Kurt Larsen is getting ready to connect with his new kids — over 150 of them.

As an assistant dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering, Larsen is an adviser to first-year students. This week, he’ll be reaching out to his share of the more than 400 incoming engineers to start the conversation.

“We talk to them about everything, from academic schedules and career plans to adjusting to college life and being away from home,” he said. “The first year is when they begin their toughest transition.”

An adviser with over 20 years of experience at CMU, Larsen said the most common challenges he sees for incoming students is time management and knowing when to ask for help. He said many students come to CMU from high schools where they were “big fish in little ponds."

“Now they have to learn how to become more independent and self-advocating. They have to figure out how much time to allocate for study, when to eat and when to sleep,” he said. “And after being used to their classmates coming to them for help, there’s an ego shift that has to happen. They have to learn to ask for help themselves, and that asking for help is okay.”

An adviser with over 20 years of experience at CMU, Larsen said the most common challenges he sees for incoming students is time management and knowing when to ask for help.

With such a large volume of students to advise, time management is a test for him, too. But, Larsen is up to the challenge.

“Students need more time to talk about everything going on in their lives — not just classes — but I love working with them,” he said. “They continually amaze me at how brilliant they are. I enjoy helping them to get the most out of their college career. It’s very satisfying and rewarding.”

Larsen also has administrative duties in the College of Engineering and is a member of the Associate Dean’s Council, a group that discusses policies, issues and concerns that arise.

“It’s a nice balance between being in the trenches with students and discussing and contributing to policy and practice at the 10,000-foot level,” he said.

Larsen's chocolate lab, Mudge, bonds with students in Mudge House.

When he’s in the trenches, Larsen is sometimes accompanied by Mudge, his 5-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever who is a certified therapy dog. Mudge meets students in Larsen’s Scaife Hall Office, in Mudge House and in front of Doherty Hall when classes change. You can find out when the dog will be on campus next by following @mudgeandme on Instagram.

“I’m continually surprised and pleased to see how much joy this dog brings people. Students flock to him and get to know him. I think more students know him than they do me,” he said.

Larsen, who recently celebrated his 23^rd work anniversary at CMU, said what he loves most about the university is its collaborative spirit and student-centric approach.

“I work with so many incredible people across campus to help our students,” he said. “I work with Student Affairs, the Career Center, University Health Services, faculty and staff to help students succeed. That’s something I really enjoy.” 

In his free time, Larsen likes spending time with his wife, two children and Mudge, of course.

“Whatever free time I have left, I love learning about nutrition and physiology, doing Crossfit or playing some type of sport,” he said. “Back in the day, I would play 6 a.m. basketball with the likes of Professor Russ Walker and other staff. Then I switched over to racquetball with Michael Murphy, Everett Tademy and Don Coffelt. Now I’m interested in finding some squash partners.” 

Have a suggestion for Staff Spotlight? Send it to piperweekly@andrew.cmu.edu. 

Two students have been recognized by the Institute of International Education Boren Awards program and have been awarded grants to study abroad. Jacob Feldgoise, a rising junior with a double major in policy and management, and science, technology and public policy, and a minor in Chinese studies, was awarded one of 244 David L. Boren Scholarships. Shayak Sengupta, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, was awarded one of 106 David L. Boren Fellowships. On behalf of the National Security Education Program, the awards provide opportunities for students to enrich their education by studying overseas in countries critical to U.S. interests.

Feldgoise will study Chinese in Shanghai this summer through CMU's summer study abroad program at the Shanghai International Studies University. Among his long-term goals, Feldgoise aims to help government agencies apply engineering methods, analytical tools and decision sciences to public policies.

Sengupta's dissertation focuses on public policy-relevant research in energy and the environment. Working with Peter Adams and Inês Azevedo, Sengupta conducts research at the intersection of air quality, climate change and energy systems. He is aiming to develop and deploy analytical tools that measure ambient air pollution, its sources and its impacts on human health in developed and developing countries. Find out more.

Danielle Wenner, an assistant professor of philosophy in the Dietrich College, has been named a Faculty Scholar by the Greenwall Foundation for her project “The Basic Structure Model of Research Stakeholder Obligations.” The three-year, $200,000 award will enable Wenner to continue to develop a framework for thinking about research ethics. Her project aims to develop a justice-based approach to health research priority-setting and to determine appropriate regulatory or policy mechanisms for the implementation of that approach. “I’m excited to get to work on a project that I think has the potential to radically shift the way that ethicists, clinical researchers and policymakers view the role of clinical research and the development of health interventions in our society,” Wenner said.

Roy Maxion, research professor in the Computer Science and Machine Learning departments, will receive the 2019 Test of Time Award at the IEEE/International Federation for Information Processing Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, June 24–27 in Portland, Oregon. The award from DSN — whose primary concern is the reliability of computer systems — recognizes a 2009 research paper that used machine learning to analyze peoples' typing rhythms in a process known as keystroke dynamics. Keystroke dynamics can identify users based on their typing styles, and also can be used in the medical arena to study neurological disorders that affect the human motor system. Find out more.

Anita Williams Woolley, associate professor of organizational behavior and theory, co-authored the study “The Impact of Cognitive Style Diversity on Implicit Learning in Teams,” which was recently published in the journal Frontiers In Psychology. In the paper, Woolley and her collaborators found that participants had to have just the right mix of cognitive diversity to create the highest collective intelligence. Woolley referred to the ideal mix as following “the Goldilocks principle: Not too little (diversity), and not too much. You want it just right.” The study looked at 98 teams ranging from two to five people to play a coordination game. Those groups that had the right level of diversity were able to collaborate effectively by making use of their different perspectives while also being able to overcome the difficulties that diversity can present. When not enough diversity exists within a group, it stagnates, while too much diversity can create gaps that participants are unable to bridge, Woolley explained. Find out more. 

Associate Professor of Physics Di Xiao has been awarded a Simons Foundation Fellowship, which will allow him to take a sabbatical from teaching for the 2019-20 academic year to focus on research. Xiao, whose research centers around quantum condensed matter theory, plans to take advantage of the fellowship to dig into magnetic and electric multipoles in crystalline solids. The structure of a crystal sometimes can cause "exotic arrangements" of electric and magnetic charges and currents, Xiao notes, which can be described by multipoles. "My plan is to develop a theory to describe these quantum states," Xiao said. "It is going to be a challenging problem and the Simons Fellowship will allow me to focus my time on this problem."

Emeritus Professor of Chemistry Paul Karol has authored a new book, "The Legacy of Carbon Dioxide: Past and Present Impacts," which has been published by CRC Press. In the book, Karol examines the origins of carbon dioxide in the stars, its properties and how the gas has affected the Earth's atmosphere. Karol, who considers himself a "linear academic descendent" of Joseph Black, discoverer of carbon dioxide, retired in 2012 after 43 years as a member of the Mellon College of Science faculty, including five years as an associate dean. He has chaired multiple international teams of scientists that have announced the addition of new elements on the periodic table.

Pipes and Drums Play On After Winning National Championship

Carnegie Mellon's Pipes and Drums band recently took first place in the 2019 American Pipe Band Championships, under the direction of Andrew Carlisle, CMU's director of piping and a professor in the School of Music. The week before that, the group took first place in the Toronto Indoor Games, their first competition outside the U.S.

"We had a really good semester, a really good season for the band," Carlisle said. "It's been a steady progression building the band to this level. It's now one of the best in the country. We've started talks of trying to get the band to the World Championships in Glasgow in 2021. We'd like to try to take the band a few places further afield."

Bagpiping has been a part of Carnegie Mellon tradition for more than 75 years. In 1990, CMU's School of Music launched the world's first bachelor's degree in bagpipe performance.

Learn more.

Libraries Convene Scholars To Tackle Data Challenges

University Libraries recently hosted a conversation on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence for scientific data discovery.

The AIDR (Artificial Intelligence for Data Discovery and Reuse) 2019 conference brought 150 researchers, computer scientists, librarians and industry representatives from 10 countries and 65 institutions and organizations to CMU May 13-15. The conference focused on innovative solutions that would enable scientists and researchers to extract more value from large, complex datasets.

"With the recent advances in machine learning and AI, it is possible to train computers to find optimal solutions to a problem, such as integrating different datasets and extracting metadata," said Huajin Wang, a CMU librarian and conference chair. "We created AIDR 2019 because it's about time that people working in a variety of disciplines come together to benefit from diverse expertise, and address these mutual challenges together, using the power of AI."

Find out more.

CMU-Alert Changes Coming July 1; Verify Your Contact Information

CMU-Alert, Carnegie Mellon’s emergency notification system, is transitioning to a new service provider, which will no longer require subscribers to opt-in.

As of July 1, faculty and staff will automatically receive CMU-Alert messages to their email, office phone and personal phone numbers listed in Workday. Students will continue to automatically receive CMU-Alert messages to their email and personal phone numbers listed in the Student Information Online (SIO) system.

In preparation for the transition, students are asked to make sure their contact information is accurate in the SIO system. Faculty and staff are asked to make sure their contact information is accurate in Workday by using this guide. Please note that faculty and staff wishing to receive text alerts must identify their cellphone number as a mobile device in the drop-down menu.

While discouraged, faculty and staff will have the ability to opt-out of receiving emergency alerts to their mobile and/or other personal phone numbers by following this guide: Unsubscribe from CMU-Alert in Workday Quick Guide [pdf]. Students will continue to have the ability to opt-out via the SIO’s “Edit CMU-Alert Emergency Notifications” link.

CMU-Alert email messages will come from cmu-alert@andrew.cmu.edu. CMU-Alert voice notifications will come from 412-268-2578 (ALRT). Please add this information as a contact on your mobile device to avoid confusion and concerns with spam communications. 

If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact cmu-alert@andrew.cmu.edu. Thank you for your attention and for ensuring that your contact information in the SIO system or Workday is accurate.  

EH&S To Conduct Building Evacuation Drills

To practice fire safety awareness and preparedness, the Environmental Health & Safety Department will conduct evacuation drills in more than 35 academic and administrative buildings this summer.

