Carnegie Mellon University

The Piper

CMU Community News

Piper Logo
April 17, 2014

News Briefs

Parking Open Enrollment Begins April 21

This year's open enrollment period for parking will run from April 21 through May 2. Everyone must select three different parking locations during the open enrollment period. Permits will not rollover from last year. Carpool leaders should apply online and submit a carpool application via fax.

To apply for parking go to https://parking.campusservices.cmu.edu/.

Contact Parking and Transportation Services at 412-268-2052 or parking@andrew.cmu.edu with questions.

Save the Date: Staff Picnic, May 21

This year's Staff Picnic will be held from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in Rangos Hall and Wiegand Gym of the Jared L. Cohon University Center. The picnic is hosted by President Subra Suresh and Provost and Executive Vice President Mark Kamlet in recognition of staff contributions to the university. The event is free. Picnic-goers must present a valid Carnegie Mellon Staff ID. Transportation will be provided for off-campus staff.  Please stay tuned for more details.

Walking Wednesday Presents "Pack the Track," April 23

Join the university community and Walk Pittsburgh to "Pack the Track" during Carnegie Mellon's Walking Wednesday session at noon, April 23 at Gesling Stadium. Wear red for a healthy heart and to show your school spirit. Everyone participating will receive a free t-shirt. And smile for the cameras! Local media members are expected to be in attendance.

Staff Council Offers Tickets to Hershey Park

Staff Council is offerring discount tickets to Hershey Park this summer. Online tickets sales will start May 9. Purchases must be made via Hershey's website with a CMU participant code. The link will be available closer to May 9. If you purchase tickets before July 6, you will receive an extra savings on the regular 1-day pass and tickets can be used ALL summer long.

Purchases made before July 6

  • Regular 1-day pass (ages 9-54) - $39.95
  • Regular 1-day pass (ages 9-54) - $46.95 (rate for purchases beginning July 7)
  • Jr/Sr 1-day pass (ages 3-8; 55-69) - $34.95
  • Senior+ 1-day pass (ages 70+) - $22.95
  • Regular 2-day pass (ages 9-54) - $78.20
  • Jr/Sr 2-day pass (ages 3-8; 55-69) - $57.50

The gate rate for regular passes is $60.80 and the Jr/Sr rate is $38.30. Each ticket is subject to a $.75 processing fee. If you have any questions, please contact Sharon Cavlovich at sharonw@cmu.edu or Nicole Stenger at nstenger@cs.cmu.edu. For more information on Hershey Park, visit http://www.hersheypark.com/.

Carnegie Mellon's Employee Picnic at Kennywood Park will be held Saturday, June 14. Ticket sales will begin June 2. Stay tuned for more information regarding the Kennywood picnic.

Student Forum Seeks Future Leaders

Aspire to be a future global leader? Looking to build an international network of like-minded young leaders? Enjoy solving global problems?

The Science and Technology Leadership Association Forum 2014 is seeking 50 select students from universities around the world to participate in a highly intense, action-oriented leadership conference to debate global issues in health and bioethics. The forum will be held Aug. 15-24 at Stanford University.

To participate you must apply online at http://bit.ly/stela2014_apply by 11:59 p.m., April 30. An online information session will be held at http://bit.ly/stela2014_info from 6 - 7 p.m., Thursday, April 24.

For more information visit www.stelaforum.org or write to info@stelaforum.org.

Student Employees Honored

Earlier this month, Carnegie Mellon honored all student employees at its annual Student Employee Appreciation Lunch. Among those recognized were the 14 students who were nominated for the Student Employee of the Year Award. The nominees were:

  • Hannah Dellabella, nominated by Housing Services;
  • Rachel Freer, nominated by the Career and Professional Development Center (CPDC);
  • Kyongche (KC) Kang, nominated by the CPDC;
  • Christine Kim, nominated by Engineering and Public Policy;
  • Janet Lorenz, nominated by University Health Services; 
  • Nicole Marrow, nominated by Housing Services;
  • Samantha Oleson, nominated by the CPDC;
  • Cassandra Osterman, nominated by Undergraduate Admissions; 
  • Sean Park, nominated by the Tepper School of Business; 
  • Juddson Poeske, nominated by the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs;
  • Brock Schmid, nominated by Housing Services; 
  • Charles Swanson, nominated by Academic Development; 
  • Lauren Williams, nominated by Academic Development; and
  • Alexis Zambino, nominated by Housing Services.

