September 12, 2022
Our unique audio and music engineering program includes a state-of-the-art recording studio in Gavett Hall. (Photo by J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester)
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
It’s official! Our engineering programs have successfully achieved ABET accreditation. This is the first ABET accreditation for Audio and Music Engineering and extends back retroactively to Oct. 1, 2019. For all other engineering programs, this is a re-accreditation.
Thanks to our department chairs, faculty members, and staff who worked so hard on the self-study report, the visit, and the several post-visit responses. The hard work paid off; our programs are now stronger than ever. A BIG “thank you” to Paul Funkenbusch, our associate dean, for all the hard work he put into organizing and overseeing this effort as our point person. We couldn’t have done this without him!
IN-PERSON CAREER WEEK RETURNS
I strongly encourage our undergraduate and graduate students who will be seeking jobs and internships to take full advantage of the Greene Center’s first post-COVID, full scale fall career week this Sunday through next Wednesday, Sept. 18-21. Click on the links to register for each event.
Virtual Suit-Up Event with JCPenney, Sept. 18-30. Make a good impression on prospective employers with affordable clothing and accessories that help you stand out from a crowd—in a good way. Receive a 30 percent off coupon to use in store or online.
Employer/Student Diversity Networking Reception, 5-6:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 19, 4-200 Dewey Hall. Engage with employers from engineering, tech, data science, finance and consulting. The event opens with an interactive discussion about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, with Rachael Gatling from Philips Healthcare.
Fall Career Expo (in-person), 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, Feldman Ballroom. Meet representatives from engineering, technical, consulting and finance companies.
Virtual Fall Career Expo, 1-4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21. Explore entry level and internship opportunities with additional employers.
CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .
Left to right: Adam Briggs, Connor Heckman, Erin O’Kane, and Nikolas Romer.
Four Hajim School students are among 12 graduate and undergraduate students nationwide to receive awards in the 2022 Robert S. Hilbert Memorial Optical Design Competition, sponsored by Synopsys. The competition recognizes excellence in optical design projects using Synopsys optical design software for a class assignment or thesis work. Our recipients are either optics majors or won the award for projects done in optics classes.
Optics graduate student Adam Briggs completed a design study of freeform imaging components for space-borne instrumentation.
Connor Heckman ’22 of biomedical engineering, now a graduate student, designed a two-photon laser scanning microscopy system for biology research.
Erin O’Kane ’23, majoring in optical engineering and chemistry, designed a multiphoton system for high-resolution fluorescence imaging of biological samples and micro-structures.
Optics PhD candidate Nikolas Romer designed a telephoto lens that improves geological sample collection on Mars by identifying sample locations from as far as 260 meters away.
All four students used Synopsis CODE V for their projects. You can learn more about their winning projects here. Our optics students are among the winners of this competition every year, which reflects the strength of our imaging and lens design programs.
MEET ANSON KAHNG
Here’s a great opportunity to get acquainted with one of our new faculty members and the exciting research he is pursuing. Anson Kahng, an assistant professor with joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the Goergen Institute for Data Science, will give a talk on “Democracy + Computer Science = Better Collective Decision-Making” at noon today, Monday, September 12, in 1400 Wegmans Hall. This is a hybrid event; click here for a zoom link.
LLE EXPANSION
The Laboratory for Laser Energetics has broken ground on a $42 million, 66,000-square-foot office and lab building expansion that connects directly to LLE’s existing building.
The new three-floor building will house lab and office space for approximately 110 scientists and LLE personnel and include a class 1000 target fabrication lab and thin film coating lab, a laser computing facility, and several other wet lab and general lab spaces. This further expands the already remarkable collaborative research opportunities available to our Hajim faculty and students at the largest university-based US Department of Energy supported research center in the nation.
PHYSICS-OPTICS LIBRARY FACELIFT
Did you know there’s a library on the third floor of Bausch and Lomb Hall set aside specifically to support students and faculty not only from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, but also The Institute of Optics?
Now in its 50th year, the Physics-Optics-Astronomy Library is gearing up for a wall-to-wall refresh, expected to be completed in September 2023. To provide support for the project, contact Pamela Jackson, senior director of Advancement for the River Campus Libraries, at pamela.jackson@rochester.edu. For more information on POA, contact Jeffery Jones at jjones@library.rochester.edu or Ben Mitchell at bmitch15@library.rochester.edu.
NEW NIH DATA POLICIES COMING
All National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding applications submitted on or after January 25, 2023 must include a data management and sharing plan. Similar data management and sharing mandates will undoubtedly be issued soon by other federal agencies (and many other research sponsors).
Colleagues across the University are actively working to put systems in place to help faculty and other researchers comply with this policy.
Here are some initial steps that you can do now, before the policy goes into effect:
Learn more here.
REMINDER TO NEW STUDENTS
The University is committed to fostering a culture of prevention and awareness around sexual misconduct and gender equity and has partnered with EVERFI to provide online training that covers Title IX and other topics. This training is required for all first-year undergraduate, graduate, and transfer students at the University and is based on research around the best practices for healthy communities. The training comes directly to your email from EVERFI and is due Friday, October 21.
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
