Rice recently announced a partnership with the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which offers students up to $15,000, mentorship, networking and a paid trip to the ASF Innovators Symposium and Gala.
Led by stage director and Aleko Endowed Artist Paul Curran, the program featured the world premiere of “A Joint Interest,” a 50th anniversary commission by Karim Al-Zand.
Rice will play a central role at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, anchoring signature Bloomberg House programming that spotlights how research universities, cities and states are translating innovation, talent and investment into durable social and economic returns.
Lucia Noto, a Rice freshman, is founder and CEO of a nonprofit organization that supports literacy and promotes reading among children with health challenges and from underserved communities.
Nine of Rice’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows traveled to Atlanta in November to present their summer research at the 2025 Southeast Regional Conference.
Seniors Catherine Cook and Shay Olaifa are building a public archive that preserves decades of community stories, environmental records and lived experiences surrounding creosote contamination in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
Rice’s global affairs major will give students a chance to study global issues through different lenses — political, cultural and economic — while gaining hands-on experience at home and abroad.
The inaugural semester of student programming at the Rice Global Paris Center is a collaboration between the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and Rice Global with support from the School of Social Sciences and School of Humanities and Arts.
Rice President Reginald DesRoches emphasized the university’s ambitious, collaborative approach to transforming health and medicine during a panel discussion hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership. Joined by leaders from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and Harris Health, DesRoches outlined Rice’s vision for becoming a world leader in health innovation — a key component of the university’s strategic plan.
Rice continues its upward momentum in global higher education, rising nine spots to No. 103 worldwide and No. 37 in the United States in the 2026 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.