penn engineering magazine: fall 2009

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P E N N S Y L V A N I A

rethinkingengineering

CONTENT

PENN ENGINEERING NEWSFALL 2009

THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIASCHOOL OF ENGINEERINGAND APPLIED SCIENCE

123 TOWNE BUILDING220 SOUTH 33RD STREETPHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-6391

EMAIL [email protected] 215-898-6564FAX 215-573-2131

www.seas.upenn.edu

EDUARDO D. GLANDTDean

GEORGE W. HAIN IIIExecutive DirectorDevelopment and Alumni Relations

JOAN S. GOCKEDirector, Special Projectsand Communications, Editor

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSAmy BiemillerJennifer Baldino BonettAmy CalhounJessica Stein DiamondPatricia HutchingsOlivia LoskoskiNan MyersAlison PeirceCatherine Von Elm

DESIGNKelsh Wilson Design

PHOTOGRAPHYKelsh Wilson DesignJohn CarlanoHalkin Photography LLCFelice Macera

From the Dean 1

On the Brink of a New Technological Standard 2

Penn Creates First Engineering Program 6to Cultivate Leaders of Networked Economy

George Heilmeier 10

“What Good May I Do?” 12

EMTM’s 20th Anniversary 15

Susan Davidson: Inspiring Leadership 16in Computer Science

Haptics at Penn: A Class of Touch 18

Collaboration, Community, and the 21SIG Center for Computer Graphics

School News 24

Pop Quiz with Michele Grab 28

Penn Engineering

PENN ENGINEERING � 1

Dean Eduardo D. Glandt and friends Cryenco, Voltz and

Shauer 2. These robot sculptures, created by Gordon Bennett,

are made from a collection of objects both old and new.

FROM THE DEAN

Invention is at the soul of engineering; it is a synonym for it. Weare constantly challenged to think anew about how we arrive atinvention, and how we motivate, foster and reward creativity. It isa perennial question for my colleagues and me, a school full ofengineers! The question is particularly relevant these days, as wereaffirm our identity as a profession of people who make thingsand build processes and products, both real and virtual.

How are we doing in creating an atmosphere of innovation thatinspires our students and infects them with a “cultural virus” forinvention? In the following pages you will find a partial butnonetheless compelling answer. The proof is in the deliverables,in the character of our new programs, the content of our newcourses, the research of our faculty, undergraduate, and graduatestudents and even in the design of our facilities. You will learnabout a stunning new lab for computer graphics, a must-takecourse on haptics, ground-breaking research in nanotechnologyand particularly about our new major, the Singh Program inMarket and Social Systems Engineering.

The Singh Program, an elite, novel major conceived as thecenter of an undergraduate and graduate intellectual community,represents a turning point for Penn Engineering. This boldinitiative, made possible through the generosity of OverseerRaj Singh and his wife Neera, will train its graduates for oneof the most dynamic sectors of the economy. Our studentswill be prepared to shape the technologies that underpin websearch, keyword auctions, electronic commerce, social andfinancial networks, and even the still unanticipated marketsand social systems of the years ahead. They will learn networkscience, network mathematics and network economics aswell as algorithmic game theory and will apply them to

recommendation systems, peer-production systems, collectiveintelligence and decision-making, social networks and alsophysical systems such as telecommunications and the powergrid. We all recognize the tremendous currency and intellectualferment in these areas and the profound change in our culturethat these developments are creating day by day.

The past two decades have seen an explosive growth in theapplication of engineering tools and ideas to the world ofbiology and health. Biology has become quantitative, a scienceof information. As soon as molecular biology and biophysicswere understood, engineers ran with them. The Singh Programanticipates that in the times ahead of us, engineers will againfind a whole new world of applications, this time in the socialsciences. Data-based economics, sociology and communicationdeal with collective systems and collective behavior andtherefore feel very natural to an engineer’s mind.

The “gene” for innovation has been passed down fromgeneration to generation. I am proud that this issue also featuresthe pioneering accomplishments of Dr. George Heilmeier,(EE’58): engineer, inventor and technology leader. Although itwas his invention of the liquid crystal display that earnedHeilmeier a place in the Inventors Hall of Fame, his entirecareer is an example for our students and faculty to emulate.

Yes, innovative engineering and engineers are everywhere!

RethinkingEngineering

We are constantly challenged to think anew

about how we arrive at invention, and how

we motivate, foster and reward creativity.

FALL 2009 � 2

The stage is set for a radical transformation of theelectronics industry and Cherie Kagan, AssociateProfessor in Electrical and Systems Engineeringand Materials Science, has a leading role.

While electronics is still concerned with the developmentand application of circuits or systems that manipulatevoltages and electronic currents, Kagan is investigatingthat science on a nano-level, using molecules andnanostructured materials to build devices that promisenew ways to transform electronics, harvest energy,diagnose medical conditions, and detect biological andchemical agents.

“We work with fundamental physical chemistry/materialsand device physics of organic, nanocrystal and nanowiresemiconductors and their hybrids and optimize their per-formance for low-cost, flexible electronics, optoelectronics,solar photovoltaics (PVs) and implantable bioengineereddevices,” she says.

Research in molecular and nanoscale architectures istransformative, says Kagan, who integrates chemistry intothe study of electronic technology. “Many of the ways toprepare those materials, whether they are nanostructuredmaterials or molecular materials, is through chemistry,” shesays. “Manipulating and positioning these materials canalso be achieved through chemical approaches.”

On the brinkof a new

technologicalstandard

BBYY AAMMYY BBIIEEMMIILLLLEERR


Kagan joined the faculty at Penn a little over two years agofrom IBM, where she was manager and researcher with theMolecular Assemblies and Devices group. There she usedchemistry to design materials and molecular assemblies tomake new devices.

“I have always been interested in electronically and opticallyactive materials,” she says, explaining that electronics andchemistry have much in common when it comes to under-standing semiconductors. “When you make semiconductorssmall, they look a lot like molecules. Since they are orbehave like molecules, many of the physical phenomena thatdescribe these systems can also be described in the languageof chemistry.”

Kagan’s research focuses on the electronic function of molecules, and how through chemical manipulation, thosemolecules can be built into devices or used to tailor semiconductor nanocrystals and nanowire devices. She also studies interfacial charge transfer to learn how to integrate molecular systems with other components of anelectronic system.

At IBM, Kagan used her expertise in chemistry to furtherthe advancement of electronics. She was attracted to Penn by the University’s commitment to build in the sciences andengineering, and joined Penn in order to advance that com-mitment. “I transitioned to academia for the opportunity toexplore new directions that my research could take to makea broader impact on other areas of science and technology,

Professor Kagan and Marjan Saboktakin (ESE) work togetherto align the path of the laser used to study electronic, photonicand solar energy materials and devices.

FALL 2009 � 4

and to work with students to achieve that,” she says. “I really enjoy having a research group of postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as teaching in the classroom.”

Trying to switch from corporate life to academia can bechallenging, but certain industry experience brings valueto the classroom. Kagan’s first-hand knowledge of howtechnologies are created and applied to manufacturing is particularly significant for today’s students who are interested in an additional frame of reference as they learnhow to research and how to apply their knowledge to new scientific frontiers.

“Penn students really enjoy not only great teaching, butgreat teaching on topics that have relevance to larger societal problems,” says George J. Pappas, the JosephMoore Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineeringand Deputy Dean for Research at Penn Engineering.“Having a corporate background in the broad areas ofenergy and nanotechnology is a unique asset that Cheriebrings to the classroom.” For as much as her corporate

experience appeals to her students, it’s the classroom interaction that has added a new and welcome dimensionto Kagan’s life and her science. “I like working with students and seeing them recognize that research gives you the opportunity to explore and discover new science and technologies,” she says.

Students like working with Kagan as well, and appreciateher corporate background. “Cherie is very good aboutweaving in different class concepts with industry experi-ence,” says David Kim, a graduate student who doesresearch with Kagan. “I think students enjoy hearing first-hand about the novel and innovative research she hasdone (and is now doing at Penn). She does an excellentjob tying in material from other majors, and her corporatebackground makes her very good at conveying informa-tion to different types of audiences. This makes her a greatlecturer and she is always getting the class involved by asking questions and promoting discussion.”

Kagan’s industry experience also makes her uniquely qualified to manage research projects, where her skills insetting up a lab, defining goals for research and managingscientists are put to good use. Kim, who is currentlystudying the physics of charge-transport in nanostructuredsemiconductors, also appreciates Kagan’s “hands-off ”approach in her mentorship of his research. “She allows us to explore (and fumble around and make mistakes) asmuch as we want, but she’s always there for guidance if we need it. One of the things I value most is that eventhough Cherie is currently more knowledgeable about myresearch project than I am, she still values my input andtreats me as an equal,” he says.

