Annual Rice student startup competition names winners, awards over $100,000 in prizes

winning teams

Here's what student-founded companies won big at this annual competition. Photo courtesy of Rice University

Five startups founded by Rice University students pitched their companies this week — and walked away with more than $100,000 in prizes.

The H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge, or NRLC, is an annual competition that selects a small group of student-founded startups from Rice University. The program, which is open to undergraduate, graduate, and MBA students, concluded on April 19 and doled out several investment prizes to the finalists, which were named earlier this month.

Here's what each finalist walked away with this year:

First Place: Goldie

Goldie, founded by three Rice MBA students, won the first place — a $50,000 investment prize — as well as the Frank Liu Jr. Prize for Creative Innovations in Music, Fashion, & the Arts, which came with $2,500.

The company uses its algorithm-based fit finder technology to help online shoppers find their perfect fits digitally based on physical measurements and production size charts. On the other end of the transactions, Goldie lowers the 21 percent e-commerce rate of returns and increases customer lifetime value.

Founders: Viviane Nguyen, CEO and MBA ‘23; Stephanie Zhou, COO and MBA ‘23; Samantha Wong, CTO and Master's of science in Mechanical Engineering and MBA ‘22.

Second Place: Tierra Climate

Coming in second place — and securing a $25,000 prize, was Tierra Climate. The company is looking at a unique challenge within the grid-scale battery business. Normally not compensated for the clean storage work they do, these battery operators are able to be compensated on the Tierra Climate platform, where battery projects can sell verified Carbon Avoidance Offsets to corporate buyers.

Founders: Emma Konet, CTO and MBA ’24; Jacob Mansfield, CEO and Harvard MBA ‘23

Third Place: Separion

Separion claimed third place and a $15,000 prize. The company is addressing battery storage with its solution that uses brines already produced by geothermal energy and provides an environmentally friendly extraction process will supply lithium faster, purer, and greener.

Founders: Yuren Feng, CEO and Environmental Engineering PhD ‘24; Xiaochuan Huang, CTO and Environmental Engineering PhD ‘23; Ze He, COO and Chemical Engineering PhD ‘23

Audience Choice Award: Sygne Solutions

Sygne Solutions secured the $1,500 Audience Choice Award. The company has created a patent-pending technology that permanently destroys PFAS – thereby eliminating them from the environment. The process is scalable and sustainable, and targets the substances in water.

Founders: Bo Wang, Chemical Engineering PhD ‘23; Subash Kannan, MBA ‘24; Dana Vazquez, MBA ‘24; Kimberly Heck, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Research Scientist

Outstanding Undergraduate Award: Tidepay

Tidepay won the Outstanding Undergraduate Award and $5,000. The company is targeting the shipping industry with its HR and payroll solution that streamlines the onboarding process and helps transfer wages to their globally positioned employees’ bank accounts. The technology enables character reading technology to scan documents and verify eligibility and provides digital bank accounts and debit cards to unbanked seafarers. They also serve the seafarer by offering financial and logistical support services beyond remittance.

Founders: Andrew Pitigoi, CEO and Finance BBA ‘26; Devin Shah, CFO and Finance BBA ‘26

Additional prizes:

The program also awarded two prizes to two organizations not previously listed as finalists by the program:

  • The Parent Teacher Collaborative, founded by Jessica Faith Carter MBA ‘24, a school and community based nonprofit that aims to improve student outcomes by building strong collaborative partnerships between parents and teachers, received the RISE@Rice: The Sen Social Pioneer Prize for $1,000.
  • RiseWorks, an AI-driven music therapy for mental health needs, secured the Frank Liu Jr. Prize for Creative Innovations in Music, Fashion, & the Arts for $2,500. The company was founded by Jucheng Shen BS ‘26, Lai Peng BS ‘24, Yuan Chen BS ‘25, and Kaiyuan Wu BS ‘23.
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This Houston airport saw sharp passenger decline in 2025, study shows

Travel Talk

A new global airport travel study has revealed passenger traffic at Houston's William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) sharply decreased from 2024 to 2025.

The analysis from travel magazine LocalsInsider examined recently released data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the U.S. International Trade Association, and a nationwide survey to determine the following American traveler habits: The most popular U.S. and international destinations, emerging hotspots, and destinations on the decline. The study covered passenger travel trends from January through July 2025.

In the report's ranking of the 40 U.S. airports with the sharpest declines in passenger traffic, HOU ranked 13th on the list.

About 4.26 million arrivals were reported at HOU from January through July 2024, compared to about 3.96 million during the same seven-month period in 2025. According to the data, that's a significant 7.1 percent drop in passenger traffic year-over-year, or a loss of 300,974 passengers.

