About Us

About the West Houston Institute

The West Houston Institute is Houston Community College's center for strategic innovation. Conceived collaboratively by stakeholders across the college and our communities, the Institute opened in Spring 2018 with a vision to reimagine and reinvent higher education by providing students and the community with the essential mindsets and skillsets needed to thrive today.

The West Houston Institute offers several signature programs to accomplish this, including IDEAS Academy, Innovation Fellows, Teaching Innovation Lab, and our Learning Spaces Institute. We also offer unique educational spaces in support of creativity and collaboration including IDEAStudio, a 10,000 square foot makerspace, the Collaboratorium, a solution design center, Learning Commons, our vision for the modern library, and advanced science labs and research space for life and physical sciences. WHI also has a state of the art conference space utilized by both internal and external clients throughout the year.

Our Vision, Mission, and Values

Our Team

Jordan Carswell

Director, Innovation Strategy and West Houston Institute

Mayra Herrera

Coordinator, West Houston Institute

Connie Leon

Program Coordinator, C2O Consortium

Robin Nagy

Program Coordinator, New Texas Pipeline

Israel Garza

Manager, IDEAStudio Makerspace

Jeffrey Chen

Senior Makerspace Technician, IDEAStudio

Azarel Garcia

Makerspace Specialist, IDEAStudio