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President Leebron

Leebron expresses gratitude as he says goodbye

This is the final day of my service as president of Rice, and I face just one key but difficult task, namely to try to adequately express our gratitude to the Rice community. Ping and I came to Rice 18 years ago with only an inkling of what lay ahead. We were excited by what we had learned about Rice, including what the university had accomplished and what its ambitions were. We were hopeful about what we might contribute, and yet not sure what to expect.

Natasha Kirienko and Svetlana Panina in Kirienko’s Rice University laboratory in 2019

​​​​​​​Researchers discover new leukemia-killing compounds

Researchers from Rice and MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered potential new drugs for treating leukemia.

Photo of Kraft Hall.

New senior staff, structure announced for Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research

As incoming director Ruth López Turley takes the helm of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research July 1, the institute is announcing a new executive leadership team that will help implement a five-year expansion plan.

Rice University computer scientists introduced Emu, an algorithm that uses long reads of genomes to identify the species of bacteria in a community. The program could simplify sorting harmful from helpful bacteria in microbiomes like those in the gut or in agriculture and the environment. (Credit: Kristen Curry/Rice University)

Emu stands tall at detecting bacteria species

Rice computer scientists develop Emu, which uses long reads of genomes to identify bacteria in a community.

Rendering of family walking in flood.

Flooding exacerbates pollution exposure in at-risk urban communities

Increased flooding in the U.S. is exposing more people to industrial pollution, especially in racially marginalized urban communities, according to new research from Rice University, New York University and Brown University.

new engineering and science building

Landmark new engineering and science building on campus to bear Ralph S. O’Connor’s name

A self-made businessman who started out working in oilfields and ended up building an empire in energy and real estate investments will be memorialized at Rice University with a landmark new science and engineering building named in his honor.

Rice physicists celebrate the 10th year of the Higgs boson discovery.

An Owl’s-eye view of the Higgs boson at 10

Anniversary finds Rice physicists pushing forward as Large Hadron Collider reboots

A tangle of unprocessed boron nitride nanotubes seen through a scanning electron microscope. Rice University scientists introduced a method to combine them into fibers using the custom wet-spinning process they developed to make carbon nanotube fibers. (Credit: Pasquali Research Group/Rice University)

Boron nitride nanotube fibers get real

Rice scientists create the first boron nitride nanotube fibers using the custom wet-spinning process they developed to make carbon nanotube fibers.

Rice University chemists developed a method to add two fragments to an alkene molecule in a single process. The discovery could simplify drug and materials design.

Process to customize molecules does double duty

Chemists develop a method to add two fragments to an alkene molecule in a single process, which could simplify drug and materials design.

Artist's illustration of Galveston Bay Park storm barrier

City, county and port support Galveston Bay Park study

Houston, Harris County, Port Houston and entrepreneur Joe Swinbank have chipped in for an engineering study of Galveston Bay Park, a chain of man-made islands that Rice University experts have proposed building as both a hurricane barrier and a 10,000-acre public park.

Photo of houses and coins.

Houston’s hot housing market has decreased inventory and widened affordability gap

Houston’s housing market is hotter than ever, people are paying skyrocketing prices for a declining inventory of homes and apartments and the affordability gap is getting worse, according to a new report from Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

Rice University computer scientists and collaborators develop a program to screen short DNA sequences, whether synthetic or natural, to determine their toxicity.

SeqScreen can reveal ‘concerning’ DNA

Rice computer scientists and collaborators develop a program to screen short DNA sequences, whether synthetic or natural, to determine their toxicity.

Juneteenth page

Rice, TSU, Prairie View unite for Juneteenth event

Rice hosted a celebration of Juneteenth with a series of panels exploring ideas and questions relevant to the holiday.

Environmental engineers determine the economic cost of reactive nitrogen emissions from agriculture, and their significant risks to populations through air pollution and climate change.

Agriculture emissions pose risks to health and climate

Rice researchers find the economic cost of emissions from agriculture and their risks to populations through air pollution and climate change.

Rice University physicists used ultracold atoms and a 1D channel of light to simulate electrons in 1D wires and study how two of their intrinsic properties — spin and charge — travel at different speeds.

Rice lab’s quantum simulator delivers new insight

A Rice University quantum simulator is giving physicists a clear look at spin-charge separation, a bizarre phenomenon in which two parts of indivisible particles called electrons travel at different speeds in extremely cold 1D wires. The research is published this week in Science and has implications for quantum computing and electronics with atom-scale wires.