Personal Mention
IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine has named Ariel Procaccia, assistant professor of computer science, as one of "AI’s 10 to Watch." The list, compiled every two years, includes researchers who have completed their doctoral work in the past five years and who already have made impressive research contributions. Procaccia, who joined the Computer Science Department in 2011, has a Ph.D. in computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was subsequently a postdoc at Microsoft Israel R&D Center and at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His studies in artificial intelligence focus on the use of social choice theory and game theory for resource allocation and collective decision-making. He is a recipient of the Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award (2009), a Rothschild postdoctoral fellowship (2009), an inaugural Yahoo Academic Career Enhancement Award (2011), and a TARK best paper award (2011). He is currently the editor of ACM SIGecom Exchanges and an associate editor of the Journal of AI Research (JAIR) and Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (JAAMAS).
Carnegie Mellon's Disruptive Health Technology Institute (DHTI), a multi-year $11 million initiative aimed at transforming health care, has appointed Lynn M. Brusco as executive director, effective Aug. 1. Brusco is a former vice president and chief relationship officer at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG). DHTI Director Alan Russell said Brusco "will oversee DHTI daily operations to develop priorities and programs, identify industry collaborators, interface with policymakers and support faculty in identifying opportunities to create new tools and operating models to help reduce health care costs and improve patient outcomes." Read more.
Joy Ying Zhang, an assistant research professor in the Mobility Research Center at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus, has received an award from the 2013 Yahoo! Faculty Research and Engagement Program for his project to explore mobile local search, using information from sensors on mobile devices and user behavior to improve search relevance and user experience. “Such contextual information can reflect a user’s behavioral patterns if modeled over time through longitudinal study,” Zhang said in his proposal. Zhang also received a Yahoo Award in 2012 as part of the company’s annual academic outreach program. Each year Yahoo funds faculty and student research at universities around the world in areas of mutual interest for academia and industry. CMU is one of 24 universities selected for the program. Read more.
Kannan Srinivasan, the Rohet Tolani Distinguished Professor of International Business and H.J. Heinz II Professor of Management, Marketing and Information Systems at the Tepper School of Business, has received the 2013 INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) Fellow Award. This honor recognizes significant accomplishments to the field of marketing science and to the mission of ISMS — fostering the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge, basic and applied research, and science and technologies that improve the understanding and practice of marketing. Official announcement of the award was made during the organization’s annual conference in Istanbul, Turkey.
Karim Kassam, assistant professor of social and decision sciences, wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on his latest research that identified emotional states on the basis of brain activity. Read "Mapping Emotions in the Brain" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karim-kassam/mapping-emotions-in-the-b_b_3635636.html.
Margaret Cox has been promoted to graphic designer and office coordinator at the Miller Gallery. Cox has 14 years of experience in print and Web design, and has been the Miller Gallery's lead designer since 2005. Cox earned her bachelor’s degree in art and her master’s degree in communications planning and information design at CMU. She has performed and exhibited her work at several city venues, including at a past Pittsburgh Biennial at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
Michael Cunningham, academic coordinator for CMU’s Masters of Arts Management Program at the Heinz College, sings and plays keyboards for Neighbours, a local musical group recently featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Neighbours’ songs range from pop to punk and one member describes the group as being at the intersection of The Beach Boys, Motown and the Who. The group, whose debut album is titled “Prime Numbers,” will be performing at 10 p.m., Saturday, July 27 at Gooski’s on Polish Hill. Read the PG story.
Sam Zbarsky, an incoming first-year student in the Mellon College of Science, won a silver medal at the 44th International Physics Olympiad, held in Copenhagen. Zbarsky, from Silver Spring, Md., was one of five students selected by the American Association of Physics Teachers to represent the United States in the competition, where the best high school physics students from 83 countries compete in theoretical and experimental physics. Read more.