News

NASA astronaut Richard “Rick” Mastracchio — a 1987 graduate of Rensselaer — returned to space this week with the successful launch of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission to visit the International Space Station. Mastracchio and fellow astronaut Clayton Anderson were scheduled to conduct three spacewalks to perform critical space station assembly tasks. These include transferring a new ammonia tank from the shuttle’s payload bay and installing it on the International Space Station.

Following reports that an alleged armed suspect was seen around Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s East Campus Athletic Village and LINAC facilities during the morning of April 6, Rensselaer employed its RPIAlert emergency communications system to initiate a campus lockdown. The first message was sent to all students, faculty, and staff in the Institute's emergency communications network via email, text message, and an automated phone call around 9:30 a.m.

Following reports that an alleged armed suspect was seen around Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s East Campus Athletic Village and LINAC facilities during the morning of April 6, Rensselaer employed its RPIAlert emergency communications system to initiate a campus lockdown. The first message was sent to all students, faculty, and staff in the Institute's emergency communications network via email, text message, and an automated phone call around 9:30 a.m.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has launched the nation’s first undergraduate degree program devoted to the emerging interdisciplinary field of Web Science. The new academic major expands the current Information Technology degree program to create both a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s concentration, in “Information Technology and Web Science.” The students in the interdisciplinary degree program will investigate issues on the Web related to security, trust, privacy, content value, and the development of the Web of the future.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Robert Linhardt has won the 2010 Melville L. Wolfrom Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Vice President for Research Fran Berman will help kick off and participate in an April 1 symposium on the challenges of preserving our digital domain for future generations. The symposium will take place at The Fairmont hotel in Washington, D.C.

Renowned architectural acoustician Leo Beranek is presenting Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with his historic collection of acoustics books. His gift acknowledges the top status of Rensselaer’s graduate program in architectural acoustics and offers students access to the rare books he has accumulated in a lifetime of work within the field. 

Nanoengineered Coating Uses Naturally Occurring Water Deep in Earth to Power Underground Oil and Gas Sensors

Last spring, the Fortuns and STS graduate students Alison Kenner and Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn laid the groundwork for the Asthmatic Spaces courses.

Nanotechnology pioneer Richard W. Siegel, the Robert W. Hunt Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and director of the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center, has been named a fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS).