Dietrich College News
Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Carnegie Mellon University

March 2015

Michelle Bova (DC'07) and Claire Morgenstern (DC'09) navigated their internships, first jobs and career switches in marketing and the media by drawing on their experiences studying at CMU.

Through their experience at different media outlets, they learned how their skills would translate into the real world.

They both returned to campus recently and presented on the advertising, marketing and public relations panel at "Under Construction: Building Your Future," an annual event in which Dietrich College alumni share their work experiences with undergraduates and other alumni.

Veronica Gnaman (DC'15), a psychology major, was grateful to learn how alumni in different marketing and communications fields have successfully transitioned from student life.

Teaching Science to the Brain

When you learn a new technical concept, something happens in your brain, but exactly what has been a mystery until now.

For the first time, CMU's Marcel Just and Robert Mason have traced the brain processes that occur during the learning of technical concepts.

Published in NeuroImage, the findings reveal how new technical knowledge is built up in the brain during the course of different learning stages. The findings foreshadow the capability to assess the effectiveness of instruction and efficiency of learning by monitoring changes in the brain.

First Pittsburgh Humanities Festival

CMU's Humanities Center and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust are joining forces to bring the first Pittsburgh Humanities Festival to the city.

The festival, "Smart Talk About Stuff That Matters," will run March 26-29 and feature internationally renowned academics, artists and intellectual innovators. Azar Nafisi will open the festival, while George Takei, the most influential personal on Facebook, will close it. Several from Carnegie Mellon will also speak.

The festival is the brainchild of English Professor David Shumway.

"The festival will demonstrate the humanities - broadly defined as knowledge of humankind and its works - are stimulating, entertaining and vital to the life of the community. Carnegie Mellon has helped lead Pittsburgh into the 21st century and the Humanities Festival, modeled on Chicago's 25-year old example, is another step in the city's transformation into a capital of culture and innovation," he said.

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Call it the "Moneyball Effect," referring to how the Oakland Athletics famously used statistics to build a successful baseball team, but more and more professional sports teams are using and relying on analytics to gain a competitive edge.

It's no surprise that CMU - home to one of the world's best and fastest-growing Statistics Departments - is flush with sports-related statistical activity.

One example is the new Tartan Sports Analytics Club. A student-run club, members use in-depth quantitative data to develop an understanding of sports analytics, strategies and management.

Andreea Deciu Ritivoi has been selected to lead the Department of English, a renowned leader in professional, technical and creative writing as well as rhetoric and literary and cultural studies.

Effective July 1, Ritivoi, professor of English, will succeed Chris Neuwirth, who has served as department head since 2009.

"Professor Ritivoi will be a wonderful leader. She is fully credible in all three areas in our English Department: creative writing, literary and cultural studies and rhetoric," said Richard Scheines, dean of the Dietrich College. "She has begun to branch out into digital humanities, a nationally growing field in which Carnegie Mellon is poised to be a natural leader, and she has already done excellent work on globalization and identity, as well as the role of art in social controversy. Andreea is an interdisciplinary scholar in the finest tradition of Carnegie Mellon."

More Dietrich College News

Building Strong Futures at Under Construction

Every Day Is Grammar Day: Five Tips From Paul Hopper

BrainHub Announces Recipients of ProSEED Funding

Pulitzer Prize Winner To Speak At Adamson Student Writing Awards

Pickin' and Grinnin' - Statistics Professor Takes Time for Banjo

Neuroscientists Identify New Way Several Brain Areas Communicate

22 Inducted Into Phi Sigma Iota

Undergraduates Train in Technology, Arts through IDeATe

Register for the Dietrich College Spring Carnival Reception

Dietrich College Multimedia

Photos:

Statistics New Majors Launch Party

2015 Under Construction: Building Your Future

Washington Semester Program Students Tour the White House

Class Notes

Find out what's new with Jennifer D. Keene (DC'91), Christophe Combemale (DC'15), Nathaniel Eliason (DC'15) and others in

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Eduventures:

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Fast Company:

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Business Insider:

Women face 6 big paradoxes at work - here's how to break free