Columbia Engineering

the fu foundation school of engineering and applied science spring 2010

leaders making an impact

space Michael Massimino, BS ’84, NASA Astronaut—page 15

TECH
leaders making an impact

ursula burns, ms ’82, xerox ceo—page 5

leaders making an impact

flight
James Albaugh, ms ’74, boeing commercial president—Page 9
 contents Spring 2010 | Volume 51, No.2

Leaders Making an Impact

3 Leaders Making an Impact, 1754–Future 21 Helping Haiti: Christina Brelsford

5 Leading Xerox: Ursula Burns 23 Explosion-resistant Green Buildings: Eve Hinman

6 Predicting Diseases: Adrian Haimovich 24 Linking Ideas on the Web: Nicholas Aretakis

7 Controlling Hazardous Materials: Barbara C. Yu 25 Providing Power in Uganda: Janelle Heslop

9 Launching the Newest Airliners: James Albaugh 26 Engineering Public Health: Paul Brandt-Rauf

10 Fashion and Technology: Mercedes De Luca 27 Understanding Knots: Mehvish Poshni and Imran Farid Khan

11 Blood-Cleansing System: Edgar Nanne 29 Pioneering Bioengineering: Gloria Reinish

12 Googling the Target Audience: Chase Hensel 30 Advancing Medical Imaging: Raymond A. Schulz

15 Clues to the Early Universe: Michael J. Massimino 31 Mending Hearts: Amandine Godier-Furnémont

16 Securing Air Space: Gus Ordoñez 32 Technology Management: Anna K. Longobardo

17 Safer Groundwater: Brian Albert 33 Society, Industry, Government, and Academia:

You, Our Alumni and Students
18 Mega-Construction Projects: Raymond Daddazio
Inside Back Cover Giving Back: Sheldon E. Isakoff
20 Recasting Steel: Stanley A. Rabin
Comments, suggestions, or address changes may be mailed to: Dean of the School
Columbia University Feniosky Peña-Mora
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
35 Little Big Shots
Room 510, MC 4714 Editor/Writer: Margaret R. Kelly
500 West 120th Street
New York, NY 10027 Contributing Writers: Jeff Ballinger, Ken Kostel, Karen Springen 36 celebrating Faculty Excellence

Phone: 212-854-2993 Design and Art Direction: University Publications 39 Class Notes
Fax: 212-864-0104
E-mail: [email protected] Photography credits: page 2: Columbiana; pages 3, 6, 10, 11, 13, 49 Program Notes
15, 25, 27, 31, 32, 34, 56: Eileen Barroso; page 4: Xerox; page
Read more about Columbia Engineering’s 8: Boeing; page 12: Michael Dames; page 14: NASA; page 17: Jill 53 In Memoriam
LEADERS MAKING AN IMPACT LeVine; page 18: Lynn Saville; page 20: Bruce Maxwell;
http://www.engineering.columbia.edu page 21: AP Worldwide; page 26: UIC Photography; page 28: 56 Homecoming
Rebecca Maxon; page 57: Ken Tannenbaum

Columbia Engineering is published twice a year by:

Columbia Engineering online at:
Columbia University in the City of New York
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science http://www.engineering.
500 West 120th Street, MC 4714 columbia.edu
New York, NY 10027

­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 1

 leaders making an impact

T
his issue of Columbia Engineering magazine focuses on engineering
and applied science leaders making an impact—alumni and students
who have made their mark on this generation and hold the promise of
doing so for the next. While we are highlighting only a small fraction
of our present and future leaders, these men and women are standing
on the shoulders of giants, those alumni of generations before us.

It was Sir Isaac Newton who first recognized the importance of the foundation laid by
those who had preceded him. “If I have seen further, “he said, “it is because I am standing
on the shoulders of giants,” an axiom for Columbia Engineering. For each generation, our
alumni have become the teachers and mentors for the next generation of leaders.

One of the early graduates of the Engineering School, Michael I. Pupin, Class of 1883,
was such a giant, earning fame as the inventor of the Pupin coil and father of long-
distance telephony. His pupil and, later, faculty colleague in the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Edwin Howard Armstrong, Class of 1913 (see photo at left), invented three
electronic circuits fundamental to modern FM radio, television, and radar.

