This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes James Tour of Rice University, Kristy Phillips of Clean Habits, and Jiming Bao of University of Houston. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes a Houston chemist, a cleaning product founder, and a UH researcher.


James Tour, chemist at Rice University

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing PFAS from soil. Photo via Rice University

A Rice University chemist James Tour has secured a new $12 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center on the team’s work to efficiently remove pollutants from soil.

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from contaminated soil through its rapid electrothermal mineralization (REM) process, according to a statement from Rice.

“This is a substantial improvement over previous methods, which often suffer from high energy and water consumption, limited efficiency and often require the soil to be removed,” Tour says. Read more.

Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits

What started as a way to bring natural cleaning products in from overseas has turned into a promising application for more sustainable agriculture solutions. Photo via LinkedIn

When something is declared clean, one question invariably springs to mind: just how clean is clean?

Then it is, “What metrics decide what’s clean and what’s not?”

To answer those questions, one must abandon the subjective and delve into the scientific — and that’s where Clean Habits come in. The company has science on its side with Synbio, a patented cleaning formula that combines a unique blend of prebiotics and probiotics for their signature five-day clean.

“Actually, we are a synbiotic, which is a prebiotic and a probiotic fused together,” says Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits. “And that's what gives us the five-day clean, and we also have the longest shelf life — three years — of any probiotic on the market.” Read more.

Jiming Bao, professor at University of Houston

Th innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed. Photo via UH.edu

A University of Houston professor of electrical and computer engineering, Jiming Bao, is improving thermal imaging and infrared thermography with a new method to measure the continuous spectrum of light.

His innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed, according to the university. The challenges generally faced by conventional thermal imaging is addressed, as the new study hopes to eliminate temperature dependence, and wavelength.

“We designed a technique using a near-infrared spectrometer to measure the continuous spectrum and fit it using the ideal blackbody radiation formula,” Bao tells the journal Device. “This technique includes a simple calibration step to eliminate temperature- and wavelength-dependent emissivity.” Read more.

What started as a way to bring natural cleaning products in from overseas has turned into a promising application for more sustainable agriculture solutions. Photo via Pexels

Houston entrepreneur brings natural, sustainable cleaning products to US for farm to table application

clean dream

When something is declared clean, one question invariably springs to mind: just how clean is clean?

Then it is, “What metrics decide what’s clean and what’s not?”

To answer those questions, one must abandon the subjective and delve into the scientific — and that’s where Clean Habits come in. The company has science on its side with Synbio, a patented cleaning formula that combines a unique blend of prebiotics and probiotics for their signature five-day clean.

“Actually, we are a synbiotic, which is a prebiotic and a probiotic fused together,” says Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits. “And that's what gives us the five-day clean, and we also have the longest shelf life — three years — of any probiotic on the market.”

Phillips learned about the European product almost three months before the COVID-19 pandemic. She had heard of probiotics for gut health but had no idea about probiotic cleaning.

“When COVID actually hit, I went back and really started researching the manufacturer who is based in Europe and all of their pre- and probiotic cleaners,” remembers Phillips. “And I just found it to be so interesting that they were using natural probiotics from the dirt, from the soil, from Mother Earth. And they created this entire product line that they have been using for over 15 years. And they had so many clinical trials and hospital studies and university studies that were showing that these probiotic cleaners were working, and they were reducing bacteria, viruses, even viruses in air.

“Not only were they in the cleaning spray sector, but they were also already in water purification. They were in agriculture for animal house farming. They were doing a big trial in the subway station in Milan, putting the probiotics through a big HVAC system. And I just thought, there must be something here.”

Kristy Phillips is the founder and CEO of Clean Habits. Photo via LinkedIn

Phillips was right. After reaching out to the manufacturer, she asked if they had a distributor here in the United States. They didn't.

“Since they didn’t have a distributor here in the U.S., I got the products and tried them out for myself,” says Phillips. “They were chemical-free, non-toxic and eco-friendly and after comparing them side-by-side with the commercial cleaners we all grew up with like the Lysols, bleach, and 409s, I found that the probiotic cleaners not only worked on surface areas to remove bad bacteria and germs, they continued to work for up to five full days at 100 percent.

“The commercial cleaners did kill 99.99 percent of all bacteria and germs, but they only did it for 30 minutes. And then the bacteria and germs start to grow back. And I am like, you know, nobody tells you that in their marketing. So that is what started my journey on the probiotics and creating a line to bring to the market here in the United States.”

Phillips soon realized that her goal was easier said than done.

“I think the U.S. market is one of the hardest to break into,” says the Houston native. “Trying to launch a brand-new product in the United States, in the cleaning sector, you do have to deal with the FDA and the EPA, there is a big game that you must play. And then you do go up against the big boys, like the Johnson and Johnson's of the world. Everybody is so used to chemical cleaning. And to go and try to change that industry and disrupt it, that can be tough for people.

“And at the time, I felt like it was insane because everyone was living in their house due to COVID and continuing to use commercial cleaners that are backed with chemicals. They were all breathing that in. I felt that was doing us all an injustice, especially when you have these probiotics that are natural, non-toxic, non-chemical and safe to breathe. It does change the game.”

Once Phillips noticed that she was not alone, with companies like Jessica Alba’s The Honest Company and Mrs. Meyer’s with their plant-based cleaning products, she forged full speed ahead with Clean Habits.

Now, more than three years later, her company is making a significant impact.

“I said, OK, I’m not crazy here, I must be on the right path,” says Phillips. “With people starting to recognize that there is a better way to clean, we began to get into retailers like Kroger. Right now, we are in the process of on-boarding with Walmart and are in talks with CVS, Whole Foods, and Costco.”

The biggest signal to Phillips that the word was out on Clean Habits came in the form of a potential celebrity endorsement.

“Howie Mandel, who is a certified germaphobe, reached out to us a couple of weeks ago,” says Phillips, who before her mission to clean up the world, was a producer of reality television. “We are about to do a big campaign with him and the Clean Habits line. People know Howie Mandel. So, he is definitely going to bring more awareness to our brand, which will allow us to start a big, heavy push and hopefully we can just capitalize on it and go from there.”

Moving forward, Phillips’ vision for Clean Habits will extend beyond just traditional cleaning products. She sees that she can also have an impact on the industrial and commercial side of things.

“Right now, we are doing testing in agriculture, and this is something that our manufacturers in Europe have already done and they have been extremely successful with it,” says Phillips. “The goal is to see if we could reduce the use of pesticides in farming and replace it with just misting and spraying with the probiotics.

“We already know that by incorporating the probiotics throughout water systems, that we can actually clean the water and take it back to 100 percent natural water or pure water. We can get rid of E. coli, MRSA, staph. And so, we are going to start working with the state of Texas and into animal house cleaning and farming and cleaning their water.”

Additionally, Clean Habits already has research that proves that by incorporating the probiotics, they can start eliminating the bird flu, which affected a lot of Texas chickens recently to where over 350,000 of them had to be put down.

“We’re really trying to change the faith there in agriculture,” says Phillips. “I mean, to me, it's amazing because when I first started this, I was just trying to launch some cleaning supplies, which is fantastic, but this product is so much more than a multi-purpose cleaning spray, your floor cleaner, your drain cleaner or your laundry detergent. This goes into cleaning water, which is everyone's basic right to have clean water. And the fact that we can do it by using these probiotics, to me, my little brain can't compute that part of it.

“And then when we really did start looking into the agriculture and how, by incorporating the probiotics into the animal house, the cleaning of the water, and putting it into their housing system, that we can reduce methane gas by 41 percent. That is huge. This can profoundly change and revolutionize industries. And to be a part of that, and I am so excited.”

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Rice University MBA programs rank among top 5 in prestigious annual report

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Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business MBA programs have been ranked among the top five in the country again in The Princeton Review’s 2025 Best Business Schools rankings.

The university's MBA program in finance earned a No. 3 ranking, climbing up two spots from its 2024 ranking. Finance MBA programs at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business and New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business were the only ones to outrank Rice, claiming No. 2 and No. 1 spots, respectively.

Rice's online MBA program was ranked No. 5, compared to No. 4 last year. Indiana University's Bloomington Kelley School of Business' online program claimed the top spot.

“These rankings reflect the commitment of our faculty and staff, the drive and talent of our students and the strong support of our alumni and partners,” Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business, said in a news release. “They are exceptional honors but also reminders — not just of our top-tier programs and world-class faculty and students but of our broader impact on the future of business education.”

Rice also ranked at No. 6 for “greatest resources for minority students."

The Princeton Review’s 2025 business school rankings are based on data from surveys of administrators at 244 business schools as well as surveys of 22,800 students enrolled in the schools’ MBA programs during the previous three academic years.

"The schools that made our lists for 2025 share four characteristics that inform our criteria for designating them as 'best': excellent academics, robust experiential learning components, outstanding career services, and positive feedback about them from enrolled students we surveyed," Rob Franek, The Princeton Review's editor-in-chief, said in a press release. "No b-school is best overall or best for all students, but to all students considering earning an MBA, we highly recommend these b-schools and salute them for their impressive programs."

Rice's finance program has ranked in the top 10 for eight consecutive years, and its online MBA has ranked in the top five for four years.

Rice and the University of Houston also claimed top marks on the Princeton Review's entrepreneurship rankings. Rice ranks as No. 1 on the Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Grad list, and the University of Houston ranked No. 1 on Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad. Read more here.

Houston named ‘star’ metro for artificial intelligence in new report

eyes on AI

A new report declares Houston one of the country’s 28 “star” hubs for artificial intelligence.

The Houston metro area appears at No. 16 in the Brookings Institution’s ranking of metros that are AI “stars.” The metro areas earned star status based on data from three AI buckets: talent, innovation and adoption. Only two places, the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, made Brookings’ “superstar” list.

According to Brookings, the Houston area had 11,369 job postings in 2024 that sought candidates with AI skills, 210 AI startups (based on Crunchbase data from 2014 to 2024), and 113 venture capital deals for AI startups (based on PitchBook data from 2023 to 2024).

A number of developments are boosting Houston’s AI profile, such as:

Brookings also named Texas’s three other major metros as AI stars:

  • No. 11 Austin
  • No. 13 Dallas-Fort Worth
  • No. 40 San Antonio

Brookings said star metros like Houston “are bridging the gap” between the two superstar regions and the rest of the country. In 2025, the 28 star metros made up 46 percent of the country’s metro-area employment but 54 percent of AI job postings. Across the 28 metros, the number of AI job postings soared 139 percent between 2018 and 2025, according to Brookings.

Around the country, dozens of metros fell into three other categories on Brookings’ AI list: “emerging centers” (14 metros), “focused movers” (29 metros) and “nascent adopters” (79 metros).