In a city infamous for its flooding, something as innocuous as rain can prove to be disastrous or even deadly. Small increases in the amount of rainfall over time can have significant consequences today, said Ed Emmett, fellow in energy and transportation policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and former Harris County Judge, as he led the daylong conference “Redrawing Risk: What FEMA’s New Flood Maps Mean for Greater Houston.”
The next step in Houston’s beautification initiative kicked off May 13 in advance of the 2026 FIFA World Cup games taking place at NRG Stadium this summer. Aramco, as a FIFA host committee sponsor and in celebration of its 25-year partnership with Trees for Houston, selected the Ion District for the commemorative tree planting ceremony.
Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and Kinder Institute for Urban Research will host “Redrawing Risk,” a one-day public conference May 21 examining the real-world implications of FEMA’s updated flood maps for Houston.
In a city as diverse as Houston, how are religious communities working together? The team at Rice’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance spent the last two years on a “listening research tour” conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups with religious and community leaders from every corner of the city to learn more about the barriers to religious cohesion.
In Diana Jue-Rajasingh’s classroom at Rice, students debate difficult organizational dilemmas with no easy answers. This approach in the classroom has helped earn Jue-Rajasingh, assistant professor of strategic management at Rice Business, a place on Poets&Quants’ 2026 40-Under-40 Graduate Business Professors list recognizing rising stars in business education.
The Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice announced the creation of a new task force focused on assessing the strategic rationale for U.S. foreign assistance, reframing policy objectives and developing actionable recommendations for a new era of global competition.
The latest graduates from Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business were awarded their Master of Business Administration degrees May 8 at Tudor Fieldhouse in front of a crowd of loved ones, faculty, staff and students.
Today, the big questions surrounding religion and science are about responsibly building and managing new scientific technologies, how they can shape what the world should be and what it could become — questions Rice’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance will try to answer in partnership with the University of California, San Diego thanks to a new $2.9 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust.
Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy welcomed the President of Guyana Irfaan Ali May 4 for a discussion on Guyana’s rapid emergence as one of the world’s fastest-growing energy producers and its long-term development strategy. The program convened policymakers, academics and industry leaders to examine the country’s role at the intersection of energy security, shifting global dynamics and economic transformation.
Multiple Rice-led student ventures earned top honors across categories at the Johns Hopkins Healthcare Design Competition. The founders built these winning businesses through Rice’s Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie), underscoring the university’s growing leadership in health care innovation.
The annual Ethics and Compliance Symposium brought renowned vaccinologist Peter Hotez, senior fellow in disease and humanity at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, to share his research and discuss the ethics of academic public engagement.
Three Rice students spent their spring break piloting a mobile health platform designed to support community health workers in underserved regions, including Guatemala, Kenya and Colombia.
The Claudio X. González Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy convened its second annual U.S. Policy Outlook conference in Mexico City at a moment of heightened political and economic significance for the U.S.-Mexico relationship.
Rice’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance awarded its 2026 Senior Scholar Award to John Inazu, the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law & Religion and professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Center for Energy Studies at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy hosted its annual Sustainability Summit, emphasizing the importance of systems thinking in addressing complex sustainability challenges.