As our alumni were developing the new discipline of electrical engineering, our civil
engineering alumni also were continuing to transform the world. William Barclay Parsons,
Class of 1882, founded an engineering firm, today’s Parsons Brinckerhoff, that early
on was international in scope. He was chief surveyor of China’s 1,000-mile route from
Hankow to Canton (a line still in use today), built docks in Cuba, and was instrumental
in the construction of the Panama Canal. During the 1990s, his firm was led by our
alumnus, the late Henry Michel ’49, who, as president and chairman, oversaw its growth
to a thoroughly international firm that now employs 15,000 people world-wide.

Our School today has more than 24,000 living alumni, each of them leaders in their own
right. As you will see in the following pages, these featured alumni and students—no
matter what their field of endeavor—are having an impact on the way we live our lives,
both now and in the future. Please join me in celebrating their achievements.

We also know that there are other Columbia Engineering alumni whose work has left its
mark on our daily lives. If you have information about other alumni leaders, please visit
our Web site to share your story or the story of a classmate. See page 33.

I look forward to reading all your stories and learning more about the influence of our
Columbia engineering and applied science leaders. The original mission of King’s College
in 1754 was to teach “everything useful for the Comfort, the Convenience and Elegance
of Life.” For our nearly 150-year history, Columbia Engineering continues to do just that.
It is thanks to all of you who are doing your part to keep us faithful to our charter.

Famed FM radio inventor Edwin Howard

Armstrong, Class of 1913, stands on one foot
on RCA’s 115-foot transmitting tower atop
the 21-story Aeolian building at 33 West 42nd Feniosky Peña-Mora
Street. Armstrong, who loved heights, climbed Dean
the tower on May 15, 1923, opening day for
RCA’s Radio Broadcast Central for stations WJY
and WJZ, two AM radio stations that operated
from twin studios in the building. The stunt led
RCA President David Sarnoff to ban Armstrong
from the building.
­­ 2 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 3
 leaders making an impact

Leading Xerox
Ur sul a Bur n s
MS ’8 2 Mechan i c al En g i n eer i n g
CEO, X erox Co r p o r ati o n

By all accounts, Xerox was a difficult place to be in 2001. As an undergraduate, Burns gravitated first toward
Burdened by debt and facing a government investigation chemical engineering, in part because she once read that
of its accounting practices, the company was losing mar- chemical engineers make a lot of money. But she is a firm
ket share and hemorrhaging money. It would have been believer that a person is more likely to succeed if they
understandable had Ursula Burns taken another job offer have a passion for what they do. So, she switched to me-
and continued her fast-rising career elsewhere. But she chanical engineering and never looked back, eventually
didn’t. completing a master’s degree at Columbia in 1981.

The following year, Burns was promoted to president of “Columbia offered the high-quality engineering focus I
the company’s document systems and solutions group, was seeking to advance my skills and be well-positioned
where she oversaw product development, global manu- to apply these skills in the real world,” she said. “From
facturing, and high-end printing. Then-CEO Anne my science and engineering background, I learned dis-
Mulcahy called Burns’ performance the “key to the com- cipline, problem solving, turning complexity into sim-
pany’s future,” and Burns did not disappoint, cutting plicity, managing by fact—all of these are fundamental
nearly $2 billion in costs and refocusing on the compa- attributes of successful engineers and, I believe, of suc-
ny’s core businesses. Slowly, profits returned and market cessful leaders.”
share rebounded.
Given all that she has achieved, it wouldn’t seem there
In 2007, Mulcahy surprised no one when she appoint- is much more for her to do except keep a steady hand
ed Burns president of the company, setting the stage at Xerox as CEO, but Burns still sees work to be done.
for Burns to take over the top spot at Xerox in 2009 in In November 2009, Burns was appointed by President
what was called the most uneventful and well-scripted Obama to help lead Educate to Innovate, an initiative
executive transition in modern times. In hindsight, it all intended to improve performance of U.S. high school
worked out. But why did Burns decide to stay? students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and
math) subjects.
Loyalty and the lure of a challenge.
“We need more people to pursue engineering careers, es-
“When I joined Xerox in 1980 as an engineering intern, pecially women and minorities, because our companies
there weren’t a lot of women in research or product de- are better when we build engineering communities that
velopment,” she said. “And there were even fewer black are diverse,” she said. “Those who enjoy the challenges
women. But no one ever stopped me from chasing my of science and math—and are good at it—will be able
ambitions. I was given assignments to tackle big projects. to find academic and job opportunities that can lead to
I increased my visibility in the corporation by embracing rewarding career paths. I want to help them get there.”
opportunity and working hard to succeed.”

