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Wildfire research at WPI
The devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area exemplify the dangers of wind-driven fires in inhabited areas. WPI’s Department of Fire Protection Engineering is leading research designed to understand how fires spread with the goal of contributing to measures that can better protect communities and firefighters.
WPI’s experts in this field include those who are part of the National Science Foundation’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, a collaboration with San Jose State University, to study new fire detection methods, first responder safety, and wildfire suppression systems.
WPI’s research, which involves faculty and ongoing experiments conducted by students in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel on campus, was featured by several media outlets including The Boston Globe, WCVB, NBC 10 Boston, NECN, and Spectrum News 1.
For its coverage of the L.A. fires, The New York Times interviewed Albert Simeoni, professor and head of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering, about how the wildland fires in Southern California transformed into urban fires, leading to extensive loss of life and destruction of property. Simeoni also provided analysis for the fact-checking website Full Fact for an article addressing online claims about the wildfires.
The Associated Press also interviewed James Urban, an assistant professor of fire protection engineering, for an article that helps explain how firebrands, or flying embers, contribute to the spread of wildfires. The AP also interviewed Urban and visited campus to observe fire laboratory experiments for its coverage explaining how fire whirls, or fire tornadoes, can develop in large fires like those occurring in the Los Angeles area. Their experiments were photographed and featured in an AP article, "Fire tornadoes pose a threat in California. A fire lab shows how they work" and in an AP video.
Professor Urban also spoke with WPTF, a news radio station in Raleigh, NC, about how wind and drought factored into the California fires, and about wildfire prevention.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Breakthrough technology developed by Balaji Panchapakesan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at WPI, is highlighted in this premier biotech publication.
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.”
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.
