MEDIA ADVISORY

Mike Williams
713-348-6728
mikewilliams@rice.edu

Rice University to host STEM fest for girls

Astronaut Peggy Whitson to speak at Reach for the Stars event Saturday

HOUSTON – (April 18, 2018) – Record-setting astronaut Peggy Whitson will speak at this year’s Reach for the Stars STEM Festivalat Rice University, 6100 Main St., at 1 p.m. April 21.

The festival begins at 11 a.m. in the Engineering Quad and is free for girls in grades 5 through 8 who pre-register. It will include a street fair, lunch and 30 women-led science and engineering workshops.

Whitson, a Rice alumna and adjunct associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology, has spent the most total time in space for any American — 667 days — and holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman — 289 days.

What:Reach for the Stars STEM Festival.

When: Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Where: Engineering Quad at Rice, 6100 Main St.

Members of the news media who want to attend should RSVP in advance to Mike Williams in News and Media Relations at mikewilliams@rice.edu or 713-348-6728. On the day of the event, contact Umbe Cantú at 713-825-9505.

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.