Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications – Lighting Systems That Think

Featured News

Engineered Solutions for Circadian Function & Human Centric Lighting

The LESA Healthcare Research team has been busy! In case you missed it, check out what’s been happening around health and lighting.

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UNM Study Gauges Effectiveness of Light Therapy to Reshape Circadian Rhythms

University of New Mexico researchers and their colleagues from the LESA Center have demonstrated a new technology for gauging the effectiveness of light therapy to synchronize human circadian rhythms as a potential treatment for insomnia, mood disorders and other health problems. In a report published online in the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine (and set to lead the journal’s December issue), the team reported on a pilot study using the Smart Lighting Clinical Testbed at UNM Hospital. The lighting, sensing and control systems used were based on a system first installed in the Smart Conference Room Testbed at the LESA Center.
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Visiting Scholar Joins LESA Plant Science Team

The LESA Center is pleased to welcome visiting scholar Dr. Jurga Miliauskiene. Miliauskiene is the Chief Researcher at the Institute of Horticulture at the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry. She is joining the Plant Science team for two months working alongside Sr. Plant Scientist Elsebeth Kolmos. […]

Solutions to the Camera Conundrum in Healthcare Using ‘Indoor LIDAR’ for Improved Patient Safety and Protection

— A small network of low cost non-imaging sensors enhances critical patient monitoring without the invasiveness of cameras. —

(Troy, New York) Health and wellness care facilities often struggle to balance trade-offs between affordable, necessary patient monitoring and patient privacy. Camera surveillance, though useful in many situations, is not always the best option for monitoring occupants in a facility where preserving privacy is also an important function. Researchers at LESA (the Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) are solving the camera conundrum in healthcare settings by demonstrating how a small network of low cost time-of-flight sensors use the speed of light to measure distances. […]

New Senior Research Scientist Joins LESA Center’s Plant Science Team

The LESA Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. Elsebeth Kolmos to the Plant Science team. Her research interests and expertise are in Plant-Environmental Interactions, Molecular Biology, Genomics, Plant Biology, Plant Physiology, and Plant Circadian Function.

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Accolades

LESA Researchers Published in LEUKOS for Work on Dynamic Changes in Light on Cognition

Arunas Tuzikas, Robert Karlicek and former LESA Researcher Lauren Hartstein completed human factor studies to better understaend how rapid, dynamic changes in light spectral power distribution can impact cognitive performance and comfort. Their findings on the ‘Impact of Dynamic Changes in Light Spectrum Power Distribution on Cognitive Performance & Wellbeing‘ were recently published in LEUKOS – The Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES). […]

LESA & GLASE Experts Offer Insights into Controlled Environment Agriculture in LEDs Magazine Blog Series

The LESA Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Greenhouse Lighting & Systems Engineering (GLASE) consortium experts from Cornell University participated in a four-part guest blog series with LEDs Magazine between July and October. Throughout the series, they discussed research methods, applications, industry trends and future farming insights for controlled environment agriculture. The blog series was extremely popular generating significant interest around LESA and GLASE research initiatives. Two of the four blogs were ranked among LEDs ‘Top 5 Blogs of 2019’ – including the number 1 spot. […]

LESA Researchers Published in PLOS ONE for Work on Optimizing Sleep and Alertness

Agung Julius and John T. Wen’s research findings were recently published in PLOS ONE for their work on time optimal entrainment control for circadian rhythm regulation. They have developed ‘new ways to optimize sleep for alertness through light exposure‘ and were featured on Rensselaer News. Their work is part of ongoing research at LESA, resulting in several subsequent publications around circadian function, circadian phase shift, and the effects of healthy lighting funded by the Army Research Office, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense. […]

Executive Director of GLASE Named One of Produce Grower Magazine’s Produce Pioneers

Erico Mattos named one of only three produce pioneers by Produce Grower magazine. ‘Options to optimze, Mattos is leading a charge to find more efficient environmental controls for greenhouse growers.’ His expertise and leadership to the GLASE consortium have steadily helped ushered in a renaissance of innovation in both his approach and thinking for controlled environmental agriculture (CEA).