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Around Campus

GRAD Research Day Poster Winners

The breadth and quality of the graduate research programs at WPI were in the spotlight on March 19 as graduate students shared the results of their ongoing research projects at Graduate Research Achievement Day (GRAD) 2008, a poster-style symposium. The annual event gives students the opportunity to present their research to peers, faculty members, and the WPI community at large, and promotes the exchange of information and ideas across a variety of disciplines. Monetary awards and certificates went to the top posters in each category. Following are the award winners, in each category:

Engineering Division: first place (tie), Nayef Alsindi, PhD candidate in electrical and computer engineering, and Saurabh A. Vilekar, PhD candidate in chemical engineering; second place (tie), Adam C. Broders, master’s candidate in electrical and computer engineering, and Natalie L. Pomerantz, PhD candidate in chemical engineering. Life Sciences and Bioengineering Division: first place, Katie A. Bush, PhD candidate in biomedical engineering; second place, Joshua A. Strauss, master’s candidate in chemical engineering; third place, Piyush R. Ramuka, master’s candidate in biomedical engineering. Science Division: first place, Emily J. Evans, PhD candidate in mathematical sciences; second place, Karen E. Works, PhD candidate in computer science; third place, Rudra P. Kafle, PhD candidate in physics.

WPI Goes Green

WPI's newly formed President's Task Force on Sustainability officially launched a new Web site on March 17 called "Sustainability at WPI," and announced improvements to the university's recycling program. These are the first official acts of the task force, which was established in September 2007. The panel's charge is to drive a "sustainability sensibility" into the university's academic, research, and administrative endeavors. The task force members are: John Orr, provost ad interim; Jeff Solomon, CFO; Fred DiMauro, assistant vice president for facilities; Janet Begin Richardson, vice president for student affairs and campus life; Eileen Brangan Mell, director of public relations; professors Scott Jiusto, Rob Krueger, and Matthew Ward; and undergraduate students Keilin Bickar, Chris Lambusta, and Shawn Carey.

The Web site's goal is to create a space that represents WPI’s policies, initiatives, and activities in support of campus greening programs and community sustainability projects, and is a mechanism for people to learn about sustainability. WPI also expanded its campus recycling program to include aluminum, glass, and plastic returnable and nonreturnable containers.

New Voices 26 Festival April 10-12

The New Voices 26 theatre festival, sponsored by Masque and the Department of Humanities and Arts, will be held April 10-12, in the Little Theatre.

The 12 plays and their writers are First Draft, by Michael Ciaraldi; Trusted Download, by Dominic DiGiovanni; Love Love Love Three Stories of Love, by EJ Massa; To Stop, by Steven Vassella; Sympathy for the Devil, by Shannon "Haz" Harrower; Sudden Silence Sudden Heat, by Richard Pavis; Infected, by Richard Pavis; The Punisher: The Play, by Amy Castonguay; How to Meet Girls, for Voice Actors, by Adam Nakama; Walt and Wilde, by Adam Nakama; Something in the Void, by James Johnson; Glow, by Tofer Carlson. The winning scenic design is Escher's Forgotten Garden, by Cara Marcy and Paul Messier.

Project Presentation Day on April 15

Project Presentation Day will be held on Tuesday, April 15. Each spring, student teams, representing all of WPI's academic departments, present the results of their Major Projects to their faculty advisors and external sponsors. The public is invited to take part in this annual exhibition, held all over campus, of the remarkable outcomes of our students' project work.

People

Women of Strength Awards Announced

As part of Women’s History Month in March, the Office of Women’s Programs announced the following awards of recognition.

Women of Strength (Athena Award) Winners 2008: Tracy Hassett, vice president for human resources; Emily Perlow, associate director of student activities; Nadia Skorinko ‘10, biology; Audra Sosny ‘10, mechanical engineering; Sabrina Varanelli ‘10, mechanical engineering; Helen Vassallo, professor of management.
Outstanding Women Scholarship Award Winners 2008: Marietta E. Anderson Award, Krista Dietz ‘09, civil and environmental engineering. Bonnie-Blanche Schoonover Award, Rachel Katz ‘09, chemistry; Lauren Alex ‘09, aerospace engineering; Kathryn Bomba ‘09, biology. Ellen Knott Award, Julia Berg ‘10, interactive media and game development; Manasi Vartak ‘10, computer science; Roseann Gammal ‘10, biology. Gertrude R. Rugg Award, Jennifer Spinney ‘11, computer science; Linnea Palmer Paton ‘11, civil engineering; Sarah Lax ‘11, mechanical engineering.

