Feb. 11, 2016                                                                                              Vol. 19, No. 03
In This Issue

Engineering News  
 
This Wall Street Journal column details Robert F. Smith's gift to Cornell Engineering, focusing on how it will increase the opportunities for underrepresented minorities and women who want to make a career in technology.
 
A research group led by Lynden Archer, director (CBE), may have found a way to bring the long-moribund prospects of rechargeable lithium-metal batteries back from the dead with a novel nanostructured membrane that could make the batteries both safe and efficient, according to this IEEE Spectrum article.

This Popular Mechanics feature details how a multidisciplinary team led by Uli Wiesner, professor (MSE), has blazed a new trail by creating a self-assembled, three-dimensional gyroidal superconductor.

Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering named in recognition of the leadership of philanthropist
A combined $50 million commitment from Robert F. Smith '85, founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, and the foundation of which he is a founding director will support chemical and biomolecular engineering and African-American and female students at Cornell Engineering. The gift will also create a unique fellowship program at Cornell Tech that further strengthens the New York City campus's ties to engineering in Ithaca.

In recognition of Smith's support, the college has named the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, as well as the Robert Frederick Smith Tech Scholars Program spanning Cornell Engineering and Cornell Tech.

Read more in the Cornell Chronicle
Gao, Giannelis, You receive appointments
Fengqi You, associate professor with indefinite tenure-elect (CBE), has been named the first Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, effective with his regular appointment, anticipated for July 2016.
Keranen, Singh win NSF CAREER Awards
Katie Keranen, assistant professor (EAS), and Ankur Singh, assistant professor (MAE), have both received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards, which support research activities of teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of their organization's mission.

Keranen received a five-year award of $585,000 for her study of earthquakes occurring near oil and gas production wells. The award will help Keranen acquire seismic data using long-term and dense passive seismic networks, encompassing regions of high-volume wastewater disposal near known large faults. It will also seek to engage local residents and to help them become more confident in finding the information necessary to make informed decisions important in their lives.

Singh, whose work on biomaterials-based 3-dimensional hydrogels could have a profound effect on stem cell and other biomedical research, will receive $500,000 over five years. His goal is to overcome current bottlenecks in biomaterials research by enabling the development of a new class of hydrogel that dynamically communicates with cells to control their fates.

Read more about the awards in the Cornell Chronicle
Kozen receives prestigious EATCS Award
Dexter Kozen, professor (CIS), is the 2016 recipient of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATSC) Award. The award acknowledges extensive contributions to theoretical computer science over a lifelong scientific career.

EATSC acknowledged Kozen as "the theoretical computer scientist with significant contributions to the field, including the most succinct and beautiful proof imaginable of completeness for PDL (Propositional Dynamic Logic), a stunning treatment of the far more challenging mu-calculus and the elegant treatment of logics of programs in the setting of Kleene algebra."

The EATSC Award will be presented at the 43rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming in Rome, July 12-15.
Awards and honors
Ruth Richardson, associate professor (CEE), has been invited to serve on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) Environmental Engineering Committee (EEC) for a three-year term. The SAB EEC provides independent scientific and technical advice to the EPA administrator on risk management technologies to control and prevent pollution.

Carla Gomes, professor (CIS), has been named Chair of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science Section on Information, Computing, and Communication.

Yoav Artzi, Kavita Bala, Eva Tardos, Robbert van Renesse, all from CIS, have each been given Google Faculty Research Awards. The awards are one-year awards structured as unrestricted gifts to support the research of world-class permanent faculty members at top universities around the world.

A team that includes Cornell Engineering students is one of eight selected to compete in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, to be held later this year. The project is the brainchild of entrepreneur Elon Musk and seeks to design components of a proposed high-speed transportation service linking Los Angeles and San Francisco in as little as 35 minutes.

John Treichler and David Welch, Advisory Council Members (ECE), have been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. Treichler, president of Raytheon Applied Signal Technology, was inducted for contributions to digital signal processing. Welch, president of Infinera Corp., was inducted for contributions to high-power semiconductor lasers. 
Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit now providing services to engineering researchers
Through an arrangement with the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit (CSCU) and departments from Cornell Engineering, faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, researchers and staff now have full access to all of the services that CSCU offers.

For more information about the various services CSCU offers, please visit their website.

CSCU offers daily walk-in consulting hours for short questions. These walk-in hours take place daily in Savage Hall, Mann Library, and online via WebEx.

For longer questions, you can schedule an appointment with a statistician from CSCU by filling out an appointment form or by contacting a staff statistician directly.

CSCU offers a wide variety of workshops related to statistical methods every semester. Although the workshops are free to the campus community, registration is required. For more information or to register, please visit the website
 
You can add yourself to the CSCU mailing list with this link.
Wolf joins Human Resource Service Center
Sarah Wolf has joined the Cornell Engineering/CIS Human Resource Service Center (HRSC) as an HR assistant.

Wolf will be the primary HRSC data input and records management staff member. She will also be responsible for payroll and time record reporting. Most recently, Wolf held an instructional support assistant position at Binghamton University.
Upson Hall renovation update
Construction has been underway for over seven months and the contractor is making consistent progress. A significant milestone has been confirmed and we expect to be able to occupy levels 3, 4 and 5 as of Aug. 8. Around this time we also need to turn Levels B, 1 and 2 over to the contractor. A significant move effort is being coordinated, and building occupants will hear details in the next few months.

REMINDER - Pike's regular work hours are 5 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. They try to restrict the most disruptive noise to the hours of 5 to 8 a.m., but that is subjective. There could be construction noise at any time during their working hours.
 
If you experience issues that need attention, please submit a ticket using the Facilities Ticket button on the renovation website. Tickets submitted this way are reported via text message and email alert to several facilities staff. You can also contact the CoE/CIS Facilities office at 255-5668.

Check out the status of the renovation on the Engineering website