News

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Rensselaer leaders prepared to bring students back to campus for the fall 2020 semester, they relied on a powerful algorithm to determine a testing schedule that, along with other tools, has helped maintain a safe environment on campus. That algorithm is now publicly available as a free online app.

Francine Berman, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, has been selected by the National Academy of Public Administration for inclusion in its 2020 Class of Academy Fellows, in recognition of her years of public-focused service and expertise.

From a variety of locations in the Capital Region, and throughout the country, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty, students, and staff are pressing their knowledge and machinery to work making personal protective equipment for those on the front lines of the pandemic.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researcher Malik Magdon-Ismail tailored the robust machine learning models he is developing for the COVID pandemic to work with sparse data points, like those available during the early phase in a pandemic or in smaller cities, which ordinarily make trend-spotting difficult.

Using daily updated data, COVIDMinder, a new data visualization tool, examines how and why COVID-19 impacts regions differently by comparing community risks, mediation tools, and outcomes related to COVID-19 by state across the United States, and by county within New York state.