Carnegie Mellon University

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February 07, 2013

Personal Mention

Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, the J.C. Warner Professor of the Natural Sciences in the Mellon College of Science, has been named the first recipient of the AkzoNobel North America Science Award for his cutting-edge polymer chemistry research. The award is given by AkzoNobel, the world's largest paints and coatings company, and the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The AkzoNobel North America Science Award was created to recognize outstanding scientific contributions by an individual in the fields of chemistry and materials research conducted in the U.S. or Canada. Read the full story.

Onur Mutlu has been appointed the Dr. William D. and Nancy W. Strecker Early Career Professor in the top-ranked Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Mutlu, who directs the SAFARI research group at CMU, says his group is researching how to make computing platforms and chips — from those used in mobile systems to those used in large-scale data centers — much more energy-efficient, predictable, robust and capable. A major focus of his group is developing microprocessors, computer memories and platforms that can efficiently, quickly and reliably store, manipulate and communicate massive amounts of data. To do this, Mutlu's group is rethinking how computer memory should be designed. Read the full story.

Anthony Stanton, teaching professor of graphic media management and director of the Graphic Media Management Program at the Tepper School of Business, has been named the recipient of the 2013 Michael H. Bruno Award by the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA). The award is given annually for outstanding contributions to the Graphic Arts industry and in recognition and appreciation of dedicated service in the field. TAGA is an international organization of technologists, scientists, technical, and production personnel in the printing and allied industries. Stanton received the award at TAGA’s 65th Annual Technical Conference Feb. 5 in Portland, Ore.

Larry Biegler, the Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering, recently received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Berlin from its Faculty of Process Sciences. The recognition honors Biegler's outstanding contributions in the area of process systems engineering, particularly in the optimization and control of chemical processes.

Edmund M. Clarke, the FORE Systems University Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named an Einstein Professor for 2013 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. As part of the professorship, Clarke will visit the Suzhou Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Science and Technology of China later this year. He subsequently will host a Chinese scholar for several months at Carnegie Mellon. Clarke is a pioneer in the field of Model Checking, an automated method for finding design errors in computer hardware and software. Clarke’s role in creating Model Checking was recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) with the 2007 Turing Award, the most prestigious award in computing. Read the full story.

Leshu Torchin, the 2012-2013 Humanities Center Senior Research Fellow, has written a new book, "Creating the Witness: Documenting Genocide on Film, Video and the Internet." In it, Torchin broadly surveys media and social practices around it to investigate the development of popular understandings of genocide over the past century. The book’s introduction has been published to the Re.Framing Activism blog at http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/activistmedia/2012/12/creating-the-witness/. Torchin will give a related talk on "Too Big To See: The Visual Culture of Economic Rights" on Thursday, Feb 7 at 4:30 p.m. In Porter Hall 100. For more information, visit http://www.hss.cmu.edu/pressreleases/pressreleases/torchin.html.

Alumnus Tom Cullen has has been named the new director of Computing Facilities in the School of Computer Science. Cullen comes to CMU from the Bank of New York Mellon, where he has served as vice
president of the Technology Services group. Previously, he held several positions in information technology services management. Cullen earned a master's degree in information technology from the Heinz College and a bachelor's degree in politicial science and history from CMU. He will assume his position in early March.

Yu Seung Kim, a Ph.D student in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus, has been awarded the John and Claire Bertucci Fellowship, which provides $10,000 in tuition support. Kim works with Assistant Research Professor Patrick Tague in the Wireless Network & System Security Group at CMU-SV. Kim’s research focuses on detecting malicious behavior in wireless network systems and creating countermeasures to effectively defend against possible threats. His work deals primarily with security in three different types of wireless network systems: enterprise networks, mission critical network systems and community network systems. Read the full story.

Aapo Kyrölä, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department, has been awarded a 2013 Graduate Fellowship from the VMWare Academic Program to support his work on large-scale machine learning and graph computation. He is one of three recipients this year of the fellowship, which begins in September and includes a stipend of $35,000, plus full tuition and fees. The fellowship supports outstanding students who are pursuing research related to VMWare's business interests, such as core machine virtualization and work related to cloud computing. Read more.

Gennady Pekhimenko, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department, and Jeff Rzeszotarski, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, are among 12 students of U.S. universities who are recipients of 2013 Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowships. Pekhimenko's research focus is improving energy and performance characteristics of modern memory subsystems. Rzeszotarski studies how crowds of people generate content online and how to improve the content that they create. Read more.