for the public good. I can see that many, many good things will happen. But I’m also very nervous.”

One piece of good news is that the White House has taken an important step in the right direction with its October 2023 executive order on “Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” As Wilkins says, “One of the things to come out of this executive order is that industry will need to understand the technology and use it the right way. For me, this was a flag in the ground.”

Wilkins’ optimism is infectious. But I find myself compelled to close my own research into AI with Vardi’s final big question: “So how will it work out? I don’t know. It’s an amazing drama.”

RICE VS. CHATGPT

Artificial Intelligence

Rice professors share lessons on generative AI in the classroom.

In fall 2023, the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies presented a series of courses taught by Rice faculty titled Generative Artificial Intelligence and Humanity. Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can produce original responses to user prompts on a wide variety of topics. The classes covered the potential impact of these tools on health care, music, philosophy and ethics, democracy, and more. We were curious to know what Rice professors thought about the use of generative AI in the classroom. Here’s what a few of them had to say.

Elizabeth Petrick (1) Department of History School of Humanities

One big shift is that, in both of my classes this semester, I’m bringing ChatGPT into the class discussions. I also developed an assignment for the students asking them to use ChatGPT. It’s a little experimental, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ve also transitioned some of my classes to use in-class midterms instead of short-essay assignments; now I’m trying to transition my other classes as well, the ones that I’ve never had in-class midterms in. And I will say, I have colleagues who I know have made similar decisions to do more in-class work, and then you just don’t even have to worry about things like ChatGPT.

Robert J. Howell (2) Chair, Department of Philosophy School of Humanities

When your history teacher asks you to write a paper about the origins of the Civil War, if you just have ChatGPT write it, you’re obviously misrepresenting something, but you’re also failing to do something: You’re failing to recognize what happens when a group of people have a certain set of beliefs and won’t let go of them, how hate can lead to fear, and how fear can lead to mass death. By writing a paper, you’re going to have to take all these bits of evidence into account, weigh them and figure

out how to articulate them correctly. That’s a process of character building. Your history teachers want you to write a paper because of what you undergo when you’re writing that paper. To the degree that we defer to ChatGPT in order to have this done for us, we’re actually forgoing a major part of our character formation.

Rodrigo Ferreira (3) Computer Science

George R. Brown School of Engineering

I teach ethics in computer science. I tell [my students], these tools, generative AI, are there and they’re always available for you, and you can always use them. And there will be no way that I will know if you’re using them to bypass an assignment or to submit something that isn’t really your own. And I have no interest in chasing down whether or not this text that you submitted, you wrote or not, or of making any accusations in that regard. I’m offering you a chance here to use this time and this space to learn about things that you care about, and to commit yourself to learning about the social and ethical impacts of these technologies, rather than just blindly using them to meet whatever is the next immediate objective in your academic or professional career.

a LEGaCY OF InnOVaTIOn 1909

Edgar Odell Lovett speaks to the importance of research

First government research grant received

The physics department, overseen by Tom Bonner ’34, receives a grant from the Office of Naval Research for work on nuclear physics.

R1 computer takes shape

Zevi Salzburg, John Kilpatrick and Martin Graham begin working on the room-sized R1 vacuum tube computer, which becomes fully operational in 1961.

1959

Van de Graaff particle accelerator acquired

The announcement is made that a million-dollar Van de Graaff accelerator for fundamental nuclear physics research will be installed at Rice; it will be the only such equipment in the Southwest at the time.

After returning from his tour of universities in Europe, Lovett communicates to the board of governors that “the Rice Institute would aspire to university standing of the highest level, seeking ‘to attain that high place through the research work of its early professors.’”

1946 1957 1962 1963 1964

1961

Houston becomes “Space City USA”

Rice alumnus and board chairman George R. Brown ’20 helps ensure that Houston will be named the site of NASA’s new Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), continuing NASA’s longtime partnership with Rice.

John F. Kennedy delivers “moonshot” speech

In a Rice Stadium address, Kennedy commits the U.S. to landing men on the moon by 1970. The “moonshot” speech becomes one of his most famous speeches, establishing Rice as one of the pivotal institutions for technological advancement and scientific progress.

Rice establishes nation’s first space science department

Alexander Dessler is hired to lead the nation’s first dedicated department of space science in order to do research and training for NASA, which provides its first building; the department is initially for graduate students only.

Rice designs and engineers world’s first artificial heart

William Akers and David Hellums begin working on an artificial heart in 1963, in collaboration with researchers in the Texas Medical Center. In May 1965, surgeons at Baylor College of Medicine implant a working model. In 1966, Rice and Baylor receive the first-ever NIH grant for artificial heart research to continue their work.

Digital signal processing developed

C. Sidney Burrus ’57 and Tom Parks launch their first course on digital signal processing, or DSP: the transformation of data to extract or transmit information. DSP enables numerous technologies we now take for granted, from cellphones to imaging satellites.

Rice’s lunar dust detector goes to the moon

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the moon. They carry with them a lunar dust detector designed by Rice Professor Brian O’Brien.

Elected to the Association of American Universities

Ion detection device left

on the moon

On a later Apollo mission, NASA astronauts leave behind an ion detection device built by Rice Professor John Freeman. Freeman placed a tiny Rice University pennant inside its heat shield to jokingly “claim” a small part of the moon for Rice.

1985 1996 1968 1969 1969 1984

Rice is elected to the AAU, joining a roster of only 66 of the most prestigious and influential research universities. Membership in the AAU is seen as a mark of distinction due to the organization’s emphasis on research and academic excellence.

Computer science department founded

Mathematics Professor Ken Kennedy ’67 founds Rice’s computer science department. In 1987, he creates the Rice Computer and Information Technology Institute, which is renamed in his honor in 2007.

Smalley and Curl win Nobel Prize

In 1986, Richard E. Smalley and Robert Curl ’54 discover the buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyball,” a pure carbon cluster, which ushers in the era of nanoscale technology. In 1996, they win a Nobel Prize for the discovery and characterization of fullerenes, the third elemental form of carbon after graphite and diamond.

2020 2018 2021 2023

Richards-Kortum wins MacArthur “genius grant”

Rebecca Richards-Kortum wins Rice’s first MacArthur Fellowship for “developing point-of-care diagnostic technologies for use in low-resource settings and inspiring the next generation of engineers.”

McDaniel wins Pulitzer Prize

Caleb McDaniel, associate professor and incoming chair of the Department of History, wins Rice’s first Pulitzer for his book “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America.”

Slave Voyages database moves to Rice

The world’s largest repository of information about the trans-Atlantic and intra-American slave trades is moved, for the first time in its 20-year history, from Emory University to Rice under the direction of Daniel Domingues da Silva.

Rice earns its first ARPA-H award

Omid Veiseh and his team win the second-highest ARPA-H award in the country to fast-track development and testing of a new implant that aims to dramatically improve immunotherapy outcomes for patients with ovarian, pancreatic and other difficult-to-treat cancers.

‘Not

Because It Is Easy’

Rice launches five-year “moonshots” in biotech and climate change.

By Mike WIlliams

You can call them technology accelerators or launchpads. But at Rice, they’re referred to as “moonshots” for a reason. Much like the program that brought humanity to the moon, the university is striving to solve global problems on a deadline, with President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice Stadium as an inspiration. Rice’s motivation, however, comes from within.

Two moonshots announced in recent months are addressing goals in health care and energy transition technology. Launched last September on the anniversary of Kennedy’s moonshot speech, the Rice Biotech Launch Pad is already collaborating with the federal government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate the development of implants to regulate circadian rhythms and treat cancer and HIV, as well as a topical device to accelerate healing. Led by bioengineer Omid Veiseh and executive director Paul Wotton, the program is based at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative and the Texas Medical Center’s recently opened Helix Park, a 37-acre campus designed to foster research breakthroughs.

“The goal is to identify critical needs in medicine and build and validate technologies to address them,” says Veiseh, whose Rice lab has developed implants that sense conditions and secrete drugs on demand to treat diabetes and other diseases. The Biotech Launch Pad aims to bring more such products to clinical trials in the next five years.

The program differs from traditional accelerators that mentor scientists and guide them toward startups, Veiseh says. “We’re more of a venture creation group,” he says.

Illustration by Islenia Mill

“A lot of foundational technologies get created in Houston, but we were missing two key ingredients: the talent to build investable businesses around the technology and the capital to support them.

“You need a credible CEO: a serial entrepreneur who has done it before,” he adds, noting that Wotton, a collaborator in his own startups, fits the bill perfectly. “Rice’s investment has allowed us to bring the right people to the ecosystem.”

