Alum Connections (Winter 2013)
Bo An (Ph.D. '11) was selected to China's 1,000 Young Talents Program. In in June 2012, he joined the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an associate professor. According to the Program's website, this program is for young researchers under age 40 who have obtained a doctorate degree in a world-famous university, and have no less than three years of overseas working experience. "The applicants should be the top-notch talents in their research fields, and have the potential to become future leaders in relevant areas. Special admissions are granted to those who have made distinguished research achievements in their doctorate studies or in other areas." As part of the program, recipients receive a living subsidy and a three year research grant.
Mark D. Smucker (Ph.D. '08), assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, and co-author Charles L.A. Clarke, received the Best Paper Award at the 35th Annual International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR '12) for their paper "Time-Based Calibration of Effectiveness Measures."
In November, Steven Sinofsky (M.S. '89), former president of the Windows division of Microsoft Corporation, left the company after a 23 year career with the company. According to his tweet, he will teach this spring at Harvard Business School as an "Executive in Residence."
The Technical University of Denmark has appointed Joseph Kiniry (MS '95) professor. He is the head of the Software Engineering Section in the Department of Informatics and Mathematical Modeling. His inaugural lecture, "Saving Democracy from Technology," was presented on February 1, 2013.
In Memoriam
We are sad to announce that two of our CS alums passed away recently. Doug Niehaus (Ph.D. '93) died on August 21 at the age of 54. He was an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Kansas.
Gerald (Gerry) Hanam of Framingham, MA died in October at the age of 46. He graduated cum laude with a B.S. in 1991. He leaves his wife, Catherine McCarthy ('88), and their daughter.