December 9, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

In their quest to become well-rounded engineers and computer scientists, it is important for our Hajim School students to also explore the humanities, arts, and social sciences. And as they prepare for the workplace, it is important that they extend their learning through internships and other experiences beyond the classroom.

Here are some wonderful examples of students who have been doing that.

Shagun Bose ’20 of computer science and psychology, conducts research in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab of Ehsan Hoque, the Asaro-Biggar (’92) Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Shagun was recently accepted into the Frameless Symposium at RIT for her augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) project called “awARe,” in which she merges systems engineering and computation with psychology and art.

The project involves distributing digital art installations across campus, so people can hear an audio clip describing someone’s experience, generally of discrimination and bias, at that particular location. “This work that I’m doing revolves around the idea of empathy — I’m trying to understand people’s experiences on campus with discrimination and bias, whether [it’s] age, gender, socioeconmic status, religious affiliation, and so on,” Shagun tells Hawraa Ahmed in a Campus Times article.

The article also describes Shagun’s own struggles to overcome the implicit bias she felt as a woman of color in a STEM field. I love her advice that “every engineer needs to take a humanities or social science course. Remember that you are building for people.”

Nine of our students — Shagun, Yan Li, and Jillian Penfield of computer science; Sara Apanavicius, Joyceline Marealle, and Eric Weidman of chemical engineering; Demetrious Dowdell of optics; Tinashe Marera of electrical and computer engineering; and Caroline Stockwell of biomedical engineering — have generously shared their internship experiences in a series of Q&As compiled by Anna Alden, one of our academic advisors. Anna encourages us to share their stories from our Facebook and Instagram pages.

As you read through these students’ accounts, you realize how important internships are for learning about the workplace and applying new skills in a “real world” environment. The students discussed how their internship experiences allowed them to gain insights into how to successfully establish a work-life balance, how and when to ask for help, and the importance of continuing to network.

I was especially pleased to see that students turned to the Greene Center for help with resumes and prepping for interviews, and took advantage of opportunities like the Grace Hopper Celebration and the Meliora Collective to make connections with alumni and company representatives.

I was honored to participate Friday when 18 Hajim School juniors and 17 seniors were initiated as members of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, the second oldest Greek-letter honor society. Engineering students of junior standing and higher are elected based on scholastic achievement and exemplary character. Our new members are:

Audio and music engineering: Gregory Mark Angel Hernandez ’20 and Molly J. Robins ‘20.

Biomedical engineering: Yuxin Chen ’21, Feiyang Deng ’20, Jack Steven Donlon ’20, Ananya Goyal ’20, Catherine Mae Hauser ’20, Myoungju Kathryn Kang ’21, Dylan Manuele ’21, Firaol Sisay Midekssa ’21, and Benjamin Richardson ’21.

Chemical engineering: Paul Robert Irving ’21, Joyceline Leonard Marealle ’20, Zachary J. Oliver ’20, Bryan Gregory Schellberg ’21, Baris Eser Ugur ’21, and Claire Virginia Wilson ’21.

Electrical and computer engineering: Andrew Carter Balogh ’21, Jordan Gabrielle Floyd ’20, Jacob S. Hertz ’20, Nikita Kim ’21, Yujin Nakamoto ’21, Matthew Joseph Rosenbloom ’21, and Jieming Zhang ’20.

Mechanical engineering: Jaafar Abdullh A Al Hadab ’21, Logan Christopher Bashford ’20, Bryan J. Brown ’20, Caroline Danielle Cardinale ’21, Ting Yan Fung ’20, Kai M. Kindred ’20, Loren E. McDonald ’20, Daniel Troyetsky ’21 and Jiayin Zhang ‘21.

Optical engineering: Lauren K. Scheg ’21 and Liam K. Young ‘20.

Congratulations to:

Henry Kautz, professor of computer science and founding director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science, who has been selected to receive the AAAI Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Henry is being honored for “outstanding research contributions in the area of knowledge representation, data analytics, and data mining of social media for public good.”
Nick Vamivakas, professor of quantum optics and quantum physics, and his lab and collaborators. Their optical-tweezer phonon laser has been chosen by Optics and Photonic News as a breakthrough of particular interest to emerge during the past year. Read more here.
Lele Chen, a second-year PhD student in computer science working in Prof. Chenliang Xu’s group. With collaborators from OPPO US Research Center, Lele won the Best Paper Award at the 17th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry. The paper, entitled “3D Human Avatar Digitalization from a Single Image,” proposes a pipeline that reconstructs a 3D human shape avatar at a glance. Read more here.
Our National Society of Black Engineers student chapter, which received the Boar’s Head Award at the University’s annual medieval-themed feast last week celebrating the beginning of the Rochester winter. NSBE was nominated by the Student Organization for Caribbean Awareness for its contributions to the African-American student community at our University, citing their study halls where underrepresented students can connect with each other and where first- and second-year students can learn from upperclassmen. Even if a student leaves the Hajim School, they are still welcome and encouraged to remain a part of NSBE. The group also provides tutoring and organizes programming in conjunction with the Greene Center, both prior to and after the national and regional conferences. For the Hajim School, NSBE is an integral part of building peer support and is a necessary component for retention and graduation.

Nearly two dozen students and faculty members from the Department of Chemical Engineering attended the recent AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) national student conference in Orlando, FL, with support from the Hajim School, the department, the Office of Undergraduate Research, and Wilson Commons Student Activities. This was a great opportunity for students to share their research with peers from other institutions, to network, and to compete in poster sessions. The camaraderie among the 23-member delegation “really shows how close our ChemE department is and how supportive we are of each other,” says Maxwell Kearns ’20, president of our AIChE student chapter. Read more here.

The department also had a strong turnout for a guest lecture by Harry B. Gray, the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology and founding director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He received an honorary doctorate from our University in 1987.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman