June 25, Vol. 25, No. 47                                                                    
CMU Showcases Integrated Intelligence in India
As part of his first official visit to India as Carnegie Mellon President, Subra Suresh will be hosting an event July 4 in New Delhi, focusing on Integrated Intelligence - how CMU is creating and leveraging technology to improve the human condition.

The daylong special event for alumni, parents, students and friends of the university will include networking opportunities and panel discussions on "Smart Cities" and the "Transformative Impact of Big Data." An evening reception and dinner will include student singer Joshua Grosso (A'16).

In addition to President Suresh, featured speakers are:
  • Farnam Jahanian, CMU provost; 
  • Ramayya Krishnan, dean of the Heinz College;
  • Gary Fedder, College of Engineering Associate Dean for Research;
  • Raj Reddy, the Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics;
  • Banmali Agrawala, president & CEO of GE South Asia;
  • Anita Arjundas, managing director & CEO of Mahindra Lifespaces;
  • Natarajan Chandrasekaran, CEO and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services;
  • Sumit D. Chowdhury (E'96, HNZ'98), founder of GAIA Smart Cities;
  • Devansh Jain (DC'07, TPR'07), director of Inox Wind;
  • Lalitesh Katragadda (CS'96, '98), former head of India Products for Google;
  • Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (CS'07, '09), assistant professor at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology; and
  • Jaisimha G. Rao (E'07), founder of TartanSense.
Find out more.
Course Project Aims To Reach More Students
Jacobo Carrasquel is developing videos and mini-lectures and incorporating CMU's Classroom Salon, an interactive online teaching platform, to reach more students in Data Structures and Algorithms, an introductory class for non-computer science majors.

Jacobo Carrasquel
Sponsored by a Google grant, the project aims to meet the growing demand for computer science courses and expand opportunities for minority, high school and community college students.

"As we teach a wider diversity of students, with different backgrounds, we can no longer teach to 'the middle,'" Carrasquel said. "When you do that, you're not aiming at the 20 percent of the top students or the 20 percent at the bottom."

Carrasquel said by devoting less time to lectures and by using Classroom Salon to identify groups of students with common instructional needs, it should be possible for existing instructors to target the needs of students across the entire spectrum of capabilities.

Find out more.
Histories Can Be Harmful in Negotiations

New research published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization examines how past histories can be harmful in negotiations, particularly when an event benefited one party at the other's expense.

 

In those situations, the party that got the short end of the stick tends to believe that they are owed retribution. The party that triumphed in the past, in contrast, tends to think that the past is irrelevant - let bygones be bygones.

"If you look at the history of world conflict, as well as conflicts between individuals, a surprising fraction revolves around different interpretations, and invocations, of the past," said George Loewenstein, the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology.

Find out more about the study.
 

Say Thank You With an Andy Award Nomination

A great way to say "thank you" for an exceptional job is by nominating an individual or team for an Andy Award. Nominations for the university-wide staff recognition program are due Wednesday, July 8.

 

The Andy Awards pay tribute to individual staff members and teams for outstanding performance and dedication, and for having a significant impact on the university.  

 

Awards are presented in five categories: Commitment to Excellence; Commitment to Students; Innovation and Creative Contributions; Spirit; and Teamwork and Collaboration.  

 

Learn how to submit a nomination.  


Have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend. The 8.5 x 11 News will resume on Thursday, July 9. 
See something? Say something. Help ensure the safety and well-being of the CMU community by calling:

University Police: 412-268-2323
Ethics Hotline: 1-877-700-7050

 Calendar Highlights 

  This issue features:

 
Provost Farnam Jahanian has received the Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award.


Ariel Procaccia has won the Computers and Thought Award.


Jessica Zhang (above) and Kenji Shimada (below) are giving clinicians a clearer image of organs and bones.


Linda Northrop
Metin Sitti
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