Personal Mention

After 30 years of service to the international research community, Michael Levine and Ralph Roskies (l-r), founders of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), will be stepping down as the center’s co-directors this year. Roskies and Levine teamed up with Jim Kasdorf of Westinghouse (also now retiring) to receive a grant from the National Science Foundation to create a supercomputing center in Pittsburgh in 1986. For three decades, it has served as a top high-performance computing and networking center, providing university, government and industrial researchers with access to many of the most powerful systems available by working with leading vendors to enhance state-of-the-art high-performance computing. The PSC has grown to house a staff of over 70, attracted over $600 million in external funding, and provided and supported extraordinary scientific achievements, making it a significant contributor to CMU, the University of Pittsburgh, the region, the country and the international high-performance computing community. A search committee for their successors is being formed. Read more in a letter to CMU and Pitt faculty from CMU Provost and Chief Academic Officer Farnam Jahanian and Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Patricia Beeson.

New research from CMU’s George Loewenstein (left) and Julie Downs (right), and Eric M. Van Epps, a 2015 CMU alumnus who is a post-doctoral researcher at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that people choose higher-calorie meals when ordering immediately before eating and lower-calorie meals when orders are placed an hour or more in advance. Loewenstein and Downs conducted two field studies examining online lunch orders using an onsite corporate cafeteria. Loewenstein is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology and Downs is an associate research professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences. Read more about the study’s findings.

Edward Kennedy was one of five statisticians selected to present their research for the Young Statisticians Showcase during the International Biometric Conference in Victoria, B.C. More than 50 individuals submitted papers for review. The winning research papers were chosen based on clarity, innovation, methodology and application. An incoming assistant professor of statistics, Kennedy presented a paper titled “Semiparametric estimation of the local instrumental variable curve.” Read more about the conference.

LaShawnda Thomas, senior director of Accounting & Financial Reporting, graduated from Leadership Pittsburgh (LP) last month. LP is a 10-month program for established senior-level leaders and is designed to examine critical community issues, enhance civic-engagement, and empower participants to impact their business and the regional agenda at a leadership level. Find out more about Leadership Pittsburgh.