Recent Grants

2009

• HHMI pledged $700,000 to renew an innovative biomedical training program between Rice University and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for four years, bringing its total commitment to just over $1.5 million.
• Rob Griffin recently received a $120,000 grant for a Postdoctoral Program in Environmental Chemistry from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
• Congratulations to Rebecca Richards-Kortum for receiving Rice's first award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - a grant of $100,000!
• Houston Endowment Inc. has approved a grant of $1,250,000 toward the work of Phil Bedient and Jim Blackburn for Analysis of Impacts and Recovery from Hurricane Ike along the Texas Gulf Coast through the Rice-based center for Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED).
• The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation has named Nicholas Putnam one of their 2009 Beckman Young Investigators and awarded him with $300,000.
• Bank of America continues its support of K-12 initiatives at Rice with a $15,000 grant toward the Designing with Rice Engineers: Achievement through Mentoring (DREAM) program.
• H-E-B will give $100,000 to the Urban Research Center as a Corporate Forum member, and Gallery Furniture has joined the Corporate Forum with a $50,000 gift.
• $10,000 from the Maurice Amado Foundation will go to support Sephardic Studies at Rice.
• Stephan Link received a renewal grant of $15,000 from 3M.
• Ussama Makdisi was chosen as a 2009 Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation.
• $250,000 from the Hamill Foundation will go to support the BioScience Research Collaborative, the Hamill Innovation Awards, and the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) summer academy.
• Congratulations to Weiwei Zhong for being named a 2009 Searle Scholar by the Kinship Foundation, an honor which includes a $300,000 award.
• Sterling Bank has joined the Corporate Forum of the Urban Research Center with a $200,000 gift.
• Doug Natelson has received $83,146 for his research from the II-VI Foundation.
• The Shepherd School of Music received a gift of $25,000 from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation.
• The Brown Foundation continues to support the university in a number of different areas this year: $30,000 to the Rice Art Gallery, $15,000 in renewed support to the Department of Statistics, $14,000 to the Baker Institute for Public Policy, and $2,000 to the Shepherd School of Music.
• Houston Endowment Inc. has pledged $21,000 to Leadership Rice and $26,500 to the Collaborative Research Fund.
• A total of $78,000 in departmental grants from Chevron went to support engineering, natural sciences, and Jones Graduate School of Management activities
• Michael Lindsay's PLATINUM project received a $25,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation.
• Congratulations to Eugene Ng and Wotao Yin for being named 2009 Sloan Fellows by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. They each receive two-year grants of $50,000.
• ConocoPhillips continues its support of the Rice Elementary Model Science Lab (REMSL) with a $600,000 renewal grant.
• The Powell Foundation contributed $15,000 to the Center for Education's School Literacy & Culture Project (SLC).
• Fred Moody and the Rice University Press received a $120,000 grant from Google.
• Joel Moake was awarded $200,000 by the Mary Rodes Gibson Hemostasis-Thrombosis Foundation for his research in bioengineering.
• The Arthritis Foundation directed $190,000 to the work of Kyriacos A. Athanasiou.

2008

• In further support of the biosciences at Rice, the M.D. Anderson Foundation has contributed $500,000 toward the construction of the new Collaborative Research Center.
• Bank of America Foundation is supporting Brent Houchens' DREAM program with $20,000 and the Houston Area Survey with $5,000.
• Thanks to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation's grant of $15,000, Rice University Press is able to begin developing and designing high-quality art history books on the Connexions platform.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is supporting Rachel Kimbro's research on obesity with a $90,000 grant.
• The Brown Foundation has awarded $80,000 to Rice University Press.
• The Center for Education's School Literacy & Culture Project (SLC) received $35,000 in support from the Clayton Fund.
• Spaw Glass contributed $100,000 to endow a fund for need-based undergraduate scholarships in Rice's George R. Brown School of Engineering.
• Congratulations to Michael Diehl in the Department of Bioengineering for his selection as a semi-finalist in the W.M. Keck Foundation's prestigious Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research program.
• Susan Huang received $30,000 from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for her work in art history.
• The Hamill Foundation has renewed its commitment of $250,000 to support the IBB Summer Academy, IBB Innovation Grants, and the new IBB offices in the CRC.
• A generous $6.4 million grant from Houston Endowment Inc. will fund the establishment of a Ph.D. program in sociology to focus research on urban issues in Houston and other modern cities.
• The Teagle Foundation has agreed to support a joint Rice-UT Medical School Collegium on student learning with $149,997 over three years.
• Congratulations to all 21 Rice faculty members who received grants totaling $3.39 million from the Welch Foundation for Chemistry research.
• The new Collaborative Research Center (CRC) received $3 million from the John S. Dunn Research Foundation for seed grants.
• The Hewlett Foundation is continuing its support of Connexions with a $1.5 million grant and an additional $500,000 challenge grant.
• Gifts of $15,000 to the Department of Statistics and $5,000 to the Baker Institute for Public Policy were awarded by the Brown Foundation.
• The Richard Lounsbery Foundation granted $25,000 to the Baker Institute’s International Science Collaboration Project.
• Gregory Kaplan is receiving a total of $135,210 over three years from the Posen Foundation for Jewish Studies course development.
• The Susan Vaughan Foundation awarded Linda Sylvan and Cite with $10,000.
• The Marlar Fundation has granted $10,000 to the Rice Space Institute.
• Congratulations to the Rice Art Gallery for its $30,000 award from the Brown Foundation.
• Houston Endowment Inc. has awarded Rice's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management $7.2 million for a program aimed at helping elementary and secondary school principals increase their leadership and business skills.

