A new study from mechanical engineers at Rice describes a surprisingly straightforward fix for superhydrophobic surfaces: Instead of just engineering the surface’s chemistry and texture, they focused on engineering its heat flow.
From Honduras to Houston: Rice student engineering care, access and belonging
Graduate student Sofia Urbina is working to advance wearable rehabilitation technologies while ensuring they reach communities like those in Honduras, where she grew up.
Smart clothing coming sooner than you think and Rice engineers are helping build it
Rice professors of mechanical engineering Daniel J. Preston and Vanessa Sanchez are core partners in the New Frontiers in Research Fund project led by the University of Alberta, bringing breakthrough materials, soft-robotic actuation and human-centered design to the team.
Rice’s Spanos receives biennial medal for contributions to computational mechanics
Rice engineer Pol D. Spanos has been awarded the O.C. Zienkiewicz Medal, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the field of computational mechanics.
Rice and MD Anderson build patient-specific models to guide complex pelvic cancer surgeries
A new collaboration between Rice engineers and physicians at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is giving surgeons a powerful new way to plan pelvic reconstructions before they ever step into the operating room.
How AI can help detect disease and accelerate medical breakthroughs
As artificial intelligence plays an increasingly prominent role in decoding DNA, tracking pathogens and accelerating drug discovery, the line between real capability and hype can be unclear. Rice experts can provide clear, technically grounded perspectives on how these tools are meaningfully advancing disease detection, public health preparedness and treatment design.
Rice mechanical engineers turning everyday fabrics into new channel of communication
When Rice doctoral candidate Barclay Jumet first launched a high school business designing, making and selling bow ties — learning to sew on his mother’s college sewing machine — he never imagined that same skill set would one day help him reinvent how people communicate.
From Rice to the Navy’s nuclear ranks: Senior earns rare engineering commission
Rice University’s Midshipman 1st Class Matthew Deverell, a mechanical engineering major and Will Rice College senior, has been selected by the U.S. Navy for one of only eight nuclear engineering officer positions available nationwide each year.
Rice, Houston Methodist developing soft ‘sleep cap’ to advance dementia prevention research
Rice researchers are working with physician scientists at Houston Methodist to develop a soft, wearable “sleep cap” designed to measure and improve deep sleep, a process critical for protecting the brain against dementia and related diseases.
Researchers led by Rice’s Yong Lin Kong have developed a soft but strong metamaterial that can be controlled remotely to rapidly transform its size and shape.
For more than three decades, Tayfun Tezduyar has been developing and refining space-time computational flow analysis, a framework he introduced in 1990 for solving some of the toughest real-world problems in fluid dynamics.
Rice researchers turn wasted data center heat into clean power
A new study from Rice shows how to turn data center waste into power.
Rice scientists discover way to engineer stronger soft devices through smarter silicone bonding
In a step forward for soft robotics and biomedical devices, Rice engineers have uncovered a powerful new way to boost the strength and durability of silicone-based soft devices without changing the materials themselves.
Rice experts are available to comment on digital health topics, including AI, wearable and ingestible devices, imaging and robotics.
Rice engineering student honored for research to reduce surgical complications
Chihtong “Lily” Lee recently earned second place in the undergraduate category at the ASME SB3C Summer Bioengineering Conference, a competition hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.