The inaugural Vicarious Visions Pathfinder Award has been awarded to Jingyu Zhuang, a dual-major senior studying game development and computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for — among other accomplishments — a game he created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A computer’s ability to convincingly respond to questions like a person — thereby “passing” what has come to be known as the Turing Test — is widely regarded as a practical measure of artificial intelligence. But Bram van Heuveln, a lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, contends that this common interpretation misses the important point that British mathematician Alan Turing was trying to make in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Van Heuveln makes the case for a new understanding of the Turing Test in a chapter of the book Great Philosophical Objections to Artificial Intelligence: The History and Legacy of the AI Wars, published this month by Bloomsbury.

Claudia Sanchez and her classmates at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute had been looking forward to seeing their Creative Seminar work on display in the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy. As graduating students in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS), this gallery show was supposed to be the culmination of four years of intense learning and hard work.

TROY, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is among the best places in the country to pursue an undergraduate degree in game design or animation, according to recent rankings from Animation Career Review.

Recent work by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is demonstrating how data from online games can help provide meaningful insights.

Involving the public in scientific research can help to solve complex environmental problems, but according to Science by the People, a new book co-authored by sociologists Abby Kinchy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Aya Kimura of the University of Hawaii-Manoa, effective “citizen science” requires an awareness of potential social dilemmas.

On Saturday, October 5, more than 500 members of the Rensselaer community celebrated  individuals and organizations supporting student scholarship and education at the 2019 Coast to Coast East: Scholarship Dinner and Signature Performance by Josh Groban. The event took place during a weekend of festivities that began on October 3 celebrating the Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., 18th President of Rensselaer, who achieved 20 years of leadership this month.

With support from the National Science Foundation, a team of researchers is developing a “citizen science” soil research project in Troy, New York and Tierra Amarilla, Chile that engages residents in greater understanding of contaminants in their midst and strategies for protecting public health.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has formed a partnership with Pacific Wrecks, a nonprofit organization dedicated to locating Missing-In-Action (MIA) personnel, which will initially focus on documenting the group’s discoveries.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will host a lecture by McGill University’s Marcelo M. Wanderley titled “Frontiers in Musical Interactive System Design & Aesthetics” on April 5, 2019. The lecture will be held at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 5, in Studio Beta at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center on the Rensselaer campus. The event is free and open to the general public.