ISE News and Events

Dear DSES/IME/SETM/ISE Alumni,   Happy Year of 2022. We’d like to stay in touch with you, learning about your successes and keeping you up-to-date on department news.
Jennifer Pazour
Jennifer Pazour, an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been awarded an International Excellence Fellowship from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The project entitled, “Exploring How Transportation Access to Healthcare Impacts Social Vulnerability in Puerto Rico,” was selected for funding to explore the transportation-related healthcare access conditions that affect the social vulnerability of Puerto Rican communities.
With many people stuck inside for months on end, the built environment has played a significant role in the COVID-19 pandemic. With support from a new National Science Foundation grant, a team of engineers and social scientists will study the ways in which that built environment mitigates or exacerbates the pandemic.

Institute News

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Fudong Han, Priti and Mukesh Chatter ’82 Career Development Chair in Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, has been awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for Electronic Transport in Sulfide-Based Lithium Solid Electrolytes. The NSF CAREEER award is presented to junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors in the context of their organizations’ missions.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) was awarded $740,000 for research and education from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The project is led by Professor Jie Lian, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at RPI, and Prof. Shanbin Shi's co-PI project from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).
In an article published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Dr. Deepak Vashishth and Joan Llabre, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, presented evidence of a link between Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, and diabetes. While recent evidence showed loss of bone mineral density with Alzheimer’s disease, this is the first study to demonstrate the effects of the Alzheimer’s disease phenotype on bone quality and link changes in bone and amyloid formation in the brain.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has a long history of training the next generation for career preparedness. With signing of the $250 billion CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. need for career preparedness has never been greater. The new BYOND – Build Your Own NanoDevice — curriculum at RPI is an interdisciplinary program that invites students from the School of Engineering and the School of Science to work side by side in the lab and classroom. The increasing demand for nanotechnology and semiconductors creates a need for more advanced cleanroom operations. At RPI, the Micro and Nanofabrication Clean Room (MNCR) facility within the Center for Materials, Devices, and Integrated Systems (CMDIS) is offering the BYOND program for undergraduate students to start building a foundation and training for this career path. 
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have been awarded one of 12 grants for space biology research that will advance NASA’s understanding of how organisms respond, acclimate, and adapt in space. These projects will all support NASA’s human space exploration project.