2020 - Engineering and Public Policy - College of Engineering

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Take my word for it: Privacy and COVID alert apps can coexist

EPP Professor Lorrie Cranor published an opinion piece in The Hill addressing privacy concerns over new COVID alert apps.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Electricity For All

EPP Assistant Professor Destenie Nock has led the first study to ensure electricity equality in areas like sub-Saharan Africa and “explicitly integrate a stakeholder’s preference towards equality into an electricity planning problem.”

Monday, November 09, 2020

Rubin awarded the 2020 ASME Dixy Lee Ray Award

EPP Professor Edward Rubin has been awarded the 2020 Dixy Lee Ray Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in recognition of his extensive career of achievements and contributions in environmental engineering.

Monday, November 09, 2020

Fischhoff mentioned in Philadelphia Inquirer

EPP Professor Baruch Fischhoff was mentioned in the Philadelphia Inquirer's piece on the challenges of convincing the public to accept a COVID vaccine when it is released.

Monday, November 02, 2020

Sypros Pandis awarded 2021 Vilhelm Bjerknes Medal

EPP Professor Spyros Pandis was announced as the 2021 recipient of the Vilhelm Bjerknes Medal, awarded by the European Geophysical Union. This is EGU’s highest honor awarded for contributions in atmospheric sciences. The medal will be awarded at their next meeting in April 2021.

Monday, November 02, 2020

Cranor featured in The New York Times on Zoom etiquette

EPP Professor Dr. Lorrie Cranor was recently featured in a New York Times article, Digital Hygiene in the Zoom Era. In the piece, Dr. Cranor, and other leading privacy experts, were asked about how we should be conducting ourselves while working from home.

Friday, October 23, 2020

Armanios and Jones' paper highlighted by mayor

EPP Professor Daniel Armanios and EPP PhD student Samuel Jones' paper, Methodological Framework and Feasibility Study to Assess Social Equity Impacts of the Built Environment, was recently given the spotlight by Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Twitter.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Mohan and Muller blog post, "Monetary damages – a better measure of sustainability than emissions?"

In a recently published blog post in PRI, EPP PhD student Aniruddh Mohan and EPP Professor Nick Muller use their paper to argue that what matters to societal welfare is not the physical tonnage of emissions, but the monetary damage caused by them.

Thursday, October 08, 2020

The National Academies COVID-19 Committee releases vaccine report

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released the final report of a consensus study recommending a four-phased equitable allocation framework that the HHS and state, tribal, local, and territorial authorities should adopt in the development of national and local guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine allocation.

Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Democratic vs. Republican energy policy: Does it really make a difference?

One of the biggest differences between the policies of the Democratic and Republican parties in recent years has been their approach to climate change. More specifically, the role of U.S. energy policy in carbon emissions output. EPP Professors Paul Fischbeck and Haibo Zhai tackle these supposed policy differences in their article “U.S. energy policy: Two paths diverge in a wood…does it matter which is taken?"

Friday, September 25, 2020

EPP Faculty and Alums research flows of particulate matter damage in the U.S.

In a new study, EPP PhD alums Brian Sergi (’19) and Inês Azevedo (’09), along with EPP Professor Nick Muller and Steve Davis find that emissions flows across U.S. county lines plays an important role in health damages from air pollution.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Is systemic racism literally built into our cities?

Daniel Armanios and Samuel Jones published a new paper the Journal of Construction and Engineering Management that proposes a way to address biases to ensure that future infrastructure investment doesn’t benefit one group of people at the expense of another.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

3 EPP students selected as ACS Scholars

It has just been announced that 3 Engineering and Public Policy undergraduate students have been selected as ACS Scholars for the 2020-2021 academic year. ACS Scholars are undergraduate seniors who embody Carnegie Mellon’s high standards of academic excellence, volunteerism, leadership and involvement in student organizations, athletics or the arts.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Nock awarded Block Center for Technology and Society grant

EPP Assistant Professor Destenie Nock and CEE’s Corey Harper have received a grant from the Block Center for Technology and Society to explore how autonomous vehicle (AV) transportation systems could lead to greater workforce resilience.

