New report ranks Houston top market for life sciences

in the top 10

Houston lands in the No. 7 spot for growth in the granting of degrees in biological and biomedical sciences. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Thanks in large part to producing hundreds of college-trained professionals, Houston’s life sciences industry ranks among the top U.S. markets for talent in 2024.

In a report published by commercial real estate services company CBRE, Houston lands in the No. 7 spot for growth in the granting of degrees in biological and biomedical sciences. From 2017 to 2022, Houston notched a growth rate of 32.4 percent in this category.

In 2022, the University of Houston led the higher education pack in the region, graduating 746 people with a bachelor’s degree or above in biological or biomedical sciences, according to the report.

“For years, our team has seen the positive effect that the increase in degreed life sciences professionals has had on the Houston life sciences sector,” Nelson Udstuen, senior vice president of CBRE’s healthcare and life sciences practice group in Houston, says in a news release. “This is the result of the rigorous investment and recruitment in place by several of our region’s finest academic institutions.”

Houston ranks within the top 15 across the report’s three subcategories: No. 4 in manufacturing talent, No. 12 in R&D, and No. 14 in medtech talent. Houston is one of 16 markets appearing within the top 25 for all three subsectors.

Manufacturing, Houston’s highest-rated life sciences talent subsector, includes drug manufacturing as well as cell and gene therapy. The report tallies 38,370 workers in the manufacturing segment, with more than two-thirds of them (37 percent) employed as inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers.

The report also identifies 15,690 R&D specialists and 32,170 medtech professionals in the Houston life sciences market.

For the report, CBRE evaluated various criteria for the 100 largest U.S. for life sciences labor.

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Houstonians can opt into learning more about the hydrogen economy in this new program from the University of Houston. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

UH launches hydrogen economy program for energy professionals, students

say hi to hydrogen

The University of Houston will launch a new micro-credential program titled “The Hydrogen Economy” starting Feb. 20 and running through May 8.

The program is designed for industry professionals, rising seniors, and graduate students. It aims to present the "opportunities and challenges offered by the growing hydrogen sector," according to a statement from UH.

“The energy field is evolving rapidly, and energy professionals need to do the same," Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation at UH, said in a statement. "What we’re seeing is that the people the companies are going to value are those who can contribute to this transformation.”

The program consists of three badges that are earned via 15-hour modules held over three-week periods. Courses and lectures are held via Zoom weekly with recorded sessions to be viewed independently twice a week.

Participants can complete the entire program (earning all three badges) for $2,000, or earn individual badges for $750 each.

According to UH, the program aims to give participants a solid understanding of:

Key characteristics and drivers for hydrogen as the decarbonization fuel of choice
Fundamentals for the existing hydrogen market, and how it is poised to change
Policy and strategy: Critical factors in building The Hydrogen Economy
Hydrogen as a means for transporting and storing renewable energy
Current and emerging options for producing hydrogen, including offshore options
Basics of hydrogen safety
Technical options for storing and transporting hydrogen, including decision factors
Fuel cells and their roles in transportation, in the electric grid, and in domestic and commercial power supply
Hydrogen fueled vehicles – from forklifts, trains and ships to aircraft
Hydrogen as a fuel to decarbonize industry
Trade-offs for use of hydrogen vs. electrification vs. advanced renewable hydrocarbon fuels as vectors for decarbonization

The new offering from UH is one of several micro-credential programs UH Energy has launched since 2020. Other programs include:

Upstream Energy Data Analytics Program
CCUS Executive Education Program
Data Analytics for the Process Industries Program
Sustainable Energy Development Program
Environmental, Social and Governance in Energy
Rubbers in Extreme Environments

For more specifics about the Hydrogen Economy Program, click here

Rice University joins prestigious schools such as MIT and Harvard. Photo courtesy of Rice University

Houston university declared No. 7 in the nation and best in Texas by new study

POMP AND PRESTIGE

The Owls of Rice University have a lot to hoot about. The Houston school has been ranked as the seventh best college in the U.S. and the best college in Texas.

Niche.com's latest college rankings, released August 21, rely on U.S. Department of Education data coupled with reviews from current students, alumni, and parents to judge American colleges on 12 factors, including academics, campus, dorm life, and professors. Niche.com helps parents and students choose colleges and K-12 schools.

