University News

NSF Awards First Partnership for International Research and Education Grants

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the first grants in its Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) program. The grants range in size and duration, with most about $2.5 million over five years.

The PIRE awards support research across the entire spectrum of NSF-funded disciplines, with projects in such areas as the formation of distant galaxies, nanoscience for clean drinking water, computer speech recognition and language translation, patterns of learning by children of immigrants, seismic activity in the Earth's mantle under Africa, and plants and animals unique to Patagonia.

The competition is supported across NSF, with every NSF directorate contributing funds to at least one PIRE award. The geographic distribution of the PIRE collaborations is wide-ranging, with multiple partnerships funded to work in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. Nine of the 12 PIRE partnerships will link U.S. researchers and students with collaborators in multiple foreign countries.

"PIRE activities highlight the fact that many important research questions can best be addressed within an international collaboration and that for the United States to retain its strengths in science and engineering, scientists and engineers must work with colleagues across the globe," said Sullivan.

PIRE projects are characterized by close integration of research and education, extensive student preparation for foreign experiences and strong mentoring during international research, as well as activities that will contribute to developing an international community of scholars at U.S. universities.

PIRE projects, for example:

• use IT resources for distance learning, virtual transcontinental lab meetings, and internationally webcast seminars
• develop research, education and recruitment links with minority-serving institutions
• take advantage of culture and language training to put scientific research in a cross-cultural context
• combine scientific research training with a Peace Corps International Master's program
• develop international curriculum units for students who do not travel
• involve outreach to integrate international research findings into K-12 activities, including offering high-school students research internships in the PIRE laboratories, and
• undertake efforts to enhance public understanding of the international dimensions of science

The PIRE grants were made to Brigham Young University, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Rice University, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the State University of New York at Albany, and the University of Rhode Island.

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Three Elected to Caltech Board of Trustees

Robert T. Jenkins, a retired vice president of Intel; Jon B. Kutler, chairman, chief executive officer, and founder of the Quarterdeck family of companies; and Stewart A. Resnick, chairman and owner of Roll International Corporation, have been elected to the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology. The announcement was made by David Baltimore, president of Caltech.

Jenkins retired from Intel as vice president and director of corporate licensing in May of 1999. He started his career at Fairchild Semiconductor Research and Development Laboratories as a process engineer in 1966. He moved to Intel in 1968, where he held a variety of positions, including manager of die production, manager of microprocessor/peripheral manufacturing, and general manager of the peripheral components division.

He was appointed vice president and general manager of the memory components division in 1986, and as vice president and director of corporate licensing in 1990. He also became chairman of Intel's government affairs committee in 1996.

An alumnus of Caltech with a bachelor of science degree in engineering and a master of science degree in electrical engineering, Jenkins is currently serving on the Caltech Associates board of directors, and is immediate past president of the Associates. He is also an adjunct professor of communication studies at California State University at Sacramento.

Kutler is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and holds a bachelor of science degree in naval architecture. He received his master of business administration degree from Harvard University.

He began his investment banking career on Wall Street in 1984, after serving ten years in various positions in the U.S. Navy. He worked for Goldman Sachs, the First Boston Corporation, and Wasserstein, Perella & Co., before founding Quarterdeck Investment Partners, Inc., in 1992. In 2002, he sold QIP, the leading investment banking firm focused on aerospace and defense transactions, to Jefferies & Company, Inc. Kutler is an internationally recognized expert on aerospace and defense issues. He has written numerous articles, been a frequent television commentator, testified before congressional committees and run a presidential commission. Kutler is also an active investor in the industry, owning several operating companies through Quarterdeck Equity Partners, Inc., a private equity firm.

Resnick has developed and owns a number of successful companies, including Paramount Agribusiness, the largest farming operation of tree crops in the world; POM Wonderful; Teleflora; Fiji Water; the Franklin Mint, and Suterra.

He and his wife, Lynda, have been featured in Art & Antiques magazine as two of the nation's top 100 art collectors. Major galleries have been dedicated in the Resnicks' name at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Resnick holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration from UCLA, and a juris doctor degree from UCLA Law School.

