News

Troy, N.Y. - Georges Belfort has been named a chaired professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Belfort will hold the title of Russell Sage Professor of Chemical Engineering. Belfort has been a chemical engineering faculty member for 25 years. He is a world-renowned authority on bioseparation, the science of recovering valuable proteins and other biological molecules from the complex mixtures in which they are produced. He's also an expert on the behavior of biological molecules at solid interfaces.

Troy, N.Y. - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Director of Athletics Ken Ralph has announced the signing of Head Men's Hockey Coach Dan Fridgen to a three-year contract extension. Financial terms of the pact, which will keep Fridgen at Rensselaer through 2005-06, were not disclosed.

Troy, N.Y. - The Paul J. '69 and Kathleen M. Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer's Lally School of Management and Technology announces a new $40,000 student business plan competition that is open to all colleges and universities in the 17-county, Tech Valley Region. The Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan Competition aims to introduce students to entrepreneurship as a career choice, says Jeanne Stefanik, manager of the Severino Center.

Troy, N.Y. - Budding student entrepreneurs are invited to a workshop sponsored by Rensselaer's Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at the Lally School of Management and Technology. The workshop, "How to Write a Successful Business Plan," will be held Wednesday, Jan. 22, from 6-8 p.m. at the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce office in Colonie. This workshop is free to all participants.

Troy, N.Y. - A previously unseen band of stars beyond the edge of the Milky Way galaxy has been discovered by a team of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The discovery could help to explain how the galaxy was assembled 10 billion years ago.

Her Term with the World's Largest General Scientific Society Begins in 2004

Troy, N.Y. — Slingerlands resident E. Jeanne Jenkins will receive the Outstanding Service Award on Wednesday, Dec. 18 from Rensselaer's Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) detachment. The award recognizes an individual or organization for providing exceptional support to the AFROTC, and for helping it fulfill its mission to cultivate leaders for the Air Force. Jenkins is the first recipient of the award.

Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has formed an alliance with two upstate New York universities and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez to enroll more minority students in graduate programs and to produce more minority professors.

Troy, N.Y. — After suffering the first of seven heartbreaking miscarriages in 1986, Rensselaer anthropology professor Linda Layne vowed to bring the subject of pregnancy loss to light. Now, nearly two decades later, Layne presents her findings in a new book titled Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America (Routledge, 2003). In it, she challenges society and women's movements in particular to publicly discuss the topic and to offer more helpful support to "would-be" parents.    

Troy, N.Y. — More than 20 elementary-school students from the Susan Odell Taylor School visited the country's only 'Molecularium' today. Housed in the Lally Digistar II Planetarium in Troy's Junior Museum, the "Molecularium" is designed to introduce students in grades K-3 to simple material science concepts, including the states of matter - solids, liquids, and gases - and addresses the requirements of the New York State science curricula.