Engineering Newsletter

As more than 30,000 family members and friends gathered on campus on May 21, to celebrate Commencement 2008, Interim Dean Gerald A. Navratil presented the degree candidates of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science to University President Lee C. Bollinger. Calling them the most talented class in the history of the School, Dean Navratil said,“They have all crossed through the Gateway, into the highly interdisciplinary world of the new engineering, the liberal art of the 21st century. These global citizen engineers and applied scientists stand ready to solve the critical problems that confront our world.” The SEAS graduating class consisted of 384 BS candidates and 544 graduate students receiving advanced degrees, including those who graduated in October 2007 and February 2008. During Commencement ceremonies,

Gertrude F. Neumark, Howe Professor Emerita of Materials Science, received an honorary doctor of science degree for her work as one of the world’s foremost experts on doping wide band-gap semiconductors. Her work has made possible the commercial manufacture of clearer traffic signals, brighter mobile phone screens and sharper multicolor displays. Chester Lee ’70, ’74BU also was honored as a University Alumni Medalist for his contributions to the Columbia alumni community, including serving as president of the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association.

Class Day
At Class Day ceremonies on Monday, May 19, University Trustee Armen A. Avanessians MS’83, the keynote speaker, described how Columbia SEAS affected his life and career path. An electrical engineering major, Mr. Avanessians worked at Bell Labs before joining Goldman Sachs & Company, where he is now a director. He characterized his time at Bell Labs as being one where he became “more and more proficient at a narrower and narrower task.” “That was engineering back then,” he said,“knowing more and more about less and less, until you know everything about nothing.”

Today in engineering, he said, the discipline is secondary; it is the problem that needs to be solved.“No school better exemplifies the ‘New Engineering’ mindset than SEAS,” he said. “I spent only one year here, and it changed my life. At Columbia, I was urged to think expansively. I was an electrical engineer, but I took graduate-level courses in computer science and operations research.What do computer science and operations research have in common? Those courses were the building blocks for my career in what is now known as financial engineering.”

He challenged the graduates to think of themselves as global citizens who will embrace the problems of the world and, with their knowledge and ability, “Take the education you’ve received and apply it wherever you can. Seize the opportunities and possibilities that the world presents. Become the leaders you’ve been trained to be.”

Both faculty and students were singled out for recognition at Class Day. For the first time, the Rodriguez Family Junior Faculty Development Award, created by Ana Rodriguez ’86, ’88, and her brother, Marcos Rodriguez ’83, was given. The award supports the advancement of underrepresented junior faculty and was awarded to Elizabeth Hillman, assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Upmanu Lall, the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering received the Kim Award for Faculty Involvement. The Kim Award, established in 2000 by Edward and Carole Kim, parents of Brian Kim, Class of 2001, was created to honor a faculty member who is not only an excellent teacher but also shows a special, personal commitment to students.

The Janette and Armen Avanessians Diversity Award was presented to Professor Aron Pinczuk of the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics.This award, established in 2007, honors faculty members whose actions encourage women and men from diverse backgrounds to become part of the academic community of engineering education.

The Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association awarded its Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award to Kenneth Ross, professor of computer science, and David E. Keyes, professor of applied mathematics.Winners of this annual award are selected by a committee of students and alumni using information provided by student evaluations.

Valedictorian Frank K. Zovko, winner of the Illig Medal, described an engineer as one whose role “is to improve the standard of living, one way or another.” Citing the development of technology from PCs to medical devices, he said engineers contribute to change with wide-reaching effects. Engineers, he said, “get the job done, they are creative and resourceful and solve problems.”

The Salutatorian was Quian Wei. Students honored with awards were: Easwaran Cumarasamy, the Charles Kandel Award; Gudrun Finnsdottir, the SEAS Scholar-Athlete Award; Daniel S.Wong, the SEAS Student Activities Award; Yezhen Lu, the George Vincent Wendell Memorial Medal; and Heather E. Lockhart, the Thomas “Pop” Harrington Medal. Winners of Campus Leadership Awards are shown below.