Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Projects | 2018

Microbial Frontline Recovery

Matej Vakula, Yifei Peng, Rafael Marrufo

Landmine detection methods have not evolved since the days of World War II, and removal remains a dangerous and costly endeavor. Microbial Frontline Recovery proposes a series of kits using microbes to locate landmines and unexploded munitions left after military conflicts. These kits use biosensors to detect landmines using bioluminescent bacteria and then apply bioengineered bacteria to buried landmines to neutralize their explosives and also recover the soil damaged by the chemical leakage from the mines.

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Instructors

**Kathy High**

**Kathy High** is an interdisciplinary artist working in the area of technology, science and art. She produces videos, photographs, writings, performances and installations about gender and technology, empathy, and animal sentience. She has been an independent curator for a number of years, having started the video exhibition program at Hallwalls Gallery in Buffalo, NY, and curated the Microwave Festival in Hong Kong, as well as television series (REEL NEW YORK on WNET) and video exhibitions internationally. Her work, “Embracing Animal”, was exhibited in “Becoming Animal” at MASS MoCA, North Adams. Her work can be found at http://kathyhigh.com.

**Nancy Diniz**

**Nancy Diniz** is a registered architect and researcher. Before joining RPI she held several academic positions in China, UK, Italy and in Portugal in the areas of Architecture, Interior architecture, Environmental Technology and Interactive Design. Her main research and teaching interests question traditional scale boundaries between design disciplines – Fashion, Product, Architecture and Computer Science. Lately she has been prototyping modular and scalable systems that go from people to envelopes of buildings, exploring notions of wearable and mobile materials with real-time environmental information exchange properties.