 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Charles and Lessie Smithgall Honored at Founder's Day Luncheon  At the annual Ivan Allen College Founder's Day observance on March 15, Charles and Lessie Smithgall received the 2007 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service. Besides giving the anonymous gift that led to the naming of the College for Mayor Allen almost 20 years ago, the Smithgalls also were recognized for their many and various gifts to institutions and organizations throughout Georgia, totaling over $20 million in money and property.
"This is overwhelming," said Lessie Smithgall, who will turn 95 on April 1. "I just can't believe this is happening and I know Charlie would feel the same thing." Charles Smithgall died in 2002. Presenting the awards were Sue V. Rosser, Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. Following the award presentations, Dr. Carol A. Couch, director of the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) within the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, provided the keynote address entitled “The Challenges of Georgia's Changing Landscape”. |
|
GT Receives NSF Grant for InTEL Project  Georgia Tech has received a $899,791 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and test new interactive tools for engineering learning. Entitled InTEL: Interactive Toolkit for Engineering Learning, the project employs computer-based models to connect abstract problems with multiple real world applications. The project then will test this approach to teaching and learning within a foundational engineering course.
Difficulty in model-building can cause a lack of confidence and a diminished sense of individual ability that is particularly problematic when amplified by gender and under represented minority issues. “Our hope it that the interactive toolkit we develop will benefit all students, and it will particularly help to promote diversity in engineering education," said Dean Sue V. Rosser, Ivan Allen College, principal investigator of the new grant. Besides Rosser, the project involves Co-PI's Laurence Jacobs, Professor, Civil Engineering; Janet Murray, Professor, Digital Media Program, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture; and Wendy Newstetter, Director of Learning Sciences Research, School of Biomedical Engineering. |
|
Sam Nunn Security Program Visits Plant McDonough On February 27, 2007, the fellows and faculty of the Sam Nunn Security Program toured the Jack McDonough energy plant in Smyrna as part of a teaching module on energy security that they have been participating in this semester. Because ensuring an adequate energy supply into the future is one of the many problems requiring both scientific advancement and sound policy decisions, it is among the issues explored by the program. Dr. John Endicott, who heads the Nunn Program, explains securing adequate energy supplies for the future has been made all the more difficult of late because of increasing global demand for energy, geopolitical instability in many energy exporting nations, and concerns about the effects of environmental degradation. |
|
| Mock Trial Team Takes First Place at Tallahassee Regionals The School of Public Policy Mock Trial Team, under the guidance of faculty advisor Kate Wasch, Georgia Tech Legal Affairs, took first place at the Tallahassee Regionals, February 23-25. Members of the team, nick-named Joe's Corner Store, include Michael Bleigh, Emily Chambers, Chris Eells, Jennifer Lucas, Mandy Risner, and Kyle Thomason. In addition, Jenny Lucas and Kristina Kaylen, members of a second Georgia Tech team, West End Bar, won Outstanding Attorney and Outstanding Witness awards, respectively. Other participants in the tournament include Emily Chambers, Kennex (Yik-Kan) Chan, Casey Doyle, Chris Eells, Jennifer Lucas, Matt Pavlovich, Mandy Risner, and Kyle Thomason. The championship tournament will take place April 13-15 at Stetson University School of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida. |
|
Best Edits MIT's First Open-Access Journal Information Technologies and International Development (ITID), the first open-access journal to be published by The MIT Press, is being co-edited by Dr. Michael L. Best, Assistant Professor with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Adjunct Assistant Professor with the College of Computing along with Ernest J. Wilson, III,
Professor, Department of Government and Politics and Department of African-American Studies, University of Maryland. ITID covers the intersection of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with international development. The current issue of ITID focuses on entrepreneurs who are exploiting the “grey areas” of technology regulation using wireless technologies and is now available for free online at www.mitpressjournals.org/itid. |
|
INTA Students Win Award  Matt Bufford, Anna Finderup, Clayton Skinner, and Harold Whitaker—all undergraduates in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs—were delegates to the 2007 Model European Union Conference at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, February 9-10. At the Model UN, Skinner was selected to play the Head of Government for the French delegation, and Bufford that of Senior Diplomat. Finderup, on the other hand, played the Head of Government for Denmark, with Whitaker as her Senior Diplomat.
In preparation for their roles, delegates had worked since November to familiarize themselves with EU politics and the positions of their respective countries with their faculty advisor, Katja Weber, Associate Professor, School of International Affairs, and Director of the European Union Center. As a result of their efforts, Skinner and Bufford brought home the award for Best Representation of a Large Country. |
|
Shapira Key Contributor to the Center for Nanotechnology in Society Recent research into the environmental fate of carbon nanotubes has underscored what until now has been a little-discussed aspect of nanotechnology – its potential societal implications. To evaluate those implications and inform the resulting public policy debate, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have joined with colleagues at six other U.S. institutions to form the new Center for Nanotechnology in Society. “Many experts think that nanotechnology is a fundamental and general technology that could have very widespread implications throughout society,” notes Philip Shapira, Professor, School of Public Policy and a key contributor to the center. “Nanotechnology has the capability to not only radically change products and processes, but also to lead to both desirable and undesirable societal outcomes. We had better pay attention not only to research on the applications, but also to the potential social implications.” |
|
Yaszek Discusses Afrofuturism on KPFA's Against the Grain Lisa Yaszek, Associate Professor, School of Literature , Communication (LCC), and Culture, recently spoke on KPFA radio in Berkeley and Fresno, California. Her topic was a storytelling genre called Afrofuturism and how it relates to the work of Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and others. Her remarks were included in Against the Grain, a program that provides in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters-political, economic, social, and cultural-important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. KPFA was founded in 1949, it was the first community supported radio station in the USA. |
|
LCC Present at Game Developers Conference 2007  At the Games Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco, Celia Pearce, Assistant Professor, LCC, announced an emergent game group that will design and present Mermaids, an underwater virtual world designed to let visitors explore rich and vibrant ocean ecology. Previously, Pierce's team has also pioneered a gesture-based interface that enables players to interact with the world and other players in a unique manner.
"In Grand Theft San Andreas , for example, your character must stop every once in a while to eat or he won't have the energy to go shoot things," Bogost said. "There are places to eat a salad, but for the most part, fast food is the meal of choice. What does that tell us about our health choices? What can we do to fix that?" Bogost urges the government to take notice. |
|
Also, in an article in