More recently, Rice launched its second moonshot, this one targeting climate change. The Woodside-Rice Decarbonization Accelerator aims to bring breakthrough decarbonization technology from Rice labs to market. Led by Rice’s chief innovation officer and physicist Paul Cherukuri and chemical engineer Aditya Mohite, in partnership with Woodside Energy — a global energy company specializing in oil, gas and new energy technologies — the program will develop technological solutions that convert carbon dioxide into useful products on a commercial scale.

this case, a breakthrough needs to happen in the fundamental science around energy. The biggest problem we have with oil and gas is not that they’re not good fuel, they’re great fuel. The issue is the waste product.”

Both moonshots are accelerating the commercialization of technology, which is the best way to get it into people’s lives

The potential of plasmonic catalysis, developed by pioneering Rice engineer Naomi Halas to break up carbon dioxide, could be key to their success. Along with Cherukuri, Mohite and Halas, the moonshot’s founding scientists include chemist Bruce Weisman and physicist Peter Nordlander. “They’re all among the most highly cited scientists in the world,” Cherukuri says.

PAUL CHERUKURI

The project will begin in research labs at Rice and move to Rice’s Ion District for innovation in Midtown, where the team will develop larger scale reactors that convert carbon dioxide gas into solid carbon. “Carbon dioxide is a really hard molecule to break up, at least in a cost-effective way,” Cherukuri says. “If we figure it out, I think we have a shot at changing the world.”

“Both moonshots are accelerating the commercialization of technology, which is the best way to get it into people’s lives,” says Cherukuri. “Like Kennedy’s original moonshot, they’re really difficult to do but have well-defined targets. In

Learn more at biotechlaunchpad.rice.edu and woodside.rice.edu.

RESEARCH ROUNDUP

Faculty members across Rice’s seven academic schools share their explorations and discoveries.

With $94.9 million in research expenditures in 2023 and a distinguished faculty that includes 15 members of one or more national academies, the George R. Brown School of Engineering is a powerhouse of research productivity and impact, developing responsible engineering solutions for the world’s greatest societal challenges.

By Kayt Sukel

25 mm²—

the size of the groundbreaking layered magnetoelectric material developed in the laboratory of bioengineer Jacob Robinson, which can perform magnetic-to-electric conversions 120 times faster than comparable materials in order to noninvasively restore signaling in severed nerves. “The success of this project shows that we should not constrain ourselves to thinking about the materials that already exist in the world when it comes to solving a problem,” says Robinson. “Instead, we can imagine the materials we want to exist in the world and go out and make them.”

George R. Brown School of Engineering

SOLVing FOr grEaTEr GOOD

DECONSTRUCTING MOLECULES

Michael Wong, director of the Catalysis and Nanomaterials Laboratory, is working on water decontamination, carbon dioxide mitigation and the establishment of new clean energy technologies. “Using the same tools to construct molecules for different applications, chemists and chemical engineers can also deconstruct them for sustainability purposes — and, in doing so, they can make a huge impact,” Wong says. In recognition of his innovative research, Wong was recently honored with the Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

UNDERSTANDING CARBON NANOTUBE SYNTHESIS

A multiuniversity team, led by Matteo Pasquali, has been awarded a $4.1 million grant by the Kavli Foundation and the Carbon Hub to understand carbon nanotube synthesis, a process that can produce more sustainable materials. “Renewable energy and electrification have a much larger material footprint than their counterpart fossil-based technologies,” Pasquali says. “We need to break out of the current mindset that the energy systems of the future can be built with materials developed before chemistry became a mature science.”

MEASURING MULTIHAZARD INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE

Jamie Padgett was recently recognized by the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology for her groundbreaking work in infrastructure sustainability and resiliency in hazard-prone regions. “It’s essential that we understand the dynamic behavior and reliability of structures under different extreme loads because, in reality, that bridge or building may not be exposed to a single threat,” Padgett says. “We need methods that will allow us to consider the interaction between all the extreme events that piece of infrastructure might be exposed to throughout its lifetime.”

“We just need to plug it into a power outlet and it will work.”

— Haotian Wang on the carbon-capture system his lab created. The system can directly remove carbon dioxide from a variety of emission sources by inducing a water-and-oxygen-based electrochemical reaction that neither produces nor consumes any chemicals and doesn’t need heat or pressure. Wang’s goal is to provide industries with a clean method to support climate change mitigation efforts.

“We have pushed the boundary of what is possible, but there is so much more to do.”

— Ashutosh Sabharwal on his pioneering multidisciplinary medical imaging project, “See Below the Skin.” The project has developed new imaging techniques that combine sensing, analog and algorithmic innovations with the goal of enhancing doctors’ abilities to noninvasively diagnose and monitor different medical conditions. “Every time we can enhance imaging, go another millimeter deep and get more fine-resolution information about the human body, new medical devices and new ways for caring for people become possible,” Sabharwal says. “That means someone’s life will change.”

“We’re really only limited by our imaginations.”

— Marcia O’Malley on her collaboration with Daniel Preston to design and fabricate wearable textile-based devices that provide haptic information for different applications ranging from improved control of prostheses to enhanced communication and training capabilities. These new haptic accessories can be designed to exact specifications to fit flexible sleeves or clothing.

Rice Architecture

BUILDInG THE FUTUrE

Rice Architecture offers a closeknit community that provides both undergraduates and graduates with thoughtful instruction, particularly in the studio setting, while its position within a top-tier university allows the program to draw extensively from other disciplines to forge into new territories of speculative practice.

By Emily Hynds

PRACTICING IN DUALITY

There is a duality to architect Troy Schaum’s practice. “My work questions how architectural form impacts public space in the city,” he explains, “but I also do work related to historic restoration and preservation projects in art and cultural spaces.”

Schaum established Schaum/ Shieh with fellow architect Rosalyne Shieh in 2009. They have designed projects in New York; Marfa, Texas; Houston; Los Angeles; and Virginia.

Many of these are “designforward environments,” such as art galleries, restaurants, music venues and public spaces. On the other side of the coin, Schaum/Shieh has been engaged in master planning and restoration work in Marfa for the Judd Foundation since 2012. They started by restoring Donald Judd’s Art Studio and Las Casas, one of the artist’s ranch houses in

the Chinati Mountains; more recently, they restored the grounds and winter garden at the Block, Judd’s home in downtown Marfa.

“On the one hand, you have the space of speculation and projection, and on the other, the space of restraint and contemplation,” Schaum says. “They complement each other.”

PHOTO BY ALEX MARKS/COURTESY OF THE CHINATI FOUNDATION

“Houston has 150,000 structures in the 100-year flood plain, and we know the water is coming.”

Architect Albert Pope and anthropologist Dominic Boyer, along with students in Rice Architecture’s design studios, are designing a plan to restore Houston’s natural flood plains. The plan includes phased buyouts of properties in danger of flooding along the bayous, the restoration of the natural flood plain, and higher density living nearby.

The project aims to make the most of Houston’s Bayou Greenways, a city-owned network of 150 miles of interconnected bayou trails. Collaboration between the city, the Harris County Flood Control District (which would ultimately fund the buyouts), and the affected neighborhoods is key. Pope and Boyer have been working on this issue for a decade, and a grant from the National Science Foundation has funded the project for the next three years.

Visit magazine.rice. edu/architecture for an expanded version of this story.

DESIGNING FOR THE GULF COAST

Architect Maggie Tsang focuses on climate adaptation, flood plain urbanism, community resilience, and the relationship between city and nature. The co-founder of Dept., a landscape architecture and urban design studio based in Houston and serving the Gulf Coast, she created “Prairie Plots,” a living installation next to the Turrell Skyspace, in 2022. Comprising more than 1,300 hardy plants and seeds known to thrive in the often harsh Houston climate, “Prairie Plots” serves as an example of how institutions can reimagine their footprint, letting changing climates guide the way humans interface with design.

BODY-PLUS

Architect Dawn Finley ’99 is investigating the implications of the body in design through her seminar Body-Plus: Architecture, Design and Disability, supported by a Rice BRIDGE (Building Research on Inequality and Diversity to Grow Equity) grant.

We can’t design for everyone; that’s impossible. But we can contemplate nonstandard bodies for a broader audience.

DAWN FINLEY

“Disability in design is too often dealt with through code compliance rather than through a conceptual framework or starting point,” Finley says. The seminar focuses on interactive objects and smaller public buildings, reimagining codes, regulations and compliance not as limitations, but as a catalyst for possibility. “We can’t design for everyone; that’s impossible,” Finley says. “But we can contemplate nonstandard bodies for a broader audience.”

STanDInG OVaTIOn

The Shepherd School of Music

The Shepherd School of Music cultivates the mastery of musical performance, combining a conservatory experience with the educational opportunities of a leading research university.

Through the Shepherd School, students gain access to world-class teachers dedicated to fostering talent and professional success.

“MIND”-FUL RESEARCH

It’s been said that great minds think alike, but how similarly do they function?

