Ricky Pierce

William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded 295-acre campus in Houston, Texas, United States. The university is situated near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.... Opened in 1912 after the murder of its namesake William Marsh Rice, Rice is now a preeminent research university with a distinct undergraduate focus. Its emphasis on undergraduate education is demonstrated by a small student body and 5:1 student-faculty ratio, among the lowest in the top American universities including the Ivy League. Rice alumni are prominent in every sector of society today. The university has produced 101 Fulbright Scholars, 20 Marshall Scholars, and 12 Rhodes Scholars. The university has a very high level of research activity for its size, with $115.3 million in sponsored research funding in 2011. Rice is noted for its applied science programs in the fields of artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science, and nanotechnology.
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Dallas is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Divided between Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall... counties, the city had a population of 1,197,816 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau. The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of 6,371,773. The metroplex economy is the sixth largest in the United States, with a 2010 gross metropolitan product of $374 billion. Dallas was founded in 1841 and was formally incorporated as a city in February 1856. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, transportation and logistics. The city is home to the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation.
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