Institute of Investigative Living Opening at Miller ICA

The Miller Institute for Contemporary Art is opening a solo exhibition of new and existing work by Andrea Zittel, who investigates the forms, patterns and materials that shape our daily lives.

Zittel’s work rests at the intersection of art, architecture and design. A world-builder, Zittel’s practice manifests within her live/work residence A-Z West — an artwork and homestead located on over 70 acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. Since its inception in 2000, A-Z West has functioned as an evolving testing ground for living — a place in which spaces, objects, and acts of living all intertwine into a single ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today. The exhibition demonstrates the immersive gestalt of Zittel’s all-encompassing practice where every material aspect of daily life is examined and her ethos for living guides all action.

The exhibition opens Jan. 25 and runs through March 8. Find out more.

Crack the Code in the Cyber Escape Room

Does your team have what it takes to crack the password? Computing Services is offering a fun and engaging team building opportunity, called Hacked Escape Room.

Register your team for sessions from 2-3 p.m. on Jan. 28, 29 and 30 in the Cohon Center’s Rangos Ballroom.

Take the Fitness Challenge

The Athletics and Physical Education Department is once again hosting a fitness challenge for members of the CMU community. To complete the challenge, participants must exercise 20 minutes a day, four days a week for six weeks from Jan. 27 through March 8. Track your progress and become eligible for a raffle with great prizes. Sign up today.

Want to Jumpstart Your Business Idea?

The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship is currently recruiting teams for its spring 2020 NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) customer discovery training program. CMU faculty, staff, students and recent alumni are eligible to apply and teams can be reimbursed up to $2,500 for eligible expenses to assist in commercializing their STEM technology.

Further details on the program and eligibility can be found online. Since 2014, there have been over 150 teams in the program that have received more than $60 million in additional funding for their ideas. The deadline for teams to apply is Jan. 27 at http://bit.ly/spring_i-corps.

What's the Future for CMU's Shuttle and Escort Service?

Parking & Transportation Services is hosting an open forum to discuss the current state and future of the Carnegie Mellon Shuttle and Escort Service. The forum will be held from 6 – 8 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 23 in the Cohon Center’s Connan Room.

Refreshments will be served. Questions? Contact Michelle Porter at mporter@andrew.cmu.edu.

CMU-Alert Test Scheduled for Friday, Jan. 17

A test of the university’s emergency notification service, CMU-Alert, will be conducted at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 17. In the event of an actual emergency, CMU-Alert sends email, voice and text messages that provide brief details and direct people to www.cmu.edu/alert for more information, instructions and updates.

Students, faculty and staff automatically receive CMU-Alert messages to their email and phone numbers listed in the Student Information Online (SIO) and Workday systems. Please make sure your information is accurate in SIO and Workday.

To help faculty and staff update their personal contact information in Workday — specifically office and mobile phone numbers — see the Change Contact Information 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. If you need to update your office phone information in Pittsburgh, please contact your department administrator.

Also, please download the CMU Rave Guardian Mobile App, a virtual buddy system that turns your smartphone into a safety device. To learn more about the app and how to download it, go to https://www.cmu.edu/erm/guardian.html.

If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact cmu-alert@andrew.cmu.edu.

Craig Markovitz has been named an Entrepreneurial Achievement Laureate by Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania for his outstanding contributions to the business, social and cultural assets of the area. Markovitz is an entrepreneur in residence in the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and an assistant teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business. He is co-founder of Blue Belt Technologies, Inc., a spinoff of  the Robotics Institute, and served as the company’s CEO for over seven years. As CEO, he led a January 2011 merger with HealthpointCapital and helped lead substantial growth of the company. He was a key member of the deal team that led to an acquisition by Smith and Nephew in 2016 for $275 million. In addition, Markovitz was CEO and co-founder of Spotlight Medical, Inc., a spinoff company based on technology developed jointly by Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. He was the recipient of the 2016 Carnegie Science Center Entrepreneur and the 2016 Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association Outstanding Entrepreneur Awards.

Ph.D. candidate Uwakmfon Ibekwe has been awarded a Ruth Furman Miller and David H. Miller Presidential Fellowship in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from the College of Engineering and Carnegie Mellon. Ibekwe, who graduated from Stanford University with a degree in civil engineering, is studying the impact of climate change on drinking water intfrastructure with professors Jeanne VanBriesen and Costa Samaras.  where she is looking at the impact of climate change on drinking water infrastructure. This award was made possible through a generous gift in 2016 from the estate of Ruth Furman Miller. 

Ryan St. Pierre, a postdoctoral researcher in Mechanical Engineering Professor Sarah Bergbreiter’s lab, has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Science 2020 list. St. Pierre designs tiny robots, the sort that can accomplish tasks too tricky for human hands. He’s built bug-inspired bots that are as small as one milligram, and learned to apply new types of materials to robotics. Bergbreiter joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering in fall 2018. See the Forbes listing. 

CMU Chosen To Host Beckman Scholars Program

Carnegie Mellon was one of 12 universities chosen this year by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to host a Beckman Scholars Program. Exceptional undergraduates from the departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry will be eligible for the program. The scholars will participate in a 15-month mentored research experience where they will learn from some of the university’s top researchers. 

The Carnegie Mellon Beckman Scholars Program also will provide students with mentoring from Carnegie Mellon alumni who are successful entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurship component will expose students to the business side of science and teach them how to present their work for funding and commercialization.

“Carnegie Mellon has long been a leader in undergraduate research. We find that what our students learn in the lab is more than just science. They learn about critical thinking and teamwork,” said Bruce Armitage, professor of chemistry. “Combining the research experience with exposure to entrepreneurship will uniquely prepare our Beckman Scholars for their future as 21st century scientists working in both academia and industry.”

Find out more.

Who's New at CMU?

Carnegie Mellon welcomes the following new staff members.

• Megan Neunan, communications specialist, Institute for Politics and Strategy;
• Jennifer Beauseigneur, research administrator, Associate VP for Research & Academic Administration;
• Rod Heiple, director MFI at Mill 19, College of Engineering Dean’s Office;
• Alida Smith, associate vice president, Marketing & Communications;
• James Blakley, associate director, Living Edge Lab, Computer Science Department;
• Travis Dodge, part-time computer operator, School of Computer Science Dean’s Office;
• Scott Andes, executive director, Block Center for Technology and Society; Heinz College;
• Patrick Hannay, overnight library assistant, University Libraries;
• Wei Pu, senior robotics engineer, Robotics Institute; and
• Emily Boggs, undergraduate program coordinator, Biological Sciences, Mellon College of Science Dean’s Office.

Register for CPR/AED Training

The Environmental Health & Safety Department is offering CPR & AED classes on the following dates:

• Monday, Feb. 3
• Thursday, March 5
• Tuesday March 24
• Wednesday, April 1

All of the two-hour classes will be held in the EHS conference room, located in the FMS building and will begin at 10 a.m. Upon successful completion of the course, attendees will receive a CPR/AED certificate through the American Heart Association. Interested participants can register through BioRaft: https://cmu.bioraft.com/node/284547/sessions

Oakland Restaurant Week is Back!

Twenty eateries are participating in this year's Oakland Restaurant Week, Jan. 27 - Feb. 1. All 20 restaurants will be offering lunches for $6 during the six-day period.

Participants taking advantage of the specials also can enter to win "Free Lunch for One Month" along with other great prizes from participating Oakland businesses. See contest details. Here are the participating restaurants:

• Chick-N-Grille - 121 Oakland Ave.
• Fuel & Fuddle - 212 Oakland Ave.
• Golden Palace Buffet - 3607 Forbes Ave.
• Hello Bistro - 3605 Forbes Ave.
• Lotsa Stone Fired Pizza - 3621 Forbes Ave.
• Mario's Oakland Saloon - 116 Oakland Ave.
• Night Market Gourmet - 114 Atwood St.
• Nelle's Sandwiches - 3524 Fifth Ave.
• Noodles & Company - 3805 Forbes Ave.
• Oakland Craft House - 124 Oakland Ave.
• Pittza Pizza - 3606 Fifth Ave.
• Pamela's Diner - 3703 Forbes Ave.
• Pie Express - 148 Oakland Ave.
• Primanti Bros - 3803 Forbes Ave.
• Prince of India - 3614 Fifth Ave.
• Sciuilli's Pizza - 3404 Fifth Ave.
• Sorrento's Pizza - 233 Atwood St.
• Stack'd Oakland - 3716 Forbes Ave.
• Sushi Fuku - 120 Oakland Ave.
• The Garden Grille and Bar - 3454 Forbes Ave.

Get Ready for RecycleMania, Feb. 2 – March 28

Carnegie Mellon is once again participating in RecycleMania, a competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities across their campus communities. Participating schools will monitor each week's reports and rankings to see how their results stack up against other schools. Results are used as motivation to reduce waste and recycle more.

Over the 8-week period, schools report recycling and trash data and rankings are compiled in the following categories:

• Largest amount of recyclables per capita;
• Largest amount of total recyclables;
• Least amount of trash per capita; and
• Highest recycling rate.

Order a 95-gallon paper recycling bin for your office paper by contacting FMCS Clean It at  cleanit@andrew.cmu.edu. This service is free and for non-sensitive office paper only.  

Learn more about CMU's Sustainability Initiative.

Time's Running Out; Crack the Code in the Cyber Escape Room

Does your team have what it takes to crack the password? Computing Services is offering a fun and engaging team building opportunity, called Hacked Escape Room.

Register your team for sessions from 2-3 p.m. on Jan. 28, 29 and 30 in the Cohon Center’s Rangos Ballroom.

Want to Jumpstart Your Business Idea?

The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship is currently recruiting teams for its spring 2020 NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) customer discovery training program. CMU faculty, staff, students and recent alumni are eligible to apply and teams can be reimbursed up to $2,500 for eligible expenses to assist in commercializing their STEM technology.

Further details on the program and eligibility can be found online. Since 2014, there have been over 150 teams in the program that have received more than $60 million in additional funding for their ideas. The deadline for teams to apply is Jan. 27 at http://bit.ly/spring_i-corps.

An award-winning chemist and advocate for science literacy and inclusion, a black feminist whose studies range from hip-hop, #MeToo to black women intellectuals, and a prolific photographer, filmmaker and global spokesperson on climate change are the featured speakers in this semester’s University Lecture Series.

Geraldine Richmond
2019 Dickson Prize in Science Recipient

February 11
“Surf, Sink or Swim: Understanding Environmentally Important Processes at Water Surfaces”
4:30 p.m., Rangos Ballroom, Cohon Center

Geraldine “Geri” Richmond is the 2019 recipient of the 2019 Dickson Prize in Science, awarded annually by CMU to recognize substantial achievements or sustained progress in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, computer science or mathematics. Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon.

Richmond’s research using laser spectroscopy and computational methods studies the environmentally and technologically important processes that occur at liquid surfaces. Her talk will highlight what has been learned about the molecular characteristics of a water surface and how its behavior plays a role in environmentally important processes.

Her research also focuses on gender and racial diversity within the chemistry field. She is founding director of COACh, a grass-roots organization formed in 1998 that has helped over 20,000 women scientists and engineers advance their careers in the U.S., Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Brittney Cooper
Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Lecture

February 25
“Eloquent Rage”
4:30 p.m., McConomy Auditorium

Brittney Cooper is a black feminist and author of “Eloquent Rage,” a book that discusses the power of being an “angry black woman.” In her talk, Cooper will address that stereotype while highlighting the successes of esteemed black women, such as Michelle Obama, Serena Williams and Beyoncé.

Cooper is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the popular blog “Crunk Feminist Collective,” and is a contributor to Cosmopolictan.com and Salon.com. Her cultural commentary has been featured in major news outlets such as MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and PBS.

In addition to “Eloquent Rage,” she is the author of “Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women.”

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today,” said New York Times opinion writer Michael Eric Dyson.

James Balog

March 18
"The Human Element: A New Vision of Nature”
4:30 p.m., McConomy Auditorium, Cohon Center

James Balog’s captivating multi-media presentation provides a fresh look at the human impact of California wildfires, melting glaciers, hurricanes and altered air while celebrating the beauty of the world.

A photographer, filmmaker and climate change researcher, Balog has spent his career photographing human modification of nature. An avid mountaineer, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic.

Balog, the author of eight books, is a spokesperson on the subjects of climate change and human impact on the environment. He founded the Extreme Ice Survey, the most wide-ranging photographic study of glaciers ever conducted.

He was a U.S./NASA representative at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2015 in Copenhagen and made several climate change presentations on behalf of the UN Foundation in Paris in 2015.

Balog’s films include the Emmy Award-winning “Chasing Ice” and “The Human Element.” 

For Melanie Lucht, safety is both business and personal.

At Carnegie Mellon University, Lucht serves as associate vice president and chief risk officer of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). She hails from Bradford, Pennsylvania, home of the Zippo lighter and where law enforcement was the family business.

“On every holiday, at every birthday party and every picnic growing up, I was surrounded by law enforcement, and it was more than just my immediate family,” she said. “There is a deep sense of ‘family’ in a law enforcement community, a camaraderie that is nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. I went to college fully expecting to pursue a career in the field.”

But after earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in criminal justice from Mercyhurst University, she found herself drawn to work as an insurance underwriter, reviewing applications for homeowner’s and auto policies, assessing risk and determining how much premium to charge.

“It was very interesting work to me,” she said. “Underwriting trained me to look at safety through the lens of risk management. I learned to think two and three steps ahead, as in what is the worst-case scenario and what do I need to put in place in order to make this risk acceptable.”

Lucht began her career at CMU in the Computing Services Department, where she grew the business continuity program. Its initial focus was on life/health safety and ensuring the university could continue providing critical services in the event of an emergency.

Under the direction of Vice President for Operations Rodney McClendon, Enterprise Risk Management was restructured into a comprehensive department, bringing business continuity, risk assessment and environmental health and safety all together under one umbrella. After conducting a national search for the university’s chief risk officer, McClendon promoted Lucht to lead the effort and build an expanded team.

“Dr. McClendon’s top priority is the safety of our students, staff and faculty, and he recognizes the importance of risk management in that context,” Lucht said. “Our team is incredibly driven, incredibly dedicated and brings so much expertise to the table. We have had the opportunity to hire subject matter experts with very diverse perspectives, and that has really raised our game.”

In addition to risk assessment and business continuity plans, regularly scheduled emergency preparedness exercises and communication tools, such as the Rave Guardian app and CMU’s emergency alert system are continually being enhanced and refined by the team.

When considering a new strategy or a new program to implement, Lucht says she always tries to look at it through the eyes of a parent, aware that her decisions may influence whether a parent ultimately chooses to send their child to CMU or another institution.

“Sending your child away to an institution of higher education is giving them to another parent, and I share in Dr. McClendon’s passion that safety has to be the top priority. If you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to be able to do much else,” she said.

“When you have that separation with your child who is leaving the nest, you want to feel confident that they’re going somewhere where they’re going to receive an incredible education that is world-renowned, where they will be exposed to positive experiences that will help to shape their character and who they are as an adult for years to come, and where you feel confident that they will be safe.”

When she’s not at work, Lucht spends quality family time with her husband and son, and finds that binge-watching British television and HGTV can be a great way to unwind.

“I really admire people who can do home makeovers. It’s so far removed from my skillset,” she said. “I can sit there for hours on a Sunday afternoon over a cup of tea, fascinated by their creativity.”

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

Aaditya Ramdas, assistant professor in the Department of Statistics & Data Science and Machine Learning Department, has received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award for his project, “Online Multiple Hypothesis Testing: A Comprehensive Treatment.” “Arguably, one of the major hurdles to reproducibility of scientific studies is the cherry picking of results among the vast array of tests run or quantities estimated,” Ramdas said. “We need ‘online’ methods to correct for cherry picking, first acknowledging that the problem exists and then designing algorithms that can account and correct for it.” Ramdas says statistical methods that improve reproducibility in large-scale scientific studies will combat the increasing public distrust in science. Ramdas received a joint Ph.D. in statistics and machine learning from CMU in 2015. Find out more.

Denise Novak, acquisition librarian at University Libraries, has announced her retirement after 28 years at CMU. Her last day at the university will be Friday, Feb . 14. Novak was responsible for the acquisition of, and payment for, all print and electronic materials for University Libraries. She was very active in her field and at CMU. She was a member of the Dewey to LC Reclassification Project Task Force, and was instrumental in implementing the ExLibris Alma Primo VE library management system. She also led coordination for the opening day collection of the Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar Library. Novak was very involved in CMU’s Faculty Senate and served as chair, treasurer and a member of several committees. She is a former president of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) and served two terms as treasurer of that organization. She also was a member of the American Library Association Council. Novak presented at many conferences and authored several articles on library acquisitions.

Mohammed Al-Qassabi, a sophomore information systems major at Carnegie Mellon in Qatar, was awarded the gold medal in the individual category at the Doha Oasis for Innovation, part of the Doha Organization Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Youth Capital 2019 activities. Al-Qassabi’s project is a prototype that helps soccer referees to detect players offside during matches. Al-Qassabi was selected from 15 students in the category of ‘Internet of Things.’ Al-Qassabi competed alongside 42 inventors from 32 countries in the Muslim world between the ages of 18 and 30 in both individual and group competitions. The Doha Oasis for Innovation competition aims to stimulate youth creativity in the fields of invention and innovation. Learn more.

ULS Announces Spring Semester Lineup

An award-winning chemist and advocate for science literacy and inclusion, a black feminist whose studies range from hip-hop, #MeToo to black women intellectuals, and a prolific photographer, filmmaker and global spokesperson on climate change are the featured speakers in this semester’s University Lecture Series.

See the spring lineup.

Launch Your Project with CMU Crowdfunding

CMU Crowdfunding is a CMU-exclusive crowdfunding platform the CMU community — including faculty and staff — uses to raise funds for university-related projects.

Faculty and staff members like you have used CMU Crowdfunding to launch projects across disciplines at CMU. These campaigns supported a retiring professor’s endowed scholarship, provided financial aid to students in a departmental program, provided a grant for a CMU startup, and more.

Do you have a project or cause that could benefit from CMU Crowdfunding? You can get your campaign started by applying today!

Questions? Check out the FAQs or contact Eric Brown at 412-268-5933 or ebrown2@andrew.cmu.edu.

*CMU Crowdfunding may not be used to raise funds for research projects.

Provost's Office Hours are Back

Next Session:
Friday, Jan. 31, 1-2:30 p.m.
Carnegie Conference Room East, first floor, Warner Hall

Provost Jim Garrett will once again be hosting open office hours this semester to meet with faculty, staff and students. He wants you to use this time to tell him what's on your mind, and share your experiences, ideas and aspirations for Carnegie Mellon. 

All sessions are on a first-come, first-served basis and will be held in the Carnegie Conference Room East in Warner Hall. Here’s the upcoming schedule:

• Friday, January 31, 1 - 2:30 p.m.;
• Wednesday, Feb. 26, 9:30 – 11 a.m.;
• Friday, March 27, 3 – 4:30 p.m.; and
• Wednesday, April 28, 2 – 3:30 p.m.

The schedule is subject to change.  

FMCS Request Line Expands After-Hour Services

You’ve always called 412-268-2910 for maintenance and repair, event support, custodial services, access control, grounds and landscaping and other services. Now you can call the same great number for urgent after-hours support for the following:

• Parking & Transportation;
• Tartan Ink Copying & Printing;
• Postal Services; and
• University Stores.

The FMCS Service Response Center’s phone line is answered 24 hours, 7 days a week by a live person.

For more information about the products and services Facilities Management & Campus Services can provide, visit its website at https://www.cmu.edu/fmcs/.

Who's New at CMU?

Carnegie Mellon welcomes the following new staff members.

