Resources

The Ken Kennedy Institute works closely with members to develop funding opportunities and research partnerships with academia, industry, and private foundations. We develop collaborative efforts across Rice University and the Houston AI and Computing community, including supporting faculty engagements and proposal development. The Institute also works closely with the Office of Information Technology, continuing to develop and improve Rice’s research computing and data infrastructure. Check out resources available through the Ken Kennedy Institute below:

General Resources

Event Calendar

Add the Ken Kennedy Institute event calendar to your @rice.edu Google Calendar account to keep up with upcoming activities!

  • On the left-hand tool bar of your Google Calendar (must be logged in with an @rice.edu email address), click the option to add (+) "Other calendars"
  • Select "Browse resources" for a list of Rice-affiliated calendars
  • Find "Ken Kennedy Institute," click the drop-down arrow, and click the checkbox to add the "Ken Kennedy Institute-Events" calendar
Event Calendar
Community Newsletters

We have a variety of public mailing lists for community members interested in AI and computing:

  • General Community for all internal and external events and opportunities
  • AI in Health Conference for updates on conference registration, calls for participation and sponsorship; conference occurs annually each fall in September/October
  • Energy HPC & AI Conference for updates on conference registration, calls for participation and sponsorship; occurs annually each spring in February/March
Student and Postdoc Listservs

Students and postdocs at Rice can subscribe to separate mailing lists that are moderated by the Ken Kennedy Institute to be used for sharing student-facing events and opportunities. The lists aims to strengthen and unite the community of early-stage researchers on campus interested in AI and computing.

Member and Affiliate Acknowledgments

We invite Members and Affiliates to engage with the Institute through actively acknowledging supported or relevant work on publications, presentations, CVs and Biosketches, news and media coverage, and related activities. Proposals affiliated with the Ken Kennedy Institute should be tracked in Cayuse. Learn more about affiliations and acknowledgments here.

Members and Affiliates of the Ken Kennedy Institute are faculty and staff at Rice with an interest in AI and computing — either researchers with active work in related areas, researchers seeking interdisciplinary collaborators, or AI users interested in staying up to date on the Institute's activities. To learn more about eligibility to join the Institute, view our membership information page.

Promoting Research News

We encourage you to notify our team of research news (in advance, or as soon as possible) that can be promoted via press releases, social media, or other forums so we can help coordinate or share your work. Examples of work include papers accepted for publication, speaking invitations, academic or research-related awards, or stories and awards from students. Our team can collaborate with Public Affairs to amplify your research.

Please note that the work should be approved for public release at the time of dissemination. It is also recommended for material to be clear and understandable for non-experts, as it will be shared to broad audiences.

Logo — Ken Kennedy Institute

View Ken Kennedy Institute logo files on Box. Log in with a Rice NetID and password: https://rice.app.box.com/s/n8n0hwry8h2gx859os7yjmlq386gben5/folder/335974009804

  • For dark backgrounds, use "Blue-Shield-White-Text"
  • For light backgrounds, use "Two-Color"
Brochure — Ken Kennedy Institute

Check out the Ken Kennedy Institute's brochure for an overview of our research, related activities, and impact.

Ken Kennedy Institute Impact

Engaging with Us — LinkedIn and YouTube

We encourage the AI and computing community to engage with us on social media by following along with content on LinkedIn and YouTube.

  • You can and engage with us on LinkedIn — follow us at Rice Ken Kennedy Institute
  • To view recordings from past events including distinguished lectures and conferences, visit the Rice Ken Kennedy Institute YouTube channel

Research Resources for Members and Affiliates

Proposal Boilerplate Materials

View boilerplate text for the Ken Kennedy Institute

View boilerplate text for Rice's Computing Facilities through the CRC:

To find boilerplate materials for other groups on campus, click here for a compilation managed by ORD.

Proposal Development & Support

The Ken Kennedy Institute offers a variety of services to assist and support faculty in writing, coordinating, and submitting grant proposals. The Institute also works in connection with Phyllis McBride, Director for Proposal Development in the Office of Research, and the Office of Research Development, which assists faculty researchers in conceptualizing, developing, and writing proposals to federal agencies and other entities to seek funding for research projects. The ORD can assist with any stage of your proposal including planning, writing, management, formatting and review. If you need assistance with a grant proposal, please reach out to kenkennedy@rice.edu.

Center for Research Computing

The Center for Research Computing (CRC) provides research computing services for the Rice community and plays a crucial role in achieving the goals outlined in the university's 10-year strategic plan, Momentous. The CRC provides essential cyberinfrastructure, including high-performance computing (HPC) clusters, cloud computing options, research data storage and high-speed data transfer tools. Services include consultation, training, and application support to help researchers optimize their use of these resources and navigate cyberinfrastructure challenges. The CRC also assists with grant proposals, data management planning and secure research environments.

View more information about the CRC's scalable computing resources: https://kenkennedy.rice.edu/research-computing

Office of Research

The Office of Research seeks to sensibly improve Rice’s research productivity and expand the impact of its discoveries on both scholars and communities alike. We do this by:

  • Providing faculty and staff with excellent service in proposal development and award submissions
  • Informing and equipping our researchers to efficiently address a broad gamut of research compliance issues
  • Engaging in collaborative commercialization activities that put our intellectual property portfolio on a strong financial foundation while developing commercialization partners more intentionally
  • Constantly updating and investing in our research and scholarship infrastructure
  • Developing unconventional and non-traditional support for Rice’s research
  • Supporting campus-wide initiatives that nucleate activities across divisions even as they externally define Rice’s research enterprise

Click here to view a list of Research Centers, Institutes and Groups across Rice University.

Biotechnology Governance Entreaties — Fondren Library

Twenty-seven entreaties regarding biotechnology governance were published and archived at Rice University’s Fondren Library. View the entreaties on the Fondren Library's Rice Research Repository website.

The entreaties are the result of a three-month-long process of drafting, revision, evaluation and endorsement after the 50-year anniversary summit of the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, named the 2025 "Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology" summit where Ken Kennedy Institute members and computer science professors Todd Treangen and Vicky Yao led discussions on governance challenges of AI-enabled biotechnology. The published documents will serve as calls for dialogue and recommendations on the ethical, security and regulatory implications of biotech research in areas such as the intersection of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, environmental applications of engineered organisms and more.

Taxonomies of Tool-Use in Agent Systems — NIST

The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosted a workshop with approximately 140 experts in January 2025, which included Ken Kennedy Institute member Vaibhav Unhelkar. The workshop generated a set of lessons learned from the community, and participants identified various approaches to structure a taxonomy of tool use. The taxonomies are published here: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/08/lessons-learned-consortium-tool-use-agent-systems

Overleaf Professional

Rice University's Fondren Library is now providing Overleaf Professional, a cloud-based LaTeX editor, to students, faculty and staff. Overleaf is an online collaborative scientific writing and publishing tool designed to make the process of writing, editing, and producing scientific papers and reports much quicker for authors. Overleaf Professional features include real-time track changes, unlimited collaborators, and full document history. Overleaf can also be linked to other services to best fit into your workflow.

All Rice University students, faculty and staff now have access to a free Overleaf Pro account. You'll use your Rice University NetID to access your free Overleaf Pro account.

For more information visit Overleaf Libguide and Overleaf.com.

For any questions about available resources, or ideas for additional resources,
please reach out to our team at kenkennedy@rice.edu.