Rice Engineering and Computing

Kai Gong, Rice University Civil and Environmental Engineering assistant professor, has received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to modernize concrete design.

This award supports his AI-enabled approach to make stronger, eco-friendly, and cheaper concrete, paving the way for resilient infrastructures for a sustainable future. Congratulations, Professor Gong, on this milestone. https://bit.ly/43irtmF

A new clinical trial could pave the way to more independence for people with paralysis.

Rice is joining forces with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and BrainGate, a research consortium leading clinical trials focused on brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies.

The Rice-BCM team will focus on decoding brain activity to control robotic assistive devices to help people with paralysis eat and drink independently. Nishal Shah of Rice University Electrical & Computer Engineering is leading a team that will be responsible for creating the computational infrastructure that decodes intended movements from neural activity and drives the robotic system. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/clinical-trial-seeks-advance-intuitive-assistive-robotics-people-paralysis