“We work with fundamental physical

chemistry/materials and device physics of organic,

nanocrystal and nanowire semiconductors and

their hybrids and optimize their performance for

low-cost, flexible electronics, optoelectronics,

solar photovoltaics (PVs) and implantable

bioengineered devices,” Kagan says.


Key to Kagan’s success is her disciplined approach to beingopen to inspiration. “I get inspiration when I get a chance tothink: while running, walking, sitting with a piece of paperor in conversations with colleagues and students,” she says.

Collaboration is also an important part of innovation inmaterials science, a discipline that changes all the time.Keeping up with the changes requires personal engagementin the scientific community, a commitment that Kaganembraces. “I continue to learn through the scientific com-munity, my students and colleagues. It is the most excitingopportunity to be able to incorporate and make connectionsin my lectures between fundamentals and currently relevanttopics,” says Kagan.

Kagan’s transition from corporate research to academia hasalso allowed her the opportunity to make a broader impacton other areas of science and technology. Along withAndrew M. Rappe, Professor of Chemistry, she co-directsPenn’s newest research center, the Penn Center for EnergyInnovation. “Pennergy” comprises investigators from theSchool of Engineering and Applied Science, the School ofArts and Sciences, other Penn schools and Drexel University.Here, the focus is research collaboration in innovative technologies and materials aimed at meeting the world’sgrowing energy demand and achieving environmental and economic sustainability.

“This is research that is important to Penn Engineering, the University and world,” says Kagan. “I accepted this rolebecause I want to see Penn’s strengths used to address thescientific and technological challenges in energy research in

order to develop practical and innovative solutions to betteruse current energy sources and to create sustainable energytechnologies.” Currently, world-class researchers at theCenter, with expertise in materials, nanoscale science andengineering, and in biomimetic materials are taking a team approach to investigating solar photovoltaics, solar-to-fuel conversion, thermoelectrics, fuel cells and mechanical studies of the behavior of material subject to real-worldenvironments.

“The energy challenge is much larger than any individualand can only be addressed in collaborative teams,” saysPappas. “In addition to being a leading researcher in herfield, Cherie has tremendous leadership abilities in bringing together people with very different expertise, creating a very collaborative environment. Pennergy is a collaborative effort between schools. It is only through such collaborations that we can address some of the grand challenges in the area of energy.”

The Center also fosters interdisciplinary educational activities across campus, so Penn’s students are empoweredto meet future energy challenges, notes Kagan.

With so much on her plate, and personal energy resourceslimited by her own humanity, Kagan confesses that there is nothing typical about her daily routine and does a lot of multitasking in order to get everything accomplished.“However, my best days are those when I get to talk withmy students.”

“When you make semiconductors small, they

look a lot like molecules. Since they are or

behave like molecules, many of the physical

phenomena that describe these systems can

also be described in the language of chemistry.”

Cherie Kagan, Co-Director, Penn Center for Energy Innovation

Penn Creates FirstEngineering Program to Cultivate Leaders of Networked Economy


Leaders of the networked economy increasingly need technicalexpertise in computers and electrical and systems engineering.But they also need a broader tool kit drawn from disciplines asdiverse as economics, sociology, mathematics, finance, epidemiology and psychology.

“The reality is that people cannot solve engineering problems in a trench because technological and business challenges are intertwined. The networked economy requires collaboration with others,” says Rajendra Singh, who along with his wife/business partner recently donated $8 million to Penn for the creation of the Rajendra and Neera Singh Program in Market and Social Systems Engineering (MKSE). With this gift, PennEngineering becomes home to the first undergraduate engineering program in the world to train students to shape and lead the networked economy.

“Our goal is to inspire a new generation of engineers to think in avisionary way not just about technology, but about the integratedaspects of technology,” says Michael Kearns, MKSE’s foundingFaculty Director. “This program is about the interaction of technology with the incentives of the users who adopt that technology, how companies monetize that usage, and what might subvert that technology. Our graduates will understand the science and technology well enough to create complex networks,and will also be prepared to generate the big ideas that are essential to profitability.”

A succinct description of Penn’s new MKSE program is that it isdesigned for the type of person who would build the next Googleor eBay. However the focus is much larger than Internet advertis-ing markets and electronic commerce. It will prepare graduates tobecome technology and business leaders who will create and

Google, financial exchanges, Facebook, electronic commerce and the power grid are all elements ofthe increasingly networked global economy. Depending on how networks like these are structured,they hold the potential to generate wealth, transform relationships among people, companies andgovernments, and even trigger disaster.

BY JESSICA STEIN DIAMOND

“Our goal is to inspire a new generation of engineers to think

in a visionary way not just about technology, but about the

integrated aspects of technology,” says Michael Kearns,

MKSE’s founding Faculty Director.

Penn Creates FirstEngineering Program to Cultivate Leaders of Networked Economy

FALL 2009 � 8

manage the networks used in virtually every sector of theeconomy. Some graduates may become networked economyinvestors, policy-makers or regulators. Others may work infinancial markets. But they will be prepared to influencethose financial markets specifically as engineers. Comparedto the financial engineering programs at other universities,Penn’s new program has a broader, more technical focus.

“We’re talking more Silicon Valley than Wall Street,” says Ali Jadbabaie, Faculty Co-Director for MKSE. “The focus ison the network aspect, the incentives and how networkstructures and markets interact. We’re giving people tools toshape how the world is connected economically, socially,strategically and technologically.”

Jadbabaie describes the emerging science of Market andSocial Systems Engineering by way of an analogy: “The science of physics evolved from looking at the stars for thousands of years, to looking at data from telescopes anddeveloping from those measurements the theories and calculus of Sir Isaac Newton and so on. We’re at the earlystages of a comparable process with lots of data from theInternet and from social, economic and technological networks. We are working on the underlying principles andthe predictive models for how networks grow and functionwith autonomous and interdependent nodes. Research is now vibrant enough in this field to warrant setting up anundergraduate program to train people who will advance science in these areas.”

Penn’s new MKSE program will welcome its first class ofundergraduates in the fall of 2011 and is expected to appealto Penn Engineering applicants who have a strong math

background and are sophisticated about technology.Admission to the program will be limited to achieve smallclass sizes and to maintain a focus on gifted students.Relevant experience—such as creating an iPhone orFacebook application—would strengthen an applicant’schance of admission.

One of four planned faculty recruits for the program hasbeen hired so far: Andreas Haeberlen joins the Departmentof Computer and Information Science as assistant professorin January of 2010. He completed his Ph.D. at RiceUniversity in 2009 and has since worked on postdoctoralresearch at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany.

An introductory MKSE course, “Networked Life,” taught byKearns, currently attracts 150 students, more than half ofwhom are drawn from outside Penn Engineering. “My owngoal is that a lot of our courses will be more broadly popularwithin the University,” says Kearns who holds dual appoint-ments in the Wharton School and Penn Engineering.

New MKSE courses are currently in development and willbe taught by the program’s new faculty and by faculty inSEAS and other collaborating schools at Penn. Topics willinclude non-traditional markets, the economics of networks,algorithmic game theory and mechanism design, human peerproduction systems, collective intelligence, and technologyand public policy.

“There are two time scales for this new discipline,” saysEduardo Glandt, Penn Engineering Dean. “One for the intellectual foundation which is based in engineering, mathematics, economics and computer science, and the

“We’re giving people toolsto shape how the world isconnected economically,socially, strategically and

technologically.”


other for the faster-moving applications that young people are using every day of their lives.”

Case studies will reflect timely strategic insights used by rapidly changing players in the online networked economy.Current examples would include how Google applied gametheory to create an auction system for paid ads, creating aninfluential new market for advertising; how eBay applied reputation systems to create incentives for vendors to tell thetruth in describing products and to be penalized when theylie; and how to structure networks such as power grids to tryto prevent disasters (such as the sequence of events that led tothe Northeast blackout of 2003) that current engineering theories cannot predict.

While networks connect decentralized, geographically-dispersed people, goods, currencies and ideas, Penn’s strategicadvantage in incubating this new science is the ability togather people in the same room. “We’re building on our identity of being the Ivy League university with the mostnumber of schools on a very compact campus,” says DeanGlandt. “Proximity adds intellectual value. This is our strategicadvantage. Our time has come because now everybody understands that some of the most exciting breakthroughsoccur at intellectual boundaries.”

Recalling the ENIAC computer created at Penn in the 1940sand the University’s subsequent leadership role in ushering inthe then new field of computer science, Glandt adds, “There isprecedent at Penn for realizing something is here to stay andwanting to lay down the academic foundation for it. While wehave been active players in many emerging disciplines since, in my experience I have not seen something this new wherewe so clearly play the leadership role. This intersection of technology with the social sciences is a booming area with awave of creation of innovation and wealth. I would not be surprised if the graduates of this program become some of the most entrepreneurial of our alumni.”

