March 16, 2006

Vol. 16, No. 34

The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the University Advancement Division. News of campus interest should be sent to one of the following editors:   Ed Delaney, 412-268-1609 (ed47@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Bruce Gerson, 412-268-1613 (bg02@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Susan Cribbs, 412-268-7521 (cribbs@andrew.cmu.edu)

The newsletter is available on the official.cmu-news and cmu.misc.news bulletin boards.

2001 Editions are available online.

2002 Editions are available online.

2003 Editions are available online.

2004 Editions are available online.

2005 Editions are available online.

Previous editions are available online.

Campus printing, university mailing and copy center administration will be moving to Penn Avenue next week due to the need to raze the Campus Printing and Publications Building for the new Gates Center for Computer Science. These operations will stop taking new business orders March 17 to allow personnel to pack and relocate.

—As of March 17, Dan Tyson, manager of campus printing, will broker all campus printing orders from his new office at Penn Avenue. To discuss your printing needs, please contact Tyson at 412-268-2974.

—Copy center administrators and mailing services will move to Penn Avenue March 21 - 24 and all operations are expected to be up and running by March 27.To discuss your mailing and labeling projects, contact R.J. Schreiner at 412-268-2970. Copying needs can be addressed at any of the four satellite copy centers (Mellon Institute, Software Engineering Institute, Tepper School of Business and Wean Hall). In addition, to support the existing satellite printing and copy center operations, the university is negotiating a relationship with an external provider.

—The copy centers at Mellon Institute, the SEI, the Tepper School and Wean Hall will now report to Campus Services in the Finance Division, as will campus printing, mailing and Photography and Graphic Services in Mellon Institute.

STUDENT CREATES "TOOLBOX FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN"

Jennifer Verbeke, a student in the School of Architecture, has developed a series of mobile tools, called a "Toolbox for Environmental Design," that can test the theories of environmental design. Verbeke, a fifth-year architecture student, designed these tools through a Carnegie Mellon Small Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG) funded by the Ford Undergraduate Research Grant, a special non-endowed award. These mobile tools used in the architecture studio could someday be critical when designing for places with limited infrastructure, such as tsunami-damaged shorelines and economically challenged locations with inadequate natural resources.

—The tools are created to study natural ventilation, exterior sun path and sun shadows, and interior day lighting. The tool to test natural ventilation is a water flow table that will run water through a modeled cross-section of a building and around the building's perimeter and shell. The water flow table uses ink dropped into a laminar-flow sheet of water to illustrate the wind paths through sections of a waterproof acrylic model. The tool to test sun-path is a model that will show architects the interior day lighting quality and the need for exterior shading for very hot climates.

—Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060313_enviro.html.

NEWS BRIEFS

—Carnegie Mellon hosted its second annual Model United Nations Conference on campus March 3 - 6. More than 200 high school students participated in the event, in which they took on the roles of journalists, UN delegates and other world leaders in order to foster discussion on international affairs. The Carnegie Mellon Model UN was organized by the university's International Relations Organization and Model United Nations club. It was supported in part by Student Senate, the Division of Student Affairs and the departments of History, Modern Languages and Social and Decision Sciences. Further information: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/iro/.

—CircuitSpace, an interactive component-placement technology for printed-circuit boards (PCB) developed by university spin-off DesignAdvance Systems Inc., has won a DesignVision Award from the International Engineering Consortium. CircuitSpace seamlessly integrates into existing PCB design environments and allows users to quickly generate an optimal component placement in a fraction of the time it would take to do so by hand. Carnegie Mellon Mechanical Engineering Professor Jonathan Cagan co-founded DesignAdvance Systems along with Randy Eager, then with the university's tech transfer office; Jay McCormack and Chandan Aladahalli, who received their doctorates from Carnegie Mellon; and Adel Assad, who earned his master's degree from Carnegie Mellon.

—On March 8, the College of Fine Arts presented its Staff Recognition Awards. The winners and their awards are Rookie: Josh Atlas, School of Art; Innovator: Kelly Docter, School of Architecture; Citizenship: Anne Connell, School of Design; Excellence in Job Performance: David Randolph, School of Drama. Each winner received $500 and a framed certificate. Receiving framed certificates for years of service were: 35 years: Hannelore Peterson, School of Drama; 25 years: Liz Fox, Dean's Office, and Janice Hart, Saturday Pre-College Art; 20 years: Darlene Covington-Davis, School of Architecture, and Patti Pavlus, Dean's office.

PERSONAL MENTION

—Mechanical Engineering Professor William Messner has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Fellowship from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

—Irene Fonseca, Mellon College of Science professor of mathematics and director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis, has been chosen to deliver the Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture at the 2006 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics' annual meeting this July in Boston.

—Graduate student Melissa Gilliam Ezarik has been named one of 15 students in the nation to participate in the Luce Scholars Program, an initiative sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation that enables students to increase their knowledge and awareness of Asia by living and working in an Asian country of their choice. Ezarik is a second-year student in the Heinz School, where she is pursuing a master's degree in arts management. The Luce Scholars Program will allow her to work for a Ministry of Culture or Council of Cultural Affairs in an Asian country while simultaneously learning its language and customs. Ezarik says the experience will help her conduct a cross-national survey of arts and cultural policies in the United States and Asian countries, and lead her to her career goal of influencing arts and cultural policy in America. Information: http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060313_ezarik.html.

—Adrian Perrig, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, engineering and public policy, and computer science, has been invited to deliver the keynote presentation at the International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN) this April in Nashville, where he will address his vision for security in sensor networks. IPSN is one of the two top conferences on sensor networks.

—The College of Humanities and Social Sciences has named Scott Sandage, associate professor of history, winner of the 2005-06 Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service, which honors excellent undergraduate teaching. Sandage, a social and cultural historian, is highly regarded both for his first-rate scholarship as well as his excellence as a teacher. He is the author of the critically acclaimed 2005 book "Born Losers: A History of Failure in America," which received the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize from Harvard University Press. The award is given every year to a first-time author whose book is deemed outstanding in content, style and presentation.

CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

—Saturday, March 18: Memorial Service for the late Thomas M. Kerr Jr. 2 p.m., McConomy Auditorium, UC. Reception follows in Schatz Dining Room, UC. Kerr served on the faculty of the Tepper School of Business for nearly 37 years before retiring in 2001. He died on Feb. 25 at the age of 86.

—Monday, March 20: The Aesthetics Out of Bounds Lecture Series. "Respecting the Past: New Approaches to Memory, Trauma and Piety." Michael Roth, president, California College of the Arts. 5:30 p.m, McConomy Auditorium, UC. The lecture will discuss recent theoretical discourse on memory and trauma, and suggest a framework for the modalities of connecting with memory and history.

—Thursday, March 23: Andrés Cárdenes, the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation and Alexander C. Speyer Jr. University Professor of Music and concertmaster for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, will be a guest musician at the Cuarteto Latinoamericano performance at 7:30 p.m., Alumni Concert Hall. Free and open to the public. "This is a somewhat unusual program for the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, in the sense that we are presenting two major European masterpieces by Brahms and Mozart, along with a short Latin American work by Silvestre Revueltas," said Saul Bitran, violinist with the quartet.

—Monday, March 27: Free Lunch & Learn Session: "Step by Step: Securing your Mac." Noon - 1:30 p.m., McKenna Room, UC. Computing Services' Information Security Office and Computer Education group are offering this free class. Seats are limited. Register at https://www.cmu.edu/computing/education/ or call x8-3086.

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