WILFREDO COLON WINS NATIONAL AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY AWARD

Chemical and Engineering News – August 30, 2010

Wilfredo Colon, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology won the ACS Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences sponsored by the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation

The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation established the Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences in 1993 to recognize significant accomplishments by individuals in stimulating students, underrepresented in the profession, to elect careers in the chemical sciences and engineering. The award consists of $5,000 and a certificate. A grant of $10,000 will also be made to an eligible non-profit institution, designated by the recipient, to strengthen its activities in meeting the objectives of the award.

Nominees for the award may come from any professional setting: academia, industry, government, or other independent facility. The award is intended to recognize significant accomplishments in the United States by individuals in stimulating students, especially those currently underrepresented in the profession, to elect careers in the chemical sciences and engineering, and in generating a broader appreciation of chemistry as the central science. The award will be granted without regard to age or nationality.

TEOFILO ABRAJANO TO BE HONORED BY AYALA FOUNDATION

Teofilo Jun Abrajano, Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, has been selected as one of the pioneering Philippine Development honorees in Science and Technology. “This award is given in recognition of your outstanding achievements in this field and your actual and prospective contributions towards Philippine development.” The award will be presented at the PhilDev USA Forum and Gala to be held in San Jose, CA on September 25, 2010. His Excellency, Benigno Aquino III, President, Republic of the Philippines will give the President’s Address.

1 According to Ayala Foundation USA President Victoria Garchitorena, the movement aims to tap the intellect and resources of Filipino-Americans to support outstanding development projects in the Philippines.

The forum also heralds the transformation of Ayala Foundation USA into the Philippine Development Foundation USA (PhilDevUSA) which is a more “mature, independent institution that will better reflect the richness of the Filipino diaspora community in its adopted land,” its officials said in a recent briefing.

BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT AND HENRY EHRLICH CELEBRATE 85 YEARS

The Department of Biology at RPI is happily celebrating its 85th birthday this year. Coincidentally, Henry Ehrlich, Professor Emeritus of Biology also celebrated his 85th birthday with an ice cream and cake party on August 31st. The Biology Department was founded in 1925 and began its existence under the leadership of Professor Archie Wilmot Bray, B.A., M.A., as its head. Professor Bray was born in Sheffield, England and graduated from Firth College, Sheffield and from Cambridge University. After coming to the United States, he pursued graduate studies at the University of Oregon, the University of Montana, Harvard University and the Iowa University School of Medicine. Before assuming his teaching post at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he taught at Methodist College, St. John’s, Newfoundland; Columbia College, New Westminster, British Columbia; University of Montana; and the University of Iowa. He was an inspiring teacher. Professor Bray died in 1942. In the ensuing years, the Department has carried on the high standards set by Professor Bray. Although initially offering only a B.S. program and by the 1950’s occasional graduate work leading to an M.S. degree, a graduate program leading to a Ph.D. in Biology gained official approval in 1960. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recipients of the Ph.D. degree in Biology have been pursuing successful careers in academia, industry, and in state and federal research labs. The Biology faculty has grown from as few as 3 to more than 30 members. Some of the present faculty represent biological specialties which were completely unknown in Professor Bray’s day but which he would have embraced enthusiastically. These specialties include molecular biology, biophysics, bioinformatics, computational biology, and nanobiotechnology. Others among the present faculty represent the more classical fields of cell biology, biochemistry, physiology, genetics, microbiology, and environmental biology.

FACULTY NEWS AND NOTES

Margaret Cheney, Professor of Mathematical Sciences is spending the fall on a sabbatical at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley, CA) in their special program on Inverse Problems and Applications. At the Introductory Workshop on Inverse Problems and Applications last week, She gave a series of three lectures on "Introduction to Radar Imaging".

Margaret is also an accomplished diver. At the August 2010 Summer Masters National Championships held at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center of UCLA she won the 1-meter and 3-meter events in her age group.

Petros Drineas, Associate Professor of Computer Science, will be on secondment to NSF as a rotating Program Director with 50% of his time in the CCF division (TF program) and 50% in the IIS division (III program).

2 Gyorgy Korniss, Associate Professor of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, had a paper selected for the "Editors' Suggestions" and it was also highlighted in the Synopsis section of "Physics": http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.068701

"Network synchronization in a noisy environment with time delays: Fundamental limits and trade offs", D. Hunt, G. Korniss (corresponding author), and B. K. Szymanski, Claire & Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science. http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.068701

The main finding was that coordinating, distributing, and balancing resources in networks is a complex task and it is very sensitive to time delays. Understanding the interplay of stochastic effects, network connections, and time delays can enable network operators to know when "less" (in terms of local communication efforts) can be more efficient (in terms of global performance). DTRA and ARL NS-CTA fund this research.

