March 18, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

I’m looking forward to hearing our Nobel laureate alumna, Donna Strickland ’89 of optics, deliver our College Commencement address this spring. Speaking of commencement, the Hajim School diploma ceremony for bachelor’s degree candidates will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 19, in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. It will be preceded by a free school-wide reception at 11 a.m. in the big tent on the Hajim Quad. See our website for additional information.

Students participating in the diploma ceremony, please take note: Now through April 23 you can visit a name pronunciation survey website where you will hear a suggested pronunciation or pronunciations for your name. You will then be able to select whether the pronunciation is correct. If it is incorrect, you will be given instructions on how to modify it.

Five of our chemical engineering seniors will present a special panel discussion that will be of interest to Hajim School undergraduates in any of our majors from 5 to 7 p.m. this Wednesday in 1400 Wegmans Hall. It will feature:

Catherine Barton, who will become a thermal design engineer at Corning Inc.
Nik Angyal, who will be pursuing a PhD in chemical engineering
Muhammad Miqdad, who will continue his work with PakVitae, a startup from Pakistan that develops low-cost household water filters
Annie Moorhead, who will be pursuing a PhD in materials science
Paul Steve, who will be working in the Process Sciences Department of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

They’ll talk about their plans, give advice on how to achieve your goals, and answer questions. Please take advantage of this opportunity to learn from students who have made the most of their opportunities here! Pizza and light refreshments will be served.

Congratulations to Sandhya Dwarkadas, the Albert Arendt Hopeman Professor and Chair of Computer Science, and Michael Scott, the Arthur Gould Yates Professor of Computer Science, for receiving Google Faculty Research Awards. Sandhya’s award is for “Parallelism- and Sharing-Aware Task-to-Core Allocation;” Michael’s is for “Fair OS Management of Multi-Queue Devices.” At least one alum — Rajeev Balasubramonian ’03, professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah and one of Sandhya’s former students — is among the recipients, as is Philip Guo, a former assistant professor here, now at the University of California, San Diego. Philip is still affiliated with our Department of Computer Science.

Recent graduate William Green ’17 of mechanical engineering and optics and his brother Brendan have teamed together to launch the Philly Moon Men STEM outreach program in Philadelphia. “The Philly Moon Men set up telescopes on crowded street corners to engage the public with astronomy and science,” William writes. “We’ve spent about 50 nights outside and engaged about 15,000 people in the past year. Recently we’ve turned to K-8 outreach in schools and have already visited a number of classrooms. Our GoFundMe has already allowed us to put training and equipment in the hands of volunteers who are setting up telescopes in their own communities.” This sounds like a great project. Read more here.

Full-time Hajim School undergraduates are eligible to compete in the Charles and Janet Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition by submitting a business plan for a technical idea. Students may submit a plan that was written for a current or past course. Cash prizes will be awarded to top teams, announced after the presentation event on May 2. Students who would like to enter both the Forbes Competition and the Ain Competition only have to complete one online application form. Submit your business plan online by 4 p.m. Thursday, April 18. Contact Heidi Mergenthaler with questions.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman