When Rice University and Université Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL) signed a strategic partnership in May 2024, the agreement was built on a shared vision: that meaningful academic collaboration across borders could produce something greater than either institution could achieve alone. Less than two years later, that vision is taking shape in ways both ambitious and personal. One of its most compelling early milestones has a name: Amani Mekki.
Mekki, a second-year master's student in transdisciplinary arts from the École normale supérieure – PSL (ENS), is spending this semester at Rice, making her the first participant in the Rice-ENS graduate student exchange. At ENS, her research focuses on documentary practices in contemporary video art, with a thesis examining the case of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany. She came to that work through a bachelor's degree in art history, archaeology, anthropology and museology with a specialization in contemporary art from the École du Louvre.
"I have always been deeply inspired by American writers and thinkers whose work we read across many departments in French universities,” Mekki said. “I think of Maggie Nelson, James Baldwin, Stanley Cavell or Octavia E. Butler, among many others.”
Fields like postcolonial studies and media studies, she noted, have developed in the United States in ways she found particularly generative and she wanted to experience that academic environment firsthand. Rice offered something she hadn't expected to want.
"Being in Houston, in Texas, was something that felt interesting to me precisely because it was less obvious as a destination, not the first place you think of when you imagine studying in the U.S., which was part of what drew me to it,” Mekki said.
That instinct has paid off. Mekki describes her semester as intellectually rich, anchored by art history coursework that has pushed her thinking in new directions. A close-looking course has taken her into Houston's museums, offering a way to discover the city beyond campus. A cultural theory course, meanwhile, has introduced her to writers whose ideas have reshaped how she approaches her own work. But it is the people, perhaps more than the coursework, that have left the deepest impression.
“I have never studied alongside people coming from so many different cultures and places,” Mekki said. “It is something I did not quite expect and it has been really enriching. We all bring different perspectives to the same conversations, and exchanging those points of view, including about our own very different cultural backgrounds, has been one of the most valuable parts of the experience.”
For students at ENS considering the exchange, Amani is candid about the logistics. According to Mekki, future participants should plan for Houston's car-dependent layout, the higher cost of living in the United States and the fact that housing is not included in the program. She also recommends researching health insurance costs carefully and starting the apartment search early. That practical advice comes with an unequivocal endorsement.
"If you are considering it, do it,” Mekki said. “People here are genuinely warm, helpful, and ready to welcome you."
Mekki’s semester at Rice is one of several substantive outcomes of the Rice-PSL strategic partnership, which President Reginald DesRoches signed in May 2024. That agreement identified four shared priority areas — urban futures, quantum technologies, global health and energy transition — and committed both institutions to deepening their academic and research ties.
Since then, the partnership has expanded considerably. In November 2025, Rice and PSL launched the Rice-PSL International Scholars and Articulated Degrees Program, a first-of-its-kind initiative that creates shared academic pathways for undergraduates across Houston, Paris and PSL's campus in Sophia Antipolis, one of Europe's largest science and technology hubs. Through the program, Rice students can take preapproved coursework at PSL while staying on track for their Rice degrees and PSL students can pursue Rice coursework aligned with their own degree requirements.
Together, these developments reflect a partnership moving quickly from vision to reality, creating opportunities for students and faculty at every level to engage across borders in meaningful, sustained ways.
“I just want to thank Rice for making this exchange possible,” Mekki said. “It has been a genuinely formative semester, and I hope the program continues so that more students from both institutions can have access to this kind of experience.”
To learn more about Rice's partnership with PSL, visit the Rice Global website.