Smalley-Curl Institute | Smalley-Curl Institute

SCI-STAR

Announcing the Graduate Student Participants of the 2017-18 SCI-STAR Program! Please join us in congratulating the graduate students who have been selected to participate in the inaugural year of the SCI-STAR Program, listed online here. SCI-STAR: Student Training for Advising Research will be a collaborative program. Working with the Doerr Institute for New Leaders (DINL), the goal of this program is to develop graduate students as leaders in science, especially in the context of mentorship and research group management. Please see our SCI-STAR website for additional information.

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Kavli Foundation to Sponsor "Grand Challenges" Meetings

SCI to Organize Series on the Future of Sensing

From Rice News: The Kavli Foundation has agreed to sponsor a trio of visionary, cross-disciplinary meetings at Rice University that will focus on the future of sensing technology. The meetings will bring together scientists and engineers from academia, government and industry to identify the grand challenges that could potentially be met by next-generation sensing technologies, and the fundamental scientific capabilities that will be needed to address those challenges.

See the complete Rice News article here.

Applied Physics Students in the News

Pratiksha Dongare selected to present at Innovation & Entrepreneurship Showcase in Washington, D.C.

Rice University graduate student Pratiksha Dongare's solar desalination project, "SNOWater" has been selected to participate in the inaugural University Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Showcase in Washington, D.C. The I&E Showcase will take place during the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) 2017 Annual Meeting on November 12-14. Congratulations, Pratiksha!

Nanophotonics team creates low-voltage, multicolor, electrochromic glass

Rice University’s latest nanophotonics research could expand the color palette for companies in the fast-growing market for glass windows that change color at the flick of an electric switch. In a new paper in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, researchers from the laboratory of Rice plasmonics pioneer Naomi Halas report using a readily available, inexpensive hydrocarbon molecule called perylene to create glass that can turn two different colors at low voltages. -Read More: Rice News Article

Grant Stec (undergraduate) and Adam Lauchner (graduate student, Applied Physics) of Rice University’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics have used an inexpensive hydrocarbon molecule called perylene to create a low-voltage, multicolor, electrochromic glass. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Pelham Keahey wins six-year NCI grant for cancer diagnosis

Rice University graduate student Pelham Keahey is one of less than 40 in the entire country of the inaugural winners of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) prestigious predoctoral-to-postdoctoral fellow transition award, which includes funding for two years of graduate school and four years of postdoctoral training. Keahey, who is pursuing a doctorate through Rice’s Applied Physics Graduate Program (and past president of the Applied Physics Graduate Student Association) and carrying out his research in the lab of bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum, said the funds will support his development on the use of low-cost, point-of-care optical imaging and molecular probes to improve the detection and treatment of cancer.

- See the Rice News article here

SCI Summer Research Colloquium

Congratulations to our 3rd Annual SCI Summer Research Colloquium Oral and Poster Presentation Winners!

We had an outstanding group of student and postdoctoral presenters! Thank you to all for your participation, and to all of our colleagues and guests in helping make this year's event a success.

The Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI) Summer Research Colloquium began in 1986 as the RQI Colloquium, and has taken place in August of each year since then. The purpose of the SCI Summer Research Colloquium is to provide undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers working at Rice with an opportunity to present their most recent work.

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Welcome to the Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI)

The Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI) was created in 2015 from the merger of two of Rice multidisciplinary research institutes, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the Rice Quantum Institute. SCI is the home of the Applied Physics Graduate Program and of several endowed postdoctoral research fellowships. It participates in establishing strong industrial collaborations, and takes part in novel educational and outreach programs, such as the Professional Science Master’s Program in Nanoscale Science. The Institute assists its members in forging new, cross-cutting and interdisciplinary research areas, and in seeking new means of supporting their work. Research in SCI encompasses advanced materials, quantum magnetism, plasmonics and photonics, biophysics and bioengineering, ultracold atom physics, condensed matter and chemical physics, and all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology.