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In This Issue:
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COVER
STORY If numbers tell the story, then the arrival of 23 new faculty members within the last academic year should speak volumes about the state of the School. Every one of the School’s nine departments has benefited from the influx of new hires, with computer science receiving the most new positions—6. The Computer Science Department has 280 undergraduate majors, with an average class size of more than 60, the largest in the university. “Adding these new faculty members will allow us to reduce class size measurably,” said Kathleen McKeown, Department Chair, “while increasing our visibility and impact in the research world.”
Peter Belhumeur, one of the country’s leading researchers in computer vision, has joined the Computer Science Department as a full professor with tenure. He previously was a professor at Yale and collaborated on projects with computer science professor Shree Nayar. Most recently, they have developed a light sensitive computer display screen that adjusts the appearance of its contents based on the illumination that surrounds it. Belhumeur received his B.Sc. from Brown with highest honors and S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard. He is a winner of the Presidential Early Career Award and has received an NSF Career Award. Five other computer scientists have been named assistant professors. Stephen Edwards holds a B.S. from CalTech and M.S. and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. His expertise is in embedded systems and computer engineering. Tony Jebara received his B.S. from McGill and M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT. He is researching machine learning and multimedia human computer interaction. Angelos Keromytis, who received a B.S. from the University of Crete, and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, specializes in security systems. Vishal Misra, whose B.S. is from Indian Institute of Technology and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, specializes in networking. Elizabeth Sklar, whose field is human and computer learning, received her B.A. from Barnard, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Brandeis.
In Electrical Engineering, Nicholas F. Maxemchuk was named a full professor with tenure. One of the nation’s foremost experts in network and telecommunications, he was associated with AT&T Research Labs since 1976, most recently as Technology Leader. He received a B.E. magna cum laude from CCNY and M.S.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He had been an adjunct professor at SEAS and also at the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected a fellow of the IEEE in 1989 and has won numerous prizes for his papers. Other new members for EE are Keren Bergman and Xiaodong Wang. Bergman, formerly an assistant professor of EE at Princeton, is an associate professor at SEAS with tenure. A graduate of Bucknell, she received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT. Her special interests are quantum noise in optical fibers, high-speed optical soliton pulse sources, ultrafast switching, optical networks and biomedical optical tweezers. Xiaodong Wang, an assistant professor, brings to SEAS three grants in wireless communications. When added to the new NSF grant he just received, the grants total $1 million. He received his B.S. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University; M.S. from Purdue, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton. He was formerly an assistant professor at Texas A&M.
Earth and Environmental Engineering’s new full professor is Klaus Lackner, who was associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory for 19 years. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Heidelberg University in Germany. At Los Alamos, he was chief of staff, acting associate laboratory director and acting deputy to the associate laboratory director in the Office of Strategic and Supporting Research and part of the theoretical division. His research work has focused on environmental issues concerning the use of fossil fuels and he will be working to develop technologies that allow for the continued use of fossil energy without detriment to the environment. William E. Bailey, an assistant professor, has a joint appointment to the Henry Krumb School of Mines and the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. He received his B.A. and B.S. degrees from Brown and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford in materials science and engineering. His research interests include magnetic thin films, spin-dependent transport and spin electronics, electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. Also named to the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics are Guillaume Bal and Chris H. Wiggins. Bal, whose research interests include propagation of waves in random media and derivation of transport equations and diffusion approximations for high frequency waves, was a lecturer at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from University of Paris. Wiggins, an assistant professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, received his B.A. from Columbia and Ph.D. from Princeton. His research interests in applied mathematics include numerical analysis, fluid mechanics, and partial differential equations and, in physics, such areas as solitons, biomaterials, cellular biophysics, liquid crystals, polymers, and elasticity. Biomedical Engineering has added associate professor Andreas H. Hielscher and assistant professor Helen H. Lu to the new department. Hielscher, an assistant professor in the department of pathology at SUNY-Health Science Center and adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Polytechnic University, received B.S. and M.S. degrees from University of Hannover, Germany and Ph.D. from Rice. His areas of research include exploring the use of multiple scattered polarized light for medical diagnostics. As a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he developed a method for cancer-cell characterization based on polarized scattering spectroscopy. Lu, who received B.S.E., M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, has done postdoctoral research at Drexel University, where her focus was designing interfaces that promote the integration between bone and soft tissue. Industrial Engineering and Operations Research has welcomed tenured associate professor Clifford Stein and assistant professors Martin Haugh and Andrew Lim. Stein comes to SEAS from Dartmouth with research interests in designing and analyzing algorithms, combinatorial optimization, network algorithms, scheduling and computational biology. A summa cum laude graduate of Princeton, he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. Haugh received his B.Sc. with first class honors in mathematics and statistics from University College, Cork, Ireland, and holds M.Sc. degrees in mathematics (University College) and applied statistics (University of Oxford) Lim, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia’s Center for Applied Probability, received his B.S. with Honours I from the department of mathematics, University of Western Australia and Ph.D. in systems engineering from Australian National University. Optimization and stochastic control with applications to engineering, mathematical finance and operations research are his primary research interests. Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics has welcomed George Deodatis, Michael J. Garvin and Roy L. Wilson. Deodatis was an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton prior to his appointment as a tenured associate professor. A graduate of National Technical University of Athens, he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia. He will continue to investigate probabilistic mechanics and research areas concomitant with earthquake engineering. Garvin, an assistant professor, is a distinguished graduate from the US Military Academy at West Point and received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT. His research interests include application of systems indicators for the global water supply industry. Roy L. Wilson, P.E., a principal of MA Wilson & Associates, is an adjunct professor who holds the B.S.C.E. from Polytechnic Institute and M.B.A. from Hofstra. Scott Calabrese Barton, who received his Ph.D. from Columbia, has joined Chemical Engineering as an assistant professor. He has been a postdoctoral fellow in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. cum laude from Notre Dame and M.S. from MIT. His research has centered on electrochemical energy systems. Jeffrey W. Kysar, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Kansas State University prior to receiving the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard. He has been a research associate and adjunct assistant professor of engineering at Brown University. “Every department is growing,” said Dean Zvi Galil, “and we are fortunate to have attracted such excellent new faculty members.”
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