Information Technology and Web Science at RPI

Dear ITWS Community, Please join us for a Town Hall-style discussion with Professor Peter Fox, a candidate for the position of ITWS Program Director.  Peter will make a short presentation and we will have a discussion afterwards.  We will ask for your written feedback on the candidate at that time. It is important that as many members of the ITWS Community as possible participate in this process, so I hope to see students, staff and faculty there!   Here are the details: When: Wednesday, August 29th Room:  Lally 104  Time:  10 – 11 All are welcome! See you soon, -Laurie

Touchdown! by  MARY MARTIALAY  on  AUGUST 6, 2012 At 1:32 a.m. Eastern time, the NASA rover  Curiosity  safely touched down on the surface of Mars after a journey of more than 300 million miles and a harrowing descent from orbit, complete with parachutes, rockets, and the perilous ”sky crane manuever.” As a member of the science team for Curiosity,  Rensselaer Dean of Science Laurie Leshin traveled to California for the landing, and is currently at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory helping to analyze data from the rover. An opinion piece Leshin wrote about the importance of the mission, and the hope that it will engage young people in the pursuit of math and science,  appeared in Sunday’s edition of the Albany  Times Union . Before she left, I had a chance to speak with Dean Leshin about the mission and her work as a member of the science team: What’s the Curiosity mission all about? Curiosity is all about trying to understand the habitability of an interesting site on