• Anna Comerford, analyst and project manager, Provost's Office;
• Brian Painter, communications cabling consultant, Computing Services;
• Brian Clark, DevOps engineer, Machine Learning Department;
• Christopher Garcia, staff accountant/accounts payable, Controller's Office;
• Joanna Guziewicz, research administrator, Computational Biology Department; and
• Kimberly Reynolds, financial assistant, Student Leadership, Involvement & Civic Engagement.
  

Learn How to Save a Life; Register for CPR/AED Training

The Environmental Health & Safety Department is offering CPR & AED classes on the following dates:

• Monday, Feb. 3;
• Thursday, March 5;
• Tuesday March 24; and
• Wednesday, April 1

All of the two-hour classes will be held at 10 a.m. in the EHS conference room, located in the FMS building. Upon successful completion of the course, attendees will receive a CPR/AED certificate through the American Heart Association. Interested participants can register through BioRaft: https://cmu.bioraft.com/node/284547/sessions

Get Ready for RecycleMania, Feb. 2 – March 28

Carnegie Mellon is once again participating in RecycleMania, a competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities across their campus communities. Participating schools will monitor each week's reports and rankings to see how their results stack up against other schools. Results are used as motivation to reduce waste and recycle more.

Over the 8-week period, schools report recycling and trash data and rankings are compiled in the following categories:

• Largest amount of recyclables per capita;
• Largest amount of total recyclables;
• Least amount of trash per capita; and
• Highest recycling rate.

Order a 95-gallon paper recycling bin for your office paper by contacting FMCS Clean It at  cleanit@andrew.cmu.edu. This service is free and for non-sensitive office paper only.  

Learn more about CMU's Sustainability Initiative.

Did You Know?

The Academy Awards on Feb. 9 is the entertainment industry’s next big awards show. Who is the most recent CMU alumnus to win an Oscar?

Jim Swartz (far left), Dan Cogan, David Fialkow and Bryan Fogel accept the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for "Icarus" at the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

James Swartz, a graduate of the Tepper School of Business and one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world, won an Oscar as a producer for "Icarus," which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2018. Swartz, for whom the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship is named, received an honorary Doctor of Business Practice Degree from CMU in 2016. That same year, Oscar winner and CMU alumna Holly Hunter received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. Hunter, a 1980 College of Fine Arts graduate, won an Oscar in 1993 for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in "The Piano."

See the full list of CMU Oscar winners (click on Professional Achievement). 

If you’re not a student, it may have been a while since you were quizzed on a topic. That’s about to change.

Through a short email questionnaire coming in February, Carnegie Mellon University hopes to gauge the level of awareness in its global community with regard to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The email questionnaire is part of the Voluntary University Review overseen by CMU’s Sustainability Initiative, which the provost launched last September at the United Nations General Assembly to help CMU raise awareness of, and stimulate action on, the SDGs from now through 2030. This month, Alexandra Hiniker, who created the concept of the Voluntary Local Review and oversaw the process for New York City, joined the team as Executive Fellow for Sustainability Initiatives to lead the Voluntary University Review efforts.

What are the 17 SDGs? Spin the wheel to find out.

From ending poverty and corruption, eliminating hunger and reducing inequality to protecting life on land and under water, the 17 SDGs are a call to action to partner locally on a global agenda of creating a sustainable and prosperous planet.

A group of CMU students in an Engineering and Public Policy class identified a range of opportunities for the university to expand efforts and commitments to sustainability.  They asked what the university was doing to contribute to achieving the SDGs. This led to discussions in the Faculty Senate, a report by a Faculty Senate ad hoc committee on sustainability at CMU, and the creation of the Sustainability Initiative by university leadership.  The Sustainability Initiative is guided by a three-member steering committee plus a 20-member advisory council made up of students, faculty and staff.

“Awareness is one of our main goals right now,” said Steering Committee Co-chair Steve Guenther, university engineer and assistant vice president of Facilities Management and Campus Services. “We need to find out where our CMU global community is in terms of awareness of the SDGs in order to have a foundation to build on.”

The survey is set to launch in February across the global campus community and will be emailed to students, faculty and staff. Guenther said the survey starts with the basics, asking simple questions such as: Have you heard of the SDGs? Do they resonate with you? Do you see a connection between any of the 17 SDGs and your passions?

“We want to know more about your engagement with the SDGs — in the classroom, where your research is focused, things you’re doing on campus or at home,” Guenther said. “The initiative is not about creating lots of new things. It’s about being a force multiplier. We want to acknowledge the good things that are happening and use that baseline to help the university build a strategy for the future, support SDG-related CMU activities, as well as be able to see our progress as we move toward the Global Goals.”

Steering Committee Co-chair David Dzombak, who is a University Professor and head of the College of Engineering’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, characterizes CMU’s Sustainability Initiative as a “bottom-up” effort rather than top-down.

“We really want to engage the entire campus community,” Dzombak said. “Carnegie Mellon has a unique role to play in contributing to achievement of the Global Goals. Our long-range goal is to advance sustainability education at CMU and position our students to be citizens and leaders who help society move forward on the SDGs.”

Following the February survey, Guenther says the campus community can expect continued engagement that will take on a variety of forms, including events, workshops and opportunities to have conversations centered around the SDGs and how people connect with them.

Sarah Mendelson, who co-chairs the Steering Committee with Guenther and Dzombak, is a distinguished service professor of public policy, head of the Heinz College’s Washington, D.C. program, and former ambassador to the United Nations with expertise in the SDGs and in human rights. Mendelson explains why universities and CMU in particular are important to the global effort.

“CMU is really a mission-driven place that is already working to solve societal problems,” Mendelson said. “We can harness the energy of CMU around the SDGs by meeting people where they are and where their passions are, by figuring out where and how they want to make a difference.”

Guenther noted CMU has a unique set of strengths among higher education institutions. He is interested in seeing how some of the university’s world-class skills apply to advancing the SDGs.

“One example is how artificial intelligence research can be applied to dealing with the issue of human trafficking,” Guenther said. “There are so many ways to get involved and engaged.”

Guenther said there are several efforts being planned to engage members of the campus community in a conversation about the SDGs and how they connect with them. A workshop is scheduled for fall that will bring people together to roll up their sleeves and participate in exploration of an SDG that interests them.

Until then, Dzombak encourages you to learn more about the 17 SDGs and think about which ones resonate with you most. Dzombak also invites you to visit the and to reach out to the steering committee or advisory council members with ideas or questions by emailing sustainability@cmu.edu.

“People shouldn’t wait to hear what we come up with,” Dzombak said. “We want to inform our community about the SDGs, stimulate thinking and planning, and then let the dynamic talent here be creative and take root into advancing CMU’s contributions to achieving the Global Goals.”