2007

• Rice received $400,000 from the Houston Endowment Inc. to support the Watershed Information sensing and Evaluation (WISE), a joint project between Rice and UH, led by Phil Bedient, professor of civil engineering.
• $100,000 awarded from Fred L. Hartley Family Foundation to support the research of Pulickel Ajan, professor of mechanical engineering and material sciences.
• The School of Continuing Studies received $143,000 from Arthur Vining Davis Foundation for the AP and IB Academies program.
• Congratulations to Dr. James Tour for receiving the Arthur C. Cope Scholars Award of $40,000 from the American Chemical Society.
• The Norman and Shirley Frees Foundation gave $13,000 and the Houston Endowment, Inc., awarded $85,000 in support of scholarships for the School of Contining Studes' Leadership Institute for Nonprofit Executives (LINE).
• Rice University received $400,000 from the Freeman Foundation to launch a new teacher training program for Chinese language. Under the direction of Siva Kumari, Lilly Chen, Steve Lewis, and Rich Smith, this program will build on the university’s focus on Asia and offer a certificate program in Chinese language for K-12 teachers.
• The William Randolph Hearst Foundations awarded Rice University $100,000 to add to the existing William Randolph Hearst Scholarship. This endowment provides critical scholarship support for undergraduate and graduate students.
• Congratulations to James McNew, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology! He was recently awarded $450,880 from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation for research on “Controlling the Speed of Neurotransmission.”
• Rice’s Department of Chemistry received a $5 million grant from the Welch Foundation to support the recruitment of new faculty and graduate students. The grant will provide new funds for equipment, and add to the following existing endowments: Norman Hackerman-Welch Foundation Investigatorship in Nanoscience and Technology and the Attwell-Welch Graduate Fellows Program. Thanks to the Welch Foundation for its continued support of excellence in chemistry at Rice. The Welch Foundation also granted 48 Rice faculty members with research awards in 2007-2008, totaling more than $2.7 million.
• Dr. Robert Raphael, assistant professor of bioengineering, received $19,800 from the Deafness Research Foundation to support his on the electrical and mechanical properties of biological membranes and molecular mechanisms of hearing. Congratulations!
• The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston generously awarded Rice $10 million in fellowship support for the university’s new Ph.D. program in art history. The grant will fund graduate fellowships and foster a permanent collaborative research partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) and The Menil Collection.
• The Center for Civic Engagement received a $200,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. This grant will support the continued development of the center’s innovative model and help disseminate our progress to other institutions.
• Congratulations to the Department of Statistics for received $15,000 for graduate fellowship for the second consecutive year from the Brown Foundation.
• Naomi Halas, Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded a 2007 Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation research grant in the amount of $100,000. With the foundation’s support she will continue her research on Nanoengineered Vectors for Targeted Delivery—Triggered Release of Gene Therapies for Ovarian, Breast, Cervical, and Uterine Cancers. Congratulations to Dr. Halas, the first Rice recipient of a grant from the foundation.
• Congratulations to Jeff Hartgerink, assistant professor of chemistry and bioengineering. In recognition of his commitment to teaching and research, Jeff received the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
• Elizabeth Long, chair of the Department of Sociology, was named a 2007 Piper Professor for superior teaching from the Minnie Piper Stevens Foundation. Congratulations!
• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awards $201,000 to the School of Humanities. This is the foundation's second grant for Dean Wihl's new graduate seminar.
• The Department of Physics won a $1.4 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation for research on quantum mechanics. Congratulations!

2006

• Shepherd School of Music was awarded $5,000 for the production of Street Scence (in March 2007) by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
  
• Congratulations to the Rice Art Gallery for its recent $5,000 award from the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation.
  
• The Rockwell Fund awards $50,000 to the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies' new Leadership Institute for Nonprofits, scheduled to launch in the fall of 2007.
  