Thursday, September 03, 2020

Is Engineering and Public Policy right for you?

The Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) at Carnegie Mellon University is a unique department that works to solve problems at the interface of technology and society. EPP offers a Master's program (MS) in Engineering and Public Policy, a Master's degree in Engineering & Technology Innovation and Management, and a research-oriented Ph.D. program.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Transportation Engineering

How can transportation engineering help mitigate the effects of the pandemic? What can we learn from the current disruption? Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering Emeritus Chris Hendrickson explores the impacts and lessons from COVID-19 for the transportation engineering profession and how they can help future planning.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Two EPP Ph.D. students awarded Steinbrenner Fellowships to Advance Environmental Research

It has been announced that two EPP Ph.D. students, Andrew Jones, Jr. and Sarah Troise, have been selected as Steinbrenner Research Fellows. The graduate fellowship program provides support to exceptional, second-year Carnegie Mellon students who work on cutting-edge environmental research.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Cutting vehicle emissions and inspections via IoT

A new system designed by Prithvi Acharya, Scott Matthews, and Paul Fischbeck, is using remote data transfers and machine learning could cut vehicle emissions, lower testing costs, and drastically reduce the need for in-person emissions testing.

Friday, August 07, 2020

Fischhoff interviewed by the WHO on the importance of testing messages

EPP Professor Baruch Fischhoff was interviewed by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the importance of crafting clear and easy to understand messages to the public about the pandemic. Fischhoff, a noted psychologist and decision scientist, has been studying risk and human behavior since the 1970s and is an expert in the field.

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Adams co-authors paper that calls for stricter air-quality standards

EPP Department Head Peter Adams is one of the co-authors on a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine that argues against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's current stance on air pollution standards for fine particulate matter.

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Samaras featured in Forbes

EPP Associate Professor Costa Samaras was recently featured in Forbes in their article covering the carbon intensity of the U.S. power sector in 2019.

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Williams to co-chair Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Executive Director and Distinguished Service Professor of the Engineering and Technology Innovation Management program (ETIM) at Carnegie Mellon University, Jimmy Williams, will serve as the co-chair for The Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Texas A&M University.

Friday, July 10, 2020

Whitefoot wins 2020 George Tallman Ladd Research Award

Katie Whitefoot has been selected as one of two winners of this year’s George Tallman Ladd Research Award. The G.T. Ladd Award is made to a faculty member within the College of Engineering in recognition of outstanding research and professional accomplishments and potential.

Thursday, July 09, 2020

Sirbu discusses free internet during COVID-19

EPP Professor Marvin Sirbu recently discussed the impacts of free internet services during COVID-19 with Jasmine Garsd of the Marketplace Morning Report. Sirbu says that ending these free services prematurely may cause additional problems for already troubled consumers.

Thursday, July 02, 2020

Cranor featured in The Morning Consult on data privacy

EPP Professor, and director of CyLab Security and Privacy Institute, Lorrie Cranor was recently featured in The Morning Consult in the article covering new data privacy concerns in the wake of contact tracing of COVID cases.

Thursday, July 02, 2020

Samaras featured in Gizmodo

EPP Associate Professor Costa Samaras was recently featured in Gizmodo's article, California Will Require Most Trucks Sold in the State to be Electric by 2035. In California, trucks won’t be able to pollute the air and planet for much longer. The state is approving the nation’s first-of-its-kind rule for truck manufacturers on Thursday. The goal? To make more electric trucks.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Costa Samaras quoted on environmental impact of grocery trips

EPP Associate Professor Costa Samaras was recently quoted in Bloomberg in their article covering the environmental impacts of a grocery store trip.

