Personal Mention
Sevin Yeltekin and Alan Scheller-Wolf have been named senior associate deans at the Tepper School of Business, effective Sept. 1. Yeltekin, a professor of economics, has been appointed senior associate dean of education. Scheller-Wolf, the Richard M. Cyert Professor of Operations Management and head of the Ph.D. program, has been appointed senior associate dean of faculty and research.
- Yeltekin joined the Tepper School in 2005 and is well-known for her research in economic areas that span computational methods, fiscal policy design and economic inequality. She received the George Leland Bach Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014 and is a long-time member fo the Tepper School's Masters Educational Affairs Committee. In her new role, she will be a key contributor in advancing the academic and student experience for undergraduate and graduate programs.
- Scheller-Wolf, a member of the Tepper School since 1996, is an expert in queuing theory and stochastic processes and is a prolific researcher having produced 23 refereed publications in the last four years. He has been head of the Ph.D. program since 2011 and has been an influential leader on behalf of doctoral students. In his new role, he will work with faculty on vital initiatives that further the Tepper School’s research mission and reputation.
Diana Parno, assistant research professor in the Department of Physics, is a member of the COHERENT Experiment at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), which has detected and measured the coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos off of nuclei, a process that is predicted by the Standard Model of physics, but had never before been seen. Parno worked on the team that developed the simulation program that calculates the number of neutrinos that pass through the SNS’s detectors. Their findings, published in Science, provide scientists with a fingerprint for neutrino-nucleus reactions that will help them better understand neutrinos and the dynamics of neutron star formation and supernovae explosions. It also could provide a limiting factor for future experimental dark matter searches.
Noa Marom, a faculty member in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, has received a $150,000 New Investigator grant from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation to help fund her project on “Singlet Fission: Deriving Fundamental Insights from Computation.” Since 2013, the foundation, which is committed to improving human life through scientific research, has awarded 43 grants totaling $9.1 million. Grants in the New Investigator category are awarded to scientists pursuing independent research at the beginning of their careers as they seek to transform the future of science.
Alumnus Dan Rossi, a database administrator at CMU for 13 years, died Aug. 3. He was 50.
Rossi, who graduated in 1994 with a mechanical engineering degree, was admired by friends and colleagues for his intelligence, adventurous spirit, humor and love of skydiving, mountain climbing and woodworking, all of which he accomplished despite having lost his vision as a child. Many recall Rossi, who made over 300 skydiving jumps, training for trips to Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest by climbing the stairs during lunch.
“Dan was much admired for his fearless approach to living life,” said Mary Moore, an assistant director at the Cyert Center for Early Education. “But mostly, he will be remembered as a devoted family man whose unique and positive outlook impacted the lives of all who knew him.”