During the 15-20 minute drill, please follow these directions when the alarm sounds:

• Follow the directions of your floor marshal and proceed to the nearest exit.
• Floor marshals should notify the nearest emergency official when everyone is accounted for, or if anyone is missing.
• Remain with your group until the all-clear is given to return to the building.
• Do not leave campus until the exercise has been completed.

Evacuation drills will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and will follow the schedule below.

Tuesday, June 25
Hamburg Hall and Smith Hall
Collaborative Innovation Center
Wean Hall
Doherty Hall
Hamerschlag Hall
Scott Hall
FMCS-Physical Plant Building

Thursday, June 27
Porter/Baker Halls
Scaife Hall
Roberts Hall
College of Fine Arts
Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall
Skibo Gym
Hunt Library

Monday, July 1
Gates/Hillman Center
Newell-Simon Hall
Purnell Center for the Artrs/Miller Gallery
Cyert Hall
Cohon University Center
Bramer House
Alumni House

Wednesday, July 10
Information Networking Institute
Software Engineering Institute
UTDC Building
Whitfield Hall
4721 Fifth Ave.
GATF Building

Friday, July 12
Integrated Innovation Institute
205 S. Craig St.
300 S. Craig St.
311 S. Craig St.
407 S. Craig St.
417 S. Craig St.

Monday, July 15
6555 Penn Ave.
National Robotics Engineering Center
Pittsburgh Technology Center

Questions? Contact Thomas Plietz, fire safety manager, at tplietz@andrew.cmu.edu.

Nominate Your Deserving Colleagues for the Andy Awards

Nominations for the Andy Awards, the university's staff recognition program, are now being accepted. Take the time to nominate your colleagues whose outstanding work is deserving of this special recognition. All materials must be submitted by July 8.

For more information on the awards program, including category descriptions and criteria, and how to nominate, visit the Andy Awards website at https://www.cmu.edu/andyawards/.

Questions? Send email to AndyAwards@andrew.cmu.edu. 

Provost James H. Garrett, Jr. has recently announced that Richard Scheines and Keith Webster have been reappointed as deans of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and University Libraries, respectively.

In an email to Dietrich College faculty and staff, Garrett recognized Scheines as a strategic leader and valuable collaborator who has served as dean since 2014. He noted his leadership in helping to implement groundbreaking academic programs in behavioral economics and neuroscience, and for establishing interdisciplinary grand challenge seminars for first-year students. Garrett said undergraduate applications to the Dietrich College have doubled under Scheines’ watch and the quality of applicants has risen dramatically.  

“Richard advocates passionately for the humanities, and works tirelessly to continuously improve the student experience in the Dietrich College,” Garrett said.

In an email to faculty and staff in University Libraries, the provost said Webster will continue as both dean and director of Emerging and Integrative Media Initiatives, posts he has held since 2013 and 2015, respectively. Garrett called him a forward-thinking and transformational dean.

“Under his leadership, Keith has made substantial progress in elevating key technical infrastructures by implementing a new library management system, and a cluster of digital science products to support research and collaboration,” Garrett said. “Keith has also ensured that the University Libraries add value to Carnegie Mellon through enhanced programming, while fostering a culture of engagement and support among the faculty."

Achieving a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment takes courage, collaboration, commitment and a willingness to make meaningful connections.

That’s the message the dynamic Damon Williams delivered in an engaging and provocative lecture to kick off a two-day residency at Carnegie Mellon University, where he met with several groups of university leaders, faculty and staff to discuss and strengthen the ongoing efforts to enhance campus culture.

An award-winning scholar, leader and educator — he’s one of the foremost authorities on building diversity and inclusion in higher education, business and government — Williams said building relationships and breaking unconscious biases are vital to making progress.

“In the workplace, even though we’re constantly connecting and tweeting and sharing, do we really know how to have meaningful conversations with one another with empathy? Do we really know how to look at the world through others’ perspectives? To connect?” he asked.

“To break the habit of bias and prejudice we have to have connections and relationships, and understand others and who they are, what motivates them, where they come from. It’s the connectivity that allows us to break through,” he said.

Williams is a founding architect of the “Inclusive Excellence Model,” founder of the Center for Strategic Diversity Leadership & Social Innovation and a senior scholar and innovation fellow for Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

"To break the habit of bias and prejudice we have to ... understand others and who they are, what motivates them, where they come from." — Damon Williams

He said it is in search committees and performance review discussions where unconscious bias is most likely to occur.

“It is in those moments when we have to be the most mindful,” he said.

Also crucial to the diversity mission is collaboration and commitment in many forms — cognitively, behaviorally, strategically, operationally and financially.

“Each one of us has to be committed to move forward — to mentor differently, teach in a way that’s more inclusive, to update our approach to advising, to engage in self-directed learning  — that’s when we’ll start to see change we want to see. It’s not just the plan, it’s the people that make change really happen,” Williams said.

It also takes a financial investment.

“Commitment without currency is counterfeit,” he said, quoting a former colleague.

Innovation and courage also are key ingredients to moving the needle forward. Williams noted it takes courage to be humble; to build relationships; to coach, mentor and sponsor differences; to challenge privileges and biases; to serve students and colleagues; and to go in new directions.

“At the end of the day, it’s the ability to create connectivity, which becomes so important to allow us to have the courage to move in the directions we want to go,” he said.

Williams’ visit received rave reviews from many faculty and staff who participated in the group sessions.

Colleen McMullen, executive director of Community and Inclusion at the Tepper School of Business, said what resonated most with her was his discussion on how to move from awareness to action to innovation.  

“Dr. Williams’ visit provided an opportunity for leaders within the campus community to better understand the strategic framework in which to create and operationalize our DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) strategic plans, with emphasis on committee resources, accountability and campus-wide engagement that ultimately leads to actual change,” she said.

Shawn Blanton, professor of electrical and computer engineering, said Williams’ experience and expertise in the diversity and inclusion realm is unsurpassed.

“The impact of his visit and engagement will resonate on this campus for a long time to come, since I equate it to giving direction, perspective and pathways to groups of faculty and staff that are willing to make change, but simply don’t know how to do so,” Blanton said.

"The impact of his visit and engagement will resonate on this campus for a long time to come. ..." — Shawn Blanton

Linda Babcock, the James M. Walton Professor of Economics and head of the Social and Decision Sciences Department, said Williams provided inspiration, knowledge, evidence-based solutions and a multitude of actionable ideas.

“What resonated with me most,” she said, “was his willingness to say the difficult things we need to hear while at the same time galvanizing our community to make the changes we must,” Babcock said.

Mark Delos Reyes Davis, a member of the Campus Climate Task Force, agreed.

“He provided some pretty specific recommendations on how to generate additional insight from the community as well as ways to help ensure the task force’s work is embraced and wherever possible implemented,” Davis said.

Eric Anderson, senior associate dean in the College of Fine Arts, said Williams was inspiring in discussing the need to discover valuable alignments with diverse people that are only found when you go much deeper than surface level. 

"What resonated with me most was his willingness to say the difficult things we need to hear ...  to make the changes we must." — Linda Babcock

“He is making connections that provide new ways of thinking about these challenges and opportunities, which will be unique to each working environment and culture,” Anderson said.

Professor Andrea Ritivoi, head of the English Department, also found the conversation with Williams inspiring.

“I appreciated his awareness of, and focus on, intellectual diversity,” she said. “We had a productive conversation about how the humanities at CMU can strengthen intellectual diversity on our campus.”

Williams’ residency was his second visit to CMU. As dean of the College of Engineering, Provost Jim Garrett invited him to help the college devise a strategic plan on diversity and inclusion. Williiams met with the college’s leadership team and department heads to offer his perspectives.

“He addressed the immediate need for us to build an earnest capability surrounding diversity, inclusion and equity. We were able to recognize how adapting our culture in a better, more inclusive way plays a major part in what we have to accomplish,” Garrett said.

Kim Sestili received a Staff Advocacy Award from the Office of Human Resources this past Monday for her instrumental work on the new Parental Leave program, which was developed by Human Resources and Staff Council. As chair of Staff Council’s Parental Leave Focus Group, she helped organize a campus forum and launched a university-wide questionnaire to educate the campus community and gauge its importance among staff. She then helped to draft the initial proposal for the program. “This was a true team effort between Staff Council and Human Resources with the support and backing from passionate staff and faculty,” Sestili said. “Implementing a parental leave policy supports ‘One CMU’ from the Strategic Plan 2025, enhances the reputation of the university and will help to increase staff recruitment and retention.” Sestili is a business administrator for University Libraries. Find out more about the new Parental Leave program.

Mechanical Engineering Professor Sarah Bergbreiter and Assistant Professor B. Reeja Jayan have received Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) awards from the U.S. Army. The DURIP awards support university researchers with the purchases of vital laboratory equipment for current research and the development of new ideas and techniques.

• Bergbreiter leads the Micro Robotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon and is focused on research at the intersection of microsystems and robotics. The lab uses microsystems knowledge to design and fabricate small scale sensors and actuators for larger robots, as well as small mobile robots. Bergbreiter was funded to purchase a sensor to measure forces in these fast, small-scale systems.
• Jayan’s lab synthesizes ceramic materials using electromagnetic fields and investigates how these fields influence the atomic structure and properties of these materials. To conduct her research Jayan and her team are creating a tool, called COMPACT, to monitor the structural, phase and chemical transformations in materials. The DURIP award is supporting the purchase of materials to build COMPACT. Find out more.

Colin Clarke, an assistant teaching professor in the Institute for Politics and Strategy, has recently authored a new book titled “After the Caliphate: The Islamic State & the Future Terrorist Diaspora.” In this timely analysis, Clarke takes stock of the Islamic State — its roots, its evolution and its monumental setbacks — to assess the road ahead. He argues the declaration of the Islamic State in 2014 was an anomaly. Clarke says the future of the global jihadist movement will look very much like its past with divided groups of militants dispersing to new battlefields, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, where they will join existing civil wars, establish safe havens and sanctuaries, and seek ways of conducting attacks in the West that inspire new followers. Find out more.

