Carnegie Mellon University

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May 30, 2013

Personal Mention

Carnegie Mellon women’s tennis player Katie Cecil, a junior from Huntington Beach, Calif., earned All-America honors at the NCAA Division III Championships at Kalamazoo, Mich., last week, for advancing to the quarterfinals. After winning her first two matches in straight sets, she was defeated by second-seed Lok-Sze Leung of Middlebury College. Cecil ended the season with a 16-8 record. Earlier last week, Cecil was awarded the NCAA Division III national ITA Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship.  She also was CMU’s first recipient of the Elite 89 Award, an award founded by the NCAA that recognizes the national championship participant with the highest cumulative grade-point average. Cecil, a neuroscience major, carries a perfect 4.0 GPA. In two years at CMU since transferring from Tulane University, she has won 35 singles matches and 36 doubles matches.

Lieutenant Timothy Leonardi (TPR'13) was selected from more than 300 instructors in the United States as the Most Outstanding U.S. Navy NROTC (Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps) Instructor in 2012 by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). Leonardi serves as acting executive officer for the NROTC at CMU. He is also a senior class adviser and mentor to students in addition to his duties as an E2C-Hawkeye naval flight officer. Read the full story.

On Monday, June 3, Tim Verstynen will give a talk on "The Living Dead Brain: What Human Brains Teach Us About Zombie Minds" at the Carnegie Science Center. Verstynen is an assistant professor of psychology and member of the Center of the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) in the Dietrich College. For more information, visit http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/programs/adult-programs-cafe-sci/.

Candace Thille, who since 2002 has been the principal investigator of Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI), has accepted a faculty appointment at Stanford University. The OLI offers free, innovative online courses designed to improve the learning process by using software that adapts to the individual needs of students. “It’s kind of like when you graduate a Ph.D. student who you’ve watched develop — you have to be okay with letting them go,” Provost and Executive Vice President Mark Kamlet told Inside Higher Ed. “We view her as an emissary of our view of the importance of science of learning, about thinking how to improve education, and we view this as another institution making a statement about the importance of that way of looking at things. And not just any other institution, but Stanford.” Read the full story in Inside Higher Ed.

Obituary: Steven Klepper

Steven Klepper, the Arthur Arton Hamerschlag Professor of Economics and Social Science, died Monday, May 27, at age 64. A renowned teacher and researcher, Klepper's pioneering work integrated elements of traditional economic models with evolutionary theory, bridging gaps between the study of entrepreneurship and mainstream economics.

"Steven Klepper was a brilliant researcher. His work challenged generations of young economists and entrepreneurs to look beyond traditional assumptions. He was an equally devoted educator and countless students were inspired by his introductory course, which became known as 'Kleppernomics.' His contributions were astounding, and he leaves behind a lasting legacy," said CMU Provost and Executive Vice President Mark S. Kamlet.

Read the full obituary.