William Marsh Rice University

Basic scientific research and training and other sponsored educational programs. From its inception, Rice has been dedicated, in the words of its first president Edgar Odell Lovett,"As much to investigation as to instruction to providing a setting in which faculty would join the "pleasures of teaching" with "the privileges of research." The university has realized much of this ambition with distinction in undergraduate education and research excellence across many disciplines. Rice is home to more than 40 interdisciplinary research centers, institutes and consortia, and research is a fundamental part of the undergraduate experience. The university has produced Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Watson Fellows, Mellon Fellows, National Science Foundation Fellows, and Rhodes Scholars among other honors and awards. The university has a very high level of research activity for its size, with $205 million in sponsored research funding in 2024. Rice is noted for its applied science programs in the fields of artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science and nanotechnology. It was ranked in the top 10% of institutions based on citations per faculty per academic analytics data. Rice has 683 full-time and 196 part-time faculty members. Ninty-nine percent of full-time faculty hold Ph.D.s or equivalent terminal degrees in their field. Because of their pioneering research, Rice faculty have been honored with numerous prestigious awards and accolades over the years. In 1996, Rice professors Richard Smalley and Robert Curl (now deceased) received the Nobel Prize for their discovery of a unique molecular form of carbon that heralded the new era of nanotechnology research. In 2011, Richard Tapia, a Rice mathematician and longtime champion of diversity In U.S. education, received the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama for his work in optimization theory and numerical analysis, as well as for his mentoring of women and under-represented minorities in the fields of mathematics and science. As of February 2018, Rice had 12 faculty members in the National Academy of Engineering, 10 in the National Academy of Science, four in the Institute of Medicine, and six in the National Humanities Center. In 2016, Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum won a prestigious Macarthur Fellowship. Rice's commitment to scientific research can be seen in the construction of the Bioscience Research Collaborative, a 488,000- square-foot facility where scientists and educators from Rice and other Texas Medical Center institutions work together on research that benefits human medicine and health, and the Brockman Hall for Physics, a state-of-the-art 110,000 square-foot facility that includes vibration and noise controlled underground laboratories. Rice also has an active research agenda in the social sciences and humanities. The Baker Institute for Public Policy is one of the leading nonpartisan public policy think tanks in the country and conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues. The Humanities Research Center fosters international and interdisciplinary connections with workshops and large conferences. Focus areas include questions of energy and energy transitions, the Civic Humanists program, and the Our Americas Archive Partnership.

Operations of a library that serves students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of William Marsh Rice University and is open to the public by charter. The Fondren Library subscribes to approximately 72,000 current journals (print and electronic) and houses over 3,032,000 print volumes and 3,276,000 units of microforms. The collections include audiovisuals, music recordings, scores, and other special formats. An increasing amount of library resources are provided online. The library is a selective depository for U.S. and Texas government publications and a depository for documentation of U.S. patents and trademarks. The Brown Fine Arts Library contains over 200,000 volumes related to art, architecture, classical archaeology, and music. All library patrons are welcome to use fine arts materials and facilities, including listening equipment, VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc players. The Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Business Information Center provides additional specialized resources in its nearby space, designed by noted architect Robert A.M. Stern.