Carnegie Mellon University

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February 05, 2020

Personal Mention

Rebecca Nugent has received the Stephen E. and Joyce Fienberg Professorship in Statistics and Data Science. Nugent, an associate department head and co-director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Statistics & Data Science, has been a driving force in helping CMU become one of the fastest-growing and top-ranked undergraduate statistics and data science programs in the country. Nugent has received numerous teaching awards, including the American Statistical Association Waller Award for Innovation in Statistics Education and CMU’s Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching. “Rebecca is a force of nature, an innovative thinker and a builder,” said Richard Scheines, the Bess Family Dean of the Dietrich College. “This professorship, the first CMU has ever given to a teaching track faculty member, honors not only Rebecca, but also the wonderful legacy of Steve and Joyce Fienberg. Steve was an indefatigable and consequential statistician, and the applied work he pushed in our college is very much aligned with how Rebecca approaches her teaching, research and service to the field.” Find out more.

portrait of Devendra ChaplotDevendra Singh Chaplot, a Ph.D. student in the Machine Learning Department, is one of four new Facebook Fellows at CMU. Only 36 outstanding students in computer science and engineering from 16 universities have been named to the 2020 class. Each fellow receives tuition and fees for up to two academic years and a stipend of $42,000, which includes conference travel support. Facebook received applications from 1,876 students at more than 100 universities for this year's class. Chaplot was named a fellow in computer vision. His research aims to design algorithms capable of "physical intelligence," i.e., building intelligent embodied autonomous agents capable of learning. Other CMU fellows are Juncheng Yang, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department, Sai Krishna Rallabandi, a Ph.D. student in the Language Technologies Institute, and Hubert Tsai, a Ph.D. student in the Machine Learning Department. Find out more.

portrait of Colin McNNeilColin McNeil, a 6’1” senior guard on the men's basketball team, was named the Tartans’ Student-Athlete of the Week (Jan. 27 – Feb. 2). In an 84-71 win at NYU, McNeil scored 10 points and added a record 17 assists, surpassing the CMU single-game assist record he set earlier this year (13) and tying the University Athletic Association single-game assist record. He is 29 assists shy of becoming CMU’s career assist leader. McNeil is majoring in behavioral economics, policy and decision science.