Leadership

Dr. Jean King is an active neuroscientist and Peterson Family Dean of Arts & Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Previously Dr. King was the Vice Provost of Biomedical Research and Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology, and Neurology (with tenure) at UMass Medical School, where she had been a faculty member since 1994.  Together with other administrative leaders at WPI, Dean King has launched new undergraduate and graduate programs in Learning Science, Neuroscience, Interactive Media and Game Development, and AI and has expanded undergraduate research opportunities.  Dr. King’s ...

Carolina Ruiz is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and the Harold L. Jurist ’61 and Heather E. Jurist Dean's Professor of Computer Science. She joined the WPI faculty in 1997. Prof. Ruiz’s research is in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Mining, and their applications to Medicine and Health. She has worked on several clinical domains including sleep, stroke, obesity and pancreatic cancer. Prof. Ruiz and her research group have developed novel, high-performing machine learning methods, including deep learning networks, for analyzing physiological sleep data; and machine ...

Robert Krueger is a human geographer whose scholarship and teaching focus on creating sustainable, socially just, improvements to development projects in the global north and south. His work has taken him around the world. He has worked in countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, on issues of economic development and institutional change. His scholarship and teaching challenge conventional notions of economic development, economy-environment relationships, and social change. In his book, Adventures in Sustainable Urbanism (2019, SUNY Press, Krueger, Freytag and Mössner (eds)), ...

ResearchScience and Technology that enable the analysis of patients’ minute biopsy samples in the native states to reveal the fundamental causes of diseases and yield intervention points for treatment are in critical demand. Research in Wang group leverages interdisciplinary approaches that merge material science, biochemistry, bioengineering and nanotechnology to address such multifaceted challenges. Students receive training in biochemistry, biophysics, bioanalytical chemistry, surface chemistry, composite materials and cell biology through research projects, such as: a) developing ...

 Kathryn M. Moncrief is Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Head of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA. She was previously Professor and Chair of English at Washington College, in Chestertown, MD where she taught courses in Shakespeare, Milton, and early modern literature and culture and received the Washington College Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Teaching. She serves as co-editor of the Shakespeare Life and Times section of the Internet Shakespeare Editions and has published widely on Shakespeare and ...

At WPI, I enjoy teaching all courses fundamental to applied mathematics, scientific computing, and modeling. I look forward to mentoring students interested in working on areas in Mathematical Biology, Computational Biofluids, and Scientific Computing. I specialize in Mathematical Biology, understanding emergent properties of complex systems. The goals of these models are to understand the underlying biological processes and make predictions. Please visit my website to learn more about recent research projects.

I am delighted to collaborate with students and colleagues to enhance WPI's global impact. WPI offers a vibrant and dynamic environment that emphasizes experiential learning and interdisciplinary research, with near-peer mentorship spanning the undergraduate and graduate programs with external stakeholders. The unique balance between theory and practice, along with the shared passion for the WPI Plan and the Project-Based Curriculum, make this institution exceptional. Here, degrees are earned through project accomplishments rather than traditional coursework.I greatly enjoy balancing my roles ...

A member of the WPI faculty since 2004 and chair of the Department of Biology and Biotechnology since 2022, Reeta Rao is a leader in the field of molecular genetics and genomics. Her primary research activities are focused on emerging infectious diseases, specifically understanding and managing fungal diseases. Students and research associates in her laboratory are trained to use a variety of biochemical, molecular-genetic, and genomic tools to study host-microbe interactions to explore fungal virulence strategies and identify novel therapeutics in a high throughput fashion. ...

I am interested in computer networking and security. Given the significance of the Internet in our economy and society, I am interested in improvements and studies that can have a real-world impact. My recent work has focused on how to make both enterprise and residential networks more secure. In my research work, I am exploring ways to change the traditional computer network communication model using techniques such as software-defined networking and network function virtualization.I am interested in exploring future directions in computing from a systems, networking, and security standpoint. ...

My research spans robotics, haptics, multi-modal perception, and artificial intelligence, at the intersection of computer science and engineering. There are two highly related themes in my robotics research: one is the focus on “contact sport”, i.e., the contact and interaction between a robot or a part/tool it holds and the environment, and the other is real-time adaptiveness of robots to uncertainty and uncertain changes in an environment based on perception. Under the first theme, my work includes compliant motion planning involving complex contact scenarios for high-precision robotic ...