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Peter Lewis to Give $101 Million to Advance the Arts at Princeton

Peter B. Lewis, a 1955 graduate and trustee of Princeton University, will contribute $101 million to support a major new initiative to enhance the role of the creative and performing arts in the life of the University and its community. The gift was announced by President Shirley M. Tilghman following Jan. 20 meetings of the University's Board of Trustees. With this gift, Lewis' total contributions to the University, both for unrestricted support through Annual Giving and for a range of designated purposes, now exceed $220 million and establish him as the University's most generous donor in the modern era.   Lewis' gift will fund a significant portion of an ambitious new initiative that Tilghman outlined for the trustees. That initiative -- based on an intensive year-long assessment of Princeton's strengths and aspirations in the arts -- will include an expansion of programs in these fields, a significant increase in the number of artists teaching and collaborating on research at Princeton, and the creation of a new physical complex with improved and expanded facilities for the study and presentation of the creative and performing arts.

Lewis, an internationally acclaimed business leader and philanthropist, is chairman of the board of the Progressive Corp., the nation's third largest auto insurer. His previous gifts to Princeton include $60 million for the Peter B. Lewis Science Library, designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry and currently under construction; $35 million to establish the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, named to honor his lifelong friendship with his Princeton classmate, the late renowned structural biologist Paul Sigler; and several gifts related to the arts, including funding for performance and rehearsal space for student extracurricular arts groups and student radio station WPRB in Bloomberg Hall and a suite of studio spaces for the Program in Visual Arts at 185 Nassau Street. Lewis gave his first million dollar gift to Princeton in 1982 to create a gallery for contemporary art in the Princeton University Art Museum. 

Tilghman's report to the trustees was based on the work of a faculty committee chaired by Dean of the School of Architecture Stan Allen, as well as consultations with faculty, students, alumni, practicing artists and others and travels to other leading institutions around the country. The report identifies this as "a unique moment for the arts at Princeton University," with an opportunity for Princeton "not only to expand its programs in the creative and performing arts, but to establish itself as a global leader in the quality of its offerings and in their integration into a broader liberal arts education." Its commitments to fundamental research and outstanding teaching, and its support of interdisciplinary thought and practice, "allow Princeton to launch a distinctive initiative in the arts, one that breaks down barriers between theory and practice and thoroughly integrates intellectual and artistic pursuits into a shared educational and research mission." 

The proposal that Tilghman outlined for the trustees includes the following actions:

Create a new Center for the Creative and Performing Arts that would oversee, coordinate and encourage exchange among the University's curricular programs in creative writing, theater and dance, and the visual arts; serve as a focal point for scholarship, teaching and practice in the arts; and provide both "strong leadership and persistent advocacy" for the arts at Princeton. The center would work closely with the program in music performance in the Department of Music, the Art Museum and the Council for the Humanities. The center's director would be a tenured member of the faculty and a "distinguished scholar or artist who teaches in the creative and performing arts and is seen as a leader for the arts on campus." Tilghman envisions the center as "the hub of a dynamic community of creative endeavor that brings together students with faculty members and artists whose interests are well suited to Princeton's distinctive conception of undergraduate education."

Create a new interdisciplinary Society of Fellows in the Arts which would bring "innovative and early-career artists/scholars" to Princeton to teach courses, maintain studios, give or organize performances or exhibitions and participate in seminars, conferences and other collaborations. The Allen Committee recommended the appointment of at least six fellows a year for terms of up to two years each. The fellows would include writers, actors, directors, choreographers, musicians, painters, video and installation artists and curators.

Expand the size, resources and visibility of Princeton's existing undergraduate certificate programs in creative writing, musical performance, theater and dance, and visual arts so they can "do more of -- and do better" what they already do. There would be an increase in the number of tenure-track faculty in each program, but there would also be visiting artists on short-term appointments and junior artists in the Society of Fellows in the Arts who would "play a role midway between Princeton's permanent faculty and the artists who visit on a short-term basis."

Establish a scholarly research program, as a joint venture between the new center and the Council for the Humanities, through which faculty, graduate students, artists and visiting fellows would collaborate on research, teaching and artistic enterprises. The council and the center could appoint several graduate students as graduate fellows each year who would participate regularly in seminars and colloquia devoted to the creative and performing arts, and could develop a visiting fellows program for faculty from other institutions as well as independent artists and critics who wish to devote time to scholarship and research.

Provide additional physical space to house the new and expanded programs in the creative and performing arts, to serve as a focal point for creative and artistic activity at Princeton, and to increase the exhibition space available to the Art Museum, especially for contemporary art and special exhibits. The report identifies two locations to be considered for new arts spaces: the area south of McCarter and Berlind theaters on Alexander Street; and the area west of 185 Nassau Street, the University's current creative arts building, in spaces that are expected to become available in Green and Frick Halls when the departments of psychology and chemistry move to new locations. In either case an "arts neighborhood" would be created that the report anticipates would "become a magnet for Princeton students, faculty and staff interested in the arts and an important new point of contact for the campus, the surrounding community and the outside world."

