In the News

WPI leads off this week’s Telegram & Gazette’s College Town featuring Officer Robert Vandal, who received the Dr. Robert L. Burns Award. It’s a biennial award given to a fraternity advisor who increases and supports scholarship and/or enhances university relations, and who has a close relationship with his campus chapter. 

WPI’s wildfire research was featured on Channel 3 in a story about tests conducted in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel at the university’s Fire Protection Engineering lab. Professor Albert Simeoni, fire protection engineering interim department head, says the work will help researchers better understand and predict flame spread during wildfires. 

The Worcester Business Journal reported on work by computer science professors Emmanuel Agu and Elke Rundensteiner to develop a smartphone app to help assess the health of soldiers. 

The Department of Energy's Office of Science kicked off National Clean Energy Week by highlighting research conducted by Mike Timko, associate professor of chemical engineering, on their home page. Through his research, Timko is aiming to greatly improve the yield of oil from the waste food conversion process while also improving efficiencies.

College Factual has ranked WPI as the 2nd best school to study Computer Science in the United States in their 2019 rankings.  

This article featured the news that computer science assistant professor Jacob Whitehill and his colleagues received a $750,000 from the National Science Foundation to develop a platform that will combine machine learning, natural language processing, and elements of psychology and educational theory to deliver rapid feedback on teacher-student interactions. 

Librarian Anna Gold and Lori Ostapowicz-Critz, associate director for library academic strategies, told Inside Higher Ed about Gordon Library creating the first digital scholarship lab in this article.

WPI’s sailing prowess was highlighted in Robotics Business Review, " Sailing Away: Behind WPI's Victorious Sailbot 2018 Pursuit." “For the second year in a row, a team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute won the event,” the article stated.  

Energy Central published "Cybersecurity for the Power Grid" by Michael Ahern, director of power systems engineering. “In my view, cybersecurity is like a race that never ends.  Attackers are building their capabilities even as organizations improve their defenses,” he wrote.  

Worcester Business Journal reported on the grand opening of the Foisie Innovation Studio in the article. The building, which includes beds for 140 students and a lab space equipped with the latest technology, adds a third element - impact - to WPI's two long-term pillars, theory and practice. "It's about taking that world-changing work to another level," President Laurie Leshin said at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The Washington Post included insight from Michael Ahern, director of power systems engineering. Gas at high pressure, generally about 1,000 pounds per square inch (psi), is carried long distances in steel pipes with a diameter of 18 to 36 inches, Ahern said. In the case of Massachusetts, those lines will arrive from gas sources in Texas, Pennsylvania or Canada, he told The Post.

Assembly magazine talked with Raghvendra Cowlagi, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, and Alexander Wyglinski, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, about how automakers, suppliers and startup ventures can make autonomous vehicles operate safely and efficiently in complex urban environments. 

President Laurie Leshin was quoted in this Chronicle of Higher Ed article in reaction to tweets by the president dismissing as partisan a study that tallied the death toll from Hurricane Maria at nearly 3,000 in Puerto Rico.

WPI formally opened the Foisie Innovation Studio and Messenger Residence Hall yesterday in a celebration hosted by President Laurie Leshin and WPI board chair Jack Mollen, with state and local officials including Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Matt Beaton ’01; Assistant Secretary of Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship for the Commonwealth, Damon Cox; State Senator and former Senate President Harriette Chandler; State Senator Michael Moore; Representative John Mahoney, and others. The ribbon cutting was reported by the Telegram & Gazette.

Data science student Rosemarie Day won Intel’s AI Interplanetary Challenge as reported by Venture Beat. She proposed a computer vision system that tapped satellite imagery to give a detailed look at how Earth is changing over time.

The publication includes an article by Albert Simeoni, fire protection engineering professor and interim department head. Simeoni addresses the question, "Why We Need More Support for Wildland Fire Research" explaining how this is a growing problem, not just in the United States but countries around the world. 

The university’s opening of WPI Seaport, its innovation and collaboration space in Boston’s Seaport District, was highlighted in this The National Law Review article.

Emmanuel Agu, professor of computer science, was featured in a profile in Diversity in Action on his road to exploring computer science, and how it landed him a teaching position at WPI. "I found that WPI's philosophy of integrating theory with practice matches the way I approach problems," he said. 

In this broadcast interview on Worcester News Tonight, Senior Vice President Kristin Tichenor touts the importance of a new scholarship program for high-achieving Pell grant-eligible students from low- to moderate-income families who graduate from Worcester public high schools.

Craig Putnam, senior instructor in computer science and associate director of the Robotics Engineering Program, was interviewed on WBUR radio about undergraduate students building an autonomous underwater robot that could help reduce the threat posed by an invasive species of fish.