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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Houston's Ion District to expand with new research and tech space, The Arc

coming soon

Houston's Ion District is set to expand with the addition of a nearly 200,000-square-foot research and technology facility, The Arc at the Ion District.

Rice Real Estate Company and Lincoln Property Company are expected to break ground on the state-of-the-art facility in Q2 2026 with a completion target set for Q1 2028, according to a news release.

Rice University, the new facility's lead tenant, will occupy almost 30,000 square feet of office and lab space in The Arc, which will share a plaza with the Ion and is intended to "extend the district’s success as a hub for innovative ideas and collaboration." Rice research at The Arc will focus on energy, artificial intelligence, data science, robotics and computational engineering, according to the release.

“The Arc will offer Rice the opportunity to deepen its commitment to fostering world-changing innovation by bringing our leading minds and breakthrough discoveries into direct engagement with Houston’s thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches said in the release. “Working side by side with industry experts and actual end users at the Ion District uniquely positions our faculty and students to form partnerships and collaborations that might not be possible elsewhere.”

Developers of the project are targeting LEED Gold certification by incorporating smart building automation and energy-saving features into The Arc's design. Tenants will have the opportunity to lease flexible floor plans ranging from 28,000 to 31,000 square feet with 15-foot-high ceilings. The property will also feature a gym, an amenity lounge, conference and meeting spaces, outdoor plazas, underground parking and on-site retail and dining.

Preleasing has begun for organizations interested in joining Rice in the building.

“The Arc at the Ion District will be more than a building—it will be a catalyst for the partnerships, innovations and discoveries that will define Houston’s future in science and technology,” Ken Jett, president of Rice Real Estate Company, added in the release. “By expanding our urban innovation ecosystem, The Arc will attract leading organizations and talent to Houston, further strengthening our city’s position as a hub for scientific and entrepreneurial progress.”

Intel Corp. and Rice University sign research access agreement

innovation access

Rice University’s Office of Technology Transfer has signed a subscription agreement with California-based Intel Corp., giving the global company access to Rice’s research portfolio and the opportunity to license select patented innovations.

“By partnering with Intel, we are creating opportunities for our research to make a tangible impact in the technology sector,” Patricia Stepp, assistant vice president for technology transfer, said in a news release.

Intel will pay Rice an annual subscription fee to secure the option to evaluate specified Rice-patented technologies, according to the agreement. If Intel chooses to exercise its option rights, it can obtain a license for each selected technology at a fee.

Rice has been a hub for innovation and technology with initiatives like the Rice Biotech Launch Pad, an accelerator focused on expediting the translation of the university’s health and medical technology; RBL LLC, a biotech venture studio in the Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park dedicated to commercializing lifesaving medical technologies from the Launch Pad; and Rice Nexus, an AI-focused "innovation factory" at the Ion.

The university has also inked partnerships with other tech giants in recent months. Rice's OpenStax, a provider of affordable instructional technologies and one of the world’s largest publishers of open educational resources, partnered with Microsoft this summer. Google Public Sector has also teamed up with Rice to launch the Rice AI Venture Accelerator, or RAVA.

“This agreement exemplifies Rice University’s dedication to fostering innovation and accelerating the commercialization of groundbreaking research,” Stepp added in the news release.

Houston team develops low-cost device to treat infants with life-threatening birth defect

infant innovation

A team of engineers and pediatric surgeons led by Rice University’s Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies has developed a cost-effective treatment for infants born with gastroschisis, a congenital condition in which intestines and other organs are developed outside of the body.

The condition can be life-threatening in economically disadvantaged regions without access to equipment.

The Rice-developed device, known as SimpleSilo, is “simple, low-cost and locally manufacturable,” according to the university. It consists of a saline bag, oxygen tubing and a commercially available heat sealer, while mimicking the function of commercial silo bags, which are used in high-income countries to protect exposed organs and gently return them into the abdominal cavity gradually.

Generally, a single-use bag can cost between $200 and $300. The alternatives that exist lack structure and require surgical sewing. This is where the SimpleSilo comes in.

“We focused on keeping the design as simple and functional as possible, while still being affordable,” Vanshika Jhonsa said in a news release. “Our hope is that health care providers around the world can adapt the SimpleSilo to their local supplies and specific needs.”

The study was published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and Jhonsa, its first author, also won the 2023 American Pediatric Surgical Association Innovation Award for the project. She is a recent Rice alumna and is currently a medical student at UTHealth Houston.

Bindi Naik-Mathuria, a pediatric surgeon at UTMB Health, served as the corresponding author of the study. Rice undergraduates Shreya Jindal and Shriya Shah, along with Mary Seifu Tirfie, a current Rice360 Global Health Fellow, also worked on the project.

In laboratory tests, the device demonstrated a fluid leakage rate of just 0.02 milliliters per hour, which is comparable to commercial silo bags, and it withstood repeated disinfection while maintaining its structure. In a simulated in vitro test using cow intestines and a mock abdominal wall, SimpleSilo achieved a 50 percent reduction of the intestines into the simulated cavity over three days, also matching the performance of commercial silo bags. The team plans to conduct a formal clinical trial in East Africa.

“Gastroschisis has one of the biggest survival gaps from high-resource settings to low-resource settings, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” Meaghan Bond, lecturer and senior design engineer at Rice360, added in the news release. “We believe the SimpleSilo can help close the survival gap by making treatment accessible and affordable, even in resource-limited settings.”
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