Texas has seen year-over-year improvement on an annual list that ranks states based on their innovation economies. Photo via Getty Images

The Lone Star State has again taken a step up on an annual report that ranks the most and least innovative states in the country — this time cracking the top 15.

Texas ranked No. 15 in personal finance site WalletHub's 2023’s Most and Least Innovative States ranking. It's a steady improvement for the state, which ranked No. 16 in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 22 key metrics, including population of STEM professionals, venture capital investment activity, number of technology companies, patents per capita, and more. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

Here's how Texas performed at a glance:

  • No. 18 for share of STEM professionals
  • No. 16 for projected STEM job demand by 2030
  • No. 25 for eighth grade math and science performance
  • No. 21 – for share of science and engineering graduates aged 25 or older
  • No. 13 – for share of technology companies
  • No. 31 – for R&D spending per capita
  • No. 18 – venture capital funding per capita
For the 11th year, Texas won Site Selection Magazine's Governor's Cup, the governor's office announced earlier this year. The award, which Texas has won 19 times since its inception in 1978, recognizes the nation’s top-performing state for job-creating business relocations and expansions.

"Texas truly is America’s economic engine, and we stand apart as a model for the nation. When choosing where to relocate or expand their businesses, more and more innovative industry leaders find themselves at home in our state," Governor Greg Abbott says in a news release about the award.

"I congratulate the exceptional economic development teams at the local, regional, and state level who have worked so diligently to attract and retain these growing businesses and the jobs they create in diverse communities across this great state," he continues.

The most innovative states included the District of Columbia, which ranked at No. 1, followed by Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, and California, respectively. The least innovative state was identified as Mississippi, followed by Louisiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Arkansas, respectively.

Source: WalletHub

Access to quality education is a significant contributor to each state's innovation economy, the experts say in the report.

"Investing in education, particularly K-12 but also at the University level, it is no accident that innovative ecosystems develop in states with strong education systems and research universities," says David L. Deeds, professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. "These institutions build strong capable modern workforces that attract capital, and jobs and create innovations. The benefits do not happen overnight, in fact, they take years if not decades, but consider what The UC’s or the University of Texas at Austin have meant for the development of premier innovative ecosystems."

Here's what Houston-based online programs are ranked as best in the country. Photo by Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Houston university's online MBA program rises in the ranks of newly released report

A for improvement

Rice University's online MBA program has something to brag about. According to a new report, the program has risen through the ranks of other online MBA curriculums.

MBA@Rice, the online program at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice, has ranked higher in four categories in the latest edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Online Programs. The report evaluated schools based on data specifically related to their distance education MBA programs, and U.S. News has a separate ranking for non-MBA graduate business degrees in areas such as finance, marketing and management. The MBA list focused on engagement, peer assessment, faculty credentials and training, student excellence, and services and technologies.

“We use the same professors to deliver the same rigorous, high-touch MBA in our online MBA as we do in all our campus-based programs,” said Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez. “The strong national rankings recognize our success in reaching highly talented working professionals who don’t live near enough to our campus or for whom an online program is the best option.”

Rice's virtual MBA program ranked No. 12 (tied) in the 2023 list, which was up several spots from its 2022 ranking, which was No. 20. Additionally, Rice stood out in these other three categories:

  • Best Online MBA Programs for Veterans: tied for No. 10 (No. 14 last year).
  • Best Online Business Analytics MBA Programs: tied for No. 10 (tied for No. 12 last year).
  • Best Online General Management MBA Programs: tied for No. 7 (tied for No. 11 last year).

Rice recently announced a hybrid MBA program that combines online instruction with in-person engagement. The first cohort is slated to start this summer.

The MBA@Rice program is the top-ranked Texas-based program on the virtual MBA list. Several other programs from the Lone Star State make the list of 366 schools, including:

  • University of Texas at Dallas at No. 17
  • Texas Tech University at No. 33
  • Baylor University, University of North Texas, and West Texas A&M University tied for No, 65

U.S News & World Report ranked other online programs. Here's how Houston schools placed on the other lists:

  • The University of Houston tied for No. 10 in Best Online Master's in Education Programs and tied for No. 75 in Best Online Master's in Business Programs
  • Rice University, in addition to its MBA ranking, tied for No. 27 on the Online Master’s in Computer Information Technology Programs ranking after being tied for No. 49 last year
  • University of Houston-Downtown ranked No. 26 in Best Online Master's in Criminal Justice Programs and tied for No. 55 in Best Online Bachelor's Programs

The full list of best online higher education programs ranked by U.S. News & World Report is available online.

Houston is again ranked a top city for women in tech. Photo via Getty Images

Houston rises in the ranks among the top cities for women in tech

we're no. 3

Houston has again made it into the top cities for women in tech — beating out everywhere but Arlington, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Up four spots compared to last year, Houston comes in third place on SmartAsset's eighth annual list, which factors in four metrics: gender pay gap in the tech industry, income for women in tech after deducting housing costs, women as a percentage of tech workers, and three-year growth in tech employment. Aside from Houston, Texas's only other top 15 representation is Fort Worth, which ranks as No. 6.

The Bayou City ranks No.1 overall for the gender pay gap —women earned 98 percent of what men do in the tech workforce on average, the report finds. Female tech workers earn $65,662 after housing expenses are accounted for — ranking ninth-best. Between 2017 and 2020, total tech employment grew by 13 percent and in that workforce, 27.5 percent of workers are women.

The annual study found that while the tech industry is seeing steady growth and is projected to see another 178,000 tech jobs enter the market in 2022, the gender gap is also consistently disappointing. Women only make up 26.1 percent of all tech workers, per the report, and earn just 84 percent of what their male counterparts do.

The West Coast doesn't make a great impact on the list this year.

"Surprisingly, no California cities made the top 10," SmartAsset reports. "Overall, California cities fall behind for tech employment growth over the last three years and the gender pay gap. The highest ranked California city is Sacramento which ties for No. 11 with Nashville, Tennessee."

Houston ranked No. 6 on the same study in 2020 and No. 4 in 2019.

Houston fell almost 20 spots on this annual ranking of best places to live. Photo via Sean Pavone/Getty Images

Houston plummets in prestigious annual list of best places to live in the U.S.

ouch

While the Bayou City has just been named the No. 1 destination for movers this year, a new report sees Houston slip again as to the best place to live.

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual ranking of the best places to live in the U.S., and Houston has tumbled down to No. 58 overall. That's a considerable slip from last year, where the city ranked No. 39, and much farther than the rank in 2020.

"A paycheck goes further in Houston than it does in other major metro areas, with affordable housing and free or cheap attractions like biking along Buffalo Bayou and exploring the 7,800-acre George Bush Park," says the report. "The affordability of this region, which is located in southeastern Texas and home to nearly 7 million residents in the metro area, is attracting new people from across the country and around the world."

"In Houston, dining is a pastime," the report adds, "and the region pleases palates with more than 10,000 restaurants. Houston has everything from award-winning establishments to barbecue joints like Gatlin's BBQ. The metro area also offers a variety of international cuisine including Ethiopian and Indian."

At a state level, the Bayou City also once again ranks No. 3 in the reports Best Places to Live in Texas.

For this year’s ranking, U.S. News considered key factors for 150 metro areas such as job availability, housing affordability, quality of life, and desirability. This year, the publication added data about air quality for the first time.

Huntsville, Alabama, grabbed the No. 1 spot from last year’s top-ranked metro, Boulder, Colorado. Huntsville came in third place last year.

“Much of the shakeup we see at the top of this year’s ranking is a result of changing preferences,” Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News, says in a news release. “People moving across the country today are putting more emphasis on affordability and quality of life than on the job market, which in many ways takes a back seat as remote work options have become more standard.”

Elsewhere in the U.S. News rankings:

  • Dallas-Fort Worth landed at No. 32, up from No. 37 last year.
  • San Antonio landed at No. 83, down from No. 75 last year.
  • Killeen landed at No. 108, up from No. 114 last year.
  • Beaumont landed at No. 109, up from No. 124 last year.
  • El Paso landed at No. 124, up from No. 131 last year.
  • Corpus Christi landed at No. 133, down from No. 129 last year.
  • Brownsville landed at No. 134, up from No. 140 last year.
  • McAllen landed at No. 138, up from No. 139 last year.
------

This article originally ran on CultureMap.

It's hot in Houston — and according to a new report, there are only three other U.S. cities that are hotter than H-Town. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Report: Houston ranks among the top 5 hottest metros in the nation

hot as hades

A new report takes the temperature of urban heat islands across the U.S., and Houston lands in the hotter-than-you-know-what category.

The report, released July 14 by the nonprofit news organization Climate Central, ranks Houston the fourth worst place among the country's urban heat islands. Houston sits behind New Orleans, holding down the No. 1 spot, with Newark, New Jersey, at No. 2 and New York City at No. 3.

