Overheard: Innovators sound off on future of work, converging industries at Houston House at SXSW 2024

Eavesdropping in Austin

Houston House at SXSW 2024 featured conversations about startup scaling, tips from CEOs, and more. Photo via Allie Danziger/LinkedIn

Houston innovators talked big topics at SXSW 2024 — from the startup scaling and converging industries to the future of work.

Houston House, which was put on by the Greater Houston Partnership on March 11, hosted four panels full of experts from Houston. If you missed the day-long activation, here are some highlights from the experts who each commented on the future of the Bayou City when it comes to startups, technology, innovation, and the next generation's workforce.

"When we think about Houston, we think about access to at-scale infrastructure, amenities, and workforce and talent pools."

— Remington Tonar, co-founder and chief growth officer at Cart.com, says about why the company chose to return its headquarters back to Houston last year. One of these amenities, Tonar explained, is Houston's global airports.

"If New York and Austin had a baby, it would be Houston, because you have friendly people with a big-city culture."

— Mitra Miller, vice president and board member of Houston Angel Network, says, adding that Houston has a cost efficiency to it, which should be at the forefront of founders' minds when considering where to locate.

"We are not only attracting global talents, we are also attracting global wealth and foreign investments because we are the rising city of the future. We are the global launch pad where you can scale internationally very quickly."

— Sunny Zhang, founder of TrueLeap, says adding how there's a redistribution of global workforce happening when you consider ongoing global affairs.

"We overwhelmingly as a company, and my co-founder would agree, knew we had to go the Houston path. And we started funneling a lot more resources here."

— Carolyn Rodz, co-founder and CEO of Hello Alice, says, explaining that the pandemic helped equalize the talent across the country, and this has been to the benefit of cities like Houston.

"Houston is here with arms open, welcoming people and actively recruiting."

— Sean Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Amperon, says, emphasizing how Texas has made moves to being business friendly. Amperon was founded in New York, before moving to Houston a couple years ago.

"There is a revolution starting to happen in Houston right now."

— Trevor Best, co-founder and CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, says, first commenting on the momentum from Rice University, where his company's technology originates from. But, as he adds, when you compare the ecosystem when the startup was founded in 2019 to where it's at now, "there is so much more happening."

"Houston has a critical mass in terms of aerospace."

— Stephanie Munez Murphy of Aegus Aerospace says, saying specifically that NASA's Johnson Space Center holds some responsibility for that. "JSC is the home of opening up space commercialization."

"There's diversity in industries people are coming from, but also in terms of experience and expertise that (Houstonians) have."

— Robyn Cardwell of Omniscience says, adding that Houston's diversity goes further than just where people originate from. "Houston has all these pieces put together ... for growing and scaling organizations," she adds.

"I've worked with thousands of students in Houston who are actively looking to better themselves and grow their career post college or post high school and go into the workforce."

— Allie Danziger of Ascent Funding says, adding that Gen Z, which is already entering the workforce, is entrepreneurial and ready to change the world. "Seeing the energy of Houstonians is just thrilling," she adds.

"We're working together in the Houston community. ... There are so many opportunities to collaborate but we need conveners." 

— Stacy Putman of INEOS says, adding that within industry there has been a lack of discussion and collaboration because of competition. But, as she's observing, that's changing thanks to conveners at colleges or at the Greater Houston Partnership.

"The opportunity for Houston is that everybody has to step up to be in some way, shape, or form helping us with this."

— Raj Salhotra of Momentum Education says about supporting the future workforce of Houston, including low-income household students.

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Cart.com's Houston-based execs will stay based in the Bayou City. Photo via cart.com

Growing Houston startup moves HQ to Austin

relocating

Houston has lost the headquarters of Cart.com, an e-commerce startup that launched last year and already is poised to go public, to Austin.

