Employee Drop In: Benefit Enrollment Help Session: Do you need assistance entering your Open Enrollment benefit elections into Workday? Do you have a question about one of the benefit plans offered in 2026? Drop in to see a member of the Benefits Team during this session to get the support and help you need to make your benefit choices before November 5th. Please note: this is an informal drop-in session and not a formal presentation.

Neural Certificates for Safe Robotic System Planning and Control Abstract: Achieving safety, scalability, and high performance in complex systems, such as multi-agent systems (MAS) control, is a central challenge in many real-world robotic deployments due to its computational complexity as a large-scale constrained optimal control problem. To address this, we introduce a novel graph control barrier function (GCBF) as a core tool for large-scale distributed safe control, which guarantees safety for arbitrarily large MAS with only local observations. For MAS with known dynamic models, we present a self-supervised learning framework that can jointly learn GCBF and distributed control policies that consider actuation limits. For MAS with unknown dynamics, we discuss how to blend GCBF in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to achieve high-performance and safe distributed policies. Bio: Chuchu Fan is an Associate Professor (pre-tenure) in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT. Before that, she was a postdoc researcher at Caltech and got her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University. Her research group, the Realm at MIT, works on developing computational tools that integrate rigorous mathematics into machine learning and AI for the design, analysis, and verification of safe, large-scale, and complex systems. Chuchu is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award, an ONR YIP Award, and the 2020 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.

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 more about your Medicare, Health Savings Account and long-term care benefits for today and tomorrow.

Global Asia Hub invites Dr. Andrew Erickson, Visiting Scholar Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Prof of Strategy,China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College to give a presentation discussing China's sea forces and XI seeks to use them in a time of dangerous shifting power dynamics. China under Xi Jinping has become a great maritime power, possessing the world's largest fleets numerically in every maritime category.

Be well at home while celebrating Wellness Day on November 4th. Drop by the Center for Well-Being or the lobby of Gateway 1 (60 Prescott) starting on Friday, October 31st to pick up your Wellness @ Home Kit to help de-stress and relax. Kits will be available October 31-November 4 or until we run out. Get one before they are gone! Sponsored by the CWB.

Join ODIME on Fridays from 12:00-2:00pm ET in OASIS House for milk and freshly baked cookies! For more information or accommodations, please contact ODIME at diversity@wpi.edu. All are welcome!

Join us on Friday, October 31, from 12:00–1:00 p.m. for a Lunch and Gather drop-in session in Innovation Studio 205. This gathering is an opportunity to connect with others who share your hobbies, interests, and likes.Don't forget to bring your lunch and a friend with you!Check out more Staff Council engagement opportunities here.

Join the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department in honoring the lives and memories of our loved ones at our Dia de Los Muertos celebration on Friday, October 31st!We’ll gather around a beautifully crafted ofrenda to pay tribute to friends, family, and colleagues who have passed, including CBC's very own Dr. Jim Dittami and others shared by our community. All are welcome to contribute photos of loved ones to be included in the ofrenda—please email them to chem-biochem@wpi.edu.Let’s come together to honor and celebrate the lives of our friends and loved ones!When: Friday, October 31stWhere: Innovation Studio Room 203Time: 4:00 PMPlease see the attached flyer PDF linked below for more information!

Dia de Los MuertosInnovation Studio Room 2034pm - 6pmPresentation by: Benjamin Juarez EcheniqueOfrenda, light refreshments

Join us for the Opening Event to kick off WPI Business School's Business Week 2025!President Grace Wang, along with Dean Kwamie Dunbar, will welcome the WPI community to the start of WPI’s third Business Week. President Wang will expand on her article, “Business Education in a Polytechnic Era” and Dean Dunbar will share his vision of how The Business School is preparing students to thrive in a rapidly changing world.Don’t miss this inspiring conversation as we set the stage for a week of exploration, networking, and business in action.We look forward to seeing you in the Odeum

Seminar Series “Levering Foot-Ground Interaction Dynamics for Sports Performance and Gait Rehabilitation” Wouter Hoogkamer, PhD Associate Professor Department of Kinesiology University of Massachusetts Amherst Abstract: Over the past 10 years innovations in running footwear have led to substantial improvements in running performance. While many credit (or blame) carbon-fiber plates for these improvements, a series of studies from our group suggests that innovations in midsole foams are the real hero (or culprit). Seeing what more compliant and resilient midsole foams are doing for running performance, we developed an adjustable surface stiffness treadmill to unilaterally expose people to a compliant surface while walking. Our recent results indicate that asymmetric surface stiffness walking leads to neuromotor adaptation in healthy control participants, which suggests this method can be leveraged to reduce weight-bearing asymmetries in neurological conditions such as people post-stroke. Bio: Wouter Hoogkamer, PhD (he/him) (pronounced “Wow-ter”) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he runs the Integrative Locomotion Laboratory (UMILL). His lab uses a comprehensive approach to study human locomotion, integrating neurophysiology, biomechanics and energetics. His work on running shoes, cooperative drafting and course features might have played a tiny role in how the 2-hour marathon barrier was broken. His lab is currently studying biomechanics and energetics of marathon shoes and track spikes, and locomotor adaptation imposed by robotic footwear, mechatronic treadmills and exoskeletons, to improve gait rehabilitation paradigms. For a zoom link please contact Kate Harrison at kharrison@wpi.edu

Join WPI Archives & Special Collections in celebration of the new 2025-2026 Gladwin Gallery exhibit, "Currents of Change: Electrical & Computer Engineering at WPI from the Dawn of the Electric Age to Present Day". This event is a casual drop-in/drop-out style gathering with a brief welcome and short program led by ECE faculty at the start. After this introduction, attendees will be welcome to explore the exhibit and some interactive elements on their own. Light refreshments provided. Students, staff, faculty, alumni, and guests are welcome. Registration preferred. Please email archives@wpi.edu with any additional questions.

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.

Resilience is essential in a world where everyone feels pressure to produce more work of higher quality, with fewer people, in less time and with fewer resources. With challenges and demands in our personal lives as well, it is clear that we all must learn how to be change-proficient, cope with stress and other unexpected setbacks and overcome adversity. This presentation will provide individuals with the tools necessary to adapt to challenges and changes at home and at work, while helping them become more successful and productive and improving their overall sense of wellbeing. Join virtually or in-person in DH139. Sponsored by the CWB and T&I.

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.

Come stop by to plant some seeds to watch grow throughout the year! You can also choose to decorate your pot to make it perfect for your space! Sponsored by HREC.

Drop-in at the CWB to make scratch art rockets! All materials provided. Sponsored by the CWB. 

5v5 Basketball Tournament for the WPI Community. Sponsored by Campus Recreation Advisory Council.

Brewing coffee and tea are classic examples of extraction processes and making hot chocolate involves complex mixing processes. Come enjoy these beverages and some snacks in the lower lobby of Goddard Hall with the Chem Eng Department. Sponsored by Chem Eng.