Joanne Luciano joined the Tetherless World Constellation as Research Associate Professor of Computer Science.

Rob McCaffrey, Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has retired.

Andrea-Page McCaw, Associate Professor of Biology, resigned her position to become Associate Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Jim Myers, the new director of the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI), will also serve as a clinical professor in computer science.

Jeff Trinkle, Professor of Computer Science, became the first Faculty Dean of the CLASS Initiative and will divide his time 50% between this initiative and Computer Science

Carlos Varela, Associate Professor of Computer Science, has secured the agreement of Barbera Liskov the 2008 Turing Award winner (the CS equivalent of the Nobel prize) to give the second Joseph E. Flaherty Lecture on Thursday November 11.

Mohammed Zaki, Professor of Computer Science, had a PhD Student, Mohammad Al Hasan, named the winner of the 2010 ACM SIGKDD Doctoral Dissertation Award. http://www.kdd.org/kdd2010/awards.shtml

RESEARCH NEWS AND NOTES

STEVE ROECKER ON NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO ABOUT EARTHQUAKES

Steven Roecker, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, reports from Chile where he is studying earthquakes.

3 “Chile is very nice. Lots of stuff to do here - too much in fact. Had a magnitude 6 just south of us yesterday which didn't faze anyone because they were more concerned with a volcano erupting to the southeast. Just another day in the life here. The bizarre thing is that there are fewer seismologists in Chile than there are in the state of New York. So much going on that they can't keep track of it all.

BTW I apparently was on NPR yesterday.”

Check out the link on the WAMC website: http://www.wamc.org/academic-minute.html

DATA SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER IS ANNOUNCED

The Data Science Research Center under the direction of Bulent Yener, Professor of Computer Science has been launched. The center will focus on the development of data-to-knowledge integration technologies that facilitate acquiring, processing, analyzing, visualizing, disseminating, and archiving complex data to support multiscale modeling and simulation across all disciplines. To accomplish this, the center will focus work in five key areas: (1) Data acquisition, security and privacy; (2) Data semantics and storage; (3) Analysis and control algorithms; (4) Modeling, simulation and visualization; and (5) High performance computing. Much work is already underway across the Rensselaer campus that relates to the focus of the Data Science Research Center as defined above. The center will serve to coordinate and integrate this work. The goals of the new center are to: (1) Focus and attract talent and resources to Rensselaer in the area of data science, (2) gain international and national recognition for research in data science, and (3) participate in international and national forums that shape the future of research in data science. Professor Yener brings many years of experience to his new role as Director of the Data Science Research Center. He came to Rensselaer in 2002 from the Information Sciences Research Center of Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies, where he was a Member of the Technical Staff. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University. Since coming to Rensselaer, his research has focused on computer networks, network security, and bioinformatics and spans both systems design and theoretical analysis of complex systems. He has received funding for his research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, among others, and he has more than 80 publications in refereed journals and conferences.

Anyone interested in getting involved in the Data Science Research Center is encouraged to contact Professor Yener.

THE INVERSE PROBLEMS CENTER AT RPI LAUNCHES WORKSHOP SERIES

IPRPI, the Inverse Problems Center at RPI, launches a series of workshops, funded by NSF, on timely topics where either new data sets, new applications, or mathematical advances enable new emerging research opportunities. The first three of these workshops took place in March, April, and August 2010. In each case a lively group, including a high percentage of early career participants and excellent speakers, interactively discussed and initiated new research projects.

IPRPI participant, Mourad Zeghal, CEE, organized IPRPI Symposium on Inverse Problems and System Identification of Geosystems, March 29-30, 2010. The workshop structure emphasized combining remote sensing with data provided by dense sensor arrays. The goal in combining these techniques is to enable new methods for management and decision making for civil infrastructure and distributed soil systems such as flood-control levees. Thirty-five participants participated in lively discussions about this 4 emerging topic. The workshop talks and poster presentations included: (1) using satellite data to identify changes in ground surface structure; (2) identification of geosystem properties from surface and buried sensor data; and (3) geosystem model calibration using experimental or observational data.

