Personal Mention

The National Science Foundation has awarded Wolfgang Gatterbauer a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for his research proposal to develop novel methods to draw conclusions from uncertain and inconsistent data. Gatterbauer, an assistant professor of business technologies at the Tepper School of Business with a courtesy appointment in the School of Computer Science, received a five-year, $550,000 award for the cross-campus project titled "Scaling approximate inference and approximation-aware learning." The CAREER Award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research and teaching.  Find out more.

Linda Babcock was at the White House this past Tuesday for a series of events surrounding Equal Pay Day. Among other activities, Babcock participated in a panel discussion on Gender Diversity and Pay Equity. Babcock, the James M. Walton Professor of Economics and head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, focuses on negotiations and dispute resolution research with specific attention to gender differences in negotiation and how people react when women negotiate. She also has an appointment in the Heinz College.

Kiron Skinner, director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy in the Dietrich College, has been appointed co-chair of the Security and Exception Working Group of the Social Science Research Council’s Anxieties of Democracy Initiative. The Anxieties of Democracy program is a major new initiative for the council and was developed through a set of convenings of leading thinkers from a range of fields. Skinner will co-lead the working group with NYU’s Samuel Issacharoff. Learn more. 

Ph.D. student Ania Jaroszewicz has received one of 30 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans this year. Chosen from 1,443 applicants, Jaroszewicz was selected for her potential to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture and academics. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in behavioral decision research in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences. The Soros Fellowships for New Americans, considered a premier graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants, provides fellows with up to $90,000 for graduate education. Jaroszewicz was born in California and is the daughter of Polish immigrants. In 2014, Jaroszewicz came to CMU, where she hopes to combine behavioral decision research with her experiences to help combat poverty. In particular, her goal is to use behavioral economics to design psychologically informed poverty-alleviation and consumer protection policies. Find out more.

Sophomore mathematical sciences major Joshua Brakensiek has received a Barry Goldwater Scholarship to support his pursuit of a research career in mathematics and theoretical computer science. He is one of 252 college sophomores and juniors nationwide chosen from 1,150 nominations for the 2015-2016 academic year. During his first two years at Carnegie Mellon, Brakensiek has taken full advantage of the Knaster-McWilliams Scholars Program's research opportunities and the university's interdisciplinary environment, conducting research with faculty working in computer science, statistics and cosmology. Brakensiek also was a member of the CMU team that placed second in the 2015 Mathematical Association of America's William Lowell Putnam Competition, the definitive mathematics competition for undergraduate students in North America. He placed among the top 16 of all 4,275 students who took the Putnam test and received the highest score out of the 206 CMU students who participated in the competition. Find out more.

Alumnus Nikhil Balram, an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded the 2016 Otto Schade Prize from the Society for Information Display. The Otto Schade Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the functional performance and/or image quality of information displays. Balram was awarded the prize “for his outstanding contributions to image, video, and display processing technology, and for development of objective image-quality benchmarking methodology that helped bring world-class image quality to mainstream consumer displays.” As President and CEO of Ricoh Innovations Corp., a Silicon Valley company that creates new technologies and businesses based on advanced information technology for Ricoh Company Ltd., he has had significant experience in the industry pursuing his goal — creating the best image for the viewer. His contributions have been implemented across military, professional and consumer products, and he is responsible for bringing high-end quality video to mainstream displays. Find out more.

SCS Honors Outstanding Faculty and Staff

The School of Computer Science (SCS) honored outstanding faculty and staff members last week during its annual Founder’s Day Ceremony in Rashid Auditorium. It was the fifth year for the event and the second to be hosted by Dean Andrew Moore.

Kayvon Fatahalian, assistant teaching professor in the Computer Science Department (CSD), was the winner of the Joel and Ruth Spira Teaching Award, sponsored by Lutron Electronics Co. of Coopersburg, Pa., in honor of the company’s founders and the inventor of the electronic dimmer switch.

Robert Kraut and Aniket Kittur, professors in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, along with former students Moira Burke, Yuqing Ren and Haiyi Zhu, won the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence for their work on "Evidence-based Design of Online Communities."

Ryan O'Donnell, associate professor in the CSD, won the Herbert Simon Award for Teaching Excellence in Computer Science.

Monika De Reno, Mike Boydos and Bernadette Dayak of the Institute for Software Research were recognized for Outstanding Teamwork.

Marilyn Walgora, administrative assistant for the CSD, and Walter Schearer, associate dean for Finance and Administration in the SCS Dean's Office, won awards for Outstanding Staff.

George Darakos, associate director for Corporate Relations, received the Citizenship Award.

Deborah Zalewski, senior associate business manager in the Robotics Institute, was honored for Sustained Excellence.

Royal Harvard, receiving coordinator for SCS Computing Facilities, won the Individual Dedication Award.

Christina Melucci, administrative coordinator for the Languate Technologies Institute, and Melissa Tetrick, business manager for Computational Biology, were named Rookies of the Year.