Composer Anthony Brandt is finding out through a collaboration with choreographers

Andy and Dionne Noble from NobleMotion Dance and with the University of Houston BRAIN Center, where Brandt works with brain scientist Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal. Together, they choreographed a 36-minute dance in which dancers performed states of isolation, conflict and harmony and studied them to understand interbrain synchrony and neural signatures that indicate when two brains are cooperating with each other. Brandt and musicians from the Shepherd School will travel to Geneva in May to demonstrate their research at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit.

ROOMFUL OF TROPHIES

Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw ’04 has struck Grammy gold once again — for the fourth time. Shaw and fellow members of vocal ensemble

Roomful of Teeth received the award this year for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for the album “Rough Magic.”

— Amy McCaig

Above: Shepherd School musicians Astrid Nakamura, Nanki Chugh, Molly Wise and Chris Ellis with dancers Tyler Orcutt and Lauren Serrano

BY LYNN LANE, ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN TAYLOR OPPOSITE: PHOTO COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN OPERA, PHOTO BY MARCO GIUGIARELLI

A REPRISE FOR OPERA

Musicologist Danielle WardGriffin received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her research on televised opera and her forthcoming book, “Televising Opera: Broadcasting and Performance in Anglo-American Culture (1945–75).” She says, “The idea is to look at how television tried to remake opera performance, particularly in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. … I’m interested in this idea of how new media is informing what viewers ended up seeing not just on the TV screen but also on stage. I see a lot of parallels to what is happening today with opera.” — SB

A SOPRANO SOARS

Grammy Award-winning soprano and professor of voice Ana María Martínez has been acclaimed by The New York Times as an artist who creates “theatrical magic.” Last year her performances included the roles of Countess in “The Marriage of Figaro” at LA Opera and Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni” at The Metropolitan Opera in New York City. In December, she sang the role of Catrina in “El último sueño de Frida y Diego” by composer and Shepherd School alumna Gabriela Lena Frank ’94, ’96 and librettist Nilo Cruz at LA Opera. “I hope my artistry inspires our students to embark on their own extraordinary musical journeys with unwavering dedication and boundless passion,” she says. — Katie Sejba

PIANO PERFECTION

A veteran of the international concert stage, pianist Jon Kimura Parker has performed regularly in famed venues from the Philharmonie Berlin and Carnegie Hall to the Beijing Concert Hall. He is artistic director of the Honens International Piano Competition, artistic adviser for the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and a creative partner, concerto soloist and solo performer with the Minnesota Orchestra. He recently returned from performing as a concerto soloist with the Youth Orchestra of the Taiwan Philharmonic. “Many of these brilliant teenaged players were asking about our programs at the Shepherd School,” he says. “Our music programs have developed a reputation of excellence seemingly everywhere.” — KS

BRIDGING EAST AND WEST

The compositions of Taiwanese-American composer Shih-Hui Chen cross boundaries between music and society, between the music of distinct cultures, and between music and other art forms — venturing into mixed media, shadow puppets and cross-genre theatrical works. Her works have been performed at the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, Chen was honored with the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The judges commented, “Her strong personal voice bridges the East and West with passion, energy and dramatic expression.” — KS

Ana María Martínez as Donna Elvira in The Metropolitan Opera’s production of “Don Giovanni” Shih-Hui Chen

The

BUSInESS SAVVY

The Jones Graduate School of Business offers a research-based curriculum and a purposedriven approach to empower students to become the leaders they aspire to be. With the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program in the nation, Rice Business is an internationally recognized leader for educating and producing talented entrepreneurs.

By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Strategic management expert Yan “Anthea” Zhang studies CEO succession and how publicly listed companies are governed. It’s critical work, as CEO turnover is historically high and vulnerable to climbing further as executives juggle the rise of AI, aggressive cyberattacks, increasing regulations and a push — from investors, workers and consumers alike — toward sustainability. “Unexpected change in the CEO office can lead to a vicious cycle in which more people may leave and stakeholders may wonder what is happening in the C-suites and withhold their support to the company,” she says.

NECESSITY REALLY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

Scott Sonenshein’s research and publications take readers to places we recognize. An expert in leadership and organizational change, Sonenshein has studied the complex relationships between employees and employers for almost two decades. He penned a book with professional organizer Marie Kondo and has conducted studies in a variety of settings, from food trucks to banks to bookstores — and now orchestras. Recently, he embarked on a multiyear study of two prominent orchestras, teasing out the leadership practices that allowed one to fare better during the COVID-19 pandemic. His conclusion? Become nimbler by thinking more like jazz ensembles and less like classical orchestras. “When leaders follow the adage of ‘necessity is the mother of invention,’ they’re able to tap into their existing resources and foster collective creativity to help their organization effectively respond to crises,” he says.

Q&A: NICOLA SECOMANDI

Nicola Secomandi’s research focuses on the energy industry, largely the management of the trading operations of merchant energy firms. Last summer, he took on a new role at Rice Business, senior adviser to the dean on the energy transition, as the world looks toward the industry’s inevitable transformation. Read an excerpt from Secomandi’s interview with Rice Business Magazine here, and find the full interview at business.rice.edu/transition.

Everyone discusses the energy transition, but the issues are complex and evolving. Where do we start?

The end goal is clear: to decarbonize our society on a global scale. What is unclear are the specific paths different companies and governments will take to get there. The obvious starting point, for me, is learning what organizations are doing currently. The transition to a world in which energy will be predominantly clean will take decades, so it’s important that we engage in this process now.

Are there companies at the forefront of the thinking behind the transition?

Energy and other companies are actively driving the transition. It is common for businesses to rely on valuable insights and expertise offered by consulting companies, but some benefit from collaborations with academics. Every company is grappling with the future of energy. But those who lead are operating with a more sophisticated level of decision making based on data and structured analysis, possibly based on collaborations with academics. La Poste, the French postal operator, is an early example of practice and academic collaboration driving energy transition business decisions. Research helped the company determine in 2010 that it should [start] replacing expiring leases for diesel trucks with new leases for electric trucks in early 2015, which is what La Poste did.

12.5%

The likelihood that executives are in touch with customer desires

What’s the most effective way to lead a strategic planning process? Vikas Mittal has some scientific data on this issue. In a recent study on strategy involving 17,251 customer opinions and 127 companies, Mittal found that executives were in tune with their customers’ wants in only 12.5% of cases. “Many senior executives are stuck in an old style of thinking, and it’s harming customers and employees,” he says. “If they continue relying on intuitive beliefs, it would be very easy to replace their decision making with artificial intelligence.” Instead, to be successful, executives must make strategic decisions based on a systematic, science-based approach that starts with choosing a clear desired outcome.

Wiess School of Natural Sciences

QUanTUM LE aPS

The Wiess School of Natural Sciences sees the universe as its laboratory. Intense curiosity drives its students and faculty members to discover the unknown, from hunting the smallest subatomic particles to investigating the unfathomable distances of our universe — and scientific inquiries at every scale in between.

I am driven to contribute to the theory of high-temperature superconductivity. This is my gift to the planet Earth.

RANDY HULET

“A MODERN ALCHEMIST”

Among his many accolades, organic chemist K.C. Nicolaou has been lauded as “the world leader of the present generation in the field of total synthesis” (Wolf Prize, 2016) and “a modern alchemist” (Benjamin Franklin Medal, 2011). In presenting the Wolf Prize, the award committee wrote: “He has shown, like nobody else, how to strategically disconnect complex molecules into fragments leading to realizable chemical pathways. This strategy represents a conceptual leap that has been emulated by many others and has broken a ‘glass ceiling’ in the art of synthesis.”

Nicolaou’s successes include the syntheses of anti-cancer drugs Taxol and calicheamicin and the immunosuppressant rapamycin — and many other compounds of critical value for both direct medical applications and further research.

— Lynn Gosnell

— Jade Boyd

Physicist Randy Hulet and his team are building a quantum simulator in the hopes of using laser-cooled lithium atoms to create something that’s eluded physicists for over 50 years — experimental proof of an exotic one-dimensional state of matter where magnetism and superconductivity coexist.

PREDICTIVE DESIGN OF QUANTUM MATERIALS

Rice physicist Qimiao Si has won a prestigious Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship from the Department of Defense to pursue a groundbreaking theoretical framework for the predictive design of quantum materials with properties useful for quantum computing. — JB

PURSUING NEW QUESTIONS AND NEW MATERIALS

As director of the groundbreaking Rice Center for Quantum Materials, physicist Emilia Morosan is leading a mission to make Rice an international hub for fundamental research around quantum materials. In the process, she is expanding research collaborations among Rice faculty, postdocs and students via workshops, conferences and residencies for distinguished scientists. — LG

DISCOVERING THE KEYS TO LIFE

Among many other projects at the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, co-directed by senior scientists Peter Wolynes and José Onuchic, researchers are exploring new approaches to studying DNA — such as examining how the folded 3D shapes of chromosomes might determine gene expression and regulation. “Understanding DNA is a key to understanding how life works,” Wolynes says.

