Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's (RPI) C. Lloyd Bauer ’55 Endowed Men's Varsity Ice Hockey Coach Dave Smith's contract has been extended for five years through the 2026-27 season, it has been announced.

When expensive medicines that are proven to prevent HIV acquisition are available through employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI), annual earnings for men in same-sex couples decline and part-time employment increases. The labor market effects are largest for young white men, who are among those most likely to be taking HIV prevention drugs.

Thanks to a $304,084 Major Research Instrumentation award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is now home to a state-of-the-art single-crystal X-ray diffractometer.

Rensselaer Professor Jie Lian has been awarded $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Nuclear Energy University Research Program (NEUP) to conduct research and develop new materials that will make advanced nuclear reactors more resilient and economically efficient. Dr. Lian, the principle investigator of the project, will be joined by collaborators Rahul Rahul, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Suvranu De, Florida A&M University-Florida State University; Lu Cai, Idaho National Laboratory Program; Patrick Shower, GE Global Research Center; and Eric Brown, U.S. Army Benét Laboratory.

Dr. Yangyang Xu, assistant professor of mathematical sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has received a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research challenges associated with distributed big data in machine learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic, bigger and more frequent wildfires, devastating floods, and powerful storms have become unfortunate facts of life. With each disaster, people depend on the emergency response of governments, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector for aid when their lives are upended. However, a complicating factor in delivering that aid is that people tend to disperse with such disasters.  

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Scott Forth, assistant professor of biological sciences, and Peter Kramer, professor of mathematical sciences, have received a $359,572 grant  from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a better understanding of a cellular process that, when errors occur, is linked to cancer. This project will be pursued in collaboration with Meredith Betterton, professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Concerns regarding scarcity, high prices, and safety regarding the long-term use of lithium-ion batteries has prompted a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to propose a greener, more efficient, and less expensive energy storage alternative.

In research published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), corresponding author Nikhil Koratkar, the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer, and his team, assert that calcium ions could be used as an alternative to lithium-ions in batteries because of its abundance and low cost.

In today’s digital society, online investment trading tools have become commonplace. So are user design elements like flashing graphs, zero commission trading, and notifications on mobile devices. But preliminary findings from a new study out of the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute indicate that new investors may be falling prey to these sophisticated elements of web design, thereby putting their money at risk.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Science has appointed two new department heads. Mohammed Zaki now leads the Department of Computer Science and Gyorgy Korniss leads the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy. The departments are ranked third and fourth in the state of New York, respectively, and 24th nationally by College Factual.