January 9, 2017
Dear members of the Hajim School community:
Congratulations to Engin Ipek, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his former PhD student, Mahdi Bojnordi. Their paper, “Memristive Boltzmann Machine: A Hardware Accelerator for Combinatorial Optimization and Deep Learning” — which won best paper award at the 22nd IEEE Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture last spring — has also been selected to receive an IEEE MICRO Top Picks Award as one of the 12 most significant papers of 2016 in computer architecture based on novelty and potential for long term impact. Mahdi is now an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Utah.
Congratulations as well to three of our computer science faculty members who have been ranked among the top 100 most influential scholars in artificial intelligence and multimedia by Aminer.org, which uses a computer algorithm to track and rank scholars based on citation counts collected by top-venue publications. Henry Kautz, the Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and professor of computer science, is ranked 3rd in artificial intelligence. James Allen, the John H. Dessauer Professor of Computer Science, is ranked 46th in artificial intelligence. And Jiebo Luo, associate professor of computer science, is ranked 67th in multimedia.
Nicholas Boldt ’18 of biomedical engineering says he was even starting to “think in Japanese” by the time he finished a CET program that immersed him in Japanese language and culture in Osaka last summer. Click here to read more about how this global experience helped change his life for the better. Thanks for sharing your experiences, Nicholas!
As part of his senior design class, Chris Muir, associate professor of mechanical engineering, devised an interesting project to metaphorically demonstrate how each member of a team is expected to contribute to the overall goal. He designed a 72-piece puzzle, for which each of his students helped fabricate a piece — without knowing ahead of time what the puzzle would look like when fully assembled. Click here to read more and see a video about the truly iconic image they created.
It’s always great to hear how recent Hajim School grads are doing. Xi-Cheng Zhang, director of The Institute of Optics, recently forwarded greetings from Pedro Vallejo-Ramirez ’16, now pursuing his studies as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Pedro reports he is “having a blast” at Cambridge University, where he is widening his worldview through conversations with Gates Scholars from many different fields. He’s also “learning a ton” about biological imaging, microscopy, and amyloid plaque formation in the brain while studying the mechanisms behind such diseases as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s with the Laser Analytics research group. So much so, he’s decided to stay at Cambridge to pursue a PhD in biotechnology. We wish you all the best, Pedro.
Well done, Solar Splash! The team raised $4,657 from 54 contributors, exceeding the initial $3,000 goal in a USEED fundraising campaign that wrapped up just before the holidays. The team designs and builds a solar-powered electric boat, and races it at an annual competition against other colleges. Click on the updates tab at the campaign website to see the progress team members have already made on their new hull. And thanks again to all who contributed.
Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most prestigious undergraduate honor society in the nation for the liberal arts and sciences, turned 240 years old last month. Class of ’17 inductees from the Hajim School are Ben Abbatematteo (biomedical engineering), Jessica Bernstein (optical engineering), Maria Janczak (computer science and economics), and Wendy Snyder and So Han Florence Yip (mechanical engineering).
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
