SEAS 2002 Annual Report


An eventful year brings new dean, new graduate affairs office

by Ann Haver-Allen

Maria Klawe, computer scientist and dean of science at the University of British Columbia, was named the new SEAS dean. Dean Klawe is the first woman to hold this position, which she assumed Jan. 1, 2003. In the interim, James Sturm '79, director of the Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials (POEM) and professor of electrical engineering, was acting dean.

Another addition to the SEAS is that of the Office of the Dean of Graduate Affairs. This office was established to recognize and address issues that are important to graduate students and to ensure the highest quality educational experience for this group. David Mendez was named assistant dean.

Curriculum

SEAS continues to recognize the importance of engaging liberal arts students in the study of engineering. Engineering faculty members continue to develop new courses that not only present the science behind the technology and innovation, but also place engineering in its economic, political, historical, and aesthetic context.

Three courses of particular interest this past year were ELE 391: The Wireless Revolution: Telecommunications for the 21st Century taught by Professor H. Vincent Poor *76 *77; CEE 105: Lab in Conservation of Art taught by Professor George Scherer; and CEE 102: Engineering in the Modern World taught by Professors David Billing ton '50 and Michael Littman.

ELE 391: The Wireless Revolution addresses technological, regulatory, economic, and social issues arising in the rapidly developing field of wireless communications. ELE 391 was offered for the third time last spring and was the largest single class on campus, with 247 students. Roughly 60 percent of the students were A.B. majors in concentrations such as economics, politics, history, and English. The students particularly enjoyed guest lecturers that included Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, a national security expert, and a Wall Street analyst.

CEE 102: Engineering in the Modern World studies innovation in structures, machines, processes, and networks from 1779 to the present. It attracts both A.B. and B.S.E. students. In the fall of 2002, 120 students enrolled.

More than 100 of the students are A.B. majors, who take the course with a lab to fulfill their science and technology distribution requirement, while the remainder of the students (primarily B.S.E. majors) take it with a precept to fulfill a historical analysis requirement.

Professors Billington and Littman have assembled a corpus of primary historical source materials that illuminate the development of modern engineering from scientific, social, and symbolic perspectives.

Associate Dean Roland Heck also participated in this course. He devised a new oil refining experiment for the A.B. students and cotaught the two historical analysis precepts for the B.S.E. students.

CEE 105: Lab in Conservation of Art examines how environmental factors (acid, rain, ice, salts, and biota) damage stone and masonry buildings and monuments. It has been so popular that it is capped at 40 students due to lab limitations, with more than 50 students on a waiting list for next year. As a lab course, it enrolls A.B. students almost exclusively.

This year, Professor Scherer asked students to do a project with either Norman Muller, the painting conservator at the Princeton Art Museum, or Ted Stanley, the conservator at the Firestone Library.

Undergraduate

The incoming class has 200 students. Total undergraduate enrollment in SEAS is 769--lower than any year since 1990. SEAS administrators cite three reasons for this drop:

* The graduation of 202 B.S.E students in 2002. This compares to an average of 171 graduates per year over the previous five years.

* An unusually large net loss of freshmen B.S.E. matriculants due a net switch of 13 students from B.S.E. to A.B. before matriculation. This compares to an average of nine net transfers in the other direction (A.B to B.S.E) in the previous five years.

* A reduction in admittance of B.S.E. candidates. There were 260 admits for this fall compared to an average of 284 per year for the last five years.

Photo by Frank Wojciechowski Pictured are Interim Dean James C. Sturm '79 and new SEAS Dean Maria Klawe.

A more stable undergraduate population is desirable for assuring vitality of programs and adequate class size, particularly in the less-well-subscribed courses and majors.

Women represent one third of the entering class, which continues the pattern of high enrollment of women students in the engineering program. Nationally, women comprise about 17 percent of engineering graduates.

Eighteen African-American engineering students matriculated with the Class of 2006, representing a slightly larger proportion of the entering cohort than in past years.

