Among the many challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented, disruptions in health care were among the most impactful. The pandemic was large-scale, lasted over two years, and resulted in millions of hospitalizations and 1.2 million deaths in the United States alone. Meanwhile, routine medical services were affected by the pandemic: Patients avoided health care visits for fear of contracting the virus; stay-at-home policies left patients without routine care; and there was a limited supply of services.

At its annual meeting in May 2024, WAMC elected Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s James Hendler, Ph.D., to its Board of Trustees. At RPI, Hendler is the director of the Future of Computing Institute, Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web, and Cognitive Sciences, and director of the RPI-IBM Future of Computing Research Collaboration.

Gabriel Jacoby-Cooper ’24 was awarded the Glenn Martin Mueller ’64 Prize at Rensselaer’s School of Science Commencement brunch. The annual prize was established to honor Glenn Martin Mueller, former Rensselaer Trustee and a 1964 RPI graduate. A leading venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, Mueller was a champion of the entrepreneur, funding many successful start-up companies. The prize is given to a computer science major who is deemed to be the most entrepreneurial.

We all know that communication encompasses so much more than words. Facial expressions, intonations, hand gestures, and more contribute to our expressiveness. However, in social media, these intricacies are lost.