Announcements

How do we keep the lines of communication open in the face of disaster? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is serving up fresh ideas as part of the “Call for Code” hackathon challenge in partnership with IBM, David Clark Cause, United Nations Human Rights, and The American Red Cross.

When legendary jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock took the podium at the 212th Commencement at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, he told a story from his own years as a young graduate, at a time when he was playing piano with the Miles Davis Quintet.

The support of family is an integral part of any college student’s experience. In the case of Amber and Alwaleed (Al) Zia’s parents, that support meant moving the whole family from Darien, Connecticut, to Lee, Massachusetts, so that their daughter and son could commute together to and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute daily. And together they will graduate on May 19.

Aquaporins are proteins that serve as water channels to regulate the flow of water across biological cell membranes. They also remove excess salt and impurities in the body, and it is this aspect that has led to much interest in recent years in how to mimic the biochemical processes of aquaporins potentially for water desalination systems.

An international team of researchers co-led by Georges Belfort has discovered water, in the form of “water wires,” contained in another molecule—the imidazole—a nitrogen-based organic compound that could be used as a potential building block for artificial aquaporins. The findings were recently published in Science Advances by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Belfort is Institute Professor and professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Four innovative leaders from the worlds of music, international security, genomic science, and manufacturing will address graduates at the 2018 Commencement Ceremony at