On April 27 and 28, IPRPI participant Steve Roecker, EES, organized a workshop on the topic of Seismic Waveform Tomography, an area of research that uses records of elastic wave vibrations to create high resolution images of the subsurface. An international group of speakers covered a wide range of topics from whole Earth imaging to near-surface management and discovery. Despite the broad spectrum of applications, a recurring theme of the workshop was the commonality of approaches that allowed participants with different backgrounds to learn from each other. The workshop subject, Seismic Waveform Tomography, was particularly timely, as technical advances over the last few years have brought about a remarkable increase in the quality and quantity of data recorded from both passive and active sources. More than 70 participants attended the workshop, many of them graduate students, from all over the US.

The IPRPI Workshop on Microlocal Analysis in Imaging, organized by B. Yazici, ECSE, and M. Cheney, MATH SCI, was held on August 2-3, 2010. Microlocal analysis is an abstract mathematical theory that provides a unifying framework for a wide range of image formation problems from medical to radar imaging. The purpose of this workshop was to bring the engineering and mathematics communities together and encourage wider and innovative applications of microlocal analysis. Approximately 50 researchers from universities, Air Force Research Laboratories and industry participated in the workshop. On August 2nd, B. Yazici presented a three-hour tutorial on the basics of microlocal analysis in preparation for the talks on August 3rd. Six speakers, including mathematicians and engineers, presented state-of-the-art research in the areas of microlocal analysis and imaging. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity for mathematicians and engineers to interact, exchange ideas, and to establish future collaborations.

See www.iprpi.rpi.edu for more details.

MASHATHON IN WASHINGTON DC ON AUGUST 24-25, 2010 As the Semantic Web (sometimes called Web 3.0) emerges, the US government is pleased to be in the vanguard of this new technology space. To this end, Data.gov is hosting a Mash-A-Thon to help familiarize Data.gov developers with using this technology to create a new generation of "linked data" mashups. We are looking for Agency data stewards and their developers to come and learn from each other and us. During the event participants will be divided in small teams, guided by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) developers, to develop useful Mashups to share at the end of the Mash-A-Thon. Attendees will then get to vote on which demos should be proposed for hosting on Data.gov! The guest lecturer is Dr. James Hendler, Sr. Constellation Professor of Tetherless World Research Constellation. http://datagovmashathon.eventbrite.com/ The following groups produced these mashup demonstrations in about a workday's worth of work: EPA group project - EPA Air Quality Survey / NOAA Solar Radiation Data Energy group project - Smart Grid: Toward a Transparent Energy Marketplace OneGov - Air Quality Near Public Schools in Wyoming

5 BudgetAid- Foreign Aid Compared to Individual and Corporate Taxes

RPI Helpers: Dominic Difranzo, Alvaro Graves, Tim Lebo

ASIAN CLAM INVASION IN LAKE GEORGE

On August 19, 2010 Jeremy Farrell Biology Ph.D. student at the Darrin Fresh Water Institute reported finding non-native clams at the south end of Lake George.

The clams were positively identified as Corbicula fluminea, an Asian clam, which is considered one of the worst freshwater invasive species. This invasive species can clog pipes, release nutrients that cause algae blooms, concentrate calcium that provides enriched habitat for invasive zebra mussels, and displace native mussels, as well as having other negative impacts. Previous research by the DFWI (on zebra mussels: Wimbush et al. 2009 Aquatic Conservation) demonstrated that when a new invasive species is found, if there is a combination of early detection, suboptimal habitat, proactive establishment of a rapid response and management plan and cooperation of a comprehensive network of stakeholders it can be possible to eradicate or manage.

Based on this model, a rapid response team consisting of a wide variety of agencies (national, state and local) was organized by Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, DFWI Director.

Tom Brady (volunteer diver from Bolton), Dan Marelli (Scientific Diving and DFWI Visiting Scientist), Steve Resler (InnerSpace Scientific Diving), Joseph Zarzynski (Bateaus Below, Inc.)

6 Initial research carried out using SCUBA surveys and sediment analyses has defined the area of infestation, the size range of clams (which gives an indication of age), and concentrations of the clam population. To date, the information gathered leads DFWI researchers to believe that it may be possible to eradicate the invasive clam population in this area. A pilot study to test the effectiveness of using benthic barrier mats to reduce both dissolved oxygen concentrations and planktonic food sources for the invasive clams will be underway within the month. This project is initially being supported by the FUND for Lake George, the Lake George Park Commission and the Lake George Association, volunteer divers from Scientific Diving International, Bateaux Below Inc., and InnerSpace Scientific Diving, as well as other local volunteers.