Last year's Niche.com list of the best colleges put Rice at No. 10, so it jumped up three spots this year.

On the new list, Rice ranks fourth among the colleges with the best professors, 10th among the colleges with the best value, and 16th among the hardest colleges to get into.

Here's Niche.com's new report card for the country's 10 best colleges:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Rice University
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Known as the "Harvard of the South," Rice "is a premier research institution with a 300-acre campus that serves as a green oasis in the heart of Houston," Forbes noted in 2019.

In Niche.com's ranking this year, Rice earns bragging rights as the best college in Texas. Here are the state's top 10, according to Niche.com:

Rice University
University of Texas at Austin
Texas A&M University, College Station
Southern Methodist University, Dallas
Trinity University, San Antonio
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
Baylor University, Waco
LeTourneau University, Longview
Texas Tech University, Lubbock
University of Texas at Dallas

Shortly after the Niche.com rankings came out, Rice appeared at the top of The Princeton Review's list of American colleges and universities with the overall best quality of life. Every year, The Princeton Review rates colleges and universities based on critiques submitted by students at 386 schools.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.

Former University of St. Thomas business school dean, Beena George, is taking on a new role at the university: Chief innovation officer. Courtesy of UST

Houston educator plans to lead her university into the future with her new role

Featured innovator

High school graduation numbers are decreasing, and, by 2025, far fewer college freshmen will be starting school. Some project as high as a 15 percent drop, says Beena George, inaugural chief innovation officer of Houston's St. Thomas University.

UST is looking forward to and anticipating changes and challenges within higher education like this, and one of the steps the university has been to create George's position.

"My role is to ferment that culture of innovation," George says. "Not just sit here and think of ideas."

As the school gets ready to welcome students back onto its Montrose campus, the former business dean gets ready to serve in her new role for the first semester. She spoke with InnovationMap about her career, goals, and the role UST plays within the Houston innovation ecosystem.

InnovationMap: What have you learned throughout your career that has prepared you for the role?

Beena George: I've always been interested in solving problems. If I saw something that was an opportunity, and we didn't take advantage of it, I'll keep thinking about it. I've been thinking about what makes me enjoy this role and stage in my career, and I think it's because most roles tend to be mostly operational, but this is thinking of new things and doing things differently and checking your own assumptions. That is what really engages me in my role. My career has given me different opportunities to use this, but not so much as now. When teaching, you have that opportunity every day — engaging students differently. Then as dean, it was about looking at new opportunities and programs for the business school, like our Master of Clinical Translation Management program.

IM: How did this clinical translation program come about?

BG: The idea of clinical translation is essentially to move a discovery from the lab to the patient's bedside — it's the commercialization of life sciences. The program trains students to shepherd a discovery from the lab to the commercial setting so that it's available to patients.It's a combination of business, life sciences, regulatory affairs. It's a one-year online program with some residency periods. It's the only of its kind in Houston and is one of less than 10 in the United States and, to my knowledge, the only of its kind in a business school.

IM: What does innovation mean to the University of St. Thomas and this inaugural position?

BG: I think innovation isn't entirely new on college campuses, but now is a time when higher education is in flux. There has been a lot of changes in the industry and in society in general that's requiring higher education institutions to react in a different way. Some of the things that we've always been doing — creating new programs, moving online, new campuses — now it's even more important to bring that to prominence and figure out how it fits with your university. Things have changed, so the rate at which you're innovating has to increase.

IM: What’s on your to-do list for this first year and within five years?

BG: Since this is a new role, my first goal for the next two to three months is the process of discovery — internally and externally. One of the cool things that's happening in Houston is all these partnerships and collaborations. That's what I'm trying to do — learn about the groups here and outside and make these connections. The other part of it is bringing information in from the outside. There are so many different ways of doing things. For instance, in higher education, it's been historically tied to credit hours. We know now there are many different ways to look at education. That's the kind of conversation I look to get started.

IM: You mention collaboration, and I think that’s key when it comes to higher education institutions within the innovation ecosystem, but how do you see that teamwork affecting the city as a whole?

BG: So I have been so glad to see that, because I've always believed that there has to be some competition — it ensures that everyone performs at their best. But there are some industries where you have to go beyond competition to the next level and manage competition and collaboration at the same time. We have two networks — Texas Medical Center and the academic partnership created by The Ion — and talk about what's happening on your campuses and how we can work together in Houston. There's also the 60x30 Texas, which has different advisory councils that offers that same conversation of collaboration to work together to meet our goals. Those types of conversations are important and having those types of venues to do that can have only a positive effect on Houston.

