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.” Adam Powell “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. 

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) announced the appointment of David LaMarco as associate vice president for facilities and campus planning. LaMarco, who will join WPI Oct. 6, brings more than two decades of leadership experience in facilities operations, capital planning, and strategic infrastructure management across higher education and private industry.  LaMarco joins WPI from Wheaton College, where he has served as associate vice president for facilities and auxiliary services, providing executive oversight for facilities operations, dining services, business services, and conference and event management.  At WPI, LaMarco will serve as the university’s chief facilities executive, reporting directly to Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Mike Horan. He will lead oversee specialized areas—including campus planning, design and construction, and environmental health and safety—and manage a team of approximately 110 professionals and an annual budget of more than $40 million. He will provide strategic oversight of WPI’s built environment, including implementation of the university’s comprehensive campus framework, and will lead capital planning and projects. LaMarco will provide operational management of campus services, including maintenance, custodial, utilities, and groundskeeping, with a focus on performance metrics and continuous improvement, and will advance WPI’s sustainability initiatives, including energy management, green building practices, and environmental stewardship. LaMarco’s appointment comes at a pivotal time for WPI, which recently achieved Carnegie R1 research status—placing it among the top 3% of research institutions nationwide. As WPI’s research enterprise and academic programs continue to grow, LaMarco will play a critical role in ensuring the university’s physical infrastructure supports its mission of preparing students to solve global challenges through project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration. “David’s deep expertise in facilities management and his proven ability to lead complex operations make him an outstanding addition to our leadership team,” said Horan. “His strategic vision and operational acumen will be essential as we continue to expand and evolve our campus to meet the needs of an R1 institution.” “I am excited to join WPI right now, as the campus is experiencing strategic growth while adapting to the rapidly changing landscape of higher education,” said LaMarco. “Now more than ever, it’s crucial for leaders within facilities operations to add value through data-driven decision-making while creating an aspirational vision for their teams.” LaMarco holds a master of science in cybersecurity policy and governance from Boston College and a bachelor of science in facilities engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He is a certified energy manager, certified professional maintenance manager, and certified data center professional.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) today announced a visionary $12 million legacy gift from Carl Karlsson, Class of 1960. The unrestricted estate gift, made following Karlsson’s passing in 2023, will provide broad support across WPI, with a portion dedicated to establishing endowed professorships for early career faculty—a strategic investment in the university’s long-term academic excellence.  Among the most significant philanthropic commitments ever made by an individual to WPI and in support of Beyond These Towers: The Campaign for Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Karlsson’s gift will leave a lasting mark on the university’s future. Unrestricted gifts are among the most powerful forms of philanthropy because they provide WPI with the flexibility to address its highest priorities, respond to emerging opportunities, and invest strategically in areas of greatest need. Karlsson’s altruism ensures WPI remains nimble and well-positioned to advance its mission for generations to come.  “This is a shining example of the extraordinary generosity and dedication of our alumni to give back and help WPI continue to thrive,” said Grace J. Wang, President of WPI. “Carl Karlsson’s remarkable gift will impact the university by supporting faculty excellence, fueling research and innovation, and enriching the student experience. His legacy will empower future generations to achieve, discover, and lead in ways that ensure WPI’s enduring excellence and global impact.”  After earning his degree in chemical engineering in 1960, Karlsson built a successful career in information systems and technology, working for Praxair Inc. in Tonawanda, New York. Throughout his life, he remained deeply connected to WPI, contributing annually to the university’s areas of greatest need for nearly four decades. His legacy gift reflects a lifelong belief in the power of education to improve lives, a value that aligns closely with WPI’s mission and project-based learning model.

