Rice accelerates AI innovation to transform teaching, learning and research
With the 2025–26 academic year underway, Rice is taking bold steps to harness the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in teaching, research and operations. Guided by Momentous, the university’s 10-year strategic plan, Rice is positioning itself as a global leader in the responsible development and application of AI, computing and other disruptive technologies.
Rice opens Sarofim Hall, a transformative new home for the visual arts
The building consolidates Rice’s visual arts programs, long scattered across campus, into a single state-of-the-art space that emphasizes collaboration, transparency and public engagement.
Rice hosts 91 Fulbright students from around the world
Rice has welcomed 31 Fulbright students from 20 countries this academic year, one of the largest groups of international scholars on campus. They join 60 returning Fulbrighters in the Fulbright@Rice community.
Stein’s impact lives on through new civic engagement fund
The Rice community celebrated the life and legacy of longtime political science professor Bob Stein and announced Fund for Social Policy Research.
Rice earns nation-leading rankings from Niche, Forbes
Rice has been recognized among the nation’s best colleges this week — coinciding with the beginning of its fall semester — ranking No. 10 on Niche’s 2026 Best Colleges in America list and No. 12 on Forbes’ annual America’s Top Colleges list.
Message from the president: Welcome back, Owls!
It is with great excitement that I welcome you back to Rice for the start of another academic year. Our campus has come alive once again with energy, anticipation and purpose. Last week, we officially welcomed 1,300 new undergraduates during O-Week along with a preliminary count of more than 1,400 new graduate students. Today, classes begin for us all.
A growing university: Rice welcomes 97 new faculty to bolster teaching, research
Just like incoming freshmen are getting to know the Rice campus during O-Week, newly hired faculty spent two days in an orientation of their own before classes start.
Rocketing to the top: Rice Eclipse claims victory at world’s largest collegiate rocketry competition
Rice’s largest engineering and student rocketry club, Rice Eclipse, soared to new heights this summer, taking top honors in the 30,000-foot Student Researched and Developed Hybrid Division at the 2025 International Rocket Engineering Competition.
‘Bonjour’ to the boulevard: Rice in France expands to Paris
Rather than romanticize the city, French studies lecturer Nelly Noury-Ossia asked students to interrogate it.
The course co-taught by Juan José Castellón and Kalil Erazo paired architecture and engineering students to study how sustainable structures are conceived and built.
Rice earns national recognition in Princeton Review’s 2026 Best Colleges rankings
Rice has once again earned national recognition in The Princeton Review’s annual Best Colleges rankings, placing in the top 10 in four categories for 2026.
Niamh Ordner is spending her summer as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellow at the Los Angeles Times, where she’s writing science stories that aim to make complex topics accessible, relevant and exciting.
OwlSpark showcases ventures tackling health care, fitness, job search and more
Startup founders from Rice and the University of Houston came together for the 12th annual Bayou Startup Showcase July 31 at the Ion, Houston’s innovation hub powered by Rice. For more than a decade, this joint demo day for Rice and UH entrepreneurs has celebrated Houston innovation.
Tapia STEM Camps inspire more than 1,200 students worldwide to pursue science careers
Founded by Richard Tapia, the summer camps encourage students from all communities to pursue careers in STEM.
Bats, poaching and the pulse of the forest: Rice researchers lead biodiversity study in Tanzania
Deep in the heart of Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains, a trio of Rice researchers embarked on an ambitious summer field study to understand how human impacts are reshaping forest ecosystems.
