Personal Mention

Liz Vaughan, associate dean of student affairs, has been named the inaugural James and Sharon Rohr Director of Civic Engagement, a new position that will bring additional energy and resources to CMU's burgeoning efforts to connect students with their interests in the Pittsburgh region and across the globe. Rohr, chairman of CMU's Board of Trustees, and his wife, Sharon, endowed the directorship in the Division of Student Affairs this year. Vaughan has consistently championed the university's civic engagement initiatives and demonstrated her commitment to community service throughout her 16-year career at CMU. She is the co-creater of PACE, a collaborative initiative that nurtures peer-to-peer student work around civic engagement, and leads the Student Leadership, Involvement, and Civic Engagement (SLICE) organization. SLICE achievements have included the Service Saturdays program, in which students volunteer with nonprofits around Pittsburgh; an annual Rise Against Hunger meal-packing event for communities most vulnerable around the world; and the launch of the CMU Pantry in 2018, which assists CMU students experiencing food insecurity. Find out more.

Philip LeDuc has joined the Beckman Foundation's Scientific Advisory Council, which supports young researchers with grants for innovative, high-risk, high-reward research projects. LeDuc will provide advice to the foundation and recommend changes or new avenues for impactful funding. LeDuc is a former recipient of the Beckman Young Investigator Award (2005) and has served the foundation in many roles since completing his award, including reviewing proposals for multiple programs and most recently serving as a member of the Executive Committee of the Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows Program. LeDuc is the William J. Brown Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In his lab, he works at the intersection of mechanical engineering and biology by envisioning cells and molecules as systems that can be investigated with some of the same fundamental approaches used on machines, such as planes and automobiles, looking for unifying principles. Find out more about LeDuc.

Srinivasan Seshan, professor and head of the Computer Science Department, has been named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) “for his contributions to computer networking, mobile computing and wireless communications.” Seshan, who joined the CSD faculty in 2000, served as the department’s associate head for graduate education from 2011-2015 and was named department head in 2018. His research focuses on improving the design, performance and security of computer networks, including wireless and mobile networks. He and his research group have developed ways to more efficiently transfer video content over the internet, and have worked on new architectures that would make the internet more trustworthy and better able to evolve as technology changes. The ACM will formally recognize its 2019 fellows at the annual awards banquet, June 20, 2020, in San Francisco.