New Header Image
April 2, 2014                                                                                                Vol. 16, No. 15
In This Issue

Engineering news

 

Imagine a scale that reads not only your weight, but also blood pressure, heart rate and other aspects of your condition, and automatically sends the data to the cloud for storage. Or a work light that follows your hands around, shining just on the place you need it. Such products might be on the market in a couple of years, because Cornell students are working on them now. 

 

Only 23 percent of biomedical science Ph.D.s get academic tenure track positions, and just 43 percent end up in academic research jobs, according to the National Institutes of Health. 

Join Our Mailing List

Van der Meulen new BME chair

 

Dear Colleagues,  

 

I am pleased to announce that Marjolein van der Meulen, the John Swanson Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has agreed to serve as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering for a five-year term starting July 1, 2014 and ending June 30, 2019. I am delighted she is willing serve in this vitally important role and I know BME will benefit greatly from her leadership.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the outgoing chair, Professor Michael Shuler, for his outstanding leadership in the department and college for nearly the last 10 years.  Mike led the department from its inception and has stewarded its growth into a formidable top-15 department. Looking across the country there are few (if any) examples of departments that have achieved this level of success in such a short period of time. The department and college are eternally indebted to Mike for his dedication and service.

 

Please join me in congratulating and welcoming the incoming chair, Marjolein van der Meulen, and in thanking the outgoing chair, Michael Shuler, for his service over the years.

 

Best regards,

Lance

Promotions and tenure  

 

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences announces that Lou Derry and Natalie Mahowald have been promoted to full professors in the College of Engineering.

Upstate NY TechCareer Connection

  

The 2014 Upstate NY TechCareer Connection will be April 9 in Emerson Suites at Ithaca College. It will feature experienced panelists who share their advice on finding a career in science and technology and an exhibitor session with STEM companies from a 15-county region in Upstate New York. Companies and attendees will have time to network with one another and learn what Upstate New York has to offer in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

Free ANSYS/FLUENT Training offered
 

On April 16-17, ANSYS Inc. will be offering free training and

consultations on finite-element analysis using ANSYS Mechanical and computational fluid dynamics using ANSYS FLUENT. Schedule and details here.

Mellon Foundation president to speak

  

Provost Kent Fuchs will be hosting a lecture by Earl Lewis, the new president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, April 23 at 3:00 p.m. in room 120 of the Physical Science Building. The talk is titled "Everyday Life and New Questions to Be Raised: Writing African American History." Lewis is a well-regarded historian and academic leader in the areas of race, class and African-American history. Prior to becoming President of the Mellon Foundation in March 2013, Lewis served for eight years as provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs and as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies at Emory University. Attendees are asked to RSVP

2014 CCMR Symposium
 

The 2014 CCMR Symposium will be Tuesday, May 20, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in room 120 of the Physical Sciences Building. This year's theme is "Understanding and Controlling Spins at the Nanoscale." Albert Fert, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics, will present the 2014 Sproull Lecture, titled "New directions in spintronics: magnetic syrmions, spin-orbitronics."Other speakers include: Daniel Worledge, IBM Research Division; Professor Andrew Kent, founder, Spin Transfer Technologies; and Professor Geoffrey S. D. Beach, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Workshop on groupwork best practices

 

Constructing, Managing, and Evaluating Student Groupwork: A Working Session. This workshop for faculty focuses on best practices for using groupwork in courses. Reduce the grading burden and increase the learning. Learn best practices for forming groups and strategies to assign groups efficiently. Learn tips for planning group deliverables to enhance group success and manage in-group conflicts. Learn approaches to evaluate groupwork in a way that respects the group and individual efforts. Sponsored by ETEI and CTE. Workshop is being held on Wednesday, April 2 from 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. in Hollister 314.

 

Please RSVP to Kathryn Dimiduk 

 

Society of Actuaries luncheon 

 

On Tuesday, April 15, Society Of Actuaries staff members Antonia Coffelt, academic administrator, and Cher� LaRose, director of candidate communications, will join Dyson School Professor Joshua Woodard for an informal luncheon at 12:00 p.m. in 401 Warren Hall. They will answer your questions about the actuary profession and share relevant items the society is working on that may be helpful for those advising students on actuarial career options. If you plan to attend, send an RSVP to Faye Butts.

Awards and honors

 

The 2014 Merrill Presidential Scholars are Dennis Chua (ChemE), Walker Grimshaw (Double Major of Env.E. and BEE), Manita Herlitz-Ferguson (OR), Victoria Klug (Env.E.), Sung Min Park (CS), Natali Vannoy (MAE) and Beth Wright (CEE). Since 1988, the Merrill Presidential Scholars Program has honored Cornell University's most outstanding graduating seniors who represent the highest standards of excellence in their class. Merrill Presidential Scholars rank among the top 1% of the class in their respective schools and colleges, and are chosen not only for their outstanding scholastic accomplishments, but also because they have demonstrated remarkable intellectual drive, energetic leadership abilities and a propensity to contribute to the betterment of society. Each scholar is given an opportunity to recognize the Cornell faculty member who most significantly contributed to his or her college experience. This May, the scholars, along with their high school teachers and Cornell professors, will be honored at a convocation hosted by Cornell's president, David Skorton.

Computer Science Professor Lillian Lee has been named co-editor-in-chief of Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics. She shares the position with Michael Collins.

 

Fred Kulhawy, CEE professor emeritus is the recipient of the 2014 Martin S. Kapp Foundation Engineering Award from the Geo-Institute of ASCE. The award citation reads: "For significant contributions to analysis and design of deep and shallow foundations, for many well-documented studies of foundation behavior under various loading modes in soil and rock, and for pioneering work on geotechnical uncertainty leading to rational reliability-based foundation design." In addition, Kulhawy is the recipient of the "Geo-Institute Hero Award". The award is presented to an individual who has provided significant contributions to the Geo-Institute, the geo-profession, or global welfare, as selected and honored by the annual Geo-Congress conference organizing committee. Awards were presented during the 2014 Geo-Congress convention held in Atlanta, Ga, February 25.

 

Computer science Ph.D. student Lior Seeman was awarded a Simons Fellowship.

 

Information Update dates, deadlines, and subscription info
Information Update is published biweekly during the academic year and monthly over the summer and winter break. If you have information to be distributed to the college community, send it to Info Update. Announcements should be limited to about 100 words, perhaps by referencing a website for more information, and can be repeated in one subsequent issue on request.

The next issue will be distributed on
April 16; the deadline for submissions is Friday, April 11, at 5 p.m. Information received after the deadline will be published in a future issue if appropriate.
 
Info Update's current issue, archives, and publishing schedule are online.
 Information Update is brought to you by the Office of Engineering Marketing and Communications
[email protected] * www.engineering.cornell.edu/news/updates/