New London, CT --- WPI Volleyball fell to Coast Guard in a Tuesday night conference road match in straight sets (14-25, 22-25, 19-25) inside Roland Hall.

WPI faculty members Jennifer Rudolph, historian of modern China and professor in humanities and arts, and Lane Harrison, data visualization expert and associate professor in computer science, have received a $600,000, two-year International Peace and Security Program grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to advance an international project called Mapping Global China, with collaborator Maria Adele Carrai, assistant professor of Global China Studies at New York University Shanghai.  Mapping Global China aims to help people better understand China’s expanding role on the world stage by creating an open-access digital platform that integrates curated datasets, interactive maps, and advanced data visualization. By combining qualitative and quantitative data, the initiative enables scholars, policymakers, educators, and students to explore how China’s global engagements intersect with local contexts and impact global structures. This innovative, interdisciplinary approach brings together expertise in history, law, economics, cartography, and geography with WPI’s strengths in computer science and data visualization to provide accessible, unbiased resources that help reposition understanding of China both within and outside of its state borders.   “Mapping Global China is designed to provide a clearer, more nuanced understanding of China’s global presence,” said Rudolph. “By allowing users to access integrated and reliable data sets to create tailored maps that advance significant research questions, the site supports informed decision-making for scholars and policymakers worldwide.”  The grant also supports extensive student and faculty involvement at WPI. Harrison and Rudolph are leading a collaborative effort that includes advising two Major Qualifying Project (MQP) student teams, co-advised by Diane Strong, professor in WPI’s Business School, and incorporating into the site a story map on Confucius Institutes developed by a WPI Chinese Studies minor with assistance of the Global Lab. In January 2026, a WPI PhD student in computer science will join the project to incorporate cutting-edge machine learning and visualization technologies to take the project and the field to new levels. A second advanced WPI PhD student in computer science will join in year two of the grant.  In addition to the interactive digital platform that will allow users to create their tailored maps, the project will produce a collected volume, Global China: Histories, Methods, Encounters, co-edited by Rudolph and Carrai, as well as an atlas. The Mapping Global China initiative also includes themed working groups, research briefs, story maps, and interviews with experts on various aspects of China’s global impact.   

Equipment from the lab of Jamal Yagoobi is prepared for launch aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft. A WPI experiment focused on a new way to prevent electronics from overheating flew into space Sept. 18, 2025, aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft, giving researchers led by Jamal Yagoobi a critical opportunity to advance their technology by testing it in zero-gravity and multi-gravity settings.  The uncrewed suborbital flight lasted just over 10 minutes, including slightly more than three minutes of weightlessness, and carried more than 40 scientific and research payloads. Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft blasted off and landed at a site near El Paso, Texas, while Yagoobi, the George F. Fuller Professor of Mechanical Engineering, watched a live webcast of the flight in his Multi-Scale Heat Transfer (MHT) Laboratory with students who had worked on the WPI experiment.  “Many people, including students and collaborators at NASA, deserve credit for working hard on this project during the years leading up to this mission,” says Yagoobi. “The results of our experiment aboard the flight confirm that our design can significantly reduce the surface temperatures of electronics in zero-gravity and much higher gravity conditions. Because of the excellent results we obtained, we are very close to commercializing our electrohydrodynamic cooling technology, as our project has reached a new level of maturity as designated by NASA’s Technology Readiness Level.”    The project, funded by NASA, sought to address an out-of-this-world challenge that could have implications for future spaceships and satellites. On Earth, liquids boil upon encountering hot objects, and vapor carries away the heat, making boiling a liquid an efficient way to cool heated items. However, in space, where there is no gravity, vapor bubbles cannot rise from a boiling liquid and heat does not dissipate effectively or at all. To enable heat transfer in small spaces to avoid overheating, Yagoobi and his team adopted an electrohydrodynamic approach. 

Chief Stephen Marsh is pleased to announce that a team of assessors from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission is scheduled to arrive on campus Nov. 17, 2025, to begin examining various aspects of the WPI Police Department’s policies, procedures, operations, and facilities toward reaccreditation.  WPI police first became accredited in 2017, and this will be the third reaccreditation assessment to verify that the department continues to meet the commission’s standards for accreditation.   Accreditation is a voluntary process that involves police departments meeting and maintaining over 325 operational standards and best practices.     Achieving accreditation is a highly prized recognition of law enforcement professional excellence. Anyone interested in learning more about this program is invited to speak with the department’s accreditation manager, Capt. Brendan Green, or with Chief Stephen Marsh at the WPI Police Department located in Founders Hall.    

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 12 pm - 1 pm CC: Mid-Century Room In this workshop, participants will review several styles of written commentary, considering how the type, placement, and quantity of comments on student drafts can affect their revision and learning. Participants will learn and practice with a “reader-based” approach that has the potential to: 1) Reduce the time you spend marking student papers 2) Model for your students how to better anticipate and respond to a reader's needs 3) Help your students become less dependent on your editing and directive feedback This workshop is one component of our Project Advising 101 program for faculty new to IQP and MQP advising. The workshop is equally helpful to faculty teaching writing-intensive courses in any discipline, as well as faculty working with graduate students on theses and journal articles. All are welcome to attend! Please register by Tuesday, November 11th, so we can finalize the headcount for lunch.

Chief Stephen Marsh is pleased to announce that a team of assessors from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission is scheduled to arrive on campus Nov. 17, 2025, to begin examining various aspects of the WPI Police Department’s policies, procedures, operations, and facilities toward reaccreditation.  WPI police first became accredited in 2017, and this will be the third reaccreditation assessment to verify that the department continues to meet the commission’s standards for accreditation.   Accreditation is a voluntary process that involves police departments meeting and maintaining over 325 operational standards and best practices.     Achieving accreditation is a highly prized recognition of law enforcement professional excellence. Anyone interested in learning more about this program is invited to speak with the department’s accreditation manager, Capt. Brendan Green, or with Chief Stephen Marsh at the WPI Police Department located in Founders Hall.    

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 12 pm - 1 pm CC: Mid-Century Room In this workshop, participants will review several styles of written commentary, considering how the type, placement, and quantity of comments on student drafts can affect their revision and learning. Participants will learn and practice with a “reader-based” approach that has the potential to: 1) Reduce the time you spend marking student papers 2) Model for your students how to better anticipate and respond to a reader's needs 3) Help your students become less dependent on your editing and directive feedback This workshop is one component of our Project Advising 101 program for faculty new to IQP and MQP advising. The workshop is equally helpful to faculty teaching writing-intensive courses in any discipline, as well as faculty working with graduate students on theses and journal articles. All are welcome to attend! Please register by Tuesday, November 11th, so we can finalize the headcount for lunch.