News
Lisha Chen and Burak Varici were selected to receive the School of Engineering Belsky Award for Computational Sciences and Engineering. The award was named in the memory of Dr. Vladimir Belsky, who came to Rensselaer from Russia in the 1990’s and performed research in computational mechanics as a Postdoctoral Fellow for three years. Four awards are given to graduate students in the School of Engineering to support their research activities.
Xing Tong and Ahmed Elmenshawi were selected by Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) to receive the 2021 and 2022 Outstanding Student Designer Award, respectively. The award is presented annually by ADI at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). Since 1997, this award has recognized excellence in system-level integrated circuit architectures or in analog, mixed-signal, or digital integrated circuit design. Both Tong and Elmenshawi were nominated by ECSE faculty for this honor.
Prof. Sawyer received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Hampton University in 2003 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer in 2006. Her research focuses on developing fundamental understanding and processes for hybrid inorganic/organic materials for optoelectronic devices and sensors. Her recent research on sensor development to better understand the harmful algal blooms was featured here.
In the annual FIRST Robotics Competition, teams of high school students will spend several weeks designing and building a robot to address a specific challenge. This year's challenge focuses on transportation with the goal to "reimagine the future of safe, high-speed travel, and lightning-fast deliveries to propel the next evolution of transportation forward."
A grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Shayla Sawyer, a professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Rick Relyea, a professor of biological sciences at Rensselaer, to better understand the growing problem of harmful algal blooms (HABs).
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.