Gender identity and gender expression are shifting and expanding concepts, and Carnegie Mellon University is committed to keeping pace with a safe and inclusive environment for all faculty, staff and students. Supporting that effort is equity expert Jaime Grant, who will be visiting to lend her insights to the campus community Thursday, Feb. 13.

Grant has been active in LGBTQIA, women's and racial justice movements for over 30 years.

She was principal investigator for the historic 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey and authored the accompanying report, “Injustice at Every Turn.” Her research highlights the experiences of transgender and non-binary people and discusses the many ways they experience inequality.

Key findings of Grant's original study include the combination of anti-transgender bias and persistent, structural racism, leading people of color to fare worse than white participants in most areas examined. The sample population of the study (over 6,000 individuals) was four times more likely than the general U.S. population to have a household income of less than $10,000 per year and 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide. 

The survey was repeated in 2015, with over 28,000 participants, and found similarly discouraging results.

"We all have a role to play in creating all-gender affirming environments," Grant said.  “I’m excited to hear about life at CMU from gender expansive staff, students, and faculty. And to share effective tools for making the CMU community and its fantastic academic programs fully accessible to non-binary and genderqueer learners."  

Grant will speak informally with faculty and staff at 2 p.m., Feb. 13 in the Cohon Center’s Danforth Conference Room, and then lecture at 5 p.m. in Simmons Auditorium in the Tepper School to discuss ways the university community can become more inclusive. Visit CMU Tickets for more information and to register for either event. 

Sebastian Lacy is a people person.

As a seasoned Human Resources professional, Lacy combines his passion for education with his HR experience in an advisory role for the Mellon College of Science Dean’s Office.

He says he has always felt called to inspire and motivate youth and young adults to pursue higher education, and Carnegie Mellon University's commitments to excellence and to the community provide him with the ideal environment for carrying out his mission.

“Education is quintessential to changing lives regardless of one’s socioeconomic background, race, gender, sexual orientation, creed or nationality,” he said. “It affords you the opportunity to transcend all barriers to accomplish your dreams and aspirations.”

Lacy serves CMU faculty and staff in the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; Mathematics, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, and Physics departments; and the MCS Office of Undergraduate Studies. Some of his primary responsibilities include answering their questions and helping them navigate internal management tools such as Workday and Servicenow. He is the point person for MCS’s performance management system, staff engagement and recognition programs.

He is a passionate believer in recognizing and engaging staff, and he walks the talk — overseeing MCS’s staff recognition program and representing MCS on the Andy Awards Committee, which selects the annual winners of the university’s most prestigious staff award.

"Staff are so often the unsung heroes and life blood of an organization’s success. It’s essential for an organization to celebrate them."

“Staff are so often the unsung heroes and life blood of an organization’s success. It’s essential for an organization to celebrate them,” he said. “Saying thank you for their countless, tireless hours, and for their unwavering dedication to CMU’s mission and vision, should be celebrated and recognized in a formalized setting. It may seem like a small token, but it goes a long way.”

It’s work that matters. As a result of his engagement with staff, colleagues have become energized to partner with other departments, volunteer for committees, nominate their colleagues for awards and attend MCS-sponsored events.

Lacy has been an active member of Staff Council since 2014. He is chair of its Relations Guidance Advisory Committee, serving as a confidential and objective peer resource to university staff and helping to ensure fair staff relations and support the university’s commitment to equality, ethical behavior and respect for others.

He also chairs the ad hoc All-Gender Inclusive Restroom Committee comprised of representatives from across campus, which strives to have at least one all-gender restroom in every campus building in the near future to serve not only CMU faculty, staff and students but campus visitors, family and vendors.

As a member of Staff Council’s Benefits Committee, Lacy played a key role in the university’s adoption of its new parental leave policy. This year, he will serve as the MCS team captain for the United Way Campaign.

“I enjoy my staff engagement and recognition roles immensely,” he said. “I take great pride in supporting our staff and showing them appreciation for their dedication and commitment to our students and to making CMU one of the world’s leading higher learning institutions.”

From on-boarding to retirement, Lacy says his secret to success is employing good old-fashioned customer service.

“I feel my role is to ensure they have the best service, experience and outcome,” he said. “My interactions are more than just a Workday transaction, an email or a voicemail. That is a person on the other end who deserves the highest quality response and your best effort possible.”

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

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

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

Seeking Ph.D. Participants for Three Minute Thesis Competition

An 80,000-word thesis would take nine hours to present. Their time limit? Three minutes! Think your Ph.D. students can discuss their thesis in plain language in under three minutes for a chance to win technology or research/travel grants?

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition challenges CMU doctoral candidates to present a compelling oration on their thesis and its significance in just three minutes, in language appropriate for a general audience. 3MT is not an exercise in trivializing or "dumbing-down" research, but requires students to consolidate their ideas and crystallize their research discoveries. 

Any currently enrolled CMU Ph.D. student may sign up to compete. Register online. The registration deadline is Feb. 26. Preliminary heats will be held March 3-25 and the championship round will be held on April 7.

Heat winners will win their choice of either $1,000 toward research/travel needs or $1,000 credit to the University Computer store to be used at their discretion. Championship winners will receive $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 in research/travel grants and a potential $500 research/travel grant for the “People’s Choice” and “Alumni’s Choice” awards.

Contact David Scherer, daschere@andrew.cmu.edu, for questions about the 3MT at CMU Competition.

Coronavirus Information Webpage Published

CMU has published a new webpage in its CMU-Alert collection with links to campus communications regarding the coronavirus, and information for students, faculty and staff about self-isolation and hosting visitors from impacted regions.

The page also includes links to additional resources, inlcuding University Health Services, CMU’s Travel Risk Information Program, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Allegheny County Health Department. See the coronavirus information webpage for more.

Who's Your Student Employee of the Year Candidate?

The Career & Professional Development Center is now accepting nominations through Feb. 22 for the Student Employee of the Year Award sponsored by the National Student Employment Association. This is the 22^nd year Carnegie Mellon is participating in this award program, which recognizes the outstanding contributions of students who work on campus while attending college.  

The nomination process requires the submission of the Student Employee of the Year Nomination Form by Feb. 22 to Pati Kravetz at pk13@andrew.cmu.edu. Forms and information can be found at www.cmu.edu/career.

All nominated student employees will be recognized and honored at the Student Employee Appreciation Lunch on April 7. The student selected as the Carnegie Mellon Student Employee of the Year will be announced at the lunch and will receive a monetary award of $200. 

Global Goals Take Over Cohon Center Hallway; Your Input Needed

It’s time to get your sustainability on. The Global Goals are taking over the Cohon University Center hallway between Forbes Avenue and the Information Desk Feb. 10-14, and CMU wants to hear from you.

