The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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Volume Twenty-six, Number Eleven
Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Newly tenured/promoted WPI faculty Courtesy of WPI News Service Sixteen members o f the W PI fac ulty were recently granted tenure and/or promoted effective July 1, 1998:
Tenured: Jo se p h D. F e h rib a c h o f Shrewsbury, Mass., and Arthur C. Heinricher Jr., o f Rutland, Mass., both associate professors o f math em atical sciences, w ere granted tenure. Fehribach joined the faculty in 1992. He received a bachelor=s d eg re e from C en tre C o lleg e in Danville, Ky., and a masters and doctorate from Duke University. His research and teaching interests are in applied mathematics and sci
entific com puting and differential equations. Specific areas o f inter est include free and moving bound ary problem s and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Heinricher, who has been a fac ulty m em ber since 1992, earned a B.S. at the University o f Missouri, St. Louis, and a Ph.D. at Carnegie M ellon University. His interests are in stochastic differential equations; o p tim al co n tro l theory; applied probability theory and operations research. He has been active in de velo p in g in d u strial p ro jects for m ath m ajors and in developing bridge projects that help students make connections betw een intro d u c to ry c o u rse s an d ad v a n ced courses in their majors.
The following individuals were granted tenure and promoted to as sociate professor: Leonard D. Albano o f Belmont, Mass., joined the Civil and Envi ronmental Engineering Department in 1992. He earned a bachelor’s de gree at Tufts University, a m aster’s at Northwestern, and a doctorate at the M assachusetts Institute o f Technology. He is a registered pro fessional engineer in M assachu setts and serves as the advisor to the WPI chapter of the American Society o f Civil Engineers. His teaching and professional practice is in the area of structural engineer ing and his research activities fo cus on the integration o f design
WPI honors outstanding students Courtesy of WPI News Service W PI’s Office o f Academic Ad vising recently presented 1998 Out standing Women Student Awards an d th e O u ts ta n d in g M in o rity Award to eight undergraduates. This y ear’s honorees are: M arietta E. A nderson Award: Laura Cooper, daughter o f Donald and Eloise Cooper of Baldwinsville, N. Y„ is ajunior majoring in biomedi cal engineering with a concentra tion in chemical engineering. She graduated from C.W. Baker High School in Baldwinsville. She is a PLA (peer-learning assistant) for the Mathematical Sciences Depart ment, an O rientation leader, and a m em ber o f Tau Beta Pi, national engineering honor society, and the
varsity soccer and w om en’s club lacrosse teams. She com pleted her Interactive Qualifying Project, a de gree requirem ent, at the University o f W ashington School of Medicine in Seattle and spent a summer as a volunteer in the Pediatric H ematol ogy Department o f a hospital near her home. She hopes to enter medi cal school after grad u atio n and pursue a career in pediatric cardiol ogy* Established by Arvid E. Ander son ‘20 in memory o f his wife, this aw ard is presented to the outstand ing freshman, sophom ore or junior woman student who not only has a superior academic record, but has also been a w ork-study student, a volunteer for co lleg e sponsored activities, and a participant in rec ognized extracurricular activities.
