We are in unprecedented times, and the current crisis is increasingly affecting our students and the community.

The Rice ECE department invites you to join us in meeting the needs of students and fulfilling this social responsibility to preserve a Rice quality education for our current ECE students. Your support will be used to execute ambitious solutions that affect the students today and the students of tomorrow.

The initial $300,000 we hope to raise will support the following two summer initiatives (further details below)

1. Provide 30 paid student research internships to continue their growth towards research and industry careers; this will fill the gaps for students who have lost internship and job offers.

2. Deliver online STEM learning opportunities to high-school teachers and students in emerging topics such as “Machine Learning for Healthcare” and “Hands-on Computing.”

To make a donation by credit card payment or Visa Checkout, please proceed to the payment site

If you would like to make a payment using any other method, please contact the Engineering Development Team at engdev@rice.edu or 713-348-2229

If you would like to establish an endowment to support students for a longer term, please contact Department Chair, Ashu Sabharwal at ashu@rice.edu

Further details about the two initiatives that we would like to undertake.

1. ECE Student Research Internships ($240,000 needed): Every summer, many ECE students support their academic and professional growth via paid internships in industry. Many such offers have been rescinded due to the economic downturn, the Rice ECE faculty have expanded the number of positions in their research labs to offer more than 80 positions. We will be supporting 50 students using our research funds but still need funds for 30 students to provide student stipends.

2. ECE High-school Outreach ($60,000 needed): Every summer, ECE faculty and graduate students collaborate with Rice Office of STEM Engagement (R-STEM) to work with high-school teachers and students in diverse ways. Considering the global healthcare epidemic, we will like to deliver additional online learning opportunities for high-school teachers and students. We need funds to create the content and hire additional graduate student mentors and student TAs for the following two initiatives.

   1. Building on our experience from past novel program for high-school teachers, we have launched a new program this year called SWITCH. We would like to introduce high-school teachers on “Machine Learning for Healthcare.” We think the topic is timely and we should begin to introduce these emerging concepts.

   2. We are developing a novel online curriculum to introduce “hands-on” computing to high-schoolers. Considering ECE’s success (see Featured Stories) in delivering online labs, our program in design will be immersive, with personalized support and help build an online community.