Marquise with a prototype of his wearable textile-based heating materials developed as a form of reusable PPE and for aided thermoregulation in the extremities of astronauts.

From a young age, Ph.D. candidate Marquise Bell ’25 was dreaming of Disney.

“I was captivated by figuring out how to make things work,” Marquise said. “I also like making people laugh. My life plan was to work for Disney designing amusement parks.”

While working toward his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Baylor, two things happened simultaneously: year after year, he was turned down for an internship at Disney, and he discovered a passion for teaching.

“My senior year, I was a teaching assistant for an introductory engineering course, and I found that I really enjoyed that ‘light bulb moment’ — helping students understand the problem and how to think through it,” he said.

Marquise’s undergraduate mentor, Elon Terrell, was the only Black faculty member in Baylor’s mechanical engineering department at the time. Marquise credits Terrell with helping him feel represented in academia and instilling in him the confidence to pursue a graduate degree.

“I wanted to have a larger impact, interacting with people at the forefront of engineering science and broadening participation for other populations that may not otherwise have the opportunity,” said Marquise.

Terrell connected Marquise with his former graduate advisor, C. Fred Higgs III, who is Rice’s vice provost for academic affairs and director of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership. During a campus visit, Marquise decided Rice was for him.

“I chose Rice because of its size and prestige — its name carries weight, and it has the resources to back up its rankings,” he said.

Initial visit to Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio (left to right: Marquise's advisor Daniel J. Preston, Marquise, collaborator Tiffany Williams).

Marquise began his graduate journey at Rice in fall 2020, when he quickly gained valuable research experience with the support of Rice’s faculty, especially with his advisor Daniel J. Preston. In 2021, Marquise was awarded the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO) Fellowship. The fellowship supports his research in developing multifunctional textile materials for advanced space suit integration. His work has made him a frequent traveler to NASA Johnson Space Center and Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

“My research looks at how we can make textile materials do more for us,” he said. “Specifically, I’m engineering electrically conductive textiles that can sense temperature and pressure to monitor both the health of the suit materials and the user wearing them, but in a form factor that is light and aesthetically pleasing.”

Marquise has not forgotten the guidance of Terrell and Higgs, carrying the torch of mentorship forward through his leadership roles in the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Association and Black Graduate Student Association. Additionally, he has served as a graduate ambassador and as a mentor in the inaugural cohort of the Pathways mentorship program through the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

“I would not have been able to make any of these strides had it not been for someone investing time and effort into me. People have reached back down the ladder to help me up, and I want to be able to extend that to others coming up behind me.”

In his five years at Rice, Marquise has seen the effects of Rice’s renewed commitment to supporting the graduate student experience. More robust on-campus meal plans, subsidized health insurance, the graduate student lounge and community-building programming have made a big difference in his and others’ lives.

“There’s a more social atmosphere so we don’t feel so alone and siloed in our labs. Universitywide, peer-to-peer mentorship programs allow students to ask ‘Am I allowed to be feeling this? Is imposter syndrome really supposed to hit me this hard?’ Student events allow us an opportunity to pause and appreciate being around others who are going through the same struggle.”

To Rice Fund donors, he says: “Thank you. It can be easy to think that whatever you’re giving may not be enough, but it’s really a community effort. When enough people pull together, you’re able to make really cool things happen.”

Following his doctoral defense in July, Marquise will move to Philadelphia, where he has accepted a provost postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

As for his Disney dream? He was eventually awarded an internship the summer before he started at Rice. “I got to live out my childhood dream of becoming an Imagineer,” he said. “But I realized my passions didn’t align with that anymore — I have my sights set on academia.”