United Technologies C orpora tion and Society of Women Engi neers Award: Jennifer C. Kimball, a junior majoring in chemical engi neering, is the daughter o f Mr. and Mrs. David Kimball o f Jefferson, M a ss., and is a g ra d u a te o f Wachusett Regional High School in Holden, Mass. She is president o f the W PI C ham ber C hoir, the U niversity’s first mixed vocal en semble, vice president o f the So cial Committee, a PLA (peer-learn ing assistant) for sophomore-level ch em ic al e n g in e e rin g c o u rse s, takes voice lessons, sings the na tional anthem at wom en’s varsity basketball games, is a disk jockey for the campus radio station, and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the na tional engineering honor society. See Scholarship, page 2
WPI among America s top 10wired colleges Courtesy of WPI News Service W PI is now among A m erica’s 10 most wired colleges according to the May issue o f Yahoo! Inter net Life magazine. The nation’s pre-em inent Web m agazine re leased its second annual survey this week of A m erica’s 100 Most Wired Colleges, a detailed guide to Internet use in higher educa tion. Last year WPI placed 28th in this survey. T he m agazine surveyed m ore than 400 colleges and universi ties across the nation to find out w h ic h s c h o o ls p r o v id e d th e m ost access and exposure on the
Internet. The resu lts will appear in the May issue o f Yahoo! Inter n e t L ife th a t a p p e a r s on new stands A pril 14. Yahoo’s survey w as based on 22 factors organized under four main categories - general services, aca dem ics, social life, and com puter s ta tis tic s - to d e te rm in e each school’s ranking. T he survey was c o n d u c te d in p a rtn e rs h ip w ith P e te rso n ’s, the n a tio n ’s leading provider o f education information. Those surveyed w ere those identi fied as b ein g h ig h ly se le c tiv e schools. S ev en ty five p e rc e n t o f stu dents at W PI own com puters,70 percen t o f classes have on-line
m aterials, and 60 percent have on-line classw ork. Sixty percent o f s tu d e n ts h a v e th e ir ow n home pages. Yahoo! noted that advanced Net users at W PI like to maintain their own hubs in the residence halls. Dartmouth College was listed at #1 with New Jersery Institute o f Technology at #2, followed by MIT and RPI. University of Illi nois, Urbana, came in fifth fol lowed by Carnegie Mellon U ni versity, Cal Tech, Indiana Univer sity, Bloomington, and the U ni versity o f Oregon. Stanford University placed 27th while Yale came in 30th and Har vard University 73rd.
and construction as the concept of perform ance-based design. Jam es K. Doyle o f Framingham, M ass., has been a member o f the Social Science and Policy Studies faculty since 1992. He received a bachelor’s degree in environm en tal science from the University of C a lifo rn ia at B e rk e le y , an d a m a ste r’s and doctorate in social psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research and teaching focuses on applied social and cognitive psychology, system dynam ics, judgm ent and decision making, risk perception and com m unication, the psycho logical study o f environmental is sues, and mental models o f com plex systems. Peter H. Hansen of W orcester, M ass., joined the Humanities and Arts Department as assistant pro fessor of history in 1992. He holds a B.A. in history from Carleton Col lege in Northfield, Minn., and an M .A. and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. His research and teaching focuses on modern European history, British history (especially of the 19lh and 20lh cen tury), international studies, global history, the history of mountaineer ing, imperialism, sport and cultural studies. He spent 1995-96 as a vis iting fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University in G reat Britain, where he also served as a historical con sultant and commentator for a BBC television program on the first as cent o f Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Later this year he will be a visiting fellow at the Australian National Univer sity, Canberra, where he will con tinue work on his book on the cul tural history o f m ountaineering from the first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786 to the first ascent o f M ount Everest in 1953. William R. M ichalson o f Charl ton, Mass., earned a B.S. in electri cal engineering at Syracuse Univer sity and an M.S. and Ph.D. in elec trical engineering at WPI. He has taught at the university since 1990 and has been a tenure-track faculty m em ber since 1992. M ichalson’s research and teaching interests are in global positioning systems, per formance prediction in distributed, real-time, multiprocessor systems, and perform ance optim ization of highly parallel computer systems.
Promoted: Andreas N. Alexandrou o f Cam bridge, M ass., was prom oted to professor of mechanical engineerSee Faculty, page 3
Sp o r t s .
Novice Women Four Crew Crew member gives an ac count o f the incredible win at meet on Saturday
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N ew s...................................2,3,4 National N ew s.................. 4,5,6 Sports.......... .......................7,8,9 SGA Agenda......................... 10 Arts & Entertainment... 10,13-16 Announcements............... 11,18 International H ouse............. 11 Letters to the E ditor............... 11 Recycling................................11 Club C om er...........................17 Classifieds..............................19 Comics...............................18,19 Police L o g ..............................20 Whai's Happening................ 20