— Silvia Cernea Clark

RINGS OF FIRE

As a “comparative planetologist,” earth scientist Rajdeep Dasgupta studies the conditions that make planets fundamentally different. This includes the study of lifeessential volatile elements — like nitrogen, carbon and sulfur — and how they’re distributed across the planet and moved by volcanic and tectonic processes. He’s kicking off a new research project to study carbonatites, a rare type of igneous rock that holds most of our planet’s rare earth elements.

— LG

480,000

deaths in 2020

The global toll of breast cancer that metastasized to the bones

Drugs called immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors have dramatically improved breast cancer treatment in recent years. Unfortunately, these drugs don’t work well in bone, so Rice chemist Han Xiao and colleagues have discovered a new approach involving protein molecule Siglec-15. They have successfully piloted an antibody therapy for metastatic breast cancer tumors in animals and started a company to develop a drug for human use.

FURTHERING EXCELLENCE

Mathematician Chelsea Walton has been awarded the fourth annual American Mathematical Society Claytor-Gilmer Fellowship, which aims “to further excellence in mathematics research and to help generate wider and sustained participation by Black mathematicians.” — LG

THE PLANT LAB

Of late, plant geneticist

Bonnie Bartel has dissected the regulation of the growth hormone auxin, discovered specific functions of several plant microRNAs, and elucidated the structure and role of peroxisomes — basic cellular structures common to most life forms. The model organism for this research is the flower-

Visit magazine.rice.edu/natsci for an expanded version of this story.

BUILDInG A BETTEr FUTUrE

Economics for All

By Katy Munger

RESEARCH FOR THE SOCIAL GOOD

Flávio Cunha, chair of the Department of Economics, explores labor economics with an emphasis on human capital formation. His recent work focuses on the causes and consequences of labor inequality and poverty. The director of Rice’s Texas Policy Lab, Cunha is changing the public debate on these issues through evidence-based research that governments across Texas and beyond are using to improve their policies and public investment strategies.

“At the heart of our work at the Texas Policy Lab is a commitment to leveraging research for social good,” Cunha says. “By addressing these critical areas, we hope to contribute to a society where the value of educators is recognized and rewarded appropriately and where every child, regardless of their background, has access to the support they need to thrive.”

PAYING ATTENTION TO OVERLOOKED COMMUNITIES

As an applied microeconomist, Rossella Calvi is studying the economics of gender inequality and poverty as well as health and education in developing countries. Her work informs policies aimed at dismantling gender-based obstacles, promotes inclusive economic growth, and lays the groundwork for interventions that could improve the quality of life and socioeconomic prospects for underserved or overlooked communities.

Rice University’s School of Social Sciences is a vibrant, inclusive community of scholars, students and educators committed to connecting teaching and research with policy for the betterment of society. They work to shape a future where we can all thrive, both individually and collectively.

In a recent study, she turned her attention to understanding child poverty among refugees. By introducing a new computerdesigned method of evaluating data from refugee camps and surrounding communities in Uganda and Kenya, which host a combined population of more than 2 million refugees and asylum seekers, she learned how resources are allocated — and that children are most vulnerable. “Data on the well-being of individual refugees — including children — is critical for all who seek to diminish or end poverty,” Calvi says. “My research aims to deepen our understanding of inequality in low-income countries and offer insights for policies to address it.”

MITIGATING RISK AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Economist Ted Loch-Temzelides applies interdisciplinary modeling to research critical to science-based policies in such areas as climate change mitigation, resource sustainability, biodiversity conservation, global health and more. “Climate change and pandemic prevention — two of the topics I am working on — pose global challenges, and they need global solutions,” he says. “We desperately need more interdisciplinary research that breaks down barriers between fields.”

As part of a multi-institutional research team developing new mathematical modeling to assess and address threats faced during a pandemic, Loch-Temzelides and colleagues found that a combination of testing and isolation may be a better and more cost-effective policy for reducing infections and deaths than implementing lockdowns.

“Individuals are not particles, and they follow their own incentives,” he says. “This modeling approach allows us to simulate different situations, evaluate what’s happening, and determine the optimal policy interventions for a variety of scenarios that might prevail in the early stages of a large-scale epidemic outbreak.”

Loch-Temzelides and his fellow researchers hope their findings will help guide policymakers in future outbreaks.

FOOD ACCESS DURING EMERGENCIES

A study led by Rachel Kimbro, sociologist and dean of the School of Social Sciences, determined that as low-income mothers in the Houston area struggled to feed their families during the COVID pandemic, cash assistance via federally issued debit cards offered greater flexibility and presented fewer practical barriers than food distribution by local food banks. Why? Long lines, brutal summer temperatures, lim ited food options at the food banks, and a lack of child care or transportation were cited among the challenges associated with food distribution. — Julie Engebretson

For students who are blind, Braille is often the first and primary way that they read.

SIMON FISCHER-BAUM

TEACHING BRAILLE

Thanks to a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, linguist Robert Englebretson and psychologist Simon Fischer-Baum are working to understand how instructors of visually impaired students perceive and teach Braille, and how this affects literacy outcomes among Braille learners.

“Most [instructors] are sighted and have a lifetime of experience with print by the time they learn Braille, so they typically read by sight rather than by touch,” Fischer-Baum says. “In contrast, for students who are blind, Braille is often the first and primary way that they read.” The researchers want to understand how this “disconnect in experience” affects how Braille is taught.

— JE

and Jeremy Fiel are exploring whether and how housing choice vouchers — housing subsidies by the federal gov ernment for very low-income families — improve academic outcomes for low-income students in Houston. Their research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation, will inform local policies to better address the barriers voucher recipients encounter. — JE

GOOD CALL

closest games in 2020–21 to pre-pandemic games going back to 2017 — and found no significant bias in these crucial moments due to crowd size. — JE

When the National Basketball Association moved forward with a modified 2020–21 season during the COVID pandemic, teams played their 72-game schedules in empty arenas. Sport management Professor Hua Gong saw an opportunity to investigate how the presence or absence of fans impacts “home bias,” whereby referees allegedly favor the home team over the

LEADING SCHOLAR

For her contributions to the field of applied experimental and engineering psychology, Jing Chen earned the American Psychological Association’s Earl Alluisi Award for Early Career Achievement. The award was presented at the 2023 APA Convention in Washington, D.C. — JE

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(School of Social Sciences continued)

REWRITING HISTORY

As recently published in the scientific journal Nature, a genetic study of ancient DNA samples has changed the prevailing narrative surrounding the origins of Songo Mnara, Kilwa Kisiwani and other medieval towns along Africa’s eastern Swahili Coast. The study was co-authored by anthropologists Mary Prendergast and Jeffrey Fleisher. “Forty years ago, the assumption was that [these towns] were the result of Persian colonization,” says Fleisher. “But this study suggests that these towns were fundamentally African in their foundation during the first millennium, and that medieval and early modern Swahili families strategically connected themselves with Persian merchants during the second millennium.” — JE

120,000 The number of citations to psychologist Eduardo Salas’ body of work

Eduardo Salas was awarded the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology in 2023 for his research into facilitating teamwork and team effectiveness in organizations. — JE

START@RICE

Statistical Training and Research Techniques at Rice, or STaRT@Rice, a program launched in 2021 by sociologist Tony Brown, aims to enhance community within the School of Social Sciences, particularly between underrepresented minorities and first-generation, low-income students. Returning Oct. 11–14, 2024, this annual weeklong gathering includes a variety of research lectures and workshops. — JE

School of Humanities

THE BIG QUESTIOnS

Studies at Rice’s School of Humanities cross the globe, span millennia and invite students from all schools at Rice to engage, interpret, critique and debate the crucial issues facing the world today — skills that are key in cultivating a lifetime of engagement with the world as citizens and thought leaders.

By Amy C. Evans

A Q&A With Author Bryan Washington

Whether he’s writing about pecan tarts for The New York Times or queer spaces for The New Yorker, Bryan Washington, esteemed Houston author and professor of English at Rice, manages to confront readers with his uniquely imagined themes of love and loss, pleasure and pain. His first two books, “Lot” and “Memorial,” were deep explorations of those motifs, but as it turns out, they were only appetizers to be devoured before what could arguably be considered the main course: “Family Meal” (Penguin Random House, 2023).

Currently, Washington is not only juggling the release of his new book, teaching writing courses, and game-planning new projects but also working on another book. We talked to him about “Family Meal,” the evolution of his craft, and writing to feel a little less lonely.

BY BRIAN TAYLOR

Tell us how you like to talk about “Family Meal.”

