Cornell Duffield College of Engineering

What an incredible day celebrating this historic moment with our @Cornell Duffield Engineering community! We are tremendously grateful to David A. Duffield '62, MBA '64, for supporting our students and faculty in continuing to do the greatest good.

Cornell researchers led by Fernando Escobedo found that entropy can help molecules bind faster and more effectively by giving them more freedom of movement after bonding. The discovery could inform new approaches in drug development and materials design. news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0…

Entropy gets a bad rap. Typically associated with randomness and chaos, it can also correlate with freedom and diversity. @CornellEng researchers found that, thanks to the latter qualities, entropy can help bind certain pairs of molecules faster and more robustly – an approach that could have broad applications in drug development and allow scientists to assemble nanoparticles to form new materials. Read more: news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0….

On May the 4th, we check out Ring of Steel, a Big Red student group where the Force is strong. Ring of Steel is a student-run stage club that blends martial arts and theater using steel swords, wooden staves, and even lightsabers. Founded over 20 years ago, it puts on performances at events like ClubFest and Spring Fest, as well as on May 4th (aka May the 4th), when lightsabers take center stage. “It’s an incredible community. It’s a specific flavor of very dedicated nerd—but it’s a great flavor,” says Sadie Shen ’28, a mechanical engineering major in @CornellEng. Read more: alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/ri…. #Maythe4thBeWithYou

Excellence in action! Celebrating undergraduate senior Lauren Holt, who set Ivy League single-season home run record this past week. @Cornell @CornellEng @cornellbme cornellbigred.com/news/2026/4/27…

With final examinations around the corner, @CornellAlumni from across the ages share pearls of wisdom on how to best prepare. Check out the advice at alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/al…. Images courtesy of Rare and Manuscript Collections (@Cornell_Library) or by Cornell University photographers, unless otherwise indicated in the article.

Honored: Beckie Robertson ’82, a venture capital leader in biotech, has received the @CornellEng Distinguished Alumni Award, in recognition of a career defined by innovation in health care and service to @Cornell. @CornellAlumAssn news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0…

Imagine a classroom where students do not just read about the future of agriculture, they build it. 🌱 We are proud to launch the AgXRP Beta with our partners @xrpRobots, @CornellEng, and @uidaho Learn more ⬇️ hubs.ly/Q04dhGWn0

@Cornell students are helping tackle one of the more complex challenges in climate science: understanding methane emissions from waterbodies and mangrove ecosystems. 🧵 news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0…

This is what it looks like to connect student innovation with real-world impact—where hands-on learning, cross-sector partnerships, and community collaboration come together to advance solutions. youtube.com/watch?v=1tVKgc…

“Duffield Engineering is redefining what it means to learn, teach and lead in engineering. This new institute cements our commitment to innovation, scholarship and excellence in engineering education."

Students are turning their passion for sustainability into action every day @Cornell Here’s what Earth Day means to them 🌎🌳

🧵 Handle with care: Soft robot gripper picks ripe fruit without bruising 🍓🤖 @CornellEng | @CornellRsrch

Congrats to sophomores Shivani Parmar, Tomou Takahashi, Keira Kim, and Cameron Richardson of @Cornell_CBE's Jillian Goldfarb lab, winners of the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute competition with a project that turns dining hall waste into biofuels & sustainable adsorbents.

Engineering can be used to change the world, AND it can be used to change your perspective of the world. This is a rare project that falls into both categories! Technically challenging and an awesome opportunity for the @CornellEng students and me to learn more about our planet.

One of our more hilarious microcontrollers projects! It's so cool when the students' personalities come through in their engineering. @CornellECE @CornellEng

In fall of 2024, a team of students and faculty met to launch a project: creating a device that could measure methane from water bodies, a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. The kind of methane sensor device they needed didn’t yet exist. Their task – to help communities and researchers measure methane emissions accurately and protect their water bodies – required something low-cost, rugged and portable. It would need to be deployed anywhere in the world, robust to wind and rain, run off a light battery, and contain a chamber that can fill with gases and then efficiently clear those gases to enable new measurements. “The real-world application of this was really motivating for me,” said Grace Lo ’24, M.Eng. ’25, who is now a computer engineer for IBM. “Knowing that people are going to actually put this out in a lake or out in a real mangrove forest inspired me to make this the best device I could produce within the time limit and the supplies I had. That challenges you in a way you don’t get just by doing projects isolated in a lab.” Sixteen months later, in partnership with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (@AtkinsonCenter) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), these sensors were deployed in Colombia for the first time, informing global greenhouse gas assessments and reforestation of mangroves – ecosystems that can store up to four times more carbon per hectare than tropical rainforests. In the future, the student-built methane sensor device could be used to study emissions from lakes, wetlands, dairy farm manure lagoons, abandoned gas wells and many other sources. The student methane sensor development was supported by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. The Colombian mangrove research was supported through the collaborative research partnership between EDF and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability supported by the David and Patricia Atkinson Foundation. @CornellCALS | @CornellEng More: news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0….

Handle with care: @CornellEng researchers used stretchable fiber-optic sensors to create a soft robot gripper that can predict the ripeness of strawberries by touch, then pick them without causing any damage. @NatureComms @NSF @CornellCIDA news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0…

Future engineers in action! Last weekend our graduate chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society hosted Girl Scout Engineering Day—bringing troops from NY & PA to campus for hands-on STEM, from lung models to DIY stethoscopes. @BMESociety @CUbmes

From lab to startup, faster. Cornell’s Ignite program is helping biomed research reach real patients. @IwijnDeVlaminck & Ph.D. student @LoyConor '24 turned cell-free RNA research into Romix Biosciences—advancing earlier detection & personalized care. news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/0…

Spring arrives at Cornell: Flowers blooming, Big Red studying under the sun. 🌸 The same daffodils that mark the end of winter now frame outdoor study sessions and startup brainstorms. Growth cycles aren't just botanical.