In the News

Note: Some media outlets require users to log-in. The Gordon Library offers the WPI community free access to a number of newspapers. Visit newspaper database for details.  

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Holiday shopping: Tips for using AI to compare prices and get gift inspiration

How can AI tools help consumers find the best deals and tackle the holiday shopping list? Associate Professor of marketing Purvi Shah spoke with NBC Boston about the technology driving retail transformation. "AI can help you compare products and prices across stores. It can also give you review summaries that can help you evaluate various product options based on those review summaries," Shah said. "All of this is done very efficiently."

WCVB

WCVB Channel 5 featured PABI an autism therapy robot during its recent Cutting Edge segment. PABI, a co-creation of WPI robotics engineering professor Greg Fischer and his wife Laurie Dickstein-Fischer who is an education professor at Salem State University, effectively applies technology to address the psychological needs of the autistic population. 

The New Yorker

Brian Moriarty, IMGD professor of practice in game design, is quoted in this The New Yorker article. “The line between what is a movie and what is real is going to be difficult to pinpoint,” Moriarty said. “The defining art form of the twenty-first century has not been named yet, but it is something like this.”

Engineering 360

A cooling technology developed by a team led by Jamal Yagoobi, mechanical engineering professor and department head, will fly aboard the International Space Station later this decade.

Light Metal Age Magazine

The article, co-written by  Diran Apelian, founder of the Metal Processing Institute, and graduate student Sean Kelly. “By manufacturing aluminum components from secondary material streams, 95% less CO2 is emitted and the energy consumed is reduced by 92% compared to primary production [2-3]. The complete benefit of automotive light-weighting using aluminum cannot be fully achieved without an efficient and effective end-of-life collection and recovery process,” the article stated.

Telegram.com

The article profiles Battery Resourcers, an innovative company that began at WPI, and its approach to recycling lithium-ion batteries. 

WGBH

Greater Boston, (which airs on WGBH, Boston’s PBS television station) featured Alcogait—a WPI-developed app that can measure how much a person has had to drink by the way he or she walks.  Emmanuel Agu, associate professor of computer science, designed the app with help from a team of students.

Mass Live

Numerous media outlets converged on Logan Airport to report on a WPI student from Iran, affected by the travel ban, who was able to return to the United States. President Laurie Leshin joined Congressman Jim McGovern and Congressman Joe Kennedy to welcome Behnam Partopour at Logan Airport. 

Boston Globe

The story described letters WPI President Laurie Leshin has provided to a PhD student and post-doctoral fellow currently prohibited from entering the United States, in an effort to affirm their affiliation with WPI.

Cooling Zone

Tis article reports on a WPI-developed electrohydrodynamic pump that could be a breakthrough in cooling high-powered electronics in space. Under professor Jamal Yagoobi’s guidance, the device was tested on NASA’s reduced-gravity aircraft, known as the Vomit Comet, to mimic the zero-G atmosphere of space.

GEN

Breakthrough technology developed by Balaji Panchapakesan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at WPI, is highlighted in this premier biotech publication.

The Christian Science Monitor

Alex Wyglinski, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, was quoted in this article: “Although activities surrounding the development of autonomous vehicles have existed ever since the 1920s, there has recently been a significant push by both the automotive and high tech sectors to make these vehicles a reality.”

Telegram.com

Scarlet Shell, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology, has received a $1.1 million CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for a five-year program to study the molecular mechanisms bacteria use to survive stressful conditions of starvation and lack of oxygen. 

Worcester Business Journal

This article includes comments by Vibram USA President and CEO Michael Gionfriddo on how he taps the talent pool at WPI.

TechRepublic

Alex Wyglinski, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, pointed out that connectivity is "one of those core technologies that would facilitate reliable and safer self-driving cars in the future by giving them beyond-line-of-sight situational awareness on the road.”

NPR

An interview with Susan Landau regarding encryption and what we need to know was broadcast by more than a dozen public radio stations across the country.

 

Boston Globe

The Boston Globe reports on WPI’s “AlcoGait,” a first-of-its-kind smartphone app developed by Emmanuel Agu, associate professor of computer science, and students to detect when a user has reached the legal blood alcohol limit. The app uses data from a smartphone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to monitor changes in the way users walk, similar to the common “walk the line” sobriety field test police use with suspected drunk drivers.

Healthcare IT News

Healthcare IT News publishes an article on hacking, including comments by Craig Shue, assistant professor of computer science.  "We're seeing that bad days happen an awful a lot in a network," Shue recently told the HIMSS Privacy and Security Forum.

STAT News

The Boston Globe national publication STAT reports on how a chip developed by mechanical engineers led by Balaji Panchapakesan, associate professor of mechanical engineering, that can trap and identify metastatic cancer cells in a small amount of blood drawn from a cancer patient. 

Star News Online

An Associated Press article about campus bomb-sniffing dogs, including the WPI Police Department's newest member, Bella, appeared in more than 150 media outlets, nationwide, including the Arizona Sun, Fort Worth Star Telegram, and the Miami Herald. The article was accompanied by a photo of WPI’s handler officer Brian Lavelle walking Bella on campus.

Robotics Business Review

Greg Fischer, director of WPI’s Automation and Interventional Medicine lab, is helping to develop a robot that assists autistic children.