The company announced December 9 that it relocated its headquarters to downtown Austin, where it already employs 150 people and plans to hire at least another 150 people within the next 12 months. Cart.com supplies an array of software and services for more than 2,000 online merchants.

Moving the headquarters out of Houston represents something of a change in mindset. During an October interview with InnovationMap’s Houston Innovators Podcast, chief of staff at Cart.com, Remington Tonar, affirmed the startup’s dedication to Houston.

“While many of our founding execs will remain in Houston,” Tonar wrote December 9 on LinkedIn, “our Austin office has become a magnet for top talent and is already home to hundreds of Cart.com employees.”

Aside from Houston and Austin, Cart.com has offices in Dallas, Beaumont, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It plans to open locations next month in the Netherlands and Poland.

Over the past 12 months, Cart.com has raised $143 million in venture capital, purchased nine companies, opened nine fulfillment centers, and built a workforce of close to 400 people. The company plans to grow its total headcount to about 1,000 by the first quarter of 2022.

“With more and more Silicon Valley tech companies relocating to Texas, and Elon Musk moving Tesla’s HQ to Austin, the ‘Silicon Hills’ area is increasingly seen as the country’s most exciting and fertile space for high-tech innovation,” Cart.com says in a news release.

The move coincides with Cart.com being named Startup of the Year by Capital Factory, an Austin-based startup accelerator that has offices in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Capital Factory is an investor in Cart.com.

By relocating to Austin, Cart.com says it can benefit from being in the same business ecosystem as Austin-based companies like Whole Foods, YETI, Kendra Scott, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Bumble, and Tecovas.

“We’ll forever call Houston our home, but I’m beyond excited to be opening Cart.com’s corporate headquarters in Austin — not only the country’s top tech town, but also the home to so many of the iconic brands we love,” said Omair Tariq, co-founder and CEO of Cart.com. “Today, the world’s best and brightest engineers, coders, creatives, and tech leaders are flocking to Texas — and Cart.com is part of the reason why. There’s no better place than Austin for a brand-obsessed company like Cart.com to plant its flag as we reimagine e-commerce and drive growth for today’s top merchants.”

For Cart.com, which was founded in September 2020, this has been a whirlwind year. For example:

  • In November, the company hired Frank Parker as chief financial officer. Parker will lead Cart.com’s effort to launch an IPO in the next two years. He had been executive vice president of finance at New Jersey-based Managed Health Care Associates, a provider of health care services and technology.
  • In September, the company tapped sales veteran Randy Ray as chief revenue officer. He was senior vice president of High Jump, a provider of supply chain management software.
  • In August, Cart.com raised $98 million in a Series B round.
  • In May, the company brought aboard Michael Svatek as the company’s first chief product officer. He previously was chief product and strategy officer at Austin-based Bazaarvoice, a provider of social data about shopping behavior.
  • In April, it wrapped up a Series A round of $25 million, preceded by a seed round of $20 million.

Before co-founding Cart.com, Tariq spent about 10 years as an executive — including chief financial officer — at Houston-based Blinds.com, a retailer of window coverings. The Home Depot acquired Blinds.com in 2014. Tariq has been a mentor at Capital Factory since 2019 and an adviser at the Station Houston tech hub since 2018.

“We started Cart.com to put e-commerce brands in charge of their operations,” Tariq said in November, “and to give founders control over every aspect of their business.”
Here's the latest news from Cart.com. Photo via cart.com

Houston e-commerce startup makes C-suite appointment and acquisition

growth mode

In the past week, Houston-based Cart.com has made some big moves on its tech startup journey — including another strategic acquisition and new hire.

The end-to-end e-commerce-as-a-service provider, which recently raised a $98 million series B round of funding, announced Tony Puccetti as the company's new chief delivery officer following the acquisition of 180Commerce, a leading online sales partner.

Puccetti, who joins Cart.com from digital consultancy Blue Acorn, will manage all client deliverables for the company. Puccetti also previously served as general manager and senior vice president over e-commerce, strategym sales, and more at Onestop Internet.

