Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Physics program cited for “earnings boost” over typical physics graduates.
A team of astrobiology researchers will use a series of nighttime flights on an airborne observatory to search newly born stars for the presence of precursors to life.
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Nano-photonics expert Lin was cited by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for “pioneering and developing photonic crystals.”
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Professor Angel García has been named the new head of the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy.
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Announcements
RPI researchers Boleslaw Szymanski (PI) and Gyorgy Korniss (co-PI) joined the team of UIUC researchers: Tarek Abdelzaher (PI), Jiawei Han (co-PI) and David Nicol (co-PI) in preparing a proposal titled SocialCube: A Multiscale Modeling and Simulation Framework for Social Streams.
Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy is pleased to announce student award recipients honored at the 2017 School of Science Commencement brunch held Friday, May 19, 2017.
Emily Kosmaczewski, a graduate student in astronomy has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant for the 2017-2018 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Kosmaczewski will spend her Fulbright tenure conducting research on radio galaxies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
Rensselaer PolytechnRensselaer Polytechnic Institute Physics Professor Gwo-Ching Wang has been elected as a fellow of the Materials Research Society for seminal contributions to the fundamental understanding of surface and thin film ordering using electron diffraction and the invention of electron pole figure technique for growth front texture analysisic Institute Physics Professor Gwo-Ching Wang has been elected as a fellow of the Materials Research Society for "seminal contributions to the fundamental understanding of surface and thin film ordering using electron diffraction and the invention of electron pole figure technique for growth front texture analysis".
In the News
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Comet may have struck Earth just 10 million years after dinosaur extinction
September 30, 2016 -Some 56 million years ago, carbon surged into Earth's atmosphere, raising temperatures by 5°C to 8°C and causing huge wildlife migrations—a scenario that might mirror the world's future, thanks to global warming. But what triggered this so-called Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) has remained a mystery.
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Glass bits, charcoal hint at 56-million-year-old space rock impact
September 30, 2016 -A period of skyrocketing global temperatures started with a bang, new research suggests.
Too little is known about the newfound impact to guess its origin, size or effect on the global climate, said geochemist Morgan Schaller of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. But it fits in with the long-standing and controversial proposal that a comet impact caused the PETM. “The timing is nothing short of remarkable,” said Schaller, who presented the discovery September 27 at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting.
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Heidi Newberg, RPI – The Size of the Galaxy
July 15, 2016 -This universe of ours is pretty big, and it might be bigger than we think.
Heidi Newberg, astronomer and physicist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is studying the size of the galaxy.
Dr. Heidi Newberg has worked in many areas of astronomy over the course of her career. She did her Ph.D. with the Berkeley Automated Supernova Search, which measured the supernova rates as a function of supernova type in Virgo-distance galaxies; and the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP), which is measured the cosmological parameters Omega and Lambda using the light curves of distant supernovae. She shared the Gruber Cosmology Prize for her work with SCP.
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Scientists Explore Properties Of Wonder Material Phosphorene
May 19, 2016 -In a collaborative and multidisciplinary study, scientists develop methods to explore phosphorene and its properties. Phosphorene, discovered in 2014, is related to the two-dimensional graphene and has been established to have numerous photonic applications. The majority of these properties, however, is its capacity for anisotropic electron conduction. This means that its electron conduction property changes depending on the crystal orientation.
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Top 100 Science Stories of 2015 - #59 A Wider, Groovier Milky Way Galaxy
January 8, 2016 -The starry disk that is our galaxy may extend at least 50 percent farther from its apparent edge than we thought. Instead of being flat, the Milky Way appears grooved like a vinyl record, upping its width to at least 150,000 light-years, researchers now say.
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Ripples in the Milky Way
March 16, 2015 -When you think of our Milky Way Galaxy, you might imagine a smooth disk with spiral arms embedded in it, like swirls in a peppermint. But a second look at observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) suggests that our galaxy’s disk is actually corrugated.
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The Milky Way May Be 50 Percent Bigger Than Thought
March 11, 2015 -A ring-like filament of stars wrapping around the Milky Way may actually belong to the galaxy itself, rippling above and below the relatively flat galactic plane. If so, that would expand the size of the known galaxy by 50 percent and raise intriguing questions about what caused the waves of stars.
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UCSB professor who helped create blue LEDs shares Nobel Prize
October 8, 2014 -While other researchers abandoned gallium nitride and tried less persnickety materials, the Japanese researchers pressed on. “They felt like the oddballs, talking about something nobody else was working on, so they were really out on their own there,” said Christian Wetzel, a physicist at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. “It took some character to not do what others were doing but keep [going] despite all the frustration.”
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How Blue LEDs Changed the World
October 8, 2014 -Blue LEDs, in combination with red and green LEDs (which had been discovered previously), make it possible to produce white light. This kind of lighting is much more energy efficient and has a longer life span than conventional incandescent lights, said Christian Wetzel, a physicist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York ... Car lighting is another application where LEDs are making inroads. LEDs used to be used only for daytime running lights, but now many new cars have LED headlights for nighttime use, Wetzel said.
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HPC Speeds Desalination Effort
May 8, 2014 -According to new research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a hybrid material, called graphene oxide frameworks, or GOFs, could provide a big advantage over the inefficient desalination processes currently in use.
Water is trying to avoid being in contact with graphene, so you can design it in such a way that you’re forcing the water not to be close to one layer but also not to be close to the other,” Meunier said. “This effect creates channels, which direct water through the system very quickly.”"
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RPI fraternity to make neighborhood grants
April 2, 2014 -A $50,000 micro-grant program sponsored by Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity that is intended to improve the quality of life in the Mount Ida neighborhood will be launched on Wednesday. The fraternity, whose members attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will hand out grants of up to $1,000 to homeowners, landlords, nonprofit groups and business owners in the community. The fraternity will award 50 grants over a five-year period.
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High Schoolers break out the robots for battle
March 19, 2014 -It's all about robotics today at RPI. Thirty eight High School teams are showing off their creations in the Tech Valley Regional Competition. It's the first time this regional event has been held in the Albany area. Photojournalist Rich Frederick takes a look.
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Troy Record: High school students gather at RPI for annual robotics competition
March 19, 2014 -More than 1,000 high school students, along with hundreds of teachers, college and professional mentors, parents, and 3,000 pounds of metal, gears, and electronics will converge at the East Campus Athletic Village at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue in Troy, N.Y., for two days of compeition today and Saturday.
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Western Pa. students prepare for robotics competitions
March 19, 2014 -Area high school students will take robots this weekend to Troy, N.Y., and Youngwood.
While McKeesport Area students pack for Troy and the first of two FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) regional tests, others are headed for competition at Westmoreland County Community College.
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Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at Rensselaer
January 15, 2014 -Part of The Best Of Our Knowledge's series on astrobiology, this piece visits the the sixth annual Exxon-Mobile Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at Rensselaer. The story features commentary from physics professor Wayne Roberge.
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Proved: Why LED efficiency drops at high current
September 9, 2013 -Researchers at the US Rensselaer Polytechnic have proven a link between LED efficiency drop at high current and carrier mobility. Better lighting LEDs could result. “Efficiency droop, first reported in 1999, has been a key obstacle in the development of LED lighting for situations, like household lighting, that call for economical sources of versatile and bright light,” said the university.