Awarded to up to two faculty members who have made significant contributions in research, scholarship and/or creative works during the last five years. Such contributions will have garnered public and/or professional accolades, and have been published, completed, or presented during the period January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2023. All disciplines will be considered for this award. Nominators should include both qualitative and quantifiable measures such as publications, citations, intellectual property, commercialized products, major commissions of creative works, significant research collaborations or other indications of the nominee’s potential for widespread influence, either within a specific field or throughout the community at large. This award recognizes achievements over a specific time period and not a complete body of work; please do not include publications or works outside of the specified time period. The prize is $3,000, of which the full amount is for the recipient's personal use. Recipients are ineligible if they have won this award in the past three years.

Eligibility: Faculty who have been at Rice for at least 5 years, preference given for mid-career faculty (mid-career is defined as faculty that are at least 10 and no more than 20 years past the awarding of initial faculty appointment). Nominations can be made here. 

2023: Jun Lou, materials science and nanoengineering; Timothy Morton, English

2024: Christopher Fagundes, psychological sciences; Aditya Mohite, chemical and biomolecular engineering