At nine, the number of Hispanic-American freshmen is consistent with levels in recent years. The number of Asian-American students entering the engineering program is the same as last year, as is the number of foreign students.

Abbie Liel '02 , a civil and environmental engineering major, led the parade of SEAS scholars. Abbie, who had previously received the George B. Wood Legacy Prize for a member of the senior class in recognition of exceptional academic achievement in the work of the junior year, received a Marshall Scholarship and the M. Taylor Pyne Prize during her senior year.

Joe Kochan '02 served as president of the Undergraduate Student Government, the first engineering student ever to have done so. Engineering students also played leadership roles in many other aspects of campus life, including intercollegiate athletics, performing arts, and community service.

MAE student Kristen Bethke '03 was one of three Princetonians to receive a Goldwater Scholarship for 2002-2003. In the athletic arena, several SEAS students earned varsity letters, with MAE student Tora Harris '02 winning the NCAA high jump title.

Graduate

SEAS is a driver for graduate education at Princeton. Over the past decade, graduate enrollment has increased 50 percent to 519, making it the division of the University with the most graduate students.

Highlights of 2001-2002 include the hiring of Assistant Dean of Graduate Affairs David Mendez in SEAS, and Scott Miller, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, serving as chair of the Graduate Student Government.

Dean Mendez has established the first SEAS Office of Graduate Affairs (OGA). He brings to this role experience in several administrative positions at the University of Texas at Austin College of Engineering, Rutgers University, and New York University.

In this new role at SEAS, he has participated in various engineering and diversity forums, conferences, and graduate fairs and has visited Beijing, China, to interview prospective graduate students providing SEAS graduate programs with greater exposure at state, national, and international levels.

The entering cohort of 146 graduate students is 56 percent domestic, compared to 43 percent the previous year, and is 22 percent female.

During the 2001-2002 academic year, 20 M.S.E. degrees, 21 M.Eng., and 49 doctoral degrees were awarded in engineering (see graph at right). It is significant to note that the overall number of graduates has remained constant (at 90) for the past two years.

Eleven outstanding newly enrolled graduate students were named Wu and Upton Fellows (see story on page 30) The yield of fellowship candidates (19 percent) has been consistently lower than the overall yield (41 percent). This is not surprising. The difference is primarily due to the keen competition among universities for top graduate students.

The Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) program is in its fifth year of operation and had 319 applicants this year. This is an increase of 91 percent over last year's number. This increase could be related to the economy, but it could also be due to the fact that the program is becoming more widely known.

The Web site, mailings to local companies, and contacts with universities also probably helped boost interest. Twenty-seven students are enrolled in the M.Eng. program this fall.

Facilities

The Friend Center for Engineering Education opened for classes in the fall of 2001. The library, classrooms, and computer clusters in the Friend Cen ter were heavily used and enjoyed last year by students and faculty from all over the University. Opening the Friend Center freed up many areas of the E-Quad for renovation to other use. Specifically, a project was begun in January 2002 to renovate 70,000 square feet in the E-Quad. The renovations will result in 32,000 square feet of net new space for graduate student workspaces, research and teaching laboratories, and faculty offices.

By the fall of 2002, approximately 5,000 square feet of space had been renovated, with another 5,000 square feet to be complete by February 2003. Much of the remaining work will be completed during the summers of 2003 and 2004.

Although this renovation will provide new space to alleviate our current space crunch and to accommodate growth in 2002 and probably 2003, any growth in 2004 and beyond will again be difficult to accommodate without major construction.

Research

Total sponsored research grew to $42.5 million, an increase of 8.5 percent over the previous year (see graph above).

Research expenditures grew in each department over this five-year period, with the largest percentage growth (87 percent) coming in MAE, and the largest absolute growth ($5.2 million) coming in EE.

In the last year, electrical engineering had the largest research growth rate, at 22.6 percent. SEAS growth in total research last year was $3.3 million, most of which can be attributed to electrical engineering.