That’s interesting because it’s changed. I have thought of it as a book about a group of friends who are trying to figure out what it means to be family. My book agent said she felt that “Memorial” was like a love story about family and “Family Meal” was more of a family story about love. And I feel like that is really useful for me, in terms of intellectualizing it and thinking through the different forms that love can take or the different forms that friendship can take and how, in some ways, platonic love can be the most important relationship that someone has in their life.

The characters are so true to life that it’s a difficult read, but also life-affirming. To see that in a work of fiction is a reminder that you’re not alone.

I’m really interested in fiction that makes me feel less lonely. That’s work that I gravitate toward. It’s not really a goal, I think, that one can reach for. I think, really, just being there, or just saying that this is an experience that can be had, is enough in a lot of ways. I think I’ve been really fortunate to write these narratives and have them meet, in some cases, people who say, “Okay, wow, I’ve experienced this” or “I am this person.”

I’ve felt that way about texts whose characters have absolutely nothing to do with me or my history or where I’ve been geographically. To see models or to see arcs that do feel as though they might be memories that you may have had, even if they have nothing to do with you, whether by time or place — I think that that’s a really cool thing. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve gravitated to writing fiction myself.

Computer-generated

Contemporary art is speaking on so many levels, and optical is probably only about 10%.

LESLIE HEWITT

For internationally acclaimed artist Hewitt, it’s the other 90% of our perceptive possibilities that she considers when creating. Her recent solo project in the Dia Bridgehampton museum is a perfect example: The sitespecific installation featured sculptural forms, photography, sound and even metadata.

BRAVE NEW WORLDS

In February, an extraordinary roster of scientists, researchers, scholars and artists gathered at Rice for the biennial De Lange Conference. Historian Luis Campos, who convened the event, says, “Everybody is concerned with the future of their health, the future of their society, the future of the climate that they live in, and the future of how their data is being used. This is a conference that weaves all those realms together with forms of artistic intervention and creative practice.”

research image, Leslie Hewitt; Studio © Leslie Hewitt

“AWKWARD!”

English professor and department chair Alexander Regier has a monograph on awkwardness as an aesthetic and political category forthcoming from Oxford University Press. “My interest in the subject came from having to understand the wider cultural context in order to even get to awkwardness,” Regier explains.

THINKING IMPOSSIBLY

Religion scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal has convened two international conferences centered around Rice’s “Archives of the Impossible” — a collection of documents and materials related to the study of the paranormal — and has two books forthcoming: “How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else” (University of Chicago Press, 2024) and “Comparing Religions: The Study of Us That Changes Us” (WileyBlackwell, 2024).

WRITING AND WANDERING

This spring, Kiese Laymon — celebrated novelist, essayist and professor of English — is teaching a course called Writing Longer Fiction and has invited fellow Black Southern writer Deesha Philyaw, author of “The

Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” to work with his students. Outside the classroom, Laymon is writing a TV pilot for Amazon and publishing a children’s book, “City Summer, Country Summer” (Penguin Young Readers, 2024). He has also finished another book for adults, but he’s holding on to it for now: “Because I did ‘Heavy,’ I can wander around a little bit more before I put out something else sort of personal back into the world.”

RELIGION AND HIP HOP

Religion and humanities scholar Anthony Pinn released a new book in January: “Deathlife: Hip Hop and Thanatological Narrations of Blackness” (Duke University Press, 2024). Currently, Pinn is working with local artist Lanecia A. Rouse to explore the growing community of people who understand themselves as spiritual but not religious. “The arts allow for a different set of questions, a different type of engagement with imagination, that’s somewhat rebellious,” he explains, “and I think that’s helpful for us all.”

In 2020, French studies scholar Jacqueline Couti hosted an international conference at Rice: “Black Feminism in French (Post)Imperial Contexts.” Last year, she brought much of that work, plus new scholarship, to the August 2023 special issue of the Journal of Women’s History as guest editor. “How do you find your place in space?” she asks. “You can write. If you have your body, you can make music or movements with your body. Or you can tell stories. But it’s always about community.”

15,000

Records updated on SlaveVoyages.org

Professor of history Daniel Domingues da Silva continues to pour his energy into the SlaveVoyages.org project funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. His team has “reconstructed the U.S. coastwise traffic to Texas, adding about 1,100 records of voyages and details on over 15,000 records of enslaved individuals transported in those voyages.” Rice has been selected to host the project for another three years.

Visit magazine.rice.edu/humanities for an expanded version of this story.

TOTaL ECLiPSE

During the total solar eclipse this spring, space physicist and alumna Pat Reiff is leading an ambitious citizen science project — and collecting new images of the sun’s corona.

By Robyn Ross

OOn the balmy afternoon of April 20, 2023, Pat Reiff ’74, ’75 stood in the courtyard of an Australian resort, poised for action. She and a team of U.S. scientists had traveled to the city of Exmouth on the North West Cape, a narrow peninsula on the continent’s western coastline and one of a few places on Earth that would soon experience a total solar eclipse.

the path of totality — the route the moon’s shadow would take across the Earth’s surface — clipped the tip of the North West Cape before crossing the Timor Sea and parts of Indonesia. For 57 seconds, the moon would completely block the sun, giving the team just enough time to test its equipment. These 57 seconds were worth traveling across the world.

As the moon moved slowly across the sun’s face, Reiff, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice, felt a surge of adrenaline. This would be her 17th total eclipse, but the experience always engendered a sense of astonishment and awe. The team watched the seconds tick down until the moon fully covered the sun and light drained from the sky. Then they jumped into action, removing the solar filters from three telescopes so they could capture footage of the corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere. Reiff kept one eye on the equipment while she watched her colleagues and the resort staff stare upward, agape, at the apparent void where the sun had been, surrounded by the sparkling wisps of the corona.

The moment before totality ended, Reiff replaced the solar filter so the sun’s intense light wouldn’t destroy the equipment. Everyone exhaled, looking at one another in wonder. After so many eclipses, Reiff later says, “part of the fun is watching other people have that ‘aha’ moment. It is staggering and awe-inspiring, and half of the first-timers end up crying. It’s a visceral thing.”

Total solar eclipses also present a rare and ideal opportunity for scientists to study the corona, which is otherwise difficult to photograph amid the brightness of the sun. The trip to Australia was a test run for the main event: the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse that will cross the United States from Texas to Maine.

During that eclipse, the Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse, or Citizen CATE, will use the equipment tested in Australia — telescopes with attached cameras — to capture images of the corona in polarized light. Thirty-five teams will be spaced along the path of totality, each experiencing between 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 minutes of darkness. Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute, which runs the project, later will stitch the overlapping images into a 60-minute movie that reveals how the corona changed over the duration of the eclipse. Researchers will study the footage to advance their understanding of the corona’s structure.

As the southwest regional coordinator for Citizen CATE, Reiff oversees the 12 teams positioned across Texas and Arkansas. Her role harnesses her scientific expertise as a heliophysicist as well as the relationships she’s built with Texas educators as the associate director for outreach programs at the Rice Space Institute and the leader of Rice’s Master of Science Teaching program.

Although the CATE data is immensely valuable to researchers, the project is also a public outreach tool: The 35 teams are composed not of highly experienced scientists but of high school and junior college students and instructors. The teams have trained to use the equipment and will be assisted by volunteers from local astronomy clubs and community colleges. Reiff’s job was, in part, to publicize the project to her network of more than 10,000 teachers, encourage them to apply, and ensure they were prepared for the project.

Total solar eclipses are a significant part of Reiff’s life. She has led eclipse tours to overseas destinations, developed a solar-filtering screen for safe eclipse viewing, and, with adjunct professor of physics and astronomy Carolyn Sumners, created a planetarium show about total solar eclipses for the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Although total solar eclipses occur roughly every 18 months somewhere on Earth, the opportunity to see one close to home is rare: The most recent total solar eclipses visible in the contiguous United States were in 2017, when the path of totality crossed the

country from Oregon to South Carolina, and in 1979, when the path crossed the Pacific Northwest. The next to sweep across the middle of the country will occur in 2045. But umbraphiles — or eclipse chasers — like Reiff travel the world to see them. April 8 will mark her 18th time in totality. Through the CATE project, she’s also cultivating that sense of cosmic awe in a new generation.

“We want to spread the excitement of total eclipses to more people,” she says. “Kids have a natural curiosity, and when you can pique their curiosity with something that is so outside of their normal experience, you get them hooked.”

Although staff at Southwest Research selected the Citizen CATE teams, they leaned heavily on the recommendations of regional coordinators such as Reiff. They also considered her input as they chose the state coordinators who will closely supervise four sites each. (Reiff’s region has a south and north Texas coordinator and an Arkansas coordinator; each region also has a lead trainer, and Rice graduate student Charlie Gardner serves in that role for the southwest region.)

