University News
Johns Hopkins' Singapore Center to Close
Representatives for the country of Singapore said Tuesday a Johns Hopkins University biomedical research facility it has been funding will close within a year because it has failed to meet performance goals.
The Singapore government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or ASTAR, said the Division of Johns Hopkins in Singapore did not meet research and education goals despite receiving 82 million Singapore dollars (US$52 million) in funding since 1998.
The division failed to attract top scientists to the city-state - one of the “mutually agreed” objectives of setting up the center, said Dr. Andre Wan, director of ASTAR's biomedical research council, in a statement.
Wan said the research facility had also not met eight out of 13 performance benchmarks.
Talks reached a stalemate in May and ASTAR informed the Baltimore-based university it would wind down the facility over 12 months and refocus its attention on a new collaboration, ASTAR said.
The agency said the research center's 60 staff and faculty would receive help either relocating to Baltimore or finding new employment in Singapore.
The research center, which was set up with a medical clinic, was Johns Hopkins' first health care facility outside the United States. The clinic, John Hopkins Singapore International Medical Center, is unaffected by the closure of the research arm.
ASTAR's statement follows a newspaper report in which the university said it had done its part to recruit faculty and graduate students, and that it was Singapore who had failed to meet its financial and educational obligations. Johns Hopkins University public relations officers in Baltimore could not immediately be reached by phone after office hours to confirm the report.
In a push to establish itself as a regional biomedical hub, Singapore has encouraged investment in research and development of the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors, and actively courted drug companies to base themselves in the city-state.
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University of Chicago's New Team to Manage Argonne National Laboratory
Representatives of The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that a new team assembled by the University of Chicago has been selected to manage Argonne National Laboratory, one of the DOE’s major multi-program national laboratories known for its world-class innovations in energy, science, technology, biomedicine and national security.
The University of Chicago, through UChicago Argonne, LLC, has established partnerships with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT) to manage the lab. The University of Chicago is the sole member of the LLC.
Northwestern University and the University of Illinois will also be involved in the lab’s management through membership on the Argonne National Laboratory Board of Governors. This new team is designed to combine strong scientific leadership with best management practices to support innovation and discovery at Argonne that serves the national interest.
Argonne National Laboratory is one of the nation’s leading federally funded research and development centers, employing approximately 2,900 employees, including about 1,000 scientists and engineers, of whom about 600 hold doctoral degrees. In addition, Argonne’s annual operating budget of about $475 million supports upwards of 200 research projects.
One of Argonne’s important missions is the design, construction and operation of major national user facilities — large, unique facilities used for cutting-edge research by the scientific community. Researchers on site collaborate with scientists and engineers from universities, research laboratories, and corporations from across the nation and beyond. The scientific and technical capabilities of Argonne are supplemented not only by important scientific collaborations with the University, but also through collaborations with the economics, social science and public policy programs of the University, thereby bringing multiple perspectives to science, energy and national security issues.
The University of Chicago’s new partnership with Jacobs Engineering and BWXT strengthens the University’s leadership by bringing outstanding resources to lab management. Jacobs Engineering is one of the world’s largest and most diverse providers of technical, professional and construction services globally. BWXT is one of the nation’s premier managers of laboratory operations and high-consequence facilities with unparalleled experience within the DOE.
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NIKE Founder Gives $105 Million to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business
NIKE Inc. founder and chairman Philip H. Knight, MBA '62, will give US$105 million to the university's Graduate School of Business. It is believed to be the largest gift ever given to a business school.
The majority of the gift—$100 million—will be used to construct a new $275 million campus for the Business School, to be named the Knight Management Center. On June 15, the Board of Trustees gave concept and site approval for the collection of eight buildings to be set around three quadrangles on the campus. After raising the balance of needed funds for the campus, the school plans to break ground on the new management center in 2008. The remaining $5 million of the Knight gift will be used to match other donors' gifts for faculty endowment.
Knight's commitment comes just weeks after the school's faculty adopted plans for sweeping changes in its MBA curriculum to be implemented in the fall of 2007.
The MBA program redesign builds on the school's small size to create a highly personalized educational experience with more seminars and varied classes for students.
The Knight Management Center design will include more flexible classroom space for the greater number of small classes and seminars the school will offer. The new campus is also designed to support more interaction with university faculty and students, including facilities for cross-disciplinary classes and lectures.
The center plans include a 450-seat auditorium, classrooms, breakout study rooms, dining facilities, a career management center, executive education space, and faculty and staff offices. It will be outfitted with state-of-the-art instructional technology. When completed, the center is expected to comprise approximately 340,000 square feet located at 651 Serra St. across from the Schwab Residential Center. The complex will replace the current 255,000 square feet of outdated Business School facilities, resulting in a net additional 85,000 square feet occupied by the school on the campus.
Knight previously has contributed substantial support to the university, including funds for the dean's professorship, construction of the Business School's Knight Building in 1999, and gifts to the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation.
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Princeton’s Fragile Families Study Earns $17 Million Federal Award
Researchers at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs have been awarded $17 million from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to support a new round of data collection for the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.
