Volume 11, Issue 12
January 28, 2009
In this issue:
- Saylor to become associate university librarian
- Awards and honors in the Engineering Community
- Looking for special students to feature
- TEI lecture features engineering education research
- Northeast ASEE conference call for papers
- Guest speakers and seminars
Saylor to become associate university librarian
Dear colleagues,
On February 1, 2009, after 21 years as director of the Engineering Library (and 36 years of working in Carpenter Hall), John M. Saylor will move to an office in Uris Library to assume his new position as associate university librarian for scholarly resources and special collections. He will be responsible for collection development, scholarly communications and special collections throughout the Cornell University Library system.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank John for his years of service to Cornell Engineering. He is not only an effective steward of library resources, but has also been an innovative leader in reengineering the library for the digital age. In 2007 he received the Homer A. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award from the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. The Engineering College has been fortunate to have John in this important position, and we wish him the best in his transition to Uris Library.
We also extend a warm welcome – welcome back, actually – to Steve Rockey ’70 ME, who is director of the Cornell University Mathematics Library and will also serve as interim director of the Engineering Library effective February1. Steve graduated from Cornell with a degree in engineering and even worked in the Engineering Library following graduation. We look forward to working with him.
Sincerely,
Christopher Ober
Interim Dean of Engineering
Awards and honors in the Engineering Community
Prof. Richard Rand, TAM, is one of four Cornell faculty members chosen for the 2008 Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowships for excellence in teaching and advising undergraduate students and outstanding efforts to improve instruction on campus. The 2008 recipients will be honored at a ceremony in May by the Cornell Board of Trustees. More information is available online.
Chaired professorship appointments:
Fred B. Schneider, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Computer Science.
Jon Kleinberg, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, Tisch University Professor.
Kenneth Birman, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, N. Rama Rao Professor of Computer Science.
Election to tenure:
Natalie Mahowald, Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was elected Associate Professor with indefinite tenure.
Darrell Schlom, Professor, Department of Materials Science, was elected Professor with indefinite tenure.
Looking for special students to feature
Do you know some special students? Please tell us about them! We have two opportunities to highlight students: the Cornell Chronicle is soliciting nominations for seniors to profile in their May Commencement issue and Engineering Communications and Media Relations is looking for sophomores and juniors for updating our online student profiles.
In both cases, we're looking not necessarily for your top academic performers (although we certainly want students in good standing); rather, we're seeking students with good human interest stories: unusual interests, research projects, personal backgrounds, motivations, or personalities.
For examples, see last year's senior profiles in the Chronicle and ECMR's current online student profiles.
If you have students to nominate, please send us their names, majors, and a description that explains why this student would of interest to the community. We need as much specific detail as possible to make good choices when winnowing down the list, and we would like to have good representation across fields, gender, and ethnicity as well.
Send senior nominations to Anne Ju, Cornell Chronicle
Send sophomore and junior nominations to Bob Emro, ECMR
Nominations due January 30. Thanks for your help!
TEI lecture features engineering education research
On Monday, February 16, the Engineering Teaching Excellence Institute will present Denny Davis, PhD '73 AgEng, a professor of bioengineering and co-director of the Engineering Education Research Center at Washington State University. His talk, Capstone Engineering Design Learning and Assessment, will describe results of engineering design educational research, identify important outcomes achievable in capstone engineering design courses, and share results of recent work including development of assessments and integration of these assessments into design instruction for improved student performance.
The seminar is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. in B17 Upson Hall, and members of the Engineering community are encouraged to attend. For more information or to schedule an appointment with Davis, e-mail Kathryn Dimiduk, director of the Teaching Excellence Institute.
Northeast ASEE conference call for papers
The Spring 2009 Northeast ASEE Conference will be held April 3-4 at the University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut.This year's conference theme is Engineering in the New Global Economy. The ASEE Northeast Section is soliciting faculty papers, student papers, and student posters that address the various challenges and paradigms in this technological world through research and instructional programs in Engineering and Engineering Technology education. The deadline for abstract submission is February 27. Prospective authors can find more information and also submit their abstracts online through the conference Web site.
Guest speakers and seminars
Fridays, 12:00 - 1:15 PM, 5130 Upson Hall;
lunch will be served.
30 Jan: Ian Kash, Cornell CS, "Optimizing scrip systems: Efficiency, crashes, hoarders, and learning"
Fridays, 3:30 PM, 655 Rhodes Hall;
refreshments at 4:30 in 657 Rhodes
30 Jan: Asst. Prof. Ha Youn Lee, Mathematical Biology and Biostatistics Division, University of Rochester Medical School, “Dynamic correlation between intrahost HIV-1 quasispecies"
6 Feb: Sr. Research Associate Chris Myers, Computational Biology Service Unit, Cornell, "Computation as chemistry: the structure and function of information processing networks in engineering and biology"
Wednesdays, 4:30 PM, B17 Upson Hall
28 Jan: Avi Mehrotra, managing director, Goldman Sachs, TBA
4 Feb: Harpal Singh, co-founder and CEO of Supply Chain Consultants Inc., "How to implement a tactical supply chain planning process"
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:15 p.m., B17 Upson Hall;
refreshments at 3:45 p.m. in Upson 4th Floor Atrium
29 Jan: Prof. Ronald Rivest, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, Salton Lecture Series, "Security of voting systems"
3 Feb: Curtis Huttenhower, postdoctoral researcher, Computer Science, Princeton. "Analyzing large genomic data collections"
5 Feb: Research Assoc. Prof. Kevin Knight, Computer Science, USC, "Sixty years of statistical machine translation"
Wednesdays, 3:30 p.m., 2146 Snee Hall;
refreshments at 3:15 p.m. in the Reading Room
11 Feb: Prof. Tullis Onstott, Geosciences, Princeton University, "The search for dark life in our solar system"
Fridays, 12:15 p.m., 253 Rhodes Hall
6 Feb: Assoc. Prof. Mark Loewenstein, Finance, University of Maryland, TBA
Tuesdays, 4:30 p.m., B11 Kimball Hall;
refreshments at 4:15 p.m. in Upson Lounge
3 Feb: Asst. Prof. Sunil Bhave, Cornell ECE: "Micro (and nano) mechanical signal processors"
10 Feb: Prof. Graham Candler, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, TBA
Thursdays, 4:30 p.m., 140 Bard Hall;
refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in 260 Bard (MSE Lounge)
5 Feb: Prof. David R. Smith, Duke University, "Developments in transformation optics and invisibility cloaks"
Tuesdays, 4:15 p.m., 253 Rhodes Hall;
refreshments at 3:45 p.m. in 258 Rhodes
3 Feb: Peter Frazier, grad student, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, TBA
Wednesdays, 4:00 p.m., 406 Malott Hall;
refreshments afterwards in 301 Malott
28 Jan: Assoc. Prof. Hao Helen Zhang, Statistics, North Carolina State University, "Nonparametric variable selection with COSSO and Its recent development
Wednesdays, 4:30 p.m., 205 Thurston Hall;
refreshments at 4:15 p.m. in 206 Thurston
4 Feb: Asst. Prof. Xin-Yan Deng, Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, "Aerodynamics of insect flight revisited"
11 Feb: Assoc. Prof. Jane Wang, Cornell TAM, "Insect flight: Aerodynamics, energetics, and evolution"
( joint seminar with biophysics department)
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 July 10, 2013. The deadline for submissions to this next issue is Friday, July 5, 2013 at 5 p.m. Information received after the deadline will be published in a future issue if appropriate.