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leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Predicting Diseases
adrian haimovich BS ’10
Appli ed Physi cs an d appli ed
m ath e m ati cs

Seven major diseases—diabetes types I and II, bipolar, high cholesterol, coronary
artery disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and high blood pressure—may be reliably pre-
dicted based on analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), while un-
locking complex problems like the biological cause of cancer—the second-leading
cause of all deaths—may lie in these fundamental building blocks of life.

As researchers delve further into network-based biology, investigators have found

themselves increasingly reliant on not only clinical knowledge, but also statistics,
computational sciences, and mathematics. Adrian Haimovich ’10, an applied

Controlling Hazardous Materials

mathematics major, has been interested in computational biology since the ninth
grade.

By the time he finished high school, he had several years of summer lab experi-
ence as well as an academic publication. Upon arriving at Columbia Engineering,
he sought out those professors whose work provided the foundation of his own Bar bar a C . Y u
research, including electrical engineering Professor Dimitris Anastassiou. Anastas-
siou’s genomics research spans seven major diseases and is of a computationally BS ’7 9 Ch e m i c al En g i n eer i n g
challenging scale. His work applies tools from electrical engineering to problems Lo s An g ele s Cou nt y Fi r e D epartment
in quantitative biology.

After being downsized from two positions with large fortunately account for a small part of what she does day
“While working on those large-scale genomic data, I became interested in ap-
manufacturers and with chemical engineering jobs flee- to day. “Usually it’s pretty quiet,” said Yu. “Only about
plications of Professor Anastassious’s ideas in information theory to other types of
ing California in the 1980s, Barbara Yu just wanted to 5 percent of the time the adrenaline goes up. The rest is
clinically relevant problems,” says Haimovich, specifically those that trace physi-
find a nice “safe” job that would allow her to keep her preparation.”
ological responses, in the form of gene expression, to either medical conditions or
family in Los Angeles. So she took a job keeping track
experimental protocols. By junior year, Haimovich had begun to work with new
of hazardous materials and responding to chemical spills. An important part of that preparation is Yu’s chemical
datasets based on the clinical condition sepsis, which is characterized by severe
Nice and safe. engineering background and her experience with indus-
systemic inflammation.
trial processes. When she first applied to the department,
“That’s what Columbia taught me,” said Yu. “Roll with however, her interviewers thought they needed a chemist
He looked to extend the work on sepsis under the supervision of Associate Profes-
the punches and go with the flow.” to simply help them decipher new regulations governing
sor Chris Wiggins of the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathemat-
hazardous materials. Yu had to explain that, in her, they
ics. Wiggins suggested using machine learning methods central to his own lab’s
For Yu, going with the flow today means being on call were getting much more—someone who understood
work to help Haimovich analyze his data. Working in the Wiggins laboratory,
24 hours a day to respond to hazardous materials releases manufacturing processes and the real-world applications
Haimovich applied support vector machine (SVM) techniques using data from
and running toward many situations others would rather of hazardous chemicals.
patients who were treated with either an endotoxin or placebo. The results from
avoid. As head of the Los Angeles County Fire Depart-
this work indicate genes that are strong classifiers for sepsis. The work continues as
ment’s Emergency Operations Section, she is a first re- Today, when she responds to a call, that knowledge helps
Haimovich looks to use SVMs to make clinical studies more efficient.
sponder charged with keeping other first responders, and create what she calls an intuition of what is happening,
the general public, safe. and it commands the respect of other emergency person-
“Engineering mathematics is a powerful and elegant way to look at a biological
nel when seconds count and lives may be in danger. It
problem,” says Haimovich, “and computational biology can be used to make great
Leaking ammonia-filled rail cars, refinery fires, even sus- also helps her prepare for the next emergency because as
advances in patient care.”
pected anthrax releases, fall under her responsibility but Yu describes her line of work, “It’s not if, it’s when.”