BUILDING BETTER PROTEINS – THE SCIENTIST http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/6/1/68/1/

A recent article in The Scientist cited the work of George Makhatadze, Constellation Chair in the Biocomputation and Bioinformatics Constellation: “A therapeutic franchise Even academia appears to be getting in on the action. George Makhatadze and colleagues at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York recently Building Better Proteins - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences detailed a targeted strategy to substantially increase the thermodynamic stability of nearly any protein, while preserving its unique function (PNAS, 106:2601–6, 2009). Their computational technique, which alters amino acid sequences by less than 5 percent, creates proteins that remain stable at temperatures 10°C higher than normal. Improving the stability of proteins has important ancillary effects, Makhatadze says. “By increasing stabilization, we are also offsetting aggregation in these proteins,” improving the antibodies’ effectiveness, he says. “We increase [the antibodies’] resistance to proteolysis at the same time.” Pharma companies took notice of Makhatadze’s work, and he says he was close to a deal with an unnamed corporation when it fell through over “IP issues.” Makhatadze adds that drug companies have paid too little attention to protein engineering in their rush to develop novel therapeutic proteins and get them through clinical trials. “Once you go through clinical trials, you’re stuck with whatever sequence you have,” he says. The mutation of even a single amino acid sequence requires a complete redo of clinical testing en route to a new FDA approval.”

Douglas Swank, Assistant Professor Department of Biology, this past summer supported two RPI undergraduates and a Troy High School Biology teacher with an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant, "Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates and Educators, from NIH. The teacher and students learned and performed molecular biology experiments to create transgenic Drosophila (fruit flies) expressing muscle proteins that when mutated in humans cause heart disease.

Elliot Anshelevich, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, is the lead PI on a $500K NSF NetSE grant titled "Dynamic Flow Equilibria in Vehicular Traffic and Data Communication Networks."

Petros Drineas, Associate Professor of Computer Science, is the sole PI on an NSF project titled “Fast and Efficient Randomized Algorithms for Solving Laplacian Systems of Linear Equations and Sparse Least Squares Problems”; $322,731.

Petros Drineas, Associate Professor of Computer Science, was awarded a fellowship by the European Molecular Biology Organization for his work in population genetics; $12,000.

7 Peter Fox, Professor and Tetherless World Constellation Chair, Earth and Environmental Sciences is PI on NSF INTEROP ECO-OP: Employing Cyber Infrastructure Data Technologies to Facilitate IEA for Climate Impacts in NE & CA LME's (#3 & #7), $1,089K, starting January 1 for 3 years.

Peter Fox, Professor and Tetherless World Constellation Chair, Earth and Environmental Sciences and Deborah McGuinness, Professor and Tetherless World Constellation Chair, Computer Science are co-PI's on NSF INTEROP: INAK - International Network of Arctic Knowledge, $330K, starting September 1 for 4 years. University of Colorado PI.

Peter Fox is PI on the DoE/SciDAC II: Earth System Grid Center for Enabling Technologies, $246K, 15 months.

Peter Fox is co-PI with Johannes Goebel on NSF EAGER: Field: a new tool for creative, interdisciplinary visualization of data, $149,354.00, 18 months.

Sibel Adali, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Bolek Szymanski, Peter Fox are co-PI's with Frank Spear (PI) on the NSF/EAR MetPetDB: A Database for Metamorphic Geochemistry, $800K, 3 years.

TERAHERZ RESEARCH CENTER'S THZ REMOTE SENSING OUTREACH

Research at the Terahertz Center under the direction of Xi-Cheng Zhang, J. Eric Jonsson ’22 Professor of Science, has been cited repeatedly in the news by the media including: ABC News, BBC, Reuters, Discovery News, USA Today, MSNBC, Yahoo, International Business Times, News Blaze, Physics Today, Washington Post, Smart Planet

ABC News, "T-Rays: The future of airport security, the end of suicide bombers?" BBC, "A new optical system can identify explosives uses terahertz wave technology" USA Today, "Bomb-detecting sensors advance at 'terahertz' scale" Discovery News, "T-Ray tech spots bombs, drugs from a mile away" Nature Magazine, "Physics: Detection from a distance" News Blaze, "Unique THz 'fingerprints' will identify hidden explosives from a distance" Popular Science, "Remote Terahertz Scanners Could See What's in Your Pockets from Miles Away" and in journals including: Research News on Magazines: Nature, Science, Laser Focus World, Nature Photonics, Photonic Spectra, Popular Science, Optics & Photonics News, Wired Magazine, Gizmodo and etc.

