September 24, 2018

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

The final FY 2019 Energy and Water bill just passed by the U.S. Congress includes $80 million for the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. That’s a $5 million increase over FY 2018 and the highest level of federal funding ever appropriated to the LLE in the University’s history. The increased funding will serve as a critical basis for the first year of a new, five-year Cooperative Agreement between the LLE and the U.S. Department of Energy. This is great news for the Hajim School, the University, the Rochester region — indeed the entire nation — given the remarkable research, education, and innovation that occurs at LLE, much of it involving and benefiting Hajim faculty and students. Our thanks to the entire New York congressional delegation for standing behind LLE, to our University’s Office of Government and Community Relations for its close work with the delegation, to Mike Campbell and his leadership team at LLE, and to all of LLE’s friends nationwide who have rallied in its support. Click here to read more about the positive impact LLE has had.

Three criteria define an outstanding faculty member: teaching, scholarly work, and service to the department, school, and University. Michael Scott, the Arthur Gould Yates Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science, has excelled in each of these areas. He has received a Goergen award for undergraduate teaching, made important contributions in systems software for parallel and distributed computing, and has served tirelessly as chair of his department and on the search committee for the dean of arts, sciences, and engineering. He now co-chairs the University Advisory Committee for our presidential search. Current department chair Sandya Dwarkadas describes Michael as “the epitome of the quintessential professor.” For all these reasons, it was my pleasure to present Michael with the Hajim School Lifetime Achievement Award at our annual reception last Thursday. Well done, Michael! Please join me in congratulating him.

Whenever they’ve needed help — trying to get through their first-year orientation, applying to study abroad, or mastering thermodynamics — mechanical engineering students have received encouragement, sage advice, and excellent instruction from John Lambropoulos, professor and department chair. So it is very gratifying that John has been named a recipient of the Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. As his faculty colleague Renato Perucchio notes: “John doesn’t leave people behind but rather draws them in, gradually, starting the lecture with a review, then introducing new concepts with simple examples, and finally bringing everything together with an exciting, all-encompassing problem.” Please join me in congratulating John on this award. A celebration to honor John and fellow recipients Hayley Clatterbuck and Michael Jarvis will be held at 4 p.m., October 18 in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of Rush-Rhees Library.

Congratulation as well to:

Jiebo Luo, professor of computer science, who has been named the 2018 recipient of the Region 1 Technological Innovation (Academic) Award from IEEE for his contributions in computer vision and data mining. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional association for the advancement of technology; the technological innovation award recognizes distinguished development, advancement and pursuit of the IEEE’s technical objectives.
Zhengyuan Yang, a third-year PhD student working in Jiebo’s group, who won the 2018 ICPR Best Industry Related Paper Award (BIRPA) for his paper entitled “End-to-end Multi-Modal Multi-Task Vehicle Control for Self-Driving Cars with Visual Perception.” This paper was the result of a collaborative project funded by SAIC (the Shanghai Automotive Innovation Center in San Jose, CA), and was recognized as a work that not only exemplifies excellence in research, but also has the potential to have a commercial impact.
Fernando Zvietcovich Zegarra, a PhD student in the lab of Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson professor of Optical Engineering, who won best student paper award and best poster award at the International Tissue Elasticity Conference (ITEC 2018, Avignon, France). Fernando’s research is part of a collaboration on optical coherence elastography between Jannick and Kevin Parker of electrical and computer engineering. As Jannick notes, this is an example of how collaboration across departments and with international scientists can truly lead to excellent research. Fernando’s presentation also involved Panomsak Meemon from Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand, and the poster is a collaboration with Natalie Baddour at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Remember Vladimir Maksimovski, the first-year computer science student who missed the first week or so of classes to represent Macedonia at the International Olympiad in Informatics in Tsukuba, Japan? Vladimir took a silver medal after tying for 44th among 335 contestants from 87 nations. IOI is one of the most prestigious competitions held for high-school students. Well done, Vladimir!

Students: Would you be interested in participating in a project to bring clean water to a part of Uganda — and at the same time fulfilling requirements to qualify as an NAE Grand Challenges Scholar? If so, sign up to attend a conversation and networking event from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Monday, October 8, at the Patrick Barry House, 692 Mt. Hope Avenue, with Provost Rob Clark; Jonathan Burdick, dean of admissions and financial aid; myself; and representatives of Ugandan Students, Engineers without Borders, and NAE Grand Challenges Scholars. Space is limited to the first 15 students who RSVP by Thursday to Emma Derisi at emma.derisi@rochester.edu.

Reminder to faculty members: today is the deadline to register for a day-long AR/VR workshop on October 1. Details here. The goal is to help identify potential collaborations and partnerships among University of Rochester and RIT faculty.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman