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Jan 28, 2026   |   by Betsy Vereckey

Alumni Portrait: Bing Knight '05 Th'06

As a mechanical engineer, a few of his career highlights have been working on Apple's self-driving electric car and on Nike's wearable consumer electronic devices.

Live Science

Jan 18, 2026

Could There Ever Be a Worldwide Internet Outage?

Professor George Cybenko is quoted in an article about the possibility of a worldwide internet outage. "It is possible but would require significant resources and/or huge coincidences, which makes it a highly unlikely, but possible, event," Cybenko said.

Yahoo Tech

Jan 13, 2026

Eric Fossum earns the prestigious Draper Prize for pioneering the CMOS image sensor

Professor Eric Fossum, director of the PhD Innovation Program, has been named the recipient of the 2026 Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering, one of the most prestigious honors for engineering achievement. "Eric Fossum is a pioneering semiconductor device physicist and engineer whose invention of the CMOS active pixel image sensor, or 'camera on a chip,' has transformed imaging across everyday life, industry, and scientific discovery," the NAE said in announcing the prize.

The Guardian

Jan 07, 2026

We study glaciers. ‘Artificial glaciers’ and other tech may halt their total collapse

Professor Colin Meyer co-authors an opinion piece about technology advancements that can help stop total collapse of the world's glaciers. "Technologies we can bring to bear include satellite-based radar, solar-powered drones, robot submarines, lab-based 'artificial glaciers,' and advanced computing technologies, including artificial intelligence," he writes.

The African Exponent

Jan 06, 2026

How Sim Shagaya Built Konga Into One of Africa's Leading E‑Commerce Platforms

Simdul Shagaya Th'99, who earned his master of engineering management from Thayer, is featured in a storya bout how he launched his company Konga to be one of Africa's leading e‑commerce platforms.

Research Quick Takes

Priyanshu Alluri, Zequn Chen, and Wesley Marrero

Jan 29, 2026

A Socially-Fair Framework for Measuring Student Well-Being

Priyanshu Alluri '26, PhD student Zequn Chen, and Professor Wesley Marrero presented a socially-fair framework, published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association - Open, that ensures homogeneous clustering performance across demographic groups while minimizing within-cluster variability. "The study integrates fairness considerations into clustering algorithms to reduce discrepancies in risk stratification and provides insights into socioeconomic drivers of student well-being," said Marrero.

Adelaide Cagle working in Hixon Lab

Jan 29, 2026

Making Skin Stick

Hixon Lab PhD candidate Adelaide Cagle is first-author on "Keratin Additive for Cellular Adhesion in Transcutaneous Prosthetics," with co-authors including NH BioMade trainee Lois Szulc, Jack Flaggert '26, Yowis Arias '24 Th'25, Annika Nikhar '26, and Professor Katie Hixon. Published in Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, the paper explores how incorporating hydrolyzed keratin into electrospun and cryogel scaffolds enhances cell adhesion and proliferation. "This study highlights a promising biomaterials strategy to improve dermal integration at skin-implant interfaces," said Hixon.

Huilin Qing with her poster at MRS

Jan 22, 2026

Converting Carbon Emissions into Fuels for Net Neutrality

PhD students Huilin Qing and Baiheng Li, and Professor Weiyang "Fiona" Li co-authored "Protonation pathway for CO2 reduction mediated by coordinated H2O on active sites" published in Nature Communications. This work, presented by Qing, was nominated for "Best Poster Award" at the 2025 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting which drew over 6,000 attendees from 50+ countries.