"I've spent my career championing fast-growing brands in the retail space, so I recognized instantly that Cart.com's ability to deliver seamless end-to-end e-commerce support and services was a true gamechanger," Puccetti says in a news release. "I'm thrilled to be joining the team, and I'm looking forward to helping deliver the services and technologies that brands need to grow their business and realize their full potential in today's omnichannel world.

Cart.com hired Tony Puccetti as the company's new chief delivery officer. Photo via LinkedIn

Omair Tariq, Cart.com CEO, says Puccetti has the talent and experience the company's clients need.

"Cart.com has built a reputation for making big, bold promises — then delivering on them, and exceeding our customers' expectations as they scale their e-commerce brands," continues Tariq in the release. "We're delighted to be welcoming Tony to the Cart.com family, and we're looking forward to working with him to transform the tech-enabled commerce space for merchants of all sizes."

The news of Puccetti's appointment follows news of California-based 180Commerce's acquisition by Cart.com. The company was founded in 2016 following DSW's acquisition of Shoe Metro, the largest Amazon footwear reseller. According to the news release, leaders from Shoe Metro formed 180Commerce "to bring their expertise directly to brands through a tech-enabled agency service model." The company provides its clients with data-driven and tech-enabled retail strategies, tools, and resources.

"The 180Commerce value proposition has always focused on helping consumer brands grow long-term revenue and profitability by optimizing and streamlining their marketplace strategies. By joining with Cart.com, we're bringing that vision to a far wider audience while continuing to expand our offering to the brands we serve with the powerhouse of offerings Cart.com provides," says Jason Stuempfig, founder of 180Commerce. "We share Cart.com's vision for a no-hassle, fully integrated e-commerce ecosystem, and I'm delighted to be starting this new chapter in the 180Commerce story."

The acquisition means a merging of clients, services, and staff between the two companies. 180Commerce's full team will be onboarded to Cart.com under Stuempfig's leadership.

"We're thrilled to welcome the 180Commerce team into the Cart.com family as we continue to expand our offering of commerce everywhere," Tariq says in the release. "Jason turned 180Commerce into a success story by being relentlessly focused on delivering results for brands, while creating a powerful company culture in which everyone is valued. That's exactly the combination we look for at Cart.com — especially when it's paired with a commitment to using data and technology to streamline and optimize e-commerce and marketplace functions for fast-growing brands in every corner of the world."

This acquisition is the latest in a series for Cart.com. Previously, the company has acquired AmeriCommerce, Spacecraft Brands, DuMont Project, and Sauceda Industries.

"Acquisitions are central to Cart.com's growth strategy, and with the addition of 180Commerce we're underscoring our commitment to expanding into new areas and building out best-in-class capabilities across the full spectrum of e-commerce sales channels such as marketplaces," says Saheb Sabharwal, chief strategy officer at Cart.com, who leads all M&A activity, in the release. "We're looking forward to working with Jason and the 180Commerce team to drive new value for Cart.com's thousands of loyal users. We have a great process in place to integrate new companies into the Cart.com ecosystem, and we're actively seeking additional M&A opportunities as we augment our solutions for brands."

Remington Tonar, chief commercial officer and co-founder at Cart.com, also recently told InnovationMap of the company's plans on a recent episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. Heading into the holidays, where potential new clients will be focusing on delivering on orders and sales, Tonar says Cart.com is expecting a busy 2022 in terms of growth. In a lot of ways, the COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the development of e-commerce and, by extension, Cart.com.

"The pandemic has played a role in overall accelerating the growth of e-commerce as a category and an industry. That growth was going to happen anyways, but it made it more ubiquitous faster," Tonar says. "It's just commerce now. This is just how people purchase and consume things."

Stream the full podcast below.

