May 13, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Congratulations to all of our seniors, master’s students, and PhD candidates who will receive their degrees this weekend.

And congratulations to optics alumna Donna Strickland ’89 (PhD), professor of physics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada; pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers; and a 2018 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Donna will be honored at three venues, starting this Friday at 3 p.m. in the Munnerlyn Atrium of Goergen Hall. University President Richard Feldman will unveil a plaque honoring Donna and her co-recipient of the Nobel prize, Gerard Mourou, former scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, for their revolutionary contributions to the field of laser physics. The program will include remarks from Donna. I encourage members of the Hajim School community to attend.

On Sunday, Donna will deliver the College Commencement address and be presented with the George Eastman Medal. She will also speak Saturday at the University’s doctoral ceremony, where she will receive the Rochester Distinguished Scholar Award.

Sunday will be a particularly eventful day: College Commencement at 9 a.m. on the Eastman Quad, Hajim School Reception at 11 a.m. on the Hajim Quad, and Hajim School Diploma Ceremony at 3 p.m. at Kodak Hall downtown.

The Hajim School will be well represented at the College commencement ceremony. In addition to Donna’s talk and award, Chris Muir, professor of mechanical engineering, will receive the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and Andrew White, assistant professor of chemical engineering, will receive the G. Graydon Curtis ’58 and Jane W. Curtis Award for Nontenured Faculty Teaching Excellence. Well done, Chris and Andrew! Read more about their awards here.

The Hajim School Reception and barbecue picnic, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday on the Hajim Quad, will be a great opportunity for parents, students, faculty, staff, and alumni to gather informally as an entire school to celebrate the achievements of all our degree recipients.

At the Hajim School Diploma Ceremony, computer science alumnus Daniel Sabbah ’74, ’78 (MS), 82 (PhD) will receive our Distinguished Alumni Award and give remarks. Edmund Hajim ’58, chair emeritus of the University’s Board of Trustees and Hajim School benefactor, will also share his advice and wisdom with our graduates and their families.

At last count, 437 seniors in the Class of ’19 will be eligible to cross the stage to receive their diplomas at Kodak Hall this Sunday. This includes 134 women (30.6%), 98 international students (22.4%) and 45 underrepresented minority students (10.3%).

Computer science once again leads the way with 134 graduating seniors, followed by mechanical engineering (77) and biomedical engineering (62).

To help prepare for Sunday’s Diploma Ceremony, graduating seniors are invited to attend a rehearsal from 4-5 p.m. Thursday at Kodak Hall. The first 100 who attend will be given $7 parking vouchers for the actual ceremony on Sunday. The rehearsal will cover logistics of the ceremony, including lineup beforehand, processional, awarding of diplomas, and recessional. Round-trip transportation will be provided. Read more here.

An abundance of other awards have been bestowed recently on Hajim School faculty members and students. For example, two of our faculty members were recognized by their peers for exceptional contributions to their respective fields.

Gilbert “Rip” Collins, Dean’s Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate director for science, technology, and academics at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, who leads our high energy density physics initiative, has been selected as the winner of the 2019 Bridgman Award by the International Association for the Advancement of High Pressure Science and Technology (AIRAPT). The Bridgman Award is named in honor of Nobel laureate P. W. Bridgman, a Harvard physics professor who is considered one of the founders of modern high pressure research.
Henry Kautz, professor of computer science, is the recipient of the 2018 ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award for his contributions to artificial intelligence and computational social science, including fundamental results on the complexity of inference, planning and media analytics for public health. Henry has studied how computers can infer the goals and plans of people by studying their behavior, and was a co-developer of the first randomized local search algorithms for Boolean satisfiability testing. The award is accompanied by a prize of $10,000, provided by the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and by individual contributions.

