News Releases

Rice’s Mark Jones talks Super Tuesday, Texas primary

Super Tuesday is less than a week away — March 5 — and voters in one U.S. territory and 15 states, including Texas , will head to the polls. Rice University political scientist Mark Jones is available to discuss what to expect from election day in the Lone Star State.

Rice breaks ground on new home for arts

Rice University hosted the groundbreaking ceremony for Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall Feb. 29, marking a significant milestone in the university’s commitment to advancing its growing arts program.

Alabama IVF ruling will have national implications, Rice health experts argue

Two health experts from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy are available to discuss what the Alabama Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on frozen embryos could mean for the rest of the country and for the science of human embryo research.

Rice lab finds better way to handle hard-to-recycle material

Rice researchers have developed a new, energy-efficient upcycling method to transform glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) into silicon carbide, widely used in semiconductors, sandpaper and other products.

Astronaut and alumna Peggy Whitson tapped as Rice’s 2024 commencement speaker

Alumna Peggy Whitson ’86, America’s most experienced astronaut, will deliver the address at Rice’s 111th commencement during the undergraduate ceremony May 4.

Faster and simpler point-of-care malaria test developed by Rice researchers

Rice University researchers have developed a rapid, accurate test for diagnosing malaria that is significantly faster and easier to use than traditional tests. The advancement has the potential to improve patient outcomes, especially in rural regions with limited health care resources.

Miguel Harth-Bedoya to lead Rice Shepherd School symphony, chamber orchestras March 2-3

Miguel Harth-Bedoya, music director laureate of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and director of orchestral studies at Baylor University, will lead the Rice Shepherd School of Music symphony and chamber orchestras March 2 and 3, respectively.

Energy and computing collide at annual Rice event

The 17th annual Energy High Performance Computing Conference hosted by Rice University’s Ken Kennedy Institute March 5-7 is the premier meeting place for the energy industry to engage in conversations about challenges and opportunities in high performance computing (HPC), computational science and engineering, machine learning and data science.

Data-processing tool could enable better early stage cancer detection

A team of Rice researchers has developed a tool that is better at integrating single-cell DNA and RNA data than more recent, state-of-the-art technologies. The findings could lead to better early stage cancer detection.

Public school enrollments will continue to decline unless they become customer-focused, Rice study suggests

In September 2023, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona issued a warning call stating “Public schools are approaching a ‘make or break moment.’” This week, several North Texas schools announced potential school closures and staff position eliminations. Nationally, public schools lost over 1.2 million students to private and charter schools over the first two school years of the COVID-19 pandemic with Texas witnessing a 2.2% decline.

Rice’s Office of Innovation awards inaugural One Small Step Grants

The Office of Innovation at Rice announced four awardees of the inaugural One Small Step Grants, marking a significant milestone in accelerating the transition from lab to market for Rice-developed technologies. Launched in September 2023 the grant aims to support lab-stage projects across Rice, providing crucial capital for projects to spin out of the university and successfully attract investment from angel investors and venture capital.

Study suggests anti-Black racism may account for conservatives’ negative reactions to jobs requiring DEI statements

According to new research from Rice University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, conservative-leaning job applicants indicate being less likely to pursue positions that require personal statements on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and those negative reactions are not independent of anti-Black racism.

Rice OpenStax and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to host inaugural Open Nursing Education (ONE) Summit

To address nursing staff shortages, OpenStax, a nonprofit educational initiative of Rice University, in partnership with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), is creating the first Open Nursing Education (ONE) Summit. The two organizations are building upon their shared goal of addressing staffing shortages by reducing financial barriers for nursing students while facilitating discourse around important issues faced by the field.

Rice to host groundbreaking for new visual arts building Sarofim Hall

Rice University will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, a new home for the Department of Art, at 3 p.m. Feb. 29. The building will be named for Susan and Fayez Sarofim, the lead donors for the project.

Rice joins federal consortium on AI safety

Rice has joined the nation’s leading artificial intelligence stakeholders to participate in a Department of Commerce initiative to support the development and deployment of trustworthy and safe AI.