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Remington Tonar of Cart.com, Joey Sanchez of The Ion, and P.J. Popovic of Rhythm. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from e-commerce to energy — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Remington Tonar, chief commercial officer of Cart.com

With $150M in VC raise, this Houston company is re-envisioning the future of e-commerce operationsRemington Tonar of Cart.com joins the Houston Innovators Podcast this week. Photo via Cart.com

In a world where Amazon dominated the e-commerce world, Cart.com is offering merchants but an alternative and a supplemental tool.

As Remington Tonar, chief commercial officer of Cart.com, explains on the most recent episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, Cart.com connects the dots for e-commerce companies, and, in fact, works alongside Amazon, too. While Cart.com clients can use the suite of software services to create their own shop, ship out of Cart.com's distribution centers, etc., they can also list their products on Amazon too.

"I like to view Amazon as co-op-etition. We can coexist with Amazon," Tonar says on the show. "We're not antithetical to Amazon. We're not mutually exclusive. We can work with folks who are selling on Amazon to build their direct-to-consumer business, and we are doing that today." Click here to read more and stream the episode.

Joey Sanchez, senior director of ecosystems at The Ion

Joey Sanchez is now the senior director of ecosystems at The Ion. Photo via HX.com

Joey Sanchez, who's worked in corporate partnerships for Houston Exponential for a few years, has hopped over and into a new role at The Ion.

In his new role, he will work with the Houston early-stage investing and startup community, including founders, early-stage startups, scaled startups, early-stage angel investors, venture capital investors, and corporate partners, to grow the Ion's presence in Houston.

"Houston and Texas are seeing unprecedented growth in tech and innovation. I am excited for the opportunity to continue building and supporting the Houston innovation ecosystem," says Sanchez the release. "An ecosystem needs harmony among all aspects involved, and I have always enjoyed connecting people. The overarching goal remains to build a vibrant ecosystem that supports a high frequency of connections between critical stakeholders to realize outsized success." Click here to read more.

​P.J. Popovic, CEO of Houston-based Rhythm

P.J. Popovic, CEO of Houston-based Rhythm, explains Renewable Energy Certificates work and their impact on Texas. Photo courtesy of Rhythm

What are RECs and what difference do they make? P.J. Popovic, CEO of Houston-based Rhythm, shares his expertise on Renewable Energy Certificates in a guest column for InnovationMap.

"Through PPAs, various risks, credit needs, and long-term commitments create challenges for many organizations to meet their sustainability goals. So, while RECs do not provide as material of a market signal as PPAs, with the recent changes in market prices, RECs can now be considered a meaningful, profitable market signal for renewable projects." Click here to read the article.

Remington Tonar of Cart.com joins the Houston Innovators Podcast this week. Photo via Cart.com

With $150M in VC raised, this Houston company is re-envisioning the future of e-commerce operations

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 106

If you're operating a business that sells a product online, you have several options for software to support your efforts and needs as a merchant. However, as one group of Houston entrepreneurs realized, there wasn't a streamlined, one-stop-shop for e-commerce software. That is until Cart.com launched just over a year ago.

And it's been a busy year. The startup is led by CEO Omair Tariq, Chief Commercial Officer Remington Tonar, who previously served in a few leadership roles at The Cannon, and a several other co-founders and C-level execs. Following strategic growth and several acquisitions, the Houston e-commerce software provider now employs over 300 people and has raised around $150 million in venture capital. The suite of software services includes everything a company needs — from managing a storefront to collecting important data and metrics.

"Our platform is really geared toward ambitious companies that have their foot in the door, have sales, and have product-market fit, and now need to level up," says Tonar on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "E-commerce as an industry is highly fragmented — you have so many players, but they don't play well together. Through our end-to-end offering, we are bringing all these things together."

Described as a competitor to Amazon, Cart.com connects the dots for e-commerce companies, and, in fact, works alongside Amazon, too. While Cart.com clients can use the suite of software services to create their own shop, ship out of Cart.com's distribution centers, etc., they can also list their products on Amazon too.