"As travelers chase new hotspots, some destinations are seeing reduced passenger traffic whether due to rising costs, shifting airline schedules, or evolving traveler preferences, some destinations are seeing a decrease in visitors," the report's author wrote.

It appears most major Texas airports had drops in passenger traffic from 2024 to 2025. Dallas Love Field Airport (DAL) saw the worst in the state, with a dramatic 7.4 percent dip in arrivals. DAL also ranked 11th on the list of U.S. airports with the steepest declines in passenger traffic.

More than 5.13 million arrivals were reported at DAL from January through July 2024, compared to over 4.75 million during the same seven-month period in 2025.

This is how passenger traffic has fallen at other major Texas airports from 2024 to 2025:

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS):

  • 6,107,597 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2024
  • 5,828,396 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2025
  • -4.6 percent – Year-over-year passenger change
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW):
  • 23,830,017 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2024
  • 23,251,302 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2025
  • -2.4 percent – Year-over-year passenger change

San Antonio International Airport (SAT):

  • 2,937,870 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2024
  • 2,836,774 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2025
  • -3.4 percent – Year-over-year passenger change
El Paso International Airport (ELP):
  • 1,094,431 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2024
  • 1,076,845 – Passenger arrivals from January to July 2025
  • -1.6 percent – Year-over-year passenger change
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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

NASA names new chief astronaut based in Houston

new hire

NASA has a new chief astronaut. Scott Tingle, stationed at the space agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, assumed the post Nov. 10.

Tingle succeeds NASA astronaut Joe Acaba, who had been chief astronaut since February 2023. Acaba now works on the staff of the Johnson Space Center’s director.

As chief astronaut, Tingle runs NASA’s Astronaut Office. His job includes developing astronauts’ flight crew operations and assigning crews for space missions, such as Artemis missions to the moon.

Tingle, a former captain in the Navy, was named a NASA astronaut candidate in 2009. He has logged over 4,500 flight hours in more than 50 aircraft.

Tingle was a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, where he spent 168 days in orbit during two expeditions that launched in December 2017. Since returning to Earth, he has held various roles in the Astronaut Office, including mission support, technical leadership and crew readiness.

Before joining NASA, Tingle worked in El Segundo, California, on the technical staff of The Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit that supports U.S. space programs.

Tingle recalls expressing his desire to be an astronaut when he was 10 years old. It took him four tries to be accepted by NASA as an astronaut candidate.

“The first time I figured it was kind of too early. The second application, they sent out some feelers, and that was about it. Put in my third application, and got a couple of calls, but it didn’t quite happen,” Tingle said in an article published on the website of Purdue University, his alma mater.

ExxonMobil officially pauses plans for $7B Baytown hydrogen plant

Change of Plans

As anticipated, Spring-based oil and gas giant ExxonMobil has officially paused plans to build a low-hydrogen plant in Baytown, Chairman and CEO Darren Woods told Reuters in late November.

“The suspension of the project, which had already experienced delays, reflects a wider slowdown in efforts by traditional oil and gas firms to transition to cleaner energy sources as many of the initiatives struggle to turn a profit,” Reuters reported.

Woods signaled during ExxonMobil’s second-quarter earnings call that the company was weighing whether it would move forward with the proposed $7 billion plant.

The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act created a new 10-year incentive, the 45V tax credit, for production of clean hydrogen. But under President Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," the window for starting construction of low-carbon hydrogen projects that qualify for the tax credit has narrowed. The Inflation Reduction Act mandated that construction start by 2033. But the Big Beautiful Bill switched the construction start time to early 2028.

“While our project can meet this timeline, we’re concerned about the development of a broader market, which is critical to transition from government incentives,” ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

Woods had said ExxonMobil was figuring out whether a combination of the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture projects and the revised 45V tax credit would enable a broader market for low-carbon hydrogen.

“If we can’t see an eventual path to a market-driven business, we won’t move forward with the [Baytown] project,” Woods said.

“We knew that helping to establish a brand-new product and a brand-new market initially driven by government policy would not be easy or advance in a straight line,” he added.

ExxonMobil announced in 2022 that it would build the low-carbon hydrogen plant at its refining and petrochemical complex in Baytown. The company has said the plant is slated to go online in 2027 and 2028.

ExxonMobil had said the Baytown plant would produce up to 1 billion cubic feet of hydrogen per day made from natural gas, and capture and store more than 98 percent of the associated carbon dioxide. The plant would have been capable of storing as much as 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com; it was updated to include new information about the plant in December 2025.

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