Engineering - News & Events

Volume 10, Issue 15
March 5, 2008

• Awards and honors in the Engineering Community
• Why students don't learn what we think we teach
• Bio-Expo today in Duffield
• Polymer materials for a sustainable future
• Workshop on simulation technology
• Lunch meeting to focus on tech transfer
• Workshop on identity theft
• Staffing updates
• Spring Break Hours at Mattin's Cafe
• Guest speakers and seminars

Awards and honors in the Engineering Community

Prof. Lou Albright, BEE, was inducted into the Rural Builder Hall of Fame at their annual Frame Building Expo in Columbus, Ohio, in February. Rural Builder magazine gives this award annually to professionals in recognition of leadership, foresight, and outstanding contributions to the rural construction industry.

Asst. Prof. Bobby Kleinberg, CS, has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. He will apply the fellowship to study how computers can learn from experience.

Asst. Prof. Rafael N. Pass, CS, has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER grant for support of his project "Computation and Collaboration in the Era of the Internet."

Prof. Tammo Steenhuis, BEE, has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in recognition of his contributions in earth and space sciences.

Prof. Larry Walker, BEE, was selected by Michigan State University for their College of Agricultural and Natural Resources Distinguished Alumnus Award.

CS PhD students Yisong Yue and Ymir Vigfusson have won Yahoo! Key Technical Challenge grants which provide a limited number of exceptional PhD students with $5,000 each of unrestricted funds for the support of their research activities.

Why students don't learn what we think we teach

In the second presentation of the University Lecture series this spring, Robert Duke, the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor in Music and Human Learning at the University of Texas, Austin will present Why students don't learn what we think we teach on Tuesday, March 25, at 4:00 p.m. in G10 Biotech Building.

The public is invited. A reception will follow the lecture.

Bio-Expo today in Duffield

The Cornell University Chapter of the Institute of Biological Engineering will host the Bioengineering Research Expo 2008 on March 5 in Duffield Hall. BioExpo 2008 will feature a symposium of speakers from both academia and industry involved in the biological, biomedical, and environmental engineering disciplines as well as a student poster showcase of research in these disciplines. The Cornell community is invited to attend.

Polymer materials for a sustainable future

The 2008 CCMR POP Symposium, Polymer materials for a sustainable future, will take place May 20-21 at Statler Hall. The symposium will include presentations covering the latest advances in polymer research at Cornell, industry presentations, and the ever-popular poster session highlighting the entire research portfolio and graduate students and postdocs.

The 2008 Aggarwal Speaker will be Prof. Olli Ikkala, Academy Professor of the Helsinki University of Technology. Prof. Frank DiSalvo, director of the Center for a Sustainable Future, will be the keynote speaker of Tuesday evening banquet.

Visit the Web site for more information or to register (register by April 18 for discount).

Workshop on simulation technology

The Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering will be hosting a university-industry workshop on the integration of simulation technology into the engineering curriculum. The workshop will be held at the Statler Hotel July 25-26. This workshop will be of interest to all engineering faculty who use or would like to use simulation technology in their courses and projects.

Technology areas to be considered include computer-aided design, computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, finite-element analysis, multi-body dynamics and control, and numerical analysis. There will be significant participation from industry including major engineering software vendors.

For more information, visit the Web site or contact Rajesh Bhaskaran.

Lunch meeting to focus on tech transfer

The Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization and the College of Engineering are partnering to provide IP and Pizza on Monday, March 31, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Upson Hall lounge.

Come discuss technology transfer and learn how investors take technology from lab to industry. This town-hall style meeting will feature an open discussion format and a complimentary pizza lunch.

Please RSVP to Laura Cima.

Workshop on identity theft

According to the Department of Justice, identity theft is surpassing drug trafficking as the number one crime in the United States. Cornell Information Technologies, the Division of Financial Affairs, and Cornell Police have joined forces to design a program called Identity Theft: Deter, Detect, and Defend at Home and at Work to educate Cornell staff about identity theft and the steps they can take to protect sensitive data. The next session will be held on Friday, March 28, 10:00 - 11:30 a.m., B11 Kimball Hall.

This free information session in open to all university faculty and staff. Register online.

Staffing updates

Karen Crane, Engineering Alumni Affairs and Development, has accepted an administrative assistant position in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, supporting a group of faculty. In addition to her work with AA&D, Crane was previous a staff member in Engineering Co-op and Career Services and in Engineering Learning Initiatives. Her last day in Carpenter Hall was Feb 27.

Spring Break Hours at Mattin's Cafe

Mattin's Cafe in the Duffield atrium will operate on reduced hours during Spring break, opening at 7 a.m. and closing at 2 p.m. beginning Friday, March 17, and continuing through March 21. The cafe will return to regular hours on Monday, March 24.

Guest speakers and seminars

12 Mar
Shai Ashkenazi, assistant research scientist, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan: Combining Light and Sound: Can Ultrasound Become the Preferred Modality for Functional and Molecular Imaging?

6 Mar
Asst. Prof. Susan Daniel, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell: Separation of Membrane Components Using Bilayer Electrophoresis as a Tool for Membrane Proteomics

13 Mar
David W. Anderson, president and CEO, Gentis Inc.: Medical Devices: From the Lab Bench to the Market

7 Mar
Andrew R. Conn, IBM: Some Recent Work in Derivative Free Application

10 Mar
Prof. Animangsu Ghatak, Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur: Bio-inspired Microfluidic Adhesion

6 Mar
Asst. Prof. Luis von Ahn, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon: Human Computation

11 Mar
Gerton Lunter, postdoctoral researcher, Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford: The Importance of Indels

5 Mar
Cancelled

12 Mar
Elissa P. Sterry '79 ORIE, MS '80, vice president, Intermediates Global Business, ExxonMobil Chemical Company: Tomorrow's Energy - Challenges for Engineers

6 Mar
Prof. Alan Aspuru-Guzik, Harvard University: Excitonic Energy Transfer: Lessons from Nature and Possible Applications to Artificial Solar Energy Harvesting

13 Mar
Yao Lin, postdoctoral fellow, Argonne National Lab: TBA

11 Mar
Valerie Cross, BME graduate student, Stroock research group, Cornell University: Physical Mechanisms of Self Organization During Vasculogenesis In Vitro

5 Mar
Asst. Prof. Ping Li, Statistical Science, Cornell University: Compressed Counting

12 Mar
Asst. Prof. Cosma Shalizi, Carnegie Mellon University: TBA

5 Mar
Asst. Prof. Harish Palanthandalam-Madapusi, Syracuse University: Space Weather Forecasting Using System Identification Techniques

12 Mar
Prof. Chandrajit Bajaj, University of Texas at Austin: Computational Bio-Molecular Modeling and Analysis for Drug Discovery

Submitting announcements to Information Update

Please send your news notes to engr_info_update@cornell.edu. Announcements will be published no more than twice and should be limited to about a hundred words or less. The next issue of Information Update, published biweekly during the academic year and monthly in the summer, will be May 29, 2013. The deadline for submissions to this next issue is Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5 p.m. Information received after the deadline will be published in a future issue if appropriate.