Carnegie Mellon University

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April 24, 2014

Personal Mention

Edmund M. Clarke and Mark Kryder will receive Franklin Institute awards today (April 24) in Philadelphia. For nearly 200 years, The Franklin Institute has honored the greatest minds in science, engineering, technology and business, recognizing brilliant men and women from around the world to preserve Benjamin Franklin's legacy. The list of Franklin Institute Laureates reads like a "Who's Who" in the history of science.

  • Clarke, the FORE Systems University Professor of Computer Science and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will receive the 2014 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. He is being honored "for his leading role in the conception and development of techniques for automatically verifying the correctness of a broad array of computer systems, including those found in transportation, communications and medicine." 
  • Kryder, University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will receive the 2014 Benjamin Frankling Medal in Electrical Engineering. He is being recognized "for the development and realization of the system of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, which has enabled a dramatic increase in the storage capacity of computer-readable media.

Read more about Clarke and Kryder.


Tepper School of Business Dean Robert M. Dammon convened with the deans of 13 other leading U.S. business schools and senior administration officials at the White House on April 16 as part of the White House Summit on Working Families. The roundtable meeting was centered on how business schools can better prepare their students to be leaders in the 21st century, recognizing the importance of women in the workforce and focusing on preparing students to better understand and manage changes in the workforce, such as increasing diversity and the evolving ways in which both men and women need to balance work and family. The discussion also provided a forum for sharing successful practices in attracting women to pursue graduate business education and improving the educational experience for women pursuing advanced degrees. Administration officials participating included: Penny Pritzker, secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce; Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; Valerie Jarett, senior adviser to the President and chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls; Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls and chief of staff to the First Lady; Jeff Zients, director of the National Economic Council; and Betsy Stevenson, member of the Council of Economic Advisers.


Wesley Thorne
, the Career and Professional Development Center’s (CPDC) associate director for employer relations, will accept the NACE Chevron Award, the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ highest honor for innovative programs in career services, at the organization’s national conference this June in San Antonio. His winning entry recognizes the CPDC’s Campus Engagement Day as a best practice for providing employers opportunities to exchange ideas and build partnerships with faculty, staff and student organizations. Thorne will give a presentation about the program and its outcomes at the NACE conference, and it will be profiled in the September edition of the NACE Journal. NACE and Chevron Corp. sponsor the award, which includes a $1,000 prize. The next Campus Engagement Day is set for Sept. 15, 2014.


Jose Andre Morales
, a researcher with Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), has  published a blog post that demonstrates an approach that helps malware analysts prioritize samples appropriately in their queues, allowing them to target the most malicious samples first. His approach produced a 98 percent detection accuracy. This research was motivated by reports that approximately 150,000 new malware strains are released each day and that some malware strains, including the backdoor Trojan malware, Flame, lurk undetected in malware repositories before being unleashed. This blog post is the second in a series describing Morales’ work on prioritizing malware analysis. The first post on this research, Prioritizing Malware Analysis, was published in November.


Daniel Allende
and Tucker Marder, master's degree students in the School of Art, have created and directed "For the Birds," a visual symphony designed for the National Aviary's Helen M. Schmidt FliteZone Theatre in celebration of International Migratory Bird Day. Allende and Marder said the collaboration aims to inspire a new perspective on, and respect for, the beauty and power of birds through theatrical performance. Two performances appropriate for all ages are scheduled for 6 p.m., Sunday, May 4, and 6 p.m., Sunday, May 11. The National Aviary is offering a special reduced admission of $10 starting at 5 p.m. so visitors can explore the aviary before and after the show. The 120 seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Learn more.