WPI Highlights
Advisory Board MeetingOctober 14, 2005
Carol SimpsonProvost & Senior Vice President
• Newsworthy Items
• Student and Faculty “stars”• New Faculty Hires• New Initiatives• New Facilities• Priorities for
Next 5 years
WPI Highlights
MBA Program Ranked No. 3 Nationally for "Greatest Opportunities for Women”
- in the Princeton Review's "Best 237 Business Schools”
Ranked 53rd in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges 2006 issue
- out of 248 national universities
Ranked 19th – Most Students Studying Abroad- out of Top 100 schools in the country in U.S. News & World Report 2006
Ranked 37th Great School, Great Prices - in the U.S. News & World Report 2006
WPI Highlights
• Research Excellence• Graduate Education
• Centers of Excellence• Technology Transfer
Emphasis Areas
• Undergraduate Education• Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Marshall Scholar: Ian Bonzani ('04), biomedical engineering
• Awarded to just 40 out of 1,000 nominees nationwide
– to study tissue engineering in Great Britain
Goldwater Scholars:
Ravi Srinivasan ('04), Mathematics and Physics
– to study the earth's ocean-atmosphere system
Ann C. Skulas ('05), Chemistry
– to study nanotechnology
WPI Student Honors
Some Notable Faculty Achievements in 2005
$2M FY 2004+2005 to date:
Diran Apelian (Metals Processing Institute; ME)
Some Notable Faculty Achievements in 2005
$2M FY 2004+2005 to date:
Diran Apelian (Metals Processing Institute; ME)
CUTH (ECE+BME faculty group) Bill MichalsonYitzhak MendelsonPeder Pedersen
John Orr (Digital Signal Processing, ECE)
Some Notable Faculty Achievements in 2005
$1M FY 2004+2005 to date:
Yi- (Ed) Hua Ma (Center for Inorganic Membrane Studies, Chemical Engineering)
Ryszard (Rich) Pryputniewicz (Mechanical Engineering)
Some Notable Faculty Achievements in 2005
$1M FY 2004+2005 to date:
Yi- (Ed) Hua Ma (Center for Inorganic Membrane Studies, Chemical Engineering)
Ryszard (Rich) Pryputniewicz (Mechanical Engineering)
Other Honors Include:Gretar Tryggvason The 2005 Computational Mechanics Award of the JSME
Steven C. Bullock NEH Research Fellowship
“David A. Lucht Lamp of Knowledge Award” by SFPE for significant contributions to the advancement of higher education
Erwin Danneels The Thomas P. Husted award for the best paper published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management
Bogdan Vernescu Member of Honor of the Romanian Academy Institute of Mathematics
Faculty Honors
Fulbright Scholars
Steven C. Bullock, Humanities and ArtsMikhail Dimentberg, Mechanical EngineeringDavid B. Dollenmayer, Humanities and ArtsMichael B. Elmes, ManagementJeffrey Forgeng, Humanities and ArtsKaren Lemone, Computer ScienceKonstantin A. Lurie, Mathematical SciencesEric W. Overström, Biology and Biotechnology Kaveh Pahlavan, Electrical and Computer EngineeringElke A. Rudensteiner, Computer ScienceJohn Zeugner, Humanities and Arts
NSF CAREER Awards - last 3 years
• Donald Brown, “Cooperative Communication Systems: Resource Allocation, Self-Organization, and Synchronization,” 2005
• Neil Heffernan, “Learning about Learning,” 2005
• Jennifer Wilcox, “On the Prevention of Selenium & Arsenic Release into the Atmosphere,” 2005
NSF CAREER Awards - last 3 years
• Donald Brown, “Cooperative Communication Systems: Resource Allocation, Self-Organization, and Synchronization,” 2005
• Neil Heffernan, “Learning about Learning,” 2005
• Jennifer Wilcox, “On the Prevention of Selenium & Arsenic Release into the Atmosphere,” 2005
• Terri Anne Camesano, “Molecular-Scale Interactions Between Microbes and Surfaces in the Environment,” 2003
• Nikolaos Kazantzis, “Robust Digital Model-Based Fault Detection and Isolation for Nonlinear Processes,” 2002
• Kathryn Fisler, “A Computational Infrastructure for Timing Diagrams in Computer-Aided Verification,” 2002
• Berk Sunar, “New Directions for Cryptographic Hardware,” 2002
WPI now has 19 NSF CAREER awardees
New Faculty Hires - 2005Robert W. Lindeman - Computer Science
– Human Computer Interaction, with IMGD
Mattias Nilsson – Management– Corporate Finance
Reeta Prusty – Biology and Biotechnology– Genomics Research
Joshua Rosenstock – Humanities and Arts– Artist, with Interactive Media and Game
Development
Susan Zhou – Chemical Engineering– Science of Miniaturization
New Academic Initiatives
• New Master of Science Degrees in:– Systems Engineering– Information Technology– Operations Design and Leadership
• New Bachelor of Science Degrees in:– Aerospace Engineering– Electrical & Computer Engineering– Interactive Media & Game Development
• First of Its Kind in Combining Artistic and Technical Concentrations– System Dynamics
New Academic Initiatives• Proposal for a Bachelor of Arts degree in discussion
• Faculty Commissions on Curriculum Development
• Insight advising and Project-based Learning Community in the first year
• Massachusetts Mathematics and Science Partnership
• Certificate in College Teaching being offered for graduate students and adjuncts
• Teacher Licensing for undergraduates in mathematics and the sciences
• Fire Protection Engineering now a full academic department
Physical FacilitiesConstruction completed in 04/05
• Reconstruction of the freshmen chemistry laboratories into modern, completely equipped facilities with
• With funding support from the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, and WPI Trustee John LaMattina
Physical FacilitiesConstruction completed in 04/05
• Reconstruction of the freshmen chemistry laboratories into modern, completely equipped facilities with
• With funding support from the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, and WPI Trustee John LaMattina
•Renovation of 5 major lecture halls to state-of-the-art facilities•Upgrade to the residential network
Little Theatre renovations
Construction almost completed
Construction in progress
Bartlett Center - Admissions and Financial Aid - a 16,500 sq. ft. “green building”
Through the generosity of James and Shirley Bartlett
Construction begun - scheduled move-in Jan ‘07
$40M Life Sciences Research Building at Gateway Park$40M Life Sciences Research Building at Gateway Park
3 blocks from the main campus
Research faculty from: Biology & Biotechnology Bio-Engineering Institute (BEI) Biomedical Engineering Chemistry & Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering
$40M Life Sciences Research Building at Gateway Park$40M Life Sciences Research Building at Gateway Park
Priorities for the Next 5 Years• Increasing Sponsored Research
• Enhancing Academic Reputation
• Increasing Entrepreneurship Activity
• Improving Diversity, Especially in Students and Faculty in Sciences and Engineering
• New and Expanded Sports and Recreation Facility
• Renovations to Goddard and Salisbury Halls
• Admissions/Recruiting - Undergraduate and Graduate