Personal Mention

Deborah Lange, director of strategic initiatives for the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research, received the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP) 2017 William Metcalf Award. The award recognizes engineers who make outstanding contributions to the region, and is one of the highest honors given by the ESWP. Lange was honored at the ESWP’s 133rd Annual Banquet on Feb. 15 at the Westin Convention Center Hotel in Pittsburgh. Throughout her career, Lange has demonstrated a tireless commitment to furthering environmental education and research initiatives. Read more.

Andreas Pfenning, assistant professor in CMU’s Computational Biology Department, is part of an all-star research team that aims to find new ways to translate genetic findings into new therapies for Alzheimer’s disease. As part of an international research team assembled by the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, Pfenning will use computational techniques to potentially identify thousands of genetic sequences that hold therapeutic potential for Alzheimer’s. He also is developing new biological techniques to test the function of those human DNA fragments in the brains of mice. The two-year, $4 million project, Collaboration to Infer Regulatory Circuits and to Uncover Innovative Therapeutic Strategies, or CIRCUITS, includes Pfenning and eight researchers from MIT, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Sheffield and the University of Luebeck. Read more.

Yisong Guo, an assistant professor of chemistry, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation to study three newly discovered enzymes that are known to play a role in our health and aging. One of the most prestigious awards for young faculty, CAREER awards recognize and support those who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through their outstanding research and teaching. Read more.

Joseph B. "Jay" Kadane, the Leonard J. Savage University Professor of Statistics, Emeritus, gave a talk on “Fingerprint Science” at the 69th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences last week. In his talk, Kadane showed how a fingerprint analyst may observe common characteristics between the mark left at a crime scene and a fingerprint on file. However, there is no current scientific basis to estimate the number of people who share these characteristics. In particular, there is no science to support the conclusion that only one person, the person whose fingerprint is on file, could have left the mark. Learn more.