Men's golf coach Dan Rodgers was selected as the Golf Pride Grips/Golf Coaches Association of America Division III Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year. He won the award in 2017 as well. Rodgers led CMU to its best finish in golf this season as the Tartans finished 11th at the 2019 NCAA Division III Championships. It was the third NCAA championship appearance and second in the last two seasons for the program. This past season was highlighted by sophomore Jason Li, who became the first Tartan to be named a PING First Team All-American. Under Rodgers, Li finished the NCAA Championship in 11^th place, the highest individual finish in program history. The Tartans ended the season ranked seventh in the nation by Golfstat.

Carnegie Mellon Racing Wins Formula SAE Championship

Carnegie Mellon’s Racing team recently won the 2019 Formula SAE North Championship in Ontario, Canada.

The team’s vehicle, named 19E, is a fully electric Formula 1 style race car designed and manufactured by team members. Carnegie Mellon placed first in the overall, design, cost, acceleration, skidpad, autocross and endurance categories. The team placed second in presentation and third in efficiency. 

Led by mechanical engineering senior and team president Katie Lam, Carnegie Mellon is in Nebraska this week competing in the Formula SAE Lincoln, June 19-22. 

This year’s championship comes on the heels of the team’s Formula SAE Electric title last year. Find out more.

Faculty Discuss Ethical Use of Technology in Society

As the house lights rise in the O'Reilly Theater, actress Jill Tanner begins her performance as the titular character in the show "Marjorie Prime." She's dressed casually, and speaking to a much younger man in a full suit — a holographic representation of her late husband. He's a youthful, AI version of the man she fell in love with, designed to help her with the frustration of her decaying mind.

Between two performances of the play earlier this month, Carnegie Mellon faculty members Illah Nourbakhsh and Henny Admoni joined Director Marya Sea Kaminski at the Pittsburgh Public Theater for a panel discussion, titled "When Robots Become Our Companions: Facts, Fictions, and Uncomfortable Truths." The panel was part of a series of outreach programming made possible by the 2016 K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies.

"I think 'Marjorie Prime' is an interesting play on this whole issue of authenticity, the human, non-human and identity," Nourbakhsh said. "This is relevant to society because of diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. But then you add to the mix robotics, and it's really fascinating. When and how is it okay for a system to act like a human, or to use human social cues? And is that manipulation, or care? I think the play does a good job opening up those issues."

Marjorie Prime is at the O'Relilly Theater through June 30. Find out more.

Microscopy, VR Illuminate New Ways To Prevent, Treat Disease

A research team from Carnegie Mellon and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason is pairing a nanoscale imaging technique with virtual reality technology to create a method that allows researchers to "step inside" their biological data. By combining the technique, called expansion microscopy, with virtual reality (VR), scientists will be able to enlarge, explore and analyze cell structures far beyond the capabilities of traditional light microscopy.

The development of these technologies, a two-step process funded at $200,000 through Grand Challenges, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will accelerate researchers' understanding of infectious and autoimmune diseases and enhance their ability to develop disease diagnostics, and prevention and treatment methods.

Yongxin (Leon) Zhao, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon's Mellon College of Science, has been developing the expansion microscopy technique to physically magnify a biopsy, allowing researchers to see fine details in biological samples using standard microscopes. Learn more.

Heinz College Launches Redesigned CIO Certificate Program

The Heinz College has announced the launch of its newly redesigned Chief Information Officer (CIO) Certificate Program, the centerpiece of its executive education offerings. The CIO program provides experienced managers with the industry-leading tools and insights they need to become effective leaders in information and technology management at the highest levels. Courses will be taught by Heinz College’s world-renowned faculty as well as industry experts.

The CIO Certificate Program features a hybrid delivery model that blends in-person courses and collaborative work sessions with synchronous distance learning. The first cohort of the new program will begin in December.

Major topics covered in the program are IT strategy and management, the role of the CIO, enterprise architecture, digital transformation, cybersecurity, data management and risk management. As part of this certificate program, students work with a team of their peers to develop a new information technology strategic plan for an organization and give a practicum presentation of that plan to an executive board. This enhanced experiential component challenges CIO students to apply the methods and techniques learned in the program in a practical way. Find out more.

Nominate Your Deserving Colleagues for the Andy Awards

Nominations for the Andy Awards, the university's staff recognition program, are now being accepted. Take the time to nominate your colleagues whose outstanding work is deserving of this special recognition. All nomination materials must be submitted by July 8.

For more information on the awards program, including category descriptions and criteria, and how to nominate, visit the Andy Awards website at https://www.cmu.edu/andyawards/.

Questions? Send email to AndyAwards@andrew.cmu.edu. 

EH&S To Conduct Building Evacuation Drills

To practice fire safety awareness and preparedness, the Environmental Health & Safety Department will conduct evacuation drills in more than 35 academic and administrative buildings this summer.

During the 15-20 minute drills, which begin Tuesday, June 25, please follow these directions when the alarm sounds:

• Follow the directions of your floor marshal and proceed to the nearest exit.
• Floor marshals should notify the nearest emergency official when everyone is accounted for, or if anyone is missing.
• Remain with your group until the all-clear is given to return to the building.
• Do not leave campus until the exercise has been completed.

Evacuation drills will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and will follow the schedule below.

Tuesday, June 25
Hamburg Hall and Smith Hall
Collaborative Innovation Center
Wean Hall
Doherty Hall
Hamerschlag Hall
Scott Hall
FMCS-Physical Plant Building

Thursday, June 27
Porter/Baker Halls
Scaife Hall
Roberts Hall
College of Fine Arts
Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall
Skibo Gym
Hunt Library

Monday, July 1
Gates/Hillman Center
Newell-Simon Hall
Purnell Center for the Artrs/Miller Gallery
Cyert Hall
Cohon University Center
Bramer House
Alumni House

Wednesday, July 10
Information Networking Institute
Software Engineering Institute
UTDC Building
Whitfield Hall
4721 Fifth Ave.
GATF Building

Friday, July 12
Integrated Innovation Institute
205 S. Craig St.
300 S. Craig St.
311 S. Craig St.
407 S. Craig St.
417 S. Craig St.

Tuesday, July 16 (* please note new date)
6555 Penn Ave.
National Robotics Engineering Center
Pittsburgh Technology Center

Questions? Contact Thomas Plietz, fire safety manager, at tplietz@andrew.cmu.edu.

Scientists Develop New Paradigm in Battery Design

Researchers from the Mellon College of Science and College of Engineering have developed a semiliquid lithium metal-based anode that represents a new paradigm in battery design. Lithium batteries made using this new electrode type could have a higher capacity and be much safer than typical lithium metal-based batteries that use lithium foil as an anode.

"Incorporating a metallic lithium anode into lithium-ion batteries has the theoretical potential to create a battery with much more capacity than a battery with a graphite anode," said Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, the J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Chemistry. "But, the most important thing we need to do is make sure that the battery we create is safe."

The researchers believe their method could have far-reaching impacts. For example, it could be used to create high capacity batteries for electric vehicles and specialized batteries for use in wearable devices that require flexible batteries. They also believe their methods could be extended beyond lithium to other rechargeable battery systems, including sodium metal batteries and potassium metal batteries and might be able to be used in grid-scale energy storage.

Find out more.

CMU-Alert Changes Coming July 1; Verify Your Contact Information

CMU-Alert, Carnegie Mellon’s emergency notification system, is transitioning to a new service provider, which will no longer require subscribers to opt-in.

As of July 1, faculty and staff will automatically receive CMU-Alert messages to their email, office phone and personal phone numbers listed in Workday. Students will continue to automatically receive CMU-Alert messages to their email and personal phone numbers listed in the Student Information Online (SIO) system.

In preparation for the transition, students are asked to make sure their contact information is accurate in the SIO system. Faculty and staff are asked to make sure their contact information is accurate in Workday by using this guide. Please note that faculty and staff wishing to receive text alerts must identify their cellphone number as a mobile device in the drop-down menu.

While discouraged, faculty and staff will have the ability to opt-out of receiving emergency alerts to their mobile and/or other personal phone numbers by following this guide: Unsubscribe from CMU-Alert in Workday Quick Guide [pdf]. Students will continue to have the ability to opt-out via the SIO’s “Edit CMU-Alert Emergency Notifications” link.

CMU-Alert email messages will come from cmu-alert@andrew.cmu.edu. CMU-Alert voice notifications will come from 412-268-2578 (ALRT). Please add this information as a contact on your mobile device to avoid confusion and concerns with spam communications. 

If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact cmu-alert@andrew.cmu.edu. Thank you for your attention and for ensuring that your contact information in the SIO system or Workday is accurate.  

Taxable Wage Information Change in Workday

Effective July 1, 2019, Carnegie Mellon employees will be able to view all of their taxable wage information on their pay slips in Workday.

Prior to the pay statements starting in July, state and local taxable wages did not show on the pay statements. This made it difficult for employees to verify that the correct state and local taxes were being calculated and to confirm that the year-to-date taxable wages on their final pay statements corresponded with the taxable wages on their W-2s at year end.

This recent enhancement, delivered by Workday, will allow employees to review all of their taxable earnings that are populated on their W-2’s at year end.

Visit My Workday Toolkit for guidance on viewing your pay documents. For questions, please contact the CMUWorks Service Center at cmu-works@andrew.cmu.edu.

Online Atlas of Aquatic Insects To Aid Water-Quality Monitoring

A new online field guide to aquatic insects in the eastern United States, macroinvertebrates.org, promises to be an important tool for monitoring water quality, enabling even novices to correctly identify freshwater insects inhabiting rivers, lakes and streams.

Carnegie Mellon, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Stroud Water Research Center, the University of Pittsburgh, Clemson University and a set of volunteer biomonitoring organizations led development of the new visual atlas and digital field guide. It features highly detailed images of 150 common aquatic bugs, such as mayflies, dragonflies and beetles, along with a few mussels, clams and snails of interest.

Marti Louw, director of the Learning Media Design Center in CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, led the three-year effort, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

"One key goal is to make the task of accurately identifying aquatic insects easier for citizen scientists, which in turn will allow more people to engage and participate in water quality monitoring and stewardship of freshwater resources," Louw said. The number and types of insects living in waterways and bodies of water and how that diversity changes over time are vital indicators of watershed health, she noted.

