Theoretical and Computational Nanophotonics for Light Harvesting and Energy Applications
The lab is proud to celebrate the commencement of Will Schmid and Qian Ye!
Will graduated in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Qian graduated in Physics. Their hard work, dedication, and research contributions have been invaluable to our lab. We wish them both the very best in their future endeavors!
Our professor Alessandro (a theorist, of course) went head-to-head with one of our intrepid experimental grad students in an epic arm-wrestling battle.
The stakes were high – bragging rights, a semester’s supply of coffee, and perhaps the very fabric of scientific understanding!
And the results? Well, this happened…
And at last, the experimentalist was finally defeated, though, in his defense, he is left-handed.
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What do you think was the force multiplier in this victory: rigorous calculation or sheer professorial will? Let us know in the comments! 👇
Celebrating Will & Qian
Congratulations to Will on his graduation.
Best wishes to Qian as he begins his next chapter.
Wishing you both all the best in your future endeavors.
A Rice University research team led by Alessandro Alabastri, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, has been named a second-place winner of the 2025 RELX Environmental Challenge.
The team, including graduating doctoral student William Schmid and visiting researcher Sina Nazifi, received $25,000 to further the commercial development of their solar-powered, membrane-less desalination technology.
This emerging technology competition is organized by RELX, a multinational provider of information-based analytics and a signatory of the UN Global Compact. Their goal is to advance sustainable, practical solutions for global issues such as water scarcity, sanitation, and health, as outlined in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Desalination – the process of turning salt water into fresh water — will become increasingly important in the coming decades as climate change and population growth strain limited fresh water sources.
The Rice team’s winning invention, Solar Thermal Resonant Energy Exchange Desalination (STREED), is a fully decentralized system designed for communities facing severe water shortages, especially rural, remote, or low-resource areas.
STREED offers a robust alternative to traditional desalination methods, such as reverse osmosis, which can struggle with highly saline or contaminated water and produce large volumes of waste brine. While many emerging solar-driven solutions rely on fragile, expensive membranes, STREED avoids these limitations by using a membrane-free, solar thermal process that recycles heat within the system.
“Large-scale desalination plants require significant energy and infrastructure. Resources that many communities simply don’t have. Our goal was to create a low-cost, decentralized technology that can purify even high-salinity and contaminated water sources with little maintenance.”
— Alessandro Alabastri
Built on more than a decade of research through Rice’s NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (now part of the Rice WaTER Institute), STREED uses a resonant energy-transfer method. This allows heat to oscillate efficiently between heated saline water and air carrying water vapor.
By tuning the system to the optimal flow rates, the device recycles thermal energy to produce fresh water day and night, leaving behind solid salt that can be repurposed.
The team presented STREED at Pollutec, Europe’s largest environmental sustainability trade show, gaining visibility and opportunities to connect with industry partners. In addition to the cash award, the team received one year of free access to ScienceDirect, RELX’s scientific research database.
“It is a great honor to be chosen as a winner of the RELX Environmental Challenge. This prize validates our team’s decade-long commitment to sustainability solutions and our dedication to develop a compact, modular, low-maintenance desalination technology.”
— William Schmid
The STREED team aims to form a startup and recently moved to Greentown Labs, the world’s largest climate tech and energy incubator, to advance the commercial development of its technology.
We are incredibly proud to announce that our senior PhD student, Will Schmid, has been awarded the prestigious 2025-26 Chevron Energy Graduate Fellowship!
⚡ About the Fellowship: This competitive award stems from a partnership between the Rice Sustainability Institute and Chevron, designed to nurture future leaders in the energy sector. The program supports graduate students whose research will help drive the transition to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy.
Will is one of only nine students selected from across the School of Engineering and Computing, a testament to his outstanding dedication and innovative research.
The entire lab is thrilled to see your hard work recognized. Congrats, Will! 👏
The official link from Rice University:
https://engineering.rice.edu/inside-rice-engineering?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=384947006&utm_content=384947006&utm_source=hs_email