Christina Bailey-Hytholt’s research explores something so ordinary that it is often discarded when no longer needed yet so critical that it sustains life. The placenta. Recently named to the Leonard P. Kinnicutt Professorship, Bailey-Hytholt ’15 is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering who focuses on using engineering approaches to advance women’s and prenatal health. She concentrates specifically on problems of the placenta, a temporary organ that forms in the uterus during pregnancy to provide nutrients and oxygen to a developing baby. Some of her work is considered exploratory, but she’s also interested in developing models of the placenta for research and developing particles that package and deliver therapies to patients. Her research has captured attention from funders and others. In 2024, Bailey-Hytholt was awarded a three-year, $502,999 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for early-career researchers to determine the relationship between placental cells known as trophoblasts and the biomolecules they secrete, called exosomes, that are important for cell communication. In 2022, Forbes named her to its 30 Under 30 Class of Innovators. Bailey-Hytholt joined the WPI faculty in 2022 after receiving her PhD in biomedical engineering at Brown University and completing postdoctoral research in genomic medicine and biologics drug product development and manufacturing at Sanofi. Her research has been supported by the NSF, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and the Amnion Foundation. She is affiliated with WPI’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. From left, Christina Bailey-Hytholt and students Emily Lei '27 and PhD student Kerstin Andrews '25 Q: Did you always want to be a researcher? A: I always gravitated toward healthcare. During middle and high school, I volunteered at a nursing home for several years. When I arrived at WPI as an undergraduate in chemical engineering, I thought I would later go to medical school. Then I worked in the lab of Terri Camesano (dean of graduate studies) and had the best experience. She and the graduate students working in her lab encouraged me to think about pursuing research and my PhD. I didn’t know what graduate school and becoming a researcher really was until my experience working in a lab. At the same time, I had some health challenges of my own. I realized that there are many things we don’t have answers to in a clinical setting, and new research is important to advance medicine.  Q: How did you decide to focus your research on women’s unmet health needs? A: Women’s health is an area that I can relate to and feel I can be an advocate for, which led to my passion for this area of research. However, research into women’s health as an engineer really wasn’t on my radar until a few things came together during my first year of graduate school—opportunities, exciting projects, and good mentors. There was an opportunity to contribute to a prenatal diagnostic project, and that project spurred ideas about using engineering skill sets to study the placenta. I also was fortunate to be an NSF fellow and to have advisors who supported me. Pursuing these projects, I really became passionate about the subject and saw that there were not many engineering approaches being used to advance prenatal and women’s health. On a personal level, I recently went through my own pregnancy and had a healthy daughter, so I saw firsthand how important research is for prenatal health. A researcher holds a clear container that is used to measure the surface charge of nanoparticles in solution. Q: What does chemical engineering have to do with human health? A: The words “chemical engineering” may typically conjure up images of a person wearing a hard hat and working in an industrial plant, but chemical engineers work in many different fields. Many chemical engineers work in health-related fields such as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Chemical engineers learn to solve problems involving complex systems and processes, and human health involves complex systems and processes. Chemical engineering concepts such as material properties, mass balances, transport, kinetics, thermodynamics, and more are crucial to designing therapeutics and cell models, which are important in advancing human health.  Q: What is the goal of your three-year NSF-funded project? A: The goal of this project is to study and identify the relationship between the environment that trophoblast cells, the main cells in the placenta, are grown in and how they communicate with each other. Trophoblasts invade the endometrium, which is the membrane that lines the uterus, to anchor the placenta in place and ensure adequate blood flow. Trophoblasts also secrete factors that allow cells in the placenta to communicate with each other. The placenta is not a well-understood organ, so my lab is looking at how the environment in the placenta—such as the presence of growth factors or hormones—influences invasiveness and impacts what trophoblasts secrete. It’s important to expand knowledge about the placenta because it is a critical organ for developing babies and there are studies that suggest placental health impacts the lifelong health of babies and mothers—so really, everyone. This award also financially supports graduate and undergraduate students in the lab. We have a great team working on this important project.  Q: As a graduate of WPI, what is it like to return here as a faculty member? A: I love it. It’s awesome to be back in the same research building where I got started. I also think a lot about the mentors I had as an undergraduate, how they influenced my career decisions, and how I can give the undergraduates in my research group a similar experience. I want to give them the opportunity to own their research and enjoy an immersive experience. In the classroom, I can relate to students taking the chemical engineering courses that I teach, because I was in the same seat as them not so long ago. I thought the seven-week terms were fast paced as a student, but they seem to fly by even faster now as a faculty member!

