Looking for a way to make your day less stressful and more mindful...take some much-needed time for yourself and join us for Mindful Wednesdays! Drop-in meditation sessions are open to the entire WPI community, and no experience is necessary. A certified meditation teacher will offer guided meditations appropriate for both beginners as well as experienced meditators. People can join in person or via zoom.

Title:Fusion of Imaging and Robotics for Healthcare and Human-Machine Interface Abstract:Medical robotics has been widely applied in areas such as surgical assistance, enabling higher precision, reduced fatigue, and enhanced performance and tele-operation, allowing surgeons to perform procedures remotely without being physically present with the patient. A key enabler of medical robotics is imaging, which has rapidly evolved over the past two decades to support more minimally invasive, personalized, and low-risk diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. My research group focuses on the intersection of medical robotics, sensing, and imaging, with the aim of developing robotic-assisted imaging systems and image-guided robotic interventional platforms leveraging AI. In this talk, I will highlight two projects in our lab. First, I will discuss autonomous robotic imaging, which aims to reduce user dependency during image acquisition, resulting in higher-quality images and more comprehensive scanning. This includes our development of an autonomous ultrasound robot for diagnosing lung diseases. Second, I will introduce AI-powered biosignal-based human-machine interaction that harnesses signals from the human body to estimate hand movements and forces. This research is crucial for designing effective human-machine interaction systems, which can control robots, augmented/virtual/mixed reality interfaces, and digital media. Ultrasound data from the forearm provides valuable insights by visualizing a cross-section of the forearm, revealing the underlying causes of hand movements and interaction. These advancements in robotic imaging and human-machine interaction have the potential to significantly enhance both healthcare and our daily quality of life. Speaker:Haichong (Kai) Zhang, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Robotics Engineering Program, WPIBio:Dr. Haichong (Kai) Zhang is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Robotics Engineering with an appointment in Computer Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the founding director of the Medical Frontier Ultrasound Imaging and Robotic Instrumentation (Medical FUSION) Laboratory. His research interests include advanced medical imaging and robotic instrumentation with an emphasis on ultrasound and photoacoustics. Dr. Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. in Human Health Sciences from the Kyoto University, Japan, and subsequently earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Zhang is the recipient of the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (DP5) in 2019 and the Early Investigator Research Award from the Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program in 2018. He has served as a Program Committee Member for two tracks at the Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling and Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference. He has been a member of the Young Professionals Committee of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society (UFFC-S) since 2021.Host: Professor Ulkuhan Guler

These trainings are divided into a 101- and 201-level and will be offered on a termly basis in Stratton Hall 311. Both trainings will include creating an action plan and discovering new resources for continued learning. Please contact Lauren Feldman (they/she) at diversity@wpi.edu with any questions or accommodations requests. All are welcome to attend! 101: Learn about identities, pronouns, and how to advocate for your students and colleagues. A-Term: Wednesday, September 17, 2:00-3:30pm ET Zoom: Tuesday, October 14, 1:30-3:00pm ET B-Term: Tuesday, October 28, 11:00am-12:30pm ET 201: Learn about LGBTQIAP+ history, queer identity in other cultures, and queer liberation. Participants are encouraged to either attend the 101 training or have solid foundational knowledge before attending the 201 training. A-Term: Wednesday, September 24, 2:00-3:30pm ET B-Term: Wednesday, November 5, 1:30-3:00pm ET

Department of Mathematical SciencesQIT Thinking SeminarWednesday, September 17th, 20254:00PM-4:50PMStratton Hall 207Speaker: Harmony Zhan, WPITitle: An introduction to continuous-time quantum walksAbstract: A continuous-time quantum walk models the evolution of a quantum system under a time-independent Hamiltonian. We can represent such a system by a graph, where each vertex encodes a qubit, and each edge encodes the interaction between two qubits. This talk introduces continuous-time quantum walks whose Hamiltonians are determined by the adjacency matrices or the Laplacian matrices. We will survey some interesting behaviors of the walk and explain them using the spectral information of the graph.

