News

Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the appointment of Douglas Cumming, Ph.D., as director of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at the Lally School of Management and Technology. A distinguished researcher in the area of venture capital, private equity, and IPOs, Cumming’s work focuses on the law and finance of entrepreneurship in the United States, Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Troy, N.Y. — Approximately 1,250 members of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s incoming Class of 2009 are arriving on campus this week. Nearly two-thirds of the students come from the top 10 percent of their high school classes, more than 300 members of the freshman class are Rensselaer Medalists, and the class’s average SAT score of 1320 includes 70 students with a perfect 800 score in either verbal or math.

TROY, N.Y. — Peter Kramer, assistant professor of mathematical sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Kramer will use the projected five-year, $412,138 grant to work on developing a new quantitative model to represent the interaction of water molecules and protein molecules with the aim of accelerating computational simulations, potentially leading to future medical applications.

TROY, N.Y. — Applying math and computers to the drug discovery process, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a method to predict protein separation behavior directly from protein structure. This new multi-scale protein modeling approach may reduce the time it takes to bring pharmaceuticals to market and may have significant implications for an array of biotechnology applications, including bioprocessing, drug discovery, and proteomics, the study of protein structure and function. 

Undergraduate Engineering Again Ranked Among the Top 20 Programs in the Country TROY, N.Y. — U.S. News & World Report has ranked Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 43rd among the nation’s top universities, up from 46th last year. The Institute also ranks 27th in the “Best Values” among national universities.

Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today announced that Jack McDonnell, Class of ’61, of Reston, Virginia, has made an unrestricted gift of $1 million to support Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

Troy, N.Y — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today announced the appointment of David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., as Dean of the Lally School of Management and Technology.  Most recently principal and director of research at CCG Group LLC, Dean Gautschi has had a long and significant career in the academic and business arena.

Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today announced that Thomas and Constance D’Ambra have made a $3 million commitment to endow a faculty chair in synthetic organic chemistry, in support of biotechnology initiatives at the Institute. 

3-D Patients Simulate Radiation Doses for Real Patients Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is leading a team of researchers awarded a three-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop 3-D virtual patient models that will more accurately compute radiation doses for CT imaging, nuclear medicine, and radiation treatment of cancer patients. The grant is funded by the National Cancer Institute, part of NIH.

Troy, N.Y. — Yael Kanarek, master of fine arts (MFA) graduate student in the electronic arts program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has received a media arts fellowship from National Video Resources. She will receive an award package in the amount of $35,000, as part of $715,000 the organization is awarding to 22 film, video, and new media artists.