"Even for a Houstonian, it's easy to think first of flooding or hurricanes when it comes to regional climate impacts, but increases in daytime and nighttime temperatures at the rate we've seen since the 1970s can do as much — if not more — damage," the Nature Conservancy of Texas notes in a July 2020 news release.

Climate Central emphasizes that extreme urban heat is a public health threat. Texas, Arizona, and California accounted for 37 percent of the country's heat-related deaths between 2004 and 2018, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released in 2020.

According to the Climate Central report, Houston scored so high because of the city's sizeable share of impermeable surfaces, such as asphalt, concrete, stone, and brick. Impermeable surfaces absorb heat and prevent water from penetrating them.

Climate Central describes urban heat islands as big urban locations that are hotter that outlying areas, especially during the summer. Neighborhoods in a highly developed city can experience peak temperatures that are 15 to 20 degrees above nearby places that have more trees and less pavement, the group says.

The nonprofit created an index to evaluate the intensity of urban heat islands and applied it to 159 cities across the U.S., with Houston claiming the No. 4 spot.

"Heat islands are heavily influenced by albedo, which measures whether a surface reflects sunlight or absorbs and retains the sun's heat," Climate Central says. "Other factors include the amount of impermeable surface, lack of greenery and trees, building height, and heat created by human activities."

Results of a one-day study carried out last August support Climate Central's conclusion about Houston.

The study mapped out heat islands across 320 square miles of Houston and Harris County. More than 80 community scientists fanned out to sample temperatures during three one-hour periods last August 7.

The hottest point measured during the heat-mapping day was 103.3 degrees just southwest of the Galleria on Richmond Avenue near Chimney Rock Road. At the same time, volunteers recorded a temperature of 86.2 degrees about 20 miles to the east on Woodforest Boulevard in Channelview. The result: a 17.1-degree temperature swing between Houston and Harris County's hottest and coolest areas at the same point in time.

The Houston Harris Heat Action Team — a collaboration among the Houston Advanced Research Center, the City of Houston, Harris County Public Health, and the Nature Conservancy of Texas — sponsored the heat-mapping exercise with financial support from Lowe's and Shell.

"The data has identified Houston's 'hot spots' and shows that some Houstonians are impacted by urban heat island effect more than others," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a January news release about the heat-mapping study. "We will work with partners to target our cooling and health strategies … to better help Houstonians beat the heat."

The heat-mapping event was conducted in conjunction with Resilient Houston, the city's campaign to make Houston neighborhoods greener and cooler. The City of Houston says data from the heat-mapping study will help with evaluation of health risks related to extreme heat, coordination of tree plantings, installation of shade-producing structures, establishment of cooling centers, and targeted design of parks, streets, housing, and other infrastructure.

"Science shows that there is real potential to reshape our built environment and cool our cities down where it's needed most," says Suzanne Scott, director of the Nature Conservancy of Texas. "And now, armed with this data, local planners, developers, and environmental groups like ours will be able to leverage smart, cooling urban design strategies that offer multiple benefits — including climate resilience — for all residents, both human and wildlife."

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Rice University announces leader of new materials and nanotechnology institute

at the helm

A recently established institute at Rice University has revealed its new leader.

The Rice Advanced Materials Institute has named Lane Martin as director. Martin will also serve as Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering in the George R. Brown School of Engineering. He begins both roles on July 1.

“Lane is everything we expect our faculty to be — hard-working, committed to excellence, dedicated to students and collaborative across disciplines,” says Howard R. Hughes Provost Amy Dittmar in a news release. “I look forward to seeing Rice faculty and students reap the benefits of his leadership.”

Prior to his appointment at Rice, Martin was the chancellor’s professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He also served as chair of the materials science and engineering department, faculty scientist in the material sciences division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and co-director of the Collaborative for Hierarchical Agile and Responsive Materials, according to the release.

“I had the privilege of mentoring Lane when he was a doctoral student at Berkeley,” says Ramamoorthy Ramesh, vice president for research, professor of materials science and nanoengineering and professor of physics and astronomy. “He is a gifted scientist with the boldness and vision to build this new institute into a research powerhouse.”

The new institute was created following a $100 million gift from Houston-based Welch Foundation. It will bring together chemistry, materials science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to revolutionize the future of industry.

“This institute will keep Rice at the forefront of high-impact research related to energy transition, advanced materials and future computing,” says Luay Nakhleh, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the school, in the release. “It will empower our faculty and students to help solve some of the most pressing problems of our day.”

