In the News

Erin Solovey, assistant professor of computer science, was featured in a Telegram & Gazette article. Solovey received a $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that could lead to significant breakthroughs in technology platforms for the ASL-signing Deaf Community.

Suzanne LePage, instructor, civil and environmental engineering, was interviewed by Boston 25 as part of a segment on Boston traffic congestion and a Baker Administration proposal to give tax credits to employers letting employees telecommute. “If we’re going to just try to work within the capacity that we have that, to me, seems like a logical solution,” she said of the Baker proposal.

WBZ Radio reported on Adam Powell, associate professor of mechanical engineering, testing a new type of welding that may make the joint between light metal alloys more resistant to corrosion, including salt spray, leading to future designs of durable, next-generation metal car joints used in ultra-light car doors and other vehicle body applications. This “could cut the weight in half of a lot of major parts of a vehicle,” Powell told WBZ.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation quoted Professor Albert Simeoni, fire protection engineering, in this article. He said Canadian findings in a new paper from Natural Resources Canada scientists quantify and add direct evidence to what he and others have seen in other places, including in eucalyptus forests in Australia . “We have observed that repeated heat insults to vegetation and the soil was damaging and this corroborates this observation," Simeoni told the CBC.

The Christian Science Monitor ran a lengthy story about test-optional practices at universities nationwide, and included comments from Andrew Palumbo, dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, and WPI sophomore Hezekiah Owuor. The story explores how universities are increasingly reinforcing the importance of students’ talents and character.

MassLive reported on WPI's research to help cars survive New England's salt-covered winter roads. ​Adam Powell, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office for the research.

The Worcester Business Journal reported that WPI, which has the largest enrollment of any college in Central Massachusetts, saw its student body grow from 4,002 in the fall of 2010 to 5,371 in the fall of 2018, the latest year for which information is available through the Worcester Business Journal's research department.

WBUR talked to Erin Ottmar, assistant professor of learning sciences and psychology, about the NSF grant she and other WPI researchers received to develop a website that children can use to design and play math games that develop computational thinking skills. "Currently, there's very few K-8 teachers who are trained in computer science, so part of the idea is to bridge that gap and be able to increase computational thinking for our students," Ottmar said.

Time interviewed Craig Shue, associate professor of computer science, for this article (scroll down to 8th graph).  Shue told Time he agrees hackers are likely getting Rings users’ account information from third parties. “I would also encourage everybody to do their own form of risk assessment and determine what they need in these devices and whether it’s worth the risk to have that functionality,” he added. 



 

The Robot Report quoted Gregory Fischer, professor of mechanical engineering, in its coverage of the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum in California. He described the work done at WPI’s PracticePoint development and testing facility on robotic systems that can work on a patient inside an MRI machine. “We’re adding cooperative control like that for an autonomous car, with the doctor pushing the gas and the robot steering,” said Fischer, who is also director of PracticePoint. “PracticePoint is working in real time in clinical environments.” 

An article written by Angela Incollingo Rodriguez, assistant professor of social science and policy studies, was published in The Conversation. Rodriguez’s research suggests that nearly two-thirds of pregnant and postpartum women experience some form of weight stigma. In the article she writes, “As a health psychologist studying weight stigma and its consequences, I see pregnancy as an important new avenue for research.”

 

WBUR interviewed Ulkuhan Guler, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab, on her developing a sensor the size of a Band-Aid to measure a baby’s blood oxygen levels. 

NPR Hartford reported on Andrew Trapp, associate professor of operations and industrial engineering, developing analytical tools to estimate capacities for holding sites, judges, and other resources needed to humanely process migrant asylum cases at the U.S. southern border. 

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Dean Andrew Palumbo, admissions and financial aid, for this article. (Go down to header: “Get Rid of the SAT and ACT”; scroll down two more paragraphs). “If it’s not a great predictor and potentially acting as a barrier for students who are at or above peers but bad testers, what message are we sending?” Palumbo told the newspaper.

EdSurge published an article by seventh-grade teacher Andrew Burnett, FA Day Middle School in Newton, in which she sited her work with Neil Heffernan, the William Smith Dean's Professor of Computer Science and the director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies Program at WPI. She detailed how her research for Heffernan, involving ASSISTments, a responsive online learning tool based in learning science that was founded by Heffernan and his wife, impacted her teaching when she returned to the classroom.

Boston 25 News interviewed Professor Milosh Puchovsky, fire protection engineering, was interviewed about potential fire hazards associated with solar panels on homes. “Just having the panel on the roof would change the risk because you are introducing an electrical current where one was not previously,” he told the station, adding that rooftop solar panels can be safe and effective if properly installed and regularly maintained after installation.  

Boston 25 reported on WPI researchers developing a sensor the size of a Band-Aid to measure a baby’s blood oxygen levels, a vital indication of the lungs’ effectiveness and whether the baby’s tissue is receiving adequate oxygen supply. This wearable device will be flexible and stretchable, wireless, inexpensive, and mobile - possibly allowing the child to leave the hospital and be monitored remotely.

The Register reported on Berk Sunar, professor of electrical and computer engineering and leader of  the Vernam Lab,  and Daniel Moghimi, a PhD candidate in the electrical and computer engineering department, leading an international team of researchers that discovered serious security vulnerabilities in computer chips made by Intel Corp. and STMicroelectronics. The flaws affect billions of laptop, server, tablet, and desktop users around the world. The proof-of-concept attack is dubbed TPM-Fail.



 

The Telegram & Gazette reported on the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarding WPI a $1 million grant to help low-income, high-achieving students earn a STEM degree from the university. WPI Director of Multicultural Affairs and Biomedical Engineering Professor Tiffiny Butler is principal investigator, while Katherine Chen, executive director of the STEM Education Center, is co-principal investigator. 

WBZ News Radio interviewed Cagdas Onal, associate professor of mechanical engineering about a $3m NSF grant WPI received to study how humans and robots can co-exist in the workplace.