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.

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.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Boleslaw Szymanski, Ph.D., and Chunyu Wang, M.D. Ph.D., have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement Science (AAAS). Steven Cramer, Ph.D., who was elected AAAS Fellow in 2017, was elected Council Member of the Section on Engineering.

We are all aware of the dangers of pollution to our air, water, and earth. In a letter recently published in Nature Human Behavior, scientists are advocating for the recognition and mitigation of another type of environmental pollution that poses equivalent personal and societal dangers: information overload.

“One side can start the polarization and keep it going forever, but it takes two sides to stop it. That’s why it easily arises, but it’s so difficult to end,” Boleslaw Szymanski said. Szymanski is the Claire & Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and director of the Network Science and Technology Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Science has appointed two new department heads. Mohammed Zaki now leads the Department of Computer Science and Gyorgy Korniss leads the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy.

A predictive model of a polarized group, similar to the current U.S. Senate, demonstrates that when an outside threat – like war or a pandemic – fails to unite the group, the divide may be irreversible through democratic means. 

As the volume of available information expands, the fraction a person is able to absorb shrinks. To break this cycle, computer scientists say we need new algorithms that prioritize a broader view over fulfilling consumer biases.