Starting a new week, we'd like to introduce you to three Houston innovators who have recently made headlines. All three represent industries at the core of Houston's business community — from space and energy to health care.
Travis Parigi, founder and CEO of LiquidFrameworks
Travis Parigi, founder and CEO of LiquidFrameworks, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how he's navigating both a global pandemic and an oil downturn. Photo courtesy of LiquidFrameworks
Travis Parigi, founder and CEO of LiquidFrameworks, joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how both the oil downturn and the pandemic has affected his business, which provides cloud-based, mobile field operations management solutions to oil and gas, environmental, and industrial service companies.
"We've seen these types of challenges in the past within the oil and gas space — it is cyclical based on commodities," Parigi explains on thi week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We're well positioned to weather these storms."
Parigi shares his biggest concerns about the oil and gas market and how he's looking into partnering with another Houston energy tech startup, Data Gumbo, on the episode. Listen and read more.
Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center
Kathy Lueders will lead the future of human space flight at NASA. Photo via nasa.gov
NASA's Johnson Space Center, home to human exploration, has a new leader. Kathy Lueders, formerly the commercial crew program manager, has been named associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Friday, June 12.
"Kathy gives us the extraordinary experience and passion we need to continue to move forward with Artemis and our goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024," says Bridenstine in a news release. "She has a deep interest in developing commercial markets in space, dating back to her initial work on the space shuttle program."
Lueders has been with NASA for over 12 years — spending time at both JSC and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Read more.
Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the University of Houston's College of Medicine
The University of Houston broke ground on its new medical school building and named the College of Medicine's inaugural class. Photo via UH.edu
The University of Houston is the first institution in town in about 50 years to establish a new medical school, and UH is doing it for a specific reason — to get more primary care doctors in practice. UH's College of Medicine plans to have 50 percent of graduates choose primary care specialties including family medicine, general internal medicine, and general pediatrics. For some perspective, nationally, only about 20 percent of medical students choose primary care.
"We were very deliberate in our pursuit of medical students who fit the mission. This is much different than most other medical schools because we need different solutions for the current health care problems facing our city and state," said Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the College of Medicine, in a statement. Read more.