Carnegie Mellon University

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October 29, 2015

Personal Mention

Burton HollifieldBurton Hollifield, the PNC Professor of Finance, has been appointed head of the undergraduate business administration program at the Tepper School of Business. Hollifield has taught financial economics at the undergraduate, master’s and doctorate levels at the Tepper School since 1998, specializing in market microstructure, asset pricing, financial intermediation and empirical methods. He has been presented with several teaching awards, including the Tepper School of Business Teaching Award in the Undergraduate Business Administration program and the 2009 George Leland Bach Teaching Award in the MBA Program. “Along with being an outstanding educator and researcher, Burton Hollifield is a highly involved faculty member who has demonstrated a strong and unwavering commitment to our students over the years,” said Robert Dammon, dean of the Tepper School. In this newly created position, Hollifield will provide strategic direction for the program and implement the newly adopted changes recommended by the curriculum committee that he co-chaired. He also will facilitate the strategic growth of the program while maintaining its strong student services and advising component. Find out more.

Rebecca NugentRebecca Nugent, teaching professor of statistics, received the Waller Education Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA). Named for Ray Waller, the retired executive director of the ASA, and his wife Carolyn, the award honors individuals for innovation in the instruction of elementary statistics. Nugent received CMU's Ryan Award for Mertitorious Teaching last spring.

Kathryn RoederKathryn Roeder, professor of statistics and computational biology, is participating in a scientific advisory panel that will convene in November to study the “female protective effect,” one potential explanation for the lower incidence of autism in females. Launched by the Autism Science Foundation (ASF), the Autism Sisters Project will study unaffected sisters of individuals with autism. The goal of the initiative is to build a genetic database that researchers can use to discover how to harness the protective factor to help people with autism of both sexes. Find out more.

Kevin GonzalezKevin González, assistant professor of English, is featured in Ploughshares Solos Omnibus Volume 3. His longform story, “Villa Bohème,” will appear in the third print compilation of the series, based out of Emerson College in Boston. Set at a Puerto Rican motel, the story centers on Tito, the 14-year-old son of the motel’s owner, who “begins to make his way into adulthood, serving drinks, reading Judy Blume books in secret, fantasizing about the sexy bartender and navigating the heady atmosphere of Puerto Rican politics.” Read more.

Kiron SkinnerKiron Skinner, director of the Institute of Politics and Strategy in the Dietrich College, recently co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post. The piece, titled “What Bill O’Reilly’s new book on Ronald Reagan gets wrong about Ronald Reagan” dismantles common misconceptions about Reagan’s presidency. Read the op-ed. Skinner is a foreign policy adviser for Republican presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul.

Reeja JayanAssistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Reeja Jayan presented her research on molecular scale materials engineering for energy storage at the General Motors Battery Systems Group earlier this week. Her talk, titled "Molecular Scale Engineering of Hybrid Thin Film Materials for Energy Storage," explored two novel approaches to engineer ceramic and polymeric thin film materials. Jayan holds a courtesy appointment in Materials Science and Engineering and runs the Jayan Lab.

Ibrahim SoltanCarnegie Mellon in Qatar’s Ibrahim Soltan, a junior majoring in information systems, was a member of the first-place team at the SAP Innojam in Germany. The team’s project was a Web application called "Learn and Earn" that allows students to earn money as they help companies address innovation challenges. “Learn and Earn” was developed during the competition’s 32-hour hackathon. The team placed first among teams made up of 80 students from 14 countries. The winning team now advances to compete in the worldwide SAP Innojam in Barcelona, Spain, in November. Winning teams will earn a spot to pitch their ideas to 5,000 investors and innovators at the SAP TechEd Conference that follows the competition.

Dylan RoofPriya KambhamMechanical engineering sophomore Dylan Roof (left) has joined architecture doctoral candidate Priya Kambham (right) on the leaderboard in the first three weeks of the 2015 Knovel Academic Challenge. Roof answered all questions correctly in weeks one and three, while Kambham continues her unbroken winning streak for the first three weeks. Knovel is a digital library resource containing hundreds of reference books to help users solve engineering and science problems. An annual competition, the 2015 Knovel Academic Challenge ends Oct. 31.