STAFF NEWS AND NOTES

At the 38th Annual Employee Service Recognition and Retirement Dinner held on September 10, 2010 at The Hilton Garden Inn, Troy, NY the following employees from the School of Science were recognized:

Sara Alvaro/Chemistry and Chemical Biology - 5 years Melissa Anderson/Biology - 5 years Marian Bloodgood/Chemistry and Chemical Biology - 25 years Tiffini Burlingame/Darrin Fresh Water Institute - 5 years Bonnie Carson/Dean's Office - 35 years

8 Lawrence Eichler/Darrin Fresh Water Institute - 30 years Gail Gere/Information Technology and Web Science - 33 years, Retiree Michele Kronau/Mathematical Sciences - 25 years Meeli Leith/Chemistry and Chemical Biology - 25 years Susan Mangione/Chemistry and Chemical Biology - 40 years Pamela Paslow/Computer Science - 30 years Joan Perras/Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy - 20 years Sam Wait/Dean's Office - 48 years, Retiree Morris Washington/Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy - 10 years David Winkler/Darrin Fresh Water Institute - 10 years

Jon Chen, Manager of the Computer Science Laboratory, has resigned to pursue other interests after many years of excellent service as the leader of the CS computer lab.

STUDENT NEWS AND NOTES

SIX STUDENTS SUPPORTED BY THE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE IN AN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROGRAM

John L. Marsh ’58 Research Scholars Fund Student Major Project Title Research Advisor Alex Carlton Chemistry Binary Guanosine Gels and Nanoparticles Linda McGown – Suspension and Purification Thomas Fauvell Chemistry Functionalization of Gold Nanoparticles Peter Dinolfo

Miriam And Milton Prince '34 For Undergraduate Research Support Fund Student Major Project Title Research Advisor Wesley Mounts Physics Three Dimensional Acoustic Effects of William Siegmann Mathematics Non-Linear Internal Gravity Waves

Carol & Samuel C. Wait, Jr. '53 Undergraduate Research Scholars Fund Student Major Project Title Research Advisor Amanda Labuza Biochemistry/Biophysics Structural Studies of APPTM Chunyu Wang Ross Williams Geology Benthic Foraminiferal Analysis (IODP Miriam Katz Expedition 313): evidence for sea level change during cooler climates Nikita Gadi Biology Research on the Changes of Embrionic Robert Linhardt Stem Cell Glycome Post Stem Cell

9 POSTER PRESENTATION OF SUMMER PROJECTS CONDUCTED BY STUDENTS AT RENSSELAER CENTER FOR OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (RCOS)

Students at RCOS had their poster presentations on September 3, 2010. Twenty-seven students participated during the summer. Students ranged from rising sophomores to rising graduate students. Projects ranged from desktop applications to Web and mobile application development, from personal projects, to government and nongovernmental projects. Students contributed lines of open source software code with documentation and example application. Students had a chance to improve their communication skills in both written and oral forms by writing their weekly blogs and presenting their findings in seminars - A few students had an opportunity to present to a wider audience. RCOS students also participated in Humanitarian Free and Open Source community. A Photo of summer students who participated in RCOS is given below.

The following are the students who participated from the School of Science: Sean Austin – Information Technology Ryan Baltazar – Computer Science Tyler Campbell – Computer Science Robert Carr – Computer Science Ryan Dignard – Computer Science Joseph Dougherty – Information Technology Jacob Katz – Computer Science Graylin Kim – Information Technology James McMillan – Computer Science Brian Michalski – Computer Science Yonatan Naamad – Mathematics Matthew O’Brien – Information Technology Michael O’Keefe – Bioinformatics Luke Perkins – Computer Science Ben Shippee – Computer Science Nicholas Steele – Games and Simulation Arts & Science Stephen Trombetti – Computer Science 10 ALUMNI NEWS AND NOTES

The winner of the ACS Garvin-Olin Medal this year is Sherry Yennello ’85 from Texas A&M who got her undergraduate degree in Chemistry here at RPI. She did undergraduate research with Ivor Preiss.

Sponsor: The Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal Endowment

Purpose: To recognize distinguished service to chemistry by women chemists.

Nature: The award consists of $5,000, a medallion with a presentation box, and a certificate. Up to $2,500 for travel expenses to the meeting at which the award will be presented will be reimbursed. The medallion will be presented during the award address.

This newsletter is prepared monthly during the academic year and distributed to School of Science faculty, staff, students and alumni to highlight accomplishments and events within the school. Please submit news items for the next newsletter to Samuel Wait, Associate Dean Emeritus of Science, at [email protected]

11