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April 23, 2015

Personal Mention

Alessandro AcquistiAlessandro Acquisti (right) has been named to the inaugural class of the Andrew Carnegie Fellows by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Acquisti is one of only 32 recipients of the fellowship and was selected from more than 300 nominees. A noted economist and privacy researcher, Acquisti’s fellowship will investigate the impact of the data economy on societal welfare and the distribution of wealth, focusing on how the erosion of privacy and the rise of “big data” may affect economic growth, equality and discrimination. Acquisti’s research investigates the economics and behavioral economics of privacy, including privacy in online social networks. He is an associate professor of information technology and public policy at the Heinz College, and the director of the Peex (Privacy Economics Experiments) lab at CMU. Learn more

Amanda PowellAnita BarkinAnita Barkin (near right) and Amanda Powell will receive awards at the American College Health Association (ACHA) annual meeting, May 28 in Orlando, Fla.

  • Barkin, retired director of University Health Services (UHS), will receive the ACHA Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have provided outstanding service to ACHA, and who have been dedicated to improving the health of college students. Barkin is a past president of ACHA, past president of the Mid-Atlantic College Health Affiliation, a leader in the health care insurance coalition for college/university students and a leader in university pandemic planning on a national level.

  • Powell, clinical operations manager for UHS, will be presented with the New Professional Award for the Mid-Atlantic College Health Affiliation. This award recognizes ACHA members who have provided service to the college health field for five years or less and who have made significant contributions to their institutions. Powell, who has been at CMU for four and one-half years, has transformed the electronic medical documentation system, updated and managed the immunization compliance system and worked collaboratively with the business and clinical operations within UHS and campus at large.

John O’Brien, associate dean at Carnegie Mellon Qatar, and Fuad Farooqi, assistant teaching professor of finance at CMU-Q, have recently launched the Q Smart Laboratory, which is designed around big data, data visualization and analytics to provide business intelligence from global accounting, finance and economic data. The laboratory is designed to apply the interdisciplinary skills at CMU-Q to faculty research, student research and teaching projects, some of which are currently in process. The initiative is also providing a link between CMU-Q and the international corporate sector to establish mutually beneficial partnerships with businesses.

Lisa TetraultThe Organization of American Historians has named “The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898” by Lisa Tetrault (right) as the winner of its inaugural Mary Jurich Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s History. The award is given for the previous calendar year’s most original book — one that is path-breaking work or challenges and changes widely accepted scholarly interpretations in the field. In the book, Tetrault, associate professor of history, demonstrates that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and their peers — who are credited with founding, defining and leading the women's suffrage campaign — gradually created and popularized the original story. She details how they created the legend during the second half of the 19th century in response to the movement's internal politics as well as racial politics following the Civil War. Learn more 

Finn Kydland, the Richard P. Simmons Distinguished Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon and a 2004 Nobel Laureate, recently delivered a Dean’s Lecture at Carnegie Mellon Qatar to the university and wider community. His talk, titled “What Ails Europe and the United States,” highlighted the importance of regulations and long-term government policies to ensure economic stability specific to the U.S. and Europe. Kydland, who earned his doctor’s degree in economics from Carnegie Mellon, was in Qatar this spring to teach an undergraduate course on macroeconomics.

CMU-Q information systems student Ameera Tag, together with a multidisciplinary team from several universities, won the SAP Innojam competition in Germany in March. The coding contest challenged participants to learn about SAP technologies while building a prototype solution for a real business need. More than 80 students competed in this year’s competition, which focused on the design of smart cities. The team will head to Barcelona, Spain, to compete against professionals in the SAP DemoJam in November.

Dudley Reynolds, teaching professor of English at CMU-Q, was recently sworn in as the 51st president-elect of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) International Association in Toronto.
TESOL is the largest professional association for teachers of English to speakers of other languages with more than 13,000 members in 165 countries, and 100 globally affiliated associations, including Qatar TESOL. Reynolds was sworn in at the organization’s annual conference — the TESOL International Convention & English Language Expo. He will serve as president-elect until March 2016 and then will be sworn in as the 51st president. Learn more.

Alicia SalazAlicia Salaz (left), reference and instruction librarian at CMU-Q, has been chosen as the ACRL Instruction Section Teaching Methods Committee’s Teaching Librarian of the Month. Several times during the year, the committee selects and interviews a librarian who demonstrates a passion for teaching, innovation and student learning. Learn more.

Chad Schafer has been elected co-chair of the the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Informatics and Statistics Science Collaboration. Starting in 2022, the LSST will digitally image the sky every night for a decade. The massive camera will gather roughly 30 terabytes — or 30,000 gigabytes — each night, creating “big data” for astronomy like never before. To help prepare for the data challenges, Schafer, associate professor of statistics in the Dietrich College, will lead the team to develop new methods to analyze and gain scientific insight from the data collected. Read more.

History Professor Jay D. Aronson and Senior Ethics, History and Public Policy Major Christophe Combemale wrote an opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on how the City of Pittsburgh can balance privacy and public safety. Their suggestions stem from a semester-long project that Aronson led with 10 ethics, history and public policy seniors last semester. At the invitation of City Councilman Dan Gilman (DC’04), the Dietrich College students researched the history of surveillance technology, analyzing how similar cities have implemented different tools and policies and developing recommendations for Pittsburgh. Then, they presented their findings to City Council, Debra Lam, director of the city’s Department of Innovation and Performance, and Pittsburgh’s new Chief of Police Cameron McLay. Read "Keeping an eye on Pittsburgh:We can learn a lot from other cities’ surveillance policies.”

Following their opinion piece questioning the representation of women in the international journal Cognition, Roberta Klatzky, Lori Holt and Marlene Behrmann wrote a blog for the Huffington Post on “Getting Women Into Science-Filled Rooms.” In the piece, Klatzky, Holt and Behrmann describe why they are voicing their opinions about women’s participation in science, concluding, "We on our part will continue fueling the process — in our roles as researchers, mentors, teachers, and advocates, and we will encourage our male and female colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and beyond to do the same.” Klatzky is the Charles J. Queenan Jr. Professor of Psychology; Holt is a professor of psychology; and Behrmann is the George A. and Helen Dunham Cowan Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC). Read the piece