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 leaders making an impact

Launching the Newest Airliners

Ja m e s Albau g h
m s ’7 4 Ci vi l En g i n eer i n g
pr e si d ent, bo ei n g com m ercial ai r pl an e s

A little more than 50 years ago, Jim Albaugh sat in his plane to incorporate lightweight composite materials
second grade class transfixed by the rhythmic signal to increase fuel efficiency, and the 747-8F, the largest
transmitted to Earth by Sputnik. Little did he know airplane Boeing has ever made.
that a few decades later he would help put satellites
into space—and other, much more complex things. Despite the countless technical questions that must be
solved in order to successfully design, build, and fly
Originally, Albaugh had hoped to build dams, but by machines such as these, they remain, at heart, com-
the time he graduated, most of the country’s dams had plex, human-oriented systems that rely on thousands
been or were nearly finished. So he turned to rocket of people doing their jobs to near perfection in an
science. In 1996, he was president of Rocketdyne uncertain business environment. Assembling one is
when it was acquired by Boeing and he was made much like assembling a complex business unit from
president of Boeing Space Transportation, a group that other, equally complex groups. This, says Albaugh, is
he grew and merged with others to eventually form precisely why an engineer is the ideal person to lead a
the sprawling Integrated Defense Systems unit. Later, massive undertaking like Boeing.
he was selected to lead an equally Sisyphean task—
integrating Boeing’s military aircraft and space units. “Without a technical background, having a view of
He succeeded in part by building better products, but the future and leading a large business is difficult,” he
also by assembling strong teams. said. “I often say—and my apologies to the business
school—I can teach an engineer to be a businessman,
“At Columbia, we learned the power of teamwork in but I don’t think I can teach a businessman to be an
engineering and in problem solving,” said Albaugh. “I engineer.”
also learned the discipline of engineering, the rewards
of hard work and, most important for my role today, It’s also a challenge that Albaugh seems to relish. With
that everyone has something constructive to add to the potential for risk lurking behind every headline
any discussion or debate. Diversity of thought brings about the recession or terrorism or global warming
strength to Boeing, as it does to any organization. This these days, it takes a steady hand to make Boeing suc-
is one of the most important things I learned at Co- cessful in the global marketplace. It also takes the kind
lumbia.” of leadership that shows others will follow.

Today, Albaugh is executive vice president at Boeing as “The essence of leadership is making yourself and your
well as president and CEO of the company’s commer- team better every day,” he said. “This means challeng-
cial airplanes unit. In less than two months, between ing yourself, setting high expectations, and holding
December 2009 and February 2010, Albaugh oversaw yourself personally accountable. These are all things I
first flights of Boeing’s two newest models: the 787 learned at Columbia.”
Dreamliner, the world’s first major commercial air-

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leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Blood-Cleansing System
Ed g ar Nan n e
PhD ’1 0 ch e m i c al en g i n eer i n g

