Editor’s Note: All in for Research
From breakthroughs in cancer therapies to new medical devices and the link between neurology and music, there’s much variety in our latest research issue.
Spring 2025
By Lynn Gosnell
Once a year, our magazine team likes to go all in on stories about research at Rice — digging into faculty expertise, collaborations and discoveries. Most of all, we love the questions our smart, curious and highly engaged students are exploring through research.
We are thinking a great deal about these students, staff and faculty mentors as we prepare to send this issue to press amid risks to research funding for higher education institutions. We hope you read the message shared by President DesRoches in his note on Page 6, and we thank you for the many ways you support Rice.
In this issue, there’s something for every Owl, whether you’re paging through a print issue or scrolling on your phone while in line for groceries.
Let’s start with a point of pride — senior Jae Kim tells us what he’s looking forward to as he prepares to enroll at Oxford as Rice’s newest Rhodes Scholar. Go back to school with us via our popular Syllabus department. In this issue, we visit with a Rice Business class to learn how organizations innovate to make a social impact. After stopping into that course, meet some Owls who created their own syllabi. We rounded up five examples of students doing unique independent research projects.
New this issue: We’re collaborating with the Office of Research’s new publication, Rice Research Review, to bring stories on a promising pancreatic cancer therapy, our new headline-grabbing Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience, the latest neuro-music investigations from the Shepherd School of Music and a new graduate student fellowship funded by Chevron in partnership with the Rice Sustainability Institute, to name a few.
Lastly, sometimes we find research stories in unexpected places. Check out these uniquely Rice stories:
1. Rice’s Library Service Center, which stores one-third of Fondren Library’s collection, gives serious Indiana Jones vibes.
2. An Owlmanac profile reveals the identity of the alumnus who maintains the accuracy of the world’s time zones.
3. A Rice statistician who raises sheep revealed that “the hardest thing about being a sheep farmer is staying awake during inventory.”