Personal Mention

Jim Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English, wrote and co-produced “The End of Blessings,” a short film based on his poem of the same name. It will premiere at the 2015 Three Rivers Film Festival this Saturday, Nov. 14. “The End of Blessings” follows an African-American cyclist on his weekly Sunday ride, when he regularly passes an older Italian couple sitting on their porch after church. The nuanced interactions among the three individuals form the heart of the story, which was filmed in Polish Hill and inspired by Daniels’ own bike rides through Oakland. Find out more. 

Janet Madelle Feindel, a tenured full professor of Voice/Alexander Technique in the School of Drama, is voice and Alexander coaching at the Stratford Festival at the Birmingham Conservatory in Canada. She presented at the Alexander Technique International Conference in Philadelphia and is invited to present at the ACT 16 Conference in NYC in January 2016, a conference dedicated to the interface of Alexander Technique and acting techniques. This year's theme is classical text and Feindel's workshop, "Exploring Bawdy/Body in Shakespeare," is featured.

Alex John London, professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Ethics and Philosophy, spoke earlier this week at a public workshop titled “Clinical Trial Designs for Infectious Diseases,” presented by the Food and Drug Administration in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The workshop, held in Bethesda, Md., addressed the scientific, ethical and practical issues considered in the choice of specific trial designs for vaccines and therapeutic products. Learn more about the workshop. 
This workshop followed London’s opening keynote address at the 15th International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) annual meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. He delivered the keynote, “Beyond Protection: The Integrity of Science as a Fundamental Ethical Concern,” on Oct. 28. Find out more about the meeting. 

Dudley Reynolds, teaching professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, presented a keynote address to an audience of 500 teachers at the TESOL Kuwait Conference last Saturday, Nov. 7. “What Shape is Your Teaching In? Taking Stock and Making Plans in an Age of Innovation” opened the final day of the three-day conference. Reynolds is president-elect of the TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) International Association. Find out more.

Albert Presto, an assistant research professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to do a comprehensive study of the variation in pollutant emissions within one city — starting with Pittsburgh. Presto and his team of graduate students will collect stationary and mobile data. With an established base station taking atmospheric samples year-round, they also will take samples and measurements using the Mobile Air Quality Labs: vans that have been outfitted with sampling equipment to take atmospheric readings while driving. “The way the research is designed is to look at different case studies,” says Presto. “One case study is near a road, one has an industrial influence and one is an urban to rural transect, where we would start way to the west of the city, drive all the way through the city and go out to the east. It’s not that we want to study Pittsburgh to death; the idea is to use Pittsburgh as a sort of laboratory.” Find out more.

Norman Bier wrote a paper for Biomedical Computation Review in which he outlines how CMU’s learning engineering approach can be applied to develop technology-enhanced learning tools and courses in bioinformatics, biomedical data science and related fields. Bier is director of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) and executive director of the Simon Initiative. Read "Engineering the Learning Process: Leveraging Science and Technology for Effective Instruction.” 

Emily Lindsay, a Ph.D. student in psychology, has been selected as a recipient of the 2015 American Psychological Association (APA) Dissertation Research Award. The Dissertation Research Award program assists doctoral students of psychology with research costs. Lindsay will use the $1,000 grant to continue studying mindfulness meditation and its relationship to improved mental and physical health. Find out more about her research.

Carnegie Mellon doctoral student Hassan Albalawi beat the competition in the design episode of Stars of Science, landing him in the finale. 

Hassan delivered a convincing defense of his EEG Cap Analyzer device, dubbed “Wakecap,” which is designed to detect and warn for drowsiness. His hard hat model would protect construction workers, for whom alertness is paramount for safety. The live finale will air on MBC4 on Nov. 20. Find out more.