WORCESTER — A team of undergraduates from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) were selected from more than 60 team entries for first place in the President’s IQP (Interactive Qualifying Project) Awards. The President’s IQP Awards are given to student teams whose conception, performance, and presentation of their IQPs have been judged outstanding in focusing on the relationships among science, technology and the needs of society. Their project was titled “Memorialization of the Spac Labor Camp: An Investigation into Digital Methods.”
Zetta Rajaniemi of Athol, a member of the class of 2021, worked with the team to develop a project that focused on saving the rapidly deteriorating Spac Prison, a former Albanian labor camp that housed political prisoners for nearly 30 years under the country’s communist regime. According to the team, preserving this historically significant site is important because of the lessons it can teach future generations about the atrocities suffered by many innocent Albanians.
The IQP is one of the most distinctive elements of the WPI Plan and WPI’s signature project-based curriculum, giving every WPI student the experience of working in interdisciplinary teams to solve a problem or need that lies at the intersection of science and society. Unlike an academic course, this nine-credit-hour requirement involves students working in teams, with students not in their major, to tackle an issue that relates science, engineering and technology to society.
In her remarks about the winning project, President Leshin said, “Well done! We were incredibly moved by the work that you did, and it personifies what the IQP represents. It brings it all together-the impact of the work on all of you was impressive to see, and it’s a great integration of technology and humanity.”