February 4, Vol. 26, No. 28                
The Hyperloop would rocket passengers to their destinations in a fraction of the time it would take by car or plane.
CMU Team Races on to Hyperloop Test Track

Universities around the world are competing to realize SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's vision of a Hyperloop - an ultra-high-speed ground transportation system that would rocket passengers in a pod through a tube to their destinations in a fraction of the time it would take by car or plane.

The CMU team is among 22 teams from a field of 120 squads that advanced this past weekend from the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition at Texas A&M, where Musk stopped by to congratulate the finalists and show his support. The remaining teams, whittled down from 1,000 initial competitors, will test their pods this summer at the Hyperloop test track in Hawthorne, Calif.

CMU's stellar Hyperloop design has attracted sponsorships from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and ANSYS, a global leader in engineering simulation.

Over the course of the competition in Texas, the CMU team of about 75 students was featured in publications such as Bloomberg Business, Engadget and Fortune.

Find out more in the Piper.

Brain cells in a neural network are highlighted in this
image obtained by Sandra Kuhlman using a
fluorescent imaging technique.
Aiming To Make Computers Learn Like Humans

School of Computer Science Dean Andrew Moore calls it a "moonshot." But, there's no better place to do this than CMU, he says.

Carnegie Mellon is embarking on a five-year, $12 million research effort to reverse-engineer the brain, unlocking the secrets of neural circuitry and the brain's learning methods to make computers think more like humans.

The research project, led by Computer Science Professor Tai Sing Lee, is funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity through its Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) research program. MICrONS is advancing President Barack Obama's BRAIN Initiative to revolutionize the understanding of the human brain.

"MICrONS is similar in design and scope to the Human Genome Project, which first sequenced and mapped all human genes," said Lee, a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC). "Its impact will likely be long-lasting and promises to be a game changer in neuroscience and artificial intelligence."

Lee will work with co-PIs Sandra Kuhlman, assistant professor of biological sciences at CMU and the CNBC, and Alan Yuille, professor of cognitive science and computer science at Johns Hopkins, to discover the principles and rules the brain's visual system uses to process information. This deeper understanding could serve as a springboard to revolutionize machine learning algorithms and computer vision.

The project is part of CMU's BrainHub Initiative.

Find out more.

Students stopped in at the San Francisco offices of Anki, a CMU startup that specializes in robotic racecar games.
Students "Test Drive" Startup Capital of the World

About 100 Tepper School students recently took a trip to San Jose, Silicon Valley and Seattle, with stops in between, to learn from top executives and entrepreneurs, network with alumni and test drive life in high-tech's fast lane.

"There are many unique benefits students realize by attending these Seattle and Silicon Valley Treks," said Business and Technology (B&T) Club VP Brian Chang. "Students get to visit the tech industry's most admired companies, and also get an amazing opportunity to network with Tepper School alums and recruiters to gain great insights about what it's like to work within tech.

"... Each Trek also gives students an excellent opportunity to 'test drive' Seattle and Silicon Valley, and see if these regions are areas they can see themselves working," said Chang, who will earn his MBA this May.

The B&T Club visited many companies, including Hewlett Packard, Inc., Google, Cisco, Intuit, GoPro, Shutterfly, Twitter, AT&T Foundry and PayPal.

First-year MBA student Jake Gelbort said some students were able to arrange one-on-one meetings with company leaders.  

"Silicon Valley is still the epicenter of the startup world, especially for funding," said Dave Mawhinney, co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). "At the CIE, we want to help our students learn this early and help them begin to build Valley networks that will assist them throughout their entrepreneurial journey."

Find out more.

Sheffield Hallam University's Conor O'Callaghan (left) and CMU's Jim Daniels have traded places this semester.
Exchange Opens New Chapter in Creative Writing

Jim Daniels and Conor O'Callaghan have traded places this semester in the Creative Writing Program's first faculty exchange between CMU and Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K.

The exchange complements the program's undergraduate student exchange with SHU, which is now in its sixth year.

"All of our students who have participated in the exchange have come back energized and enthusiastic about their experiences at Sheffield Hallam, and I am very excited about having the opportunity to spend a semester there myself," Daniels said.

Daniels is teaching a nonfiction writing course called "Life Writing" as well as helping students with their senior projects. 

O'Callaghan, an Irish poet and senior lecturer at SHU, is teaching "Reading in Forms: Fiction" and the "Beginning Poetry Workshop."

"I am pumped to be in Professor O'Callaghan's classes this semester," said junior Sarah Hodgson. "I didn't get the chance to take classes with him when I studied at Sheffield Hallam last year, but I had the opportunity to read some of his wonderful work in my poetry class."


Seniors Daniel Kusbit, Lisa Tu, Stephen Nimalasuriya, Gabriel Vegh-Gaynor and Jack Devine (l-r) found that the majority of city residents were in favor of decriminalizing the marijuana law.
New Law a Study in Ethics, History & Public Policy

CMU students have helped to balance Pittsburgh's scales of justice.

At the request of CMU alumnus and City Councilman Dan Gilman, five seniors majoring in ethics, history and public policy analyzed the laws for possession of marijuana and the risks and benefits of decriminalizing the law as several U.S. cities have done.

The students - Jack Devine, Daniel Kusbit, Stephen Nimalasuriya, Lisa Tu and Gabriel Vegh-Gaynor - found that from an ethical standpoint, Pittsburgh's stance on marijuana possession was too harsh. Their research found that possession charges for even small amounts of marijuana can haunt individuals for years, affecting access to social services and limiting housing and employment opportunities.

"The punishment doesn't fit the crime," Tu said.

"City Council ended up thoroughly discussing and passing marijuana decriminalization legislation, and the research that the capstone students produced was part of the robust conversation at the hearing," Gilman said.

"I always like soliciting research from the students at Carnegie Mellon whenever possible. They are the best and the brightest, and their work product is consistently fantastic," Gilman said.

Find out more in the Piper.

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
 This issue features:
Ryan Sullivan (above) and Venkat Viswanathan (below) have earned NSF Faculty Early Career Development Awards.


Dudley Reynolds gave opening remarks at the International Conference on English Language Teaching.

George Loewenstein has received an honorary doctorate in behavioral economics from the City University of London.

Brian Hill has been named director of Student Financial Services.
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