Learn more.

Nominate Your Deserving Colleagues for the Andy Awards

Nominations for the Andy Awards, the university's staff recognition program, are now being accepted. Take the time to nominate your colleagues whose outstanding work is deserving of this special recognition. All nomination materials must be submitted by July 8.

For more information on the awards program, including category descriptions and criteria, and how to nominate, visit the Andy Awards website at https://www.cmu.edu/andyawards/.

Questions? Send email to AndyAwards@andrew.cmu.edu. 

EH&S To Conduct Building Evacuation Drills

To practice fire safety awareness and preparedness, the Environmental Health & Safety Department will conduct evacuation drills in more than 35 academic and administrative buildings this summer.

During the 15-20 minute drills, which begin Tuesday, June 25, please follow these directions when the alarm sounds:

• Follow the directions of your floor marshal and proceed to the nearest exit.
• Floor marshals should notify the nearest emergency official when everyone is accounted for, or if anyone is missing.
• Remain with your group until the all-clear is given to return to the building.
• Do not leave campus until the exercise has been completed.

Evacuation drills will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and will follow the schedule below.

Thursday, June 27
Porter/Baker Halls
Scaife Hall
Roberts Hall
College of Fine Arts
Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall
Skibo Gym
Hunt Library

Monday, July 1
Gates/Hillman Center
Newell-Simon Hall
Purnell Center for the Artrs/Miller Gallery
Cyert Hall
Cohon University Center
Bramer House
Alumni House

Wednesday, July 10
Information Networking Institute
Software Engineering Institute
UTDC Building
Whitfield Hall
4721 Fifth Ave.
GATF Building

Friday, July 12
Integrated Innovation Institute
205 S. Craig St.
300 S. Craig St.
311 S. Craig St.
407 S. Craig St.
417 S. Craig St.

Tuesday, July 16 (* please note new date)
6555 Penn Ave.
National Robotics Engineering Center
Pittsburgh Technology Center

Questions? Contact Thomas Plietz, fire safety manager, at tplietz@andrew.cmu.edu.

Joan Maser, coordinator of athletic support services, is retiring this week after 38 years of service to Carnegie Mellon. As coordinator of athletics support services, Maser has been responsible for scheduling and coordinating travel arrangements for Carnegie Mellon’s 18 intercollegiate sports teams since 1986. Maser also handles purchasing and is involved in the planning and execution of special events for the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation. Since joining CMU, she has played many roles, from head field hockey coach, physical education instructor and assistant athletic trainer to associate director of athletics. “Joan has made an impact on the experience of thousands of student-athletes – as an athletic trainer, coach, administrator and educator. She has been a friend to all, and it is difficult to imagine our athletics department and university without her steady presence,” said Director of Athletics Joshua Centor. Learn more about Maser.

Daniel Nagin, professor of public policy and statistics at the Heinz College, co-authored a study that found childhood behavior can predict economic success later in life. The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found boys and girls who were inattentive at age 6 had lower earnings in their 30s after taking into consideration their IQ and family adversity. The study also found that boys who were physically aggressive or oppositional and who refused to share materials or blamed others had lower annual earnings in their 30s. And males who were prosocial, and shared or helped, had higher earnings. The study used data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Children, a population-based sample of predominantly white boys and girls born in 1980 or 1981 in Quebec, Canada, who were followed from Jan. 1, 1985, to Dec. 31, 2015. In sum, 2,850 children were assessed. The data included behavioral ratings by kindergarten teachers when the children were 5 or 6 years old, as well as 2013 to 2015 government tax returns when the participants were 33 to 35 years old. Find out more.

Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Zachary Ulissi will be one of the first to use the new Perlmutter supercomputer in early 2020. The Perlmutter, designed by Cray Inc., will be able to perform 100 million billion floating point operations per second (FLOPS). According to the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center, Perlmutter is the first supercomputing system designed to enable both data analysis and simulation. Ulissi and his research team will be using Perlmutter’s expanded computing power to accelerate their search for new materials that can serve as active catalysts for renewable energy chemistries. His project was chosen as part of the NERSC Early Science and Application program, and will be used to demonstrate to future users the impact of the new machine, and to verify that it runs according to its targeted specifications. Find out more. 

A passion for design runs in Melissa Cicozi’s family. Fueled by that passion, she nurtures Carnegie Mellon's design students as they work to develop their niche in the field.

“My father was a Madison Avenue advertising guy in the 1960s — a Mad Man, as they say — and that was pretty exciting when I was growing up,” she said. “He would bring home ideas to the dinner table, shoot TV commercials, and sometimes bring home products that weren’t on the market yet. It was fascinating, and it was something that I always thought sounded really fun.”

Her brother followed their father into advertising, but Cicozi’s contribution to the field took on a different form.

“I had a pretty good handle on what design was, but I wasn’t actually good at making design,” she said. “I liked to talk about it and think about it, and I appreciate it, and as it turned out that’s great for me because that’s what I do.”

As assistant head of the School of Design, a large portion of Cicozi’s role is talking with high school students and their parents about what sets Carnegie Mellon apart from other design schools.

“Usually students come in knowing a lot about what design is, and the parents are still trying to figure it out, which is not surprising because design keeps changing,” she said. “I think it actually helps me to explain it from a layperson’s point of view. Because I’m not a designer, it helps me to see it through the parents eyes a little better.”

Cicozi said design students at Carnegie Mellon get their own desk in the studio on the day they start, which is unusual compared to other design schools around the country. Often the students will gather to work on weekends, and even bring their dinners there while they work on their projects.

“We want our students to collaborate rather than compete, and there’s room to spread out their work, leave it there, and come back and continue where they left off,” she said. “Students say that their classmates become their design family, and parents feel good about the supportive environment.”

Cicozi double majored in psychology and sociology at Washington University. She came to Carnegie Mellon in 1986, where she worked for two years in what is now Facilities and Management Services and earned a Master of Public Management degree from the Heinz College. She has worked in the School of Design since 1988.

“I was looking for a job where I could be in a beautiful setting and there would be lots of different activities going on,” she said. “I love problem solving, which I get in spades, and I love working with students.”

Opportunities such as co-teaching a design and sustainability course led Cicozi to partnering with companies in the surrounding community. On one project, she partnered with Giant Eagle which displayed her students’ design posters to help promote reusable bags. On another project, she partnered with Construction Junction which set up a month-long exhibit of her students’ ideas for ways to reuse materials.

Soon afterward, Construction Junction asked Cicozi to join their board of directors, a role she has been serving in for a decade.

Cicozi is this year's recipient of the College of Fine Arts (CFA) Henry Award for Spirit. The Henry Awards were created to recognize the outstanding achievements of staff in CFA.

Cicozi’s favorite part about working at Carnegie Mellon is the students.

“That’s what gets me up every morning. I love helping them to solve problems. When somebody comes in really upset and I can get them to leave with a smile, that’s the best possible thing for me to do,” she said.

Outside of her design work, Cicozi teaches a Pilates class in the Cohon University Center and is enjoying her first summer in a new home where deer are not interfering with her gardening efforts.

“You should see my garden. It’s amazing! It’s bursting from spring rain and cooler temperatures. It makes me look like the best gardener ever," she said. "That’s not true, but to not have deer take it to the nub every night is just so satisfying. Gardening is really fun for me.”

Cicozi's older daughter graduated from CMU's School of Design in 2012 and works as a digital project manager at Howard Hanna. Her younger daughter earned a bachelor's degree in decision science from CMU in 2018.

Tim Ruff is a singing software specialist.

During the week, he uses his technical skills as a systems and support consultant for the Dietrich College, where for the past year he has built and managed the online application system for all of the college’s graduate programs. On the weekends, the Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts graduate is a singer, songwriter and wedding musician.

“I absolutely love my work,” Ruff said. “I’m very analytical, which might be surprising for a musician, so I enjoy code, software and computing. This is one of the best jobs I could have found at Dietrich.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Carnegie Mellon, Ruff joined the Alumni Relations Office as an administrative coordinator while working on his first album, “Winter’s Coming,” which he released in 2010. He cut his second album, “Love is,” in 2013, while working as a program coordinator in the Philosophy Department. After a stint in the History Department, he was promoted to his current consultant’s role last year.

Ruff said his focus this year is to develop an online marketing program for the Dietrich College’s graduate programs.

“We’ll be developing online systems and communications strategies to encourage students to apply,” he said. “We plan to take a more proactive approach to connect with potential students and to increase the number and quality of applicants.”

In 2011, Tim Ruff produced a parody of “Walking in Memphis,” titled “Walking in Pittsburgh,” which has garnered more than 229,000 views.

As a wedding singer, Ruff, who markets himself as the “Acoustic Crooner,” plays everything he likes, from Frank Sinatra and Frankie Valli to contemporary pop and country. He’s played dozens of weddings at churches and synagogues, and venues such as Heinz Chapel, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Five Pines Barn and The Pennsylvanian.

"If you’ve ever heard catholic music on an acoustic guitar, it’s something to behold."

He also writes songs for couples, crafting lyrics and music from their top 10 favorite moments together. He even sings in Italian, German, French and Latin.

“If you’ve ever heard catholic music on an acoustic guitar, it’s something to behold,” Ruff said. 

When he’s not playing weddings, he plays at local clubs. He has an upcoming appearance scheduled at Apericena Wine Bar in Upper St. Clair on Thursday, July 25.

In his spare time, Ruff likes spending time with his family, reading non-fiction, and working around the house.

“We just bought a new home and I’m already taking it apart,” he said. 

Have a suggestion for Staff Spotlight? Send it to piperweekly@andrew.cmu.edu.  

MCS Staff Honored at Awards Ceremony

Thirteen staff members in the Mellon College of Science were recently honored for their exceptional job performance. Awards were presented in four categories: Merit, Rookie, Special Service and Outstanding Achievement.  And the winners are:

Merit Award: Michelle Waters, business manager;

Rookie Award: Paola Buitrago, director, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Group;

Special Service Award: Andrew Lawson, biological and radiation safety officer, Environmental Health & Safety;

Outstanding Achievement Awards:

Collin Bachert, researcher III, Biological Sciences;
Lorna Williams, senior administrative coordinator, Chemistry;
Charles Harper, administrative coordinator, Mathematical Sciences;
Emily Payne, communications manager, Dean’s Office;
Eric Day, skilled manual machinist, Physics;
Brain Imaging Library Team, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center: Kathy Benninger, Greg Hood, Alex Ropelewski, Derek Simmel and Art Wetzel.

