10 Houston scientists named to fellowship for turning research into businesses

top of class

For the third year, Rice University has tapped 10 Rice Innovation Fellows working in engineering and materials science fields to support. Photo via rice.edu

Rice University has announced its latest cohort of fellows who aim to translate research into real-world startups.

The 2024 cohort of Rice Innovation Fellows is the third of its kind since the university's Office of Innovation and The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (or Lilie) launched the program in 2022. The group includes 10 Ph.D. and postdoctoral students working in engineering and materials science fields.

The program provides personalized mentorship and up to $20,000 equity-free funding.

According to Lilie, the 10 members of the 2024 cohort are:

  • Barclay Jumet, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of mechanical engineering, working under Dan Preston and specializing in mechanics, thermal systems and wearable technologies. InnovationMap covered his recent technology here.
  • Tianshu Zhai, a Ph.D. student studying materials science specializing in hexagonal boron nitride-based thermal interface materials
  • Zachary Kingston, a postdoctoral research associate and lab manager for the Kavraki Lab in the Computer Science department at Rice, working under the direction of Dr. Lydia Kavraki, a pioneer in the field of robot motion planning. Kingston is developing a novel approach to high-performance, low-cost robot motion planning with Wil Thomason.
  • Soobin Cho, a Ph.D. student and co-founder of Duromem, which created the Dual-Role Electrically Conductive Membrane to improve existing water treatment systems
  • Sara Abouelniaj, a Ph.D. candidate in Material Science and Nanoengineering and founder of Graphene Grids LLC, which is exploring opportunities to diversify its range of grid types services offered
  • Alisha Menon, is founding a medical device startup that's developing wireless, AI-enabled patient monitoring devices for babies in the NICU. Her work is being done in collaboration with the Texas Medical Center and Rice, with support from NSF and the Southwest Pediatric Device Consortium.
  • Wil Thomason, a CRA Computing Innovation postdoctoral fellow in the Kavraki Lab at Rice University who is developing low-cost robot motion planning with Kingston
  • Jeremy Daum, a Ph.D. candidate at Rice in the Materials Science department working on a a novel production method to create photocatalysts
  • Jonathan Montes, a Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering focused on combating neurodegenerative diseases with highly selective neuromodulation
  • Andrew (AJ) Walters, a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering working in the labs of Dr. Caleb Bashor (Rice) and Dr. Scott Olson (UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School) who's building an accessible allogeneic cell therapy to treat inflammation disorders and potentially cancer. He was awarded a three-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2022.

Over the last three years, Innovation Fellows have brought in more than $6 million in funding for their ventures, according to Rice.

Last year, the cohort of 10 included doctoral and postdoctoral students working in fields from bioengineering and chemistry to civil and environmental engineering.

Late last year, Lilie also announced its new entrepreneurship council known as Lilie’s Leadership Council. The group is made up of 11 successful business leaders with ties to Houston from the likes of co-founder Frank Liu to former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and several other CEOs and board members of successful companies. The council members agreed to donate time and money to the university’s entrepreneurship programs.

From Your Site Articles
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo officially files for IPO

going public

Fervo Energy has officially filed for IPO.

The Houston-based geothermal unicorn filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17 to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq exchange. Fervo intends to be listed under the ticker symbol "FRVO."

The number and price of the shares have not yet been determined, according to a news release from Fervo. J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays are leading the offering.

The highly anticipated filing comes as Fervo readies its flagship Cape Station geothermal project to deliver its first power later this year

"Today, miles-long lines for gasoline have been replaced by lines for electricity. Tech companies compete for megawatts to claim AI market share. Manufacturers jockey for power to strengthen American industry. Utilities demand clean, firm electricity to stabilize the grid," Fervo CEO Tim Latimer shared in the filing. "Fervo is prepared to serve all of these customers. Not with complex, idiosyncratic projects but with a simplified, standardized product capable of delivering around-the-clock, carbon-free power using proven oil and gas technology."

