Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has received a $1 million pledge to support the Rensselaer Student Union from Jonathan Kessler, Class of 1979 and 1982. Kessler retired in September 2020 as senior information architect for Computing System Innovations. The firm develops artificial intelligence software for government offices.

The $1 million fund will be established with a five-year pledge and through a bequest gift to support the Union’s contributions to the student experience on campus. Upon fulfillment of the pledge, the Union directorship will be named the Jonathan Kessler ’79, ’82G Director of the Rensselaer Union.

In partnership with the non-partisan League of Women Voters of Rensselaer County, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will host the 2023 City of Troy mayoral candidate forum on October 3 at 6 p.m. at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). A reception will follow.  

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has established the Office of Strategic Alliances and Translation, a new area within the university that incorporates a number of key translational activities at RPI, including intellectual property and technology licensing, large-scale corporate partnerships, initiation and growth of start-up ventures, and translational campuses, including the Rensselaer Technology Park, as well as translational activities in New York City.

What if microgravity holds the key to preventing the overheating of advanced electronics? That’s one idea behind an International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory-sponsored investigation that recently launched to station on Northrop Grumman’s 19th Commercial Resupply Services mission (NG-19). This week, the ISS crew is working on the experiment, which aims to improve the efficiency of heat transfer devices used in various technologies, from laptops to NASA’s Hubble Telescope.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will announce the appointment of Kristie Bowers, Ph.D., as its new associate vice president and director of athletics at a press conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at the East Campus Athletic Village’s main arena. Bowers comes from Boston University, where she has served as senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator since 2019. She is succeeding Dr. Lee McElroy, who retired at the beginning of the summer after eight years with RPI. Bowers will be the first woman appointed to the role.

— The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced $26 million in funding geographically and institutionally diverse awardees, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), who will engage with additional partners and communities to further the conversation around consolidated interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. Each project team will receive about $2 million for the projects. RPI is one of 13 teams nationally who received an award and is the only awardee in New York State.

In August, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will kick off the first conference to explore the opportunities and challenges of 3D printing for the lighting industry. The conference will set the stage for discussions about the future of 3D printing for lighting components and systems through more than 30 research and state-of-the-technology presentations, as well as discussion and networking events. The 3D Printing for Lighting conference, to be held as part of SPIE Optics + Photonics 2023, the leading multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting, will take place August 22-23, 2023, at the San Diego Convention Center.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Steven Cramer, William Weightman Walker Professor of Polymer Engineering, and Todd Przybycien, professor of chemical and biological engineering, will contribute to a three-year research program led by faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that aims to design the world’s first fully integrated, continuous mRNA manufacturing platform. Both Cramer and Przybycien are members of Rensselaer’s Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D. Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. The platform is part of an $82 million effort funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

It is only natural that, when students consider career options, they ask friends, family, and colleagues in their prospective fields for advice. They may hear about job opportunities, wage expectations, career paths, hiring processes, and more. In the end, that information may inspire and excite, or it may turn students off from the field entirely.

A team of researchers led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Jonathan S. Dordick, Ph.D., Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has illuminated a new possibility for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 in research published in Communications Biology.