Investor advocates now is the time to position Houston as a leading biomanufacturing hub

houston innovators podcast episode 178

Houston has all the ingredients to be a successful synthetic biology hub, says Veronica Wu. She believes so strongly in this that she relocated to Houston from Silicon Valley just over a year ago to start a venture capital firm dedicated to the field. Since then, she's doubled down on her passion for Houston leading in biotech — especially when it comes to one uniquely Houston opportunity: biomanufacturing.

While Houston's health care innovation scene is actively deploying synthetic biology applications, Wu points to Houston-based Solugen, a plant-based chemical producer, as an example of what Houston has to offer at-scale industrial biomanufacturing. Houston has the workforce and the physical space available for more of these types of biomanufacturing plants, which have a huge potential to move the needle on reducing carbon emissions.

"This is really fundamental technology that's going to change the paradigm and whole dialogue of how we are making a significant impact in reducing a carbon footprint and improving sustainability," says Wu, founder and managing partner of First Bight Ventures, on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

Several aspects — government funding, corporate interest, advances in technology — have converged to make it an ideal time for synthetic biology innovators and investors, Wu explains on the show, and she has an idea of what Houston needs to secure its spot as a leader in the space: The BioWell.

First introduced at a Houston Tech Rodeo event at the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Factory, The BioWell is a public-private partnership that aims to provide access to pilot and lab space, mentorship and programming, and more support that biomanufacturing innovators critically need.

"The way we envision The BioWell is it will provide a holistic, curated support for startups to be able to get across the Valley of Death," Wu says, explaining that startups transitioning from research and development into commercialization need extra support. The BioWell will provide that, as well as allow more engagement from corporations, investors, and other players.

Now that her plans for The BioWell have been announced, Wu is looking for those who want to be a part of it.

She shares more about her mission and what's next for First Bight Ventures on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

California-founded biotech startup relocates to join Houston's emerging bioeconomy

new to hou

Cameron Owen had an idea for a synthetic biology application, and he pitched it to a handful of postdoctoral programs. When he received the feedback that he didn't have enough research experience, he decided to launch a startup based in San Diego around his idea. He figured that he'd either get the experience he needed to re-apply, or he'd create a viable company.

After three years of research and development, Owen's path seems to have taken him down the latter of those two options, and he moved his viable company, rBIO, to Houston — a twist he didn't see coming.

“Houston was not on my radar until about a year and a half ago,” Owen says, explaining that he thought of Houston as a leading health care hub, but the coasts still had an edge when it came to what he was doing. “San Diego and the Boston area are the two big biotech and life science hubs.”

But when he visited the Bayou City in December of 2021, he says he saw first hand that something new was happening.

“Companies from California like us and the coastal areas were converging here in Houston and creating this new type of bioeconomy,” he tells InnovationMap.

Owen moved to Houston last year, but rBIO still has an academic partner in Washington University in St. Louis and a clinical research organization it's working with too, so he admits rBIO's local footprint is relatively small — but not for long.

"When we look to want to get into manufacturing, we definitely want to build something here in Houston," he says. "We’re just not to that point as a company."

In terms of the stage rBIO is in now, Owen says the company is coming out of R&D and into clinical studies. He says rBIO has plans to fundraise and is meeting with potential partners that will help his company scale and build out a facility.

With the help of its CRO partner, rBIO has two ongoing clinical projects — with a third coming next month. Owen says right now rBIO is targeting the pharmaceutical industry’s biologics sector — these are drugs our bodies make naturally, like insulin. About 12 percent of the population in the United States has diabetes, which translates to almost 40 million people. The demand for insulin is high, and rBIO has a way to create it — and at 30 percent less cost.

This is just the tip of the iceberg — the world of synthetic biology application is endless.

“Now that we can design and manipulate biology in ways we’ve never been able to before,” Owen says, "we’re really only limited by our own imagination.”

Synthetic biology is a field of science that involves programing biology to create and redesign natural elements. While it sounds like science fiction, Owen compares it to any other type of technology.

“Biology really is a type of software,” he says. “Phones and computers at their core run on 1s and 0s. In biology, it’s kind of the same thing, but instead of two letters, it’s four — A, C, T, and G.”

“The cool thing about biology is the software builds the hardware,” he continues. “You put that code in there and the biology builds in and of itself.”

Owen says the industry of synthetic biology has been rising in popularity for years, but the technology has only recently caught up.

“We’re exploring a brave new world — there’s no doubt about that,” Owen says.