CATE is specifically designed for underrepresented communities that do not otherwise have access to advanced scientific opportunities or equipment. For instance, Reiff’s territory includes teams comprising students and educators in Eagle Pass; Uvalde; Kemp, southeast of Dallas; and Atkins, Arkansas.

Jennifer Miller-Ray, Reiff’s coordinator for the region stretching from Eagle Pass to the Hill Country, is an associate professor of education at Sul Ross State University who conducts STEM outreach with secondary school students in a vast area of southwest Texas that includes Eagle Pass and Uvalde. She says the predominantly Hispanic area has a rich culture and history but also has needs that are overlooked because of the region’s remoteness. Citizen CATE offers mentorship and equipment — the schools get to keep the telescopes — to students who’ve had fewer opportunities than those in major metro areas.

“This is providing a way for us to build a sustained program in these communities, beyond the eclipse, to get kids excited about astronomy and topics related to space science,” MillerRay says.

Plus, says Citizen CATE project manager Sarah Kovac, the initiative is entrusting the teams with collecting information that’s the first of its kind. “It’s really rare for students to be able to contribute to what is genuinely new, world-class science,” she says. “This is a new, novel dataset. Nothing like this has ever been collected before.”

Scientists know relatively little about the middle corona’s structure or about why the corona is hundreds of times hotter than the surface of the sun. But the corona is difficult to study because the sun’s light is so much brighter and makes it hard to see. Researchers can look at outer parts of the corona by using a tool called a coronagraph, a telescope that blocks the direct light of the sun — simulating an eclipse — with an occulting disk. But because the disk needs to appear slightly larger than the sun, to avoid the sun causing harm to the viewer or the telescope, it blocks the innermost part of the corona from view. A total solar eclipse solves these problems because the perfectly sized occulting disk of the moon blocks all light from the sun while allowing scientists to see all parts of the corona.

Even so, total solar eclipses are brief, observable for only a few minutes at any one place on Earth. Because the corona is constantly changing due to the turbulence in its magnetic field, footage obtained at a single location cannot fully capture dynamic events such as a coronal mass ejection, a sudden release of plasma and magnetic field that can last for hours. Citizen CATE will compile images from the entire duration of the eclipse across the country, providing more complete documentation of the evolving corona. Building on a 2017 iteration of the project that captured images in white light, this

year CATE’s images will be captured in polarized light, which will reveal information about the three-dimensional structure of the corona and help researchers differentiate among its features. In addition to answering questions about the sun’s corona, the CATE data may help scientists understand the processes that generate space weather, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can affect the orbit of satellites, radio communication and the accuracy of GPS.

It’s a very ambitious and technically challenging project, but like a lot of good science projects, the more you invest, the more you get out of it.

two months before the eclips e, Reiff said she felt confident in her citizen scientists. “It’s a very ambitious and technically challenging project, but like a lot of good science projects, the more you invest, the more you get out of it,” she said. “There’s always an element of risk when your teams are not professionals, but I see the enthusiasm and the eagerness to do it right.”

What’s more, she pointed out, once the teams start the equipment at the beginning of totality, a computer will control the telescope. Then the teachers and students can remove their eclipse glasses to focus on the experience that first captivated Reiff more than four decades ago — and that, perhaps, will inspire the next generation to study the sun.

Read more at magazine.rice.edu/eclipse.

2023 nSF CarEEr aWar D rECiPiEnTS

Evelyn Tang, Physics and Astronomy (1)

Kory Evans, Biosciences (2)

Lauren Stadler, Civil and Environmental Engineering (3)

Brandon Levin, Mathematics (4)

Hanyu Zhu, Materials Science and Nanoengineering (5)

Todd Treangen, Computer Science (6)

Yimo Han, Materials Science and Nanoengineering (7)

Songtao Chen, Electrical and Computer Engineering (8)

Kaiyu Hang, Computer Science (9)

Taiyun Chi, Electrical and Computer Engineering (10)

Danielle King, Psychological Sciences (11)

James Chappell, Biosciences (12)

A Head Start

A growing number of younger faculty are earning attention — and critical funding — from the National Science Foundation.

By Rachel Fairbank

See all CAREER award recipients at provost.rice.edu/nsf.

Creating tools to map the brain

In order to better understand the brain’s mysteries, electrical and computer scientist Taiyun Chi was awarded a $500,000 CAREER award for research that will focus on developing an implanted neural interface — a tool for deciphering the brain’s activities. The work has implications as a potential clinical treatment, which could include restoring lost sensory or motor function to paralyzed patients or treating disorders via deep brain stimulation.

“To fully unlock the potential of neural interfaces for future widespread and standard-of-care human clinical use, new device capabilities need to be developed with significantly improved hardware performance,” Chi says.

Every year since 1995, the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program has awarded five-year grants to junior faculty members who serve as academic role models in research and education. These grants, which are known as CAREER awards, are some of the most prestigious available to early-career researchers and often serve as a foundation for an illustrious career in research.

For 28 years in a row, junior faculty at Rice have been recognized with these honors. In 2022, Rice set a record with 12 CAREER award recipients, and in 2023, it repeated the record, receiving another 12 CAREER grants in natural sciences, engineering and social sciences. It’s a trend that signals Rice’s increasing prominence as a research institution and the caliber of its professors at all career stages.

Read on for three examples from the most recent cohort of CAREER award recipients.

Engineering more robust microbial communities

Communities of microorganisms exist all around us and play a number of important roles, from supporting digestion in the gut to breaking down organic matter in soil. As part of a $650,000 CAREER award, synthetic biologist James Chappell will examine ways of applying genetic engineering to microbial communities with a goal of understanding how they can be programmed to address global sustainability challenges.

“Having the ability to genetically manipulate such communities will allow us to study and better understand them,” Chappell says. “We could also program them with new or improved functions that improve human health, crop yields and global sustainability.”

Supporting employees facing race-based attacks

Race-based threats can happen anywhere, including at work, and they can have significant social, emotional and physical consequences. Psychologist Danielle King will use her $530,000 CAREER award to examine how organizations can support employees who are facing such threats — and what strategies employers could use to prevent them from happening altogether. She’ll also study what impact these threats have on employees and which organizational resources could help.

“This project seeks to help us uncover organizational means to address identityrelated stressors and support employee health and thriving,” King says.

gO FOr LaUnCH

Rice professors and alumni advance research from the lab into the world.

By Rachel Fairbank

For every exciting discovery in research, there’s also a long process of moving these findings into practical application, whether it’s creating a new device that can save on energy, a new test or treatment for a health condition, or a technology that can help reduce or eliminate carbon emissions. In recent years, Rice has developed new programs and resources to support researchers in translating their discoveries into startup companies.

“The talent pool here in Houston is huge,” says Rawand Rasheed ’23, who received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Rice and is now the CEO and co-founder of the company Helix Earth Technologies. “We just don’t have the capital or the startup ecosystem here.” Through programs and classes, Rice is working to fill those gaps.

To support the next generation of entrepreneurs, Rice offers entrepreneurship classes and provides development opportunities like the Rice Innovation Fellows program and the 12-week OwlSpark Tech Startup and Small Business Accelerator. Rice also hosts events such as the Napier Rice Launch Challenge at the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) as well as the Rice Alliance’s Energy Tech Venture Forum, Texas Life Science Forum and Rice Business Plan Competition, which is the largest and richest in the world. These programs promote a thriving network of new founders.

Here are just a few examples of technologies, teams and companies at various stages of development from across industries and departments.

Illustrations by Kako

Preparing to launch: a treatment for endometriosis

roughly 10% of women suffer from endometriosis, a debilitating condition that, if left untreated, can lead to severe pain and infertility. There is no known cure for the affliction, and treatment options are limited, consisting of either hormonal therapy, such as birth control, or invasive surgery.

Rice bioengineering graduate students Samantha Fleury and Samira Aghlara-Fotovat are working to launch a startup dedicated to finding new, less invasive treatments for endometriosis. “Our goal is to create a therapy that can treat endometriosis by going after the inflammatory process,” says Fleury. “Inflammation is definitely a key player in disease development,” says Aghlara-Fotovat.

An integral part of their efforts has been Lilie’s Innovation Fellows program, which provides training, resources and mentorship to scientists who are looking to translate their discoveries into commercialization. “That is where our excitement for starting a company really took off,” Aghlara-Fotovat says.

Boosters away: Solidec

solidec was founded in 2023 by Rice chemical and biomolecular engineers Ryan DuChanois and Yang Xia ’23 and materials scientist Haotian Wang. The company’s mission — to capture carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into chemicals and fuels — builds on discoveries made in Wang’s lab. “We all came together and recognized the potential of this technology to make a real-world impact,” says DuChanois, Solidec’s CEO. The foundation of their discovery is a new type of reactor called an electrolyzer platform, which can capture carbon using water, air and electricity. “Our technology can target a wide

range of carbon sources,” ranging from pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to capturing carbon dioxide being emitted from a power plant, Wang says. “The whole process can be driven by energy, which can be run by renewable sources.”