Also during the ceremony, 27 staff members were given years-of-service awards, recognizing their five to 35 years with MCS. Learn more.

NSF Funds Bridges-2 Supercomputer at PSC

A $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding a new supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint research center of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. In partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, PSC will deploy Bridges-2, a system designed to provide researchers in Pennsylvania and the nation with massive computational capacity and the flexibility to adapt to the rapidly evolving field of data- and computation-intensive research. Bridges-2 will be available at no cost for research and education, and at cost-recovery rates for other purposes.

Bridges-2 will accelerate discovery to benefit science, society and the nation. Its unique architecture will catalyze breakthroughs in critically important areas such as understanding the brain, developing new materials for sustainable energy production and quantum computing, assembling genomes of crop species to improve agricultural efficiency, exploring the universe via multimessenger astrophysics and enabling technologies for smart cities.

"Unlocking the power of data will accelerate discovery to advance science, improve our quality of life and enhance national competitiveness," said Nick Nystrom, PSC's chief scientist and principal investigator for Bridges-2. "We designed Bridges-2 to drive discoveries that will come from the rapid evolution of research, which increasingly needs new, scalable ways for combining large, complex data with high-performance simulation and modeling." Find out more.

Forbes Paving Scheduled for July 12-14

PennDOT construction crews are scheduled to mill and pave Forbes Avenue between S. Craig Street and Margaret Morrison Street this weekend, beginning at 8 p.m., Friday, July 12. Weather permitting, the work is expected to be completed on Sunday, July 14.

At least a single lane of traffic will be provided along Forbes Avenue during construction, but motorists should expect traffic delays and detours. Morewood Avenue, S. Craig Street and Bellefield Avenue will be used as detours for the work between Morewood and S. Craig.

This work is part of the Forbes Avenue Improvement Project.

GSIA Building Renamed Hall of the Arts

The GSIA building, formerly a home to the Tepper School of Business, has been renamed Hall of the Arts to reflect its new occupants. With the Tepper School now in the first building on the Tepper Quad, several units from the College of Fine Arts will be moving into the space this fall.

The Hall of the Arts will house classrooms and offices for the School of Music, the School of Art’s Master of Fine Arts program and the BXA intercollege degree programs. 

The Master of Computational Finance program, which is currently housed in the Hall of the Arts, will be moving into the new Tata Consultancy Services building on Forbes Avenue once it is completed.  That move will create additional space for the School of Music.

Pop-In at the Summer Outdoor Pop-Ups

Dining Services is offering delicious pop-up menus from The Exchange and The Underground on the East-West Walkway adjacent to the Cohon Center's Merson Courtyard. Use your Summer DineXtra, cash, credit or debit to enjoy your breakfast, lunch or sweet treats outdoors. Find out more.

Goodbye Lynda, Hello LinkedIn Learning

On July 9, Lynda.com was successfully upgraded to LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning has the same great online learning content as Lynda.com, offering a continually growing and evolving library of training videos and tutorials covering a wide range of software, technologies and business topics. With LinkedIn Learning users have access to a vast video library of engaging top-quality business, software, technology and creative course offerings taught by recognized industry experts. Now you also can take advantage of enhanced features including intelligent searching, personalized learning recommendations and custom learning paths. And, it’s all still free! Find out more.

Program Prepares New Generation of Researchers

A unique opportunity at Carnegie Mellon is connecting undergraduate students from underrepresented groups with graduate school training. The Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research's Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (PIER-REU) makes CMU's resources available to students around the country seeking research opportunities.

Since 2016, PIER-REU has brought undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to spend eight weeks in a CMU research lab during the summer. Each student receives a stipend, housing and opportunity to contribute to a variety of research projects under the mentorship of a PIER faculty member, post-doctoral researcher or advanced graduate student. While PIER provides funding for student stipends, the Department of Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction Institute provide funds for student housing.

"Our efforts in recent years have inspired other colleagues in the learning sciences to secure additional funding for the PIER-REU program, so this year we are able to provide research opportunities to eight students — our biggest cohort to date," said David Klahr, a co-director of PIER and the Walter van Dyke Bingham Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development and Education Science.  Find out more.

Last Call: Nominate Your Deserving Colleagues for the Andy Awards

Nominations for the Andy Awards, the university's staff recognition program, are now being accepted. Take the time to nominate your colleagues whose outstanding work is deserving of this special recognition. All nomination materials must be submitted by July 12.

For more information on the awards program, including category descriptions and criteria, and how to nominate, visit the Andy Awards website at https://www.cmu.edu/andyawards/.

Questions? Send email to AndyAwards@andrew.cmu.edu. 

Updated Financial Records Retention Policy Went Live July 1

The university’s updated Financial Records Retention Policy went into effect on July 1 and replaces the previous version from Jan. 14, 1997. The updated policy reflects expansion to the categories and descriptions of financial records, includes updates to the retention time period requirements, provides clear responsibilities for the administration of the policy to support university compliance with legal and other regulatory retention requirements, and gives guidance on electronic records, disposal of non-official records and archiving financial records. 

Carnegie Mellon is required to retain university financial records as necessary to meet business needs and to comply with legal standards. The university also has an interest in setting appropriate retention periods for financial records to preserve university history, optimize the use of university space and minimize the cost of financial record retention for the university.

The policy applies to all academic and administrative departments, divisions and other business units of Carnegie Mellon creating or receiving university financial records, including faculty, staff, temporary workers, student employees, consultants and agents of the university creating and/or receiving university financial records by or on behalf of the university. This policy does not address the retention records beyond university financial records, such as student academic records. Individuals should consult with the appropriate university office for further information about the retention of these other records.

For additional information, visit www.cmu.edu/finance/news. Questions about the Financial Records Retention Policy can be directed to fin-recordsretention@andrew.cmu.edu.

Building Evacuation Drills Continue

The Environmental Health & Safety Department is continuing evacuation drills in academic and administrative buildings this summer to practice fire safety awareness and preparedness.

If your an occupant in one of the buildings on the schedule below, please follow these directions when the alarm sounds:

• Follow the directions of your floor marshal and proceed to the nearest exit.
• Floor marshals should notify the nearest emergency official when everyone is accounted for, or if anyone is missing.
• Remain with your group until the all-clear is given to return to the building.
• Do not leave campus until the exercise has been completed.

Evacuation drills will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and will follow the schedule below.

Friday, July 12
Integrated Innovation Institute
417 S. Craig St.
205 S. Craig St.
300 S. Craig St.
305 S. Craig St.
311 S. Craig St.
407 S. Craig St.

Tuesday, July 23 (* please note new date)
6555 Penn Ave.
National Robotics Engineering Center
Pittsburgh Technology Center

Questions? Contact Thomas Plietz, fire safety manager, at tplietz@andrew.cmu.edu

Yuejie Chi and Po-Shen Loh have received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research careers and who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology. This year's recipients will be honored at a July 25 ceremony in Washington, D.C.

• Chi is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and holds the Robert E. Doherty Early Career Professorship. Her research interests include signal processing, machine learning, large-scale optimization and their applications in data science, inverse problems, imaging and sensing systems. She has earned numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award in 2017, Young Investigator Program awards in 2015 and the Google Faculty Research Award in 2013.
• Loh, this year's recipient of CMU's Ryan Teaching Award, is an associate professor of mathematical sciences and a global ambassador for mathematics. He travels the world giving talks to diverse audiences, from fellow mathematicians to high school students. Loh is head coach of the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team, which has won three of the last four world mathematics titles. He recently attended the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian, China, as a member of the Forum's Young Scientists community.  Learn more.

Carnegie Mellon physicist Rachel Mandelbaum has been named a 2019 Simons Investigator by the Simons Foundation. The Simons Investigator program provides research support to outstanding scientists, enabling them to undertake the long-term study of fundamental questions. Mandelbaum is the first Carnegie Mellon researcher to be selected for this prestigious program. A professor in the Department of Physics and a member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Mandelbaum seeks to better understand the universe – how it started and how it came to be as it is today. Specifically, she studies weak gravitational lensing, which looks at distortions in images of distant galaxies obtained by telescopes. Mandelbaum has held a number of leadership roles and won numerous awards in physics and cosmology. She was recently elected spokesperson for the LSST’s Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) and previously served as the DESC analysis coordinator and co-leader of the weak lensing working group. Mandelbaum received the Annie Jump Cannon Prize from the American Astronomical Society, a Department of Energy Early Career Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. Find out more.

Noam Brown, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department who helped develop an artificial intelligence that bested professional poker players, has been named to MIT Technology Review's prestigious annual list of Innovators Under 35. Brown worked with his adviser, computer science Professor Tuomas Sandholm, to create the Libratus AI. It was the first computer program to beat top professional poker players at Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold'em. During the 20-day "Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence" competition in January 2017, Libratus played 120,000 hands against four poker pros, beating each player individually and collectively amassing more than $1.8 million in chips. Brown and Sandholm last year were awarded the Marvin Minsky Medal by the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in recognition of this outstanding achievement in AI. Brown, who will defend his Ph.D. thesis in August, is now a research scientist at Facebook AI Research. Learn more.

Kemal Oflazer, associate dean for research at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and a faculty member in computer science, has authored “Turkish Natural Language Processing,” a one-stop resource for understanding the state of the art in Turkish natural language and speech processing. Oflazer has spent the last 25 years developing techniques and resources for natural language processing for Turkish. Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means that suffixes attach to a root word like beads on a string. One complex Turkish word with several suffixes could express the same meaning as an entire sentence in English. There also are other interesting properties, such as free word order where the subject, object or verb can be arranged in any possible order, whereas in English the order is more or less fixed. The book was published in 2018 and more than 2,000 copies of various chapters have been downloaded. Turkish is spoken by more than 70 million people in Turkey, the Middle East and in European countries, and the wider family of Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by approximately 165 million people worldwide. Before joining CMU’s Qatar campus, Oflazer received his Ph.D. from the Computer Science Department at CMU. Find out more.

