It is with great sadness that I write to inform you that Rensselaer Trustee Warren H. Bruggeman ’46 passed away yesterday morning. He was 84 years old. Mr. Bruggeman served as a member of the Rensselaer Board of Trustees from 1989 through 2000, and continued to serve over the past nine years as an honorary member. He was chairman of the Board’s Community Relations Committee and the Rensselaer Technology Park Committee, and an instrumental figure in the growth of our Tech Park into one of the region’s most successful economic engines.

Frank Spear, professor and head of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has been appointed as the Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Science Education.

President Barack Obama today appointed Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).  The announcement came in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. 

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate programs in engineering and the fine arts rank among the best in the nation, according to the 2010 U.S. News & World Report guide to “America’s Best Graduate Schools.” The publication is scheduled be available on April 28, 2009.

Business School Launches New Master’s Degree Track in Financial Engineering and Risk Analytics

Institute receives grant to focus on bolstering K-12 STEM education in New York state

The speed at which heat moves between two materials touching each other is a potent indicator of how strongly they are bonded to each other, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Additionally, the study shows that this flow of heat from one material to another, in this case one solid and one liquid, can be dramatically altered by “painting” a thin atomic layer between materials. Changing the interface fundamentally changes the way the materials interact.

Tarek Abdoun, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and associate director of Rensselaer’s Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (CEES).

A “smart” power strip that boosts energy efficiency, a simple water treatment and sanitation solution for people in developing countries, and a solar-powered brick maker are among the winning ideas in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s spring 2009 Change the World Challenge contest.

Semiconductor and integrated circuit pioneer Michael Shur, the Patricia W. and C. Sheldon Roberts ’48 Chaired Professor in Solid State Electronics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been named a fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS).