On Saturday, November 9, hundreds will gather at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for HackRPI 2024. The 24-hour marathon of coding will begin at 11 a.m., when participants will team up to address the competition’s theme: Urban Upgrades. Participants will be asked to enhance the infrastructure, services, and quality of life in cities by developing new ideas and technologies. Examples are smart transportation systems, sustainable energy solutions, improved public safety, and inclusive community spaces. Prizes will be awarded during the closing ceremony around 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Jeremy Blackthorne, M.S. ’15 is co-founder and CEO of Boston Cybernetics Institute, a public benefit corporation with the mission of promoting and providing cybersecurity education in support of national defense. Beginning this fall, Blackthorne also joined RPI as a visiting scientist with a special designation as the inaugural “hacker in residence.”

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Elan Smolar Eisenberg ’25, an undergraduate with a dual major in computer science and information technology and web science (ITWS), has been selected as one of 12 members of the inaugural U.S. Women’s Cyber Team. Smolar Eisenberg will head to Tokyo in November, along with her teammates, to compete in the Kunoichi Cyber Games at the 2024 Code Blue Conference in collaboration with teams from Japan, Europe, and the United Kingdom.

Among the many challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented, disruptions in health care were among the most impactful. The pandemic was large-scale, lasted over two years, and resulted in millions of hospitalizations and 1.2 million deaths in the United States alone. Meanwhile, routine medical services were affected by the pandemic: Patients avoided health care visits for fear of contracting the virus; stay-at-home policies left patients without routine care; and there was a limited supply of services.

At its annual meeting in May 2024, WAMC elected Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s James Hendler, Ph.D., to its Board of Trustees. At RPI, Hendler is the director of the Future of Computing Institute, Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web, and Cognitive Sciences, and director of the RPI-IBM Future of Computing Research Collaboration.

Gabriel Jacoby-Cooper ’24 was awarded the Glenn Martin Mueller ’64 Prize at Rensselaer’s School of Science Commencement brunch. The annual prize was established to honor Glenn Martin Mueller, former Rensselaer Trustee and a 1964 RPI graduate. A leading venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, Mueller was a champion of the entrepreneur, funding many successful start-up companies. The prize is given to a computer science major who is deemed to be the most entrepreneurial.