Raffaello D'Andrea, associate professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, has been awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE), the White House has announced. The award carries a five-year, $500,000 research grant to explore the control of interconnected systems. Matching grants from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research bring the total project funding to $1 million. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the U. S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are in the early stages of establishing their independent research careers. Awards are given to researchers who have received their Ph.D. degrees within the past five years. The Clinton administration established the awards in February, 1996 to recognize some of the nation's finest junior scientists. (March 20, 2002)
Cornell University's Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI) will hold a conference, "Everything Old Is New Again: The New Approach to Community Development," May 22-23 at the Wyndham Syracuse, Route 298, East Syracuse, N.Y. The conference is designed to help community leaders, development professionals and government officials focus on how localities can accelerate and sustain healthy development. (March 20, 2002)
With the help of Cornell University's Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), two students at Lansing High School in Lansing, N.Y., will see the results of three years of research and planning go far -- all the way to Mars. Jessica Sherman and Kelly Trowbridge, both sophomores at Lansing, are two of just three students selected in a global competition to have their experiments carried on a future mission to Mars. The three students presented their plans to investigate conditions on the red planet at the Lunar and Planetary Institute's annual conference in Houston on March 14. (March 20, 2002)
Harvard University professor of government Nancy Rosenblum, who researches U.S. political parties, will deliver Cornell University Law School's Robert S. Stevens Lecture Tuesday, March 26, at the Law School. Rosenblum's talk, "Party ID? Anti-Extremism, Anti-Partisanship, Anti-Politics," will take place in the Stein Mancuso Amphitheater of Myron Taylor Hall. It is free and open to the public. No tickets are needed to attend. (March 19, 2002)
Using nanoscale chemistry, researchers at Cornell University have developed a new class of hybrid materials that they describe as flexible ceramics. The new materials appear to have wide applications, from microelectronics to separating macromolecules, such as proteins. What is particularly striking, even to the researchers themselves, is that under the transmission electron microscope (TEM) the molecular structure of the new material -- known as a cubic bicontinuous structure -- conforms to century-old mathematical predictions. "We in polymer research are now finding structures that mathematicians theorized long ago should exist," says Ulrich Wiesner, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell. The structure of the new material appears so convoluted that it has been dubbed "the plumber's nightmare." (March 19, 2002)
Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin March 15 announced the appointment of Alison "Sunny" Power as dean of the Graduate School. Power has been interim dean since July, when Vice Provost Walter I. Cohen stepped down as dean. Power's appointment, which is for three years beginning July 1, 2002, was endorsed March 13 in a vote by the faculty of the Graduate School and was approved by the Cornell Board of Trustees March 15. (March 18, 2002)
At its seventh annual convocation, March 1, The Cornell Tradition awarded its first annual Cornell Tradition Community Recognition Award to Ithacan Mimi Melegrito. The Cornell Tradition is an alumni-endowed fellowship program at Cornell University that recognizes and rewards outstanding students dedicated to work, service and scholarship. This past fall, the Student Advisory Council of Cornell Tradition created the new award to recognize and honor an Ithaca area person who has demonstrated a strong commitment to community service and/or leadership. An awards committee solicited nominations from community agencies of candidates who exemplify the Cornell Tradition ideal of improving their community through dedication to service. In December, a selection committee composed of members from both the Cornell and Ithaca communities evaluated all of the nominations and selected Melegrito as the first recipient of the Cornell Tradition Community Recognition Award. (March 18, 2002)
The Cornell University Board of Trustees, at its regular meeting March 15, approved a tuition increase of $1,180 for undergraduate resident students in the New York state contract colleges for the academic year 2002-03.
NEW ORLEANS -- The era of waiting days for E. coli bacteria lab results soon will be at an end for food processors and health departments, thanks to a new type of biological sensor that works much like a home-pregnancy test in one format. At present, it takes technicians days to incubate and then implicate harmful and deadly bacteria in food poisonings, but the new sensor does its detective work in just minutes. (March 15, 2002)