Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has announced the appointment of Emily Perlow as vice president for student affairs and dean of students, effective immediately. Perlow, who has served WPI since 2005 and most recently as assistant vice president and dean of students, has long been recognized as a champion for students and an empowering mentor for her team.In her new role, Perlow will oversee all areas within student affairs, including career development, housing and dining, physical education, athletics, recreation, student activities and engagement, support for WPI’s diverse student populations, health and well-being, student conduct, the Rubin Campus Center, and the bookstore.“Emily has consistently demonstrated empathetic and principled leadership that puts students at the center of everything she does,” said Grace J. Wang, president of WPI. “Her vision, dedication, and deep knowledge of higher education will continue to strengthen WPI’s commitment to providing an outstanding student experience.”Since joining WPI, Perlow has played a central role in shaping the university’s student experience, from enhancing residential life and student well-being to advancing initiatives that promote belonging and developing leadership opportunities. She has overseen multimillion-dollar housing and dining operations, led crisis response teams, advanced student conduct processes, and secured major grants to support equitable teamwork and universal design in education.“I am honored to step into this role and continue working alongside our remarkable students, staff, and faculty,” said Perlow. “WPI is a community that values innovation, inclusion, and resilience, and I look forward to advancing initiatives that ensure every student thrives personally, academically, and professionally.”Beyond her leadership at WPI, Perlow is widely recognized in the field of student affairs. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters, presentations, and resources on hazing prevention, including editing and contributing to the 2024 New Directions for Student Services monograph, “Special Issue: Understanding and Addressing Hazing,” and has a forthcoming book chapter on hazing prevention in athletics. She also designed the curriculum for and continues to lead the award-winning Hazing Prevention Institute through the Hazing Prevention Network, which received the North American Interfraternity Conference 2024 Laurel Wreath Award.Her professional leadership includes service as vice chair of the board of directors for Worcester’s Friendly House Inc., participation on numerous accreditation visit teams for the New England Commission of Higher Education, and more than a decade of teaching as an adjunct instructor in the Student Development in Higher Education program at Central Connecticut State University. Her professional excellence has also been recognized with the Talent of Leadership Award by Alpha Gamma Delta and the Compass Award from the Northeast Greek Leadership Association.Perlow earned her PhD in higher education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where her dissertation examined fraternity men’s gender identity and hazing. She also holds a master of arts in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University and a bachelor of arts in anthropology, with distinction, summa cum laude, from the Ohio State University.Perlow succeeds Philip Clay, who will retire in May after nearly 33 years of dedicated service to WPI, leaving a lasting legacy of commitment to student success and community.

You asked and they answered 💝 Part 2 of our students' heartfelt messages home.

When a group of WPI students and faculty members first set out in 2022 to interview people connected to the rare earth magnet industry, they wanted to know if an innovative magnet recycling business could succeed. After more than 130 interviews, says Adam Powell, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a member of the team, the group concluded that the answer is a qualified “yes.” “We learned there is demand for recycled materials, and a lot of people want a domestic recycling industry to grow,” Powell says. “Yet the reality is that only a small number of U.S. companies are building recycling capacity. The industry is still maturing as companies develop facilities, awareness of recycling grows, and a steady supply of old magnets builds.” “Rare earth” refers to a group of metallic elements such as neodymium that are abundant in the earth’s crust but difficult and environmentally damaging to mine and process. Magnets made from rare earth minerals are used in everything from hybrid and electric vehicles to wind turbines and fighter jets, and the total market for rare earth elements was valued at more than $3 billion in 2023. China supplies most of the world’s rare earth minerals and has used its hold on the market as a political tool. In early 2025, China threatened to limit rare earth exports, especially to Western defense contractors, as a response to U.S. tariffs. During its review, the WPI group found that challenges for rare earth recycling include incentivizing the recycling of materials and competing with magnets made from virgin materials. The WPI group also found that challenges for rare earth recycling include scrap sourcing and the high cost of building recycling facilities. Those challenges could be overcome, the researchers say, by raising awareness about scrap collection, incentivizing the recycling of materials, and passing recycling-friendly legislation. “Launching a profitable and sustainable recycling startup now could be difficult,” says Chinenye Chinwego, PhD ’23, a member of the team and a former graduate student in Powell’s lab. “We can continue to do research on innovative recycling technologies, but it may take several years before there is sufficient scrap at costs low enough to make recycling profitable.” The WPI group, which undertook its market research into rare earth recycling as part of a National Science Foundation I-Corps project, recently published its findings in the Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In addition to Powell and Chinwego, authors were PhD student Daniel Mc Arthur Sehar; Evan MacGregor ’23, M.S. ’23; PhD student Steven Tate, M.S. ’21, MBA ’23, M.S. ’25 ; Kenneth Savage ’23, M.S. ’23; MBA student Thaddaeus Zuber ’22, M.S. ’23; Benjamin Sseruwagi ’23, M.S. ’24; Daniel Dietrich ’22, M.S. ’23; Emmanuel Opoku, M.S. ’24; Rosanna Garcia, Paul R. Beswick ’57 Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in The Business School; Brajendra Mishra, the Kenneth G. Merriam Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering; and David Smith of Newagen Group LLC. The WPI team enrolled in the I-Corps program to assess the outlook for rare earth magnet recycling because I-Corps provides a framework for researchers and inventors to rapidly assess an invention’s market potential. “Technical founders often forget to understand the market needs for their inventions,” says Garcia. “It’s important to conduct customer discovery interviews early in the innovation process, and the group took a methodical and detailed approach to this task.” Chinwego says the group was interested in examining whether a magnet recycling company could reduce material costs for magnet production, reduce dependence on foreign rare earth sources, and support corporate efforts to operate in environmentally sustainable ways. Recycling rare earth magnets involves separating magnets from electronics and extracting rare earth elements using gases, solvents, salts, or other processes. Recycled materials are currently a tiny share of the materials used in magnet manufacturing. Working with the WPI Office of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the group interviewed individuals from rare earth magnet manufacturing companies, rare earth recycling companies, national laboratories, metal alloy companies, and metal recycling companies. Those interviewed included customers, suppliers, outside experts, and government employees. They also interviewed rare earth magnet cutting companies and electronics manufacturers to assess the availability of scrap magnets for recycling. Although the team identified challenges for rare earth recycling, they also found reasons to think that the industry could grow. “The people we interviewed said that recycling rare earth magnets could mitigate supply risks and appeal to companies that want to decrease their impact on the environment,” says Chinwego. “As demand for rare earth elements grows, recycled materials ma...

Meet the next generation of fire protection professionals! These students are hard at work on research projects that could make a real difference in keeping our communities safe. It's inspiring to see young minds tackling such important safety challenges with dedication and innovation. Their work today could help protect families and communities tomorrow. #FireProtection #StudentResearch #CommunitySafety #STEMEducation #SafetyFirst

The future of money isn't minted, it's coded—and every time you deposit a check on your phone or send money via an app, you're actively using financial technology or "fintech." On this episode of The WPI Podcast, Kwamie Dunbar, Interim Dean of The WPI Business School and Professor of Finance, walks us through blockchain, cryptocurrency, and how artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the future of finance. As the first university in the U.S. to offer fintech degrees at every level of study, we'll also discuss the unique and exciting experiences our students have, including a yearly trip to center of the financial world—the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street.

We asked students to send a message to their families back home, and you gotta hear what they said! Drop a 🥹 in the comments if this made your ❤️ melt!