Highlights of President Biden's Visit to CMU

Dear Members of the Carnegie Mellon University Community:

Welcome to the spring term’s first day of in-person classes!   

I wish to thank you all for your continued flexibility as we started the semester remotely for the first two weeks. Our community’s ability to manage this ongoing pandemic is dependent on our continued vigilance and adherence to our mitigation protocols and I am grateful for your commitment to this effort. Thanks to this spirit of collaboration, I am looking forward to a fun, fulfilling and productive semester ahead!

I am also filled with optimism following President Joe Biden’s visit to CMU last Friday, and I am writing to share a few details of this important event. (For more details and photos from the visit, I invite you to read our news story.) 

President Biden chose our Mill 19 facility at Hazelwood Green as the backdrop for his national address on strengthening our country’s supply chains and revitalizing American manufacturing. During his remarks, he stressed the importance of investing in U.S. innovation, and highlighted the impact of CMU’s research and partnerships in advanced manufacturing, robotics, and artificial intelligence. In addition to President Biden, speakers at the event included U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Senator Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, United Steelworkers representative JoJo Burgess, and myself. 

The President and several speakers also referenced the collapse of the nearby Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh as indicative of the nation’s need for investment in critical infrastructure. We are grateful to the first responders who were on the scene of the collapse, and our thoughts continue to be with our neighbors who were injured and members of the community who are being impacted by the temporary loss of this vital roadway. 

In his remarks, President Biden highlighted Mill 19’s innovative environment. “Generations ago, Mill 19 used to roll out 10-inch steel bars. Today, it rolls out the latest innovations in advanced manufacturing, robotics, 3D printing and artificial intelligence.”

Before his nationally televised remarks, I had the honor of welcoming President Biden to Mill 19 alongside CMU student leaders Divyansh Kaushik, a doctoral candidate in the School of Computer Science and the president of CMU’s Graduate Student Assembly, and Alexis Ozimok, a senior studying International Relations and Politics and CMU’s student body president. President Biden then spent time with several CMU faculty and students, as they presented demonstrations in additive manufacturing, robotics, and safe worker-robot collaboration. He also engaged with leaders of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) nonprofit at Mill 19 as well as key community partners.

Professor Sneha Prabha Narra and CMU doctoral student William Frieden Templeton discuss with President Joe Biden a process in which tiny weld beads are deposited layer-by-layer to fabricate much larger parts.

I wish to express my gratitude to the entire CMU team that supported this event from start to finish. In addition to Divyansh, Alexis and the CMU students who represented our community so well, I would like to thank Sandra DeVincent Wolf, executive director of the Manufacturing Futures Institute, for guiding President Biden through our facilities and to the following faculty and students who showcased their innovations: Changliu Liu, assistant professor of Robotics; Sneha Prabha Narra, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering; Rui Chen and Ruixuan Liu, Ph.D. students in Robotics; and William Frieden Templeton, Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering. Finally, hosting a presidential visit requires intense preparation and collaboration, and I am grateful to the many CMU staff members who worked tirelessly on event logistics, government relations, communications, public safety, and more. 

The fact that U.S. presidents and other national and international elected officials consistently select CMU as the setting for speeches of national importance is a powerful endorsement of Carnegie Mellon’s role as a wellspring of innovation and talent. This visit was an exciting prelude for our return to in-person teaching and learning – and I hope you are feeling as inspired and proud as I am for all that lies ahead for Carnegie Mellon University! 

Wishing you a great semester, 

Farnam Jahanian
President
Henry L. Hillman’s President’s Chair