Establish a fund to provide additional financial support for extracurricular activity in the arts which is "widespread, intense, lively and constantly evolving," and help student groups find performance, rehearsal and exhibition space.

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Cornell Gets $25 Million Grant to Build William H. Gates Hall

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded US$25 million to Cornell University to support the construction of the signature building for a planned information campus that will bring together the several units of the university's Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS).

The new building, to house the Department of Computer Science and elements of the Information Science Program, will be named William H. Gates Hall. The Committee on Alumni Affairs and Development of the Cornell Board of Trustees approved the building's name at its meeting in New York City, Jan. 20.

Further additions to Cornell's information campus will provide space for computational biology, the Program of Computer Graphics and portions of the Cornell Theory Center. The School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering of the College of Engineering also could be located there, along with elements of the Department of Statistical Science.

Computing and information science was identified as one of the "strategic initiatives" for the university during Hunter Rawlings' first presidency, from 1995 to 2003.

The foundation, best known for its work in global health, also supports a variety of initiatives in education and access to digital information. Its interest in Cornell's program began when foundation co-chair and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates accepted former President Jeffrey Lehman's invitation to visit Cornell in February 2004. Gates' visit became part of a tour of six university campuses to bring attention to what he called a vital national need to ensure a pool of highly educated computer professionals.

In an address to a packed audience of students and faculty at Cornell, Gates emphasized the need to improve the human-computer interface, enhance information security and develop methods for handling the massive databases of scientific information being generated in fields ranging from biology to the social sciences, all areas in which Cornell is conducting significant research. He also met with faculty and learned for the first time about CIS, which was created to extend computing education across the entire campus.

This interdisciplinary approach has begun to reverse the decline in computing and information sciences enrollments and has attracted a more diverse group of students.

Three years ago, Cornell combined its universitywide computing initiatives into the college-level CIS, promoting interdisciplinary scholarship in the university's seven undergraduate colleges and four professional schools. Currently, more than 50 faculty members throughout the university hold joint appointments in CIS and in their respective departments, which range from the physical sciences and mathematics to the arts. That number will grow, Constable said.

According to Kenneth Birman, professor of computer science and chair of the CIS building committee, the information campus project is still in the feasibility study stage. Gates Hall is estimated at 100,000 square feet and projected to cost about $50 million. Expanded construction beyond the signature building is planned, based on support from Cornell and additional donors. When completed, the information campus will be a complex of linked buildings integrated with a variety of green spaces and common spaces designed to involve students and provide opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

About a dozen possible locations are being evaluated, Birman said. The proposal for the project calls for the information campus to be strategically located in proximity to the Colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences, the Life Sciences Technology Building and other key academic partners.

Gates Hall will house a lecture hall, faculty offices, classrooms, laboratories, student project spaces and conference rooms. The building will make innovative use of technology to foster collaboration both on and off campus, and it will include facilities specifically designed for CIS researchers whose primary offices might be elsewhere on the campus. As in Duffield Hall and the Life Sciences Technology Building, which is under construction, there will be formal and informal meeting spaces to foster "intellectual collisions" and cross-pollination.

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The Wiley Foundation Announces Recipients of the Fifth Annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences

Deborah E. Wiley, Chairman of The Wiley Foundation, and Senior Vice President, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., announced that the fifth annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences will be awarded jointly to Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Morris Herztein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and Dr. Carol Greider, Daniel Nathans Professor and Director of Molecular Biology & Genetics at Johns Hopkins University.

The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences recognizes contributions that have opened new fields of research or have advanced novel concepts or their applications in a particular biomedical discipline. It honors a specific contribution or a series of contributions that demonstrate significant leadership and innovation.

"We are pleased to announce that Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Dr. Carol Greider have been selected recipients of this year's Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences," said Ms. Wiley. "In conjunction with this award Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Greider have been invited to deliver a lecture on April 7, 2006 at The Rockefeller University in New York City."

"Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Greider were chosen for their discovery of telomerase, the enzyme that maintains chromosomal integrity and the recognition of its importance in aging, cancer and stem cell biology,” said Dr. Günter Blobel, Chairman of the awards jury for the Wiley Prize. A John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Professor of Cell Biology at The Rockefeller University, Dr. Blobel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1999. Other members of the Wiley Prize awards jury include Dr. Qais Al-Awqati, a physiologist at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. David J. Anderson, a developmental neurobiologist at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Joan Steitz, a molecular biologist at Yale University and, joining the jury for 2006, Professor Kay E. Davies, a human geneticist at the University of Oxford, U.K.

Telomere shortening (the loss of genetic sequence from the ends of chromosomes) is a normal by-product of the replication of linear DNA. Telomerase protects against the progressive telomere shortening that occurs during the normal cellular aging process by using a self-contained RNA template to synthesize telomeric DNA and lengthen the telomere region of the chromosome. This extends the lifetime of the cell by increasing the number of times cell division can take place before the cell loses the ability to divide.

There is compelling evidence linking telomerase activity to processes such as aging and uncontrolled cell growth (cancer). Normal somatic cells, which do not contain telomerase, experience cellular aging. By contrast, cells that contain telomerase, including embryonic stem cells and cancer cells, exhibit cellular 'immortality', the unlimited capacity to undergo successive rounds of cell division.

Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Greider are the first women to receive the Wiley Prize in its five-year history. The award, which is given by the Wiley Foundation, includes a $25,000 grant, and the opportunity to present a public lecture at The Rockefeller University, the venue for the awards ceremony. The honor was bestowed last year on Dr. Peter Walter, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of California in San Francisco, and Dr. Kazutoshi Mori, a Professor of Biophysics in the Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University in Japan, for their discovery of the novel pathway by which cells regulate the capacity of their intracellular compartments to produce correctly folded proteins for export.

In 2004, the Wiley Prize was given to Dr. C. David Allis of The Rockefeller University for his significant discovery that transcription factors can enzymatically modify histones to regulate gene activity. In 2003, the Wiley Prize was presented to an international group of independent investigators—Dr. Andrew Z. Fire of both the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Craig C. Mello, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Dr. Thomas Tuschl, of The Rockefeller University; and Dr. David Baulcombe, of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Center in Norwich, England—for their contributions to discoveries of novel mechanisms for regulating gene expression by small interfering RNAs (siRNA).

The inaugural Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences was presented in 2002 to Dr. H. Robert Horvitz, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the late Dr. Stanley J. Korsmeyer of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, for their independent contributions toward defining the genetic and molecular basis of programmed cell death, known as apoptosis. Later that year, Dr. Horvitz was among the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shared the award with Dr. Sydney Brenner of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, and Sir John Sulston of the Sanger Center in Cambridge, United Kingdom, for their respective work on how genes regulate organ development and cell death.

Over the last century Wiley has developed a reputation for publishing information on significant advances in science, technology, and medicine, contributed by prominent researchers and scientists from a vast community of scholars worldwide. "The Wiley Foundation and the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences were created to acknowledge the contributions of the scholarly community to Wiley's corporate success," explained Ms. Wiley. "We seek to recognize and foster ongoing excellence in scientific achievement and discovery."

Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., provides must-have content and services to customers worldwide. Its core businesses include scientific, technical, and medical journals, encyclopedias, books, and online products and services; professional and consumer books and subscription services; and educational materials for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners. Wiley has publishing, marketing, and distribution centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

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UT Recruits Another 'Champion'

The Texas Advanced Computer Center (TACC) at The University of Texas  at Austin has announced that it will add a powerful new IBM  supercomputer, named "Champion," to its recently expanded machine 

room for research into a diverse range of scientific disciplines from  biomedicine to climatology.

Champion was named in honor of The University of Texas at Austin's  Rose Bowl victory in addition to victories by several other Texas  champions over the past year including the UT baseball team, the San  Antonio Spurs and Lance Armstrong.

The IBM eServer p5-575 system, expected to be the most powerful POWER5 processor-based academic supercomputer in Texas, will have a theoretical peak performance of 730 billion calculations per second.  Champion will be available to the university's community of scientists and researchers in March 2006.
Champion will serve several important local research projects.

The university's Center for Space Research (CSR) will continue to work closely with TACC in a number of areas aligned with exploiting satellite derived measurements of the earth in studying a number of earth science and earth application areas. TACC's data handling and computational capability have provided a major underpinning for CSR's varied research programs, including the  Gravity Recovery and  Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. GRACE is the first mission in NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder  project, which uses satellite-born instrumentation to aid research on  global climate change. GRACE's first static gravity field map, calculated at TACC, is two orders of magnitude more accurate than any previous maps.

