Three New Department Heads Join WPI

Kathy A. Notarianni ’86 (B.S., CE), ’88 (M.S., FPE) is the new director of the Center for Firesafety Studies, succeeding founding director David Lucht, who stepped down after more than 25 years in the position (see pages 21 and 33, respectively, for interviews with Notarianni and Lucht). She joins WPI after 15 years as a project leader and research engineer with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In addition to her WPI degrees, she has a Ph.D. in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University. At WPI, she will continue as principal investigator for a major study on resource deployment and decision analysis models for local fire departments.

John W. Norbury, new head of the Physics Department, comes to WPI after nearly two decades of academic work, most recently at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. His primary field of research is in protecting astronauts from cosmic radiation, which has led to a strong working relation-ship with NASA. Additionally, he brings ongoing research projects in theoretical nuclear and particle physics to WPI. Norbury has had nearly 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers published and is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences and professional meetings. He holds a B.S. in physics, an M.S. specializing in experimental nuclear physics, from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear and particle physics from the University of Idaho.

The new head of the Biology and Biotechnology Department is Eric Overström, who comes to WPI from Tufts University, where he taught in the School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Medicine, and School of Dental Medicine. Most recently, he was a member of the Department of Biomedical Sciences. A develop-mental biologist and a Fulbright Scholar, his research is in the areas of cell/molecular biology of mammalian eggs and embryos, somatic cell cloning, and assisted reproduction technologies. He holds a B.A. in biology from the State University of New York at Oswego and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in reproductive physiology from UMass, Amherst. He was a post- doctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School.

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