Apelian Assumes Presidency of NMS

Diran Apelian, Howmet professor of mechanical engineering, and founder and director of WPI’s Metal Processing Institute, recently became the 52nd president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS). Apelian also delivered an address to the 300 TMS members gathered for the organization’s annual meeting in New Orleans.

TMS is a national professional organization whose members include metallurgical and materials engineers, scientists, researchers, educators and administrators from six continents who focus on the entire range of materials science and engineering, from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials. This is the third year in a row that Apelian has been recognized at the TMS annual meeting.

Vassallo Receives Women of Consequence Award from City of Worcester

The Office of the City Manager of the city of Worcester on March 26 honored Helen Guillette Vassallo, professor of management, with its 2008 Women of Consequence Award. Vassallo was recognized for her demonstrated leadership and her longstanding commitment to advancing the status of women and girls in the Worcester community.

The award was established in 1996 by the City Manager’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women to recognize women who have shown exceptional leadership and who have made tangible contributions to enhancing the lives of women in Worcester. It is presented annually to a woman or women whose actions best demonstrate courage, integrity, and a commitment to creating change.

Vassallo is the third WPI employee to receive the award. In 2005, it was presented to Stephanie L. Blaisdell, then director of diversity and women’s programs, and, posthumously, to Denise W. Nicoletti, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering from 1991 to 2002 and co-founder of the Camp Reach summer program for girls.

Krueger Receives Meinhofer Award

Rob Krueger, director of the Worcester Community Project Center, director of environmental studies, and assistant professor of geography, received the second annual William Meinhofer Award for Faculty Excellence from the Worcester UniverCity Partnership at a March 11 ceremony held at Clark. Krueger shares the 2008 award with Laurie Ross, PhD, an assistant professor at Clark University. The award is given to college or university faculty who enable students to engage in community-based work that was important to the award’s namesake, William Meinhofer, who had served as director of the Donelan Office of Community-based Learning at the College of the Holy Cross.

Nominees were judged on their sustained efforts to link scholarship to significant needs in the greater community; the impact of their work on campus as a result of community engagement efforts; measurable successes in establishing campus-community collaborations; their engagement of students in community-based collaborations; and their use of creative and innovative approaches to teaching and research.

Computer Tip

Find Favorite Commands in Office 2007

Have you converted to Excel 2007 and need to find the new way to perform one of your old favorite commands? Are you wondering how the “Ribbon” looks in Word 2007? Microsoft provides online “Interactive Guides” and “Mapping Workbooks,” which help you to easily locate just the command you need. You might even find some commands that you never used before, now that they are all displayed in the Ribbon tabs. Try out Microsoft’s Guides to the 2007 Office system user interface at Microsoft Office Online.

If you’d like to try Office 2007 before installing it on your computer, it is available for use on WPI’s Windows Terminal Server. See details online at CCC Web site, or contact the Helpdesk at x5888 for assistance.

Publications and Presentations

Biomedical Engineering

Potapova, I. A., S. V. Doronin, D. J. Kelly, A. B. Rosen, A. J. Schuldt, Z. Lu, Y. Guo, P. Kochupura, R. B. Robinson, M. R. Rosen, P. R. Brink, G. R. Gaudette, I. S. Cohen, "Replacing Damaged Myocardium," Journal of Electrocardiology, vol. 40, No. 6, pp. 199-201, 2007.

