Perry Cook Adam Finkelstein Randolph Wang

Assistant Professors of Computer Science Perry Cook, Adam Finkelstein, and Randolph Wang have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards, which were created by the NSF to encourage the early development of academic faculty as both educators and researchers.

Dr. Cook joined the Princeton faculty in 1996. His bachelor's degree in music is from the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory of Music (1985); his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering is from the University of Missouri, Kansas City (1986); and his master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering are from Stanford University (1987 and 1991, respectively).

At Princeton, the courses taught by Dr. Cook include CS 436: Human Computer Interface Technology and Music 539: Interactive Arts Technologies. His research interests are music synthesis and modeling, animation, and music perception and cognition. His CAREER-funded project is titled "Parametric Synthesis and Control of Sound for the Computer Mediated Experience."

Dr. Finkelstein, who teaches courses in nonphotorealistic rendering, computer animation, general computer science, and computer graphics, joined the Princeton faculty in 1997. His field of specialization is computer graphics. His CAREER-funded project is titled "Applications of Surface Correspondence in Computer Graphics."

Dr. Finkelstein earned his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1996.

Dr. Wang joined the Princeton faculty in February 1999 after earning his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his bachelor's degree, also in computer science, from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991.

He teaches CS 518: Advanced Operating Systems and CS 598: Six Research Ideas in Storage, Mobility, and Networking, among others. His CAREER-funded project is titled "Low Latency I/O and Ubiquitous Storage."

The CAREER program supports junior faculty within the context of their overall career development by combining within a single program the support of quality research and education in the broadest sense, with the representation of those traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering. This program enhances and emphasizes the importance the NSF places on the development of integrated academic careers that include both research and education.

The CAREER program is the successor of the NSF National Young Investigator awards and are very competitive. The intent of the CAREER program awards is to provide stable support at a sufficient level and duration to enable awardees to achieve the education and research career-development objectives of this program.

More information is available online at: http://www. fast lane.nsf.gov

New in print

Professor Smits writes about fluid mechanics

  Alexander Smits, professor and chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has a new book in print titled A Physical Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, published by John Wiley and Sons Inc.

The book is "a brief introduction to fluid mechanics that emphasizes the use of basic concepts in solving engineering problems," the publisher stated. "The book is designed to develop problem-solving skills and physically based intuition for engineering students of fluid mechanics.

"This text develops the physical principles of fluid mechanics in stages, moving from simple, one-dimensional problems to progressively more complex examples while maintaining a strong connection to applications drawn from engineering practice as well as nature."

More E-Quad newsmakers

 

Daniel Tsui Andrew Yao

David Billington '50, Gordon Wu Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, arranged an exhibit for the National Science Foundation (NSF) on the New Art of Structural Engineering. The exhibit is part of the NSF Art of Science Project, which was created to bring to NSF original works of art that visually explore the connections between artistic and scientific expression.

Roy Jackson, Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Professor Jackson was cited for his distinguished "seminal research on the stability of a dispersion of particles supported by up-flowing gas." He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1982 and twice received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Engineering Council. He was the first recipient of the School's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995. Professor Jackson transferred to emeritus status in 1998.

Chung K. Law, the Robert H. Goddard Professor of Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received an Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of California, San Diego, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1973.

Vincent Poor, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, will receive the 2001 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Graduate Teaching Award. He was noted for "exemplary teaching, inspired guidance of graduate students, and contributions to graduate education in statistical signal processing." The IEEE Graduate Teaching Award was established in 1990 to recognize "inspirational teaching of graduate students."

Sankaran Sundaresan, professor of chemical engineering, was selected to receive the 2000 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The award recognizes excellence and will be presented in March 2001.

Daniel Chee Tsui, Arthur Legrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering, was elected a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for outstanding contributions to China's international scientific exchanges and cooperation. Professor Tsui was a corecipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in discovering the fractional quantum Hall effect. He also was honored by the American Immigration Lawyers Association at the organization's 2000 Annual Conference on Immigration Law.

Andrew Yao, professor in the Department of Computer Science, was elected to the Academia Sinica, the most prominent academic institution in the Republic of China. Located in Nankang, Taiwan, its major tasks are to undertake in-depth academic research on various subjects in the sciences and the humanities, and to provide guidelines, channels of coordination, and incentives with a view to raising academic standards in the country.

New year begins with new faculty members

 

Brian Kernighan *69 Evgueni Narimanov Athanassios Panagiotopoulos Amit Sahai K. Ronnie Sircar

Five new faculty members join the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) this fall.

ChE

In the Department of Chemical Engineering, Professor Athanassios Panagiotop-oulos specializes in computational engineering. Previously, he was a member of the Cornell University faculty, and also held the position of professor at the University of Maryland Institute for Physical Science and Technology for the past two years.

Professor Panagiotopoulos earned his 1982 diploma in chemical engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and his 1986 Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spent a postdoctoral year at Oxford University before going to Cornell as assistant professor in 1987. Promoted to associate professor in 1992, he was named full professor in 1998.