IM: How is UST finding new ways to prepare its students for the workforce?

BG: One thing that has gained a lot of attention here on campus is providing students with more experiential learning opportunities — more internships and apprenticeships and bringing the industry into the classroom. Carlos Monroy, a professor at UST, and his student worked on a project for the city. This is something that allows us to remain connected to the industry and it gives our faculty the idea of what the Industry needs and they can focus on that in the classroom.

IM: UST recently announced a major “renewal” plan. How is this going to affect innovation efforts on campus?

BG: I think the whole process is about innovation. What we have is an opportunity to recreate ourselves for the next millennium and create a sustainable operating model that will continue to provide for our students. I think it will affect everything.

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Portions of this interview have been edited.

The device is lighter than a Band-Aid and could be used as robot skin to track movement and health conditions. Photo via uh.edu

University of Houston professors identify super thin wearable device

Data collecting skin

Imagine a wearable device so thin it's less noticeable and lighter than a Band-Aid but can track and record important health information. According to some University of Houston researchers, you might not need to imagine it at all.

A recent paper, which ran as the cover story in Science Advances, identified a wearable human-machine interface device that is so thin a wearer might not even notice it. Cunjiang Yu, a Bill D. Cook associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, was the lead author for the paper.

"Everything is very thin, just a few microns thick," says Yu, who also is a principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH, in a release. "You will not be able to feel it."

The device is reported in the paper to be made of a metal oxide semiconductor on a polymer base. It could be attached to a robotic hand or prosthetic, as well as other robotic devices, that can collect and report information to the wearer.

"What if when you shook hands with a robotic hand, it was able to instantly deduce physical condition?" Yu asks in the release.

The device could also be used to help make decisions in situations that are hazardous to humans, such as chemical spills.

Current devices on the market or being developed are much slower to respond and bulkier to wear, not to mention expensive to develop.

"We report an ultrathin, mechanically imperceptible, and stretchable (human-machine interface) HMI device, which is worn on human skin to capture multiple physical data and also on a robot to offer intelligent feedback, forming a closed-loop HMI," the researchers write in the paper. "The multifunctional soft stretchy HMI device is based on a one-step formed, sol-gel-on-polymer-processed indium zinc oxide semiconductor nanomembrane electronics."

The paper's co-authors, in addition to Yu, include first author Kyoseung Sim, Zhoulyu Rao, Faheem Ershad, Jianming Lei, Anish Thukral, and Jie Chen, who are all from UH; Zhanan Zou and Jianliang Xiao of the University of Colorado; and Qing-An Huang of Southeast University in Nanjing, China.

Soft Wearable Multifunctional Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs)www.youtube.com

Houston Baptist University has created a program that is training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. Courtesy of HBU

Houston university creates program to fill the need for cyber engineering professionals

The future of tech

A few years ago, Houston Baptist University realized there was a huge need for more engineering programs within Houston higher education in one area particularly: Cybersecurity.

The school brought in Stan Napper from Louisiana Tech University to become the founding dean of the College of Engineering. The college now has three bachelor's degree programs in cyber engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science.

"Cyber engineering is designing secure systems at the interface of operational technology and information technology," says Napper. "Cyber engineering is in the middle of devices and data. It's in the middle of the hardware and software. And, academically, it's in the middle of electrical engineering and computer science."

The program is the only of its kind in Texas, Napper says. In fact, he says he doesn't know of any other similar programs other than the one he was a part of at Louisiana Tech. However, he does expect that to change. There's a growing need for cybersecurity specialists — especially in the health care and energy industries.

"One of those things that really got my attention a couple of years ago is in 2017, the FDA issued a recall on the over 450,000 pacemakers that had already been implanted," Napper says. "Modern pacemakers now can be controlled remotely through the skin to change the pacing frequency or some other parameters of that pacemaker without having to go back and do another surgery. They discovered a software glitch to a particular brand of pacemaker that could have been exploited."

Thankfully, that glitch wasn't exploited, but it put thousands of people's lives at risk by those technology designers not foreseeing this cybersecurity glitch. Anywhere devices — not just computers or phones — are used remotely or on a network, security is compromised.