Seventeen boards will display content related to the 17 goals the world is working to achieve by 2030. Stop by each day and view the changing content. Which Global Goals resonate with you? CMU wants to know.

“We are excited for the hallway to transform into a space for people to interact with each other and the Global Goals,” said Steven Guenther, assistant vice president of Facilities Management and university engineer. “The Cohon University Center is a vibrant place, and this installation will be an additional opportunity for active learning and creative expression in support of the provost’s Sustainability Initiative."

Do you have an idea for reaching one or more of the Global Goals? Are you looking for collaborators on a project you’re already working on that speaks to one or more of the Global Goals?

Post-It note pads will be available on the windowsills between the displays for you to add your thoughts and ideas.

For more information, contact the Sustainability Initiative Steering Committee at sustainability@cmu.edu.

Register Your Child for the Gelfand Outreach Summer Series

The Gelfand Center is now accepting registrations for its Gelfand Outreach Summer Series Classes. Classes fill quickly so don't wait to register your child for a class. Classes are for K-12 students, STEM focused and highlight the research and work of Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff. 

Classes are developed to be fun, engaging, rigorous and hands-on. Registration is first-come, first-served. Spaces fill quickly, so register today.

Who's New at CMU?

Carnegie Mellon welcomes the following new staff members.

• Julia Badway, early childhood educator, Cyert Center:
• Ian Beitler, contracts analyst, Office of Sponsored Programs;
• Edward Dailey, contract officer, Office of Sponsored Programs;
• Thomas Emanuele, shift supervisor, Facilities Management;
• Chase Jeffries, computer operator, School of Computer Science Dean's Office;
• Manuel Meraz, robotics engineer, Robotics Institute;
• Rebecca Naughton, early childhood educator, Cyert Center;
• Lynda Oliver, chief marketing & communications officer, Tepper School of Business;
• Joseph Perme, associate security researcher, Software Engineering Institute;
• Catherine Porter, curriculum director NREC, Robotics Institute;
• Jessica Toth, program manager, Machine Learning Department;
• Nadiya Tucker, consultation and case management clinician, Student Affairs;
• David Watson, senior software engineer, Software Engineering Institute;
• Jennifer Wilfong, copier technician, Tartan Ink.
  

Did You Know?

Alumnus Burton Morris, a 1986 graduate of the School of Art, was commissioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create the art for posters, trailers, invitations and building wraps for the 76th Oscar ceremonies in 2004.

The official poster created by Morris featured a retro-looking photographer in an orange suit, red tie and orange fedora, snapping a flash photo with the Oscar statuette by his side.

A Pittsburgh native, Morris is known as the “King of Pop Art” for his bold interpretations of everyday items, such as popcorn, coffee cups, Heinz Ketchup bottles and Volkswagen “Love Bugs.” His works have been displayed around the world, from the International Olympic Museum in Switzerland and Sotheby’s in Amsterdam to the Carter Center in Atlanta, Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles, Microsoft Corporation headquarters in Seattle, and Central Perk, the coffee shop made famous by the long-running NBC television series Friends.

Read “Oscar’s Makeover Man.”

Chieko Asakawa, an IBM Fellow and the IBM Distinguished Service Professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, is one of three recipients this year of the prestigious Helen Keller Achievement Award from the American Federation of the Blind (AFB). The AFB is recognizing Asakawa for her life’s work in furthering accessibility research and development. Most recently, she has collaborated with CMU researchers to develop artificial intelligence and robotic technologies that make urban environments, such as shopping malls, airports and university campuses, accessible to people who are blind. Asakawa, who has been blind since age 14, came to CMU in 2014 and has led the development of NavCog, a smartphone app that analyzes signals from Bluetooth beacons to help people with visual disabilities navigate their surroundings. The system has been deployed on the CMU campus, in a Japanese shopping mall and at Pittsburgh International Airport. Last year, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.  Find out more.

Vanessa Chen, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as part of the SpecEES program to develop trusted wireless transceivers for secure and energy-efficient communication. Along with the real-time machine learning and encryption project supported by her NSF CAREER award, this new project is expected to deliver more secure spectrum access for continuous health and environmental monitoring. Using massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technologies alleviates demand and increases the efficiency of spectrum sharing for users, but requires significant power consumption. To achieve dynamic spectrum access, Chen and her Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems (EECS) Lab are working to build lightweight and miniaturized versions of base stations that can be deployed as drones so underserved areas can access wireless internet. Find out more.  

Anne Skaja Robinson, head of the Chemical Engineering Department, has been named to a committee to study the past, present and future of chemical engineering.  “Chemical Engineering in the 21^st Century: Challenges and Opportunities” will outline the major changes and advancements in chemical engineering over the past 30 years and then articulate the shifting needs, challenges, and opportunities in the field over the next three decades. The committee will lead the study and craft a report on its vision for research, education, and industrial innovation in the field. Robinson was named to the committee by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Chemical Science and Technology.

After almost 50 years in the entertainment industry, it may seem hard to believe that actor Ted Danson needs to find inspiration for his craft. But that’s exactly what he was looking for — and found — when he returned to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama, his alma mater, for a visit with sophomore acting students Feb. 7.

The 72-year-old award-winning actor, in town with his wife, actress Mary Steenburgen, talked with students in the Purnell Center about his career path, offering advice and answering questions. He then turned the tables with some questions of his own.

After almost two hours, he exhaled, clapped his hands and told the class, “Thank you. I really needed this.”

“This” was inspiration from fellow actors — something he sought as he wrapped his current hit sitcom, “The Good Place,” and prepared for a new series about the mayor of Los Angeles. In the Tina Fey-created series, the pilot for which he just finished, he will co-star with fellow CMU alum Holly Hunter.

After almost two hours, he exhaled, clapped his hands and told the class, “Thank you. I really needed this.”

Sophomore acting student Valentino Musumeci-McGinn heard Danson mention a couple different times that he “needed this.” 

“It makes me feel like he did need us,” he said. “He needed us to ground him. I’m sure that’s hard when you are Ted Danson.” 

“So, enough about me,” Danson said after talking about his undergraduate years as a political science major at Stanford University and his transfer to Carnegie Tech in 1968, “now, let’s talk about you. I want to hear what’s on your mind.”

For the next hour, he listened to their hopes and aspirations, sharing stories of his own along the way and offering encouragement to the fledgling actors.

“Listen, I am as freaked out at the beginning of every new job as you will be, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s OK to start at zero every time. It means you are creating something new and not recreating what you’ve already done.”

“Listen, I am as freaked out at the beginning of every new job as you will be, and that’s a good thing.”

