3 Houston universities rise to the top in new list of best Texas schools for 2024

top schools

UH ranked No. 8 in Texas. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

Houston universities are ramping up high quality educational experiences for their students as three local universities earn top 10 ranks for the best Texas colleges in 2024, according to a new report by U.S. News and World Report.

Rice University claimed the top spot in Texas, and ranked No. 17 in the national ranking. Houston's "Ivy League of the South" had an undergraduate enrollment of nearly 4,500 students in fall 2022. In April, Rice's Jones School of Business ranked No. 2 in U.S. News' ranking of the best graduate programs in Texas.

According to Rice's profile, the university also prides itself as a top-tier research institution. In fact, Rice just opened a massive new research facility on campus.

A degree from Rice University in Houston was ranked most valuable in the state of Texas. Rice University

"From your first semester on campus, no matter your major, you'll have the opportunity to conduct research alongside experts," the school said. "You'll be able to apply your skills, gain valuable professional experience and interact with industry leaders as you address real-world issues."

The University of Houston ranked No. 8 in the Texas rankings, and No. 133 in the national report. With a total undergraduate enrollment of nearly 38,000 students in fall 2022, U.S. News says the university has a rich campus culture that encourages students to participate in different organizations and activities.

"Each year, students turn the campus into a town called Fiesta City in time for the Frontier Fiesta, a string of concerts, talent shows, cook-offs and more," U.S. News' overview said. "There are more than 400 student organizations to check out, including fraternities and sororities."

Completing the Texas top 10 is the University of St. Thomas, which ranked No. 216 nationally. The private Catholic university has the smallest fall 2022 undergraduate enrollment out of all three Houston universities: 2,729 students.

Elsewhere in Texas, nearby Texas A&M University in College Station earned the title for the third-best college in Texas, and No. 47 in the nation. That's big news for one of the fastest-growing college towns in the U.S.

U.S. News' top 10 best colleges in Texas in 2024 are:

  • No. 1 – Rice University, Houston
  • No. 2 – University of Texas at Austin
  • No. 3 – Texas A&M University, College Station
  • No. 4 – Southern Methodist University, Dallas
  • No. 5 – Baylor University, Waco
  • No. 6 – Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
  • No. 7 – The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
  • No. 8 – University of Houston
  • No. 9 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock
  • No. 10 – University of St. Thomas, Houston

The full rankings can be found on usnews.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Rice has been heralded again by Princeton Review. Photo courtesy of Rice University

Rice University named one of the greatest schools in U.S. in prestigious new report

RICE RISES AGAIN

Just mere weeks after being named the No. 7 university in the nation, a local hall of higher learning has just landed on yet another prestigious list.
Rice University has scored high marks in the Princeton Review's annual survey on the nation's best colleges. The new report as part of "The Best 387 Colleges," its 30th annual snapshot of academic excellence at colleges and universities.

The new report analyzes three decades of reviews on America's institutions of higher education and is based upon reviews submitted by more than 150,000 students nationwide, per a release. The survey lists the top-ranking schools measured in dozens of different categories.

For its 2022 anniversary edition, Princeton Review analyzed which colleges and universities have "the most impressive history of appearances" since 1992.

Notably, per a press release, only four institutions were named to 11 of what the review calls its "Great Lists" — and one of those schools is Rice.

To generate this report, Princeton Review analyzed three criteria: the number of times a college appeared on lists since 1992, its numerical rank on those lists, and the overall consistency of feedback from the college's students over the three decades.

Specifically, Rice ranked on the "Great Lists" in the following categories:

  • great race/class interaction
  • great financial aid
  • great health services
  • great-run colleges
  • most loved colleges
  • great college newspapers
  • great college dorms
  • great quality of life
  • great town-gown relations
  • LGBTQ-friendly
  • happy students

Rice students praised the university's faculty and described a "high quality of life" and are among "the happiest students in the United States," according to a press release.

"I wanted my college years to be both happy and successful," one student wrote in the survey. "And I found no other schools that were as prestigious, but also dedicated to ensuring the happiness of the student body."

As CultureMap previously reported, Niche ranked Rice No. 7 in its latest ratings of the best colleges in the U.S. and No. 1 in Texas.

Rice also ranked No. 136 internationally in The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2022.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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

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4 Houston-area institutions get $8M for cancer research facilities

fighting cancer

Cancer research capabilities in the Houston area just got an $8 million boost.

On Wednesday, May 20, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) awarded $8 million in grants to institutions in Houston and Bryan for the creation or expansion of so-called “core” cancer research facilities.

“Core facilities provide shared access to advanced technology, equipment, and scientific expertise that may not be available at every institution,” CPRIT says. “These core facilities are vital to not only cancer research but also to the study of diseases beyond cancer.”

Houston-area recipients of these $2 million grants are:

  • A facility at the University of Texas Health Science Center for preclinical support of cancer researchers in Texas to evaluate new safe, effective drugs and drug combinations.
  • The Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics, operated by Houston’s Texas Medical Center Foundation. The accelerator helps researchers and startups move innovative cancer treatments from the lab to clinical trials.
  • Rice University’s Genetic Design & Engineering Center in Houston. The center enables researchers to collaborate on studies of custom DNA for cancer treatment.
  • A facility at the Texas A&M University System’s Health Science Center in Bryan that aims to speed up the development of cancer therapies.

In addition to those grants, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, and Rice University shared $21 million to recruit cancer researchers from other institutions.

The largest of those grants—totalling $4 million—went to M.D. Anderson for the recruitment of renowned cancer researcher Andre Nussenzweig from the National Institutes of Health. His research focuses on how DNA damage and faulty DNA repairs lead to cancer.

