January 30, 2017

Dear members of the Hajim School community:

There’s an exciting new vibe at the Gwen M. Greene Career & Internship Center these days, and nothing illustrates that better than the recent three-day “industry road trip” to Silicon Valley and the Bay area that the center sponsored for 15 of our students. The group included 10 computer science students; students from four other Hajim departments; Marty Guenther, the computer science undergraduate coordinator; Megan Vargulick, director of employer and alumni connections at the Career Center; and Joe Testani, assistant dean and executive director of the center. Their exploration of career opportunities included on-site visits to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mulesoft, and Handshake, and to a range of start ups launched by University alumni, including analyticsMD, Menlo Security, and Periscope Data. Click here to read more about this incredible opportunity for our students and their enthusiastic responses. Thanks to Joe and Megan for organizing this trip, and doing a great job of helping the students prepare ahead of time. And to Marty, who helped identify some of the alumni start-ups, and drummed up support. And thanks to the many alumni who took time to interact with our students at the companies they visited, and at a separate reception. “The students realized this was an incredible opportunity that would impact their future career paths,” Marty says. “Their insightful questions and enthusiasm at each company was a wonderful reflection of the caliber of students at the University of Rochester.”

Congratulations to:

Kevin Parker, the William F. May Professor of Engineering, and Miguel Alonso, professor of optics, for devising a new “needle-pulse” beam pattern of incredible intensity that could bring unprecedented sharpness to ultrasound and radar images, burn precise holes in manufactured materials at a nanoscale—even etch new properties onto their surfaces. Read more here.

Hussein Aluie, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who has been awarded access to Mira—a supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois—to use 300,000 computers simultaneously to run a simulation in under four days – a task that would take more than 2,000 years to complete with a desktop computer! Hussein is running codes to develop a computer model of fluid instabilities that occur during inertial confinement fusion. Read more here.

Meghan Patrick ’18 of mechanical engineering, who is receiving a Susan B. Anthony Scholarship at the Susan B. Anthony Legacy Awards brunch on February 4. The award is given to a woman in her junior year who has demonstrated leadership, academic excellence and commitment to her fellow students and community.

When Nature Photonics picked its six all-time favorite textbooks for its 10th anniversary edition, guess what? Three of them are by Institute of Optics faculty members: Principles of Optics by Max Born and Emil Wolf, the Wilson Professor of Optical Physics and professor of optics; Nonlinear Optics by Robert Boyd, professor of optics; and Principles of Nano-Optics by Lukas Novotny, former professor now adjunct professor of optics, and Bert Hect.

Interested in a global experience this summer or fall? The Hajim School offers undergraduates competitive $500 scholarships to help defray the costs of tuition, room, and board; books; local transportation; insurance; and international airfare associated with studying abroad. The awards can be applied to University Study Abroad programs, international research opportunities, international internships, and short-term faculty-led programs. The deadline to apply for scholarships for summer and fall 2017 is 5 p.m., April 3, when applications are due at 301 Lattimore Hall. Click here to learn more about applying.

Here’s one such opportunity: The American Councils Business, Technology, and Innovation Scholarship supports undergraduate and graduate students in business, innovation, and STEM fields participating in two internship programs in Russia. Application deadlines are February 15 (summer) and March 15 (fall semester). Awards range from $3,000 to $5,000.

Faculty members can learn about inclusive teaching strategies by attending one or more of the 2017 spring semester workshops offered by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.  Learn from University education researchers, student support offices, and fellow course instructors about teaching students with disabilities on February 9 from 3:30 to 5 p.m., international students on February 16 from 9 to 10:30 a.m., and underrepresented minority students on February 27 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. (all held in the Gamble Room on the third floor of Rush Rhees Library).

Have great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman