Personal Mention

Carnegie Mellon's Metro21 has named Karen Lightman its executive director. The appointment comes at a time when Metro21, a university-wide initiative, is exploring a variety of smart city topics expected to have global implications. Working with the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Metro21 uses the region as a "living laboratory" to research and develop solutions for issues such as traffic congestion, pedestrian safety, road infrastructure, ride-sharing, street lights, and air and water quality. CMU, the city and the county expect to showcase the region as a vibrant community deploying technologies and models that can be used throughout the U.S. and the world. Lightman joins Metro21 after launching and growing the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) for more than 15 years. An internationally recognized expert in the Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and sensors industry, Lightman was recently vice president of the group and led the strategic partnership between MSIG and SEMI.

INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals, has announced that Ramayya Krishnan, dean of Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, has been elected as the 25th president of the INFORMS Board of Directors. Krishnan will begin serving his three-year term in January 2018 as president-elect, transitioning to president in January 2019 for a one-year term. A faculty member at Carnegie Mellon since 1988, Krishnan is the W.W. Cooper and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems with appointments at Heinz College and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. He was appointed dean of Heinz College in 2009 and reappointed in 2014.

Kathryn Heidemann recently was a member of a Pittsburgh Technology Council delegation of Pittsburgh business, arts and civic leaders that traveled to Bilbao, Spain, (one of Pittsburgh's Sister Cities) on a four-day benchmarking trip. The trip investigated Bilbao as a case study on successful urban redevelopment thorough arts, infrastructure and design, as well as a lesson on how to build inclusive community support for critical projects. The trip also validated the Heinz College and College of Fine Arts partnership as a successful marriage between “people, policy and technology” and "arts management, design and architecture."