BY KATHARINE SHILCUTT

When you see nearly a hundred Fulbright graduate students on campus — 94 this year, from 32 different countries — it tells you something important. These scholars are hand-picked by their home countries and the U.S. government, and they can go pretty much anywhere in the United States. The fact that so many end up here means Rice isn’t just known abroad; it’s trusted.

Faculty, labs and programs across the university have all built a reputation that attracts top international researchers, meaning 2.3% of Rice’s grad student population are Fulbright scholars — a compelling statistic when Fulbright students are a fraction of a fraction at most U.S. universities.

“This is one of the closest-knit communities we have at Rice,” said Seiichi Matsuda, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

This also says a lot about what Rice can handle. Supporting this many Fulbright students isn’t simple. It takes strong advising, responsive departments and a campus where international students can hit the ground running. The payoff is a graduate community that feels genuinely global. These scholars bring different perspectives, research interests and lived experiences to the mix, and that changes the conversations happening in classrooms and labs.

“Something that I really like about Rice is that we have people from everywhere,” said Alan Salceda Monge, who came to Houston from Mexico to study engineering management and leadership. “It’s a very international environment, and people are very open and kind. I know we can count on each other for almost everything.”