March 8, 2007
Vol. 17, No. 32

In this issue:

• Award-Winning Author To Receive Dickson Prize, March 26
• Pradeep Khosla Receives Cyber Education Award From Industry
• Steinbrenner Institute Hosts Media Boot Camp, March 14
• Personal Mention
• Calendar Highlights

Award-Winning Author To Receive Dickson Prize, March 26

Carnegie Mellon will award its annual Dickson Prize in Science to Jared Diamond, scientist and best-selling author of "Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed." Diamond will give the Dickson Prize Lecture at 4:30 p.m., Monday, March 26 in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center. His lecture will be based on his latest book, which probes the decline and fall of once-prosperous civilizations, such as the Maya and the prehistoric Polynesian society of Easter Island. Prior to the lecture, Diamond will hold a book signing from 3:30 to 4 p.m. in the University Center's McKenna Room.

A physiologist by training, Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. His 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies," explores the geographic, environmental and epidemiological factors that enabled some societies to progress rapidly while others remained primitive. "Dr. Diamond is a cross-disciplinary scholar of distinction. He is both a very serious scholar and someone who can explain what is important in lay language," said Carnegie Mellon Statistics Professor Jay Kadane, who nominated Diamond for the Dickson Prize.
   
The late Pittsburgh physician Joseph Z. Dickson and his wife, Agnes Fisher Dickson, established the Dickson Prize in Science in 1969. Carnegie Mellon awards it annually to individuals in the United States who make outstanding contributions to science. The Dickson Prize includes $50,000 and a medal.

Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/March/march5_dickson.shtml/

Pradeep Khosla Receives Cyber Education Award From Industry

College of Engineering Dean Pradeep Khosla received the prestigious Cyber Education Champion Award from the Business Software Alliance during a gala celebration March 6 in Washington, D.C. The Cyber Education Award is presented to individuals in the education profession who have demonstrated exceptional skill and commitment in teaching students and educators about the importance of technology innovation, cyberethics and intellectual property issues. Khosla, an internationally recognized authority on cybersecurity, technology education, innovation and competitiveness, was also recognized for his innovative approach to rethinking the research and development relationship between universities and industry.

"Our challenge in educating the engineers of tomorrow is to position our students for future change and to provide an education that will serve them in any global economy," said Khosla. "Our vision is that future engineers must enable, create, manage and deploy innovation in a multinational, distributed environment."

Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/March/march6_khosla.shtml

Steinbrenner Institute Hosts Media Boot Camp, March 14

The Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research and the College of Engineering will host four journalists at a special media panel from noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, March 14 in the Singleton Room of Roberts Hall. The Media Boot Camp series is designed to help faculty and researchers better understand the needs of reporters and broadcast producers covering science and the environment. Panel participants include Nathalie Berry, field producer for WQED-TV's "On Q"; Regis Bobonis, managing editor of WTAE-TV; Mary Anne Vandevelde, a WPXI-TV producer; and Frank Gottlieb, news director at KQV radio. The journalists will discuss their reporting beats and the challenges created by the brevity of broadcast news.

Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/March/march7_bootcamp.shtml

Personal Mention

• Four Carnegie Mellon faculty members have won 2007 Sloan Research Fellowships for early-career scientists of outstanding promise. The winners are: Jennifer Mankoff, assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute; Priya Narasimhan, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dawn Song, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Mohammad F. Islam, assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science and engineering. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards 116 two-year, $45,000 fellowships each year. Since the establishment of the fellowships in 1955, 32 Sloan Fellows have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.
• Terry Collins, the Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry, has received a Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. The annual award honors alumni who have made outstanding contributions to their professions, communities and the nation. Collins is noted for his scientific contributions to green chemistry, dedication to education and public advocacy for using green chemistry to achieve a sustainable civilization. He received the award at a dinner Feb. 23.
• Dave Farber, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy, is among "The 50 Most Important People on the Web," according to PCWorld.com. Farber, who was cited for his influential "Interesting People" mailing list, ranked 33rd overall, below Digg founder Kevin Rose and above the founders of the Powerline political blog. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google Inc. topped the list.
• David Klahr, professor of psychology and director of the graduate training program in interdisciplinary education research, has been invited to be a member of the American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on "The Psychology of Math and Science Education." He will attend their initial meeting in Washington, D.C., March 9 - 10. On March 12 he will participate in the National Academy of Science's launch of a new report, published by the National Research Council, to which he was a contributing author. The volume, "Taking Science to School," argues that improving science education in kindergarten through eighth grade will require major changes in how science is taught in America's classrooms, as well as shifts in commonly held views of what young children know and how they learn.
• Elaine A. King, professor of art history/theory, delivered the paper "Museum Ethics vs. Vanity and Desperation" at the annual College Art Association (CAA) meeting in New York City in February. She spoke in the session "The Unethical Museum." She was also a member of the panel for the "Art & Education at the End of the Age of Critique" session.
• Carnegie Mellon has named Ed Grefenstette its new treasurer and chief investment officer. Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Grefenstette was managing director and co-founder of Commonwealth Capital Group, a private equity investment fund. He previously served as a director in the mergers and acquisitions advisory group of PNC Capital Markets, the investment banking subsidiary of The PNC Financial Services Group. Grefenstette earned a master's degree in industrial administration from the Tepper School of Business. He holds a bachelor's degree and law degree from Georgetown University. Grefenstette succeeds John Mazur, who held the position for more than six years.

Calendar Highlights

• March 8 - 9: "TK60," a symposium celebrating the 60th birthday of world-renowned robotics and computer vision expert Takeo Kanade, the U.A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics. The list of speakers and schedules is posted at http://www.ri.cmu.edu/events/tk60/.
• Wednesday, March 14: Digital Libraries Colloquium. "Users' Emotional and Material Satisfaction at the Micro/Macro Level in Academic Libraries." Fei Yu, ILS applications specialist for the eiNetwork (serving more than 80 public libraries in Allegheny County). Noon - 1 p.m., Rangos 2, University Center.
• Monday, March 19: Authors' Rights & Wrongs Series. "Managing YOUR Rights: Authors and Copyright." Julia Blixrud, assistant director for public programs for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. 4:30 - 6 p.m., Adamson Wing, Baker Hall. Live Webcast at www.library.cmu.edu.
• Monday, March 19: School of Design Lecture Series. James Victore, communication designer known for "pushing ideas into the public arena by using any and all graphic means." Co-hosted by the Pittsburgh AIGA. 7 p.m., Breed Hall, Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall.
• Tuesday, March 20: Bayer Lecture in Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering. "Advances and Challenges in De Novo Protein Design." Princeton University Professor Chris Floudas. 10:45 a.m., Doherty Hall 1112.
• Friday, March 23: The Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) Lecture Series.  "Fields, Gardens and Woods: An Environmental History of Rural African Americans in the Progressive Era South." Dianne Glave, the Aron Senior Research Fellow, Center for Environmental Research, Tulane University. 5 p.m., Erwin Steinberg Auditorium, Baker Hall A53.