Napper has only one year of the program under his belt, but he says he has already seen a lot of interest from the school's advisory board, which is made up of 75 CTO and tech leaders.

"They're lining up to get our students as interns even before we have the students ready," Napper says. "We've only finished our first freshman class."

Napper says the program is on track to have a capacity of 200 to 250 students. At a school like HBU, which has around 3,400 total students, that's a huge chunk of the school's population. Some think the program, considering the need and reception, could grow to 1,000 students.

The courses cover everything within operational and intellectual technology — device design, data science, automation, artificial intelligence — and the students are already getting their hands dirty.

"Our approach to education is learning in context. It is very hands on, but it's not hands off or hands on sake," Napper says. "There's no single class in our inventory of courses where one person stands at the front and talks the whole time. Our students carry their lab with them to class. We changed the definition of a lab. A lab is not the place you go to once a week in order to write a lab report."

This fall, the school will have its inaugural class in sophomore-level courses and a new batch of freshmen. Down the road, Napper says they'll look into creating a master's program.

Michael Tims / Houston Bapitst U

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3 Houston children's hospitals ranked best in the nation by U.S. News

Hospital Honor Roll

Houston has many renowned hospitals providing exceptional care, and now three local medical centers have earned national acclaim for their top-notch healthcare for children and adolescents.

Texas Children's Hospital, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, and Children's Cancer Hospital-MD Anderson Cancer Center are the three local pediatric care centers named in U.S. News and World Report's 2026-2027 Best Children's Hospitals.

Each year, U.S. News surveys over 100 children's hospitals and thousands of pediatric specialists to determine it's Best Children's Hospitals rankings. The winning hospitals excel at various factors such as "clinical outcomes, compliance with established best practices, and level and quality of hospital resources directly related to patient care."

Out of the 90 total children's hospitals selected across 34 states and Washington, D.C., only six were based in Texas.

"For two decades, U.S. News has helped guide families to top-tier pediatric care," said Ben Harder, chief of health analysis and managing editor at U.S. News, in a release. “Finding the right medical team for a rare diagnosis or complex surgery can be overwhelming, and U.S. News’ annual evaluation of the Best Children’s Hospitals provides a clear starting point for parents and referring pediatricians alike."

Texas Children's Hospital reigns as the No. 1 pediatric hospital in the Lone Star State and in the Southwest, and it was the only Texas hospital to be named in U.S. News' national Best Children's Hospitals Honor Roll list for 2026-2027.

Texas Children's also leads as the No. 1 best hospital in the U.S. in two pediatric specialties — Cardiology and Heart Surgery; Diabetes and Endocrinology. It earned top-five acclaim in seven more nationally ranked specialties: Nephrology (No. 2); Pulmonology and Lung Surgery (No. 2); Urology (No. 2); Neurology and Neurosurgery (No. 3); Gastroenterology and GI Surgery (No. 5); Neonatology (No. 5); and Orthopedics (No. 5).

The hospital also ranked as the country's 12th best pediatric cancer hospital, and it's one of the top 50 Best Children's Hospitals for Behavioral Health in the U.S.

Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital is the No. 3 best pediatric hospital in Texas for 2026-2027, and it earned top-50 ranks in seven specialties:

No. 12 – Cardiology and Heart Surgery
No. 26 – Neonatology
No. 28 – Gastroenterology & GI Surgery
No. 34 – Neurology and Neurosurgery
No. 40 – Orthopedics
No. 50 – Nephrology
"Top 50" Best Children's Hospitals for Behavioral Health

MD Anderson's Children's Cancer Hospital was unranked in the statewide list of the best pediatric care centers. It ranked as the No. 33 best pediatric cancer hospital in the U.S.

Other high-performing Texas pediatric hospital include Children's Health Dallas, Dell Children's Medical Center in Austin, and Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth.

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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston ranks No. 2 for share of AI talent in professional services

AI surge

Houston’s professional and business services sector—think law, accounting, consulting, and engineering firms—grabs one of the industry’s biggest shares of AI talent.

A report from commercial real estate services giant CBRE ranks Houston No. 2 among the top 50 U.S. and Canadian tech markets for the concentration of AI talent in professional and business services.

Houston’s share of AI talent in professional and business services stands at 26 percent, the report shows. Washington, D.C., tops the list at 31 percent. At 25 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth claims the No. 3 spot.