Musumeci-McGinn found the conversation to be one of the many thoroughly insightful, honest, awe-inspiring conversations students get to have with alumni who are kind enough to visit. 

“They each have perspectives we benefit so much from learning about before going out into the industry,” the 19-year-old said. “I was particularly impressed with his warmth and groundedness, and his ability to connect with us.” 

When Danson graduated in 1972, he left Carnegie Mellon and headed to New York, where he worked briefly in the theater before heading to the West Coast. He soon landed his iconic role as Sam Malone in “Cheers” and became a household name.

He said he learned at CMU some basic principles that have served him well throughout his career: “Say thank you. Be grateful. Make people feel good about themselves, and be joyful while you do it.”

Self-deprecating at times, Danson said he reminds himself to stay positive in a business that can be tough. He told students or, as he called them, his" fellow actors," to stay in the game if it’s what they really want.

“You are what you have to offer the world,” he said. “You need to remember that you are good enough. Take your work seriously, not yourself.”

Alexandra Hiniker sparked a worldwide movement when she reported on New York City’s progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

Now, she has brought her sustainability savvy to the Burgh.

Hiniker joined Carnegie Mellon University in January as the Executive Fellow for Sustainability Initiatives. She accepted this role in the Provost’s Office after working for several years in the New York City Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, where she created and oversaw the process for a Voluntary Local Review. Thanks to her efforts, the Big Apple became the first city in the world to submit a Voluntary Local Review to the United Nations on its progress toward the SDGs, also known as the Global Goals.

The Global Goals — there are 17 of them — range from ending poverty and reducing violence, to eliminating hunger and reducing inequality, to protecting life on land and under water. They are aimed at achieving a peaceful and prosperous Earth by the end of the decade.

“Every year, around 50 countries voluntarily report on their progress toward the Global Goals. The United States has not yet committed to submitting a report, but I realized that New York City had all of the information we needed to do it, and that we had a lot to share and learn by participating as a municipality,” she said.

The report garnered worldwide media coverage and won the 2018 Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation. Since its publication, multiple cities around the world have committed to submitting Voluntary Local Reviews in 2019 and beyond.

What has impressed Hiniker most about CMU is the university’s commitment to learning what its faculty, students and staff are already doing in relation to the Global Goals, and how the university can do more to help the world achieve them.

Last September, Provost Jim Garrett launched the Sustainability Initiative to help CMU raise awareness of, and stimulate action on, the Global Goals. Working with the initiative’s Steering Committee co-chairs and Advisory Council members, Hiniker is now leading CMU’s effort for the Voluntary University Review.

“When I was applying for this job, it was clear from everyone I spoke with that the university is giving the Voluntary University Review a lot of thought and that there is a commitment at the highest level from the provost. I am excited to work in a place where people care and are committed and passionate about the Global Goals,” she said.

The effort will culminate in a report on how CMU’s research, education and practices align with the Global Goals.

“The Global Goals are universal. They are everyone’s goals. Countries shouldn’t be the only ones using this framework,” she said. “Academia, local authorities, civil society, the private sector — we all have a role to play in this global agenda.”

Prior to her work with the New York City Mayor’s Office, Hiniker worked in a number of different countries around the world, including Laos, Cambodia and Lebanon. She is currently chair of the board of trustees of a nongovernmental organization that advocates for more funding to clear unexploded bombs and assist victims in Laos. The programs also help to ensure there is a plan for how the cleared land will be used afterward.

Her primary takeaway from that work is that local action gets the job done.

“The Global Goals are ‘big picture’ policies. It’s important to have them to maintain focus, but the day-to-day action locally is really what has the most impact,” she said. “Seeing firsthand the direct impact that these programs have on people and being able to help them move forward with their lives has had a profound impact on me.”

In her free time, Hiniker loves to learn languages. She speaks fluent Polish and French, as well as basic Arabic and Khmer, and hopes to add a few more languages to that list through taking classes at CMU.

Hiniker has a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the University of Chicago. She earned a master’s degree in Central and Eastern European studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a master’s degree in urban policy and leadership from Hunter College in New York.

She has a special place in her heart for both Pittsburgh and CMU. Her grandmother’s family came to Pittsburgh from Poland and settled in the city’s South Side neighborhood. Some of her family worked in the steel mills, and several of her classmates are CMU alumni.

“What inspires me the most about being at CMU is working in a place where there are so many people excited about learning and doing and figuring out solutions for the world’s greatest challenges,” she said.

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

Engineering Honors Staff in 25th Annual Awards Ceremony

The College of Engineering recently hosted its 25^th Annual Staff Recognition Awards Ceremony, honoring staff for innovation, inspirational leadership, continuous excellence, spirit, and enthusiasm for continuing education. It also presented its annual Rookie Award and honored staff for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 35 years of service. Congratulations to this year’s winners.

Innovation Award: Rachel Teeney, Mechanical Engineering Department;

Inspirational Leadership Award: Cathy Shaefer, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department;

Continuous Excellence Award: David Vey, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department;

Spirit Award: Adam Loucks, Engineering & Public Policy Department;

Burritt Education Award: Jeanna Pekarcik, Materials Science and Engineering Department; and

Rookie Award: Terri Deasy, CyLab

See the photo gallery.

Athletics Hall of Fame Nominations Due Feb. 21

Nominations for the second class of inductees into CMU’s Athletics Hall of Fame are due by Feb. 21. Established in 2018, the Hall of Fame recognizes, celebrates and memorializes the contributions of student-athletes, administrators, coaches and supporters, and preserves the history of the intercollegiate athletics program. The Hall of Fame engenders school spirit and pride, and inspires the university community through the celebration of excellence. 

The first class of 18 honorees was inducted during the 2019 Homecoming Weekend. The inaugural class was anchored by a longtime Carnegie Mellon athletics director, several All-Americans and the 1926 football team, which shutout previously undefeated Notre Dame. Learn more about CMU’s inaugural class.

Find out more about the Hall of Fame and submit your nomination.

Dannenberg Presents “Mother of Fishes” Opera, Feb. 15-16

Composer/producer and CMU computer science professor Roger Dannenberg is presenting the English premiere of “The Mother of Fishes” at CAPA Theater this weekend, Feb. 15-16.

The opera is a classic tale of love, adventure and magic, based on the Valencian story “La Mare dels Peixos.” This professional production features six soloists, a 30-piece orchestra, chorus and electronics ensemble. With an emphasis on community engagement, the opera will include a chorus from Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6-12 School as well as live electronics created and performed by student members of the Antithesis ensemble.

In cooperation with the Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, a portion of every ticket will go to alleviate hunger. Patrons can set their own ticket price ($25 is suggested).

Find out more at http://www.TheMotherOfFishes.com. 

