News

National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist will be the “Community Read” for the upcoming academic year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The selection, which encourages readers to think about how to create and actively participate in an antiracist society, is consistent with Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson’s recent call for “a yearlong, university-wide discussion about racism and inequity.”

Strategies for increasing diversity, inclusion, and equity in higher education are discussed by two leaders implementing them at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the latest episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast.

TROY, NY — As coastal communities prepare for the possibility of hurricanes this summer and fall, they are doing so amid the uncertain landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic — a crisis that has already taxed health care systems, governments, and supply chains. A faculty and student team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has been modeling how the combined disasters may make community recovery vastly more difficult. What they have found serves as a stark warning to policymakers preparing for hurricane season.

A perspective piece published online today in Science by Jonathan Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Matthew Brier, who recently earned his doctorate in chemical engineering at Rensselaer, explores the potential of emerging approaches for the remote activation of cell signaling to induce gene expression and the production of specific proteins.

TROY, N.Y. — The next generation of jet fighters are being designed to be both stealthy and high-speed and, as part of this makeover, their geometry will be unique and won’t include a vertical tail. The new design will improve the aircraft’s maneuvering, minimalize its visibility, and improve its overall performance — but it will also decrease the aircraft’s performance during takeoff and landing.

A new book by Shira Dentz, a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently published by PANK, a press that “fosters access to emerging and experimental poetry and prose.” Sisyphusina uses prose, poetry, visual art, and other forms of expression to explore female aging.

An anthropologist and engineer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute outline their interdisciplinary effort to increase awareness about how humans impact the planet on the latest episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast.

In research recently published in Nature Communications, a team of chemical engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has significantly furthered its efforts to unlock the extensive possibilities of a type of material known as monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs).

In the spring 2020 semester, more than 2,000 students and 242 professors, teaching assistants and mentors relied on Submitty, the open-source tool designed and built by students, faculty, and teaching assistants at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Federation of American Scientists has named James Hendler, the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web, and Cognitive Sciences and director of the Rensselaer Institute of Data Exploration and Applications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to a recently formed COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force.