Wednesday, April 16, 2025
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Farnsworth Pavilion, RMC
How might we use data from the Rice archives to understand the history of energy usage at the university? How do we understand key events in the history of the George R. Brown School of Engineering? How might we document the history and impact of creosote contamination in the Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens? Through the Fondren Fellows program, undergraduate and graduate students are examining these and other questions in collaboration with faculty and library mentors. Learn about the exciting work done by members of the 2024-2025 cohort at the Fondren Fellows Showcase. This event is open to all, and a reception will follow the lightning talks.
Speakers include:
- Jadyn Bray-Boyce, “Using Rice’s History to Combat Climate Change”
- J. Tyler Odle, “A Brief History of UFOlogical Research”
- Lexi Xu, Patrick Bednarz, and Gabriel Witkop, “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the George R. Brown School of Engineering”
- Tianyue Chen and Adyasha Swain, “Boosting Library Retrieval with Graph”
- Catherine Cook, Abi Savizon and Shay Olaifa, “A Community’s Fight for Justice: The Creosote Contamination Collection”
- Mariah Bender, “Enhancing Graduate Student Support for Digital Humanities”
- Elizabeth Quach, “CatOwlog”
- Yujie Xu, “Building and Employing New Tools for the Study of US Science Policy”
- Sean Weeks, “Tracking the Black Diaspora along the U.S. Gulf Coast during Slavery: Texas and New Orleans”
The Fondren Fellows program enables Rice undergraduate or graduate students to work on experiential learning projects focused on library and archival collections, services, spaces, or skills. This event is part of Inquiry Weeks.