ACTIONS 2001INTERACTIONS 2001
Chairmans's Column
by Fred Gilman
I am writing this soon after an intensive, two-day visit of the Physics Advisory Board. The board, consisting of prominent physicists from other universities and members of the Carnegie Mellon Board of Trustees, reports to the president of Carnegie Mellon. They examined the department in all its aspects. While their official report will not be out for a few months, it is already clear that they responded positively to many things that they saw and heard during their visit. I personally am looking forward to their evaluation of what we have accomplished and our plans for the future.
Among the changes they noted from their last visit in 1996 is the transition arising from faculty retirements and new hires that I emphasized in last year’s column. It has continued, albeit at a reduced pace in 2001. We completed our search in theoretical astrophysics and the department was very pleased when Rupert Croft joined us this fall. That brings our astrophysics group to five tenure-track faculty, who are conducting an outstanding research program in extra-galactic astrophysics and cosmology.
A number of new research grants illustrate the increasingly diverse and multidisciplinary research taking place in the department. Randall Feenstra is the principal investigator for a collaboration involving 14 co-PI’s, mostly from outside of Carnegie Mellon, who are investigating nano-porous materials. Michael Widom recently received support within a multi-institution grant for research on the theoretical understanding of amorphous metals. Robert Nichol, along with other faculty in Computer Science and Statistics, is the recent recipient of two grants that support work on data mining for the enormous sets of data that are now coming from collaborations like that for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, as well as from other parts of science.
Figure: Illustration of Doherty Hall science lab expansion. This project is currently under construction at the end of Doherty Hall adjacent to the Physics Department in Wean Hall.
Our undergraduate program continues to build on its previous successes. We had an outstanding group of seniors get their degrees last June. In the wings are sophomore and junior physics classes that are considerably larger in number. Groundbreaking for the new Doherty Hall undergraduate science laboratories took place last spring, and the first of the new physics labs was completed just in time for this fall’s classes. Dr. Kunal Ghosh joined the department this year in the newly created position of assistant head for undergraduate affairs. Ghosh will be working with Bob Suter, who took over from Steve Garoff the job of being the member of the Executive Committee with responsibility for the Undergraduate Program. Dr. Barry Luokkala won the Ashkin Teaching Award and Andrew Harey, the Hugh Young Award for graduate student teaching, making for a sweep by Physics of the 2001 teaching awards of the Mellon College of Science.
Many alumni deserve thanks for their contributions and their efforts helping us raise funds for our department. Notable recent gifts include the establishment of a graduate fellowship by John Peoples (’54, director emeritus of Fermilab and winner of an Alumni Merit Award in 1999) and a fund established by Truman D. Parkinson and his wife to support designated undergraduate and graduate educational activities.
This year’s Buhl Lecture by Jonathan Dorfan was delivered to a large and broad audience, ranging from middle and high school students to members of the Carnegie Mellon community. Dorfan is director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and he spoke on "Matter versus Antimatter: in the Universe and in the Laboratory."
A number of our alumni have been able drop to by during the course of the last year, particularly around Homecoming time. Please keep in contact, even with a brief email or letter, or stop by the department when you are in the Pittsburgh area.