Congratulations as well to:

Graeme McGuire ’19 (T5), a dual major in computer science and linguistics, and Nicole Naselaris ’19 of optics, who have been offered prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Grants for 2019-20. Graeme will be an English teaching assistant at a university in the nation of Georgia. Nicole will be an English teaching assistant in Galicia, Spain, where she will mentor high school students. Read more here.
Daniel Krajovic ’20 of chemical engineering, who has received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship to support his research on advanced materials in the lab of Mitchell Anthamatten, professor and chair of chemical engineering. Read more here.
Tara Pena, PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to continue her work as a graduate research assistant in the lab of Stephen Wu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Carla Watson, a PhD candidate in physics and a member of Stephen’s lab, also received an NSF graduate research fellowship. Read more here.
Nick Takaki, a PhD candidate in the lab of Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering, is recipient of the 2019 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship from Kidger Optics Associates. The award consists of a $5,000 grant. Nick’s research focuses on using the mathematics of freeform surface descriptions to develop methods that lead to surfaces that are easier to manufacture and test. Read more here.

For nearly 80 years, the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps has given students an option to combine academic studies with a commitment to serve in the military after graduation. Congratulations to Hunter Phinney ’19, Myles Duval ’20, Connor Coleman ’21, John Jordan ’19, Kristine Gurcan ‘20, Robert Dromsky-Reed ’21, and Joseph Ginnane ’20, all of mechanical engineering, and all members of the NROTC program here. Each of them has received one or more awards from the program for outstanding leadership and/or academic achievement.

Eight of the 13 University students who have received DAAD RISE scholarships to do research in Germany this summer are Hajim students.

Jack Dalton ’20 of mechanical engineering will be working at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Neustrelitz, helping with the development of a positioning method based on multiple Global Navigation Satellite Systems.
Bartek Jezierski ’21 of computer science will be at the University of Konstanz implementing techniques for batch processing of distance and shortest path queries on large graphs using the MapReduce framework.
Kimberly Llajaruna Peralta ’20, a dual major in mechanical engineering and studio arts, will be working on the development and testing of a user-friendly toolkit to support decision-making in foresight at Karlsruhe Institute for Technology.
Patrick Phillips ’21, a dual major in computer science and engineering science, will be at the University of Hamburg, working on underwater autonomous robots.
Stephen Savchik ’20 of data science will be working at the University of Potsdam on a project studying the discourse function of question tags in the German language using computational machine learning approaches.
Aman Shrestha ’21 of computer science will be at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, researching how wearable devices that track daily activities can impact privacy.
Leonor Teles ’21 of biomedical engineering will be at the University of Kaiserslautern, investigating the anti-inflammatory and antitumoral properties in callus cultures of certain plant species.
Sifan Ye ’20 of computer science is in the DAAD Rise Professional program, performing research for a business instead of a university. He will be working on a communication interface for the Robot Operating System for Siemens in Munich.

Our student initiative to adapt toys for children with severely impaired movement or other disabilities delivered 10 adapted toys and enabling switches to the children’s library at the downtown branch of the Rochester Public Library last week. The student group, spearheaded by Rachel Monfredo, lecturer and senior technical associate in chemical engineering, is now called the Toy Adaptation Program. It has been approved as a student organization by Student Activities. It’s been great watching this wonderful project evolve.

Several Hajim School students will be participating in the finals of the Mark Ain Business Model Competition starting at 1:30 p.m. this Wednesday, May 15, in the Eisenberg Rotunda at Schlegel Hall.

Edmund Lalor, associate professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience, and Ross Maddox, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience, will join Matthew BaileyShea, associate professor of music theory, and David Temperley, professor of music theory, for a discussion on the neuroscience of music and music training at noon next Monday, May 20 in the Hawkins Conference Room 1-7438 at the Medical Center. This is part of the PONS (Pre-doctoral Organization of the Neurosciences) Luncheon Roundtable Series. Refreshments will be served.

Be sure to check out the interactive optics demonstrations that members of our SPIE student chapter will have on display at the Lilac Festival through Sunday. Several PhD students have worked hard for several months to prepare this exhibit in celebration of the 2019 UNESCO International Day of Light. Go to the group’s Facebook page to see the colorful tent they’ve prepared to house the exhibit just south of Highland Avenue across the street from the St. John Home. The tent will be open from 10:30 a.m. through 8:30 p.m. daily through the end of the festival. This is a great way to not only share the importance of optics with a broad audience, but further connect the University with our community. Well done to all involved!

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman