Innovation Fellows

The Rice Innovation Fellows program trains Ph.D. students and postdocs to translate research into real-world impact.

We bring the brightest minds from Rice’s research labs to learn, apply, and accelerate their knowledge of translating research into breakthrough solutions to real-world problems. Through the Rice Innovation Fellows, the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, along with Rice’s Office of Innovation, supports select Ph.D. students and postdocs to spend additional research time focusing on the practical aspects of applying their research to industry needs.

Applications for the 2025 cohort are closed.

 

Rice Innovation Fellows 2025 Cohort

Lucas Eddy

Lucas Eddy, Applied Physics & Chemistry, Ph.D. ‘25
James Tour Laboratory

Lucas Eddy specializes in building and using electrothermal reaction systems for nanomaterial synthesis, waste material upcycling, and PFAS destruction. He was the first person to use rapid flash Joule heating to destroy toxic per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and is working to scale this technique further to remediate PFAS in the field in a variety of soil types.

Chen-Yang Lin

Chen-Yang Lin, Materials Science and Nano-Engineering, Ph.D. ’25
Jun Lou Laboratory

HEXAspec, a startup focused on creating cutting-edge thermal management solutions for AI chips and high-performance semiconductor devices. At HEXAspec aims to address critical challenges in the semiconductor industry, specifically the growing need for effective heat dissipation as AI technologies continue to evolve.

Sarah Jimenez

Sarah Jimenez, Bioengineering, Ph.D. ’27
Camila Hochman-Mendez Laboratory

Research focuses on making transplantable hearts out of decellularized animal heart scaffolds in the lab and designing then manufacturing an automated cell delivery system to recellularize our hearts with patient-derived stem cells.

Alexander Lathem

Alexander Lathem, Applied Physics & Chemistry, Ph.D. ’26
James M. Tour Laboratory

Research is focused on bringing laser-induced graphene (LIG) technology from academia into industry. This material can be adapted for electronics, sensing, and biological applications. Lathem hopes to use laser systems to mass-produce LIG templates for such applications, making graphene a major part of tomorrow’s industrial economy.

Alvaro Moreno Lozano

Alvaro Moreno Lozano, Bioengineering, Ph.D. ’27
Omid Veiseh Laboratory

Lozano’s work focuses on developing new technologies for Type 1 Diabetes patients by leveraging novel biomaterials and cell engineering with the goal to fabricate a bioartificial pancreas that can control blood glucose levels in patients suffering from Type 1 Diabetes.

Dilrasbonu (Bonu) Vohidova

Dilrasbonu (Bonu) Vohidova, Bioengineering, Ph.D. ’27
Omid Veiseh Laboratory

Research focuses on engineering therapeutic cells to secrete immunomodulators, aiming to prevent the onset of autoimmunity in Type 1 diabetes. By encapsulating these cells in biocompatible materials, Vohidova strives to develop a long-term, targeted therapy that safeguards pancreatic islets while preserving the immune system’s natural defenses.

Alexandria Carter

Alexandria Carter, Bioengineering, Ph.D. ’27
Michael King Laboratory

Carter is excited to bring to the table a device that can revolutionize personalized patient disease diagnostics as well as push the bill on molecular and cellular biology understanding via high throughput 3D culturing of organoids, tumor spheroids, and clustered metastatic models using the power of superhydrophobicity.

John Li

John Li, Chemistry, Materials Science & NanoEngineering, Ph.D.
James M. Tour Laboratory

John Li has been working for Prof. James Tour’s Research Group since 2018, and he studied nanotechnology in three leading research groups at Rice and Stanford. He is an avid follower of Value Entrepreneurship and is a disciple of the Value Investing tradition. John was a Hertz Fellowship Finalist, Century Scholar, Trustee Distinguished Scholar, Rice George R Brown School of Engineering Distinguished Research Scholar, George H Richter Chemistry Research Fellow, and Materials Science and NanoEngineering Department Scholar. His experiences involve leading business model innovation in STEM research, development, and commercialization.

Barclay Jumet

Commercialization Innovation Fellow

Department: Mechanical Engineering
Dan Preston Laboratory

I am a PhD candidate in the department of mechanical engineering, working under Prof. Dan Preston. In his lab, I specialize in fluid mechanics and thermal systems. I focus on developing wearable technologies made solely from textiles and fluids, enabling smart wearables without any need for unwashable and cumbersome electronics. Some fluidic textiles that I have developed thus far include (i) devices with multiple modalities of haptic (touch-based) feedback integrated, (ii) devices that can provide post-operative rehabilitation, physical rehabilitation, and mechanical assistance to the user, and (iii) devices that are able to help regulate the body temperature (to make the user warmer or cooler).

Alisha Menon

Commercialization Innovation Fellow

Department: Electrical Engineering
Jacob Robinson Laboratory

Alisha Menon is founding a medical device startup developing wireless, AI-enabled patient monitoring devices for both remote and in-hospital settings, starting with the neonatal ICU for preterm babies. She completed her Ph.D. in 2022 in Electrical Engineering & Computer science at University of California: Berkeley in Professor Jan Rabaey’s research group after receiving her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University in 2018.

