Capping an international design competition, the London-based architecture firm Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners along with their New York subsidiary, NPGUSA, was selected in July 2001 to design Rensselaer’s new experimental media and performing arts center.
In pre-college initiatives with area secondary schools, such as the Rensselaer Alliance to Increase Student Excellence, the Capital Region Science and Technology Entry Program, Rensselaer Saturday Scholars, the Preface Summer Program, and others, the Institute is working to improve the representation of low-income and minority students in engineering and the sciences.
Jonathan Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann ‘42 Professor of Chemical Engineering, is using nanotechnology to develop self-cleaning plastics in which embedded enzymes destroy the ability of pathogens to bind to a surface. His research was profiled in the November 2002 issue of Technology Review.
Thomas Apple, a member of the chemistry faculty since 1991, was named dean of graduate education in 2001 to lead Rensselaer’s drive to substantially improve the quality of graduate programs and increase the number of students pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees. His plans include initiating regular external reviews of all graduate programs.