News Archive

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute doctoral student Emily de Stefanis is one of 60 recipients of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) award. The SCGSR program places students with mentors at DOE national labs, where students learn from top experts in their field and conduct research in state-of-the-art facilities.De Stefanis will spend 2024 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico working on her research with experts in the field of nuclear materials. 
Jian Shi, Ph.D., associate professor in both the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), has been selected for the Simons Foundation's Pivot Fellowship. 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has announced the addition of Thomas G. Capek ’86, senior vice president and chief engineer at Corning Incorporated, to Rensselaer’s Board of Trustees. Corning is one of the world's leading innovators in materials science and has a longstanding relationship with RPI supporting research, philanthropy, and student recruitment. Capek previously served on the Dean’s Leadership Council in RPI’s School of Engineering. As a Board of Trustees member, Capek sits on the Academic Affairs and Research Committee and the Student Life Committee.
A team led by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has 3D-printed hair follicles in human skin tissue cultured in the lab. This marks the first time researchers have used the technology to generate hair follicles, which play an important role in skin healing and function.
Nikhil Koratkar, Ph.D., John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Koratkar was recognized for his pioneering contributions to the field of nanoscale science and technology and the use of nanoscale materials in composites and energy storage devices. Each year, no more than 0.05% of the society membership is recognized by their peers for election to the status of fellow of the American Physical Society.
Transistors — the tiny on-off switches inside microchips — have gotten smaller and smaller over the years, increasing computing power and enabling smaller devices. During that time, the copper wires that connect these switches have likewise shrunk. However, smaller, thinner wires create a big problem, said Daniel Gall, professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Using artificial intelligence tools to analyze years of biomedical data, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a possible connection between sleep, gastrointestinal health, and two potentially harmful behaviors often associated with profound autism: self-injury and aggression. Their study is published in the Journal of Personalized Medicine.
Pawel Keblinski, Ph.D., has been named John Tod Horton ’52 Professor of Materials Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. An endowed chaired professorship is among the highest honors bestowed on a Rensselaer faculty member.
U.S. Army Veteran and RPI alumnus Daryian Rhysing, who graduated in 2016 with a degree in computer and systems engineering, was featured in an episode of Veteran’s Playbook airing on Discovery Network’s Destination America Channel. The show seeks to inspire active military and veterans to consider business ownership as a viable path to success and fulfillment.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has announced that President Joe Biden has bestowed the National Medal of Science on globally recognized biomechanical engineer Sheldon Weinbaum, a member of the RPI Class of 1959. The award is the highest honor for scientific achievement bestowed by the United States government. The award recognizes individuals deserving of special recognition for their outstanding cumulative contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, engineering, or behavioral or social sciences, in service to the nation.
ChatGPT has fascinated the public as we begin to explore how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be useful in our everyday lives. On the back end, scientists are continually advancing AI for potential applications so vast that it may change life as we know it by accelerating scientific and technological developments.
This past summer, a team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students, with the guidance of a faculty mentor, pitched a winning design for a wearable, medical-grade device that monitors for atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, is a potentially life-threatening heart condition that will affect an estimated 12 million people in the U.S. by 2030, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Another harbinger of things to come sits on a hillside near the Hudson River in upstate New York, where an immersion lab with 15-foot walls and a 360-degree projection system transports Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute language students to China, virtually.

In a collaboration between Rensselaer and IBM Research, the Cognitive and Immersive Systems Laboratory (CISL) invites students interested in conducting research with us to attend an information session Wednesday, August 12th @ 2 pm online. RSVP to Maura Marsett <saratm@rpi.edu> or register on Handshake by 9am Wednesday, August 12th for WebEx session information.

The research conducted at CISL is currently focused on the following projects:

In a collaboration between Rensselaer and IBM Research, the Cognitive and Immersive Systems Laboratory (CISL) invites students interested in conducting research with us to attend an information session Thursday, April 30th @ 1:30 pm

Covid-19 Update: Following the state and university guidelines, HUMAINE organizers have decided to host this year's competition online via a web browser instead of running it in the on-campus immersive environment. At some future date, if conditions safely permit, we may demonstrate some of the submitted agents in the immersive environment. This does not affect how participants write/submit their code for now.

Following ANAC guidance, we have extended our deadlines for participants to submit their code.

Graduate Student Jerry Huang presents an ongoing CISL project at the 178th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego, California. 

link to webcast of Jerry's presentation

Assistant Professor Helen (Yalun) Zhou and Research Specialist Jaimie Drozdal host a roundtable discussion on the Mandarin Project at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) 2019 Convention in Washington, D.C. 

The dream of perfect recreation of sound has always consisted of two parts: Reproduction of monaural sounds such that they seem to be exact copies of an original signal and the plausible recreation of complex sound environments, the possibility to be immersed in sound. The latter goal seems to be much more difficult, especially if we consider reproduction over headphones.

Universities have come a long way in their language studies, moving beyond just traditional classes in a lecture hall and prerecorded lessons without interaction. Now students have access to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) in an immersive learning environment.