Featured Post from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Alternative Data Can Offer Insight into GameStop Action on Wall Street

Jan 28, 2021

1 min

Thomas Shohfi, an assistant professor in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer, says that looking at alternative data can offer important insights into the turbocharged trading of GameStop.


“Volatility in options on GameStop, Nokia, and AMC is exploding,” says Shohfi. “Short sellers are taking massive losses, covering their positions and pushing the stocks even higher. WallStreetBetters keep looking for soft spots in the hedge fund short portfolios to ‘blow up’ their value again and again. It’s a mob-fund mentality.”


Working with a former student, Shohfi has analyzed trends from the WallStreetBets subreddit and other social media platforms. He can provide an astute understanding as to how investors have reached this moment, why this has happened, and what the impact that this event will have in the future.


“Practitioners, investors, and analysts are always looking for an advantage,” according to Shohfi. “The biggest advantage that we see today is through alternative data. It’s just a rich environment to observe human behavior, incentives, and gender  and disclosure effects that affect capital markets like we have seen with GameStop.”


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2 min

RPI to Host Holiday Concert and Troy Victorian Stroll Kickoff December 6

RPI President Martin A. Schmidt ’81, and his wife, Lyn, invite the Capital Region to join them for the RPI Holiday Concert and Troy Victorian Stroll Kickoff, which will take place on Saturday, December 6, at 7 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) on RPI’s campus. This event is free and open to the public, and a reception with refreshments will follow. The concert, titled “Light in Winter,” will include performances from the RPI Wind Symphony, Concert Choir, and Orchestra, all under the direction of Robert Whalen, RPI lecturer in music and conducting. For the second year in a row, the concert will also serve as the kickoff for the 43rd annual Troy Victorian Stroll, made possible through RPI’s partnership with the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce. “This concert is a wonderful opportunity for our students, who work so hard all year, to share their passion for music and create something meaningful for the entire community,” said Whalen. The program, following a “Light in Winter” theme, celebrates the various ways we bring light and joy to the darker winter season. “There is a common connection across cultures of lighting up the darkness in the late fall and winter, said Whalen. “Consider Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas, Alban Arthan, and others. Music and the arts, as well as education, each represent a way of sharing our inner creative light to illuminate the darkness.” During the concert, students will perform music by Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Lauridsen, and Saint-Saens, all following the “Light in Winter” theme. The program will feature two winners of the 2025 RPI Concerto Competition, Reese Bush '27 in Saint-Saens' "Introduction and Rondo capriccioso" for Violin and Orchestra, and Avery Roach '25 singing Gershwin's gorgeous and evocative "Summertime". Performers across the three groups represent 160 students from 34 different majors and all 5 schools, a reminder of just how curious and well-rounded RPI students are, and that art and science don’t just coexist, they actually enhance each other. The opportunity to continue growing as a musician while pursuing an engineering degree is something that connects many of us and inspires the music we create,” said Bush. “We’re excited to share our hard work and passion with the community.” The Holiday Concert is an annual tradition that celebrates peace and unity, the creativity and hard work of RPI students, and the confluence of science, engineering, and art. Combining the concert with the Troy Victorian Stroll has been a great opportunity for RPI to partner with its home city and further engage with the community. RSVP here: Media are welcome to attend.

2 min

“Lake Health Under the Microscope: RPI Researcher Offers First Real-World Look at Herbicide Impact”

In a recent Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute news release “RPI Collaborates on First-of-its-Kind Research Study to Keep New York Lakes Healthy,” Dr. Kevin Rose is featured as the essential expert behind an unprecedented field study of the aquatic herbicide florpyrauxifen-benzyl (FPB / ProcellaCOR) in New York lakes. As Director of the Darrin Fresh Water Institute (DFWI) at RPI, Rose helped lead the research team that examined long-term, real-world behaviour of the herbicide—discovering that while it disappears rapidly from open water, it lingers in lake-bed sediments for over a year and even spreads beyond original treatment zones. Rose’s involvement highlights his role in translating cutting-edge freshwater science into actionable insights for lake managers, regulators and communities. “New products are occasionally introduced into ecosystems as we work to prevent harm from threats like invasive species,” says Rose. “Many of these tools can bring tangible benefits, but it’s essential to understand their long-term impacts and potential unintended consequences.” Dr. Rose’s leadership brings clarity to an issue that can easily be oversimplified in public debate. By grounding the study in real-world field data rather than controlled laboratory assumptions, he provides a more accurate picture of how aquatic herbicides travel, transform, and linger in lake systems. His work highlights why science-based lake management — informed by long-term monitoring — is critical for maintaining the health, resilience and recreational value of New York’s freshwater ecosystems. For journalists covering invasive species, lake health, climate resilience, herbicide use or the future of freshwater ecosystems, Dr. Kevin Rose is an essential source. He brings both scientific authority and real-world relevance to a topic that affects communities, policy decisions and environmental outcomes across the state.  Click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.

3 min

Five Million Airbnb Reviews Illuminate Guests’ Crime and Safety Concerns

Concerns about crime and safety have a dramatic impact on the behavior of Airbnb customers, according to new research co-authored by Liad Wagman, Ph.D., Dean of the RPI Lally School of Management. In an analysis of nearly 5 million reviews left by Airbnb guests, Wagman and his colleagues found that a short-term rental property’s occupancy rate and rental price dropped by significant amounts after a guest left a review mentioning safety concerns at or around the property: occupancy rates fell by anywhere from 1.5 to 2.4 percent, while average nightly prices dropped by roughly 1.5 percent. These negative safety reviews influenced the behavior not only of potential future customers, but also of the people who wrote them. A customer who mentioned concerns about crime and safety in the neighborhood around a property, for instance, became 60 percent less likely to ever use Airbnb again. “To see the effect of these dynamics play out in action is always fascinating to me," Wagman said. “Given that humans have different preferences, and that information transmittal is imperfect, it’s unsurprising that the effect of self-experience is larger than that of reading a critical review that resulted from it.” Worries about safety within a property — say, a broken step or a slippery tub — also reduced customers’ willingness to return to the platform, but by a more modest amount. The study also found that when people with neighborhood safety concerns did return to the platform, they tended to book properties in areas with lower rates of crime. The study, co-authored by Aron Culotta of Tulane, Ginger Zhe Jin of the University of Maryland, and Yidan Sun of Binghamton University, was published in the journal Marketing Science. Overall, the researchers found that safety-oriented reviews were rare: only about 0.5 percent of customer reviews mentioned safety concerns. But those reviews tend to be more negative in sentiment than the typical customer review, giving them an outsize impact on the behavior of subsequent would-be customers. The findings illustrate a delicate balancing act digital platforms have to perform, particularly those that rely heavily on user reviews: while highlighting negative experiences can help consumers make more informed choices, too much emphasis can drive customers away completely. The team ran several simulations calibrated by their empirical analysis to test how these dynamics play out in the market. They found that if a platform suppressed negative safety reviews completely, customers might assume that safety information was being hidden, and become more wary of using the platform in general. Conversely, while more transparency around safety issues could lead to fewer bookings of impacted properties in the short term, in the long run such a policy could boost user trust and draw more people to the platform, offsetting the short-term losses. “Platforms with the competitive space to focus on long-term objectives may benefit from a higher level of transparency, which can be facilitated by making information that is relevant to their buyers’ decision-making more readily available,” Wagman said. “Doing so facilitates trust and helps incentivize sellers to work to improve the quality of their offerings, as well as help shape sellers' decisions to enter a market (e.g., offer their listings) in the first place.”

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