Personal Mention
Ramayya Krishnan, dean of the Heinz College, will talk big data at the inaugural KL Converge Conference in Kuala Lumpur this weekend. The three-day event, which aims to be a new platform for multimedia and communications in Asia, is expecting to attract more than 20,000 visitors as well as the ministers from nine ASEAN countries and India. Krishnan will be presenting a briefing to the ASEAN leaders about big data and its value to economic development as well as how to identify the tech enablers driving innovation. He also will be speaking to the entire conference with his keynote speech “All Data Big and Small; Data Analytics and You,” which looks at how to enable technological advances through policy and innovation.
Ignacio Grossmann, the Rudolph R. and Florence Dean University Professor of Chemical Engineering, recently gave the inaugural CAPEC-PROCESS Lecture for 2014 at the Computer-Aided Process-Product Engineering Center (CAPEC) at the Technical University of Denmark. Grossmann’s lecture, titled "The Role of Process Systems Engineering in Chemical Engineering," provided an overview of the nature of Process Systems Engineering (PSE), discussed current trends in the field, and showed how PSE relates to chemical engineering and how its application can help industries to innovate and remain competitive into the future. Read more.
Andy Gellman, the Lord Professor of Chemical Engineering, gave a plenary lecture titled "Surface Chemistry of Multicomponent Thin Films Spanning Composition Space" at the 17th International Conference on Solid Films and Surfaces in Rio de Janeiro. Learn more about the conference.
Tom Joyce (S'88, HNZ'94), long-time staff member of Computing Services, will be leaving Carnegie Mellon after almost 30 years of service to the university. Joyce, who has held numerous positions in Computing Services, will be getting married on Oct. 11 and relocating to West Virginia. Four of his siblings also are CMU alumni: Glenn (S'85), Maureen Burruss (DC'90), Dan (DC'92) and Beth (E’93). His last day at CMU will be Friday, Oct. 3.
In a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Baruch Fischhoff, Julie Downs, Alex Davis and Gabrielle Wong-Parodi outline the need for better science communication; how to communicate scientific uncertainty; how to use narratives to communicate science effectively; and the benefit of using principles of behavioral science to communicate. Fischhoff, the Howard Heinz University Professor of Social and Decision Sciences and Engineering and Public Policy (EPP), co-wrote the issue's introduction and, along with Davis, a research scientist in EPP, wrote a paper on "Communicating Scientific Uncertainty." Downs, associate researcher in social and decision sciences, authored a paper on "Prescriptive Scientific Narratives for Communicating Usable Science." Wong-Parodi of EPP, along with Ben Strauss of Climate Central, contributed a paper titled "Team Science for Science Communication." Learn more.