E-News | CMPS

Michael E. Fisher, Physics and IPST, has been awarded the title of Ph.D. honoris causa by the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science or society. The ceremony of conferment will take place in early November 2009.

Gleneesha Johnson, Graduate Student, Computer Science (advisor Ashok Agrawala) won the 2nd place Innovation Award at the Google Ph.D. Forum held at the IEEE PerCom 2009 conference. Her work was entitled "Towards Shrink-Wrapped Security: A Taxonomy of Security-Relevant Context."

Patrick O'Shea, Physics and ECE, has been selected as a 2009-2010 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. This program honors members of the College Park faculty who have demonstrated outstanding scholarly achievement along with equally outstanding accomplishments as teachers. O'Shea is Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Undergraduate students John M. Silberholz, Mathematics, Computer Science and Business, and Zachary N. Russ, Mathematics and Bioengineering, have been awarded Goldwater Scholarships. Selected from a field of over 1,000 on the basis of academic merit, 278 scholarships were awarded to undergraduate sophomores and juniors. Thirty Scholars are mathematics majors, 190 are science and related majors, 51 are majoring in engineering, and 7 are computer science majors.

Scott Wolpert, Mathematics, has been invited to join the International Selection Committee for the S.-T. Yau High School Mathematics Awards, Beijing. The Awards were established to encourage outstanding high school students in China, and overseas, in their early pursuit of mathematical truth. About 18 teams will be selected to give an oral presentation of their project, followed by an inquiry before the International Committee.

CONTRACTS/GRANTS:

Ian Appelbaum, Physics, NSF, $400,000, "Silicon Spintronics."

Tony Busalacchi, AOSC and ESSIC, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $150,846, "Application of Scatterometry, Satellite Sea Surface Temperature, and Altimetry Measurements to Improve Understanding and Prediction of Indo-Pacific Coupling."

Sankar Das Sarma, Physics, DARPA, $205,413, "Topological Quantum Entanglement."

Victor Granatstein, IREAP and ECE, Office of Naval Research, $200,000, "Establishment of a Center for Applied Electromagnetic (APPE1) at the University of Maryland."

Raghu Murtugudde, AOSC and ESSIC, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $111,931, "Physical-Biological Interactions Associated with Tropical Subseasonal Variability and Their Impacts on SST."

Donald Perlis, Computer Science and UMIACS, Air Force Office of Scientific Resarch, $180,000, "Clashes in the Infosphere, General Intelligence, and Metacognition."

Ross Salawitch, AOSC, ESSIC and Chemistry & Biochemistry, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $332,995, "Photochemistry of Atmospheric Ozone."

Hanan Samet, Computer Science and UMIACS, NSF, $220,000, "Scalable Geometric and High Dimensional Algorithms: A Parallel and Distributed Approach."

V.S. Subrahmanian, Computer Science and UMIACS, Office of Naval Research, $100,000, "SIMS: Scalable Incompleteness and Inconsistency Management Strategies."

WHAT'S NEW:

Tony Busalacchi, AOSC and ESSIC, testified before the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee, Appropriations Committee on March 18 on the role of space-based ocean observations in support of climate understanding and prediction.

Michael Cummings, UMIACS and Biology, co-directed the Workshop on Molecular Evolution, which took place in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, January 2009. This multi-week course had 89 participants from 32 different countries, and four UMD graduate students served as teaching assistants or staff: Daniel Ayers, UMIACS, Adam Bazinet, Computer Science, Akito Kawahara, Entomology and Michael Lloyd, Plant Science. Cummings also co-authored a paper entitled "A Molecular Footprint of Limb Loss: Sequence Variation of the Autopodial Identity Gene Hoxa-13," which was chosen as the cover paper for the Journal of Molecular Evolution, October 2008.

Michael E. Fisher, Physics and IPST, delivered the Seymour Sherman Memorial Lecture entitled "Approaching the Limit in Statistical Mechanics: Analysis, Combinatorics, and Probability," on March 16, Indiana University, Bloomington. The Lecture series was founded in memory of Seymour Sherman who was widely known as the solver of some very difficult problems in the “Ising Model” of the theory of ferromagnetism. On March 18, Fisher gave an invited lecture for the Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics (PITP) Lectures on Quantum Phenomena series, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, with a topic of "Pictures, Models, Approximations and Reality: Phase Transitions and our Understanding of the Physical World."

Oscar Greenberg, Physics, gave an invited talk at the Quantum Mechanics in the Complex Domain conference, in honor of Carl Bender, on March 27, St. Louis, MO. Greenberg’s talk was entitled "Discovery of Color."

James Gates, Physics, was an invited speaker at The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee’s Cognizance 2009 conference. The annual technical festival, held March 20-22, 2009, is one of the largest technical festivals of the Indian sub-continent, having over 135 events. The 2009 conference theme was "Think Energy Go Green."

IN THE NEWS:

The Climate Information: Responding to User Needs (CIRUN) workshop held in October 2008 at M-Square, was mentioned in SpaceNews, January 12, in an article on the policy relevance of science.

Tony Busalacchi and Raghu Murtugudde, both AOSC and ESSIC, were quoted in Maryland Commons, March 16, in an article on the computer simulation (Chesapeake Bay Forecasting System) of the Chesapeake Bay showing how various factors interact to influence the bay region. The System was also featured in the Chesapeake Bay Modeling Program newsletter, February edition.