Two papers authored by Cécile Péraire, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, were accepted by the 2019 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in Montreal. One paper, about a novel course she had designed and implemented at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley Campus, was accepted to the Software Engineering Education and Training track. The other explored the intersection of software engineering and human-computer interaction and was accepted to the Technical Track. As one of the most competitive conferences in the field, ICSE hosts a highly selective application process, and the authors chosen represented a team of researchers who have made some of the most significant contributions in the field of software engineering. Since starting at CMU in 2012, Péraire has received the College of Engineering Dean's Early Career Fellowship Award and the Philip L. Dowd Fellowship Award. Find out more. 

Edward S. Rubin is the world’s most prolific and highly cited author of carbon capture and storage research, according to a recent analysis published in the international journal Science of the Total Environment. In addition, Rubin and former Engineering and Public Policy Ph.D. student Anand Rao are the co-authors of the most highly-cited paper on this topic. Rubin is a senior energy fellow in the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and the Alumni Chair Professor of Environmental Engineering and Science in the departments of Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering. Rao is a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. “These findings indicate how impactful Ed’s research is in this area and the significant role carbon capture and storage might play in mitigating global warming,” said Jay Whitacre, director of the Scott Institute and the Trustee Professor in the College of Engineering. Find out more.

Academic Development Director Linda Hooper has announced her retirement after more than 20 years at Carnegie Mellon, where her work has impacted thousands of students. Hooper, who joined CMU in 1997, grew Academic Development from one graduate student and herself to a department with seven full-time staff and more than 200 student employees. She has overseen the creation of a certified Peer Tutoring program, an Academic Coaching program, a Supplemental Instruction program and the EXCEL Collaborative Learning Group program. In addition to leading the department, Hooper has personally assisted students with academic, career, personal and professional concerns. She has been involved in many campus initiatives to support students, and has hosted international students at her home over the holidays. She was nominated for a 2018 Andy Award in the Commitment to Students category. “Linda has worked tirelessly to provide high quality academic support to students while going above and beyond the call of duty to help them realize their full potential at CMU,” wrote her staff in nominating her for the Andy Award. Her last day at CMU will be Aug. 5.

Andrew Gellman, co-director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and the Lord Professor of Chemical Engineering, was recently selected to hold an international guest chair as part of the Energy and Environment Solutions (E2S) Initiative at the University of Pau and the Pays de l’Ardour (UPPA) in France. The five-year appointment will allow Gellman to engage in collaborative research related to energy and the environment with scientists at UPPA, including two Ph.D. students and a postdoctoral researcher. The collaboration is supported by the E2S regional initiative. Gellman's research expertise include chemical reactions on surfaces, catalysis and the conversion of molecules from one form to another. Gellman is the recipient of numerious awards, including the American Chemical Society (ACS) Ipatieff Prize and fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, AVS and ACS.

Junior Lindsey Helsel has been selected as a 2019 Perryman Scholar by the Perryman Family Foundation. Helsel is working toward degrees in both materials science and biomedical engineering. The scholarship is designated for students in technology, engineering, math or metals. The Perryman Family Foundation's mission is to reward hard-working students pursuing post-secondary education, and who hope to apply their education to make a difference in the world. "I hope to one day work in research or industry to develop and manufacture treatments for multiple sclerosis, as this is a disease that is very prominent in my family," Helsel said.

Bettinger Works To Revolutionize Treatments for Brain Aneurysms

Christopher Bettinger is leading an interdisciplinary project that could make brain aneurysm treatments more successful and more permanent.

“Current treatments are temporary solutions that the body eventually processes,” said Bettinger, an associate professor of materials science and engineeirng and biomedical engineering.  “When the clot fails, weeks later, months later, or years later, a patient has to undergo the same procedure again.”

Bettinger's team aims to make aneurysm treatments more permanent. Through a grant from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance, the team has been testing GeniCoat, a genipin-based, controlled release material. Genipin is a chemical compound derived from gardenia fruit extract that serves as an extremely successful cross-linker for proteins. This creates a much more stable clot. Find out more.

Tepper MBAs Built Market Strategy for UPMC Platform

Five MBA students at the Tepper School of Business worked with UPMC Enterprises to develop a marketing and commercialization plan for their cloud-based health care operating system — called hcOS — to collect data and make it available for providers, consumers, and payers.

Brian Roberts, Christopher Kowalk, Nicholas Brenneke, Leo Katsman and John Reim developed the plan as part of the capstone requirement for the Technology Strategy and Product Management track. Tim Derdenger, associate professor of marketing and strategy, who coordinates the track, said it is aimed for students with undergraduate degrees in computer science or engineering, or those with experience in technology roles who are looking toward careers in project management. 

“This capstone project felt like it would really have an impact on the company and wasn’t just some ad hoc assignment that was created for students,” Roberts said. “We got the chance to tackle real problems and provide actionable recommendations that UPMC could actually implement.” Find out more.

Hiring Managers View Overqualified Job Seekers as Lacking Commitment

Job seekers who apply for positions in which they appear overly capable may be putting themselves at a disadvantage with hiring managers, according to new research from the Tepper School of Business — unless they are women, in which case being overqualified can be helpful. 

Managers tend to perceive that overqualified candidates lack commitment to the position and to the company as a whole, so they may bypass that candidate in favor of someone with less experience, said Oliver Hahl, assistant professor of organizational theory and strategy. Hahl co-authored the research, “Too Good to Hire? Capability and Inferences about Commitment in Labor Markets,” along with fellow Tepper colleague Jerry Guo, Roman Galperin of Johns Hopkins University, and Adina Sterling from Stanford University. The study was published in Administrative Science Quarterly.  

“Hiring managers tend to be pretty myopic about hiring for a particular job instead of hiring for the organization generally,” Hahl said. “They can’t really know what the applicant’s commitment might be. So they’re going to be right on some, and wrong on others.”

Learn more.

New App Aims To Teach Special Relativity Hands-On

Many people have at least heard of Albert Einstein's famous theory of special relativity, or its key formula E=mc². But, understanding that theory and how it affects the complex relationship between space and time in the universe is another matter entirely.

Carnegie Mellon Physics Professor Ira Rothstein hopes to make understanding general relativity a little easier with a new smartphone app that lets anyone experiment with and learn how different aspects of special relativity, like time dilatio and length contraction, work.

The app, named Relatively Simple, uses one's own movements to help make special relativity seem more approachable. To model the time dilation effect, the user can walk around with their smartphone to see how the passage of time on their own clock starts to move slower than the clock for a person in the app who is not moving. For length contraction, a ruler for the user appears to shrink as they start to move around faster, while a ruler for the person in the app who is standing still remains the same. Helpful animated videos throughout the app give lessons on why and how these effects happen. Find out more.

GSIA Building Renamed Hall of the Arts

The GSIA building, formerly a home to the Tepper School of Business, has been renamed Hall of the Arts to reflect its new occupants. With the Tepper School now in the first building on the Tepper Quad, several units from the College of Fine Arts will be moving into the space this fall.

The Hall of the Arts will house classrooms and offices for the School of Music, the School of Art’s Master of Fine Arts program and the BXA intercollege degree programs. 

The Master of Computational Finance program, which is currently housed in the Hall of the Arts, will be moving into the new Tata Consultancy Services building on Forbes Avenue once it is completed.  That move will create additional space for the School of Music.

Pop-In at the Summer Outdoor Pop-Ups

Dining Services is offering delicious pop-up menus from The Exchange and The Underground on the East-West Walkway adjacent to the Cohon Center's Merson Courtyard. Use your Summer DineXtra, cash, credit or debit to enjoy your breakfast, lunch or sweet treats outdoors. Find out more.

M&C Wins Silver Telly Award

Carnegie Mellon's Marketing & Communications Division has won a Silver Telly Award for filming and producing this year's Auld Lang Syne video, featuring faculty and students in Exploded Ensembe and Activated Anamorphs. The arrangement by School of Music faculty member Jesse Stiles and graduate student Jacob Randall Holmes, was filmed during the "SubSurface: Site-Specific Sight & Sound" festival, hundreds of feet below the surface in a limestone mine in Brady's Bend, Armstrong County.

The Telly Awards, in its 40^th year, honor excellence in video and television across all screens.

Traffic21 Names Winners of Second Smart Mobility Challenge

Transportation difficulties faced by North Huntingdon Township and the Airport Corridor Transportation Association (ACTA) have been selected as winners of the Second Mobility Challenge, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21.

Traffic21 is a research institute operated out of CMU’s Heinz College and Mobility21. It is affiliated with the United States Department of Transportation’s National University Transportation Center in the College of Engineering.

The ACTA's mobility challenge involves designing a public transportation service that features flexible routes and connections to maximize mobility and operating efficiency, as well as ridership comfort. North Huntingdon seeks a solution to alleviate congestion, ensure safety and anticipate travel demand on a heavily trafficked roadway.

With generous funding from the Hillman Foundation, the Smart Mobility Challenge aims to transform southwestern Pennsylvania into a testbed for mobility innovation. The challenge invites representatives of municipalities and public transit operators to identify real-world mobility challenges affecting their communities and to apply to receive support from CMU faculty and students.

“Only at Carnegie Mellon do we have this unique opportunity to collaborate with partners in our region to solve real-world problems faced by their communities," said Heinz College Dean Ramayya Kirshnan.

Learn more.

CMU To March in People's Pride Festival, June 9

CMQ+, Carnegie Mellon's LGBTQIA+ graduate student organization, invites the CMU community and friends to march in People's Pride 2k19, Sunday, June 9. People’s Pride is a two-day, multi-venue festival celebrating the multifaceted power and strength of Pittsburgh’s local LGBTQIA+ communities of color.

All relevant details are in the RSVP form, and once you RSVP, you’ll receive updates on the event as they evolve.

CMU To Launch Executive Program in Behavioral Economics

Carnegie Mellon will launch a new opportunity to help senior executives leverage insights from the field of behavioral economics.

