October 25, 2012 · Vol. 23, No. 16
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CMU Celebrates the Humanities Nov. 1
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 Carnegie Mellon will celebrate its accomplishments in the humanities and examine the role of the humanities in higher education on Thursday, Nov. 1, with a program and reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Giant Eagle Auditorium, Baker Hall A51. The program will feature keynote speaker Mariėt Westermann, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York, who will discuss "The Humanities in the World." Dietrich College Dean John Lehoczky also will speak, and several students will present posters of their senior projects.
To attend, RSVP via email to events@andrew.cmu.edu by Friday, Oct. 26.
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Benefits Open Enrollment Begins Oct. 29; Staff Council Hosts Benefits Forum Oct. 30
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This year's open enrollment period for benefits begins Monday, Oct. 29 and runs through Monday, Nov. 12.
During the two-week period, CMU employees will be able to select their options for 2013 using the HR Connection website. Employees can choose plans for health, dental, vision, disability and life insurance as well as prescriptions, health care spending and dependent care spending accounts.
To help inform the university community about the options for 2013, Staff Council will host its annual Benefits Open Forum from noon to 1 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 30 in Rangos 1, University Center. Director of Benefits Mary Oler and her team will present an overview of the choices for 2013 and answer questions.
Information also will be available at the annual Benefits & Fitness Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 7 in Rangos Ballroom, UC. Representatives from HR, benefits carriers and health organizations will be in attendance to answer questions. The fair also features wellness screenings, flu shots, raffle drawings and giveaways.
Read more about Open Enrollment.
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Four Inducted Into Robot Hall of Fame
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Boston Dynamics' four-legged BigDog; Pixar's ficitional robot WALL-E, iRobot's PackBot bomb disposal robot and Aldebaran Robotics' NAO humanoid (clockwise from top left) were inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame® during a ceremony this past Tuesday at Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
For the first time the robots were selected by a popular vote, which drew more than 17,000 voters from around the world. Created by Carnegie Mellon, the RHOF recognizes excellence in robotics technology, honoring fictional robots that inspire innovation and real robots that embody it. Read the full story. | Watch videos of BigDog and NAO. Watch a video clip from Fox News.
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CMU Participates in One Young World
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 Pittsburgh took center stage for young adults this past weekend as more than 1,300 from 182 countries met to discuss global issues including business, global health, education, sustainable development, leadership and governance, human rights and social business. "Carnegie Mellon University is pleased to have had the opportunity to partner with the Pittsburgh community to bring One Young World to our city," said Amy Burkert, CMU vice provost for education. "It was gratifying to develop breakout sessions with campus partners and groups throughout the region to frame experiences to engage these young leaders from all over the world in dialogue about some of the most pressing issues of our time." The event included high-profile speakers such as President Bill Clinton, former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Carnegie Mellon assisted with four sessions. Read about the sessions.
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Professors Aim To Improve Prosthetic Devices
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 Carnegie Mellon's Christopher Bettinger and Krzysztof Matyjaszewski (far right) received $1.6 million for the next four years from the U.S. Army to improve the use of prosthetic devices. Bettinger, an assistant professor in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, said the research team will create devices that "can translate neural activity of a patient into instructions to move robotic limbs or other prosthetic devices." Matyjaszewski, the J.C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences in the Mellon College of Science, said new techniques in polymer chemistry have allowed for smarter and more durable materials. Read the full story.
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CMU Helps Open One-of-a-Kind Research Center
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 Carnegie Mellon, led by CMU professor of computer science Garth Gibson (right), recently joined the New Mexico Consortium, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the National Science Foundation to open the PRObE (Parallel Reconfigurable Observational Environment) Center, a one-of-a-kind computer systems research center located in Los Alamos, N.M. The center is the world's first facility where computer systems researchers have access to a dedicated large scale supercomputer where disruptive - and even destructive - testing can be done. Until now, high performance computing research was limited to using small clusters, or renting virtual machines in large, shared cloud clusters, to test the systems they develop. Read the full story.
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