Flooding remains the most destructive natural hazard in the United States, costing billions in damages annually, disrupting critical infrastructure and endangering lives. While urban areas often have access to substantial resources to tackle these challenges, rural communities face persistent barriers in mitigating flood risks. Recognizing these issues, Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, is leading an innovative project to close the gap. Together with Rice’s James Doss-Gollin, Andrew Juan at Texas A&M University and Keri Stephens at University of Texas at Austin, the team was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant under the CHIRRP program (Confronting Hazards, Impacts and Risks for a Resilient Planet).

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), in collaboration with the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the BC Materials research centre in the Basque Country, has developed an innovative computational model that makes it possible to predict and improve the behaviour of multifunctional structures manufactured using 3D printers. This breakthrough, supported by the BBVA Foundation through a Leonardo Grant and recently published in the journal Nature Communications, opens the door to new applications in sectors such as biomedicine, soft robotics and other branches of engineering.

RE-HUMANIZE: How to Build Human-Centric Organizations in the Age of Algorithms offers a compelling guide to designing organizations that harmonize digital efficiency with human-centric values, ensuring that both productivity and meaningful work coexist.