The inaugural Executive Program in Behavioral Economics, will be offered July 29-Aug. 2 on CMU's campus by the Department of Social and Decision Sciences. It is designed to help executives strengthen their brand, engage consumers, improve employee well-being and institutionalize an evidence-based approach to organizational decision-making and change management.

CMU researchers are at the forefront of behavioral economics. They use a distinct fusion of psychology and economics to tackle some of the world's most complicated and costly problems, and they design and test multifaceted interventions to change the way we make decisions, alter the way organizations operate and influence how policies are implemented.

Find out more.

Register Your Child for Gelfand Summer Outreach Classes

The Gelfand Center still has openings for its summer outreach classes. Spots are available for the Science and Engineering Sampler, Engineer Your World, and Air and Climate classes. There also are openings in the After Care program that takes place from noon to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday. After Care is available with the morning class or just as an afternoon activity time on campus. A variety of physical and recreational activities are planned. The programs are for K-9 students. Classes are conducted June and July. Registration is first-come, first-served. To apply, register online.

Cigarette Disposal Urns To Be Installed

In support of the university’s Smoke Less Policy, the Environmental Health and Safety Department has obtained new cigarette disposal urns, which are actively being installed in coordination with Facilities Management and Campus Services. The new urns will replace the existing canisters and will be located in the updated and reduced designated smoking locations that went into effect last summer. Signage will be installed on the new urns designating the area as an approved smoking location.

Please direct questions regarding the Smoke Less Policy or the new urns to safety@andrew.cmu.edu

Applications for ULS Co-Sponsorship Events Due June 14

The University Lecture Series (ULS) is inviting applications for fall 2019 co-sponsorship events that complement and enhance the vibrancy of campus conversations on salient issues crossing disciplinary boundaries. ULS co-sponsorship aims to amplify important conversations occurring in departments, centers and student groups at Carnegie Mellon.

Due to high demand and limited funding, ULS co-sponsorship is shifting from a rolling application process. The deadline for the first round of fall reviews is Friday, June 14. The ULS Committee will review and notify applicants of their co-sponsorship status after July 1. Though priority will be given to first-round applications, late-round applications will be accepted up until Friday, Aug. 9, with a status notification sent before Aug. 26. Fall co-sponsored lectures will be announced in a campus-wide e-mail at the start of the semester with additional communication support of lectures provided by ULS.

Find out more information and apply for co-sponsorship on the ULS website.

CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park is June 8

Tickets for this year’s CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park on Saturday, June 8, are now on sale. New this year, employees may purchase up to four CMU FunDay tickets for $15 each (valid only on June 8), rather than only two tickets as in previous years.

Also new this year is the ability to purchase $10 food/vendor vouchers for only $5. You may purchase one food/vendor voucher for every $15 FunDay ticket purchased.  

You must present your own CMU ID to purchase tickets, and tickets must be purchased with cash only. There are no refunds.

Ice cream treats for everyone and prizes for children 10 and under will be given out from 1 – 2 p.m. in Pavilion #12. Airbrush tattoos will be available for children 10 and under from 12 – 2 p.m. in Pavilion #12.

Ticket Sale Dates:

• May 28, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• May 29, Mellon Institute, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• May 30, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 4, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 5, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 6, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 7, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park is presented by Staff Council. Find out more. 

Carnegie Mellon University is launching a free “virtual buddy system” to help keep you safe.

The Rave Guardian Mobile App, part of the CMU Safe initiative, turns your smartphone — Android or iPhone — into a safety device. Its features allow you to receive CMU-Alert emergency messages — even when you don’t have cell service — notify designated family members and friends where you will be and for how long, and to communicate with University Police.

“This is a great new service that transforms your smartphone into an emergency beacon,” said Melanie Lucht, assistant vice president for Enterprise Risk Management. “The Rave Guardian Mobile App is a virtual buddy system and the gold standard for emergency communications in higher education.”

Frank Marcopolos, director of Risk Operations, said one of the most important features of the mobile app is the safety timer, which allows users to notify designated individuals, or guardians, of their location via Google Maps, and how long they intend to be there. Guardians can be anyone the user selects from their contacts list, from friends and colleagues on campus to parents and relatives out of town.

“If you’re going to an event, or to an unfamiliar part of town, you can activate the safety timer and your guardians will be notified,” Marcopolos said.

If the timer is not deactivated after the designated time period, guardians will be alerted to call the user or University Police. Guardians will receive notifications via a website if they have not downloaded the app.  

Marcopolos said only guardians can see the user’s location, and Google Maps is deactivated once the timer is turned off.

“This is a great new service that transforms your smartphone into an emergency beacon.” — Melanie Lucht

Christopher Duffey, systems analyst for Enterprise Risk Management, said one of his favorite features of the app is its emergency call button.

By tapping the emergency call button on your phone, users are directly put in touch with University Police, who can see your location via Google Maps as well as additional information that you choose to share. 

Users have the option of creating a profile that university police can access when called. Profiles may include a photo, emergency contacts, vehicle information and medical conditions. Callers also can remain anonymous.

“At the minimum, we suggest users include a photo of themselves so University Police can identify you if you need help,” Duffey said. “But additional information is optional. You can provide as little or as much information as you choose.”

University Police Lt. Joseph Meyers said the CMU police force is excited about the app and grateful to Enterprise Risk Management for leading its development and implementation at CMU.  

“If a student, faculty or staff member is in trouble, the app provides an immediate lifeline to University Police and can get them help very quickly. I implore all CMU community members to download the app,” Meyers said.

The app also provides you with a directory of important university resources that you can simply tap to make a call. The directory includes University Police, University Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services and the Employee Assistance Program. In addition, it has a list of helpful links to the CMU escort service, the CMU shuttle bus tracker and an interactive map to the AED devices on campus.

“... the app provides an immediate lifeline to University Police ....” — Lt. Joseph Meyers

Lucht said hundreds of universities and colleges in the United States are using the Rave Guardian Mobile App. Schools employing the app include the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State and Florida State universities, Cornell University, Case Western Reserve University, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.

“We’ve been able to do a significant amount of benchmarking with other universities, and based on those examples we’ve defined the app in a way that meets the needs of our community,” she said.  

Prior to adoption, CMU’s Information Security Office conducted a complete examination of the app and how it stores information to make sure it was secure and safe for use by the university community.

The app, which will officially go live Aug. 1, will be marketed to first-year students during Orientation.  Lucht said presentations are being planned to assimilate the app into the community.  If you would like Enterprise Risk Management to give a presentation about the Rave Guardian Mobile App, please send an email request to risk-operations@andrew.cmu.edu

“We want to make sure we’re interacting with as many groups on campus as possible to raise awareness and answer any questions,” she said.

The Rave Mobile Guardian App can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App store.  More information and answers to frequently asked questions are available on the CMU-Alert website at www.cmu.edu/alert.

M&C Wins Silver Telly Award

Carnegie Mellon's Marketing & Communications Division has won a Silver Telly Award for filming and producing this year's Auld Lang Syne video, featuring faculty and students in Exploded Ensembe and Activated Anamorphs. The arrangement by School of Music faculty member Jesse Stiles and graduate student Jacob Randall Holmes, was filmed during the "SubSurface: Site-Specific Sight & Sound" festival, hundreds of feet below the surface in a limestone mine in Brady's Bend, Armstrong County.

The Telly Awards, in its 40^th year, honor excellence in video and television across all screens.

Traffic21 Names Winners of Second Smart Mobility Challenge

Transportation difficulties faced by North Huntingdon Township and the Airport Corridor Transportation Association (ACTA) have been selected as winners of the Second Mobility Challenge, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21.

Traffic21 is a research institute operated out of CMU’s Heinz College and Mobility21. It is affiliated with the United States Department of Transportation’s National University Transportation Center in the College of Engineering.

The ACTA's mobility challenge involves designing a public transportation service that features flexible routes and connections to maximize mobility and operating efficiency, as well as ridership comfort. North Huntingdon seeks a solution to alleviate congestion, ensure safety and anticipate travel demand on a heavily trafficked roadway.

With generous funding from the Hillman Foundation, the Smart Mobility Challenge aims to transform southwestern Pennsylvania into a testbed for mobility innovation. The challenge invites representatives of municipalities and public transit operators to identify real-world mobility challenges affecting their communities and to apply to receive support from CMU faculty and students.

“Only at Carnegie Mellon do we have this unique opportunity to collaborate with partners in our region to solve real-world problems faced by their communities," said Heinz College Dean Ramayya Kirshnan.

Learn more.

CMU To March in People's Pride Festival, June 9

CMQ+, Carnegie Mellon's LGBTQIA+ graduate student organization, invites the CMU community and friends to march in People's Pride 2k19, Sunday, June 9. People’s Pride is a two-day, multi-venue festival celebrating the multifaceted power and strength of Pittsburgh’s local LGBTQIA+ communities of color.

All relevant details are in the RSVP form, and once you RSVP, you’ll receive updates on the event as they evolve.

CMU To Launch Executive Program in Behavioral Economics

Carnegie Mellon will launch a new opportunity to help senior executives leverage insights from the field of behavioral economics.

The inaugural Executive Program in Behavioral Economics, will be offered July 29-Aug. 2 on CMU's campus by the Department of Social and Decision Sciences. It is designed to help executives strengthen their brand, engage consumers, improve employee well-being and institutionalize an evidence-based approach to organizational decision-making and change management.

CMU researchers are at the forefront of behavioral economics. They use a distinct fusion of psychology and economics to tackle some of the world's most complicated and costly problems, and they design and test multifaceted interventions to change the way we make decisions, alter the way organizations operate and influence how policies are implemented.

Find out more.

Register Your Child for Gelfand Summer Outreach Classes

The Gelfand Center still has openings for its summer outreach classes. Spots are available for the Science and Engineering Sampler, Engineer Your World, and Air and Climate classes. There also are openings in the After Care program that takes place from noon to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday. After Care is available with the morning class or just as an afternoon activity time on campus. A variety of physical and recreational activities are planned. The programs are for K-9 students. Classes are conducted June and July. Registration is first-come, first-served. To apply, register online.