From an Off-the-Grid Childhood to Endowing a New Engineering Discipline

Few people understand the transformational power of education like Rajendra Singh, who along with his wife/business partner recently endowed the formation of the world’s first undergraduate program in Market and SocialSystems Engineering at Penn.

“What education does is give people the tools to work for the betterment of society and to achieve their fullest potential,” says Singh, who grew up in the remote village of Kairoo in northwestern India that at the time had been virtually unchanged for 400 years with no electricity, telephone, running water or newspapers.

Singh’s life trajectory changed when his father became the first person in his village to get a secondary degree and then opened a primary school in their hometown. Singh subsequently earned a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and later, in partnershipwith his wife Neera, became a successful wireless entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist.

“Penn’s new Market and Social Systems Engineering programwill provide engineers with a deeper understanding of thepowerful forces involved in the mass behavior of networks andfinancial markets,” says Singh. “It’s important that studentsbecome better equipped to shape these networked markets as engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders.”

“Fifty to 100 years ago the primary drivers of human miseryand happiness were the political or social systems,” he adds.“Today financial markets and the networked economy have thissame power. That’s why I believe this new program holds thepotential to shape leaders who are prepared to solve problemsof meaning to society.”

Singh is a member of Penn Engineering’s Board of Overseers.His family is the principal owner of Telecom Ventures, L.L.C., a private investment firm specializing in telecommunications and related information technologies. The firm’s publicly-tradedformer subsidiary, LCC International, Inc., is one of the largestwireless telecommunications engineering consulting firms in the world.

Ali Jadbabaie, MKSE Co-Director

FALL 2009 � 10

Famous as the inventor of the liquid crystal display, George

Heilmeier holds 15 patents and has won myriad prizes and

awards. Like the founder of the university where he is an

Overseer, he’s enjoyed a career that defies comparison for

its depth and breadth. Unlike Ben Franklin, Heilmeier cites

his parents’ influence as the key to his accomplishments.

Until he won the Kyoto prize in advanced technology in

2005, even he had not fully reflected on the road that he

has traveled.

“The 50 million yen Kyoto prize, I’m told, is the Japanese NobelPrize—a very big occasion!” he says. “In my acceptance speech, I thought I’d talk about the major themes that might lead to afuture prize. The organizers politely told me that this was notwhat they were looking for. They wanted to know what made me who I am. Writing that speech changed my perspective; itmade me recall things that had deep impact that, at the time, Ididn’t fully understand or appreciate. Frankly, to me, this wasworth more than the prize.”

Heilmeier began his journey in the public schools in the Mayfairsection of Philadelphia. “Ours was a neighborhood of row homesoccupied by families like mine with fathers who worked in thefactories and mothers who raised children at home,” he says. “Myfather worked in the factories until manufacturing moved southand then he worked as a janitor in a nearby high school. Bytoday’s standards, I guess you might say that we were poor, butwe never saw ourselves as being poor.”

Education was a priority since neither parent had completed highschool due to financial constraints. Homework was made into acompetitive game, and every trip was educational. During WorldWar II, when his father was deployed to the Pacific, Heilmeiersays, “We plotted his progress on the maps that we had pinned tomy bedroom walls. This is how I learned geography. Dad was inevery major invasion (except Iwo Jima) from mid-1944 until theend of the war.”

Heilmeier won full tuition scholarships to Penn, Yale and severalother schools. “My family couldn’t afford the expense of roomand board, so I lived at home and attended Penn,” he recalls. Heloved sports and wanted to be a physical education major, butsince Penn didn’t offer that, he selected engineering. “It offered

challenging work, job security and a good salary, and these wereimportant factors given the environment in which I lived and theexperiences of my blue-collar family. Dad said that in every placehe ever worked, engineers wore clean clothes and made lots ofmoney. That did it!”

Heilmeier’s Kyoto prize achievement was ultimately rooted atPenn, where he earned his B.S. in electrical engineering. He continued his studies at Princeton where he earned his M.S.E.,M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in solid state materials and electronics.There he began to solidify his first principles approach to problem solving. Upon graduation he went to RCA Laboratories,where he began his groundbreaking work in liquid crystal displays (LCD). In 1970, disillusioned with the slow pace of commercialization of LCD technology, Heilmeier left RCA tobecome a White House Fellow, beginning a fascinating career in government service.

After his term as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant tothe Secretary of Defense, Heilmeier became Director of theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where heapplied his no-nonsense approach to funding decisions. Hedemanded that proposers articulate their objectives, justify theirapproach in light of current practices, identify timelines andcosts, and explain the impact of success and the importance ofthe proposed solution. These practical objectives, known to manyas “Heilmeier’s catechism,” revolutionized DARPA. “I saw someexcellent proposals and some pretty bad proposals, but with eachrejection I explained what was missing and, on a few occasions,how much funding they would have received had they answeredmy questions,” Heilmeier chuckles. “We started to see better proposals very quickly!” During his tenure, DARPA initiated revolutionary projects in stealth aircraft, space-based lasers andreconnaissance systems, infrared technology, anti-submarine warfare and applications of artificial intelligence. Among the 35-plus major awards he has received are the National Medal ofSciences, the Japanese C&C award, the IEEE Medal of Honor,the National Academy of Engineering Founders Award, thePioneer of Stealth award, election to the National Inventors andthe Consumer Electronics Halls of Fame and two honorary

BY AMY CALHOUN

George Heilmeier


doctorates. Heilmeier was twice awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the highest honorgiven by the department, and one that is rarely given twice.

These days, Heilmeier admits that he has “failed at retirement.Science and technology are my hobby and who can retire fromtheir hobby?” He currently serves on the Board of Overseers ofthe School of Engineering and Applied Science at Penn, andholds positions on the boards of directors of Compaq ComputerCorp., Fidelity Funds, Mitre Corp., ADP as well as the DefenseScience Board, the National Security Agency Advisory Board andthe General Motors Science and Technology Board. He is alsoChairman Emeritus of Telcordia Technologies, formerly Bellcore,and he has also served as Senior VP and CTO of TexasInstruments for 10 years.

The journey from Mayfair to the board room has been an excit-ing one. Through it all, Heilmeier has never forgotten his roots. Aboy of humble means finds opportunity through hard work anddedication, and grows up to become a prolific inventor, a leaderof industry and an advisor to Presidents. Benjamin Franklinwould be proud.

Awards/ Heilmeier has won numerous awards including

the National Medal of Science, three major IEEE awards,

including the David Sarnoff Award, the Founders Award, and the

Philips Award. He was awarded the National Medal of Science

by President George H. W. Bush for contributions to national

security and competitiveness. For his pioneering work on liquid

crystal displays he received the National Academy of Engineering

Founders Award, Eta Kappa Nu’s Vladimir Karapetoff Eminent

Members’ Award, as well as the Industrial Research Institute

Medal. Named the first Technology Leader of the Year by

Industry Week magazine, Heilmeier was also honored with the

John Scott Award and the IEEE Medal of Honor, its highest

honor, for his work on LCDs, followed by the John Fritz Award

and the Pioneer of Stealth Award for “Visionary Leadership and

Trailblazing Contributions of Enduring National Significance in the

Development of Low Observable Aircraft.” In 2005, Heilmeier

was awarded the Kyoto Prize in advanced technology, Japan’s

equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Most recently, Heilmeier was

inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

George Heilmeier

FALL 2009 � 12

The future dean of Penn Engineering grew up in SouthPhiladelphia, where roots (and stickball rivalries) run deep,and where a college education was still a novel aspiration in the 1940s. The winner of a General Electric prize for academic achievement at Bartram High School in 1951, theyoung Joe Bordogna then used his Naval ROTC scholarshipto learn the useful and the ornamental about engineering at Benjamin Franklin’s university.

After serving in the U.S. Navy on the Battleship New Jerseyand two destroyer escorts, the newly-minted electrical engineer won a Whitney Fellowship to MIT, but first worked at electronics innovator RCA for a year to refine his interests. In 1960, with his MIT master’s in electrical engineering, he returned to RCA before earning his doctorateat Penn Engineering. Here, the Philadelphia story of JosephBordogna becomes classically Franklinian.

Bordogna has devoted his 47-year Penn career to expandingon the work of Franklin the scientist/engineer and Franklinthe educator. As professor and dean, Bordogna launched innovative academic initiatives including dual-degree programs in management and technology and in computerand cognitive science, and an alternative liberal arts degree inan engineering school. “I was taken with Joe’s vision of howgreat the university could be—how the arts and sciences,business, engineering, nursing and medicine, indeed all ofPenn’s schools and colleges, could work together to make adifference,” says longtime friend and colleague Ira Harkavy, (B.A.’70, Ph.D.’79), associate vice president and founding director of Penn’s Barbara and Edward Netter Center forCommunity Partnerships. “Joe has an extraordinary commitment to Franklin’s approach of ‘What good may I do?’He exemplifies what Franklin said an educator should be—scholar, teacher, citizen.”

DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

PROFESSOR JOSEPH BORDOGNA TRANSFORMS

“USEFUL KNOWLEDGE” INTO PUBLIC BENEFIT.

“Whatgoodmay I do?”

BY JENNIFER BALDINO BONETT


Throughout his career, Bordogna has worked to includeunderrepresented populations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. He is devoted toimproving K-12 education in these areas, generating theBordogna mantra: “We cannot afford to lose one brain.” In1973, he co-founded PRIME, the Philadelphia RegionalIntroduction for Minorities to Engineering, and has served on the boards of Philadelphia-based organizations dedicatedto accessible education for all. Last year, Ben FranklinTechnology Partners, which Bordogna co-developed in 1983to stimulate entrepreneurial potential in Pennsylvania, earnedrecognition from the U.S. Department of Commerce as themost outstanding technology-led economic developmentorganization in the country.

Garrett E. Reisman, (B.S.’91, M&T), studied engineering with Bordogna and skyrocketed from Penn Engineering toNASA under his professor’s mentorship. A rain-soaked, white-knuckled finish to Penn Engineering’s first solar carrace forced Bordogna and his students, including Reisman, to cluster under the solar car’s single remaining wing, and

demonstrated the intensity of the professor’s devotion. Inreturn, Reisman reserved a front row seat for Bordogna at thelaunch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which sent Reismaninto orbit for three months in 2008, carrying with him a Pennpennant and an original knob from ENIAC.

Reisman appreciates the concern his “incredible teacher” hasfor education and for the nation’s progress in science andtechnology. He says, “Dr. Bordogna has a deep-seated desire to do everything he can to make our country succeed.”

In 1991, under President George H.W. Bush, Bordogna wasappointed head of the National Science Foundation’sEngineering Directorate, followed by appointment as deputydirector and COO of NSF by President Bill Clinton.Bordogna oversaw NSF’s $5 billion budget and programs supporting the nation’s strategic direction in research, technology and education.

The National Science Board (which sets NSF policy) recog-nized Bordogna as “a creative force in setting new directionsfor the Foundation,” shepherding the NSF to “new heights of

FALL 2009 � 14

“Round, Flat, or Spiky—The World Turns on an Axis: The ‘This’ in ‘We Can Do This.’”During President Obama’s inaugural week, Joseph Bordogna gave the keynote address marking the 50thanniversary of the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. The awards arethe highest recognition in the U.S. for K-12 teachers in math and science. This is an excerpt from that speech.

We need to re-think the concept of education for a world transformed by revolutions in knowledge, technologies, economies, life expectancies, environments, and families. No matter our training and position, we must be ‘learners’ as well as ‘learned.’ In many ways, our children and grandchildren will be our educators.We have no shortage of ideas and we possess inexhaustible drive. The more we learn about the exquisite balance of the Earth’s natural and human-made systems, the more we discover about human interaction andlearning, the more we comprehend how institutions work, the more we will be able to navigate these complexities, embrace technology appropriately, and see new possibilities to create positive outcomes. . . .

Talent runs deep in America, in broad streams of intellect, perspective, and culture. We possess tantalizing potential, but we have not yet learned how to help all individuals realize their promise: We have not been totallyinclusive. When we understand that diversity and inclusivity are the lifeblood of progress and prosperity, itbecomes the nation’s responsibility—and that includes all of us. Every sector and every citizen has something to offer. We will realize our goals sooner if we all work together in harmony.

It is the varied, richly textured and shaded fabric of diversity and inclusivity—not any single thread—that providesdurability and strength to our science and engineering enterprise—and thus to our nation. Diversity—once givenscope and opportunity—has the potential to shape, to transform, and to drive our future for the better.

Bordogna Plateau, Antarctica / 83˚ 18’S 165˚ 19’E The Bordogna Plateau is named in honor of Dr. Joseph Bordogna, who served the National Science Foundation and the nation as head of the Engineering Directorate (1991-96), NSF Acting Deputy Director (1996-99)and NSF Deputy Director (1999-2005).

scientific achievement, workforce diversity, and educationalaccomplishments.” He has the distinction of an eponymousplateau in Antarctica (the Bordogna Plateau) in recognitionof his NSF Antarctic activities. In 1998, Bordogna served asworldwide president of the Institute of Electrical andElectronics Engineers, which awarded him the James H.Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal in 2008. He returned to Pennin 2005 as Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Engineering.

Bordogna’s Philadelphia story is best viewed through the windows and perspectives that Penn opened to him, saysHarkavy, who has known Bordogna for nearly 40 years. “The Franklinian heritage, Franklin’s core ideas and coreapproaches—the integration of theory and practice to help improve the world—have influenced Joe,” Harkavy says. “Franklin founded Penn with the intention to educateyoung people to serve morally, to prepare the individual tocontribute to society—and these are the principles that Joetakes everywhere.”

Penn’s Executive Master’s inTechnology Management Program

Celebrates Significant Milestone


There is a buzz on campus, marking the 20th anniversary of theExecutive Master’s in Technology Management Program. Based inPenn Engineering and co-sponsored by The Wharton School,EMTM was the brainchild of Penn Engineering faculty membersJoseph Bordogna and Louis Girifalco, who recognized that executives needed to understand not only the business drivers oftheir organizations, but the role technology plays in their individ-ual sectors, and how to capitalize on emerging technologies forcompetitive advantage. The Penn faculty collaborated with localcompanies to develop a program that would specifically addressand integrate the disciplines of business and technology.

As a matter of course, the early EMTM curriculum looked verydifferent than it does today. “It had about four times more material than we ultimately ended up with. We were wildly optimistic at first, but became more realistic about the amount of information students could absorb,” says Dwight Jaggard, theoriginal and current Academic Director for EMTM. Classesincluded two mathematics courses, statistics, systems engineering,marketing, management, economics and, reflecting the studentbody, a technology elective in telecommunications. Team projectswere required in some classes, but teamwork was not a criticalcomponent of the program.

Over the past 20 years, the curriculum, which requires a set often core management courses, has expanded the set of electives to embrace multiple technologies. EMTM students can now takeelectives in materials science, bio and pharma, and energy and the environment. As Judith Zosh, (EMTM’03), Vice President, ITRisk Management, JPMorgan Chase & Co., recalls, “The entireEMTM experience was a mind-stretch. It turned on my creativityby giving me a 20-year view of where technology is going.”

Over time, the program has added students from a broader arrayof backgrounds and geographic areas, increased electives, andincluded a leadership component and a focus on global businessissues. There are strong currents of entrepreneurship and innovation that run through the program as well.

The series of 20th anniversary events have been well-received by EMTM’s current students and more than 800 alumni. FutureSpace: The Intersection Between Technology and Social Science has

been the focus of each of the events. In May 2009, attendeesenjoyed a variety of activities, including a panel of experts onsocial networking tools, a speed-networking exercise to promoteinteraction among the entire EMTM community and a presentation by Guy Kawasaki on innovation.

In October, Michael Kearns, Penn professor of Computer andInformation Science spoke on “Strategic Behavior in SocialNetworks,” addressing the diffusion of information and processesinvolving strategic and economic behavior. Kearns illustrated his main points using some participatory “experiments” duringthe lecture.

The final celebration will take place May 21, 2010. The keynotespeaker, Dr. Clayton M. Christensen, the Robert and Jane CizikProfessor of Business Administration at the Harvard BusinessSchool, will focus on the impact of disruptive innovation.

Keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki, managing director of GarageTechnology Ventures, discusses social networking tools at an EMTM anniversary event on May 22, 2009.

BY ALISON PEIRCE

EMTM

’s 20th A

nn

iversary

FALL 2009 � 16

Susan DavidsonInspiring Leadership in Computer Science

BY NAN MYERS

Susan Davidson comes to Computer and InformationScience (CIS) honestly. She is in it, she muses, becauseher father was an applied mathematician. “Computer science has a very mathematical basis…and a sense ofrelevance,” she says. “Today, with the growth of interdisci-plinary research, it has become crucial to many fields.”When she began at Penn in 1982 as an assistant professor freshfrom obtaining a doctorate in Computer Science from Princeton,Davidson says she found it to be an exhilarating and specialplace. “You had the sense that you were at the beginning of a new discipline.”

The department is still evolving and the changes are huge, she says. When she began, the computing environment had just moved from punch cards and punch card readers to CRTmonitors connected to large VAX machines. Now, her computing environment fits in her briefcase.

Like the department, Davidson has also progressed. She rose to professor in 1998. In 2004, she became the inaugural George A. Weiss Professor and was named Fulbright Scholar. She becamethe Penn Engineering Deputy Dean in 2005, a position she helduntil 2008 when she took on the mantle of department chair.

