Shared Equipment Authority (SEA)

Image removed.

Shared Equipment Authority

Rice established the Shared Equipment Authority (SEA) in 2001 to provide its faculty superb experimental facilities, research equipment, and support services at an affordable cost. The SEA’s innovative management structure relies on faculty board governance, with members drawn from its stakeholder departments and committed to the principles of shared infrastructure. Bearing fiscal responsibility, the faculty board implements administrative and resource management policies, approves usage fees and major operational expenses, and commits capital resources in alignment with research priorities, all in compliance with appropriate regulations and university policies.

Appropriate fees are determined based on cost models that account for operating, maintaining, and repairing the instruments. Usage statistics and operational costs for all instruments are reported at monthly board meetings by SEA’s full-time accountant and reviewed at least annually to update fees for each instrument. SEA employs a team of 20 full-time professional scientific staff members, including 16 PhDs, who maintain the equipment, enforce safety procedures, educate and train users, and provide expert assistance in research applications, frequently contributing as full collaborators. A three-person administrative team completes this agile organization.

  • The SEA resource portfolio includes over 150 instruments in the following categories:
  • Electron Microscopy: FIB, SEM, TEM, including many specialized applications
  • Elemental Analysis: Combustion, ICP, and ion chromatography
  • Flow Cytometry: Microbial and mammalian
  • Mass Spectrometry: GC-MS, LC-MS, small molecule, and proteomics
  • Materials Analysis: EPR, mechanical testing, spectroscopy, and more
  • Nanofabrication: Class 100 (ISO 5) Cleanroom, capable of limited 200mm process
  • NMR Spectrometry: 1-D, 2-D, and solid-state
  • Optical Microscopy: Confocal, optical tweezer, super-resolution, and widefield
  • Surface Analysis: AFM, ToF-SIMS, XPS, and more
  • Synthetic Biology: Analysis, sample preparation, and more
  • X-ray Analysis: Micro-CT/x-ray microscopy, SAXS, WAXS, XRD, and XRF

To foster maximal and fair use of these shared resources, the SEA created a flexible access framework for Rice researchers, their many colleagues in the Texas Medical Center, and in Houston’s larger academic and commercial research and development community. Instrument scheduling and access control are handled by a browser-accessed resource management system that limits instrument access to only trained and authorized users. 

The SEA’s effectiveness and efficiency in managing Rice’s shared equipment has been nationally recognized as a model for midsize research universities seeking to maintain and grow their shared instrumentation (National Research Council, Midsize Facilities:  The Infrastructure for Materials Research, National Academies Press, 2006, pp. 53-56).  Today, SEA maintains the high standards and exemplary service that led to this recognition.

Source:  https://research.rice.edu/sea/

Last updated:  March 2026