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Rensselaer Celebrates Opening of Douglas Mercer ’77 Laboratory for Student Exploration and Innovation
New Electrical Engineering Lab Encourages
Student Tinkering and Innovation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today celebrated the
opening of the Douglas Mercer ’77 Laboratory for Student
Exploration and Innovation.
A part of the Department of Electrical,
Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE), the Mercer Lab
aims to promote and encourage the “lost art of tinkering” with
electronics components. The facility provides an open shop
environment and sophisticated hardware for students to work on
class and research projects. Additionally, the Mercer Lab will
sponsor electronics design competitions for students.
The lab was made possible by a $500,000 endowment gift from
Mercer, Class of 1977, who was a fellow at Massachusetts-based
semiconductor firm Analog Devices
Inc. (ADI) from 1995-2009 and is now consulting with the
company on university-related projects. Mercer will support lab
operations with an annual gift of $50,000. ADI donated $160,000
and is founding corporate sponsor of the lab.
“To succeed as a leading research university, it is
imperative that we continue to equip our students with the
necessary tools to meet the challenge of our motto, ‘Why not
change the world’? The Douglas Mercer ’77 Laboratory for
Student Exploration and Innovation directly addresses this
challenge, and provides a rich resource that will enable us to
engage, educate, and inspire the engineering and technology
leaders of tomorrow,” said Rensselaer President Shirley Ann
Jackson. “We thank Mr. Mercer and ADI for their generous
support of this new laboratory, and applaud their
forward-looking investment in the Rensselaer electrical
engineering experience.”
“We are enormously grateful to Doug Mercer and ADI for
making the Douglas Mercer ’77 Laboratory for Student
Exploration and Innovation a reality,” said
David Rosowsky, dean of the School of Engineering at
Rensselaer. “The new lab builds on our reputation as an
institute for practical and experiential learning, for
innovation, and for creating learning spaces that both foster
and enable student discovery.”
“Electrical engineering needs to be more than lectures on
theory, reading textbooks, and taking exams,” Mercer said.
“Aristotle said, ‘For the things we have to learn before we can
do them, we learn by doing them.’ Advances in technology can
now provide students with their own personal portable
electronics laboratory, which removes the constraints of fixed
space, equipment and schedules to conduct their experiments.
However, this entry-level hardware can take the student only so
far. A more advanced set of capabilities is impossible to
replicate on an individual, personal basis. Electrical
engineering departments seldom have room in their meager
budgets to build and outfit advanced laboratories for
extracurricular learning. So when presented with the proposal
for a student centered open laboratory, I saw a good
opportunity to positively impact the students.”
“We are pleased and proud to support the Douglas Mercer ’77
Laboratory for Student Exploration and Innovation at
Rensselaer,” said David Robertson, ADI vice president of analog
technology. “As a fellow at Analog Devices, Doug showed that
the lab was not simply the place where great ideas were
validated—the hands-on work in the lab was the source of
discovery, deeper understanding, and breakthrough product
innovation. Many engineers from prior generations came into
electronics after a childhood of tinkering with radios, TV
sets, and other gadgets. These sorts of experiences are harder
to come by in the video game and smart phone app generation.
Doug’s remarkable career is testimony to the importance of this
‘hands-on feel’ for an electrical engineer—we look forward to
the impact this lab will have in helping Rensselaer convert
smart students into innovative engineers.”
“The Douglas Mercer ’77 Laboratory for Student Exploration
and Innovation is built for tinkering in electronics, the
largely undirected process of exploratory thinking and
experimentation,” said ECSE Department Head Kim Boyer.
“Tinkering is an American tradition that fosters innovation and
promotes integrative learning and intuition. It provides an
exceptional vehicle for exploring and understanding the limits
of theory versus practice and is arguably an essential
component of a modern engineering education. We are so proud to
provide our students with this world-class facility, thanks to
the extraordinary generosity of Mr. Mercer and the critical
support of Analog Devices.”
Since its creation in 1909, the Rensselaer Department of
Electrical Engineering has grown to include computer and
systems engineering. Graduates of the department include the
founder of the television industry, the co-inventor of the chip
at the heart of every computer, a storied leader of IBM, the
judge whose decision paved the way for generic drugs, and other
visionary leaders, researchers, and entrepreneurs.
Today, ECSE is ranked as the nation’s 14th best
electrical engineering undergraduate program and
17th best graduate electrical engineering program by
U.S. News & World Report. The department enrolls
nearly 500 undergraduate students and more than 120 graduate
students. ECSE faculty total more than $12 million in annual
research expenditures, and are world leaders in the fields of
electrical communications, signal processing, robotics,
computer vision, smart grids and energy transmission, 3-D
integrated computer chips, and many other leading-edge research
areas. Since 2010, three ECSE alumni have been awarded the
National Medal of Technology by President Barack Obama.
For more information on electrical engineering at
Rensselaer, visit:
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Published
October 3,
2012 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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