A key area this year is the Market and Social Systems Engineering(MKSE) program—at the intersection of computer science, engineering and the social sciences—to be led by Michael Kearns(CIS) and Ali Jadbabaie (Electrical and Systems Engineering).“Just as computation and high-throughput technologies haveenabled a new way of doing biological experiments like genomicsand computational biology, computation and the World WideWeb have enabled a new way of doing sociological experiments.The program will not merely juxtapose technology and business;it will synthesize disparate ways of thinking about how the tech-nological world is changing and changing us,” Davidson explains.

Joining them will be Andreas Haeberlen, who comes to thedepartment from Rice University. “Sociological and economicresearchers in this area rely on advanced computational platformsand technologies currently available at places like Yahoo! Research or Google, which are being designed and created by distributed systems researchers like Andreas. He has taken thesocio-economic notion of accountability to counter intractablefailure modes and govern good behavior in computer systems,” Davidson says.

A precursor to the MKSE program remains popular. The courseCIS 112 Networked Life, looks at how our world is connected—socially, economically, strategically and technologically—and whyit matters. It addresses numerous issues including how Googlefinds what you are searching for, how Google makes money, andwhat we mean by the “economics of spam.”

This fall, the department also embarked on a new master’s program in Embedded Systems, an outgrowth of the new PennResearch for Embedded Computer and Integrated Systems (PRECISE) Center led by Professor Insup Lee. The programintroduces students to the scientific foundations of cyber-physicalsystems (CPSs) and integrates the theories of computing andcommunication systems, sensing and control of physical systems,and the interaction between humans and CPSs.

Associated with this new program, a new course, CIS 540Principles of Embedded Computation, is being offered. ProfessorRajeev Alur teaches students the principles underlying design and analysis of computational elements that interact with thephysical environment.

Moving ahead, Davidson foresees a time when CIS has a strong focus on how to prevent people from using computersmalevolently. “There is motivation for controlling how computers are being used,” she says, “as well as how youaccess them. The desire for a kind of control is influencedby what we do in regulating markets and what peopledo to regulate good behavior in society.”

FALL 2009 � 18

nside the Towne Building’s Haptics Lab, members ofTeam Kuchenbecker are bent over their work stations,completely absorbed in individual projects. A question is raised from one of the benches and soon the dynamicchanges: a diverse and interesting mix of doctoral,

master’s, undergraduate, and high school students gatheraround a central work table to collectively figure out ananswer. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, Skirkanich AssistantProfessor of Innovation in the Department of MechanicalEngineering and Applied Mechanics, would be pleased; shehas cultivated and encouraged this kind of collaboration and interaction among her student researchers.

She knows a little about team spirit. At Stanford, where shereceived all three of her engineering degrees, Kuchenbeckerwas a scholar-athlete and a member of the NCAA Division IChampionship volleyball team two years in a row. Her athletic sensibilities inform the cooperative work ethic in the lab, from the high energy that pervades the space to the lively and up-to-the-minute Haptics Group website(http://haptics.grasp.upenn.edu) that keeps members elec-tronically connected with news on conferences, publicationsand activities. Students often show up to work in their redPenn Haptics t-shirts, originally designed for members of the group to wear at the IEEE World Haptics Conferencelast March. The t-shirts may have been a hit at the confer-ence, but so was the group’s research. Kuchenbecker and her student, Will McMahan, won the “Best Hands-OnDemonstration” award for Will’s project on highly realistichaptic rendering, which they call “haptography.”

Haptics, as defined by Kuchenbecker, is “the science ofunderstanding and improving human interactions with thephysical world through the sense of touch.” As part of theGeneral Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception(GRASP) Lab at Penn, her research group investigates haptic interfaces, electro-mechanical systems that allow theuser to feel and control a real or virtual environment via acomputer. And along with MEAM 147, Introduction toMechanics Lab, Kuchenbecker teaches MEAM 625, HapticInterfaces for Virtual Environments and Teleoperation, at the graduate level.

Her Ph.D. work with Dr. Günter Niemeyer at Stanford’sTelerobotics Lab focused on techniques to improve haptic feedback (the feeling of a surface through robotictechnology) in virtual and remote interactions. And now, Kuchenbecker is keenly interested in the possibilities of haptic feedback during robotic surgeries. Currently,robot-assisted operations are essentially based on visualinformation; the surgeon performs tasks remotely with theaid of endoscopic 3-D imaging but cannot feel the tissuesand structures that the robot is touching. Kuchenbecker,who in the spring received a prestigious National ScienceFoundation CAREER Award, envisions a “super-human”robotic surgeon with not only unfailingly steady hands and visual acuity, but also tactile virtuosity.

Jamie Gewirtz is on the case. A second-year student in thethree-year-old master’s program in Robotics administered by the GRASP Lab, his work is aligned with Kuchenbecker’svision. Gewirtz’s background is in science—he majored inbiology at Kenyon College and worked as a lab assistant in

I

BY PATTI HUTCHINGS

A CLASS OF HAPTICS AT PENN:


hematology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia(CHOP) after graduation. At CHOP, when he voluntarilybecame involved in a side project to improve the efficiencyof a lab instrument, it became clear to him why everyonehad always commented that he should become an engineer.When he heard about the “Robo Master’s” program, Gewirtz applied. It seemed the perfect curriculum throughwhich to meld his biomedical experience with his innatetechnical talents.

Accepted, he began his coursework in the spring of 2008,with Kuchenbecker as his advisor. She describes him as a“natural tinkerer” with a strong inclination to help people

perform more effectively. Gewirtz has been investigatingways in which to introduce haptic feedback into the delicateprocedures of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgical(RMIS) systems. His current haptics/robotics research relatesto the da Vinci Surgical System, a commercial productdesigned by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. This work was recentlychosen as one of five semester-long projects in Gewirtz’sEAS 546 Engineering Entrepreneurship class, which willallow him and three other students to investigate the business potential of this project.

The da Vinci system is said to have a “master-slave” relation-ship, denoting that the surgeon controls the robotic devicefrom a console. Along with the console, the system includesa patient-side cart with four interactive robotic arms—threefor instruments and the fourth to hold an endoscopic cam-era. There are about 1,300 such systems in the world, six atthe hospitals affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.

Kuchenbecker’s close ties with Penn Medicine facilitatedGewirtz’s hands-on experience with one of the da Vincirobots last summer. Along with several other members ofthe lab, he was instructed on how the robot works and took a turn at the controls. The Haptics Group’s host was

Dr. David I. Lee, Chief of the Division of Urology at PennPresbyterian Medical Center and Assistant Professor ofSurgery. Lee is one of the most experienced physicians in the world with robotic prostatectomy—minimally invasiveremoval of the prostate with the use of a da Vinci robot. Heis excited by the possibilities of being able to gather tactileinformation during surgery and improving the already good outcomes of robotic operations.

Gewirtz’s research is one of several sophisticated research projects being undertaken in the Haptics Lab. Other current

TOUC H

A QUESTION IS RAISED FROM ONE OF THE BENCHES AND SOON THE DYNAMIC CHANGES: A

DIVERSE AND INTERESTING MIX OF DOCTORAL, MASTER’S, UNDERGRADUATE, AND HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS GATHER AROUND A CENTRAL WORK TABLE TO COLLECTIVELY FIGURE OUT AN ANSWER.

A CLASS OF

FALL 2009 � 20

projects include Tactile Feedback for Stroke Rehabilitation,Haptography (haptic photography), the SlipGlove, and the iTorqU, which Gewirtz also worked on. Kuchenbeckerdescribes the iTorqU as “an ungrounded haptic interfacedesigned to exert controlled torques on the user’s handthrough use of the gyroscopic effect.” Possible future applications of this technology include immersive gaming,upper-limb rehabilitation, and remote control of aerial vehicles.

Students in Kuchenbecker’s MEAM 625 class also turn out some exceptional work. At last spring’s “Haptics Open

House,” they welcomed visitors to learn sign language withthe assistance of a glove that guides finger motions; track adesired arm trajectory guided only by skin stretch feedbackon one’s wrist; and control a virtual human arm exoskeletonwith only one’s thoughts, among other demonstrations. TheHaptics Open House was attended by over 200 individualsfrom Penn’s community and surroundings, and it seemed to be enjoyed by all. It exemplified, in fact, the spirit ofKuchenbecker’s classes and haptics research at Penn in general—students and researchers at the top of their game,performing at their innovative best and having a great time doing it.

HAPTICS, AS DEFINED BY KUCHENBECKER, IS “THE SCIENCE OF UNDERSTANDING AND IMPROVING HUMAN

INTERACTIONS WITH THE PHYSICAL WORLD THROUGH THE SENSE OF TOUCH.”