Here are the totals for the other CPRIT grants awarded in the Houston area:

  • $12.8 million to Houston-based Indapta Therapeutics for the development of an off-the-shelf therapy that naturally kills cancer cells, combined with an immunity-targeting agent for a type of leukemia.
  • $11.1 million to MD Anderson, including $5 million for a statewide platform to improve long-term health outcomes in adolescents and young adults who survived cancer.
  • $8.4 million to Baylor College of Medicine, including $4.8 million for two training programs for cancer researchers.
  • $6.25 million to UT Health Houston, including $4 million for a biomedical informatics and genomics training program for cancer researchers.
  • $4.4 million to the Texas A&M Health Science Center’s Houston campus, including $2.4 million for a cancer therapeutics training program.
  • $2.75 million to Rice, including $250,000 for a study of ovarian cancer.
  • $2 million to Houston-based March Biosciences for the development of a targeted therapy for treating T-cell lymphoma.
  • $1.15 million to the University of Houston, including $900,000 for a platform for detection of lung cancer.
  • $900,000 to Texas A&M in Bryan to conduct clinical drug trials in rural and underserved communities around the state.
  • $800,000 to Houston- and Israel-based Xerient Pharma for the development of an oral form of a cell-protecting drug called amifostine to protect the upper GI tract from radiation damage during pancreatic cancer treatment.
  • $659,000 to Missouri City-based OmniNano Pharmaceuticals for the development of a two-drug combination to treat the most common form of pancreatic cancer.
  • $250,000 to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for a novel therapeutic to prevent colitis-related colorectal cancer.

Axiom Space launches Japanese subsidiary, names leadership

Axiom Space is setting up a Japanese subsidiary to tap into billions of dollars worth of business opportunities in the vast Asia-Pacific region. The company’s new office in Japan will open July 1.

“For the Asia-Pacific region, an Axiom Space presence in Japan means a long-term, direct path to low-Earth orbit for research, for industry, for astronauts, and a partner committed to building that future together with Japan,” Jonathan Cirtain, president and CEO of Axiom Space, said in a news release.

Asia-Pacific spaceflight leaders include Japan, China, India and South Korea.

Until committing to the Asia-Pacific subsidiary, Axiom focused primarily on the U.S. market for space exploration equipment, technology and services. Axiom is building the successor to the International Space Station (ISS), and it provides human spaceflight services and develops next-generation spacesuits.

Fortune Business Insights estimates the Asia-Pacific market for space technology was valued at $155.3 billion in 2025.

“The region is rapidly expanding due to rapidly expanding government space programs, increasing private sector participation, and rising demand for satellite services across densely populated regions,” says Fortune Business Insights, a market research firm.

The region’s combination of strategic investments, market demand and emerging entrepreneurial systems positions Asia-Pacific “for the fastest growth in the global market,” Fortune Business Insights says.

The market research firm pegs the U.S. market for space technology at $251.8 billion in 2025, making it the world’s largest player in that sector.

Veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will lead Axiom Space Japan as chief technology officer in the Asia-Pacific region. The Japanese subsidiary will work with government agencies, research institutions, and industrial partners in Japan to expand hardware development and manufacturing, microgravity research and orbital computing.

Wakata was the Japanese space agency’s first program manager for ISS and the station’s first Japanese commander. He also contributed to the construction of ISS, including the Japanese experiment module Kibo. Wakata retired from the Japanese agency, JAXA, in March 2024.

“Japan intends to remain a leading nation in human space exploration post-ISS, and Japanese industry and academia are ready to play a central role in the commercial era,” Axiom Space said in the release. “Axiom Space Japan is how the company will meet that ambition with a long-term, on-the-ground presence.”

Houston investment firm closes $105M energy venture fund

seeing green

Houston-based investment firm Veriten has announced the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund with more than $105 million in capital commitments.

Fund II will build on Veriten’s initial fund and aim to support “scalable technology solutions for energy, power and industrial applications,” according to a company news release.

"Our differentiated network, research-driven process, and first principles approach to investing are having an impact across multiple verticals including traditional energy, electrification, and industrial technology. Fund II builds on that platform,” John Sommers, partner, investments at Veriten, added in the release. “In this environment, the differentiator isn't capital – it's all about connectivity, deep sector expertise, and an economically-driven approach. As new technologies and approaches develop at breakneck speed, the need for more reliable, affordable energy and power continues to grow dramatically. The current backdrop accentuates the need for Veriten's solution."

Veriten is supported by over 50 strategic partnerships in the energy, power, industrial and technology sectors, including major players like Halliburton and Phillips 66.

"Veriten continues to build a differentiated platform at the intersection of energy, technology and industry expertise," Jeff Miller, chairman and CEO of Halliburton, said in the release. "We were early believers in the team and their ability to identify practical solutions to real challenges across the energy value chain. As all industries increasingly adopt digital tools, automation and AI-enabled technologies to improve performance and execution, we are proud to partner with Veriten again to help accelerate high-impact solutions across the broader energy landscape."

Veriten closed its debut fund, NexTen LP, of $85 million in committed capital in October 2023. It was launched in January 2022 by Maynard Holt, co-founder and former CEO of the energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

It has invested in Houston-based AI-powered electricity analytics provider Amperon and led a $12 million Seed 2 funding round for Houston-based Helix Technologies to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on earlier this year. In the past year it has contributed to funding rounds for San Francisco-based Armada and Calgary-based Veerum.

Veriten also named Nick Morriss as its new managing director earlier this month. Morriss most recently served as vice president of business development at next-generation nuclear technology company Natura Resources and spent nearly 20 years at NOV Inc.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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