Personal Mention
President Subra Suresh and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to detect early-stage malarial infection of blood cells by measuring changes in the infected cells’ electrical properties. According to MIT’s News Office, the scientists have built an experimental microfluidic device that takes a drop of blood and streams it across an electrode that measures a signal differentiating infected cells from uninfected cells. Their prototype is a first step toward developing a field-ready, low-cost, portable malaria-detection device that could be used in places where laboratories and skilled medical personal are scarce. The research has been published in the Aug. 8 edition of the journal Lab on a Chip.
Jay Apt, professor and director of Carnegie Mellon’s Electricity Industry Center, was a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC Radio in New York last week. He spoke about the state of the U.S. power grid and how it is faring 10 years after the massive Northeast blackout that lasted for two days in many places. Apt looks back at what caused the 2003 blackout and what changes have been made to improve the power grid since then. Listen to the interview.
Kaushik Dayal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has won the prestigious Leonardo Da Vinci Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) for groundbreaking research on the interactions between materials and electromagnetism, which can be applied to new technologies for energy storage and generation. Dayal's research is on materials that could have major applications in large-scale energy harvesting. Intermittent power sources, such as solar power, may benefit from being able to store excess energy in large batteries where the sun shines in the daytime, and then use the stored energy at night when it is in demand. Research in this field is aimed at creating smaller batteries with higher energy density and faster recharge times. His research is funded by the Army Research Office (ARO), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Read more.
Carnegie Mellon women's soccer head coach Yon Struble recently returned from Sofia, Bulgaria, where he led the U.S. Deaf Women's Soccer Team to its third straight Deaflympics gold medal after a 2-1 defeat of Russia. This marks the team's second gold medal under Struble, as he led them to the World Deaf Football Championship last year in Ankara, Turkey. The women started the tournament with an 11-0 victory over Greece and went on to defeat Poland, 2-0, and Japan, 7-0, to advance to the semifinals. The U.S. then beat Great Britain, 5-0, to advance to the gold medal game. Read more.
Janet Madelle Feindel, professor of voice/Alexander in the School of Drama, recently served as dialect/voice coach for Quantum's Mnemonic and as voice/Alexander coach for the Stratford Festival Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre in Canada. She also gave Alexander/voice workshops at the Care of the Professional Voice Symposium in Philadelphia this past June.
Jim Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, had his poem "American Cheese" featured on the Aug. 19 episode of the Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, a daily radio program and podcast of poetry and historical interest pieces, usually with a literary significance. Read or listen to the poem at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/08/19.
James Wynn, associate professor of English, recorded a video interview for the Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology (ARST) on his rhetoric of science research. The video is part of the ARST Oral History Project, which was conceived to document the institutional history of the organization and the larger intellectual history of the rhetoric of science, technology and medicine. Watch the video at http://youtu.be/QEYiTJWZ-aQ.
Kiron Skinner, associate professor of social and decision sciences and director of the Center for International Relations and Politics, wrote an opinion piece for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on "Assessing the True Terror Threat." Skinner, who is also the university's adviser on national security policy, is an expert in international relations, U.S. foreign policy and political strategy. Read the piece at http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/4500590-74/war-states-united#axzz2cLNBhPpF.