BY CATHERINE VON ELM

Collaboration, Community, and the SIG Center for Computer GraphicsPenn’s program in Computer Graphics (CG@Penn) relies asmuch on the principles of collaboration and community as itdoes on technology and research in developing simulations ofhuman movement and 3-D virtual environments for use ineducation, training, and the motion picture and video gameindustries. A major gift from the Susquehanna InternationalGroup (SIG) enabled the transformation of ENIAC’s birth-place on the first floor of the Moore Building into an optimalresearch environment for the CG@Penn community, which isanchored by Norm Badler, Professor of Computer andInformation Science, and Director of the Center for HumanModeling and Simulation (HMS), and his colleagues: AllaSafonova, Assistant Professor of Computer and InformationScience; Stephen Lane, Director of the master’s program inComputer Graphics and Game Technology (CGGT); AmyCalhoun, Associate Director of the Digital Media Design

(DMD) undergraduate program; and Joe Kider, SIG CenterAssociate Director.

Tripp Becket (ENG’89, GEN’90, GR’97), Associate Director atSIG, and one of Badler’s Ph.D. advisees, was instrumental informalizing the relationship between SIG and SEAS. As Becket explains, “It’s natural for SIG and Penn to partner. Pennstudents have been drawn to the area by the University’s outstanding academic opportunities, and we want them to stayin the Philadelphia area after graduation, which means thatthere have to be opportunities where they can apply their skillsin a competitive and collaborative environment.” Based in BalaCynwyd, SIG is one of the world’s largest privately-held financial institutions, providing trading and market-makingservices, institutional sales, research, private equity, venture capital, and investment banking. “Since our founding in 1987,”says Diane Chi (GEN’96, GR’99), Associate Director at SIG,

FALL 2009 � 22

and a Badler Ph.D. advisee, “we have continually looked to Penn as a source of talent. We hope our sponsorship of the Center increases student awareness of SIG and the opportunities we have for them after graduation.”

From the virtual companion wall that illuminates LED lightsto accompany visitors as they approach the entrance, to theblackout shades that ensure functionality of the cutting-edgeequipment inside, no detail of the SIG Center’s design andconstruction has been overlooked. Badler and his colleagues,especially former SIG Center Associate Director Jan Allbeck,(Ph.D. CIS’09), worked closely with Boston-based Kennedyand Violich Architecture and contractors Murphy, QuigleyCompany, to maximize technical and interpersonal functionality of the space, which opened in January of 2009.

The H. Stone Animation Studio is an 800-square-foot spaceanchoring the south side of the SIG Center. The largestmotion capture facility in the region, the studio is outfittedwith the same equipment used by Disney, Dreamworks, andIndustrial Light and Magic. A ring of a dozen infrared cameras suspended above the studio capture the location of

reflective markers strategically placed on a person whosemotions will be mapped to a 3-D character in a virtual environment. Ground reaction force sensors also collect data,enhancing researchers’ analysis of the dynamics of motion. “We call this a data acquisition facility,” says Safonova, “wherewe can acquire many different data, which can be synchro-nized, and used for a variety of applications.” Just how to integrate multiple streams of dynamic data is a challenge to be met as the studio grows. “We plan to add more sensors, sothat we can capture data about eye movement, heart rate, andrespiration rate, and it will all be synchronized,” says Badler,alluding to what he identifies as the studio’s potential as “alarge-scale, wireless, biosensing lab” for both human motionand medical research.

Undergraduate and graduate workspaces form the perimeter of the studio’s large, open floor plan, which lends itself to collaborations and borrowing of expertise across the lab. “Weendeavored to create a collaborative space here. We’ve put upas few barriers as possible, and we’ve been very fortunate, andvery pleased that a sense of community exists here.” Even the

décor enhances that feeling. Posters lining the walls of theRaghavendran Computational Laboratory represent videogames and movies, including Wall-E, The Incredibles, andPirates of the Caribbean, on which CG alumni have worked; a Ph.D. family tree in the Dawn and Tripp Becket ConferenceRoom helps Badler keep track of the advisees he’s had sincecoming to Penn in 1975, and will soon be branching out toinclude Safonova’s students; and the “collaborative zone,” asBadler calls it, equipped with a kitchenette, chairs, and modular tables, blends socializing with project work.

“We believe strongly in heterogeneous collaborative groups,”Badler explains. Typically, project teams will include a facultymember, Ph.D., master’s, and undergraduate students, andpossibly visiting scholars. “The faculty gently but firmly pushstudents out of their comfort zones,” says Badler. In this way,programmers gain experience as 3-D modelers, and animatorsdevelop skills in writing code. According to Lane, “CG students have to be analytical, know math well, and be proficient programmers. But there has to be a bridge to thecreative side. They have to have strong left-brain/right-brainskills in order to excel in computer graphics.”

CG@Penn teams work to create virtual environments to beused as test beds for simulations of real world, dynamic phenomena. “Ultimately,” says Calhoun, “what we’re doing in the SIG Center is solving real-world problems using cut-ting-edge equipment and software.” In addition to developingsimulations which will help identify efficient evacuationroutes from confined spaces such as coal mines and officebuildings, CG@Penn teams collaborate with art historians,anthropologists, and archaeologists to model historical sites

which may have decayed or been destroyed over centuries,and animate dynamic visual effects in order to provideauthentic depictions which would be expensive or impossibleto re-create in reality. An example of this work is a virtualtour of part of the 8th to 10th century Great Mosque ofCórdoba, complete with authentic lighting. Taking photo-graphs, videos, and measurements by hand, a team captureddetailed data about the light cast by re-creations of theMosque’s glass lamps, then wrote programs that simulatedthose illuminations in a 3-D virtual model of the Mosque.The result, a spectacular vision of the Mosque’s interior as it was lit over a thousand years ago, has become an interdisciplinary teaching tool at Penn.

Equipped with state-of-the-art technology that allowsresearchers to analyze and transform complex streams of data into dynamic virtual models, and a layout designed to promote collaboration, the SIG Center is an ideal home for the CG@Penn community.

Applying its unique blend of creativity and technical expertisein modeling human movement and building virtual worlds,that community is extending across disciplinary boundaries,fostering new collaborations, and engaging ever wideningaudiences in the process.


From the virtual companion wall that illuminates

LED lights to accompany visitors as they

approach the entrance, to the blackout shades

that ensure functionality of the cutting-edge

equipment inside, no detail of the SIG Center’s

design and construction has been overlooked.

FALL 2009 � 24

NEWSSchool

Inaugural Lecture for Singh Program inMarket and Social Systems EngineeringDuncan Watts, Principal Research Scientist for Yahoo! Research,presented the Inaugural Lecture for Penn Engineering’s newestprogram, the Rajendra and Neera Singh Program in Market andSocial Systems Engineering. The lecture and the program’s dedication took place on Thursday, October 15, in Levine Hall.

The lecture, “Using the Web to Do Social Science,” detailedways in which new and emerging data surrounding collectiveonline behaviors can be used to study social phenomena. In histalk, Watts described how social science is often concerned with the emergence of collective behavior out of the interactionsof large numbers of individuals, but that in this regard, it haslong suffered from a severe measurement problem—namely that interactions between people are hard to observe, especiallyat scale, over time, and at the same time as observing behavior. In his talk, he argued that the technological revolution of theInternet is beginning to lift this constraint. Although Internet-based research still faces serious methodological and proceduralobstacles, Watts proposed that the ability to study truly “social”dynamics at individual-level resolution will have dramatic consequences for social science.

Duncan Watts directs the Human Social Dynamics group atYahoo! Research. He is also an adjunct senior research fellow atthe Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy atColumbia University, an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute, and an associate member of Nuffield College,Oxford. His research interests include the structure and evolution of social networks, the origins and dynamics of socialinfluence, and the nature of distributed “social” search. He is the author of Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age andSmall Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order andRandomness. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University ofNew South Wales, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical and AppliedMechanics from Cornell University.

Made possible by an $8 million gift from the entrepreneurs for whom the program is named, the Rajendra and Neera SinghProgram in Market and Social Systems Engineering will be the first-of-its-kind program of study to fully integrate the

disciplines needed in this emerging science. The intellectual coreof the program will encompass network science, algorithmicgame theory and other disciplines relevant to engineers and scientists as they consider human incentives and behavior indeveloping modern technological systems.

Following the lecture, Penn President Amy Gutmann presided over the dedication of the program, and in her remarksdiscussed the significance of the Singh program which combinesengineering, computer technology, economics and finance.President Gutmann thanked the Singhs for funding this ambitious and exciting educational program and presented Dr. and Mrs. Singh with the citation that read, “The School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University ofPennsylvania celebrates the inauguration of the Raj and NeeraSingh Program in Market and Social Systems Engineering andhonors Raj and Neera Singh: Loyal Penn parents, academicvisionaries, generous philanthropists.”