Humanities and Arts

Dollenmayer, D., and T. Hansen, Neue Horizonte: Introductory German, seventh edition, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2009. (but it is now available).
Kleeberg, Michael, The King of Corsica, translated by D. Dollenmayer, Other Press, New York, 2008.
Matos-Nin, I. E., "La influencia napolitana en dos novelas de Maria de Zayas," Sixth Biennial Florida International University Conference on Spanish and Spanish-American Cultural Studies; March 6-8, 2008.
McCarthy, B., "Contrasts and Animal Imagery in Old Curiosity Shop," paper presentation to the Dickens Fellowship, Worcester Branch, Feb. 10, 2008.
Mott, W. T., "’Where’s Your Real Book?’ Textual Editing and the Culture Wars," Documentary Editing, vol. 29, pp. 55-59, 2007.
Rosenkranz, M., Childhood: An Autobiographical Fragment, translated by D. Dollenmayer, Syracuse University Press, 2007.

Interdisciplinary Global Studies Division

Jiusto, S., and D. DiBiasio, "The Habit of Learning," ASEE Prism, vol. 17, No. 3, November 2007.
Vaz, R., "Capstone Project Assessment at WPI," invited presentation, NEASC Annual Meeting, Boston, Mass., Dec. 5, 2007.
Vaz, R., "WPI Projects Relating Science and Technology to Society," invited presentation, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, Jan. 25, 2008.

Interactive Media & Game Development

Chang, C.-H., P. Lohrmann, E. Agu, R. Lindeman, "ENCORE: Energy-Conscious Rendering for Mobile Devices," First Workshop on General Purpose Processing on Graphics Processing Units, Boston, Mass., Oct. 4, 2007.
Lindeman, R. W., H. Noma, P. G. de Barros, "An Empirical Study of Hear-Through Augmented Reality: Using Bone Conduction to Deliver Spatialized Audio," Proc. of IEEE Virtual Reality 2008, Reno, Nev., pp. 35-42, March 8-12, 2008.
Lindeman, R. W., and H. Noma, "A Classification Scheme for Multi-Sensory Augmented Reality," Proc. of ACM Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) 2007, Newport Beach, Calif., pp. 175-178, Nov. 5-7, 2007.
Lindeman, R. W., H. Noma, P. G. de Barros, "Hear-Through and Mic-Through Augmented Reality: Using Bone
Conduction to Display Spatialized Audio," Proc. of International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2007, pp. 173-176, Nara, Japan, Nov. 13-15, 2007.
Orman, N., H. Kim, R. Sakamoto, T. Toriyama, K. Kogure, R. Lindeman, "GPU Optimization of a Free-Viewpoint Video System," (poster) Proc. of the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games 2008, Redwood City, Calif., (2nd Place, I3D 2008 Best Student Poster Awards), Feb. 15-17, 2008.

Social Science and Policy Studies

Gobert, J., "Visualization and Assessment in the Geosciences," keynote speaker at Gordon Research Conference, Bryant University, Smithfield, R.I., July 2007.
Lyneis, J. M., and D. A. Ford, "System Dynamics Applied to Project Management: A Survey, Assessment, and Directions for Future Research," System Dynamics Review, vol. 23, Nos. 2-3, pp. 157-189, Summer/Fall 2007.
Radzicki, M. J., "The Early Years: A Voluntary Effort," Chapter in How the System Dynamics Society Came to Be: A Collective Memoir, System Dynamics Review, vol. 23
(2 & 3), pp. 219-227, Summer/Fall 2007.
Radzicki, M. J., "Institutional Economics, Post Keynesian Economics, and System Dynamics: Three Strands of a Heterodox Economics Braid," in Future Directions in Heterodox Economics, John T. Harvey and Robert F. Garnett Jr., eds:, pp. 156-184, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Mich., 2008.
Radzicki, M. J., "Was Alfred Eichner a System Dynamicist?" invited presentation, 34th Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association, Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, March 8, 2008.