"I like to view Amazon as co-op-etition. We can coexist with Amazon," Tonar says. "We're not antithetical to Amazon. We're not mutually exclusive. We can work with folks who are selling on Amazon to build their direct-to-consumer business, and we are doing that today."

And business are indeed looking for that help, Tonar says on the show. He describes the marketplace as a bit of a monopoly between Amazon, Walmart, and some other players that are essentially squeezing out small or even mid-market companies that can't compete with these larger companies. Walmart and Amazon have the scale necessary to control the end-to-end marketplace, and very few companies have that, Tonar explains.

"Now Cart.com has done the hard work and spent the money to go out and aggregate all of these capabilities. The difference is, we aren't hoarding them. We're offering them as services," he says.

Heading into the holidays, where potential new clients will be focusing on delivering on orders and sales, Cart.com is expecting a busy 2022 in terms of growth. In a lot of ways, the COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the development of e-commerce and, by extension, Cart.com.

"The pandemic has played a role in overall accelerating the growth of ecommerce as a category and an industry. That growth was going to happen anyways, but it made it more ubiquitous faster," Tonar says. "It's just commerce now. This is just how people purchase and consume things."

Tonar discusses what else you can expect to see from Cart.com in terms of growth, more fundraising, and more. He also shares how he's observed the Houston innovation ecosystem grow over his years in the business. Listen to the full interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


The Cannon Tower in downtown Houston now houses a new innovation hub that is geared at promoting resiliency. Image courtesy of The Cannon

New innovation hub focused on resilience rises in downtown Houston

new to hou

It's hurricane season in Houston, and, after months of reacting to a pandemic, resiliency and storm preparedness on the top of the businesses and local government's minds.

Insurance Information Institute and ResilientH20 Partners have teamed up with The Cannon to create the Gulf Coast & Southwest Resilience Innovation Hub, which is now open in downtown Houston's Cannon Tower (1801 Main Street, Suite 1300).

"The Cannon Tower will provide a seamless onboarding for the Resilience Innovation Hub's activities. Houston is already home to networks which focus on issues like sustainability, green infrastructure, and smart cities," says Remington Tonar, chief revenue officer of The Cannon Accelerator and Fund in a news release.

The hub will act as a space for private and public sector entities — from academic partners and tech companies to investors and government agencies — to work together on pre-disaster mitigation innovations.

"As households and businesses learn from past natural disasters, especially those which struck the U.S.'s Gulf Coast, the Resilience Innovation Hub can accelerate the deployment of products, services, and projects aimed at reducing disaster-caused losses in consultation with insurance carriers and brokers," says Michel Léonard, vice president and senior economist for the Insurance Information Institute.

The Cannon Tower also serves as the headquarters for ResilientH20 Partners, and the space will eventually house in-person events for resilience-focused programming and events. On July 16 at 8:30 a.m., the hub will host its inaugural "Lightning Round" session for technology companies and investors.

"There has been a widespread interest in, and demand for, best-in-class actionable, alternative disaster mitigation solutions since 2017's Hurricane Harvey and subsequent storms caused extensive insured losses to autos, homes, businesses, and governmental properties," says Richard Seline, managing partner of ResilientH2O Partners, in a news release.

According to the release, nine of the 10 most expensive hurricanes in the United States have occurred in the past 16 years.

"Society saves six dollars for every dollar spent through mitigation grants funded through federal agencies and even more progress can be made on this front through further investment in pre-disaster risk mitigation," Seline continues.

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Texas cybersecurity co. expands unique train-to-hire model to Houston

job search

It’s increasingly more difficult to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of proprietary data and information in the ever-changing, ever-evolving digital world.

Cyberattacks, including malware, phishing, and ransomware, are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated, posing a consistent threat to a company’s sustainability and bottom line.

