Rice University Materials Science and Nanoengineering

08/22/2026

MSNE is READY to welcome our students!

We culminated O-Week with our annual faculty retreat, bringing together MSNE faculty and staff to establish priorities for the academic year and advance our alignment with Rice Engineering and Computing's Vision 2030.

The retreat focused on strategic research growth, interdisciplinary and industry collaborations, curriculum innovation and workforce readiness, student and faculty mentorship, graduate admissions, governance, ABET preparation, and operational excellence.

We look forward to translating these discussions into action and continuing to strengthen MSNE’s research impact and the success of our students, faculty, and staff.

07/23/2026

Transforming the future of materials discovery.

Rice University materials scientist Jun Lou will lead a $19.9 million National Science Foundation initiative to accelerate the manufacturing of electronic and quantum materials.

Project READINESS integrates AI, robotics and cloud-based laboratories to drive discovery, expand access to advanced equipment, and help train the next generation of materials scientists.

“Our goal is to create a laboratory that researchers nationwide can access to produce advanced electronic and quantum materials on demand,” Lou said. “By integrating robotics, AI, and digital twins, we aim to learn from every experiment and shorten the pathway from scientific discovery to practical technology.”

Rice has received a $19.9 million NSF award to use AI, robotics and cloud-based labs to accelerate electronic and quantum materials manufacturing.

07/15/2026

Hear Christina Tringides share her research on the latest episode of Houston Public Media's Hello Houston: Where Houston Talks!

Tringides, assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering, talks about receiving the prestigious Pew Biomedical Scholar award and her four-year project exploring one of the most common and aggressive forms of brain cancer.

Today: We listen to the newest episode of “Texperts," learn about a Rice University professor’s four-year project exploring an aggressive form of brain cancer, spotlight the work of the Emancipation Park Conservancy, and more.

06/29/2026

Christina Tringides has been recognized by the National Academy of Engineering as part of the next generation of engineering leaders.

Tringides has been selected to participate in the Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2026 Symposium, where she will join a distinguished cohort of engineers from across industry, academia, and government to share new approaches and facilitate collaborations that address society's complex challenges. https://www.nae.edu/351641/Innovative-EarlyCareer-Engineers-Selected-to-Participate-in-The-Grainger-Foundation-Frontiers-of-Engineering-2026-Symposium-of-the-National-Academy-of-Engineering

06/24/2026

Microscopic defects can have massive consequences, especially for diamonds and other advanced semiconductor materials.

Rice materials scientists Xiang Zhang, Pulickel Ajayan and alumna Tia Gray have developed a way to automate defect detection in diamond. Their custom Python-based software tool analyzes data from high-resolution X-ray diffraction to examine the material’s internal crystal structure.

This research, published in Advanced Materials, could help establish diamond as a key material for next generation electronics, from electric vehicle power systems and power-grid infrastructure to advanced communications equipment and quantum technologies. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-researchers-automate-defect-detection-diamond-other-advanced-semiconductors

06/16/2026

Christina Tringides has won a Pew Biomedical Scholar award for her pioneering research in glioblastoma.

This prestigious award from the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences supports her development of next-generation cancer models that use hydrogels to mimic the brain’s environment, enabling a deeper exploration of how glioblastoma grows and spreads into healthy tissue.

Tringides, assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering and a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research, is the first Rice University faculty to earn this distinction. Congratulations to Professor Tringides on this well-deserved recognition. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rices-tringides-wins-prestigious-pew-biomedical-scholar-award
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Rice Engineering and Computing

06/12/2026

Materials science plays a key role across all engineering disciplines, including emerging bioelectronic-based therapeutics.

This week in Paris, Rice materials scientist Christina Tringides co-organized the BioElectronic Therapeutics (BETx) 2026 conference alongside Rice engineers Omid Veiseh, Jacob Robinson, and Northwestern University's Jonathan Rivnay. BETx 2026 brought together leaders from biotech/pharma, academia, venture capital, government, and private foundations to accelerate next-generation bioelectronic-based therapeutics.

Learn more about BETx 2026, sponsored by Rice Biotech Launch Pad: https://lnkd.in/gwyZfrq8

06/01/2026

Rice undergraduate Rishi Madhuvairy is paving the way for improved diagnosis of semiconductor defects, a problem that costs the industry millions of dollars every year.

Rishi, along with his collaborator Purdue University sophomore Rahul Prabhu, earned first place in the poster competition at Purdue’s AI Research Showcase this spring after developing an AI-driven model designed to detect defects in semiconductor wafers. Their high-accuracy, low-latency model could be implemented onsite within a lab and includes spatial descriptors that identify where and how defects appear on the wafer.

Interdisciplinary projects like this underscore the opportunities for real-world impact in materials science.

“Materials science sits at the intersection of nearly every engineering and scientific field,” said Rishi. “Whether you’re working in electrical engineering or AI, you need to have an understanding of materials science to manipulate properties of devices at the nanoscale.”
https://engineering.rice.edu/news/student-led-breakthrough-advances-semiconductor-chip-quality-control

05/26/2026

A new chip-making technique pioneered by Rice materials scientists Hae Yeon Lee and Yifeng Liu could advance next-generation photonic and optoelectronic devices.

The Rice team’s work, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates a new way to deploy wrinkle-based patterning on rigid insulating materials.

A key feature is that the pattern can be created in one simple step at room temperature, while conventional methods often require many fabrication steps, high cost and chemical processing that can leave residue on the surface of the chip. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/stressed-crystal-creates-nanoscale-patterns-chip-materials-room-temperature

📷 by Jorge Vidal

05/20/2026

Rice researchers have discovered new potential for carbon nanotubes, confirming a long-standing prediction that may advance electronic and photonic technologies.

A team including Junichiro Kono and Hanyu Zhu created large, highly ordered films of chiral carbon nanotubes. Findings, published in ACS Nano, show that the crystalline films can convert the color of light at a rate two to three orders of magnitude greater than conventional materials.

Ultimately, this research could help power faster optical communications, flexible photonic chips and light-based computing systems.

Rice scientists successfully assembled carbon nanotubes with the same chiral orientation into large high-quality crystals that can manipulate light with an efficiency two to three orders of magnitude greater than conventional materials.