Russell Sage Laboratory

Introduction

Russell Sage Laboratory, otherwise known to students and faculty as 'Sage Lab', was opened in 1909. Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, known as Olivia Sage, was the second wife of industrialist Russell Sage. At his death in 1906, she inherited a fortune estimated at more than $63,000,000, to be used at her discretion. She gave RPI $1,000,000 as a memorial to her husband. The building was named after Russell Sage who, prior to his death, had been on the board of trustees at RPI. $300,000 of this money was set aside for building a lab that would be used for the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering departments, which had just been introduced at the school.

Early Days

Sage Lab began construction in 1907 and initially cost $405,000, around $12 million in today's money. The building was designed by Lawlor & Haase and constructed of Harvard brick with limestone trimmings. It included 3 main sections: one wing for the electrical engineering department, one wing for the mechanical engineering department and the in-between was used by both departments. This middle section contained a large lecture hall, which is still there today and many students have class in. It also contained a large drawing room and a laboratory which contained nearly 600,000 pounds of equipment designed to test construction materials. There were also hydraulic and internal combustion engine labs for the Mechanical Engineers and storage battery and transformer rooms, and an electrochemical laboratory for the Electrical Engineers. This would allow for engineering students to get hands-on experience. The first degrees for Electrical and Mechanical engineering were given out in 1911, 9 students and 3 students, respectively, thanks to the Sage Lab.

Expansion

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute only had 485 students when the building was funded in 1907. But RPI continued to grow and because of this growth, Sage Lab also had to grow. There was a four story addition added to the building in 1923 for a cost of 235,000, or about $4 million today. This section of the building is thought to be in an awkward spot because to enter it, one has to walk through a lecture hall. This can be difficult when there is a class in session.

Modern Day

Sage lab was renovated in 1985 and currently is the home to the school of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS). HASS is home to the Department of Arts, Economics, Cognitive Science, Communication and Media, and Science and Technology Studies, along with an award-winning program in Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences. Russell Sage Laboratory houses a writing center, multimedia computer labs, and video production and sound editing equipment.

Centers and Laboratories

There are various centers and labs focusing on arts, cognitive science, communication and design, economics, games simulations and art sciences, and science and technology studies. The labs and centers dedicated to these disciplines inside Russell Sage Labs are listed below.

Center for Deep Listening — Deep listening, as developed by the late composer and pioneer Pauline Oliveros, explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the voluntary, selective nature of listening. The practice includes bodywork, sonic meditations, interactive performance, and listening to the sounds of daily life, nature, and one’s own thoughts, imagination, and dreams.

CISL — The Cognitive and Immersive Systems Lab (CISL) at Rensselaer is building the next generation cognitive and immersive situations room to augment group intelligence. Researchers in CISL come together from multiple disciplines, including computer science, cognitive science, computing systems and engineering, arts, media, communication, and health care.

CogWorks Laboratory — Researchers in the CogWorks Laboratory conduct basic and applied research, uncovering the interplay of cognition, perception, and action in routine interactive behavior. Topics of research include integrated cognitive systems, computational cognitive modeling, cognitive engineering, and much more. The lab's approach includes traditional experimental paradigms as well as video games and other complex tasks, which are treated as experimental paradigms.

Corridor of Creativity - Located in the Sage Labs building, the Corridor of Creativity helps students take their projects from ideation to reality. Comprised of multiple spaces - the Digital Fabrication Lab, Metal Shop, Motion Capture Studio, Sculpture Studio, and Wood Shop - students, with the mentoring of labs' staff, take their lessons out of the classroom and create real world, functional prototypes.

Adaptive Computational Cognition Laboratory (AdaCog) — Researchers in the AdaCog Laboratory study how the human brain can perform complex tasks in uncertain environments. This question is approached from an engineering perspective: How should one build a system that can perceive, remember, act, etc., according to rational principles, while subject to biological constraints on information processing capacity?

PandA Laboratory — PandA Laboratory researchers explore intelligence by studying the tight linkage between perception and action. Basic questions about visual perception, motor control, and coordination are addressed by investigating routine and skilled perceptual-motor tasks, with a specific focus on visually guided actions. Experimental research is conducted in real and virtual environments, and mathematical models are developed using tools from dynamical systems theory and artificial intelligence.

Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (RAIR) Lab — RAIR Lab researchers work across a number of applied projects, as well as across many of the fundamental questions artificial intelligence raises (e.g., Are we machines ourselves? If so, what sort of machines?). Everything is to a high degree unified by the fact that the formalisms, tools, techniques, systems, etc., that underlie the lab’s research and development are invariably based on reasoning.

Translational Humanities Research Immersive Learning Laboratory (THRILL) will create a flexible research and immersive learning environment that includes virtual, augmented, and mixed reality utilizing high-resolution visual and auditory display, enveloping the senses to spur creative inquiry across the humanities.

Cognitive Architecture (CogArch) Laboratory — Researchers in the CogArch Lab focus on developing comprehensive models of human cognition (cognitive architectures).

References

https://archives.rpi.edu/blog/2019/06/26/continuing-up-the-hill-russell-sage-laboratory https://archives.rpi.edu/institute-history/building-histories/russell-sage-laboratory