October 26, 2020

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

• Go to alert.rochester.edu/ and log in with your NetID.
• Add your cell phone number for texts—this will be the only phone number used to send you text reminders. The phone number must be in the 10-digit format, for example, (585) 222-1234.

We continue to do a great job of keeping positive cases of COVID-19 on our campus well within acceptable levels. Dr. Chat Bot is a key part of that effort. Thanks again to all of you–students, staff, and faculty–for your diligence in complying with all of our protocols, including social distancing, wearing face masks, and hand sanitizing!

CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .

Ryan Rygg, senior scientist and High-Energy-Density Physics (HEDP) Group Leader at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and assistant professor (research) of mechanical engineering and physics. Ryan has been elected a Fellow by the American Physical Society (APS). No more than one half of one percent of the APS membership is elected to Fellowship annually.  Ryan is being recognized “for pioneering experiments and discoveries that have revealed a new understanding of extreme electromagnetic fields, transport mechanisms, and atomic to hydrodynamic structure in high-energy-density matter and inertial confinement fusion plasmas.”

Ajay Anand, associate professor and deputy director at the Goergen Institute for Data Science, who has been selected to serve on the Northeast Student Data Corps (NSDC) Founding Committee. NSDC is a community-developed initiative of the Northeast Big Data Hub that will teach data science fundamentals to students across the northeastern United States, with a special focus on under-served institutions and students.

RESEARCH NEWS

Continuing our look at recent research funding received by Hajim School faculty members, which illustrates the depth and breadth of research being done at our school:

If you take a simple metal plate, attach it to a looped coil of wire, then zap the plate with a laser, something interesting happens.

The laser strips electrons off the plate, giving it a positive charge. This allows you to drive a current from the plate to the coil, creating a magnetic field inside the coil’s loop. Only in recent years, with the widespread use of high-power lasers, have researchers begun to explore using these so-called “laser driven coils” to create magnetic fields powerful enough to magnetize high energy density plasmas – and enhance inertial confinement fusion.

But nobody has come up with a way to conclusively measure the strength of the magnetic fields in those coils during the billionths of a second that a typical experiment lasts.

Riccardo Betti, chief scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics and the Robert L. McCrory Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is collaborating with co-principal investigators at LLE, senior scientist Jonathan Davies and scientist Jonathan Peebles on a $549,433 grant from the DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences to further develop an axial probing technique that could more accurately determine the strength of the magnetic fields.

Currently, researchers at LLE are able to create magnetic fields of up to 50 Tesla in a coil using pulsed power devices. Researchers interested in magnetizing laser-produced plasmas, replicating astrophysical plasmas, or enhancing the rate of fusion reactions, need even stronger fields.

“Even if we can produce 200 to 300 Teslas in laser-driven coils, that would be a big step forward,” Riccardo says. “But first we have to make sure we can accurately measure that’s what’s actually happening.” Read more here.

ALUMNI NEWS

“Attending the University of Rochester gave me the opportunity to be successful in the classroom and on the field. It was truly the best of both worlds. I felt I could be driven and diligent in the classroom without sacrificing the love and passion I had for my sport,” says Michelle Relin ’16 optics, now a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Michelle is one of 10 engineering and computer science alumni who are included in the first two installments of a new series launched by Dennis O’Donnell and his colleagues in Athletic Communications called “Why Rochester?” Former scholar-athletes explain why they chose our University as a place to study and play sports, which professors or courses they especially liked, and what they’re doing now.

Sayaka Abe ’17 of chemical engineering, Nancy Bansbach ’19 ’20M of biomedical engineering, Rachel Cahan ’08 of mechanical engineering, Sherri Smith ’79 ’82M of chemical engineering, and Theresa Tuthill ’84 ’86M ’91PhD of electrical engineering are also included in the first installment, which focuses on former members of the women’s field hockey team. Michael Chen ’03 ’04M of chemical engineering; Gisli Hjalmtysson ’87, a computer science and applied math double major; Emeka Iheme ’98 of mechanical engineering; and Jeff White ’05 of mechanical engineering are featured in the second installment on the men’s soccer team. Thanks to Dennis and his colleagues for helping to illustrate why our University is such great place for students to gain valuable experiences beyond the classroom.

RACIAL JUSTICE

To deepen our understanding of how racism and inequity affect our lives and our community, the University has joined the United Way’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge, which continues through November 20. “An important part of dismantling racism is understanding the pervasive forces of bigotry and bias,” says Mercedes Ramírez Fernández, our University’s Richard Feldman Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and chief diversity officer. “The more we openly and honestly address these issues as a community, the more we create a welcoming, respectful, and safe environment where everyone can study, work, and live.”

I join Mercedes in encouraging those of you who have not done so already to participate in the 21-Day Equity Challenge. @Rochester will highlight each day’s challenge, which will cover topics such as Understanding Bias, Levels of Racism, Housing Inequities, and Building a Race Equity Culture, with links to articles, videos, podcasts, reflections, and more. If you prefer, you can also sign up on the United Way website to receive an email each weekday with the day’s challenge.

In addition, you can join award-winning diversity and inclusion leader, author, and University life trustee Mary-Frances Winters ’73, ’82S (MBA) for a presentation and conversation about her new book, Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit from 6 to 7:30 p.m. EDT this Wednesday, October 28, with opening remarks from President Sarah Mangelsdorf. View information and event registration. This event is part of a new monthly lecture and discussion series, REAL—Rochester’s Equity and Access Leadership—Conversations.

Thanks to all of you who joined us for our Hajim School Open House last week, and thanks to our department chairs, program directors, staff, and students who helped describe the good things happening this semester and answered questions.

And, in case you missed it, here’s a link to President Mangelsdorf’s recent Women who ROC: Voices of Our Leaders panel discussion, held as part of the University’s Celebration 2020 observance. Accomplished women in academia–including women deans at our University–discuss their career paths, their commitment to developing other women leaders, and their perspectives around equity and access for women in higher education.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman