More than 3,000 students will experience one of life's proudest moments when they receive their degrees at Carnegie Mellon's 117th Commencement Ceremony, Sunday, May 18 in Gesling Stadium on the Pittsburgh campus.

Shutterfly, Inc., CEO Jeffrey Housenbold, a CMU Trustee and alumnus who earned his bachelor's degree in economics and business administration in 1991, will give the keynote address.

Joining Housenbold on the commencement platform will be student speaker Bryan Lewis, who will receive his master's degree in energy science, technology and policy, and three honorary degree recipients.

• John Wells, a 1979 graduate of CMU's School of Drama and one of the most influential and successful producer-directors in American film and television, will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
• Manfred Honeck, internationally renowned music director for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
• Telle Whitney, president and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, will be awarded a Doctor of Science and Technology degree.

See the Commencement Weekend schedule.
Learn more about the keynote speaker and honorary degree recipients. 

Learn more about the student speaker. 

 

Peduto, an ex-officio trustee of the university, is in his first year as mayor after serving for 19 years as a member of City Council. He will speak to Heinz College graduates at the Petersen Events Center on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.

Demchak has risen through the ranks since joining PNC as CFO in 2002. He will speak to business school graduates at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland.

Learn more about Mayor Peduto.
Learn more about William Demchak.

College affordability, tuition benefits, research, and, of course, parking, were topics of discussion at Staff Council's first Open Forum with President Subra Suresh this past Tuesday (May 13).

 

President Suresh opened the session by thanking staff for the welcome he and his wife, Mary, have received during their first year at CMU.

 

"Thank you profusely for the warmth you have embraced us with. We are thrilled to have spent our first year on campus. It's been very enriching and enjoyable," said President Suresh, who noted that one of the most beneficial aspects of the year was his listening tour, which gave him the opportunity to hear what was on the minds of students, alumni, faculty and staff at CMU.

 

He then fielded his first question on a historically popular topic: parking, specifically how the Tepper Quad will impact those parking in the Morewood lot.

 

 Read more about the Open Forum. 

Carnegie Mellon formally launched the Integrated Innovation Institute, an unprecedented market-focused center designed to speed the pace of innovation by producing professional master's degree graduates with the skills and know-how to accelerate new product and service creation.

Drawing on Carnegie Mellon's top-ranked College of Engineering, School of Design and Tepper School of Business, the institute cross-trains students in the values, principles, thinking and methods of engineering, design and business - the three disciplines considered to be the core of innovation.  

The institute co-directors are:

• Jonathan Cagan, the Ladd Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering;
• Peter Boatwright, the Carnegie Bosch Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business; and 
• Eric Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Design and associate dean of the College of Fine Arts.

Learn more about the institute. 

Researchers at CMU and three other institutions will test a next-generation Internet architecture they've developed in a vehicular network in Pittsburgh and in delivering online video on a national scale.

These deployments of the eXpressive Internet Architecture (XIA) are made possible by a two-year, $5 million award from the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. It is one of three new awards announced by the NSF that will allow research groups to extend their research from the design stage to implementation.

Peter Steenkiste, professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering and XIA's principal investigator, said plans are underway to deploy XIA in a network in and around the CMU campus, or possibly piggybacking atop Downtown Pittsburgh's free Wi-Fi network. The network would enable vehicles to share information about road and traffic conditions and to enable occupants to access the Internet.

XIA enables computer users to directly access content wherever it might be on the network, rather than always accessing a host website, so it should enable vehicles to obtain needed information from neighboring access points.

Learn more about the project.