New Faculty

Daniel Gianola, Skirkanich Assistant Professor

in Materials Science and Engineering

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering,

Johns Hopkins University

Post-Doc as Humboldt Fellow,

Karlsruhe, Germany

Dr. Gianola works on the prediction of

mechanical response of advanced materials at

reduced length scales. His experimental studies

use new methodologies for the quantitative

mechanical testing of materials at the nanoscale

and state-of-the-art electron microscopy

techniques to observe the processes that

govern their behavior.

Gianola's group aims to answer fundamentally

inspired and technologically relevant questions

about how advanced engineering materials

undergo deformation. The insight gained

from this work will enable the design and use

of next-generation computers, micro- and

nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS),

nanotechnological devices for medical, elec-

tronic, and sensing applications, and energy

generation and storage devices. Equipped with

knowledge about mechanisms for deformation

in advanced materials, his group strives to engi-

neer and tailor properties for functional use.

Honors and AwardsJason Burdick, the Wilf Family Term Assistant

Professor of Bioengineering, was selected as

one of 100 of the nation’s brightest young engi-

neers to participate in the National Academy of

Engineering’s (NAE) annual U.S. Frontiers of

Engineering Symposium earlier this summer.

Robert Carpick, Associate Professor of

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

and Penn Director, Nanotechnology Institute,

has been awarded the ASME 2009 Burt L.

Newkirk Award for significant contributions to

the understanding of the tribological properties

of ultrastrong carbon-based films through inno-

vative experimental research that has revealed

the dissipation and wear mechanisms of such

films at the nanoscopic and atomic levels.

Paul Ducheyne, Professor of Bioengineering,

and his team at the University of Pennsylvania

were awarded $100,000 from the University

City Science Center’s QED Program, a $100,000

match from the University, and business advice

for one year. The new program was created to

fill the gap between research grants and com-

mercial seed investment. Professor Ducheyne’s

group is developing nanostructured thin films

for reducing bacterial infection via external

bone fixator pins. If successful, the films would

reduce the high complication rates that are

observed when compound fractures are

repaired using external fixation.

Raymond J. Gorte, the Russell Pearce and

Elizabeth Crimian Heuer Professor of Chemical

and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named

the recipient of the 2009 R. H. Wilhelm Award

in Chemical Reaction Engineering. Dr. Gorte is

being recognized for seminal contributions to

the field of reaction engineering.

Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, the Skirkanich

Assistant Professor of Innovation in Mechanical

Engineering and Applied Mechanics, has

received a prestigious National Science

Foundation CAREER award for her work on

“Haptography: Capturing and Recreating

the Rich Feel of Real Surfaces.”

David F. Meaney has been named the

Solomon R. Pollack Chair in Bioengineering.

Dr. Meaney joined the Penn faculty in 1993,

having completed his master’s and Ph.D. in

Bioengineering at Penn in 1988 and 1991,

respectively. He received his bachelor’s

degree in biomedical engineering from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1987.

Susan S. Margulies, Professor of

Bioengineering, has been named a Fellow

of the Biomedical Engineering Society for

her national and international contributions

to Biomedical Engineering and for inspired

leadership in BMES.

Mark Yim, Associate Professor and Gabel

Family Term Junior Professor of Mechanical

Engineering, has been awarded a Christian R.

and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished

Teaching, Penn’s highest teaching honor. Dr.

Yim has been instrumental in reorienting the

curriculum in Mechanical Engineering around

a lab-based practice-integrated curriculum

designed not only to teach the students

concepts and skills, but to develop an

engineering way of thinking.

The Nano/Bio Interface Center (NBIC) at the

University of Pennsylvania has been awarded

$11.5 million from the Nanoscale Science and

Engineering Centers of the National Science

Foundation to continue to advance nanoscale

research at the interface of physical and

biological systems. Dawn Bonnell, the Trustee

Chair Professor in Materials Science and

Engineering, is the Director of the NBIC. The

grant will support multidisciplinary research at

Penn designed to explore and control the

function and quantification of molecules, to

explore interactions between organic/inorganic

interfaces and physical and biological systems

and to unite investigators from ten academic

departments to provide new directions for the

life sciences in a two-way flow essential to fully

realizing the benefits of nano-biotechnology.

The Moore School has been named one

of InfoWorld’s 12 “Tech Meccas,”one of

the “holy sites” where computing history

was made.

NEWS

NEWS

FALL 2009 � 26

SchoolIn MemoriamJ. Peter Skirkanich, successful business leader,

University of Pennsylvania Trustee and Penn

Engineering Overseer, died on August 17,

2009, while traveling with his wife and children

in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was 66 years old.

Mr. Skirkanich’s steadfast connection to

Penn began while a student at The Wharton

School and continued to strengthen after his

graduation in 1967. He became a trustee in

2002, serving as a member of the Facilities

and Campus Planning Committee, the Budget

Finance Committee and its Debt

Subcommittee.

Mr. Skirkanich began his tenure as a Penn

Engineering Overseer in 1997. He brought to

the table his business acumen and contagious

enthusiasm, both of which were valuable

contributions to the School. He served as

co-chairman of the School’s current “Making

History through Innovation” capital campaign

and as a member of the University-wide

“Making History” campaign.

Peter and his wife Geri generously established

the “Skirkanich Professorships of Innovation”

to support and nurture young members of the

engineering faculty and endowed the Peter and

Geri Skirkanich Scholarships to provide financial

aid to Penn Engineering undergraduates. Mr.

Skirkanich’s keen interest in engineering and

technology crystallized around the field of

bioengineering, as he fervently believed in its

potential for bettering lives and its strategic

importance to this campus, and made the

naming gift to construct a new home for a

cutting-edge bioengineering research facility.

Today, Skirkanich Hall is an intellectual

destination on campus and an architectural

jewel for the Philadelphia region.

Mr. Skirkanich is survived by his wife Geri;

mother, Helen; sons Jack and Erik; and

daughter Brett.

Penn Engineering has established the J. Peter

Skirkanich Memorial Fund. To donate online,

please visit www.seas.upenn.edu/giving/

giving-priorities.php.

William R. Graham, Professor Emeritus of

Materials Science and Engineering, died on

July 15, 2009, at the age of 70.

Professor Graham was a physics major at

Melbourne University where he received both

his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1959 and

1961. In 1965, he received his doctoral degree

from Oxford University. He began his profes-

sional career at Yale University in 1965 as a

Research Associate and in 1968 was appointed

Assistant Professor of Molecular Biophysics and

Biochemistry. Dr. Graham spent two years as a

Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department

of Metallurgy and Mining Engineering at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

before joining Penn in 1974 as an Associate

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.

At Penn, Dr. Graham pioneered the application

of field ion and auger microscopy, and medium

energy ion scattering to study the geometric,

electronic and vibrational structure and proper-

ties of surfaces and thin-film interface systems.

His scholarly work led to seminal publications

on surface reconstructions and self-diffusion on

metal surfaces.

Professor Graham was a consummate educator;

he was adored by his students and received all

possible teaching accolades at Penn. These

honors included the S. Reid Warren Jr. Award

for Distinguished Teaching, which he won twice;

the UPS Foundation Distinguished Educator

Term Chair; the Lindback Award for

Distinguished Teaching and the Ford Motor

Company Award for Faculty Advising.

Throughout his career Dr. Graham was a constant advocate for students and dedicatedmany years of service as Chair of the undergraduate program in MSE. He mentored,advised and taught hundreds of students duringhis years at Penn, and comments in his teachingevaluations consistently recall his love of teaching and his passion for passing on hisknowledge in his own inimitable style.

Dr. Graham is survived by his two daughters,

Alison Graham-Bertolini and Elizabeth

Graham; a sister; a brother; and his former

wife Hilary Winks.

Benjamin Gebhart, Professor Emeritus of

Mechanical Engineering and Applied

Mechanics, died on October 18, 2009, at the

age of 86.

Professor Gebhart began his work career as an

apprentice tool maker in Detroit before serving

as a Marine in World War II. Upon his return,

he began his academic career majoring in

mechanical engineering at the University of

Michigan, where he received both his bachelor’s

and master’s degrees in 1948 and 1950, respec-

tively. In 1954, he received his doctoral degree

from Cornell University. He remained at Cornell

as a faculty member of Mechanical Engineering

until 1975 when he joined the State University

of New York at Buffalo as Leading Professor

and Chairman of the Department of Mechanical

Engineering. He joined Penn in 1980 as the

Samuel Landis Gabel Professor of Mechanical

Engineering.

Professor Gebhart was an active researcher and

internationally recognized authority in the area

of heat transfer and the associated fluid flow.

His first book, Heat Transfer, was published in

1961 and had a major impact on the analysis

of convective flows and became an important

reference as it laid down the physical and

fundamental basis for studying thermal

convection.

Never timid about venturing from the laboratory,

Professor Gebhart undertook an expedition to

the North Polar ice pack where he made

experimental measurements of the temperature

fields in sea water near the ice for subsequent

comparison with theoretical predictions.

On the occasion of Professor Gebhart’s 65th

birthday, he was honored with a Festschrift in

the International Journal of Heat and Mass

Transfer by his students, friends and colleagues

and the editors of the journal in recognition of

his outstanding achievements.

Dr. Gebhart is survived by his wife Janet Keen,

and daughters Raïssa Mae Gebhart Farmer and

Lorna Margaretha Gebhart Welde.

NEWS

Do you want to make a real difference in anundergraduate’s life? The Penn Engineering MentoringProgram seeks alumni who are interested in mentoring firstyear undergraduate engineering students to:

• Provide exposure to and expand students’ perceptions of a career field.

• Offer personal and professional career guidance.

The time commitment is minimal, but the rewards can beenormous. For more information and to register, visitwww.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/mentoring.php

OTHER WAYS TO GET INVOLVEDThe Engineering Alumni Society offers alumni many other great opportunities for getting involved with the School and the University at large. For more information, visit our website at http://www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/alumni-society/index.php

Join us on Linkedin or find us on Facebook under Penn Engineering Alumni.

Share Your InsightsMentor an Engineering Student

@PennSummerSUMMER ACADEMY IN APPLIED

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SAAST) for talented high school students

3 weeks, July 11—July 30, 2010

An exceptional opportunity for a select group of highly-motivated and talented high school

students (rising 10th—12th graders)

Rigorous, challenging college-level coursework in engineering at Penn

Sophisticated theory and hands-on practical experiences in cutting-edge technologies

Five programs are offered: Biotechnology, Computer Graphics, Computer Science,

Nanotechnology, and Robotics

Three weeks long, intensive, exhilarating, and lots of fun and camaraderie!

For more information and online application: www.seas.upenn.edu/saast

SUMMER INSTITUTE IN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY (SIBT) for globally-minded undergraduates

4 weeks, July 10—August 7, 2010

A unique opportunity for highly-motivated and globally-minded undergraduates

Rigorous and collaborative coursework for credit in engineering entrepreneurship and business (Wharton)

Case studies, presentations, teamwork and corporate sitevisits focused on “Technopreneurship in the 21st century”

Three courses for credit: Technology Entrepreneurship(Engineering), New Product Development andEntrepreneurial Marketing (Wharton)

Exceptional faculty, intensive and rewarding coursework,cultural outings, the Penn campus experience, and friendsfrom all over the world!

For more information and online application: www.seas.upenn.edu/sibt

Michele GrabMichele Grab is the Director of the Advancing Women inEngineering (AWE) Program. Created through the generosity of a Mechanical Engineering alumna, AWE was launched in fall 2007with the goal to recruit and retain women in engineering.

What is your role as Director of AWE? I see my first responsibility as“the ears” of the program, listening to faculty and students to discernwhere we want to concentrate our time and talents in the areas ofrecruitment and retention of female students in engineering. I alsogather information on what peer institutions are doing successfully inthis arena, and plan events and activities, such as peer mentoring programs, faculty panels and study breaks to carry out our mission.

What drew you to this position? Are you an engineer? A lot of people assume that I’m an engineer, but I actually was a communications and journalism major in college and have a master’s in education. While in graduate school I did research on women’s leadership development and spent five years working at CarnegieMellon University on gender-related programs. That’s when I got my first taste of working with women in engineering and computer science. I came to Penn in 2004 as the House Dean of Stouffer CollegeHouse, a great way to join the Penn community. As House Dean youare an academic advisor, event planner, problem solver, supervisor,advice giver—a skill set also essential to the director of AWE. Being a House Dean gave me connections to resources and contacts to successfully implement this program.

What surprises you about what you do? I’ve been astonished at how quickly we’ve been able to measure success with some of our programs. Our two summer programs, PennGEMS for middle schoolgirls and our pre-orientation program for incoming freshmen womenhave been an overwhelming success. During pre-orientation we had 51 students participate this year compared to 19 last year! We werethrilled that 40 percent of the women of the class of 2013 moved inearly, got connected with each other, met upper-class students, facultyand alumnae, and started their Penn Engineering careers with us. Iwould love to see all 51 of those faces together again at graduation in May 2013!

What do you like to do outside of the office? I live in the city nearthe Philadelphia Museum of Art and I love to wander around exploringthe different neighborhoods. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and Phillyreminds me a lot of Brooklyn with all the different areas to explore. I’m a huge reader so you can often find me on a Sunday at a new coffee shop with a great book!

popquiz

PENN ENGINEERING � cIII

The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds.

The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,

religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or status as a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabled veteran in the

administration of educational policies, programs or activities; admissions policies; scholarship and loan awards; athletic,

or other University administered programs or employment. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be

directed to: Executive Director, Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs, Sansom Place East, 3600

Chestnut Street, Suite 228, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6106 or by phone at (215) 898-6993 (Voice) or (215) 898-7803 (TDD).

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA NONDISCRIMINATION STATEMENT

Mr. Andrew S. Rachleff, W’80[Board Chair]PartnerBenchmark CapitalMenlo Park, CA

The Honorable Harold Berger, EE’48, L’51Managing PartnerBerger and Montague, P.C.Philadelphia, PA

Mr. David J. Berkman, W’83Managing PartnerLiberty Associated Partners, L.P.Bala Cynwyd, PA

Dr. Katherine D. Crothall, EE’71PrincipalLiberty Venture Partners, Inc. Philadelphia, PA

Mr. Peter N. Detkin, Esq., EE’82, L’85Co-Founder, Vice-ChairmanIntellectual VenturesPalo Alto, CA

Mr. Richard D. Forman, EE'87, W'87Managing PartnerHealth Venture GroupNew York, NY

Mr. Douglas M. Glanville, ENG’93PresidentG.K. Alliance, LLCGlen Ellyn, IL

Mr. C. Michael Gooden, GEE’78Chairman and CEOIntegrated Systems Analysts Inc.Alexandria, VA

Mr. Paul S. Greenberg, EE’83, WG’87PrincipalTrilogy Capital LLCGreenwich, CT

Mr. Alex Haidas, C’93, ENG’93, WG’98Portfolio ManagerCredaris (CPM Advisers Limited) London, UK

Dr. George H. Heilmeier, EE’58Chairman EmeritusTelcordia Technologies, Inc.Piscataway, NJ

Dr. John F. Lehman, Jr., GR’74Chairman and Founding PartnerJ. F. Lehman & CompanyNew York, NY

Dr. David M. Magerman, C’90, ENG’90President and FounderKohelet FoundationGladwyne, PA

Mr. Sean C. McDonald, ChE’82President, CEOPrecision TherapeuticsPittsburgh, PA

Mr. Hital R. Meswani, ENG’90, W’90Executive Director and Member of the BoardReliance Industries LimitedMumbai, India

Mr. Rajeev Misra, ME’85, GEN’86Global Head of CreditUBS Investment BankLondon, UK

Mr. Ofer Nemirovsky, EE’79, W’79Managing DirectorHarbourVest Partners, LLCBoston, MA

Mr. David Pakman, ENG’91PartnerVenrockNew York, NY

Mr. Mitchell I. Quain, EE’73, parent[Board Chair Emeritus]Managing DirectorACI Capital Co., LLCNew York, NY

Mr. William H. Rackoff, C’71, MTE’71President and Chief Executive OfficerASKO Inc.Homestead, PA

Mr. Allie P. Rogers, ENG’87, W’87Co-FounderTriple Point Technology, Inc.Westport, CT

Mr. Jeffrey M. Rosenbluth, ENG’84Private InvestorSands Point, NY

Ms. Suzanne B. Rowland, ChE’83VP Business ExcellenceTyco Flow ControlPrinceton, NJ

Mr. Theodore E. Schlein, C’86Managing PartnerKleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersMenlo Park, CA

Mr. Roger A. ShiffmanPresident and CEOZizzle, LLCBannockburn, IL

Dr. Krishna P. Singh, MS’69, Ph.D.’72President and CEOHOLTEC InternationalMarlton, NJ

Dr. Rajendra Singh, parentChairman and CEOTelcom Ventures LLCAlexandria, VA

Mr. Robert M. Stavis, EAS’84, W’84PartnerBessemer VentureLarchmont, NY

Mr. Harlan M. Stone, C’80President and Chief Operating OfficerHalstead InternationalNorwalk, CT

Mr. Frederick J. Warren, ME’60, WG’61FounderSage Venture Partners, LLCWinter Park, FL

Ms. Sarah Keil Wolf, EE’86, W’86Retired Investment BankerBear Stearns and CompanyScarsdale, NY

Dr. Michael D. Zisman, GEE’73, GR’77Managing Director, OperationsInternet Capital GroupWayne, PA

PENN ENGINEERING BOARD OF OVERSEERS

Michele Grab

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

123 TOWNE BUILDING

220 SOUTH 33RD STREET

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19104-6391

Non Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 2563Philadelphia, PA

penn engineering magazine: fall 2009

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