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher Catherine Whittington has been awarded a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop three distinct laboratory models for the study of fibrosis in pancreas, skin, and uterine fibroids. Whittington, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded $629,998 from the NSF for the five-year project. The models she develops could lead to research advances in the understanding and treatment of fibrosis, a condition that occurs when an injury results in too much scarring that stiffens tissue and threatens to disrupt the normal functioning of organs. Chronic pancreatitis, keloid scars, and uterine fibroids are all the result of fibrosis. “There is much to learn about fibrosis so that better treatments can be developed,” Whittington said. “Better laboratory models for pancreatic, skin, and uterine fibroid tissues could lead to an improved understanding of factors at the cellular level that lead to fibrosis and how interventions could interrupt or reverse that process.” Models are representations, such as physical objects or mathematical equations, that represent real-world phenomena. Researchers use models to study a problem, test ideas under controlled conditions, and make predictions.  Whittington will develop models composed of materials such as collagen and human cells that represent the tissues of interest. The combined materials will be placed in wells on laboratory plates about the size of an index card and then exposed to hormones, varied mechanical inputs, and other environmental factors.  “These models will be small, but they will allow us to systematically ask questions and make discoveries about how different chemicals and forces contribute to the process of fibrosis,” Whittington said. 

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has been named to a select group of academic institutions leading a nationwide effort to strengthen cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in the U.S. automotive industry—a sector increasingly reliant on smart, connected technologies.  Supported by a $2.5 million grant from the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity  the DRiving Automotive Industry WorkForce Transformation (DRIFT) program will provide specialized online and in-person training designed to upskill the workforce and protect vehicle systems from emerging threats.  WPI associate professors Jun Dai, Xiaoyan Sun, and Xiaozhong Liu, all from the Department of Computer Science, will lead the university’s DRIFT program. WPI will receive $749,994 over two years, with the opportunity for an additional $300,000 in a third year. The program will offer tuition-free modules, workshops, and real-world training to help engineers and professionals develop advanced competencies in cybersecurity and AI.  “Today’s vehicles are computers on wheels—powered by data, software, and smart systems,” said Dai. “AI is transforming the future of mobility, but without robust cybersecurity, we put innovation—and lives—at risk. DRIFT directly addresses the workforce gap by preparing engineers and professionals with the tools they need to protect connected and autonomous vehicles, and ultimately, to accelerate the development of next-generation transportation.”  As vehicles become more connected, equipped with internet-enabled infotainment systems, GPS, remote diagnostics, and automated driver assistance systems, they also become more vulnerable to cyberattacks. While autonomous vehicles are often in the spotlight, nearly all modern vehicles are now potential targets.  In one of the most publicized demonstrations of this risk, cybersecurity researchers remotely took control of a Jeep Cherokee in 2015, manipulating its brakes, steering, and transmission while it was on the highway. More recently, the 2025 Global Automotive and Smart Mobility Cybersecurity report by Upstream revealed that massive-scale incidents—each impacting millions of vehicles—more than tripled between 2023 and 2024, rising from 5% to 19%. The data shows the vulnerability of even top-tier smart vehicles. These incidents underscore the urgent need to secure both automotive systems and the talent pool capable of doing so.  The DRIFT curriculum is designed for a wide audience, including:  Automotive engineers  Cybersecurity and AI professionals  IT workers transitioning into transportation-related sectors  Educators and students at two- and four-year institutions  Department of Transportation personnel  Military and civilian defense staff  First responders and public safety officials  Policymakers and regulators    Courses will be delivered online, in-person, and hybrid formats and will cover:  The architecture and key components of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) systems  AI applications and their role in enabling core CAV functions  Common vulnerabilities in connected vehicle systems, including GPS spoofing, sensor interference, and over-the-air update threats  Defensive cybersecurity strategies tailored for CAV environments  Hands-on case studies to bridge theoretical knowledge with real-world applications    WPI joins the following partner institutions in offering DRIFT training:  Oakland University  University of Delaware  University of Michigan-Dearborn  Cleveland State University  Sinclair Community College   Those interested in this program can access the application link for the activities at: https://www.secs.oakland.edu/ei/drift/programs/. For more information about WPI’s DRIFT program, visit: https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/cybersecurity/drift.