In the process of developing this technology, Wang, DuChanois, Xia and their collaborators have been adapting their initial discoveries while also using the process of commercialization to direct their research focus. “There are huge synergies around the research being carried out in our lab and the long-term future of Solidec,” Wang says.

In orbit: Helix and Syzygy

when rasheed started his doctoral studies at Rice, he was working as an engineer at NASA, where he was in the life support division working on nextgeneration systems for delivering clean air and water to astronauts for a future Mars mission. As a graduate student, he turned his attention to adapting these technologies for Earth-based applications, such as improving the efficiency of air-conditioning units and reducing the cost of carbon capture systems.

Selected as a Lilie Lab Innovation Fellow, Rasheed joined a group of Ph.D. students and postdocs every week to discuss various aspects of starting up a business — how to pitch their business idea, how to market it, and how to talk to potential customers and investors. “It was an MBA crash course for scientists,” Rasheed says. “The Innovation Fellowship was the only reason I started the company: It’s where I met my co-founder, and it’s what gave me the resources to go out and pursue this effort.”

This led to the founding of Helix Earth Technologies in 2022. The company now has eight employees, and its fundraising success includes grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. The team hopes to offer their first product in 2025 — an energy efficiency device that can

be installed in a standard air-conditioning unit and will reduce energy usage by up to 50%.

For Suman Khatiwada ’13, who earned his Ph.D. in materials science and nanoengineering at Rice, graduate school was where he met his future business collaborators Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander, esteemed faculty in the electrical and computer engineering department. Based on research coming out of their lab, Khatiwada and his business partner, Trevor Best, co-founded Syzygy Plasmonics in 2018 with the goal of tackling decarbonization processes, including finding ways of removing carbon emissions from the chemical industry. “We’re designing an entirely new chemical reactor that uses light instead of combustion to power chemical reactions,” says Lee French, Syzygy’s vice president of marketing. Since its founding, Syzygy has grown into a company with over 100 employees, but it still has a close relationship with Rice. Says French, “We’re a tight community.”

Full circle

“as rice’s reputation for innovation grows, we’re excited to introduce new resources, initiatives and funding opportunities to support commercialization,” says Adrian Trömel ’18, assistant vice president for strategy and investments in the Office of Innovation. The office is building out work and lab space for nascent technologies as well as engaging industry leaders, investors and government partners at the Ion, Rice’s innovation hub located in Midtown. The Office of Innovation also recently launched the One Small Step program, which provides grants for Rice researchers almost ready to start up a business or license their discoveries, and it’s working on the One Giant Leap program, described so far only as “catalytic venture capital” for companies founded by Rice faculty, students and alumni. As Trömel says, “It comes full circle: We’re innovating in how we support innovators.”

Uplifting Technology

For Rice trustee Vinay Pai, community is a core component of tech advancement.

BY KATY MUNGER

VINAY PAI ’88, ’91 is the original techie. He taught himself how to code in 1981, when many people had never even heard of a home computer. Since then, he has earned three technical degrees from Rice, contributed to the growth of multiple startups, become a successful venture investor, and earned a reputa-

I realized that if you have a team that mirrors the demographics of your customer base, or gets closer to it, you’ll make better products — which in turn drives better business results.

tion as one of the best chief technology officers in the business. But Pai’s most enduring contribution to the field may be his work leveraging cloud-based services — including AI — for the benefit of underserved communities.

At the heart of Pai’s success is his determination to put people first. During his five-year tenure at Bill — a cloud-based software company that transformed the way small and medium-sized businesses manage their finances — he expanded the engineering team from 60 to 750 people and helped implement two product launches, several major acquisitions and a successful IPO. Before Bill, he worked at a number of pioneering tech firms, including First Data, Intuit, PayCycle, Cassatt, Sun Microsystems and Schlumberger.

Leveling the playing field

As Pai’s career progressed, he soon realized that new technology could empower untapped market segments. “Large corporations used to get all the best tools,” he explains. “But these days, because of Software as a Service and the cloud, the software that a smaller business can buy is actually better than what enterprises are getting.” Pai’s commitment to leveling the financial playing field inspired him to co-found his latest venture, Prósperos, a consumer fintech, or financial technology, startup focused on helping underserved communities in the United States. Still in stealth mode, Prósperos is scheduled to open its virtual doors

If people have equal economic opportunities and can make a good living, a lot of social problems go away.

this year with Pai as CEO and his wife, Aarti — who holds a master’s in computer science — serving as director of business operations.

A life based on community Technology is a family affair for the entire Pai clan, with two generations holding technical degrees. This legacy may be one reason Pai finds inspiration for being a better tech leader in both his professional and personal life. For example, a stint coaching his son’s basketball team — and seeing another coach scream at his own players — gave Pai insight into how to be a more successful manager. (Hint: It does not involve screaming.)

“You can look at people you admire and say, ‘Oh, that worked really well,’” he says. “But you can also look at other people and say, ‘I don’t want to be like that guy.’ Either way makes you a better leader.”

Likewise, for both practical and personal reasons, he became devoted to inclusion in technology early on. The practical: “I realized that if you have a team that mirrors the demographics of your customer base, or gets closer to it, you’ll make better products — which in turn drives better business results,” he says. The personal: “Almost everyone now has a wife or a mother or daughter in a STEM field,” he adds. “So this is one way you make the world a better place for your kids.”

Pai’s commitment to Rice also reflects his belief in community. Whether he’s talking about his undergraduate days at Jones College, his role as chair of the engineering advisory board, or his appointment to the Rice Board of Trustees, Pai is deeply devoted to Rice

and to President Reginald DesRoches’ long-term vision for its future.

“I’m a huge fan of Reggie,” Pai says. “Now that he’s president, he’s become focused on making Rice a premier research institution, which I fully support.” Inspired by the success stories of institutions like Stanford and MIT, Pai sees his role in this transformation as fostering collaborations with venture capitalists to accelerate the commercialization of groundbreaking ideas developed at Rice.

Philanthropy is also a core value for Pai and his wife, who have established an endowed scholarship at Rice as well

as a chair in computer science, with the help of a matching grant from John ’73, ’74 and Ann Doerr ’75. Their focus on education is deliberate.

“If you look at the injustice and social unrest that happens in the U.S., there’s a very straightforward way to fix those problems,” Pai says. “If people have equal economic opportunities and can make a good living, a lot of social problems go away. But for that to happen, people need access to high-paying jobs that require a great education. It’s important to be a part of the solution and to think about how we can all give back to society.”

The Pai family, clockwise from left: Neena Pai, Kevin Haag, Vinay Pai, Aarti Pai and Naveen Pai

A Tenacious Talent

Nanoengineer Karen Lozano’s achievements and impact extend far beyond the lab.

BORN IN MONTERREY, Karen Lozano ’96, ’99 was the first Mexican woman to earn a doctorate in engineering from Rice — and that same grit, hard work, and amazing aptitude for engineering innovation has led her to the title of Julia Beecherl Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and a storied career in nanofiber research.

Following graduation from the University of Monterrey in 1993, Lozano received a swift and decisive lesson in gender politics — engineering jobs in her hometown were almost entirely restricted to male applicants. Lozano, however, remained fiercely committed to her career and to financially supporting her family, so she doubled down on engineering, applied to graduate school at Rice, moved to Houston, and joined the lab of nanoengineer Enrique Barrera.

After earning two degrees at Rice, Lozano was offered a tenure-track position at the University of Texas-Pan American, now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Colleagues warned her against a job with a teaching institution that did not prioritize research and where retention and graduation rates were low. But Lozano was undaunted. In her first semester there, she applied for and won the prestigious CAREER award presented by the National Science Foundation, setting into motion a successful research program and introducing hands-on opportunities for hundreds of students at her university.

“I never ask for the easy way out,”

Lozano says emphatically. “I ask instead, where can I make the best use of my talents? Even if it is hard, that’s what I will do.”

The defining discovery of her career emerged from a challenge posed by a visiting researcher from MD Anderson, who asked Lozano if she could

I never ask for the easy way out. I ask instead, where can I make the best use of my talents? Even if it is hard, that’s what I will do.

create nanofibers out of the polymer composites in her lab. At the time, nanofibers were most commonly produced through electrospinning, which required sending a charge through a syringe and needle. Lozano knew this was slow, inefficient work. Famously, Lozano’s eureka moment happened at an Elmo and Friends concert, where she had taken her two young sons. Waiting in the concession line, she was struck by the thousands of fibers in the cotton candy — fibers that she realized had been spun using centrifugal force.

