January 25, 2011

Media Advisory: Carnegie Mellon Experts Available To Comment on Five Pillars of State of the Union Address

Innovation, Education, Infrastructure on Tap for Jan. 25 Speech; Use CMU TV Studio for Interviews

Contact: Ken Walters / 412-268-2900 / walters1@andrew.cmu.edu

What: President Barack Obama will address five pillars for ensuring America's competitiveness and economic growth — innovation, education, infrastructure, deficit reduction and reforming government — when he delivers his State of the Union address at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 25. Carnegie Mellon University features experts on many of these topics who can provide insight on the president's address.
 
Who: Carnegie Mellon faculty members are often interviewed and quoted on important U.S. political, economic, education, infrastructure and innovation issues. These experts include:

• Lee Branstetter, an international economist who can speak on U.S. deficit reduction, as well as China's economy and how it is impacting the U.S. and world economies;
• Kiron Skinner, who is one of the country's most renowned experts in international relations and U.S. foreign policy, is available to speak on WikiLeaks and the situation with North Korea;
• Candace Thille, who heads Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative, which has been recognized by the White House as a possible model to provide open learning courses for community college students;
• Jim Garrett, an expert in civil and environmental engineering and co-founder of the Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research, which was developed to create "nervous systems" that aid engineers in making important decisions about critical infrastructures;
• Rick McCullough, vice president of research at CMU, oversees the university's technology transfer program, which is one of the most efficient in the country, helping to create more than 200 start-up companies and 9,000 jobs in the last 15 years;
• Pradeep Khosla, dean of CMU's College of Engineering, is the founding director of Carnegie Mellon CyLab, one of the world's premier research programs in cybersecurity and privacy, and a member of the Council on Competitiveness Technology Leadership Strategy Initiative (TLSI), an effort designed to chart the most promising technology frontiers for the U.S.

CMU TV Studio: We can connect these experts to your outlet through Carnegie Mellon's new state-of-the-art TV studio. Working with Pittsburgh International Telecommunications (PIT), we offer domestic and international connectivity via satellite and fiber. PIT owns and operates one of the largest satellite facilities in the world. Please contact us for more information and to make arrangements.

Contact: Ken Walters, walters1@andrew.cmu.edu, 412-268-1151

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