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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."
Referring to her as “the first lady” of WPI, CBS Boston/WBZ-TV reported on 86-year-old Audrey Carlan ’57, who received an honorary doctoral degree during the university’s Graduate Ceremony yesterday, where nearly 800 master’s and doctoral degrees were awarded. Although she received the first degree awarded by WPI to any woman—15 years before the first female undergraduates were awarded degrees—she did not attend commencement because she was more than eight months pregnant.
Mike Gennert, director of WPI’s Robotics Engineering program, discusses some of the challenges faced by companies and IT departments using industrial robots.
This story features WPI-developed prosthetic technology. The work is aimed at providing better prosthetics options for injured soldiers and others with transradial amputations who have found it difficult or impossible to perform a wide range of daily tasks with current one-degree-of-freedom hand-wrist prostheses.
Worcester Magazine profiled WPI’s Camp Reach and its proven results of getting young women interested in engineering. “In terms of what we know about research on girls and the way students behave differently in teams, there are just different ways that boys and girls approach problems and the way they’ll approach work in a teamwork setting,” said Sue Sontgerath, WPI’s director of pre-collegiate outreach.
Fox 25 News aired a feature about an afterschool program at the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science (located at WPI), during which high school juniors and seniors construct 3-D prosthetic hands for children in other countries. The prosthetic hands built by these students cost about $35 in material, a fraction of the cost for prosthetics from hospitals and other providers.
WPI received a $5 million state grant for a new healthcare research and product development initiative. The new center, PracticePoint at WPI, will be established at the college's Gateway Park.
Worcester News Tonight interviewed WPI Police Officer Brian Lavallee and K-9 Bella for a story in its 6:00 and 10:00 newscasts Thursday Night focused on Bella’s upcoming work at the Boston Marathon.
Michael Gennert, professor and director, robotics engineering, was quoted in this article. "It’s very much a different mindset than traditional IT,” he said. “Robots affect the real world. That brings issues IT managers have not had to confront.”
A recent WGBH broadcast featured students at the Mass. Academy of Math and Science who 3D print prosthetic hands for people in developing countries, free of charge. The students are part of a group called e-NABLE, which is comprised of volunteer designers and engineers from all over the world.
The New York Times quoted WPI’s Jeanine L. Skorinko, associate professor of psychology. She told The Times, that people, especially Americans, prefer more distance between themselves and strangers and would rather take the stair below them or walk past them. “This is why people put bags on seats next to them on the train so people don’t sit next to them,” she said.
WGBH featured the WPI-related segment interviewing Glenn Gaudette, professor of biomedical engineering, and grad student Joshua Gershlak, on growing heart tissue on spinach.
National Geographic features a WPI research team that has learned how to grow heart cells on spinach leaves. The stripped down spinach becomes a vascular network to deliver blood, oxygen and nutrients to grow human tissues like cardiac muscle to treat heart attack patients.
National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” program profiles the WPI-developed Flame Refluxer, a novel technology that can greatly accelerate the combustion of crude oil floating on water, minimizing the environmental impact of future oil spills. “The coils collect the heat from the flame and they transmit it through the copper blanket,” Ali Rangwala, associate professor of fire protection engineering, explained to NPR. He and a team of researchers developed the Flame Refluxer.
WPI’s Yanhua Li, assistant professor of computer science and data science, received a $174,596 grant from the National Science Foundation for a transportation study involving a "hub-and-spoke" model: an alternative urban transit system. He also appeared on WBUR radio discussing his grant.
Worcester News Tonight aired a story on its Thursday night newscasts about the FIRST robotics district competition being held at WPI yesterday and today, which will feature 40 teams from all six New England states. Ken Stafford, WPI robotics professor and robotics resource center director, was interviewed for the segment and said the competition “has all the elements of an exciting NBA tournament with the thinking elements of math, science and engineering.”
Boston’s NPR station interviewed Edward Clancy about work he and fellow professor of electrical and computer engineering Xinming Huang are conducting on improving the ability of hand-wrist prostheses to move more naturally. Read full transcript. Listen to audio clip
The Telegram & Gazette talks with Kamal Rashid, director of WPI’s Biomanufacturing Education & Training Center, who traveled with a life sciences delegation from the U.S. to Cuba last month. Rashid was enthusiastic about representing WPI on the trip and learning about the robust biotechnology industry he saw in Cuba. “I’ve been in the area of biotechnology for 31 years; I had known a little bit about the Cuban field of biotechnology, but I had interest in seeing what their progress was,” he told the T&G.