• Rice's Connexions project receives continued support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This grant will allow Connexions to become more self sufficient through new revenue generating initiatives.
  
• The Institute for Biosciences and Bioengineering wins a $150,000 grant from the Sid W. Richardson Foundation and a $100,00 grant from The Hamill Foundation. The awards support small starter grants for innovative research.
  
• Elora Shehabuddin named 2006 Carnegie Scholar. The Carnegie Corporation of New York selected Professor Shehabuddin as a Carneige Scholar for her work issues relating to Islam and the modern world. With the foundation's support, she will research "Women at the Muslim Center: Islamist Ideals and Democratic Exigencies".
  
• Richard Lounsbery Foundation supports upcoming Baker Institute conference. The $50,000 grant will support an upcoming conference on "Stem Cells: Saving Lives or Crossing Lines?" to be held this fall in Washington, DC.
  
• Rice Wins $2.2 million for Undergrad Global Health Program. Rice University's plans to offer undergraduate students with more real-world design challenges got a major boost from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which awarded the university $2.2 million to develop a four-year biomedical training program that will challenge Rice's students to solve healthcare problems in the developing world. The program, Beyond Traditional Borders, is designed to help students reach beyond traditional geographic and disciplinary boundaries in addressing these challenges.
  
• Cain Project receives grant from the Engineering Information Foundation to support intercultural communication instruction for Engineers Without Borders.
  
• Top Researchers Win Prestigious HHMI Grants for Undergrad Teaching. Professors Bonnie Bartel and Jennifer West won highly sought grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to develop model programs for the nation that infuse undergraduate teaching with cutting-edge research. The highly competitive program provides four-year, $1 million grants. HHMI also announced continued funding for HHMI Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum.
  
• With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering funds the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education. A $720,000 grant will continue to support the recruitment and retention of minority graduate students.
  
• Associate Professor of Mathematics Wins Sloan Foundation Fellowship. Shelly Harvey is one of 116 young researchers in the nation to receive this prestigious research fellowship. These awards are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members in selected fields of science. Dr. Harvey will receive a two-year $45,000 grant that may be used in a largely unrestricted manner to pursue whatever line of research she chooses.
  
• Baker Institute Receives Support for Audio-Visual Enhancement. The Cullen Foundation awarded $100,000 to the Institute to equip a new, state-of-the-art conference room. This new facility will help the Institute's scholars further disseminate important research and ideas and provide a suitable new space to host leading researchers, policymakers, and dignitaries.
  
• Rice Wins Grant for “Bench to Bedside” Training. In February 2006, Rice University, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced the creation of an innovative new Ph.D. training program that will offer Rice bioengineering students a chance to go on clinical rounds and take coursework at M. D. Anderson. This new program, "Translational Bioengineering for Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics," is funded by a four-year, $850,000 award from HHMI. Rice's program is one of 13 pioneering new translational medical research programs funded today by HHMI's 'Med to Grad' initiative, supporting innovative graduate programs that introduce Ph.D. students to the world of clinical medicine.

2005

• Rice Continues Program to Increase Faculty Diversity. The university received $235,000 in December 2005 from the Mellon Foundation to continue the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Led by Associate Provost Roland Smith, the program seeks to increase the number of minority students, and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities who will pursue PhDs in core fields in the arts and sciences.
  
• Hamill Foundation Supports Innovative Research. The Wiess School of Natural Science's Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering received a $100,000 grant from the Hamill Foundation in November 2005 in support of the Hamill Innovation Fund, a program that provides seed funding for new and innovative research.
  
• Lee Named 2005 Packard Fellow. Congratulations to Cin-Ty Lee, assistant professor of earth science, who was named a Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in September 2005.
  
• Summerlee Foundation Funds Texas Art Project. The Summerlee Foundation awarded Geoff Winningham, professor of visual arts, a $7,500 grant in September 2005 for his upcoming book, The Shores of the Spanish Sea, which will feature his photography of the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Mexico with historical accounts of the earliest travelers to that territory.
  
• Drezek Receives Translational Research Award. Congratulations to Rebekah Drezek , Stanley C. Moore Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, who received an Early Career Translational Research Award in Biomedical Engineering from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation in September 2005.
  
• M.D. Anderson Foundation Supports Building Renovation. The M.D. Anderson Foundation awarded Rice University $500,000 over five years in May 2005 to support the renovation of the M.D. Anderson Biological Laboratories Building.
  
• Sloan Foundation to Sponsor Major Tax Conference. The Baker Institute's Tax and Expenditure Policy Program was awarded $110,000 in March 2005 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a conference to explore whether or not it is "Time for Fundamental Tax Reform? The Known, Unknown, and Unknowable." The conference will be held in April 2006.