That lightbulb moment led Lozano to pioneer “forcespinning,” a process that uses centrifugal force to produce hundreds of meters of nanofibers per second. She co-founded the company FibeRio, and manufacturers producing everything from clothing to hygiene

and health care products lined up for the chance to buy her nanofibers. In 2016, she sold FibeRio to Parker Hannifin and is now directing her research toward commercializing small, portable units that produce nanofibers for wound care. Designed for a doctor’s office or even home use, the technology produces a spray of nanofibers that conform to the geometry of the wound, building a scaffolding that facilitates healing from the inside out.

In 2023, Lozano was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering for “contributions to nanofiber research and commercialization and the mentoring of undergraduate students from underserved populations.”

Lozano’s brilliant scientific mind and efforts to build a first-rate research program at her university cannot be overstated. She boasts a 100% retention and graduation rate for students who work in her lab. An impressive 50 students have gone on to earn doctorates from Rice, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Boston University and more.

Lozano’s ambition, intellect and talent would certainly have driven her success at any university, but she chose to invest in her own community. “You see that your work and your sleepless nights have made a transformation,” she says. “You see first-generation students graduate, find a job, help their families — their nieces, nephews and siblings — pursue an education. You see that your work has social impact beyond the scientific article or research study. There is great satisfaction in that.”

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SARAH BRENNER JONES

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Coming Home

Acclaimed architect

Charles Renfro returns to design a home for the arts at Rice: Sarofim Hall.

BY EMILY HYNDS

CHARLES RENFRO ’87, ’89 was born in 1964 in Baytown, Texas, a petrochemical community he describes as surprisingly diverse. But that diversity only went so far. To escape bullies targeting him for his homosexuality in fourth grade, Renfro’s mother took him out of school for two weeks, and at his request, they embarked on a tour of Houston’s architecture. Ignited by a massive oil and gas industry growth spurt, late mid-century architecture sprouted all over boomtown Houston. One Shell Plaza. Pennzoil Place. The Richmond Corridor. Greenway Plaza. Renfro recalls that this tour of Houston

sealed his fate.

Back at school, he devoted himself to hobbies as a way to avoid painful social interactions, pursuing passions with a ruthless work ethic. He used one of these pastimes, the clarinet, to gain acceptance to Rice. Halfway through his freshman year, Renfro petitioned to

One of Renfro’s current projects has brought him home: He’s designing Rice’s new Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, an 83,000-square-foot student and faculty arts building that will fuel creative collaborations while providing a new gateway to campus.

switch his major to architecture. When asked why, he said that deconstructing musical pieces made them unexciting to him. When architect John Casbarian ’69, ’72 pointed out that architecture involves a similar process with buildings, Renfro said, “I relish that.” He put together a portfolio and was admitted. Renfro’s parents moved to Portugal while he was in college, allowing him to spend summers abroad. He took the Eurail, went on road trips across Europe, and saw firsthand the architecture he was studying in school. Thus, a youth steeped in the Bayou City combined with the rare and unique privilege of summers exploring the other side of the world formed Renfro’s architectural spring.

What followed has been a long, fruitful and globe-spanning career. Renfro joined the New York firm Diller + Scofidio in 1997 and became a partner in 2004. Diller Scofidio + Renfro boasts

projects like The Broad, a contemporary arts museum in Los Angeles, and the High Line elevated park in New York City.

One of Renfro’s current projects, however, has brought him home: He’s designing Rice’s new Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, an 83,000-square-foot student and faculty arts building that will fuel creative collaborations while providing a new gateway to campus. Influenced by geometric forms from 1970s minimalism, the new three-story structure will be slashed in half diagonally by intersecting panes of glass, a gesture reflective of the iconic Pennzoil Place built in downtown Houston in 1975.

“Our design for Sarofim Hall is all about making and viewing, and operates at the intersection of all the arts, very much like the arts district itself,” Renfro says. The anodized aluminum exterior recalls the Media Center and the famed Art Barn, a reflection on industrial shed typology. Covered, open-air courtyards allow fume-creat-

This semester, he’s back, teaching an architecture design studio called Towards a Queer Utopia, a collaboration with fellow Baytonian Kat Bishop, a trans pioneer in the art and business community.

ing disciplines to practice in safety. The open nature of the building literally invites the public in, offering passersby a glimpse into academic work and the making of art happening inside.

The ground-floor porches are an important part of the design. “We were very keen to line up our front porch line with the Moody,” Renfro says. “They are in conversation with each other. They are companion pieces.” The other porch tips toward University

Boulevard, indicating the building’s use as a gateway to the rest of campus.

Renfro, who double-majored in painting at Rice, took classes in almost every artistic discipline available during his time here. This semester, he’s back, teaching an architecture design studio called Towards a Queer Utopia, a collaboration with fellow Baytonian Kat Bishop, a trans pioneer in the art and business community. “All of my community in Texas seems to be at risk,” Renfro says. “Utopia isn’t the answer — historically they have almost always failed. But a design experiment around the concept of utopia offers lessons in how we can make safe and sustainable spaces for ourselves and our community.”

The design studio will investigate cooperative forms of living together, communal theories and resource sharing. This version of utopia may be geared toward the queer community, but it is intended to be a model of safe, responsible and cooperative community making for all.

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall will offer a new home for Rice’s Department of Art.

No Small Award

Alumnus Louis Brus wins the Nobel Prize for the discovery of “quantum dots.”

ON OCT. 4, Louis Brus ’65 was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery and development of “quantum dots,” nanosized particles with unique properties “that now spread their light from television screens and LED lamps,” according to a Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announcement.

Brus, who started his undergraduate education at Rice in 1961, shares the distinction with Moungi Bawendi, a professor at MIT, and Alexei Ekimov,

Lou’s pioneering work on quantum dots changed the way we see the world, and optoelectronics would not be where they are today without his contributions.

the former chief scientist of Nanocrystals Technology Inc. Their work has been crucial to the development of nanotechnology, which has helped drive major computing advances and transform electronics. The Swedish Academy highlighted Brus’ role as “the first scientist in the world to prove sizedependent quantum effects in particles floating freely in a fluid.”

While at Rice, Brus studied chemistry, physics and mathematics and developed “a love of history that has stayed with me to this day,” he said in a statement delivered when he

received the 2008 Kavli Prize in nanoscience. Brus praised his undergraduate alma mater for its “rigorous, fundamental, yet broad education,” adding, “Rice was a wonderful place.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree at Rice, Brus earned a doctorate in chemical physics from Columbia University in 1969 and then served as a scientific staff officer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Upon concluding his service as a Navy lieutenant, Brus joined AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

Naomi Halas, founding director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics and former director of the Smalley-Curl Institute, met Brus during his career at Bell Labs. “Lou has had the visionary ability to come up with entirely new ideas and the determination

to realize them in the laboratory,” she says. “Along with his co-laureates, he created a link between nanomaterials and optics that never before existed. The transition from laboratory research to the real world — QLED TVs, for example — provides the strongest rationale for fundamental research.”

Brus, currently the Samuel Latham Mitchill Professor Emeritus and special research scientist at Columbia, has maintained ties to Rice through his relationships with faculty and his service on chemistry department visiting committees.

“Lou’s pioneering work on quantum dots changed the way we see the world, and optoelectronics would not be where they are today without his contributions,” says Ramamoorthy Ramesh, Rice’s vice president for research.

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SILVIA CERNEA CLARK

Visit magazine.rice.edu/brus to hear an interview with Louis Brus and his reaction to winning the Nobel Prize.

LAUNCH YOUR LEGACY

For Rice Owls, the pursuit of excellence is a lifelong quest.

When navigating your epic journey, it’s okay to ask for directions along the way. Whether you are just beginning your career, starting a family, running a company, directing novel research or enjoying retirement, Rice’s Office of Gift Planning is right alongside you offering giving options that help you, your family and the future of Rice. Visit launch.rice.edu to learn more about the path to launching your legacy.

Thinking about your legacy can seem like a giant leap, but Rice’s Office of Gift Planning is here to help!

For more information, contact our team at giftplan.rice.edu or 713-348-4624.

OLD-SCHOOL PRINTING

Rice students and visitors can now try out the only known replica of William Blake’s 19th-century printing press.

Acquisitions by Fondren Library’s Woodson Research Center aren’t uncommon, but one of its most recent, the star-wheel copper-plate rolling press, is giving visitors and students an exciting hands-on experience. The press, which is the only authentic, functional replica of the exact machine that poet William Blake used to produce his masterworks, was acquired with help from literature scholar Alexander Regier and university librarian and vice provost Sara Lowman. Generously funded by Fondren’s Hobby Family Fund, the press complements the library’s substantial Blake holdings, which include print and plate replicas created by Michael Phillips, the press’ builder. — TRACEY RHOADES