February 8, 2021
We are proud to recognize the contributions of Marvin Doyley (at left), Melodie Lawton, and Gonzalo Mateos as part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, which includes profiles of Hajim School underrepresented minority faculty members, staff members, and alumni who serve as outstanding role models.
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Events of the past year–both in Rochester and nationwide–remind us that racial bias and social injustice not only persist in our society but have gained an alarming level of acceptance. As a University, and as a school, we cannot afford to ignore this issue. In collaboration with the Kearns Center for Leadership and Development in AS&E and the Office of Equity and Inclusion, we are taking steps at the school and department levels to address these issues.
These steps will include efforts to increase the diversity of our student body, our staff, and faculty; to enhance our efforts to attract and retain students from diverse backgrounds, and to engage in efforts to address social injustice in our own community. This will not be accomplished overnight, but we need to start doing all we can now.
As part of that effort, we are celebrating the contributions of our underrepresented minority faculty members, staff members, and alumni who serve as outstanding role models. We are pleased to launch this series during Black History Month. This week we recognize three of our faculty members.
Marvin Doyley has done a remarkable job as the new chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at a particularly challenging time, providing fresh insights and positive leadership during our pivot to hybrid models of teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His research in cardiovascular and breast cancer imaging, ultrasound beamforming, contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging, ultrasound elastography, magnetic resonance elastography, and pancreatic cancer imaging earned him induction last year as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. This past year he was one of 20 faculty members nationwide who participated in the first cohort of the IAspire Leadership Academy, a program aimed at helping STEM faculty from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to leadership roles at colleges and universities. Marvin, who is also affiliated with the Materials Science Program, is actively pursuing ways to improve diversity and inclusion within his department. Read more here.
Melodie Lawton, assistant professor of instruction in chemical engineering, joined our faculty last year with not only solid academic credentials, but invaluable industry experience at Bausch & Lomb. Melodie drew on that experience to devise ways to help maintain safe social distancing in her undergraduate lab course last fall. Melodie comes from a non-STEM background, “so I think I always had to be self-motivating,” she says. After working at Bausch & Lomb, she earned a PhD in bioengineering at Syracuse University (2018), working on smart shape memory polymer composites. She’s excited to be connecting to students in classrooms and labs. “The challenge is taking really complicated physics and chemistry and repackaging it so someone can not only understand it but be excited enough to want to learn on their own in the future, or do something with it,” Lawton says. “I find that really satisfying.” Read more here.
Gonzalo Mateos, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is considered an emerging leader in using computational tools to make sense of the millions, even billions of data points that represent the interactions of networks as diverse as social media, power grids, and the human brain. He is recipient of a prestigious NSF CAREER award and was recently appointed the Asaro Biggar Family Fellow in Data Science. Gonzalo, who is also affiliated with the Materials Science Program, is actively engaged in helping the Goergen Institute for Data Science forge new collaborations across the University and beyond. “We are seeing this huge revolution in artificial intelligence, and data is becoming even more complex, unstructured and multi-modal,” Gonzalo says. “So, trying to crack problems in this domain is going to have a huge impact in decades to come in terms of bettering society, the economy, and the way we deliver health care. It touches upon everything.” Read more here.
Stay tuned for additional profiles throughout the year.
Here’s an opportunity from the Office of Equity and Inclusion for our faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to learn more about cultivating an equitable, respectful, and welcoming culture at our University.
As part of our University’s continued mission to learn, discover, heal, create—and make the world Ever Better–the Office of Equity and Inclusion has recently obtained a University-wide institutional membership to the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD). Through our membership, faculty, postdocs, and graduate students will have access to critical tools for their scholarship and for cultivating an equitable, respectful, and welcoming culture at Rochester. The NCFDD is an independent professional development and mentoring community with members from over 450 colleges and universities. To claim your membership, go to www.FacultyDiversity.org/Join and select the University of Rochester from the list of members. If you have any technical questions, feel free to email NCFDD at Membership@FacultyDiversity.org.
FOR STUDENTS
Join the Dr. Chat Bot Challenge, receive a button to signify their involvement, complete their daily University Dr. Chat Bot health screening each day, and be entered to win weekly, monthly, and grand prize drawings. Can you get the longest streak of completions? Learn more about the competition and the prizes available, including a parking pass, dining plan, iPad, and more. All students who are going to be in-person on University property at any point during the competition for the spring 2021 semester are eligible to participate.
Join a virtual information session with the Center for Education Abroad tomorrow, February 9, at 3 p.m. EST to learn about opportunities for international study, internships, research, and service-learning. The session, which is geared toward undergraduates, will include information about choosing a program, scholarships, and transferring credit. Register to attend here. Graduate students are welcome to attend the session; to take part in the program, they would have to meet with their respective advisors and schools.
RESEARCH NEWS
The lab of Chunlei Guo, professor of optics, also affiliated with the Materials Science Program, is noted for its pioneering work in using femtosecond lasers to etch unique properties into metal surfaces. However, Chunlei’s lab has also been exploring “parallel” ways to create unique surfaces that do not involve laser etching. And it has come up with optical coatings like no others. In a paper in Nature Nanotechnology, Chunlei and his lab describe a new class of Fano Resonance Optical Coatings (FROCs) that can simultaneously reflect and transmit the same wavelength, or color. One possible application: using FROCs to separate thermal and photovoltaic bands of the solar spectrum. Such capability could improve the effectiveness of devices that use hybrid thermal-electric power generation as a solar energy option. Read more here.
STUDENT ATHLETES
What does it feel like to launch yourself into the air at the end of a slender, flexible metal pole—and set a school record in the pole vault? Why is the 400-yard intermediate medley so brutal for a swimmer? And what is the key to winning a 60-meter dash? Winning Hajim School student athletes answer those questions as part of a series of “How I Got Started” profiles written by Dennis O’Donnell, director of Athletic Communications.
- Kudzai Mbinda ’22 of chemical engineering, a member of the men’s varsity track and field team, broke our University record in the 60-meter dash during the 2019-20 season. Kudzai describes how he first became interested in sprinting in Zimbabwe. In a short race like the 60-meter, he says, there’s little time for strategy. The key is to be “as explosive and instinctively technically sound as possible” in the training sessions beforehand. Read more here.
- Anna Cook ’21 of biomedical engineering, a member of the women’s varsity swimming and diving team, posted Rochester’s best times in the 200-yard and 400-yard individual medley at the UAA Championships. Anna says the combination of doing stroke and a long distance in the 400-yard individual medley “makes this event really brutal.” But she also gets the most satisfaction out of doing a 400 “because I know I have left literally everything I had in the pool and pushed myself to the limit.” Read more here.
- Terry Cook ’21 of mechanical engineering, has set University records for highest pole vault, both indoors and outdoors, as a member of the men’s varsity track and field team. “The feeling of getting flung into the air by a giant piece of fiberglass is equally terrifying and thrilling,” Terry explains as he takes us step by step, moment by moment through a pole vault. And you will also learn why mechanical engineering “runs” in his family. Read more here.
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
