WPI This Week
Vol. 12, No. 31, May. 7,1998

In this issue:

Best in the Class

Class of 1879 Awards for Outstanding Projects in the Humanities were presented this year to Jeffrey Bayko, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, for "The Road to Jensenism" Janet Brennan, a junior majoring in biotechnology for "A Consideration of Consciousness Explained "; and Daniel Murphy, a senior majoring in chemical engineering, for "The American Dream: Has It Become Unreachable." This year, 50 Humanities Sufficiencies were submitted to the competition. The winners were chosen from among 18 Sufficiencies designated honorable mention.

Mass. Academy Graduation, Friday, May 8

Thirty-three seniors are expected to graduate from the Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science at the 5 p.m. ceremony in Alden Memorial. Massachusetts Gov. Argeo Paul Cellucci will be the graduation speaker. Student speakers will be Ryan Rapp and Kelli White. Senators Matthew Amorello and Robert A. Bernstein are also expected to attend. Director James Hamos invites members of the WPI community to attend graduation and the reception that will follow.

Here is a list of the graduating students and the colleges they will attend:

Amy Adams of Auburn (WPI); Thomas Armstrong of Worcester (University of Massachusetts Amherst); Adam Augusta of Cherry Valley (WPI); Alka Basil of Worcester (WPI); Carl Chan-Aldebol of Worcester (California Institute of Technology); Guang Chen of Westborough (University of Rochester); Tiffiniy Cheng of Worcester (Cooper Union College); Lucas Finn of Westborough (Johns Hopkins University); Naomi Fox of Worcester (Smith College); Amy Gilgis of Boylston (University of Chicago); Jesse Himmelstein of Worcester (Johns Hopkins University); Andrew Hobgood of Uxbridge (University of Michigan); Sean King of Sterling (Cornell University); Chrisann Kwederis of Shrewsbury (Assumption College); Eric Mason of Leicester (Worcester State College); Justin McCarthy of Whitinsville (University of Rochester); Daniel McGinn of Worcester (Carleton College); Jonathan Moussa of Webster (WPI); Angela Muller of Douglas (Boston University); Patrick Murphy of Charlton (Boston University); Bijaya Padhy of Northborough (Carnegie Mellon University); Luke Phelan of Auburn (MIT); Ryan Rapp of Mendon (Cornell University); Angela Richardson of Uxbridge (Columbia University); Issandra Rodriguez of Worcester (Carnegie Mellon University); Daniel Rosenblum of Ashland (Williams College); Adam Ross of Worcester (Harvard University); William Schachterle of Worcester (Brown University); Jason Skonieczny of Worcester (University of Massachusetts Amherst); Ben Wertheimer of Worcester (Brown University); Kelli White of Charlton (Brandeis University); Da Xu of Shrewsbury (Carnegie Mellon University); and Elizabeth Zalman of Marlborough (sabbatical).

Recent Grants

Following is a list of grants received by WPI in recent months. Principal investigators are listed first. Information about these awards is provided by the Office of Research Adminsitration.

SAE Competition

An MQP group of eight undergraduates entered the SAE Collegiate Aero Design (Heavy-Lift) Competition by designing, fabricating, and testing a model aircraft. The aircraft was designed according to SAE limitations; it performed exceptionally well during the competition in Florida in early April. WPI's first team ever to go to the competition placed 16th out of 36 participating schools. Of the 36 entries at the competition, only 23 were able to lift the qualifying 8 lb. load.

The design, and the written, and oral reports received nearly perfect scores. The pilot who remotely flew the aircraft said that it was extremely competitive and lacked any "bad habits." The following students are to be congratulated for a fine effort: Greg Rixon, Justin Urban, Adam Terio, Michelle Milley, Robert Bourque, Lino Brosco, Robert Reguero, and Soledad Champney.

A Change of Address

The Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc. has moved from Fruit Street to new quarters at 484 Main Street, Suite 500 (directly across from city hall). They may be reached at:
(508) 754-6829,
(508) 797-0069 (fax), or
www.cowc.org

New ASMBE Officer

Congratulations to professor and department head Robert Peura of Biomedical Engineering who was recently elected Secretary-Treasurer of the AIMBE (American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers) Academic Council.

Congratulations too, to Professor Konstantin Lurie of the Mathematical Sciences Department, who was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. Lurie will spend February -through May 1999 in Denmark.

Academy Students Tops in State Science Fair

Students at the Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science placed among the top winners at the Massachusetts State Science Fair at MIT on May 1 and 2. Anton V. Yakovlev, took one of the two top awards, the $1,000 Osram Sylvania Award, for his entry "The Production of Palindromes from Operations on Numbers and Their Reversals."

Andrea Martin won $500 for her entry "The Preservation and Behavior of Limulus Amebosyte Granules after Exposure to Ethanol." Yurly Brun won a first place for his entry "Can Statistical Analysis of DNA Provide Insight into Evolutionary Theories?" Michelle Kozlov was awarded second place for "Windprood Matches: Is Magnesium Powder the New Answer?" and Jacob Gagnon won third place with "Properties of the Mendelbrot Set in 2-D and 4-D." Three hundred entries competed at the fair.

Summer Bridge Program

This new program was recently approved. It is for first-year students who finish the academic year short of the required number of courses to maintain satisfactory academic standing. Students who have passed at least two units (6/3) may participate in the Summer Bridge Program. Students who participate in the program will enroll in E Term for two courses and also take a four-week study skills program. If a student passes the courses and successfully completes the study skills program, the student's academic status will be raised one level (probation to warning or warning to satisfactory) and eligibility for financial aid will be restored.

The cost of the study skills program is $240. The program is being offered by Learning Skills, Inc. Students may sign up in the Office of Academic Advising. The program is open to all students enrolled in E Term, and is appropriate for students who want to improve their study skills. It is not limited to those eligible for the Summer Bridge Program.

It is anticipated that the Summer Bridge Program will aid students who have the ability to be successful at WPI, but whose high schools did not equip them with appropriate study skills.

COMAP Winners

Congratulations to the two mathematical sciences student teams and their advisors for their award-winning performance in the 1998 Mathematical Contest in Modeling. This is an international competition sponsored annually by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP). This year, there were 472 teams representing 246 institutions from eight countries. Each team worked from Friday, Feb.6, at 12:01 p.m. until the following Monday at 5 p.m., to research and submit it's best solution to an open-ended modeling problem. This activity has been compared to doing an MQP in three days. In this year's contest, each of the teams received a meritorious rating, which is second only to the top, outstanding rating. The teams, advisors, and project titles are: Michael A. Mazur '98, Jordan E. Massad '98, and Jeffrey D. Spaleta '98: "Interpolative Algorithms for Post-Magnetic Resonance Imaging", advised by Bogdan Vernescu and Nathan L. Gibson '98, Steven T. Lord '99, and Christopher H. Yee '99: "Grade Inflation at ABC College," advised by Arthur Heinricher. Congratulations to all, and special thanks to Art and Bogdan, who have been advising our notably successful COMAP teams since 1993.

Writing Across the Curriculum Conference

Thursday, May 14, 9 a.m. - noon, Salisbury Labs 121: Eighth annual Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, "In Cold Water: Second Language Writers in U.S. Universities," Helen Fox, University of Michigan, cosponsored by WPI, Clark, and Holy Cross writing programs.

The conference will focus on the language and intercultural issues that arise for second language writers and how faculty can help. For more information, contact Humanities Professor John Trimbur at ext. 5436.

Summer Job Openings

Summer positions are now open to dependent children (16 years of age or older) of WPI faculty and staff. If your children are interested in working at WPI this summer, have them call the contact person listed below. The only constraint is that dependent children may not work in the same office as their parent. Following is a list of available positions, departments and contacts:

New Electronic Journals

Several new, full-text titles have been added to the library's Electronic Journals Web pages. Many are freely available only through the end of 1998. Full-text access after that time will require an institutional site license or personal subscription. All of the titles store full text articles in the Portable Document Format and require the Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.

Some titles also offer alternate formats (e.g., HTML, PostScript).

Here are the new titles:

These titles can be accessed from the Electronic Journals pages at http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Ejournals/

If you have any questions, send mail to library-questions or to drichard@wpi.edu.

Envelope Shortage

Office Services has asked everyone to return inter-office envelopes so they may be recycled to other departments.

Stangland Directs Comedies

Robbin Stangland, staff accountant in the Business Office will direct one of three one-act comedies for the Stageloft Repertory Theatre, 930 Main Street, Sturbridge, on May 9, 10, 15 and 16 at 8 p.m., and on May 17 at 2 p.m. Tickets ($12 ) may be reserved through the theater box office at (508) 347-9005. For more information, visit Robbin's Web site at http://www.WPI.EDU/~rstang/chekhov.htm

Ongoing Events

Library Exhibits

"Churches of Worcester," black and white photographs by Seth Popinchalk '98, will be on display in the Gordon Library Gallery until May 12. The photographs are part of Seth's Sufficiency requirement.

New Industrial History Exhibit Opens

The Worcester Historical Museum announces the opening of the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Gallery of Industrial History and the exhibit "In Their Shirt Sleeves," which will be on display from May 27 through May 31. The story of Worcester manufacturing, from the late 18th century to the present, is told with the help of artifacts and images in combination with an introductory video presentation, interactive computer stations, and recorded interviews. The exhibit celebrates the innovators, workers, and investors who have made Worcester a center for the production of an unusually broad range of products.

Families are invited to participate in a weekend of free activities. An open house to view the exhibition will take place on Saturday, May 30. Kids will have the opportunity to try on space suits, view a working model of a 50,000-ton press, ride a Formula I race car, and join in building a model factory. A lunch whistle will announce the lunch shift. The celebration continues with a Community Day on Sunday, May 31. Participants will begin their work day by punching a time clock. The previous day's activities will be supplemented by trolley tours of sites of industrial interest and much more. When "workers" leave they can redeem a paycheck for use in the company store. For more information, call Mary Jane Rein at 753-8278.

Presentations and Publications

Biomedical Engineering

Kohles, Sean S., Seminar: "Elastic and Physicochemical Relationships within Cortical Bone," presented at the Artificial Organs Biomaterials, and Cellular Technology Program of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology at Brown University, Providence, R.I.

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