For the first time, researchers have used bacteria to “upcycle” waste polyethylene

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute doctoral student Emily de Stefanis is one of 60 recipients of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) award. The SCGSR program places students with mentors at DOE national labs, where students learn from top experts in their field and conduct research in state-of-the-art facilities.De Stefanis will spend 2024 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico working on her research with experts in the field of nuclear materials. 

Students in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture are helping to restore ecology along the shoreline of Randall’s Island in New York City through a unique studio project to create ecological installations designed to cultivate habitat conditions for native species while providing erosion protection.

Students in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Bachelor of Arts in Architecture program contributed to the winning proposal in the recent Radical Innovation Awards competition, which challenges creative thinkers and designers at the professional and student level to pioneer compelling innovations in travel, hospitality, and architecture.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has been awarded $1.125 million from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a three-year research effort to improve the visibility, efficiency, and reliability of air traffic and navigation in the United States.

Whether a transformer catches fire in a power grid, a species disappears from an ecosystem, or water floods a city street, many systems can absorb a certain amount of disruption. But how badly does a single failure weaken the network?

Eco Resilience Games from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has released the first augmented reality (AR) game focusing on the growing issue of harmful algae blooms. Algae Bloom Dynamics uses AR technology to create a stylized photo-realistic, lake-island aquatic ecosystem where users walk around the immersive habitat to discover information that can help find solutions to the human behaviors and environmental factors that cause harmful algae blooms.

An ongoing project is helping people identify lead and arsenic pollution and enabling a novel approach to sociological research. Abby Kinchy, professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, describes her research approach as “ethnographic soil testing” — a novel method for studying how people encounter environmental hazards, reason through exposure risks, and take action to improve the health of their communities.

Faculty from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute served as experts in an exchange of information about developments in the field of sustainable energy, large-scale environmental change, and innovative and interdisciplinary research into energy storage and smart systems in the built environment on a recent visit by two members of the U.S. Congress.