Alice Owens talks women’s rugby and engineering

By Sam Balakrishnan     4/1/25 10:40pm

Alice Owens said she thrives most when adrenaline courses through her veins. Founder and president of the Rice Women’s Rugby Club, her journey at Rice began with several intramural sports, but it was Powderpuff that left the deepest mark. 

When an administrative change shifted Powderpuff from semi-contact to no-contact, the students’ frustration revealed to Owens a clear demand for a sport like rugby at Rice. 

“Rugby is a sport that I have played or been exposed to for a long time,” said Owens, who came to Rice from England. “Even from when I was a kid in primary school, we would play touch rugby … and I really loved it.”

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Owens said the rugby team’s hard work paid off at a recent tournament at Baylor University, where they won all three of their matches. Owens herself was sidelined with a concussion from their previous tournament.

“I’m really proud of our girls,” said Owens, a Baker College senior. “It’s definitely one of those sports where it’s very much women supporting women. We go to tournaments and if a couple of players get injured and we need subs, girls from other teams are jumping and raising their hands … they’re super excited to come and help out another team.”

As a sophomore, Owens immersed herself in men’s rugby practices. After being notified of $10K available for women’s rugby, she organized a handful of women’s practices that spring.  Owens started where she left off the following spring after a semester abroad. She organized practices with men’s rugby members and organized a friendly scrimmage with Tulane University. 

The summer between her junior and senior years, Owens said she committed to growing as a leader, completing a Doerr one-on-one course to refine her leadership skills. By the fall, she had secured a coach. 

Owens said her interests extend far beyond rugby itself. Before college, she took a gap year to work at a structural engineering firm, an experience that fueled her decision to major in mechanical engineering with a minor in engineering design.

“What I like is prototyping and working in a workshop or a machine shop and building stuff or designing things — prototyping it and testing it,” Owens said. “Someone, somewhere in a construction site has a technical drawing which has my name at the bottom.” 

Engineering senior design teammate Aidan Colon said Owens’ love for designing can be seen in her senior design project — designing an art car for the Houston Art Car Parade. 

“Alice took the initiative to design a modular set of panels that feature steampunk and cyberpunk aesthetics,” said Colon, a Jones College senior. “Through all the hours spent working on our senior design project together, I’m grateful to have spent that time with Alice and to know her now as both a peer and a friend.” 

Owens said she spent a year working at West Servery, where she said her analytical mindset shaped her approach to cooking. Her biggest culinary “engineering” challenge was baking her oldest sister’s wedding cake.

“How do I figure out how to make this thing stand up?” Owens said. “It’s just very much about engineering and chemistry and how all those things tie together to make the best dish.”

Erika Alvarez, a friend of Owens’s and a senior at Baker, said Owens has embraced adventure and constantly pushed boundaries through every experience.

“If there were a dictionary definition of ‘adventurous,’ her picture would be next to it,” Alvarez said. “What makes Alice truly special isn’t just how accomplished, hardworking and fearless she is — it’s that, through all of it, she is the most incredible friend. She gives everything to the people she loves.” 

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