CBRE based the AI ranking on data from the LinkedIn networking platform.

The company’s researchers tallied 11,709 AI-related tech jobs in Houston. Nationwide, data scientists lead AI-related job growth in the U.S., according to the report.

“AI software and hardware developers are currently the most sought-after tech talent by employers,” the report says.

Houston faces AI talent gap

DoubleTrack, a provider of AI and data consulting, reported in June that Houston faces an AI talent gap.

“The places where businesses say they will adopt AI over the next six months, well ahead of where they are today, are mostly the same places already short on talent: Miami, Houston, and Denver among the metros, South Dakota and South Carolina among the states,” DoubleTrack said.

This labor shortage comes amid Houston’s ascent as an AI hub. For instance, a factory being built here by AI chipmaker NVIDIA and electronics manufacturer Foxconn will produce AI supercomputers and infrastructure systems.

Houston’s place in the sphere of tech talent

Overall, Houston ranks No. 32 in the CBRE report among the top 50 U.S. and Canadian markets for tech talent. The San Francisco Bay Area claims the top spot, with Austin at No. 5 and DFW at No. 8.

CBRE relied on 13 metrics to rank tech talent markets, including concentration of tech talent, tech talent pipeline, and research-and-development investments.

Here are other Houston details from the report:

In 2025, Houston’s tech talent workforce numbered 104,080, up 7.3 percent over the past three years.
Houston’s average wage for tech talent within the tech industry was $120,216 in 2025, up 13.3 percent over the past three years.

New pilot program for air taxis, Project Nexus, takes flight in Texas

Project Nexus

By 2029, Texas skies could be buzzing with air taxis, much like they are with drones today.

To kick off the "Project Nexus" pilot program in Texas, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and Texas Department of Transportation officials attended an event September 10 at Fort Worth Alliance Airport, which serves as the launchpad for a statewide pilot program that could result in air taxis, self-piloted planes, and vertical take-off-and-landing aircraft permanently buzzing across the skies of Texas.

It was the first demonstration in Texas of next-generation aircraft under the pilot program; Texas is the sixth state to participate in the program.

Air taxi service on the radar
The federal government has teamed up with aviation companies BETA Technologies and Joby Aviation, as well as the Texas Department of Transportation, to develop regional air taxi service in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and eventually Houston.

Roger Venables, Fort Worth’s aviation director, said in January that he foresees regular air taxi service becoming a reality in the next five years.

On September 12, a Joby-made electric air taxi took a roundtrip flight between Fort Worth Alliance and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to test flight operations.

The mission was part of a five-day test involving Fort Worth Alliance and DFW Airport flights, and flights over the Fort Worth Stockyards, Toyota Motor North America’s Plano headquarters, and other sites.

A new facility at Fort Worth Alliance will be Joby’s long-term home for regional flight operations.

Building a 'framework' for electric aircraft
TxDOT said Project Nexus is aimed at creating “a scalable system” to connect urban areas, rural communities, and neighboring states as air mobility technology advances.

In a TxDOT release, Marc Williams, the agency’s executive director, said the pilot program will “build a framework for how electric aircraft could one day connect people, goods, and communities across the state.”

Three-phase project will test flight capabilities

Initial flights in the third-year pilot program won’t carry passengers, according to TxDOT. Instead, the flights will gather data, validate air travel routes, and help improve the safety of air mobility technology.

The first phase of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Project Nexus will feature piloted aircraft such as helicopters and fixed-wing planes. CultureMap previously reported Plano-based VertiPorts by Atlantic, which develops takeoff and landing sites for airplane-helicopter hybrids, would be part of Project Nexus.

The second phase will involve testing airborne medical and cargo logistics. This includes transporting critical medical supplies or donor organs between rural and urban hospitals in the Austin and San Antonio areas.

In the third and final phase, passengers will fly aboard air taxis across the Texas Triangle. Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio anchor the triangle.

“In Texas, we don’t wait for the future to arrive, we build it,” Cruz said in the TxDOT release. “The Lone Star State is pushing the boundaries by testing the next generation of aircraft through Project Nexus.”

“These technologies will connect communities, expand access to jobs and services, and strengthen supply chains,” the senator added. “What starts in Texas will help shape the future of aviation throughout the entire country.”

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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