Recent Grants

Biology and Biotechnology

DiIorio, Alex, for "EBC Redevelopment for DX-88," from Dyax Corp., $74,237

Biomedical Engineering

Sotak, Christopher, for "Development of an Animal Model of Parkinson’s Disease," from UMass Worcester (NIH), $24,527

Chemistry and Biochemistry

MacDonald, John, for "Design of Porous and Complex Crystalline Materials," from Army Research Office, $55,646

Computer Science

Lindeman, Robert, for "Enhanced Sensor-Assisted Perception (ESP) Analyst," from BBNT Solutions LLC (ONR), $25,000

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Pahlavan, Kaveh, for "Performance Evaluation of Cellular Localization Techniques," from Skyhook Wireless Inc., $42,936

Fire Protection Engineering

Rangwala, Ali, for "Application of Cross Correlation Velocimetry (CCV) for Measuring Velocity in Fire Induced Flows," from Society of Fire Protection Engineers, $15,000

Mathematical Sciences

Martin, William, for "Problems in Association Schemes," from National Security Agency, $30,109

Mechanical Engineering

Apelian, Diran, with Makhlouf Makhlouf as co-principal investigator, for "High Performance Die Casting Alloys," from Advanced Technology Institute (DOD), $34,000
Tryggvason, Gretar, for "Direct Numerical Simulations of Nucleate Flow Boiling," from the Sandia National Laboratory, $107,000

Gordon Library to Host Watercolor, Photo Exhibits

Two exhibits, featuring the works of George Gladwin, the university’s first professor of drawing, and photographs by Edward R. Rollins of early 20th century scenes from Woodstock, Conn., a small town in the northeastern part of the state, will open on April 8 in the George C. Gordon Library and will run through June 30.

"George Gladwin and his Students" celebrates the career of WPI’s first professor of drawing, who taught from 1869 to 1896. Included in the exhibition are watercolors of the WPI campus by Gladwin and both practice and finished works by his students. Drawing was an important part of an engineering student’s curriculum in Gladwin's day, and included freehand as well as mechanical drawing.
"Woodstock Views: Photographs of Edward R. Rollins" chronicles life in the small New England town of Woodstock, Conn., early in the 20th century. Rollins did portrait photography, but much of his work was “in the field,” showing people at their daily work. He also did landscape photography, with a particular focus on a pine forest in different seasons and at different times of day.

Calendar

Note: Information for the calendar comes from the Web-based WPI Events Calendar, which is powered by the Social Web. To have your events listed in @WPI, please enter them in Social Web and request that they be added to the appropriate WPI calendar. Visit the Social Web to learn how.

Thursday, April 3

Lecture: IMGD Speaker Series features Ben Sawyer of Digital Mill - Atwater-Kent, Room 233, 11am
Lecture: "Active Flow Control," by Rich Wlezien of Tufts University, sponsored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering - Higgins Labs, Room 218, noon
Colloquium: "A New Look at the Method of Separation of Variables for Partial Differential Equations — a Tutorial," by Gunter Meyer of Georgia Institute of Technology, sponsored by the Department of Mathematical Sciences - Stratton Hall, Room 106, 2pm
Baseball: WPI vs. Wheaton College - Alumni Field, 3:30pm

Friday, April 4

Colloquium: "Coping with Uncertain Volatility When Pricing Equity Options," by Gunter Meyer of Georgia Institute of Technology, sponsored by the Department of Mathematical Sciences - Stratton Hall, Room 203, 11am
Lecture: "Two Algorithms in Search of a Type System," by Norman Danner of Wesleyan University, sponsored by the Department of Computer Science - Fuller Labs, Room 320, 11am
Softball: WPI vs. MIT - Alumni Field, 3:30pm
Softball: WPI vs. MIT - Alumni Field, 5:30pm

Saturday, April 5

Baseball: WPI vs. Babson College - Alumni Field, noon
Baseball: WPI vs. Babson College - Alumni Field, 3pm

Tuesday, April 8

Softball: WPI vs. Nichols College - Alumni Field, 3pm
Softball: WPI vs. Nichols College - Alumni Field, 5pm
Venture Forum: "Breaking New Ground with Marketing," featuring Jim Baum, Tim Young, John Geisel, and Katherine Tsaioun - Campus Center Odeum, 5:30pm

Wednesday, April 9

Colloquium: "Casting Aluminum Alloys in Helium Environment," by Muhammad Saleem, sponsored by the Materials Science and Engineering Seminar Series - Washburn Shops & Stoddard Labs, Room 229, noon

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Last modified: April 16, 2008 09:54:15