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Daryl Weinert

October 17, 2018

Personal Mention

President Farnam Jahanian has named Daryl Weinert chief of staff and vice president of strategic initiatives, effective Nov. 26. In his new role, Weinert will serve as a trusted, confidential adviser to the president, helping to implement the university’s priorities and goals in close collaboration with senior university leadership and external stakeholders. “I have had the opportunity to observe first-hand his impressive track record of success, including his ability to foster cross-campus collaborations and improve complex operations to support the academic environment. I’ve known Daryl for nearly two decades and I am confident that he will bring the skills and expertise that will serve my office and the university well in the years to come," Jahanian said. Weinert previously served at the University of Michigan, where he has held several leadership roles over the past 19 years. Most recently, he was associate vice president for research and oversaw budget, finance, human resources and communications for Michigan’s $1.5 billion research enterprise. Find out more.

Kris MatyjaszewskiChemist Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, the J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences, has been named the recipient of the 2019 American Chemical Society Award in the Chemistry of Materials, sponsored by DuPont. The award recognizes creative work and outstanding contributions in the chemistry of materials, with particular emphasis on research related to materials that have actual or potential technological importance. Matyjaszewski is best known for his discovery of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made. ATRP allows scientists to easily form polymers by putting together monomers in a piece-by-piece fashion. This controlled method of polymerization has allowed scientists to create a wide range of materials with highly specific, tailored functionalities and has led the way for the production of "smart" materials. Find out more.

Justine SherryJustine Sherry, assistant professor in the Computer Science Department, is among 10 researchers chosen as this year’s N²Women Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications. N²Women – or Networking Networking Women – is a community of researchers that promotes diversity and aims to foster connections among under-represented women in the computing sub-field of networking and communications. Its annual list of rising stars recognizes women who have had an impact on the field early in their careers. Sherry’s research interests include middleboxes, networked systems, measurement, cloud computing and congestion control. Her recent research focuses on new opportunities and challenges arising from the deployment of middleboxes — such as firewalls and proxies — as services offered by clouds and internet service providers. Sherry joined the CMU faculty in 2016. She earned her master’s and Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California Berkeley and received the SIGCOMM doctoral dissertation award from the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communications, among other awards.

Brittany AllisonBrittany Allison has joined Carnegie Mellon as assistant director of Undergraduate Research and National Scholarships in the Fellowships and Scholarships Office (URO and FSO). Allison comes to CMU from Vanderbilt University, where she was a postdoctoral fellow and program coordinator for the Leadership Alliance SYNERGI program. As program coordinator, she worked to increase the number of under-represented undergraduate students interested in research by presenting workshops, mentoring and coaching students on their research skills. She also worked closely with the Enhancing Graduate Diversity Education program. Allison earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Xavier University of Louisiana. She earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Vanderbilt, where she was awarded at National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Kevin ZollmanKevin Zollman wrote “What It Means When Scientists Disagree” for Scientific American. In his piece, Zollman discusses scientific disagreements throughout history and what they mean today, including English chemist John Dalton’s proposal that all matter was made up of tiny atoms which was proposed by Democritus— the “laughing philosopher”— centuries earlier. Zollman is an associate professor and director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Philosophy.  Read his piece

Christine RicciAlumna Christine Ricci has joined CMU’s Academic Development team as assistant SI/EXCEL coordinator. Ricci comes to CMU with more than 20 years of experience in higher education, including adjunct faculty positions at Chatham and Carlow universities. She earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering with a minor in environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, and an MBA with concentrations in industrial marketing and operations management from the Tepper School of Business. She began her career at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Rosana GuernicaSenior Rosana Guernica was honored with a City of Pittsburgh Proclamation by Mayor Bill Peduto for her work coordinating and delivering aid to Puerto Rico following the devastation from Hurricane Maria. After the hurricane hit Puerto Rico, Guernica began chartering flights to evacuate at-risk patients who couldn’t find a way out. Guernica brought 296 people to the U.S. mainland, provided 76,500 pounds of supplies and raised more than $250,000 to pay for the flights. Guernica is a decision science major in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.