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August 04, 2016

Personal Mention

Bob DammonRobert Dammon, a researcher and professor of financial economics, has been reappointed dean of the Tepper School of Business. In an email to Tepper School faculty and staff, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Farnam Jahanian praised Dammon for his contributions since becoming dean in 2011. "Over the past five years, Bob has demonstrated his strengths and accomplishments as dean of the Tepper School with his leadership on a number of initiatives, including the development of the Tepper Quad, contributing to the establishment of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, the creation of new and innovative educational programs for the Tepper School, and achieving record-setting fundraising in support of faculty and students. Bob also has been actively engaged with the university’s academic leadership on the redesign of a new institutional budget model," Jahanian said. Read the full email.

Baruch FischhoffAn opinion piece by Baruch Fischhoff recently appeared in the Huffington Post. In the piece, Fischhoff argues that collective action is essential to bringing needed attention to climate change. “Natural scientists will need to respect the social sciences, not just assume that more evidence will win the day. Social scientists will need to draw on all relevant results, not just their own specialty. Climate activists will need to test their communications, not just trust their hunches about what people need to hear,” wrote Fischhoff, the Howard Heinz University Professor in the Dietrich College. Read “Climate Talk” on the Huffington Post.

Haixia WangGang LiuSue-mei WuFor the third consecutive summer, Sue-mei Wu, Gang Liu and Haixia Wang (l-r) conducted a workshop to help train more than 30 new teachers from China, who will teach Chinese language and culture in K-12 and college level programs in Pennsylvania. Wu, teaching professor of Chinese Studies, discussed technology-enhanced language teaching to introduce how to integrate new technology in teaching Chinese language and culture in U.S. classrooms. She showcased her CMU OLI Chinese online project, some Chinese language and culture learning modules and her digital storytelling projects. Liu, associate teaching professor of Chinese Studies, talked about cultural misunderstanding and Chinese teaching and learning. His presentation included some demonstrations of Chinese instruction. Wang, an adjunct faculty of Chinese Studies, organized the workshop and helped the new teachers from China get settled in Pittsburgh. The Chinese pedagogy workshop for the University of Pittsburgh’s Confucius Institute was held July 21-29.

Obituary: J. Fletcher Osterle

Fletcher OsterleJ. Fletcher Osterle, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus and former professor and head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, died on July 22. He was 90.  

Osterle graduated from Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School and attended CMU, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1946, a master’s degree in 1949 and a Ph.D. in 1952, all in engineering. Following his years as a student, Osterle joined the CMU faculty and rose through the ranks to become the Theodore Ahrens Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He was chair of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Division for seven years and acting head of the Mechanical Engineering Department from 1985-86.

His research focused on thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, and he published more than 100 technical papers and advised more than 30 Ph.D. candidates in mechanical engineering. He received the Walter D. Hodson Award from the American Society of Lubrication Engineers in 1956, a Carnegie Mellon Alumni Merit Award in 1989, and was named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1993.