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April 27, 2017

Personal Mention

Kathryn RoederKathyrn Roeder is part of a team that received a $7 million National Institutes of Health grant for autism genetics research. The award will extend the work of the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC) through 2022. Established in 2010, the ASC collects and shares samples and genetic data from individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Roeder is professor of statistics and computational biology. Learn more.

Matteo PozziThe National Science Foundation has given Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Matteo Pozzi a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to suggest strategies that are optimal for collecting information and for taking actions. The CAREER Award is one of the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research and education. Through integrating models and computational approaches, Pozzi said he hopes to optimize infrastructure operation and maintenance, and the continued collection of information. As Pozzi establishes and refines his algorithms, he also will develop methods to teach infrastructure planning and analysis. Partnering with CMU’s Summer Engineering Experience for Girls program, Pozzi plans to build a simulation game in which students act as virtual infrastructure managers who must develop, test and revise decision-making strategies in the face of persistent risk and uncertainty. Find out more.

Dena Haritos TsamitisDena Haritos Tsamitis, director of CMU's Information Networking Institute and founding director of education, training and outreach at CyLab, is the first recipient of the newly established Barbara Lazarus Professorship in Information Networking. Carnegie Mellon created the professorship to celebrate the legacy of Barbara Lazarus, associate provost for academic affairs, teacher, scholar and beloved member of the Carnegie Mellon community from 1985 to 2003. A nationally and internationally known scholar and activist, Lazarus worked tirelessly for the equity of women in the workplace, and the well-being and flourishing of graduate students and junior faculty at the university. With over a decade of work fostering diversity at the INI, including the founding of Women@INI in 2005, Tsamitis exemplifies Lazarus' commitment to promoting equality and inclusion.

Tzahi Cohen-KarniTzahi Cohen-Karni, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering, recently was awarded the Office of Naval Research’s Young Investigator Award, which supports scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for creative research early in their career. Cohen-Karni and researchers in his lab are investigating the communication of neurons, basic units of the brain that transmit information to other nerve, muscle or gland cells, at the nanoscale level. While many approaches exist for studying the electrophysiological signals of the brain, Cohen-Karni will take an approach that both complements and improves current methods. Learn more.