April 10, 2017
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Congratulations to Danielle Benoit, associate professor of biomedical engineering, who was honored Saturday with the 2016 Young Engineer of the Year Award from the Rochester Engineering Society. (Read more here.)
Congratulations as well to Yuchen Wang, a graduate student in Danielle’s lab. Yuchen was presented with a New Investigator Recognition Award at the Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting in San Diego for her project titled, “Delivery of β-Catenin Agonists via Targeted Nanoparticles to Enhance Fracture Healing.”
The University’s series of articles about data science includes a look at a project Zhiyao Duan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and PhD student Iris Ren are doing in collaboration with David Temperley, professor at the Eastman School. They are using algorithms and automatic pitch tracking software to unlock the secrets of blue notes – those notes “between the cracks” of conventional pitches – that help define a great singer in the tradition of jazz, rock, or blues. Read more here.
Four teams of Hajim School students have been busy competing – or preparing to do so.
Two teams from the Department of Computer Science finished third and eighth among 27 teams at the three-day CS Games, hosted this year at l’École de Technologie Supérieure in Montréal. The games, in their 15th year, feature programming, logic puzzles, difficult algorithms, intense video game competitions, social activities, and interaction with corporate sponsors. Hassler Thurston, captain of the Canadian Immigrants team, which finished third, reports that the Rochester delegation continued to improve in overall participation, Flashout ideas, and competition skills — and placed first in theory and two reverse engineering competitions. Hassler’s team finished with a cumulative score of 56.24, only 1.19 points behind the first-place team. Congratulations to Hassler and his teammates — Colin Pronovost, Dan Rubery, Gayeon Lee, Jack Valinsky, Jacob Bisnett, Johnny Jacobs, Mikayla Konst, Ned Newton, and Shir Maimon. Congratulations as well to the American Emigrants team, led by Grace Heard, whose teammates were Antonio Cardenas, Ben O’Halloran, Brandon Willett, Jackson Abascal, Joel Kottas, Lia Klein, Maria Janczak, Nathan Contino, and Zachary Polansky. You did a great job of representing our school and University!
A new team from the Department of Chemical Engineering made its first foray into competition at a regional Chem-E-Car contest sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers at Worchester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. The team tied for 11th among 13 qualifiers, but team members learned a lot about forming a team, designing and building a vehicle from scratch, and meeting some very stringent safety requirements to qualify for competition. Their enthusiasm was commended by the judges, and bodes well for next year! Meet the students and read more about their experiences here.
Our Baja SAE team recently unveiled the off-road vehicle it has designed and built to compete against other universities later this spring in California (April 27-30) and Kansas (May 25-28). I enjoyed talking with the various team project leaders about their posters and getting a closeup look at the vehicle. Very impressive! Check out the Baja SAE website for more about the team’s members and the changes they’ve made in this year’s vehicle.
Some reminders from the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship: Fourteen University teams will compete Thursday at the Finger Lakes semi-finalist round of the New York Business Plan Competition; April 17 is the deadline to apply to the NSF I-Corps Site Program for entrepreneurial training and grants of up to $3,000 to enable teams to transition their technical ideas into the marketplace; April 20 is the deadline to enter business plans for the Mark Ain Business Model Competition; April 24 is the deadline to enter business plans for the Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition.
Huawei Technologies, an information technology company in China, is offering a two-week fully funded opportunity this summer for computer science and engineering students to experience Chinese culture and get hands-on ICT training. Apply by April 24. Read more here.
Four weeks into this year’s United Way campaign, the Hajim School is tied for first in participation – 31 percent – with the Warner School. If you haven’t done so already, please consider making a contribution here.
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