Cassandra Osterman, a fifth-year architecture major, was selected to represent Carnegie Mellon at the Northeast regional level.

Startup Puts Power in Your Step

A product being developed by SolePower, a startup founded by 2012 engineering graduates Matt Stanton and Hahna Alexander, has been named to Popular Science's 2014 Invention Awards list. In March the co-founders were named Africa Energy Awards Innovator of the Year.

The company's product is a device that uses a modified insole to send energy from footsteps to a micro-generator that transfers it to electricity that is then stored in a battery pack attached to shoelaces. It generates enough energy to fully charge a cellphone with a 10- to 15-mile walk. The company is working on strategies to generate more electricity with fewer steps.

The idea started as a senior design project. They received financial assistance from CMU's Project Olympus, AlphaLab and Innovation Works. They have raised more than $300,000 and are planning to launch the product in August at the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City. The insoles are expected to sell for $15.

Learn more.

PSC Develops Virtual "HOV Lane" for Traffic on Internet2

A new $1 million National Science Foundation grant will enable engineers at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), the National Institute for Computational Sciences, the Pennsylvania State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create a new tool for high-volume scientific users to achieve faster data transfers over Internet2.

The Developing Applications with Networking Capabilities via End-to-End SDN (DANCES) project will add network bandwidth scheduling capability to the network infrastructure and the supercomputing applications used by the collaborating sites. The DANCES team will develop and integrate file system, scheduling and networking software along with advanced networking hardware. Their aim is to prevent “Big Data” users who are transferring vast amounts of data from being slowed or even halted by periodic surges in competing network traffic.

“There currently is no tool that schedules network resources automatically within our existing scheduling systems,” says Kathy Benninger, PSC manager of Networking Research and principal investigator in DANCES. “You figure out when you think you need to start your data transfer and then you do it manually.”

But the egalitarian structure of the Internet — and the protocol underlying the majority of network traffic — causes problems for Big Data users. Such researchers and engineers must compete with many other users of all sizes on an equal footing. An automatic tool that protects designated flows from local congestion — essentially creating a “high occupancy vehicle lane” for large-scale data by prioritizing their traffic — would provide dramatically faster network speeds for Big Data users.

Learn more.

DHTI Launches Request for Proposals

The Disruptive Health Technology Institute (DHTI) has announced its 2014 Request for Proposals, kicking off its second round of funding opportunities. DHTI is seeking proposals from CMU faculty directed at addressing pressing issues in health care and improving community health and wellness.
 
Awards are intended to support research that identifies disruptive health care innovations, which can be clinically tested and rapidly delivered to a clinical setting or practice in the field. Technical focus areas have been identified in which it is believed innovation is likely to lead to rapid gains in health care quality and affordability. Areas are: Medical Diagnostics, Transforming Care Delivery, Chronic Disease Management, Computational Health Care, Re-Engineering the Health Care System, and Medical Robotics.

DHTI specifically seeks proposals in the technical focus areas listed, but is open to any proposals that the faculty deems relevant, provided they meet the criteria for leading to measurable, short-term impact on health care quality and affordability.

The deadline for receipt of proposals is May 8. Please visit www.dhti.cmu.edu/dhti for all information, templates and submission instructions. You may also contact Charlotte Emig at cemig@cmu.edu to answer questions or to obtain guidance.

Register Your Child for Daughters and Sons to Work Day

Staff Council’s Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day is Thursday, April 24. Faculty and staff are encouraged to bring their children between the ages of 8 and 15 to campus to give them a glimpse of the wide range of career and learning opportunities that exist at CMU. After a group lunch program, the children can attend two activity sessions for which they must pre-register.

The registration deadline is Tuesday, April 22.  See more details and register online.

Take Information Security 101

The Information Security Office (ISO) has released Security 101, an online course designed to raise awareness about Carnegie Mellon’s information security policies and guidelines, data classification, roles and responsibilities,  information security risks, and techniques for safeguarding institutional data and information systems. The course is designed to be completed at your own pace and convenience. The entire course will take approximately an hour to complete.

You can access the course at https://www.cmu.edu/blackboard.  Once you login with your Andrew ID and password, you will find Security 101 listed under My Courses. If you have any questions about using Blackboard or Security 101  itself, send email to advisor@andrew.cmu.edu.

Vanguard Presents Retirement Education Workshops, April 23

Vanguard is presenting three retirement education workshops on Wednesday, April 23 in the University Center's Dowd Room. They are:

A Practical Guide to Help You Make a Smooth Transition to Retirement, 10 – 11 a.m.

This workshop is geared toward employees who are three to 10 years from retirement. Topics include assessing whether you will have enough money, retirement “rescue” strategies, and managing investments during the transition. Participants will receive Spending Plan and Retirement Readiness Worksheets and an Investor Questionnaire.

Fine-Tuning Your Investments To Be Well-Diversified, 12 – 1:15 p.m.

This workshop is for employees who understand investing basics and want to build a well-diversified asset mix. Key points of discussion include understanding diversification and sub-asset allocation, fund selection and performance evaluation, and why smart people make investing mistakes. Participants will receive a workbook, The Big Picture Worksheet, and an Investor Questionnaire.

A Step-by-Step Guide To Planning for a Successful Retirement, 4 – 5 p.m.

This workshop is geared toward employees who are more than 19 years away from retirement. Participants will determine a retirement savings goal and annual savings needed to meet the goal, and evaluate their investment strategies using Retirement Savings and Cash Flow Worksheets and an Investor Questionnaire.

Note: Employees do not need to have retirement savings with Vanguard to attend these workshops. While registration is not required for these free workshops, space is limited. Reserve a spot by contacting HR Help at HRHelp@andrew.cmu.edu or 412-268-2047.

Dietrich College Seeks Student Volunteers To Organize Colloquium

Dietrich College (DC) is looking for student volunteers to serve on an organizing committee for the second annual Dietrich Undergraduate Colloquium (DUC) for DC majors and minors, Nov. 7-8, 2014. The colloquium is a student-centered event in which undergraduates present completed research or research in progress from courses, SURG/SURF research, experiences from alternative break projects and creative works.

Student volunteers, with the help of DC faculty mentors, are responsible for various components of the colloquium, including website development and/or a Facebook page for publicity, poster design/advertising, proposal guidelines, reading abstracts and making presentation selections, and providing technology support.

Interested students (and faculty mentors) should plan to attend an information (no commitment!) meeting at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 23 in Porter Hall 226B. If you are interested but cannot attend the meeting, contact student co-chairs Meredith Crenshaw (mmc@andrew.cmu.edu) or Margaret Marchese (mmarches@andrew.cmu.edu), or faculty mentor Bonnie Youngs (byoungs@cmu.edu).

Nominations Now Open for Student Organization Awards

The Office of Student Activities is presenting the second annual Student Organization Award Recognition (SOAR) program to acknowledge officers, members and advisers of student government-recognized student organizations. During a reception at 5 p.m., Wednesday, May 7 in the University Center’s Danforth Lounge, Student Activities will present awards and recognition for outstanding achievements in the following categories:

  • Outstanding Student Organization
;
  • Outstanding Student Organization Program
;
  • Outstanding Student Organization Leader; and

  • Outstanding Student Organization Adviser.

For award descriptions and how to submit a nomination please visit: www.cmu.edu/studentactivities/info/soar/index.html. All nominations are due by noon, Monday, April 28.

Meditation Sessions Thursdays

Ramakrishna Vedanta Ashrama Pittsburgh (vedanta-pitt.org), in collaboration with CMU’s Indian Graduate Student Association, is conducting weekly meditation sessions from 6:30-7:30 p.m., Thursdays in Porter Hall 226B. RSVP would be helpful at http://tinyurl.com/bf4ptst.