News
Martin A. Schmidt ’81, Ph.D., has been named the 19th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) by the Rensselaer Board of Trustees. Dr. Schmidt, currently Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will assume office at the nation’s oldest and one of the world’s most renowned technological research universities on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Schmidt will succeed Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, who has led an extraordinary transformation of Rensselaer since 1999. She earlier had announced that she will step down as Rensselaer’s 18th President on June 30, 2022.
The ECSE community mourns the long time ECSE technical staff member Steve Dombrowski, who passed away on November 11, 2021. The obituary can be found here: https://www.hansfuneralhome.com/steven-j-dombrowski/.
It is with tremendous sadness that we share the news that long time ECSE lab and classroom manager Jerry Dziuba passed away peacefully on October 28, 2021. Jerry was with Rensselaer and ECSE for 47 years. He was dedicated, capable, helpful, and generous – a true pillar of ECSE. His obituary may be found at New Comer Family Obituaries - Jerry Dziuba 1951 - 2021 - New Comer Cremations & Funerals.
Brennan Loder, an undergraduate student in Electrical Engineering (Class of 2022), interned in Data Analytics. He analyzed spectrograms from previous data that Dominion Energy had collected over the past 3 years, focusing on the interaction between hydropower and solar power in the grid. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Loder’s internship was all working from home, which he said taught him to be a part of a remote team, and continued to foster his time management and organization skills.
Prof. Shur is the Patricia and Sheldon Roberts Professor of Solid State Electronics and Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-founder, President and CEO of Electronics of the Future, Inc. He was also a co-founder and Vice-President of Sensor Electronics Technology, Inc. (a leading producer of deep ultraviolet LEDs) and founder of co-founder of several other startups, including Electronics of the Future, Inc. Dr.
For power system operators, it is difficult to identify location of forced or poorly damped oscillations as they are caused by equipment malfunction or improper tuning of equipment, both of which are not represented in the simulation models. If a resonance with the natural oscillations of the system takes place and the oscillations are not mitigated, such an event can cause equipment damage or a blackout of a part of the system.
ECSE Professor Michael Shur has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) is the highest level of membership attainable within IOP and is for those with a degree in physics or related subject (or equivalent knowledge gained in the workplace) and who have made a significant impact on their sector.
On being elected, Professor Shur said, “I am very grateful to our Department, to my students and my colleagues for their support and encouragement during these difficult and uncertain times.”
The interactive online discussion on “Innovation and Opportunities in Robotics," featured a panel of alumni and alumnae leaders in the industry, and was moderated by ECSE's Department Head, Prof. John Wen. The discussion also included a tour of an on campus lab.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are revolutionizing the ways in which we live, work, and spend our free time, from the smart devices in our homes to the tasks our phones can carry out. This transformation is being made possible by a surge in data and computing power that can help machine learning algorithms not only perform device-specific tasks, but also help them gain intelligence or knowledge over time.
Dr. Birsen Yazici received her B.S. degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from Bogazici University, Istanbul Turkey, in 1988, and the M.S.and Ph.D.degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. From September 1994 to 2000, she worked as a Research Engineer at General Electric Company Global Research Center, Schenectady NY, USA.