PROGRAM NOTES
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5 1 Amin Katouzian PhD’11 (page 55) 2 Sonali Bhatnagar MS’13 (far right) with friends 3 Subhen Mukhopadhyay MS’78, PhD’85 (far left) is pictured with his former professor, Edward Leonard, professor of chemical engineering, on a visit to the Columbia campus with wife, Trina in March. 4 Enrica Oliva MS’07 (left), pictured with her brother and mother 5 Eric Siegel MS’93, PhD’98 released his new book in February.
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6 Alicia Abella MS’93, MPhil’94, PhD’95 with former professor and mentor, Computer Science Professor John Kender, following University Commencement. Alicia was honored this year with the University Medal for Excellence. 7 Recognized for his dedication to Columbia, University Trustee Armen Avanessians MS’83 (center) was awarded an alumni medal at this year’s Commencement. Armen currently chairs the Columbia Campaign for Engineering.
project, resulting in several scientific publications, patent applications, and technology transfers. For the past year, I have also been trying to fund my own start-up, i2Sense, which focuses on online monitoring of chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis through implantable micro-electromechanical sensing systems and wireless technologies. As a soon to be CEO, I am so up for this adventure and very excited to work with brilliant people onboard, including my PhD supervisor, Dr. Andrew Laine. The i2Sense will start off with an initial investment round of 600,000 euro in the near future, provided by a German seed funding institution. As an Iranian immigrant, I am so grateful for what I was offered in the United States, which was truly exceptional, and for all the people who believed in me, especially my parents and my beautiful wife, Tannaz. At the end of the day, I hope to reciprocate appropriately to humankind beyond any borders.” Andre Levchenko MS’95, EngScD’99 was appointed the inaugural director of Yale Systems Biology Institute and the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Yale. Andre is joining Yale after 12 years of being on the faculty of the biomedical engineering department at Johns Hopkins University. Chemical Engineering As a graduate student at SEAS, Sonali Bhatnagar MS’13 conducted research in the area of nanotechnology, where she developed Nano Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs) for carbon capture applications. She recently published a paper on this topic in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. She currently works as a specialist engineer at Merck in New Jersey, support-