The study is following a cohort of approximately 5,000 children born in the late 1990s and includes a large number of children born to unmarried parents. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is part of the National Institutes of Health, the biomedical research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Fragile Families study was designed to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy-makers: What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers? What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents? How do children born into these families fare? And, how do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children?
The study is led by a team of researchers at Princeton and Columbia University. Sara McLanahan, director of the Wilson School's Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, is the principal investigator. Co-principal investigators are Christina Paxson, director of the school's Center for Health and Wellbeing, and Irv Garfinkel and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia.
The researchers conducted initial interviews with mothers and fathers at the time of their child's birth, and have followed up with interviews with parents and child assessments when the children were ages 3 and 5. The next data collection phase will involve interviewing the same families when their children are age 9, and will continue to collect information on parents' relationships and resources as well as child health and academic achievement.
The interviews with parents allow the researchers to collect information on attitudes, relationships, parenting behaviors, demographic characteristics, mental and physical health, economic and employment status, neighborhood characteristics and program participation. In addition, the new round of data collection will include interviews with children's teachers and DNA samples from mothers and children to be used for genotyping.
The research findings already have had an impact on American policy. Most notably, they have informed the Building Strong Families Project, a large evaluation and implementation effort funded by the federal government.
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Moore Foundation Gives $5.6 Million to Caltech for New Center to Study Cell Regulation
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded US$5.6 million to the California Institute of Technology for the creation of the Center for Integrative Study of Cell Regulation. The goal of the center is to develop new computational methods for understanding how the many genes and proteins that make up individual cells work together to carry out specialized functions of different cell types, including neurons, plant cells, and bacteria.
According to Mary Kennedy, the founding director and Davis Professor of Biology at Caltech, the center will merge Caltech's existing expertise in computation and in cell biology for the pursuit of new knowledge in the biological sciences. Kennedy says that due to the sheer complexity and volume of information to be handled, application of advanced computational methods and significant computational power is important for further progress. Therefore, the types of problems the center scientists and engineers will work on will include development of algorithms for identifying, locating, and determining the shape and orientation of key proteins in high-resolution cryo-electron microscopic images of cells, and creation of computer programs to simulate complex biochemical signaling pathways in neuronal synapses.
Center personnel will help to develop methods for following the movement of individual cells within a developing embryo in a series of microscopic images and will construct new database architectures for organizing existing data about gene sequences so that comparisons can be made among similar genes in various species.
In short, the center will advance cell biology by introducing new computational methods that haven't previously been widely applied in the life sciences, Kennedy says.
The initial projects will include the modeling of spatial organization, assembly, and function of bacteria and viruses, led by Grant Jensen, an assistant professor of biology at Caltech; the modeling of biochemical mechanisms in brain synapses to better understand the chemistry of learning and memory, led by Kennedy; and the modeling of cell and tissue structure and gene expression during plant development, led by Elliot Meyerowitz, Caltech's division chair of biology.
Marianne Bronner-Fraser, Caltech's Ruddock Professor of Biology, will be involved in the development of a database for uncovering patterns in closely related organisms to better understand the functioning of genes in the evolutionary tree.
The codirector of the center will be Mark Stalzer, who is the executive director of the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) at Caltech. Three or four additional CACR personnel will also be involved in the application of computational methods and programming to problems in integrative cell biology.
During its initial five years of grant funding, the center will help to support the research of about five to ten laboratories in Caltech's Division of Biology and in CACR, which is housed in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Other divisions may also be involved as the work progresses.
According to Kennedy, Caltech is in a unique position to create such a center because of its decades-old commitment to close interdisciplinary work among its faculty and research groups, and also because of its longstanding tradition of approaching biological research at the most fundamental levels.
Established in September 2000, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation seeks to develop outcome-based projects that will improve the quality of life for future generations. It has organized the majority of its grant making around large-scale initiatives. It concentrates funding in three program areas: environmental conservation, science, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Yale Names New Associate Vice President for Research Administration
Andrew B. Rudczynski has been named Associate Vice President for Research Administration at Yale University effective September 1, President Richard C. Levin has announced.
Rudczynski has served as Associate Vice President for Finance and Executive Director, Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania since 1999. In that role he has been responsible for managing the administrative support for Penn's sponsored research effort.
Rudczynski will assume a new position created by Yale to provide more focused responsibility for the University's systems and processes regarding research administration, accounting, and improved compliance programs. The position, which reflects recommendations made by an expert outside consultant retained by Yale last year, will report to both the Provost and the Vice President for Finance and Administration.
At Yale, Rudczynski will initially be responsible for oversight of the operations of Grant and Contract Financial Administration and for Research Fiscal Compliance. Rudczynski will subsequently take responsibility for oversight of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences Grants and Contracts and the School of Medicine Grants and Contracts offices. Working with the Provost's Office, he will ultimately assume managerial responsibility for other compliance areas of Yale's grants and contracts, including conflict of interest avoidance, biosafety, animal care and other matters. Consolidation of these functions at Yale is expected to provide more seamless coordination and integration of policies, procedures and reporting systems.
