Rice University faculty and staff members Yael Hochberg and Patricia Stepp were recognized at the inaugural Texas Innovation Conference & Awards, held April 22-23 at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
The conference brought together startups, researchers, investors and innovation leaders from across the state to highlight efforts that translate research into real-world impact. A centerpiece of the event, the Texas Innovation Awards recognized faculty, staff and students who demonstrate leadership and measurable progress in commercialization, startup formation and industry collaboration.
Hochberg and Stepp were among awardees representing institutions across Texas, including Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Southern Methodist University. Awardees were nominated by their institution’s provost or vice provost for research.
“This recognition reflects Rice’s growing momentum as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship,” said David Sholl, executive vice president for research.
“Yael and Patricia have played a major role in building an ecosystem that helps translate research and ideas into real-world impact. Their work is helping create new pathways for collaboration, commercialization and startup formation while further establishing Rice as an innovation leader both in Texas and nationally.”
Stepp said the award highlights the importance of building systems that help researchers move discoveries beyond the lab. “Texas universities are producing extraordinary research, but innovation only matters if discoveries can reach people,” she said.
As assistant vice president for technology transfer, Stepp leads strategic planning and operations for Rice’s Office of Technology Transfer, which helps researchers protect intellectual property, pursue commercial partnerships and bring discoveries to market. Since joining Rice, she has implemented a customer service-oriented approach focused on expanding faculty outreach and strengthening support at the earliest stages of innovation development.
Under Stepp’s leadership, Rice has seen steady growth in invention disclosures, patent applications and licensing activity with both startups and established industry partners. She also helped guide Rice to No. 66 in the National Academy of Inventors’ annual ranking of the top 100 U.S. universities granted utility patents, up 28 spots from the university’s 2023 ranking.
Stepp also serves on the board of directors for AUTM, an international nonprofit organization focused on supporting the commercialization of academic research. Beyond Rice, she remains active in Houston’s biotechnology and startup ecosystem through organizations including Nucleate and the Rice Business Plan Competition.
Hochberg, the Ralph S. O’Connor Professor in Entrepreneurship and Finance at Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, was recognized for her leadership in entrepreneurship education and venture creation. She serves as head of Rice’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, known as Lilie.
Since its founding in 2015, Lilie has supported the launch of nearly 300 companies founded by Rice graduates and has become a central driver of student entrepreneurship at the university. The program currently supports more than 100 ventures annually and has helped Rice earn repeated recognition as the nation’s top graduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.
A key part of Hochberg’s work has focused on helping graduate students and researchers commercialize deep-tech innovations through programs such as the Rice Innovation Fellows initiative, which provides mentorship and equity-free funding for ventures in areas including medical devices, artificial intelligence and climate technology.
“Rice has built an ecosystem where entrepreneurship and research commercialization reinforce one another,” Hochberg said.
In addition to her work at Rice, Hochberg is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate with MIT Innovation Initiative. Her scholarship on entrepreneurship, innovation and finance has been widely published and cited, and in 2016 she received the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for distinguished research in entrepreneurship.
The Texas Innovation Conference & Awards was created to strengthen collaboration among universities, startups, investors and industry leaders across Texas while accelerating the commercialization of research discoveries into products and services with societal impact.