Carnegie Mellon University

The Piper

CMU Community News

Piper Logo

image of Jon Cagan

September 04, 2019

Personal Mention

Jon Cagan, interim dean of the College of Engineering and the George Tallman and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded the Design Automation Award from the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award is granted to an individual who has made sustained, meritorious contributions to research in the field of design automation. Cagan was chosen for his decades of work in the field, including research in grammar representation, agent-based search, optimization, AI and machine-learning. In 2016, Cagan received ASME’s Design Theory and Methodology Award, marking a major accomplishment in his other primary research community. Cagan has served as associate editor for ASME’s Journal of Mechanical Design. He was co-founder and co-director of Carnegie Mellon’s Integrated Innovation Institute.  Find out more.

image of Hualying ZhangAssistant Professor of Biological Sciences Huaiying Zhang has received a New Investigator Award from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation. The $150,000 grant will support her research on the physics and chemistry of liquid condensation in live cells, which could inform the development of new treatments for cancer. Zhang has developed optogenetic tools ­that control genetically engineered proteins using light to study how condensation occurs within the complex cellular environment and the role it plays in cellular function. Specifically, Zhang uses these tools to study membrane-less organelles called APBs that are associated with telomeres in some cancer cells. Telomeres, the protective endcaps of chromosomes, play an important role in cancer. In normal cells, telomeres shorten over the cells’ life span and when they reach a certain length, they trigger cell death. In cancer cells, telomeres maintain their length, allowing the cancer cells to live indefinitely. Under the Kaufman grant, Zhang will attempt to determine the physics that underlies APB condensation and the chemistry behind the formation of APB and its material properties. Find out more.

image of Qing LiQing Li, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is the recipient of a prestigious 2019 Young Faculty Award from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He received the award based on his research proposal titled "Visible and mid-infrared frequency comb generation in wide-bandgap photonic materials." In this project, Li’s team will develop a novel integrated photonics platform for the efficient implementation of various nonlinear optical processes on chip. Microresonator frequency combs, which are useful for a wide range of applications, will be generated in the visible and mid-infrared range based on wide-bandgap photonic materials such as silicon carbide and aluminum nitride.  The DARPA Young Faculty Award recognizes "rising research stars" who hold junior faculty positions at academic institutions in the United States, with the goal of developing the next generation of scientists who will address national security challenges. Award winners receive up to three years of grant funding and mentorship opportunities with Department of Defense (DoD) contacts. Find out more.

image of Rayid GhaniRayid Ghani, a pioneer in using data science and artificial intelligence to solve major social and policy challenges and former chief scientist for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, will join the Carnegie Mellon faculty this fall. Ghani, a CMU alumnus, will be a distinguished career professor with a joint appointment to the Heinz College and School of Computer Science. In his new role, Ghani will continue his work as a leader in harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence, data science and other emerging technologies for social good. His work in these areas complements the research being done in CMU's Metro21: Smart Cities Institute and the Block Center for Technology and Society. Ghani comes to CMU from the University of Chicago, where he was the director of the Center for Data Science and Public Policy, a research associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, and a senior fellow in the Harris School of Public Policy. Find out more.