Fervo has been preparing to file for IPO for months. Axios Pro first reported that the company "quietly" filed for an IPO in January and estimated it would be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Fervo also closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of Cape Station last month and raised a $462 million Series E in December. The company also announced the addition of four heavyweights to its board of directors last week, including Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, Hewlett-Packard, and Spring-based HPE.

Fervo reported a net loss of $70.5 million for the 2025 fiscal year in the S-1 filing and a loss of $41.1 million in 2024.

Tracxn.com estimates that Fervo has raised $1.12 billion over 12 funding rounds. The company was founded in 2017 by Latimer and CTO Jack Norbeck.

---

This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

New UT Austin med center, anchored by MD Anderson, gets $1 billion gift

Future of Health

A donation announced Tuesday, April 21, breaks a major record at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael and Susan Dell are now UT Austin's first supporters to give $1 billion. In response, the university will create the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and the UT Dell Medical Center to "advance human health," per a press release.

The release also records "significant support" for undergraduate scholarships, student housing, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center for supercomputing research.

Both the new research campus and the UT Dell Medical Center will integrate advanced computing into their research and practices. At the medical center, the university hopes that will lead to "earlier detection, more precise and personalized care, and better health outcomes." The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will also be integrated into the new medical center.

That comes with a numeric goal measured in 10s: raise $10 billion and rank among the top 10 medical centers in the U.S., both in the next decade.

In the shorter term, the university will break ground on the medical center with architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) "later this year."

“UT Austin, where Dell Technologies was founded from a dorm room, has always been a place where bold ideas become real-world impact,” said Michael and Susan Dell in a joint statement.

They continued, “What makes this moment so meaningful is the opportunity to build something that brings every part of the journey together — from how students learn, to how discoveries are made, to how care reaches families. By bringing together medicine, science and computing in one campus designed for the AI era, UT can create more opportunity, deliver better outcomes, and build a stronger future for communities across Texas and beyond.”

This is the second major gift this year for the planned multibillion-dollar medical center. In January, Tench Coxe, a former venture capitalist who’s a major shareholder in chipmaking giant Nvidia, and Simone Coxe, co-founder and former CEO of the Blanc & Otus PR firm, contributed $100 million$100 million.

Baylor scientist lands $2M grant to explore links between viruses and Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s research

A Baylor College of Medicine scientist will begin exploring the possible link between Alzheimer’s disease and viral infections thanks to a $2 million grant awarded in March.

Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa is an assistant professor of pathology & immunology at Baylor and a principal investigator at Texas Children’s Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI). He hypothesizes that Alzheimer’s may have some link to previous viral infections contracted by the patient. To study this intriguing possibility, the American Brain Foundation has gifted him the Cure One, Cure Many award in neuroinflammation.

“It is an honor to receive this support from the Cure One, Cure Many Award. Viral infections are emerging as a major, underappreciated driver of Alzheimer's disease, and this award will allow our team to conduct the most comprehensive screen of viral exposures and host genetics in Alzheimer's to date, spanning over a million individuals,” Dhindsa said in a news release. “Our goal is to identify which viruses matter most, why some people are more vulnerable than others, and ultimately move the field closer to new therapeutic strategies for patients.”

Roughly 150 million people worldwide will suffer from Alzheimer’s by 2050, making it the most common cause of dementia in the world. Despite this, scientists are still at a loss as to what exactly causes it.

Dhindsa’s research is part of a new range of theories that certain viral infections may trigger Alzheimer’s. His team will take a two-fold approach. First, they will analyze the medical records of more than a million individuals looking for patterns. Second, they will analyze viral DNA in stem cell-derived brain cells to see how the infections could contribute to neurological decay. The scale of the genomic data gathering is unprecedented and may highlight a link that traditional studies have missed.

Also joining the project are Dr. Caleb Lareau of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dr. Artem Babaian of the University of Toronto. Should a link be found, it would open the door to using anti-virals to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s.

View All Listings