CMU Celebrates Decade in Doha

Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar campus opened in 2004 with 41 students and two academic programs. Next Tuesday, March 18, 400 students in five academic programs, faculty and staff will celebrate the campus’ 10th-year anniversary with an hour-long celebration highlighting campus achievements, and including live music, videos and speeches by President Subra Suresh, CMU-Q Dean Ilker Baybars, a current student and alumna.

The celebration will be webcast live beginning at noon (EDT).

Gloria Khoury, assistant dean for student affairs at CMU-Q, is one of several faculty and staff who were there at the very beginning and who are still at the campus today.

The first faculty and staff had to "jump in with both feet and get to work," Khoury recalled."We always call the first class the pioneers, but I think we felt like we were pioneers too."

"I remember standing nervously at the Ritz Carlton with the dean, and then the students started to arrive one-by-one with their families. We said the first 'hellos' and gave the first handshakes, and that to me was the moment when it all became real," Khoury said.

Related Links: View the CMU-Q timeline | Watch the webcast | Read about CMU's Pioneers in Qatar

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Social Media and the Mexican Drug Wars

The recent arrest of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has cast the spotlight on the Mexican drug cartels and the violence associated with them. But, what is less talked about, is how over the past decade increased access to the Internet, cellphones and other digital media has drastically changed the landscape of the drug wars in Mexico.

In a new article published in "Latin American Perspectives," Paul Eiss examines how both sides of the drug war — the cartel operatives as well as government and security forces — have used and responded to digital and social media. Eiss, associate professor of anthropology and history in the Dietrich College and director of the Center for the Arts in Society, explores the nature and implications of what he calls the "narcomedia," forms of digital messaging that have become central elements of, and even motivations for, the horrific acts of violence that have become commonplace in Mexico.

Related Links: Latin American Perspectives | Paul Eiss | Center for the Arts in Society | The Narcomedia: A Reader's Guide | Read the release

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EQT Fund Created for Energy, Environmental Research

The EQT Foundation, the charitable arm of the EQT Corporation, has announced a $1 million gift over a five-year period to support innovative ideas through the newly announced ProSEED seed-funding grant program at Carnegie Mellon.

The EQT Foundation’s gift will sponsor university-wide seed grants through ProSEED for basic research, technology development, computational modeling and simulation, and energy policy in a number of closely interconnected theme areas that encompass energy exploration, extraction and use, the environment, water and related topics, particularly those dealing with natural gas.

"This inaugural gift from the EQT Foundation to support seed funding through ProSEED will enable our innovative faculty and students to develop new approaches that address important technological and societal issues," said CMU President Subra Suresh.

Related Links: ProSEED | EQT Foundation | EQT Corporation