Because of this unprecedented accuracy, GRACE is able to observe, for  the first time, changes in the Earth's large-scale ocean currents, polar ice masses, and the masses of water in large river basins and underground aquifers.

The Institute for Computational Engineering and Science (ICES) will access the new supercomputer for a variety of ongoing projects.

TACC also will deploy Grid-based technologies on Champion, and integrate it into TACC and university campus Grid activities. A portion of the system's computing cycles will be used to support national projects such as GridChem. The latest Grid software tools will be installed and supported, including packages from the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative, such as Globus, along with TACC-developed Grid tools, such as GridShell.

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Leading Expert to Officially Launch New Research Center at The University of Nottingham

A pioneering center that will improve the care of terminally ill patients and people living with serious long-term medical conditions is to be officially launched at The University of Nottingham by one of the country's leading experts in palliative care.

The Sue Ryder Care Centre for Palliative and End of Life Studies, based within the University's School of Nursing, will carry out detailed research, including the experiences of both patients and careers, to find out how services can be improved at a national level. The centre will also design and deliver a new Master's degree in palliative and end of life care.

The initiative has been developed in partnership with Sue Ryder Care and staff at the new center will work directly with Sue Ryder Care's palliative and neurological care centers across the country, as well as with other palliative care providers and researchers in the UK and abroad.

The emphasis will be on providing practical solutions that will make a real difference to patient's lives and will help improve the quality of life for people living with long-term conditions. One of the first tasks will be to examine ways of extending palliative and end of life care approaches in neurological care.

The new center was officially launched at an event on Tuesday January 31, when Professor David Clark, Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Lancaster and Director of the International Observatory on End of Life Care, presented a lecture on the subject of End of Life as a Global Issue.

Professor Clark is currently involved with a number of studies concerned with the evaluation of palliative care provision and with issues of policy development, the international growth of palliative care and related ethical issues.

Early work at the center will focus on collating and building up the existing research knowledge in this field, particularly in finding out exactly what patients want from care, where they want it to take place, how best to convey information about end of life care issues, and decision-making issues.

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U. T. Dallas to Offer Graduate Degrees In Materials Science and Engineering

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on last Thursday gave The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) authority to offer two new graduate degree programs, one leading to a Ph.D. degree and the other to an M.S. degree, in the promising field of materials science and engineering. 

UTD will begin offering the new programs immediately, and could confer several of the degrees for the first time at the university’s Spring commencement.

Materials science and engineering involves the study of advanced materials, including metals and their composites, polymers, silicon and bio-materials, and their possible uses in new and sophisticated applications.  The field is multidisciplinary in nature, combining elements of physics, chemistry and biology, in addition to engineering.

The graduate programs in materials science and engineering will draw upon the teaching and research skills of faculty from two of UTD’s seven schools – the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, according to Dr. Bruce Gnade, a professor in the Electrical Engineering Department who helped design the new academic offerings and will serve as the program chair.

Twenty-one faculty members from the two schools will be affiliated with the degree programs, Gnade said, including Nobel laureate Dr. Alan G. MacDiarmid, who holds the James Von Ehr Distinguished Chair in Science and Technology at UTD, and Dr. Ray H. Baughman, the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and director of the UTD NanoTech Institute, who holds a Ph.D. degree in materials science from Harvard University.

Because UTD’s materials science research is heavily focused on applications, virtually every student who enrolls in the program will be involved in research and development work funded by industry or the government, Gnade said, making them more attractive to potential employers upon graduation.  And, he said, they will have access to the university’s “world-class research facilities and infrastructure,” which include a new, unique multi-module cluster tool, focused ion beam /scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction suite, wafer bonding laboratory and a clean room research laboratory.

UTD’s materials science and engineering activities are expected to be housed in a new, $85-million Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory, which is scheduled to open on campus by the end of 2006.

In 2003, the State of Texas committed $50 million in Texas Enterprise Fund monies to UTD as part of a $300-million government-university-industry project to place the next Texas Instruments manufacturing plant in Richardson, Texas, and to bring world-class capabilities, like the materials science and engineering program, to UTD’s Jonsson School.

Although the degree programs have just been approved, Gnade estimated that as many as 25 engineering and science majors are already prepared to enroll.  Some came to UTD in anticipation of the university offering the degrees, he said, with a handful of those expected to receive a Ph.D. or an M.S. degree at the May 6 commencement, provided all degree requirements are met.