Cigarette Disposal Urns To Be Installed

In support of the university’s Smoke Less Policy, the Environmental Health and Safety Department has obtained new cigarette disposal urns, which are actively being installed in coordination with Facilities Management and Campus Services. The new urns will replace the existing canisters and will be located in the updated and reduced designated smoking locations that went into effect last summer. Signage will be installed on the new urns designating the area as an approved smoking location.

Please direct questions regarding the Smoke Less Policy or the new urns to safety@andrew.cmu.edu

Applications for ULS Co-Sponsorship Events Due June 14

The University Lecture Series (ULS) is inviting applications for fall 2019 co-sponsorship events that complement and enhance the vibrancy of campus conversations on salient issues crossing disciplinary boundaries. ULS co-sponsorship aims to amplify important conversations occurring in departments, centers and student groups at Carnegie Mellon.

Due to high demand and limited funding, ULS co-sponsorship is shifting from a rolling application process. The deadline for the first round of fall reviews is Friday, June 14. The ULS Committee will review and notify applicants of their co-sponsorship status after July 1. Though priority will be given to first-round applications, late-round applications will be accepted up until Friday, Aug. 9, with a status notification sent before Aug. 26. Fall co-sponsored lectures will be announced in a campus-wide e-mail at the start of the semester with additional communication support of lectures provided by ULS.

Find out more information and apply for co-sponsorship on the ULS website.

CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park is June 8

Tickets for this year’s CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park on Saturday, June 8, are now on sale. New this year, employees may purchase up to four CMU FunDay tickets for $15 each (valid only on June 8), rather than only two tickets as in previous years.

Also new this year is the ability to purchase $10 food/vendor vouchers for only $5. You may purchase one food/vendor voucher for every $15 FunDay ticket purchased.  

You must present your own CMU ID to purchase tickets, and tickets must be purchased with cash only. There are no refunds.

Ice cream treats for everyone and prizes for children 10 and under will be given out from 1 – 2 p.m. in Pavilion #12. Airbrush tattoos will be available for children 10 and under from 12 – 2 p.m. in Pavilion #12.

Ticket Sale Dates:

• May 28, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• May 29, Mellon Institute, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• May 30, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 4, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 5, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 6, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• June 7, Cohon University Center, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

CMU Community Day at Kennywood Park is presented by Staff Council. Find out more. 

Bettinger Works To Revolutionize Treatments for Brain Aneurysms

Christopher Bettinger is leading an interdisciplinary project that could make brain aneurysm treatments more successful and more permanent.

“Current treatments are temporary solutions that the body eventually processes,” said Bettinger, an associate professor of materials science and engineeirng and biomedical engineering.  “When the clot fails, weeks later, months later, or years later, a patient has to undergo the same procedure again.”

Bettinger's team aims to make aneurysm treatments more permanent. Through a grant from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance, the team has been testing GeniCoat, a genipin-based, controlled release material. Genipin is a chemical compound derived from gardenia fruit extract that serves as an extremely successful cross-linker for proteins. This creates a much more stable clot. Find out more.

Tepper MBAs Built Market Strategy for UPMC Platform

Five MBA students at the Tepper School of Business worked with UPMC Enterprises to develop a marketing and commercialization plan for their cloud-based health care operating system — called hcOS — to collect data and make it available for providers, consumers, and payers.

Brian Roberts, Christopher Kowalk, Nicholas Brenneke, Leo Katsman and John Reim developed the plan as part of the capstone requirement for the Technology Strategy and Product Management track. Tim Derdenger, associate professor of marketing and strategy, who coordinates the track, said it is aimed for students with undergraduate degrees in computer science or engineering, or those with experience in technology roles who are looking toward careers in project management. 

“This capstone project felt like it would really have an impact on the company and wasn’t just some ad hoc assignment that was created for students,” Roberts said. “We got the chance to tackle real problems and provide actionable recommendations that UPMC could actually implement.” Find out more.

Hiring Managers View Overqualified Job Seekers as Lacking Commitment

Job seekers who apply for positions in which they appear overly capable may be putting themselves at a disadvantage with hiring managers, according to new research from the Tepper School of Business — unless they are women, in which case being overqualified can be helpful. 

Managers tend to perceive that overqualified candidates lack commitment to the position and to the company as a whole, so they may bypass that candidate in favor of someone with less experience, said Oliver Hahl, assistant professor of organizational theory and strategy. Hahl co-authored the research, “Too Good to Hire? Capability and Inferences about Commitment in Labor Markets,” along with fellow Tepper colleague Jerry Guo, Roman Galperin of Johns Hopkins University, and Adina Sterling from Stanford University. The study was published in Administrative Science Quarterly.  

“Hiring managers tend to be pretty myopic about hiring for a particular job instead of hiring for the organization generally,” Hahl said. “They can’t really know what the applicant’s commitment might be. So they’re going to be right on some, and wrong on others.”

Learn more.

New App Aims To Teach Special Relativity Hands-On

Many people have at least heard of Albert Einstein's famous theory of special relativity, or its key formula E=mc². But, understanding that theory and how it affects the complex relationship between space and time in the universe is another matter entirely.

Carnegie Mellon Physics Professor Ira Rothstein hopes to make understanding general relativity a little easier with a new smartphone app that lets anyone experiment with and learn how different aspects of special relativity, like time dilatio and length contraction, work.

The app, named Relatively Simple, uses one's own movements to help make special relativity seem more approachable. To model the time dilation effect, the user can walk around with their smartphone to see how the passage of time on their own clock starts to move slower than the clock for a person in the app who is not moving. For length contraction, a ruler for the user appears to shrink as they start to move around faster, while a ruler for the person in the app who is standing still remains the same. Helpful animated videos throughout the app give lessons on why and how these effects happen. Find out more.

GSIA Building Renamed Hall of the Arts

The GSIA building, formerly a home to the Tepper School of Business, has been renamed Hall of the Arts to reflect its new occupants. With the Tepper School now in the first building on the Tepper Quad, several units from the College of Fine Arts will be moving into the space this fall.

The Hall of the Arts will house classrooms and offices for the School of Music, the School of Art’s Master of Fine Arts program and the BXA intercollege degree programs. 

The Master of Computational Finance program, which is currently housed in the Hall of the Arts, will be moving into the new Tata Consultancy Services building on Forbes Avenue once it is completed.  That move will create additional space for the School of Music.

Pop-In at the Summer Outdoor Pop-Ups

Dining Services is offering delicious pop-up menus from The Exchange and The Underground on the East-West Walkway adjacent to the Cohon Center's Merson Courtyard. Use your Summer DineXtra, cash, credit or debit to enjoy your breakfast, lunch or sweet treats outdoors. Find out more.

Carnegie Mellon University is launching a free “virtual buddy system” to help keep you safe.

The Rave Guardian Mobile App, part of the CMU Safe initiative, turns your smartphone — Android or iPhone — into a safety device. Its features allow you to receive CMU-Alert emergency messages — even when you don’t have cell service — notify designated family members and friends where you will be and for how long, and to communicate with University Police.

“This is a great new service that transforms your smartphone into an emergency beacon,” said Melanie Lucht, assistant vice president for Enterprise Risk Management. “The Rave Guardian Mobile App is a virtual buddy system and the gold standard for emergency communications in higher education.”

Frank Marcopolos, director of Risk Operations, said one of the most important features of the mobile app is the safety timer, which allows users to notify designated individuals, or guardians, of their location via Google Maps, and how long they intend to be there. Guardians can be anyone the user selects from their contacts list, from friends and colleagues on campus to parents and relatives out of town.

“If you’re going to an event, or to an unfamiliar part of town, you can activate the safety timer and your guardians will be notified,” Marcopolos said.

If the timer is not deactivated after the designated time period, guardians will be alerted to call the user or University Police. Guardians will receive notifications via a website if they have not downloaded the app.  

Marcopolos said only guardians can see the user’s location, and Google Maps is deactivated once the timer is turned off.

“This is a great new service that transforms your smartphone into an emergency beacon.” — Melanie Lucht

Christopher Duffey, systems analyst for Enterprise Risk Management, said one of his favorite features of the app is its emergency call button.

By tapping the emergency call button on your phone, users are directly put in touch with University Police, who can see your location via Google Maps as well as additional information that you choose to share. 

Users have the option of creating a profile that university police can access when called. Profiles may include a photo, emergency contacts, vehicle information and medical conditions. Callers also can remain anonymous.

“At the minimum, we suggest users include a photo of themselves so University Police can identify you if you need help,” Duffey said. “But additional information is optional. You can provide as little or as much information as you choose.”

University Police Lt. Joseph Meyers said the CMU police force is excited about the app and grateful to Enterprise Risk Management for leading its development and implementation at CMU.  

“If a student, faculty or staff member is in trouble, the app provides an immediate lifeline to University Police and can get them help very quickly. I implore all CMU community members to download the app,” Meyers said.

The app also provides you with a directory of important university resources that you can simply tap to make a call. The directory includes University Police, University Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services and the Employee Assistance Program. In addition, it has a list of helpful links to the CMU escort service, the CMU shuttle bus tracker and an interactive map to the AED devices on campus.

“... the app provides an immediate lifeline to University Police ....” — Lt. Joseph Meyers

Lucht said hundreds of universities and colleges in the United States are using the Rave Guardian Mobile App. Schools employing the app include the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State and Florida State universities, Cornell University, Case Western Reserve University, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.

“We’ve been able to do a significant amount of benchmarking with other universities, and based on those examples we’ve defined the app in a way that meets the needs of our community,” she said.  

Prior to adoption, CMU’s Information Security Office conducted a complete examination of the app and how it stores information to make sure it was secure and safe for use by the university community.

The app, which will officially go live Aug. 1, will be marketed to first-year students during Orientation.  Lucht said presentations are being planned to assimilate the app into the community.  If you would like Enterprise Risk Management to give a presentation about the Rave Guardian Mobile App, please send an email request to risk-operations@andrew.cmu.edu

“We want to make sure we’re interacting with as many groups on campus as possible to raise awareness and answer any questions,” she said.

The Rave Mobile Guardian App can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App store.  More information and answers to frequently asked questions are available on the CMU-Alert website at www.cmu.edu/alert.