Before joining Penn, Rudczynski was Associate Vice President for Research Policy and Administration at Rutgers University, where he was responsible for all aspects of research support at Rutgers, including grant and contract administration, institutional review board, technology transfer and animal care.
Prior to his 16-year career at Rutgers, Rudczynski worked in research administration at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, as a research scientist at the Michigan Cancer Foundation, and as a principal investigator at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
He holds a B.Sc. in biology and biochemistry from McGill; a Ph.D. in immunology from Syracuse; and an M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University.
Rudczynski was a member of the executive committee of the Council on Governmental Relations, was chair of its Research Compliance and Administration committee and was a member of the editorial advisory board of Guide to Managing Federal Grants to Colleges and Universities. He was a charter awardee of the Distinguished Service Award of the National Council of University Research Administrators.
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Columbia Names Vice Provost for International Relations
Columbia University has appointed Paul J. Anderer, Theodore and Fanny Brett de Bary and Class of 1941 Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities, to the newly created position of Vice Provost for International Relations.
The position was established to bring greater institutional coherence and oversight to international programming at the University. During the last few years, Columbia has been deepening and widening its global engagement in a range of academic and extra-curricular programs. The creation of a post for International Relations reflects the importance the administration places on the University’s continuing leadership role in global thought, especially given its location in a world capital of ideas, commerce and culture.
As Vice Provost, Professor Anderer will help to coordinate existing international research and education programs; oversee agreements with partner programs around the world and develop policies and procedures for ensuring their coherence and conformity to institutional rules and regulations; provide leadership for increasing grants and gifts in support of the international agenda; and work with President Bollinger, Provost Alan Brinkley and the Deans to articulate Columbia’s international vision and academic leadership. The office will host visits of foreign delegations interested in Columbia’s research and education activities and work to further opportunities for international study and research for students and faculty.
Professor Anderer, who began in the new position July 1, is a scholar of modern Japanese literature and culture and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on the novel, postwar film and drama, and advanced analysis and translation of Japanese language. His writings include the books Other Worlds: Arishima Takeo and the Bounds of Modern Japanese Fiction (Columbia, 1984) and Literature of the Lost Home: Kobayashi Hideo--Literary Criticism, 1924-1939 (Stanford, 1995; paperback edition, 1999).
He has a long record of effective academic leadership at Columbia, serving as Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (1989-1997), Acting Dean of the Graduate School (1990-1991), and Director of the Keene Center for Japanese Culture (1991-1993), among other positions. In addition, he has deep roots in the international community, having served on the Program Committee of The Japan Society of New York and as chair of the Advisory Committee for the Japanese Literature Publishing Project for the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Professor Anderer holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and Yale University, has held teaching or research appointments at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame and Kinki University (Higashi-Osaka City, Japan), and has received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Commission.
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Materials Scientist George Malliaras Named Head of Cornell NanoScale Facility
George Malliaras, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell, has been named the L.B. Knight Director of the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF), starting Aug. 15. Don Tennant, a 1973 Cornell graduate in engineering physics, now at Lucent Technologies, will begin as CNF's director of operations on the same date.
The appointments are the result of more than a year's search in collaboration with researchers who use the national user facility, which is largely supported by the National Science Foundation.
Malliaras succeeds Sandip Tiwari, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who served as director of CNF from 1999 until 2005, when he left to become director of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, a consortium of 13 nanoscale manufacturing facilities, including CNF. John Silcox, the David E. Burr Professor of Engineering, has served as interim director since then, with senior research associate Jurriaan Gerretsen as associate director.
Malliaras said he plans to expand CNF's efforts to work with biologists and hopes to bring in the medical community. “There are calls from the medical community, especially from surgeons, for better tools, and I think we can help with that.” As part of the celebration of CNF's 30th anniversary in 2007, Malliaras plans a series of major symposiums, one of which will deal with nanotechnology in medicine.
Malliaras' research focuses on organic electronics, the use of organic materials in place of such traditional semiconductors as silicon to create electronic devices, including organic light emitting diodes, organic thin film transistors and organic photovoltaics. He received a B.S. in physics from Aristotle University, Greece, in 1991, and a Ph.D. in mathematics and physical sciences from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1995.
Before joining the Cornell faculty in 1998, he spent two years at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Investigator Award, the DuPont Young Professor Grant and a Cornell College of Engineering Teaching Award. He is an editor for the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics and serves on the editorial board of Sensors.
Tennant has been the James W. Davenport Distinguished Scientist at Lucent Technologies, N.J., and affiliated with Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. He is one of the nation's most highly respected experts in nanofabrication and electron-beam lithography and has held national policy roles.
CNF, which also is supported by Cornell, industry and the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, provides facilities for the manufacture and testing of submicroscopic devices for such diverse fields as astronomy, plant pathology, materials science, physics, chemistry and the life sciences. Currently, some 350 Cornell researchers and a similar number of outsiders use the facility.
