Chevron names latest cohort of energy transition fellows at Rice University
energy fellowship
Chevron and Rice University have named 10 graduate students to the second cohort of the Chevron Energy Graduate Fellowship.
The students come from various departments at Rice and are working on innovations that reduce emissions or improve upon low-carbon technology. Fellows will each receive a $10,000 award to support their research along with the opportunity to connect with "industry experts who can provide valuable insight on scaling technologies from the lab to commercial application," according to Rice.
The fellows will present projects during a cross-university virtual symposium in the spring.
The 2025-26 Chevron Energy Graduate Fellows and their research topics include:
- Cristel Carolina Brindis Flores, Molecular Simulations of CO₂ and H₂ for Geostorage
- Davide Cavuto, Intensification of Floating Catalyst Chemical Vapor Deposition for Carbon Nanotubes Synthesis
- Jaewoo Kim, Distributed Acoustic Sensing for In-situ Stress Monitoring in Enhanced Geothermal Systems
- Jessica Hema Persaud, Understanding Tin Perovskite Crystallization Dynamics for All-Perovskite Tandems
- Johanna Ikabu Bangala, Upcycling Methane-derived Zero-Valent Carbon for Sustainable Agriculture
- Kashif Liaqat, From Waste to Resource: Increased Sustainability Through Hybrid Waste Heat Recovery Systems for Data Centers and Industry
- Md Abid Shahriar Rahman Saadi, Advancing Sustainable Structural, Energy and Food Systems through Engineering of Biopolymers
- Ratnika Gupta, Micro-Silicon/Carbon Nanotube Composite Anodes with Metal-free Current Collector for High Performance Li-Ion Batteries
- Wei Ping Lam, Electrifying Chemical Manufacturing: High-Pressure Electrochemical CO₂ Capture and Conversion
- William Schmid, Light-Driven Thermal Desalination Using Transient Solar Illumination
“Through this fellowship program, we can support outstanding graduate students from across the university who are conducting cutting-edge research across a variety of fields,” Carrie Masiello, director of the Rice Sustainability Institute, said in a news release. “This year, our 2026 Chevron Fellows are working on research that reflects the diversity of the sustainability research at Rice … and these scholarly endeavors exemplify the breadth and depth of research enabled by Chevron’s generous support.”
The Chevron Fellows program launched at Rice last year, naming 10 graduate students to the inaugural cohort. It is funded by Chevron and was created through a partnership between the Rice Sustainability Institute. Chevron launched a similar program at the University of Houston in 2023.
“Rice University continues to be an exceptional partner in advancing energy innovation,” Chris Powers, director of exploration commercial and portfolio at Chevron, added in the release. “The Chevron Energy Fellows program showcases the brilliance and drive of Rice graduate students, whose research in areas like carbon conversion, solar materials and geothermal sensing is already shaping the future of sustainable energy. We’re proud to celebrate their achievements and look forward to the impact they’ll continue to make across the energy landscape.”