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In This Section:

Volume 13, Issue 12
January 26, 2011


In this issue:


Redesigned Engineering Web site launches today

The Dean's office is pleased to announce the launch of the redesigned Engineering Web site today. The site, in development with Cornell's Integrated Web Services for about a year, brings the strength of both Engineering and Cornell brands to the Web. The project integrates data from the HR DataMart to automate staff directories and data from Activity Insight to create a comprehensive faculty directory. (Individual faculty profiles will go live in a couple of months once the Activity Insight annual reporting process is done). Research throughout the college is presented through the lens of the strategic plan, focusing on the six areas of research priorities.

A new interactive map provides 360 views of labs and locations across the Quad. Other enhanced functionality includes news and events feeds; image and video galleries, spotlights and interfaces to manage people lists. Several schools and departments in Engineering will also take advantage of this functionality, with new web sites coming online in the next few months.

Please take time to explore the redesigned site and give us your comments. We especially want to know if you find anything inaccurate or dysfunctional. A Web site is always a work in progress; we look forward to your feedback to continue to improve the site. Send comments to Engineering Webmaster.


Staff updates

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that effective March 14, Dawn S. McWilliams will be joining the College of Engineering as the director of marketing and communications. Dawn will be filling the position that Barbara Cain has occupied so well for almost 20 years. Barbara is currently on phased retirement; but we are very grateful that she has agreed to continue to remain connected with the college at least until our new Web site project is completed. Dawn is currently the executive director for marketing and communications for the Simon School at the University of Rochester. She has been at UR since 1989 and has significant experience in all aspects of strategic marketing, branding, publicity, communications, web presence, and project management. She has an MBA with a concentration in marketing from Rochester Institute of Technology.  As much as we hate to have Barbara leave us, we know Dawn will be a great addition to Engineering.

I am also very pleased to announce that effective February 16, Lynn Martin, director of administration in ECE, has agreed to assume the role of director for strategy and reporting for the College of Engineering. In this critical role Lynn will most immediately work with the deans, directors/chairs, committee chairs and others to facilitate the strategic planning process. She will also manage a number of other critical projects for the college, including the annual reporting process, and serve as point person for rankings and other survey requests. In addition, she will provide support for a number of web and other marketing projects, as well as other special initiatives We are grateful that Lynn has agreed to assume this important role. Her four years of experience in ECE, as well as her previous experience in strategic planning before she came to Cornel,l will be very helpful as we move forward with many exciting initiatives in the coming years.  
 
Cathy Dove
Associate Dean, Administration


Awards and honors in the Engineering community

Professor Lester Eastman, ECE, is now Given Foundation Professor of Engineering Emeritus, having been awarded the emeritus title by the provost effective January 1. Eastman, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1957, is a fellow of IEEE, the American Physical Society and the Alexander van Humboldt Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He also holds three degrees from Cornell: Bachelor of Science, 1953; Master of Science, 1955; and Ph.D., 1957.

Joshua Lequieu ’10 ChE, now an M.Eng. student in Prof. Jeffrey Varner’s lab, won best poster at the Third International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering, sponsored by the AIChE and the Society of Biological Engineering. His poster topic was "A Model of Insulin-Mediated Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Identified Distinct Functional Submodules Highlighting the Role of IRS1 and mTORC1."

Eva Tardos has been selected to receive the Van Wijngaarden Award from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica on Feb. 10 for her exceptional contribution to mathematics and computer science. The Van Wijngaarden Award was established in 2006 and is awarded every five years; Tardos will be the second recipient. CWI is one of the leading European research centers in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science.


Recent engineering news releases

  • $5 million grant will train teachers in biofuels
    A $5 million grant from the USDA will be used by the new Northeast Bioenergy and Bioproducts Education Program to train science teachers in presenting lessons about bioenergy. (Jan. 24, 2011)

  • Four Cornell faculty members elected AAAS fellows
    Steven Ealick, Thomas Fox '71, Provost Kent Fuchs and Bruce Ganem are among the 503 fellows elected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010. (Jan. 24, 2011)

  • Five faculty get NSF CAREER awards
    Itai Cohen, William Dichtel, Tobias Hanrath, Eun-Ah Kim and Cynthia Reinhart-King are recent recipients of National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards. (Jan. 19, 2011)

  • CNF partners with German company for research, equipment
    The Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility has forged a new research partnership with the German company SUSS MicroTec. (Jan. 17, 2011)

  • Cornell helps start DOE-funded geothermal academy
    Cornell is taking a leading role in the country's first National Geothermal Academy, expected to launch this summer with an intensive training program. (Jan. 12, 2011)

  • Rowena Lohman receives NASA grant
    The three-year, $318,000 grant from the NASA New Investigator Program will support Lohman's study of subsiding deltas and sea level rise worldwide with space-based geodetic observations. (Jan. 12, 2011)

  • Johannes Gehrke receives Humboldt award
    Computer scientist Johannes Gehrke has an Alexander von Humboldt award to support a collaborative research project at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbruecken, Germany. (Jan. 12, 2011)

  • New technology displays math problems on browsers
    It's now possible to display math problems online as if they were on a chalkboard, thanks to new technology by Cornell University Library's Project Euclid. (Jan. 11, 2011)


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.