A photo of Earle Bridge under a blanket of snow.

The Month in Photos: December 2021

January 18, 2022

A new year means new opportunities—to collaborate on project work, to conduct research, to make memories. Before we get too far into 2022, let’s take a look back at some of the highlights of the end of 2021 through the lenses of our talented staff photographers.

Offices and Departments

Research

 

WPI’s growing research enterprise focuses on discovering and developing solutions to problems that matter to people. We work across disciplines to educate students and give researchers opportunities to push boundaries. Researchers at WPI collaborate with academic, industry, government, and private partners to increase the impact of all we do, and we create pathways to develop a workforce that advances new ideas at every level.

Great Problems Seminar

The Great Problems Seminar (GPS) is a two-term course that immerses first-year students into university-level research and introduces them to the project-based curriculum at WPI. As part of The Global School at WPI, the course gives students and faculty the opportunity to step outside their disciplines to solve problems focused on themes of global importance. This culminates in annual Poster Presentation Days that celebrate students’ innovative research on a wide range of solutions to some of the world’s most critical challenges.

Snow days have been few and far between this winter, but the ones we've had were met with more than a little enthusiasm from goats and dogs alike.

 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … for a gingerbread house build-off, of course! WPI Eats, The Goat’s Head, and SGA co-hosted the contest, where students worked together to build gingerbread houses whose structural integrity was then tested by Professor Jessica Rosewitz.

 

The WPI Orchestra kicked off the month with a festive concert in Alden Memorial.

 

WPI students, faculty, and staff were invited to channel their inner artist during Art Afternoon events in the Innovation Studio, hosted by Jennifer deWinter, professor of arts, communications, and humanities. This time around, attendees dabbled in pysanky, or Ukrainian egg decorating.

 

First-year students enrolled in the Great Problems Seminar presented their work to fellow students, faculty, staff, and guests during Poster Presentation Day.

 

The Women’s Basketball team gathered for a photo following their win over Susquehanna, which earned them the WPI Holiday Tournament championship title.

 

Pratap Rao, Cagdas Onal, and Zhi Li were awarded over $1.7 million in federal and state funds to develop, in collaboration with UMass Lowell, a soft, lightweight glove equipped with printed sensors and electronic circuits that will enable users to tele-operate or train robotic systems.

 

‘Twas the night before finals, and all through the schools, WPI students were busy working on the next world-changing tools.

 

We have liftoff—the Engineering Ambassadors hosted an event for local middle school students to work together building windmills to lift cups of pennies.

 

WPI’s winter athletes took a break from the court, track, and pool this season to participate in a special holiday-themed photo shoot.

 

After weeks of rehearsals, Silent Sky, a collaboration among faculty mentors and student actors, designers, managers, and technicians, was shared with the WPI and local communities. The show highlighted the achievements of women in STEM through the story of Henrietta Leavitt’s groundbreaking discoveries in astronomy.