To combat that trend, Nukudo, a San Antonio-based cybersecurity workforce development company, is expanding its initiative to bridge the global cybersecurity talent gap through immersive training and job placement to Houston.

“We saw that there was a need in the market because there's a shortage of skilled manpower within the cybersecurity industry and other digital domains,” says Dean Gefen, CEO of NukuDo. “So, our initial goal was to take a large pool of people and then make them to be fully operational in cybersecurity in the shortest amount of time.”

The company refers to the plan as the “training-to-employment model,” which focuses on providing structured training to select individuals who then acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to secure and maintain fruitful careers.

The company identifies potential associates through its proprietary aptitude test, which recognizes individuals who possess the innate technical acumen and potential for success in various cybersecurity roles, regardless of their level of education.

“We take in people from all walks of life, meaning the program is purely based on the associate’s potential,” Gefen says. “We have people who were previously aircraft engineers, teachers, graphic designers, lawyers, insurance agents and so forth.”

Once selected, associates are trained by cybersecurity experts while gaining hands-on experience through scenario-based learning, enabling them to be deployed immediately as fully operational cybersecurity professionals.

The program training lasts just six months—all paid—followed by three years of guaranteed employment with NukuDo.

While in training, associates are paid $ 4,000 per month; then, they’re compensated by nearly double that amount over the next three years, ultimately pushing their salaries to well into the six figures after completing the entire commitment.

In addition to fostering a diverse talent pipeline in the cybersecurity field, NukuDo is creating a comprehensive solution to address the growing shortage of technical talent in the global workforce.

And arming people with new marketable skills has a litany of benefits, both professional and personal, Gefen says.

“Sometimes, we have associates who go on to make five times their previous salary,” says Gefen. “Add to that fact that we had someone that had a very difficult life beforehand and we were able to put him on a different path. That really hits home for us that we are making a difference.

Nulkudo currently has partnerships with companies such as Accenture Singapore and Singapore Airlines. Gefen says he and his team plans to have a new class of associates begin training every month by next year and take the model to the Texas Triangle (Houston, Austin and Dallas)—then possibly nationwide.

“The great thing about our program is that we train people above the level of possible threat of replacement by artificial intelligence,” Gefen says. “But what we are also doing, and this is due to requirements that we have received from clients that are already hiring our cyber professionals, is that we are now starting to deliver AI engineers and data scientists in other domains.”

“That means that we have added more programs to our cybersecurity program. So, we're also training people in data science and machine learning,” he continues.

All interested candidates for the program should be aware that a college degree is not required. NukuDo is genuinely interested in talented individuals, regardless of their background.

“The minimum that we are asking for is high school graduates,” Gefen says. “They don't need to have a college degree; they just need to have aptitude. And, of course, they need to be hungry to make this change.”

2 Houston universities declared among world’s best in 2026 rankings

Declaring the Best

Two Houston universities are in a class of their own, earning top spots on a new global ranking of the world's best universities.

Rice University and University of Houston are among the top 1,200 schools included in the QS World University Rankings 2026. Ten more schools across Texas make the list.

QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), a London-based provider of higher education data and analytics, compiles the prestigious list each year; the 2026 edition includes more than 1,500 universities from around the world. Factors used to rank the schools include academic reputation; employer reputation; faculty-student ratio; faculty research; and international research, students, and faculty.

In Texas, University of Texas at Austin lands at No. 1 in the state, No. 20 in the U.S., and No. 68 globally.

Houston's Rice University is close behind as Texas' No. 2 school. It ranks 29th in the U.S. and No. 119 in the world. Unlike UT, which fell two spots globally this year (from No. 66 to 68), Rice climbed up the charts, moving from 141st last year to No. 119.

University of Houston impresses as Texas' 4th highest-ranked school. It lands at No. 80 in the U.S. and No. 556 globally, also climbing about 100 spots up the chart.

Rice and UH are on a roll in regional, national, and international rankings this year.

