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It is believed to be exceedingly rare and slow, but if it actually exists, it would redefine the laws of physics: it’s called neutrinoless double beta decay (NDBD). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Ethan Brown, associate professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy, has received a $285,000 grant from the Department of Energy to contribute to the nEXO experiment to prove that NDBD exists.

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On 9/11, lawmakers from both parties unified in their response. Just over 20 years later, Congress is distinctly partisan, clashing on everything from the January 6 insurrection to COVID to climate change. Why? Many blame widespread and widely believed misinformation and disinformation. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Boleslaw Szymanski, Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers examining the flow of (mis)information in social media.

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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Catherine Royer will be honored as a 2023 Society Fellow of the Biophysical Society. Royer is a Chaired Constellation Professor in Biocomputation and Bioinformatics; professor of biological sciences, and chemistry and chemical biology; and director of the graduate program in biochemistry and physics.

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A few years ago, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Sasha Wagner, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, proved false what scientists had thought for years. Soot-like molecules that formed an ancient carbon pool deep in the Pacific Ocean did not, in fact, originate from wildfires on land.“We discovered that there was an isotopic mismatch,” Wagner said.

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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Oshani Seneviratne, director of health data research at the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA), and Lirong Xia, associate professor of computer science, have been awarded $363,343 from the Algorand Foundation. The award is part of an $8 million grant to fund blockchain research through a project led by Vassilis Zikas, associate professor of computer science and security researcher at Purdue University.

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News headlines on extreme weather, melting ice caps, and threatened species are daily reminders of our changing environment. The profound scale and intensity of these challenges may leave one to wonder, “What should we do first?” Researchers recently developed formulas that help answer that question, effectively creating a method to triage declining ecosystems by measuring and comparing their distance to tipping points.

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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s (RPI) incoming Class of 2026 is the largest first-year group of undergraduate students in the history of the Institute, the country’s first technological research university founded in 1824. With first-year enrollment at 2,012, the 2026 class bucks the national trend of declining college enrollment and sets the university on a strong path to academic and career success with new RPI President, Martin A.

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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.

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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. The grant was awarded to a team of faculty led by Edwin Fohtung, associate professor of materials science and engineering.

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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.Machine learning algorithms allow computers to make decisions, predictions, and recommendations on the basis of input training data without being explicitly told what information to look for in the data.

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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.

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Women are excluded from promotions when firms look at potential, rather than proof, says Dr. Nishtha Langer, an associate professor in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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About 201 million years ago, volcanic eruptions covered an area roughly the size of South America in lava as Pangaea started to split. The Earth was changed. In the years that followed, 40% of all four-legged land animals were wiped out in the End Triassic Extinction (ETE). The exact cause was unknown. However, researchers recently discovered that atmospheric changes as a result of the eruptions caused freezing temperatures at high latitudes. The land animals that survived had feathers or hair as insulation: large dinosaurs.

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As our devices become smaller, faster, more energy efficient, and capable of holding larger amounts of data, spintronics may continue that trajectory. Whereas electronics is based on the flow of electrons, spintronics is based on the spin of electrons.

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Alicia Walf from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute offers reasons why people procrastinate when stressed.

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In research published recently in Nature Reviews Materials, a multidisciplinary team of chemical engineers, materials scientists, and mechanical engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrate that using nanotechnology in batteries will improve battery performance.

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“Financial technologies offer great promise to tackle climate change and provide pathways for developing sustainable economies,” says Aparna Gupta, co-director of the Center for Research toward Advancing Financial Technologies, the first-ever fintech research center backed by the National Science Foundation.