Matt Bobrowsky, Physics, et al., published a paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics, February issue, on detecting evidence that some stars in the center of the Milky Way galaxy have both carbon and oxygen in the dust that surrounds them. Follow-up stories appeared in Space Daily, Universe today and PhysOrg.

Rama Chellappa, Computer Science, UMIACS and ECE, with Yang Ran and Qinfen Zheng, UMIACS, published an article in SPIE, March 10, on developing a computer monitoring system that can analyze human motion under challenges.

Rita Colwell, UMIACS, published an article in Science, Education Forum section, March 27, on Professional Science Master’s degree programs.

Oscar Greenberg, Physics, was featured on a program celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Scholar program in Ireland on Lyric FM radio: Greenberg spent time at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. He was also mentioned in the CERN Courier, January edition, in an article on the “Theoretical and Experimental Aspects of The Spin-Statistics Connection and Related Symmetries” workshop (SpinStat 2008), held October 2008 in Trieste, Italy. Greenberg opened the workshop with a review talk on theoretical developments, with special emphasis on quon theory.

Jeff Hollingsworth, Computer Science and UMIACS, was quoted in USA Today, March 17, in an article on the recent report by the Computing Research Association showing an increase in the number of undergraduate computer science majors.

Thomas Holtz, Geology, was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, March 16, in an article on the recent finding of a large group of adolescent and pre-adolescent dinosaurs’ fossils excavated in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia. Holtz was also quoted in ScienceNews, The Spectrum and the Los Angeles Times in articles on the recent discovery of fossil handprints made by a crouching theropod revealing that they had palms that always faced inward, signifying that they abandoned the use of their forelimbs as legs early in their evolution. The handprints were discovered at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site, Johnson Farm, Utah.

Lucy McFadden, Astronomy, was a participant in a NASA media teleconference, March 25, revealing the science findings from recently discovered meteorites, which originated from a small asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere over northern Sudan in October 2008. McFadden was quoted in numerous follow-up articles, including MSNBC, Boston Herald, BBCNews, Wired, Christian Science Monitor and Chemical and Engineering News.

Robert Park, Physics, was quoted in The Guardian, March 23, in an article on the 1989 claim of cold fusion. Park’s book, "Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science," was reviewed in Metapsychology, March 24.

Christopher Reynolds, Astronomy, was quoted in ScienceBlog, March 23, in an article on the fuel efficiency of black holes.

Gary Rubloff, IREAP, Materials Science and Engineering and ISR, et al., published an article in Nature Nanotechnology, March 15, reporting on the use of atomic layer deposition to fabricate arrays of metal-insulator-metal nanocapacitors in anodic aluminium oxide nanopores. Follow-up articles appeared in New Scientist, CleanTech, EE Times-India, North American Windpower and Technology Review.

Steven Salzberg, Computer Science and UMIACS, was quoted in The Washington Post, March 17, in an article on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NIH. Salzberg was also mentioned in This Week in Genome Biology, GenomeWeb, March 18, in reference to a short-read aligner called Bowtie.

ALUMNI NEWS:

AnthroTronix, a company co-founded by Jack Vice, 2001 B.S. Computer Science, was mentioned in The Washington Post, March 10, in an article on robots created to provide therapy and support. A 16 inch tall robot, CosmoBot, designed by AnthroTronix was successful in getting an autistic child to perform the motions she had seen adults doing for years, but couldn’t imitate.

Susan Cross, 1981 B.S. Mathematics, was named by Business Insurance Magazine as one of only 25 insurance industry executives to its 2008 Women to Watch list. This annual feature recognizes the achievements of women doing outstanding work in commercial insurance, risk management and employee benefits. Cross is Executive Vice President and Global Chief Actuary for XL Capital, is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, Associate of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Toren Finkel, 1979 B.S. Physics, is Chief of the Translational Medicine Branch, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH. After graduating from Maryland, he went on to receive his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Harvard University School of Arts and Sciences. His primary research interests are in oxidant or free radical-mediated diseases, aging, and the cardiovascular clinical implications of stem cells, and he is author, or coauthor, of more than 100 publications. Finkel is also Editor in Chief of Drug Discovery Today-Disease Mechanisms, Associate Editor of Circulation Research and is on the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals.

Joseph Siegrist, 1998 B.S. Computer Science, is a founding developer, LastPass, Vienna, VA and has more than a decade of experience in developing and running Internet applications. An innovative software architect and entrepreneur, he is the named inventor of five key software patents. Previously he was the Chief Technology Officer at eStara Inc., which he and his team built and ran from scratch and which was acquired by ATG Inc. in 2006.

Robert van de Geijn, 1987 Ph.D. Applied Mathematics (advisor G. W. (Pete) Stewart), is a Professor of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. He recently received the 2007-2008 UT-Austin President Associates Teaching Excellence Award. The Award, established in 1980, recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching at UT Austin in the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences.

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PLEASE SUBMIT ITEMS TO: Mary Kearney (mkearney@umd.edu )

COLLEGE OF COMPUTER, MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Astronomy Department - Dr. Stuart Vogel, Chair
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Department - Dr. James Carton, Chair
Computer Science Department - Dr. Larry Davis, Chair
Geology Department - Dr. Michael Brown, Chair
Mathematics Department - Dr. James Yorke, Chair
Physics Department - Dr. Drew Baden, Chair
CSCAMM - Dr. Eitan Tadmor, Director
ESSIC - Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, Director
IPST - Dr. Rajarshi Roy, Director
IREAP - Dr. Dan Lathrop, Director
UMIACS - Dr. V.S. Subrahmanian, Director