Engineering

Rice bioengineer looks to mitochondria as key to heart failure recovery

Rice bioengineer Mario Escobar has won a Transformational Project Award from the American Heart Association to develop a new therapy for heart failure.

‘No one had done this before’: Art, science and the surprising versatility of boron nitride nanotubes

In an elegant fusion of art and science, researchers at Rice have achieved a major milestone in nanomaterials engineering by uncovering how boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) — touted for their strength, thermal stability and insulating properties — can be coaxed into forming ordered liquid crystalline phases in water.

Near-perfect defects in 2D material could serve as quantum bits

Researchers at Rice and collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Technology, Sydney report the first demonstration of low noise, room-temperature quantum emitters in h-BN made through a scalable growth technique.

Rice scientists harness vacuum fluctuations to engineer quantum materials

Rice researchers and collaborators have developed a new cavity design that selectively enhances the quantum vacuum fluctuations of circularly polarized light in a single direction, achieving chirality — a feat that typically requires the use of a strong magnetic field.

Lilie Summer Venture Studio accelerator returns with 8 new student ventures 

The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) at Rice has unveiled the eight high-potential ventures selected for the third annual Lilie Summer Venture Studio accelerator program. Summer Venture Studio is Rice’s accelerator for high growth, high ambition founders, offering a deep dive into venture building and equipping student-led teams with the funding, mentorship and resources needed to bring their bold ideas to life.

Rice and Houston Methodist name Chatterjee executive director of the Digital Health Institute

The Digital Health Institute — a recently launched joint initiative between Rice University and Houston Methodist — has appointed Pothik Chatterjee as its executive director, effective May 1.

Biotechnology governance entreaties released, echoing legacy of 1975 recombinant DNA guidelines

Twenty-seven biotechnology governance entreaties echoing the legacy of the 1975 recombinant DNA guidelines are now available for public review.

Turning carbon dioxide into fuel just got easier, thanks to acid bubbles

A team of researchers at Rice has discovered a surprisingly simple method for vastly improving the stability of electrochemical devices that convert carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals, and it involves nothing more than sending the CO 2 through an acid bubbler.

Cancer Bioengineering Collaborative kicks off seminar series with Nobel laureate James Allison

The Cancer Bioengineering Collaborative launched its inaugural seminar June 3 with an invited talk from Nobel laureate James P. Allison.

Nvidia CEO says quantum is next AI frontier — Rice experts weigh in

Rice experts can unpack and contextualize Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's statement at the VivaTech 2025 conference in Paris today that quantum computing is reaching an inflection point

Rice students develop an award-winning adaptive exercise harness for astronauts to use in space

A team of Rice engineering students has designed an innovative space exercise harness that won this year's Technology Collaboration Center’s Wearables Workshop and University Challenge. Their design answered a challenge posed by the HumanWorks Lab and Life Science Labs at NASA and Johnson Space Center.

Rice students win top prize in global design contest with cutting-edge haptic wristband

Rice student engineers have earned top international honors for a novel device that could redefine how humans interact with virtual environments.

Rice360’s Global Health Fellowship program is finding ways to engineer hope

When Mary Seifu Tirfie graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering from Addis Ababa University in 2023, she wasn’t just earning a diploma — she was stepping into a global mission.

Rethinking how robots move: Light and AI drive precise motion in soft robotic arm developed at Rice

Researchers at Rice have developed a soft robotic arm capable of performing complex tasks such as navigating around an obstacle or hitting a ball, guided and powered remotely by laser beams without any onboard electronics or wiring.

‘Here to work with the world’: Rice shines at inaugural SXSW London

Rice took center stage at the inaugural South by Southwest London, bringing Texas-sized ambition, pathbreaking innovation and global vision to one of the world’s premier gatherings of creative and intellectual leaders.