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image of Jyoti Katoch

August 14, 2019

Personal Mention

Jyoti Katoch, assistant professor of physics, has received an early career grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Katoch’s research focuses on understanding the properties of two-dimensional quantum materials. The grant will allow Katoch, a condensed matter physicist, and her research group in Carnegie Mellon’s Lab for Investigating Quantum Materials, Interfaces and Devices (LIQUID) to investigate quantum materials using advanced technologies. She is one of 73 scientists from across the nation to receive funding under the DOE’s Early Career Research Program, which supports outstanding scientists early in their careers as they develop their individual research programs. Katoch joined the Department of Physics in 2018, following research scientist and postdoctoral appointments at Ohio State University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida and her bachelor’s degree from Panjab University in India.  Find out more.

image of Vivian LoftnessUniversity Professor of Architecture Vivian Loftness will receive the Legacy Award from Pittsburgh’s Green Building Alliance (GBA) at its Emerald Evening Gala on Sept. 12 at the MuseumLab. Loftness is being honored for her leadership and ingenuity of spirit, and for her work helping to transform communities locally and globally. Former head of CMU’s School of Architecture, Loftness is an internationally renowned researcher, author and educator with over 30 years of focus on environmental design and sustainability, advanced building systems integration, climate and regionalism in architecture, and design for performance in the workplace of the future. The GBA advances innovation in the built environment by empowering people to create environmentally, economically and socially vibrant places. Founded in 1993, it is one of the oldest regional green building organizations in the United States, serving Pittsburgh and the 26 counties of Western Pennsylvania, with stakeholders across the Mid-Atlantic, United States and the world.

image of Ariel ProcacciaAriel Procaccia, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department, has been awarded the 2019 Social Choice and Welfare Prize for his work on fair division. In 2014, Procaccia launched the not-for-profit website "Spliddit," which creates provably fair solutions to help people divide anything from cab fare to football tickets. To date, the site has attracted more than 160,000 users. Procaccia and his team developed most of the algorithms used on the site, including the one used for the most popular application — rent division. The award, presented every two years by the Society for Social Choice and Welfare, has primarily recognized economists. Procaccia said it is significant that the community is looking closer at the role of computer science in fair division. Find out more.

image of Victoria Webster-WoodVictoria Webster-Wood, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, presented "Bio-inspired stochastic growth and initialization for artificial neural networks" at the Living Machines Conference last month in Japan. Webster-Wood leads the Biohybrid and Organic Robotics Group at Carnegie Mellon, where she focuses on the use of organic materials as structures, actuators, sensors and controllers toward the development of biohybrid and organic robots and biohybrid prosthetics. Webster-Wood joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering last fall and established the Biohybrid and Organic Robotics Group, bringing together bio-inspired robotics, tissue engineering and computational neuroscience to create novel devices. Learn more.