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DIY Wednesdays are craft activities for you to de-stress and build social connections. This week, join us to make your own shrinky dink! Drop-by, relax, have fun, and create with your friends or make new friends.

Staff from the Pre-Award team in Office of Sponsored Program will host 2 in-person trainings to help guide you through the WPI proposal process and get you registered in the systems we use.

Looking for a way to make your day less stressful and more mindful...take some much-needed time for yourself and join us for Mindful Thursdays! Drop-in meditation sessions are open to the entire WPI community, and no experience is necessary. A certified meditation teacher will offer guided meditations appropriate for both beginners as well as experienced meditators. People can join in person or via zoom. Mindful Thursdays: 2:15PM to 2:35PM Center for Well-Being, Daniels Hall 102E Zoom: https://wpi.zoom.us/j/186050714 Each Friday an email will be sent out to the group called Mindfulness Tools To-Go which will include information about meditations, poems shared during the week, and mindful resources. If you have questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact Robin Benoit, rbenoit@wpi.edu

Learn about the exciting HUA summer courses abroad in Argentina, England, Germany, Morocco, Japan, and Taiwan

Come join WPIWA for our weekly GBMs! Come to learn about interesting radio topics, upcoming events you can participate in, or how to get your radio license. Hope to see you there!

Join us on Friday, September 19 at 9 a.m. (ET) for a webinar: TIAA Self Directed Brokerage Accounts. Register here to participate in the overview and demo.You now have the option to open a TIAA Brokerage account within your retirement plan. With this account, you can direct your retirement plan contributions among a variety of mutual funds beyond the ones offered through your retirement plan.

Help Save a Life! WPI Campus Girl Scouts and Massachusetts General Hospital are partnering to sponsor a Blood Drive on WPI campus. The drive will be on Wellness Day on September 19th from 9:30am-3pm on the Quad. Your donation will go to patients in need and knowledge of your blood type is not required. Please consider donating! Sponsored by Campus Girl Scouts.

 Sign up for a 15-minute Reiki session with certified Reiki master, Catherine Flayhan, as you experience healing in your whole-body by the gentle placement of the practitioner’s hands above or lightly on the receiver's body. Reiki is a healing practice that helps to bring your energetic body into alignment. Humans have two body forms. One is our physical body supported by our spine, bones, organs. We also have an energetic body with a central column that runs along our spine called a Sushumna. This is where the seven main Chakras live as well as the Nadis, which are channels that bring energy out to the rest of our body. Both can become out of alignment. When your energetic body is unaligned you visit a Reiki Practitioner.  Sponsored by the CWB.

Drop-in at the CWB to travel back in time to when you were a little kid and make your own pet rock! All materials provided. Sponsored by the CWB. 

Stop by the CWB during Wellness Day and play some games, do a puzzle, or get some coloring done all while enjoying some free snacks. Sponsored by the CWB.

Put your brain muscles to work as you decipher the clues and follow the trail around campus to find the hidden treasure! The first clue will be on the Wellness Day Webpage starting at 10am on 9/19. Solve the first clue and it will lead you to the location on campus with the second clue and so on until you’ve found the treasure. Sponsored by the CWB.  Start here: Wellness Days | Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Join us on the Quad for Boogie and Bounce—an afternoon of popcorn, ice cream, inflatable activities, and lawn games to relax, recharge, and celebrate Wellness Day with HREC! Sponsored by HREC.

Sign up for this fun workshop by WPI’s own Elizabeth Dufresne and learn to craft your own woven coaster (AKA Mug Rug)! All materials will be provided. Sponsored by the CWB. 

Every Grad Student needs a clipboard! Come by to personalize and decorate a clipboard while supplies last! Sponsored by Graduate Studies.

Please join the Chemical Engineering Department putting their theoretical skills in thermodynamics, heat transfer, mixing, and phase changes into practice making ice cream with the help of Liquid Nitrogen. Sponsored by Chemical Engineering.