WPI offers researchers a multitude of support, including software, hardware, and consulting services that are on par with some of the greatest research universities in the world. The supportive, well-grounded infrastructure allows researchers to hit the ground running without delays from startup times or transitions from previous labs or universities. We’ve included just a sample of the resources available to researchers here.
Today’s research makes intensive use of computational resources, and Academic & Research Computing (ARC) supports the efforts of computational researchers by making a broad spectrum of high-end robust hardware and up-to-date commercial software available. Although WPI has several HPC Clusters, the most powerful one features 480 Intel Xeon E-5 2680v2 @2.8GHz CPUs and 48 Nvidia K20 GPUs.
Located in WPI’s Life Sciences & Bioengineering Center, which was built specifically to suit inter-collaboration and strength in life sciences,shared equipment cores are available for use by both student and faculty researchers. The Instrumentation Core offers access to sophisticated analytical characterization capabilities for chemical and biological compounds; the Microscopy/Histology Core allows researchers to image live, fixed, and fluorescently labeled samples; and the Vivarium Core provides for the procurement, housing, and care of laboratory animals at the LSBC. Researchers interested in the Instrumentation Core can email Andy Butler for more information; email Victoria Huntress for information on the Microscopy/Histology and Vivarium Cores.
The only facility of its kind at a university, the Fire Protection Engineering Laboratory in WPI's Gateway II building is a state-of-the-art facility for advanced research in fire science. Operated by the university's renowned Department of Fire Protection Engineering, the facility is actually two laboratories. The Honeywell Fundamentals Lab is designed for bench-top studies of fire phenomena, fire behavior, and the burning properties of materials using such tools as fire propagation apparatus, cone calorimeters, and infrared imaging system. The UL Performance Lab is two-story room burn room where large-scale fire tests can be carried out beneath a large hood that also functions as a calorimeter to measure the heat released by fires.
WPI's world-class Materials Science and Engineering Laboratories provide a broad range of facilities for advanced research and student project work. They include the laboratories within the renowned Metal Processing Institute for advanced casting, heat treating, and metals recycling and recovery; the Fatigue Laboratory with its Instron testing systems; electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction laboratories; the Electrochemical Energy Laboratory; the Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Laboratory; and the Surface Metrology Laboratory.
WPI has two Rapid Prototyping (RP) machines available for students, faculty, and staff—Dimension SST 1200es and Objet260 Connex, both located in Higgins Laboratory 232. For more information on using the RP machines, download the Rapid Prototyping Guidelines (PDF) or visit the Sharepoint WPI RP Machine website.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), in collaboration with Quinsigamond Community College (QCC), is developing a Lab for Education & Application Prototypes (LEAP) at WPI. Part of the national American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics), the LEAP at WPI will support the integrated photonics manufacturing sector in central Massachusetts.
PracticePoint is a membership-based research, development, and commercialization alliance founded to advance healthcare technologies. The focus is on smart and secure medical devices that interact with the physical world to improve the promise of patient-centric care.
In 2010, WPI added Gateway Park--a growing center of research, innovation, and commerce--to the campus footprint. The flagship complex at Gateway Park is WPI’s 125,000-square-foot Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, (LSBC), which opened in 2007 and is fully occupied with WPI’s graduate research laboratories in biotechnology, biomedical engineering, chemistry and biochemistry, and chemical engineering. The LSBC breaks down walls between disciplines, and fosters academic and business partnerships to facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration for technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