Rice earned top-15 national rankings by both Niche.com and Forbes last fall. Rice claimed No. 1 and UH ranked No. 8 in Texas in U.S. News & World Report's 2025 rankings. Rice also topped WalletHub's 2025 list of the best colleges and universities in Texas for 2025.

More recently, in April, both UH and Rice made U.S. News' 2025 list of top grad schools.

In all, 192 U.S. universities made the 2026 QS World University Rankings — the most of any country. Topping the global list is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“The results show that while U.S. higher education remains the global leader, its dominance is increasingly challenged by fast-rising emerging systems,” says the QS World University Rankings report. “A decade ago, 32 American universities [were] featured in the world’s top 100; today, that number has dropped to 26, and only 11 of these institutions have improved their position this year."

The 12 Texas universities that appear in the QS World University Rankings 2026 list are:

  • University of Texas at Austin, No. 20 in the U.S. and No. 68 in the world (down from No. 66 last year).
  • Rice University, No. 29 in the U.S. and No. 119 in the world (up from No. 141 last year).
  • Texas A&M University, No. 32 in the U.S. and No. 144 in the world (up from No. 154 last year).
  • University of Houston, No. 80 in the U.S. and No. 556 in the world (up from 651-660 last year).
  • University of Texas at Dallas, No. 85 in the U.S. and No. 597 in the world (down from 596 last year).
  • Texas Tech University, No. 104 in the U.S. and No. 731-740 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of North Texas, No. 123 in the U.S. and No. 901-950 in the world (up from 1,001-1,200 last year)
  • Baylor University, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at No. 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • Southern Methodist University, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas Arlington, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas at San Antonio, tied for No. 136 in the U.S. and at 1,001-1,200 in the world (unchanged from last year).
  • University of Texas at El Paso, No. 172 in the U.S. and at 1,201-1,400 in the world (down from 1,001-1,200 last year).
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston students develop new device to prepare astronauts for outer space

space race

Rice University students from the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing designed a space exercise harness that is comfortable, responsive, and adaptable and has the potential to assist with complex and demanding spacewalks.

A group of students—Emily Yao, Nikhil Ashri, Jose Noriega, Ben Bridges and graduate student Jack Kalicak—mentored by assistant professor of mechanical engineering Vanessa Sanchez, modernized harnesses that astronauts use to perform rigorous exercises. The harnesses are particularly important in preparing astronauts for a reduced-gravity space environment, where human muscles and bones atrophy faster than they do on Earth. However, traditional versions of the harnesses had many limitations that included chafing and bruising.

The new harnesses include sensors for astronauts to customize their workouts by using real-time data and feedback. An additional two sensors measure astronauts’ comfort and exercise performance based on temperature and humidity changes during exercise and load distribution at common pressure points.

“Our student-led team addressed this issue by adding pneumatic padding that offers a customized fit, distributes pressure over a large surface area to reduce discomfort or injuries and also seamlessly adapts to load shifts — all of which together improved astronauts’ performance,” Sanchez said in a news release. “It was very fulfilling to watch these young engineers work together to find innovative and tangible solutions to real-world problems … This innovative adjustable exercise harness transforms how astronauts exercise in space and will significantly improve their health and safety during spaceflights.”

The project was developed in response to a challenge posted by the HumanWorks Lab and Life Science Labs at NASA and NASA Johnson Space Center for the 2025 Technology Collaboration Center’s (TCC) Wearables Workshop and University Challenge, where teams worked to solve problems for industry leaders.

Rice’s adaptive harness won the Best Challenge Response Award. It was funded by the National Science Foundation and Rice’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry.

“This challenge gave us the freedom to innovate and explore possibilities beyond the current harness technology,” Yao added in the release. “I’m especially proud of how our team worked together to build a working prototype that not only has real-world impact but also provides a foundation that NASA and space companies can build and iterate upon.”

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