Monday, June 29, 2020

Haibo Zhai's paper included on list of most cited articles

A research paper co-authored by EPP Associate Research Professor Haibo Zhai has been included on the list of the most cited International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control articles published since 2017.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Shaping the Research That Informs Inclusive Policy

Ironman grad student Octavio Mesner combines machine learning, statistics and engineering to increase representation for underserved populations.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

What Startups and Innovators Need to Know

EPP Professor and Scott Institute Director Jay Whitacre joined experts from Babst Calland for an informative discussion regarding what startups need to know about intellectual property (IP) and patent processes as they grow their businesses.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Muller and other energy systems experts offer insights on infrastructure planning

Earlier this month, three energy experts, including EPP Professor Nick Muller, spoke with the Scott Institute community on how social, environmental and technical resiliency frameworks can better prepare our energy systems as we begin to plan for the recovery phases of COVID-19.

Monday, June 08, 2020

Electricity for all

EPP Assistant Professor Destenie Nock recently led a study outlining a more equitable model of electricity planning in developing regions like Liberia.

Friday, June 05, 2020

Air pollution, simplified

Researchers from CMU’s College of Engineering, including EPP Interim Department Head Peter Adams and EPP Professor Nick Muller, are part of a collaboration that has created easy-to-use tools to estimate the societal costs of air pollution.

Thursday, June 04, 2020

Cranor speaks with the Post-Gazette about privacy concerns of contact tracing apps

For many Americans, it’s only a matter of weeks before the cell phones in their pockets start measuring how close they’ve come to COVID-19. But advocates, scientists, and researchers worry about the privacy concerns of contact tracing apps.

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Morgan featured in The New York Times

Granger Morgan was quoted in The New York Times on the Trump administration’s relationship with science.

Monday, May 04, 2020

Giving Tuesday Now

Here at Carnegie Mellon University, and in EPP, we believe in the power of human connection. On Giving Tuesday Now, we’re coming together again to empower our students with the resources to learn and grow.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Dewitt and Fischhoff publish op-ed in The Ottawa Citizen

Baruch Fischhoff, a professor in EPP, and Barry Dewitt, a post-doctoral fellow in EPP, wrote an op-ed in The Ottawa Citizen about making policy recommendations when evidence is uncertain and changing.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Can the public be trusted in a pandemic?

It's easy to be cynical in the midst of a crisis, but your fellow humans might surprise you. As EPP's Baruch Fischhoff sees it, humans are more level-headed than the breathless news reports and social media posts about “covidiots” would suggest.

Friday, April 17, 2020

EPP alum Tom Lauwers creating online resources for K-12 students

When COVID-19 shifted education online, EPP alum Tom Lauwers ('03) and Bird Brain Technologies LLC. responded by creating online resources for K-12 students to do creative robotics at home.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

EPP PhD student Patrick Funk making 3-D printed masks

Current EPP Ph.D. student Patrick Funk wanted to help hospitals in dire need of masks due to COVID-19, so he's printing them using polymer plastic 3-D printers, and teaching others to do the same.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Karen Clay speaks with State Impact about COVID-19 and air pollution

Can air pollution make coronavirus worse? Scientists say yes — possibly in both cases and severity. A few years ago, EPP courtesy professor Karen Clay and two other scientists studied the death rates for the 1918 flu pandemic in the U.S. They were interested in whether more people died in cities with high levels of air pollution than those in cities with cleaner air.

Monday, March 30, 2020

Q&A with Kathleen Carley on the spread of coronavirus disinformation

Amid the global coronavirus pandemic, disinformation about the situation has been spreading at lightning speeds on social media. EPP's Kathleen Carley sits down with CyLab to answer questions regarding coronavirus news and how not to fall for disinformation.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Baruch Fischhoff speaks with the LA Times

EPP's Baruch Fischhoff spoke with the LA Times to discuss why you should stop obsessing about coronavirus news, and how to do it. Fischhoff's advice for news/media intake during coronavirus: limit sources of news to just a few outlets (~3) and a trusted local public health agency. Check once a day.