NEWS BRIEFS:
Xue Assumes Expanded Duties:
Lan Xue (EPP Ph.D. 1991) has become Executive Associate Dean of
the School of Public Administration and Executive Vice President of
the Development Research Academy at Tsinghua University, China’s
leading engineering school. He can be reached at xuelan@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
Certificate Program at
Colorado: A graduate interdisciplinary certificate in science and
technology policy is under development at the University of Colorado,
Boulder.
Patwardhan Promoted: Anand
Patwardhan (EPP Ph.D. 1993; EPP Adjunct Faculty) has been promoted to
Full Professor and become Department Head for the School of Management
at IIT-Bombay.
KOTZ is 30: Radio
station KOTZ in Anchorage, Alaska has just celebrated its 30th anniversary.
Alex Hills (EPP/SCS) was its first station manager and ran a morning
show titled “Alex in the Morning.”
ESD Creates New Degree
Programs: The Engineering Systems Division at MIT has created two
new academic programs: the SM in Engineering Systems and the Ph.D. in
Engineering Systems. “These new degrees will allow us to build
the intellectual foundations of engineering systems” says ESD Associate
Director, Prof. Daniel Hastings.
Newton on Early Detection:
Elaine Newton (EPP Doctoral Student) presented a talk on research projects
of the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon on non-traditional methods
of doing outbreak surveillance for respiratory symptoms at the 2002
Syndromic Surveillance Conference held at the New York Academy of Medicine
. The Associated Press's article on the conference included a description
of her talk and was picked up by CNN, CBS, ABC, and many other news
media sources.
Larichev Mourned: Prof.
Oleg Larichev, a leading researcher in the fields of decision making,
artificial intelligence, and expert knowledge of acquisition, died on
January 19, 2003. He was an Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
and involved in many international professional organizations.
Banerjee Instructs on
Load Management: Rangan Banerjee (EPP Adjunct Faculty) and his co-workers
at IIT-Bombay ran a one-week specialty course for power company staff
on load management in the Fall of 2002 and a second course on biomas
systems early in January 2003. Rangan has been promoted to Professor
in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Ilic to Keynote: Prof.
Marija Ilic (EPP/ECE) will present a keynote address to the 6th IEEE
International Conference on Power Systems Control, Operation and Management
in Hong Kong in November 2003.
Best Paper Awards:
Matt Dombroski (EPP Doctoral Student) received a best paper award at
the CASOS 2002 conference for his paper titled “NETEST: Estimating
a Terrorist Network’s Structure” (coauthored with Kathleen
Carley (SCS/EPP). A paper titled “Point-of-use Treatment and the
Revised Arsenic MCL” by Patrick Gurian (EPP Ph.D. 2001) and Mitchell
Small (CEE/EPP) has been selected for the 2003 Publications Award and
the Small Systems Division Best Paper Award by The American Water Works
Association. Felicia Wu (EPP Ph.D. 2002) received the best student paper
award at The Society for Risk Analysis annual winter meeting for her
paper titled “Explaining Public Resistance to Genetically Modified
Crops: A Distributional Analysis of Benefits and Risks.”
Marnicio Heads Risk Group:
Ron Marnicio (EPP Ph.D. 1984) has been appointed Discipline Lead for
Risk Assessment Services at Foster Wheeler Environmental Corporation
in Boston. He heads a group of about 20 people located in eight offices
around the U.S.
Patent Awarded: Alex
Hills (EPP/SCS) and Jon Schlegel (SCS) have received a patent titled
“Method for Configuring and Assigning Channels for a Wireless Network.”
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Keith and Rubin Lead Authors: David
Keith (EPP) and Edward Rubin (EPP/MechE) will serve as lead authors of
an IPCC WGIII special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage.
Parfomak Joins CRS: Paul
Parfomak (EPP Ph.D. 1996) is now a member of the Congressional Research
Service. His current assignment is in the Science & Technology section
of the Resources, Science and Industry Division.
Taylor Receives Dissertation
Award: Margaret Taylor’s (EPP Ph.D. 2002) thesis “The Influence
of Government Actions on Innovative Activities in the Development of Environmental
Technologies to Control Sulfur Dioxide Emissions from Stationary Sources”
received the 2002 prize for the best dissertation from the Academy of
Management’s Organizations and the Natural Environment Division.
Visiting Students: The
following Ph.D. students were visitors in EPP this year: Martin Krayer
von Krauss, the Technical University of Denmark doing research on uncertainty
in the assessment of emerging technologies; Anna Minoia, DEE-Politecnico
de Bari, Italy conducting research on electricity markets; and Huon van
der Laarschot, Eindhoven University of Technology doing research on digital
rights management.
Urban Historians in Pittsburgh:
Thanks to the efforts of Joel Tarr (EPP/ History/Heinz) approximately
200 members of the Urban History Association met in Pittsburgh in the
Fall of 2002.
Fellowships Awarded:
EPP doctoral students Sarah Ryker and Rob Pinder have received NSF fellowships.
Sarah is modeling the occurrence of mixtures of contaminants in drinking
water, using a national dataset that she developed while working for the
U.S. Geological Survey. Rob is investigating the effects of global change
on the regional air quality of the U.S.; Shalini Vajjhala has received
a Lindberg fellowship for work on participatory mapping and GIS.
Gerard Appointed Executive
Director: David Gerard (EPP) has been appointed Executive Director
of the Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation (CSIR) in EPP,
replacing Robert Margolis. Since 2001 Gerard has been a researcher in
EPP and GSIA examining the causes and consequences of regulating automobile
emissions, safety, and fuel economy.
Peha in Start-up: Jon
Peha (EPP/ECE - currently on leave) is serving as Chief Technical Officer
of Cyphermint, a growing company that is developing new technology to
protect privacy and security for financial transactions over the Internet.
Herb Toor Winner: Rob
Pinder (EPP Doctoral Student) received the Herbert L. Toor Award for best
EPP qualifier paper for 2003. His paper was titled “Ammonia Emissions
from Dairy Farms.”
Loh Named Carnegie Scholar:
Woon Sien Loh (ECE/EPP Senior) has been named a 2003 Andrew Carnegie
Scholar for her outstanding academic accomplishments.
Married: Congratulations
to Rahul Tongia (EPP/SCS) on his recent marriage to Kanika.
New Arrivals: Congratulations
to David Gerard (EPP) and his wife Kristen on the birth of their daughter
Greta Berit; to Jaegul Lee and his wife Jee Young Kim on the birth of
their son, Matthew; to Fran and Pat McMichael on the birth of their first
grandchild, Pablo Ortiz; to Kara Morgan (EPP Ph.D. 1999) and her husband
John McCarthy on the birth of their son, Sean; to Allen Robinson (EPP/MechE)
and his wife Kathy Lachenaur on the birth of their son, Gus Thomas; to
Bill Strauss (EPP Doctoral Student) and his wife Maureen on the birth
of their daughter, Robyn; to Bill Wescott (EPP Ph.D. 1995) and his wife
Padma on the birth of their son, Varun; to Henry Willis (EPP Ph.D. 2002)
and his wife Sukanya on the birth of their son, Neelkumar; to Elizabeth
Wilson (EPP Doctoral Student) and her husband Ross Jackson on the birth
of their son, Charlie. |
