H&SS eNews, January 2006

Greetings from H&SS.

The H&SS eNews is a monthly electronic publication of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. The eNews is compiled and edited by Kelli McElhinny, director of media relations for H&SS. She can be reached at 412-268-6094 or kellim@andrew.cmu.edu. Contact Kelli to submit news about yourself and your fellow alumni, and to sign up for our newsletters.

For past eNews publications, please visit the H&SS eNews archive.

For news about the entire university, be sure to check out the university’s home page or the Carnegie Mellon Today website.

EDITOR’S NOTE—Some of you have pointed out that the text in some of the articles in the fall H&SS print newsletter was quite small. I apologize, and if there were any articles that you were unable to read, please let me know and I will send you a copy in a more legible format. I will work with our Communications Design department to ensure that we use larger typefaces in the future. Thank you for your patience.

Alumni News

--Holly Lee Abernathy Lamb (B.A. Professional Writing, 1997) was awarded NASA's distinguished Silver Snoopy Award December 7, 2005, by astronauts Michael J. Bloomfield and Megan McArthur, both stationed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Lamb is a Senior Community Relations Specialist with ATK Thiokol and was recognized for her efforts to support the nation's space program through educational outreach programs designed to inspire future generations of NASA astronauts. Originally established during the Apollo era, the Silver Snoopy is the only award presented by NASA's astronaut office. The award, which can only be presented by an astronaut, is designed to recognize employees of NASA, its industry partners and other government agencies based on individual performance. The award is reserved for those who are regarded as the best in the profession.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Carnegie Mellon invites alumni who plan to attend graduate school and have financial need to apply for the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship, a nationally prestigious award that can be used at an approved institution abroad or in the United States. Winners receive a maximum of $50,000 per year for a maximum of six years of study. To receive the award, you must have graduated in the last five years. Non-U.S. citizens are eligible. For more information, guidelines and eligibility requirements, see http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.org. The campus deadline is March 1, 2006. If interested, please contact the campus representative, William Alba, at alba@cmu.edu.

Student News

--The winners of the seventh annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Writing Awards at Carnegie Mellon University will honor the vision and sacrifice of the slain civil rights leader when they read their work as part of the university's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at 1:30 p.m. Monday, January 16, in Rangos Hall in the University Center. Students from Carnegie Mellon and several Pittsburgh-area high schools submitted essays or poetry reflecting on the role race has played in their lives. Awards were given in two categories: prose (fiction and nonfiction) and poetry, and winners received cash prizes. For a complete list of winners, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060111_mlkwinners.html.

College/Faculty News

-- A survey of sexually active teenage girls found that most know relatively little about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) until it is too late, according to a paper published in the January edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health by Carnegie Mellon researchers. The results came from a survey of 300 adolescent girls in the Pittsburgh area. The researchers gave the girls a test to gauge their knowledge of eight STDs: HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, genital warts, hepatitis B, trichomoniasis and syphilis. Girls who reported having been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease knew more about that particular disease than other girls, but did not know more about the other diseases. The study was authored by Julie Downs, Wandi Bruine de Bruin and Baruch Fischhoff in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences; and Pamela J. Murray, director of adolescent medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/051221_std.html.

--Stephen E. Fienberg, the Maurice Falk Professor of Statistics and Social Science, has been appointed a co-chair, with former Attorney General Janet Reno and former CIA and FBI Director William Webster, of a newly created National Commission on Forensic Science and Public Policy formed by the American Judicature Society (AJS). The commission will advise AJS on the research agenda for its new Institute of Forensic Science and Public Policy and periodically consider national standards for forensic science, such as those used for the collection, testing, preservation and admissibility of evidence. Alfred Blumstein, the J. Erik Jonsson University Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research in the Heinz School, is a commission member.

--Baruch Fischhoff, the Howard Heinz University Professor of Social and Decision Sciences and of Engineering and Public Policy, testified December 14 before Democratic members of the U.S. House Committee on Science about preparations for a possible avian flu pandemic. Fischhoff told the committee that scientists since World War II have been studying human response to risk, and that several findings have emerged. People want the truth, even if it is frightening, although people can absorb only a limited amount of information at one time. Fischhoff said that people have trouble digesting some types of complex information and that even experienced communicators cannot predict how their messages will be interpreted. For more information, go to http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/pandemicflubrf05.html.

Events

--Joseph Roach, the Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Theater and English at Yale University, will speak at 5 p.m. January 23 in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center as part of the "Aesthetics Out of Bounds" arts histories lecture series, sponsored by the Center for the Arts in Society. Roach has chaired the Department of Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Theatre at Northwestern University, and the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. His books and articles include "Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance" which won the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association and the Calloway Prize from NYU; "The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting,"; which won the Barnard Hewitt Award in Theatre History; and essays in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies, Discourse, Theater, Text and Performance Quarterly, among others. For a complete schedule and more information about the lecture series, go to http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/mwitmore/aesthetics/

In Memory

--We are saddened to report the death of James E. Tomayko (B.A. History, 1971; D.A. History, 1980), teaching professor in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (SCS) and director emeritus of its Master in Software Engineering (MSE) program. Fondly known as "Coach" to his students, friends and colleagues, Tomayko, 56, died on January 9 after a long illness. During his more than 16-year tenure at the university, Tomayko not only helped to found SCS' highly successful MSE program, but also initiated an extensive program in distance learning that currently includes 140 students who reside all over the world. At the same time, he served as a part-time senior member of the technical staff at the university's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), making important contributions in their Product Line Systems program. He was in the first H&SS graduating class, and was very active in alumni affairs at Carnegie Mellon. He was a long-time member of the Andrew Carnegie Society (ACS) and sat on the ACS Executive Board. He served as president of the Alumni Association Board from 2000 to 2002. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/060110_tomayko.html.

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