POEM also saw good growth last year at 15.7 percent. Electrical engineering research in POEM accounts for almost 74 percent of POEM's research total, with the remainder split between several SEAS and non-SEAS departments. POEM and electrical engineering continue to have the highest level of new awards for sponsored research.

SEAS faculty members also do $6.9 million of research through the Princeton Materials Institute (PMI), with MAE faculty being identified as principal investigators for about $3.9 million of this work.

Another product of sponsored research is patentable inventions. SEAS patent activity remains at a high level, with 13 new patents issued in 2002.

Development

Major endowment gift commitments to the SEAS included gifts from Charles '83 and Hilary '84 Parkhurst to establish a senior thesis fund to benefit students in the operations research and financial engineering (ORFE) and the history departments, Kimberly Ritrievi '80 to name a Friend Center classroom in honor of her parents, and George H. Heilmeier *62 to name a Friend Center Classroom in honor of his adviser, Professor George Warfield.

Nonendowed gifts to the SEAS totaled $1,517,683.

The Departments

ChE

The Department of Chemical Engineering has 20 faculty members. Several of these faculty received prestigious awards during the year:

* Assistant Professor Jeffrey Carbeck received a National Science Foundation CAREER award.

* Christodoulos Floudas received the 2001 Professional Progress Award for Outstanding Progress in Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

* Kyle Vanderlick received her first E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the fall 2001 semester, and a President's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Commencement ceremonies in June.

* Dudley Saville was named the Stephen Macaleer '63 Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

The department's research expenditures of $4.1 million represent almost 10 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart, page 19).

CEE

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has 13 faculty members.. The newest are Maria Garlock and Yin Lu (Julie) Young, who came to Princeton as assistant professors.

Several faculty members received prestigious awards during the year:

* Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe was named the Theodora Shelton Pitney Professor of Environmental Studies, and received the Stockholm Water Prize, an award known informally as the "Nobel prize of water" (see page 25).

* George Scherer received his first E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the spring 2001 semester, was named the SEAS Distinguished Teacher for 2002, and received the 2002 Brunauer Award for the best paper on cements published by the American Ceramics Society in the 2001 calendar year.

The department's research expenditures of $1.9 million represent 4.5 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart at right).

CS

The Department of Computer Science has 27 faculty members. The newest are Robert Shapire, who joined the department as professor, and David Walker, who joined as assistant professor.

Several faculty members received prestigious awards during the year:

* Mona Singh received a 2001 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President George W. Bush's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

* David August received a National Science Foundation CAREER award.

* Perry Cook received his first E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the spring 2001 semester.

* Amit Sahai was named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellow.

The department's research expenditures of $4.9 million represent 11.7 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart above).

EE

The Department of Electrical Engineering has 28 faculty members. The newest is Li-Shiuan Peh, who joined as assistant professor.

Several faculty members received prestigious awards during the year:

* H. Vincent Poor *76 *77 received a National Science Foundation Director's Award for Distinguished Teacher Scholars for imaginative teaching applications.

* Evgenii Narimanov received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

* Ed Zschau '61 received his third E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the spring 2001 semester, and his fourth E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the fall 2001 semester.

* Sanjeev Kulkarni received the 2002 Walter Curtis Johnson Prize for Teaching Excellence in Electrical Engineering.

The department's research expenditures of $17 million represent 40 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart above).

MAE

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has 24 faculty members. Edgar Choueiri *86 *91 (MAE) was promoted to associate professor. Several faculty members received prestigious awards during the year:

* Robert Stengel *65 *66 *68 received the 2002 John R. Ragazzini Education Award, which is given for outstanding contributions to control education, and received a one-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support his research project titled "Optimal Control of Disease Processes."

* Clarence Rowley '95 *00 received his first E-Council Excellence in Teaching Award for the fall 2001 semester.

The department's research expenditures of $11 million represent 26 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart above).

ORFE

The Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering has 11 faculty members. The two newest members are Savas Dayanik and Damir Filipovic, joining as assistant professors.

The department's research expenditures of $1.3 million represent about 3 percent of the SEAS total for sponsored research (see chart above).