Winner of a 1989 Presidential Young Investigator Award, he won the Cornell College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award in 1997 and the Prausnitz Award for Achievement in Applied Chemical Thermodynamics in 1998.

Author of more than 70 papers in technical journals, he is currently working on A Web-based Textbook on Molecular Simulation.

CS

Joining the Department of Computer Science are Brian Kernighan *69 as professor and Amit Sahai as assistant professor.

Professor Kernighan earned his bachelor's degree in engineering physics in 1964 from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1969 from Princeton. Since completing his education, he has worked for Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, where he was head of the Computing Structures Research Department for 19 years.

At Princeton, Professor Kernighan teaches CS 109: Computers and Our World, a course for people who want to know what computing is all about, but do not expect to work in the field.

"Even though most people won't be directly involved with programming, everyone is affected by computers, so an educated person should have a good understanding of how computer hardware, software, and networks operate," he said.

His research interests are software tools, application-oriented languages, programming methodology, and user interfaces. He is the author of seven books and holds three U.S. patents.

Amit Sahai comes to Princeton from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his master's degree and Ph.D. in computer science. His 1996 undergraduate degree in mathematics with a minor in computer science is from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Sahai is interested in theoretical computer science, specifically cryptography. He has a broad range of interests that includes complexity theory and the theory of error-correcting codes.

As an undergraduate Dr. Sahai was named Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate of the Year, North America, and was a member of the three-person team that won first place in the Association of Computing Machinery's World Programming Championships.

EE

In the Department of Electrical Engineering, Evgueni Narimanov joins as assistant professor. Previously, he was a postdoctoral member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, where his research focused on condensed-matter physics, optics and semiconductor laser physics, and information theory. Dr. Narimanov earned his bachelor's degree (1989), his master's degree (1991), and his Ph.D. (1994) from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

ORFE

In the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, K. Ronnie Sircar joins SEAS as assistant professor. Previously, he was assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Sircar received his Ph.D. in scientific computing and computational mathematics from Stanford University in 1997. He holds a master's degree with distinction in mathematical modeling and numerical analysis from Oxford University. Dr. Sircar earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Oxford University in 1992.

He is coauthor of a new book titled, Derivatives in Financial Markets with Stochastic Volatility, from Cambridge University Press.

Advisory council volunteers serve vital role for the SEAS

All dynamic leaders of charitable organizations know that extraordinary strength comes from extraordinary volunteers and their dedication to the institution's mission. That premise can apply equally well to educational institutions.

The School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) has a Leadership Council that counsels and advises Dean James Wei. The SEAS Leadership Council, headed by Dennis Keller '63, meets in the spring for two days during which members are briefed about current events and directions at the SEAS. Members of the leadership council provide suggestions and recommendations that are intended to advance the SEAS and its mission.

In addition to the SEAS Leadership Council, the six departments of engineering have advisory councils that function in a similar capacity on the departmental level. Members of the advisory councils represent a broad range of interests from faculty members of other comparable education institutions to industry representatives to businessmen and entrepreneurs.

"We are always aiming to improve our department in its teaching and research efforts, and we seek their (advisory council's) opinion in an effort to gain a perspective from outside the department and outside the university," said Alexander Smits, professor and chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

David Dobkin, professor and chairman of the Department of Computer Science said he also relies on the advisory council for advice.

"They tend to bring new perspectives to the situation and have been exceptionally helpful in the past," Professor Dobkin said.

That different perspective can be especially valuable in high technology areas that are constantly changing.

"I think one of the things that is important to academia is to be able to see what trends are going on in the corporate sector," said David Hitz '86, a member of the Computer Science Advisory Council. "I think having people coming in from industry to share their views about what kinds of things are new and interesting and what's not interesting is valuable to the department."

Mr. Hitz is vice president and founder of Network Appliance Inc., the fourth fastest growing company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine.

The advisory council members also play a role in long-term strategic planning and assist with the department's overall planning process, said Donald Dixon '69, a member of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Advisory Council. Mr. Dixon is managing director of Trident Capital, L.P., a private equity venture capital firm based in California, with offices in Illinois and Connecticut.

Erhan Çinlar, professor and chairman of the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) said he often benefits from the insight his advisory council offers.

"Just the fact that there will be an advisory council meeting has a wonderful effect of concentrating the chair's mind on how the department is doing and what can be done to improve it," Professor Çinlar said. "It is like Dr. Johnson said, 'Knowing that one will be hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind beautifully.'"

Sally Blount-Lyon '83, associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, is a member of the advisory council for the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering.

"I think that we have served a particularly helpful role at the ORFE department, as it has been getting on its feet," said Dr. Blount-Lyon. She said she believes the advisory cou ncil helps on three different levels.

"One, we have an outside perspective," Dr. Blount-Lyon said. "Two, we give an alumni perspective; and three, we have an historical perspective because most of the advisory council members went through the department at some point in the past."

She added that it can be hard to make strategic choices regarding either a business or an academic department.

"It's always useful to have the advice of others," she said. "Perhaps you could think of us as pro bono management consultants to the departments."