Take a Tour of the Fitness Centers

CMU’s Staff Wellness Committee will be giving several fitness center tours in the Cohon Center and Tepper School next week. Here’s the schedule:

• Monday, Feb. 17: noon, Cohon Center; 5 p.m., Cohon Center; and 5 p.m., Tepper School
• Wednesday, Feb. 19: noon, Cohon Center and Tepper School; and 5 p.m., Cohon Center and Tepper School

Tours will begin outside the doors of the fitness centers. Please rsvp to bdiecks@andrew.cmu.edu to reserve a spot.

Who's Your Student Employee of the Year Candidate?

The Career & Professional Development Center is now accepting nominations through Feb. 22 for the Student Employee of the Year Award sponsored by the National Student Employment Association. This is the 22^nd year Carnegie Mellon is participating in this award program, which recognizes the outstanding contributions of students who work on campus while attending college.  

The nomination process requires the submission of the Student Employee of the Year Nomination Form by Feb. 22 to Pati Kravetz at pk13@andrew.cmu.edu. Forms and information can be found at www.cmu.edu/career.

All nominated student employees will be recognized and honored at the Student Employee Appreciation Lunch on April 7. The student selected as the Carnegie Mellon Student Employee of the Year will be announced at the lunch and will receive a monetary award of $200. 

Register Your Child for the Gelfand Outreach Summer Series

The Gelfand Center is now accepting registrations for its Gelfand Outreach Summer Series Classes. Classes fill quickly so don't wait to register your child for a class. Classes are for K-12 students, STEM focused and highlight the research and work of Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff. 

Classes are developed to be fun, engaging, rigorous and hands-on. Registration is first-come, first-served. Spaces fill quickly, so register today.

When Michelle Stoner applied for her job in the Tepper School of Business, she assumed it would be a day job to pay the bills. Like many poets, Stoner thought she'd have to pursue her creative outlets in her spare time. Instead, her position with the Accelerate Leadership Center has fulfilled her in ways she never imagined.

"My job has shown me what life can be like if you're doing work that feels purposeful," Stoner said.

Her collaborative partner, Matthew Stewart, has much the same outlook. His background in creative nonfiction writing seemed in opposition to an administrative role within a business school.

As it turns out, Stoner and Stewart, who earned their master’s degrees in fine arts (MFA), are the perfect complement to an MBA curriculum that fosters empathy and self-reflection.

"Research shows us some of the best ways to teach empathy and critical thinking is immersion in the arts," said Leanne Meyer, executive director of the Tepper School’s Accelerate Leadership Center.

To shape those immersive experiences, Meyer needed staff with a creative background.

"For me to have Matthew and Michelle's tremendous input on this programming is invaluable," Meyer said. "I can't appreciate art in the same way they can. They make what we do here so much richer."

Stoner and Stewart lead the SHIFT program, funded by a grant from the Citrone Family. SHIFT offers MBA students a pathway to adopt leadership skills of empathy, critical thinking and self-awareness through activities such as poetry workshops, improv classes, or even trips to an art museum.

Stewart explains that SHIFT isn't an acronym; it's a worldview.

"SHIFT is the idea that we can all adjust our perspective. The world is changing and the profile of an ideal business leader is, too," he said.

"I've never been so satisfied in my work,” Stoner said. “I get to guide these laser-focused business students through new ways to look at a piece of art, and it's building community for them in ways that give me chills."

Stoner said she has witnessed students from around the world come to realize there is more than one way to see a painting. "Being there for that epiphany was the most rewarding thing I can possibly think of,” she said.

Stewart has had similar feelings leading the Tepper Reads Book Club. He puts together a podcast and discussion sessions, and at the end of the year, brings the author to campus.

"The research shows that reading fiction increases empathy, and it works so well with our students,” he said.

Last year, when students read “What We Lose” by Zinzi Clemmons, they gathered to discuss the book's themes of emigration from South Africa. This led to discussions of diaspora and MBA students from different countries shared their experiences leaving home to live and study in the United States.

"Students realized they feel certain ways when reading, all because of something like setting. It opened their eyes to different ways to discuss a piece of writing," Stewart said.

Stoner said one of SHIFT's most impactful interdisciplinary collaborations has been with the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, which curated an exhibit to display in the Tepper Quad. Stoner placed discussion questions throughout the lounge space for MBA students to engage in low-stakes debate.

"We asked the students to talk about the art in a way where nobody has anything to lose," Stoner said. "The art isn't going to get offended, so they can practice disagreeing with each other. This is a skill that's crucial for the workplace."

Tepper students are loving the creative outlets.

Stewart recently met an MBA student on the bus after a long day on campus. He was surprised to see the student's face light up in recognition.

"He told me SHIFT was the most human part of his MBA experience so far and that we had to keep offering this programming," Stewart said. "That felt really good to hear."

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

Ziko Kolter, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department, and Ioannis Gkioulekas, an assistant professor in the Robotics Institute, have received 2020 Sloan Research Fellowships. The prestigious fellowships honor outstanding scholars in the U.S. and Canada in eight scientific and technical fields: chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics. Kolter, who joined Carnegie Mellon in 2012, is a leading expert in artificial intelligence research. He develops methods that make machine learning more robust, interpretable and modular. Gkioulekas, who joined CMU in 2017, is a leading researcher in computational imaging, computer vision and computer graphics. Sloan Research Fellows receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship that can be spent to advance their research. To date, 60 CMU faculty members have received Sloan Fellowships since they were first awarded in 1955. Find out more.

Mame-Fatou Niang, an associate professor of French and Francophone Studies, has authored her first book, “Indentités françaises," published by Brill. The book interrogates notions of marginalization and national identity through an analysis of French banlieues. The display of the quotidian, at the expense of the extraordinary, invites the reader to reconsider the most common images of these urban peripheries and the processes that create citizenship and marginality in republican France. The focus is on the female experience, in works produced by writers and artists from these peripheries. Banlieue women sit at the intersection of marginalities of race, gender and class. The study of these intersections illuminates multiple notions of identity, belonging and peripheralization. Amid the contemporary flare-ups and debates around a single and indivisible French national identity, Niang’s work brings to light plural identities rooted in France’s suburban spaces.

Ranysha Ware, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department, has received a 2020 Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) from the Internet Engineering Task Force for her work on congestion control fairness. Ware leads a research project on internet fairness that recently demonstrated how Google’s new congestion control algorithm (CCA) gives an unfair advantage to its own traffic, and proposed new guidelines for developing future algorithms. She is one of six recipients of the ANRP this year, and one of two who will present their work March 21–27 at the IETF 107 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ware is a Facebook Emerging Scholar and two-time recipient of the National GEM Consortium Fellowship. She earned her master’s degree in computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.