Apt Replaces Farrell in Electricity Center

      Jay Apt, Distinguished Service Professor in EPP, is the new Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Electricity Industry Center (CEIC). He replaces Alex Farrell who has accepted a faculty appointment in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley.
      Dr. Apt holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. From 1976 to 1980 he was a member of the staff of the Center for Earth & Planetary Physics at Harvard University. In 1980, he joined NASA doing planetary research, and became a scientist astronaut in 1985. During the following eleven years, he flew four shuttle missions. He left NASA in May 1997 to become Director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. Then in 1999, Dr. Apt became Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer of iNetworks LLC, an early-stage venture capital firm.
      Lester Lave (GSIA/EPP/Heinz), co-director of CEIC, notes that “Jay is off to a great start. He has superb technical skills, extensive administrative experience, and good familiarity with the high-tech business world. He brings a fresh new perspective to the problems of the electric power industry.”
      Of CEIC’s first Executive Director, Alex Farrell, CEIC’s other co-director, Granger Morgan (EPP/ECE/Heinz), says “We are very grateful to Alex for the wonderful job he did building the Center. He retains an Adjunct Faculty position in EPP and is an active collaborator in our ongoing research.” Details on Farrell’s new appointment at Berkeley can be found at http://socrates. berkeley.edu/erg/Pages/faculty.html.
      Core funding for CEIC is provided by the Sloan Foundation and EPRI. Details on the Center and its activities can be found at http://www.cmu.edu/electricity.

McMichael Becomes Emeritus Professor

      Francis C. McMichael (CEE/EPP), one of the early members of the EPP faculty, has become Emeritus. He remains active in research and in the affairs of the department.
      “Fran has been a key part of EPP since it was created,” says EPP Head Granger Morgan (EPP/ECE/Heinz). “In addition to superb research contributions and consistently high academic standards, he has given us warm friendship and sage advice.”
      Prof. McMichael completed an undergraduate degree in Mining Engineering at Lehigh in 1958 and then did an M.S. in Geophysics (1959) and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (1963) at the California Institute of Technology. After two years as an Assistant Professor at Princeton, in 1967 he joined the research staff of the Mellon Institute as a Fellow of the American Iron and Steel Institute Water Resources Group. In 1972, he moved to Carnegie Mellon to a joint appointment in Civil Engineering and Engineering and Public Affairs (now EPP).
      Prof. McMichael served as head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1975 to 1979 and acting head in EPP in 1983. He was named the Walter J. Blenko Professor of Environmental Engineering in 1981. He has worked extensively on applying material and energy-balance approaches to the study of environmental problems. Recent work has included: the application of concurrent engineering concepts in the design of products and processes to mitigate life-cycle environmental impacts; and studies of battery recycle, auto electrical systems, and auto disassembly and recycle. He has been an active contributor to the Green Design Institute’s work in environmental input-output life-cycle analysis tools.
      Prof. McMichael can be reached at fcmcmichael@cmu.edu.