News

The National Science Foundation has awarded $4 million to the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub, an organization dedicated to building partnerships to address societal challenges with data-driven solutions. The Hub is hosted by Columbia University’s Data Science Institute and is coordinated by several researchers, including James Hendler, director of the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA).

Dorit Nevo, Ph.D., has been appointed the acting associate dean for academic affairs for the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer. Nevo has been a faculty member at Rensselaer since she joined the Lally School as an associate professor of management information systems in 2012. She received a Ph.D. in management information systems from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in economics from the Technion in Israel.

Juergen Hahn, head of the department of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer, has recently been named 2019-2021 Computing & Systems Technology Division Director for AIChE, a professional organization for chemical engineers.

Leo Wan, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer, collaborated on cardiac cell research recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.    The study, led by a developmental biologist at Albany Medical Center, investigated molecular mechanisms of cardiac cell orientation and the significance of that process in early heart development. 

Shekhar Garde, dean of the School of Engineering at Rensselaer, recently received the 2019 BMM Award in Science, Technology, Education and Research. Bruhan Maharashtra Mandal (BMM) is a non-profit organization in North America aimed at preserving and promoting the Marathi culture from Maharashtra, a western state in India. Every other year, BMM organizes a convention in North America. There it recognizes members of the Marathi community “for their outstanding personal achievements and contributions to society.” This year’s conference was held in Dallas, Texas.

Chanaka Edirisinghe has been appointed acting dean of the Lally School of Management, and also will serve as a member of the Deans' Council.

With strong ties to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute community, alumnus Richard Lotti ’78, MBA ’79, has recruited more than 40 Rensselaer students for a variety of Co-op positions at top-tier companies throughout California. Lotti’s passion continues through his partnership with The Arch program and his appointment to the Rensselaer Silicon Valley Executive Council.

As part of the inaugural class participating in full implementation of The Arch at Rensselaer, rising junior Jack Zhu, a physics and chemistry dual major with a concentration in materials science, is well into the summer semester. In preparation for his fall 2019 semester away, Zhu has already secured an internship abroad at ASML in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

A rover built by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students took third place in the Design Competition at the 27th annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), and won the Rookie of the Year award. The Rensselaer Rock Raiders team includes students from the School of Science and School of Engineering, and has been competing since 2014, when the team entered the NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge.

Engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are about to start work on two large-scale collaborative projects aimed at increasing competitiveness and sustainability in steel and industrial gas manufacturing.