Alisha’s research explores integrated circuits for in-sensor processing, learning and recognition of physiological signals, states and processes. She focuses on designing hardware for machine learning specifically for biosignals, enabling multi-layer feedback systems with complex intelligence, shown with a multi-modal neural prosthetic in her doctoral thesis. During her Ph.D., she led an interdisciplinary team with over 11 undergraduate/masters students to delve into various projects under this topic, resulting in 7 first-author publications. For her work, she was awarded the NSF Fellowship, UC Berkeley Fellowship, UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (first awardee from the college of engineering), IEEE BioX Data Science and Engineering in Medicine and Biology Fellowship, and Rising Star in EECS.

Outside of research, Alisha was a hardware engineer intern with CTRL-Labs in 2018 (acquired by Meta in 2019) and with Apple in 2021 where she worked on an energy-efficient machine learning architecture for a novel sensor application. Her current work on a medical device startup, Aurelia Vitals, aims to bring innovations in wireless biosensors and biosignal analytics to real-time patient monitoring. This work is being done in collaboration with the Texas Medical Center and Rice University, with support from NSF and the Southwest Pediatric Device Consortium.

Mor Sela Golan

Commercialization Innovation Fellow

Department: Bioengineering
Omid Veiseh Laboratory

I am Mor Sela Golan, a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Omid Veiseh’s lab at Rice University, and a member of the Rice Biotech Launch Pad postdoctoral fellows program. Her academic journey includes a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where she specialized in developing targeted drug delivery systems for neurological diseases.

Mor is a part of a project team focused on biomaterial cell therapy for treating lymphedema. Leveraging her expertise in nanotechnology and targeted drug delivery systems, she aims to contribute to innovative biomedical solutions addressing unmet clinical needs.

Andrew (AJ) Walters

Commercialization Innovation Fellow

Department: Bioengineering
Caleb Bashor Laboratory

I am a bioengineer positioned at the nexus of synthetic biology, cell engineering, immunology, and cell therapy. My research in the labs of Dr. Caleb Bashor (Rice U. Dept. of Bioengineering) and Dr. Scott Olson (UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School Dept. of Pediatric Surgery) aims to make cell therapies more effective and accessible. Entrepreneurship has been a significant part of my training arc, with the Innovation Fellowship facilitating my next step to fusing my scientific and business training. I have big goals for the future, and approach them with the mantra “life will find a way” from Jurassic Park.

I am working on bringing the advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology to mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC) based cell therapy with the ultimate goal of building an accessible allogenic cell therapy that can be deployed across a wide range of inflammation disorders. Eventually this approach could be applied to other indications, such as cancer.

The Innovation Fellows program combines dedicated time and space at Lilie with personalized mentorship and equity-free funding to catalyze the next generation of world-changing, scientist-led companies.

  • For the student/postdoc participants:
    • $10,000 in translational research funding for the fellow’s project
    • Additional financial support to faculty to offset stipends
    • Weekly startup-focused training and personalized mentorship from industry experts, startup founders, and investors
    • Free dedicated co-working space and Friday lunches at Lilie
    • One day per week for 12 months to focus on translating research

As one of the top research universities in the world and the home of the #1 Ranked Entrepreneurship program in the country, Rice is positioned to address the world’s challenges in dealing with climate change and the energy transition, creating cutting-edge medical devices and therapeutics, discovering new materials and applications, and advancing computer science to influence bits and atoms. You will follow in the footsteps of other academic entrepreneurs from Rice, whether 3D printing blood tissues like Volumetric, electrifying chemical manufacturing like Syzygy, or developing cutting-edge AI systems like Rebellion Photonics.

Eligibility:

The fellowship is open to current Ph.D. students and postdocs at Rice University. Candidates from all Rice Engineering and Science-related disciplines are encouraged to apply. If not a U.S. citizen, the Fellow needs to be on a visa appropriate for a student or Rice employee for the duration of the fellowship (typically 12 months). The Fellow needs to be working on university research at Rice, with a faculty PI or advisor providing a Letter of Support for their selection.

How it Works:

  • With a supportive PI, the Innovation Fellows program will ‘buy out’ one day per week of your time from the research lab, so you have the bandwidth to focus on commercialization efforts.
  • The Innovation Fellows program will provide funding to your PI to assist with covering the cost of your time out of the lab.
  • In addition, the Innovation Fellows program provides you with milestone-based, equity-free funding for your translational research to fuel your progress.
  • Innovation Fellows will receive weekly training and personalized mentorship from industry experts, fellow science-backed startup founders, and investors.
  • You will work side by side with the Lilie team in our space, surrounded by peers from other graduate degree programs to explore, analyze, and accelerate your research.

Ready to apply?

Check out the 2025 Innovation Fellows Application Questions, then click below to get started.

APPLY NOW

Deadline is November 10, 2024.

 

Lilie runs the Innovation Fellows program, supported by President Reggie Desroches and the Office of Innovation, led by the Vice President for Innovation Paul Cherukuri, while partnering with organizations like the Technology Transfer Office and research institutes from around campus like the Institute for Bioengineering and the Biosciences, The Ken Kennedy Institute, the Smalley Curl Institute, and the Welch Institute.