“The war in Iran has entered a more dangerous and unpredictable phase,” said David Satterfield, former U.S. ambassador and director of Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in the latest episode of “Baker Briefing,” the institute’s podcast that explores timely topics with domestic and foreign policy.
Chief Justice John Roberts returned to the Rice campus March 17 for a special public conversation hosted by Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The event marked two decades of Roberts serving on the United States’ highest court and offered a rare opportunity to hear him reflect on his time on the bench.
The NASA Reauthorization Act of 2026, sponsored by Texas Rep. Brian Babin (R-Woodville), moves tomorrow to consideration by the full U.S. House of Representatives following unanimous approval by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. As lawmakers consider the legislation, Rice experts are available to provide perspective on the bill’s implications for space science, engineering and aeronautics, artificial intelligence, public-private partnerships and the future aerospace workforce.
“Let’s begin with a very simple premise — simple but extremely important: Sound policy depends on sound data,” said David Satterfield, director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy when welcoming the audience to an armchair dialogue between the institute’s John Diamond and William Beach, the executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill and a senior fellow in economics at the Economic Policy Innovation Center.
a spirit of conversation defined the two-day conference organized by Rice’s School of Humanities and Arts faculty Jacqueline Couti and Caroline Fache ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, ranked the world’s No. 1 university-based policy research institution, today announced its spring slate of public events, featuring conversations with leading world leaders, policymakers and thought leaders on the most timely domestic and global issues of the day.
With a partial U.S. government shutdown increasingly possible by the end of the week, Rice experts can provide insight into what is at stake, how a shutdown could happen and the likely effects on the economy, public health and federal policymaking.
As a major winter storm is expected to move into Texas beginning Friday night, Rice experts are available to provide insight into the storm’s impact on transportation.
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.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will return to the Rice campus and join the Baker Institute for Public Policy March 17 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Stude Concert Hall for a public conversation reflecting on the state of the American judicial branch and his two decades of service on the nation’s highest court.
David Satterfield, director of Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, sat down Jan. 12 with Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, for a wide-ranging discussion on U.S. engagement in the Middle East. Drawing on decades of diplomatic and policy experience, the two explored the evolving dynamics shaping the region today.
President Donald Trump’s executive order designating fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a significant escalation of efforts to curb the fentanyl supply, said Katharine Neill Harris, the Alfred C. Glassell III Fellow in Drug Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Harris is available to speak to the news media about drug usage and U.S. drug policy.