This page contains news related to the ECE department of the current week. Specifically it includes current information about seminars, exams, travel, research grants, professional news, personal news scheduled for this week.
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I am about to start my second week as Chairman of the department. As you know we have started this weekly email newsletter to inform you of various activities in the department. I have decided to use this column every week to update you on some general activities in the department.
First, I would like to thank Nancy Singer and Carol Surma for completing the enormous task of putting together a new and revised undergraduate and graduate study manual which lists the most current curriculum and details the current descriptions of all the courses offered by this department. The manuals will go to print this week and should be available for all faculty, students and staff in a week.
Second, we are in the process of updating our web page for the department. You might wish to check the web page for a welcome message, description of plans for the department, various departmental organizations (ECE Directors), and departmental committees that have been formed. One of the innovative things that we have done this year is to involve our undergraduate students in the undergraduate curriculum and laboratory committees, and the graduate students in our graduate committees. More details on this will be discussed next week.
Third, we are getting ready for the new school year. Next week, we will have a meeting of the ECE Industrial Advisory Board on Thursday where we will present to the Board our plans for the future of the department.
Fourth, I would like to congratulate Prof. Prem Kumar, Prof. Horace Yuen, and Kathie Cerveny for organizing a terrific Quantum Communications and Computing (QCM98) conference this past week at Northwestern University. The conference was attended by more than a hundred world-renowned researchers. There was an exciting article about it in the Chicago Tribune business section last Sunday. Events like this bring our department and university prestige.
Finally, we have had some personnel changes in the department both in administration and computer support. See below for the detailed announcements. Coral Sheridan, Patti Huiras, Eric Hoffman and Triona Guidry will no longer be working with us. I want to wish them all well in their future careers. I want to welcome Linda Harries, Chris Gilmore, Rebecca Swierz and George Nejmeh to their new jobs.
There are no seminars scheduled this week.
There are no exams scheduled this week.
Wednesday, Sep. 9 - ECE Directors' Meeting, L324, 1PM-2PM.
Thursday, Sep. 10 - Meeting of the ECE Industrial Advisory Board, L324, 9AM-5PM.
ATTENTION: No parking in designated loading zones during student move-in days. Thursday 9/10/98 -12:00 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. and Friday 9/11/98 -12:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Violators will be towed at the owner's expense. The following areas have been designated as loading zones for student move-in days. North Beach Lot (2 West Rows) - Elder Hall Lot/Alley - Patten Gym Lot - Goodrich Drive - Sargent Lot - Foster Walker Lot & Drive - Center Campus Service Drive - 1835 Hinman East Alley - 619 Clark St.(entire lot) - 600/700 Block of University Place - Music Administration Lot - 600/700 Block Emerson St. University Police shall be present at all restricted parking areas to provide traffic control and assistance during move-in.
Alok Choudhary was the Co-Program Chairman of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems held in Chicago, Sept. 2-3, 1998
Jorge Nocedal gave one of the invited talks at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin. An interesting fact is that Northwestern had the largest number of invited talks (5: it tied with the Courant Institute). This is the most prestigious meeting in all of mathematics. Andrew Wiles finally obtained an award for the proof of Fermat's last theorem.
Abraham Haddad will travel to Princeton, NJ on Sept. 11th to participate (as a member of IEEE Awards Board) in an IEEE Foundation/Awards Board Retreat.
MITP Program - A new class of 30 students will attend orientation on Saturday, September 19th . Second year students and alumni have been invited to join and welcome them at a luncheon at the Norris Center. Special guest speaker will be Tim Krauskopf, an alumnus of Northwestern, co-founder of Spyglass, Inc., and a member of the Northwestern University Board of Trustees.
Library Tours will be held at Seeley G. Mudd Library for Science and Engineering starting September 15th and going through September 28th. Please see Flyer on the Department Bulletin Board outside of the Main Office for specific times.
Congratulations are in order to Linda Harries, who has been promoted from the ECE Accounting Clerk position to the ECE Department Assistant. Thanks to Linda our orders were processed and the bills were paid. Soon we will all be thanking her for our paychecks. We all wish her much success in her new capacity.
At the same time, we wish to thank Patti Huiras for all her hard work and dedication to the department. Patti will be joining the Inst. of Policy Research here at Northwestern on Tuesday, 9/8. We all appreciate the efforts Patti put forth to ensure that all the students, faculty, and staff were paid along with ensuring that classes were held at the right time and in the right place. Much success to Patti in her future endeavors.
Triona Guidry has left the department. She has been replaced by Chris Gilmore, whose promotion takes effect 9/8/98.
George Nejmeh joined the staff of the MIT Program on August 31. He comes from Medill where he served as registrar for four years. He will be assisting in all aspects of the management and administration of the program.
Eric Hoffman transferred from the MIT Program in July to accept a position as Program Assistant in the Organizational Behavior Department of Kellogg. It was a promotion for Eric and he reports that he is very busy.
On another note, we also wish to thank Coral Sheridan for working in the ECE department as a temporary helping Dr. Haddad and the department main office with misc. tasks each day. We wish her well in her job search for a permanent position.
Belated Birthday wishes to:
Tim Johnson - August 31
Peter Scheuermann - August 28
Upcoming Birthday wishes:
Ellen Schweri - September 6
Wedding Bells:
Congratulations to Amy Csizmar and Michele Dalal. Amy and Michele were
married on August 8, 1998. Amy is one of our current graduate students and
her husband also was a student here in ECE who graduated with an MS in
1995. Congratulations and Best wishes to you both!