News

Rensselaer held its Inaugural Scholarship Gala—and announced that is has raised over $24 million in scholarship support in the last two years—at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City Nov. 17. The Gala raised support for the Institute’s scholarship initiative, Bridging the Gap, and presented its newest honor, the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, to three recipients—IBM, Howard N. Blitman P.E., Class of 1950, and Curtis R. Priem, Class of 1982.

While Rensselaer celebrated its largest class in history earlier this fall, it also marked another important milestone. For the first time in the Institute’s almost 200-year history, there are more than 1,000 women enrolled in the School of Engineering’s undergraduate programs.

Deep Listening is a creative, meditative practice developed by one of America’s most important composers of the 20th and 21st century, Pauline Oliveros, who served as distinguished research professor of music at  Rensselaer. Oliveros passed away on Nov. 24.

A team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has been selected by Amazon to receive sponsorship for competing in the inaugural $2.5 million Amazon Alexa Prize competition. 

A team of students from Rensselaer presented an analysis and incident response approach to a simulated cyber attack in order to claim third place at the third annual Deloitte Foundation Cyber Threat Competition

The Rensselaer campus and local community are invited to a multimedia concert and lecture focused on the links between music and health, sponsored by the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and the Department of the Arts. The event will be held on Dec. 8. 

Carbon and nitrogen are central to life on Earth – life cannot exist without them, but an overabundance in the atmosphere imperils the life we have. 

Last weekend, members of the Rensselaer Orchestra, under the direction of Nicholas DeMaison, senior lecturer of music in the Department of Arts, presented a concert of works exploring the sublime nature of romantic tragedy. The fall concert series culminates on Dec. 18.

(In this guest post, Aaron Stoler, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Rensselaer biologist and Jefferson Project at Lake George director Rick Relyea, discusses research results recently published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The research tests the effects of road salt alone and in combination with a common insecticide on wetland communities. […]

Naturally occurring chemicals found in de-icing road salts can alter the sex ratios in nearby frog populations, a phenomenon that could reduce the size and viability of species populations, according to a new study by scientists at Yale and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.