Fashion and Technology To remain alive, nearly 500,000 Americans depend on

thrice-weekly, in-clinic kidney dialysis. The treatment
nomena combined with new manufacturing capabilities
to exponentially increase the efficiency and efficacy in
is costly ($23 billion a year—or about $46,000 per per- the removal of unwanted substances from the blood-
son), very demanding, and provides only a low quality stream. “Using the properties of dynamic similarity of
of life. Some 80,000 Americans are on waiting lists for fluid flow, we are able to flow blood and a protein solu-
Mercedes De Luca kidney transplants, with 4,000 dying each year before tion with minimal mixing,” says Nanne.
BS ’79 Electrical Engineering/ they get one. A steadily operating, ambulatory blood
purification system would decrease patients’ burdens The system, which is expected to be about 4 inches
Computer Science and increase quality of life for all of these patients. square and 1 ½ inches high, is designed to be worn by
President, myShape, Inc. the patient at all times. It will remove water nearly con-
Edgar Nanne, a PhD candidate working with Chemi- tinuously and remove other wastes whenever the patient
cal Engineering Professor Edward Leonard, has been is stationary.
Stay-at-home moms, take heart. Mercedes De Luca stepped out of the work- researching the properties of mass transfer in laminar
force for a dozen years to raise her two sons, now 25 and 26. Then she went on flows of blood, creating the groundwork for the opera- The advantages to this new blood-cleansing system
to become vice president of global IT for Yahoo and now president of the online tion of the final dialysis apparatus. are many—improving patient quality of life; reducing
fashion retailer MyShape.com. the need for anticoagulant therapy and its side effects;
“My contribution to the project, and to the patent, was eliminating the need for a surgical fistula that connects
Her reinvention story began a decade ago, when she returned to school to get the evaluation of how different substances of interest dif- a patient’s artery and vein; and cutting treatment costs.
her MBA, changed her first name (Gladys) to an initial (G.), and used her fuse within blood flows as a function of flow properties, It is expected that the first clinical trials on patients will
middle name, Mercedes, as her first name. With her new degree and new name, red blood cell concentration, and cell-membrane-mole- be in 2011. “The challenges are big,” says Nanne, “but
the Columbia-educated electrical engineer moved on to Yahoo, where she led cule interactions,” says Nanne, a native of Guatemala. I believe that if this technology is to succeed, Professor
400 employees as vice president of the global information technology group. Leonard should get a Nobel Prize for this work. It will
The novel device uses the properties of transport phe- mean a new life for dialysis patients.”
Three years ago, she was recruited to MyShape.com, where she oversees 100
employees, in a job that lets her combine what she calls her “passion for fashion
and passion for technology.” Since the MyShape.com site launch, nearly a mil-
lion women have signed up to be members. They fill in their measurements and
style preferences, and the site’s software matches them with clothing that “fits
and flatters,” says De Luca. Users also specify favorite brands, such as Tahari and
Paige Premium Denim.

De Luca and her colleagues hold patents on their “shape matching” and “per-
sonal shop” applications. Their goal: to “surprise and delight” women and to
help them “play to their strengths,” she says. Her engineering background
comes in handy. “It’s being able to hear what the business problem is and come
up with a software solution,” she says. “You drive your team to create a technol-
ogy solution that’s the way a person thinks and does things.” Off-line, women
like to shop with their friends. So online, as of last August, MyShape.com lets
them leave comments for their friends about outfits they have chosen. “For
most women, shopping with your friend is a very social activity,” says De Luca.
“A lot of us want our friends’ advice. We offer that same experience in the online
world.” This has led to additional success. MyShape.com’s “conversion rate”
(the percent of visitors who actually buy) is now significantly higher than aver-
age for online apparel retailers.

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leaders making an impact

Googling the Target Audience

Cha se H en sel
B S ’10 Comp uter S ci en ce

Advertisers will have an easier time finding more efficient ternity, a member of the editorial board of the Columbia
ways to reach their target audiences on television, thanks Spectator, designed the electronics system for a student-
to a computer tool designed by Chase Hensel BS’10. built race car, was a teaching assistant for two master’s-
level computer science courses, and mentored an elemen-
“I developed a tool that generates a list of TV programs tary school student in the Harlem Robotics program. In
likely to be the most cost effective for an advertiser based addition, he served as an undergraduate research scientist
on their daily budget and target audience,” says Hensel, on campus with the Center for Computational Learning
who devised it during an internship with Google last Systems and the Cardiac Biomechanics Group, and was a
summer. summer software engineering intern at Google.

“This system provided advertisers close to optimal bids Hensel’s academic work has focused on machine learning
for each program in Google’s TV auction and reduced —teaching a computer to recognize patterns.
the price by an average of 30 percent to reach their target
audience. My work was adopted internally during my “I have worked in developing techniques on learning
internship and was released in October into production information from sensitive data—like medical records—
for customer use.” while protecting the privacy of the records, and also on
distributed data mining, which is learning when you have
For someone who was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist last too much information to store on one computer.”
fall and landed a job at Google before he graduated, Hen-
sel’s personal credo—“Mo’ money, mo’ pizza”—might Hensel credits his preparation for the skills he learned to
appear a bit laid back at first glance. his degree program.

Do not be deceived—he gets results with this basic “The courses I took in my field were pivotal in my devel-
approach. opment, as was the time I spent in independent projects
and working directly with professors.”
“My aim is not to make tons of money but rather to
lead a fulfilled life,” he says, noting that he enjoys pizza. This fall, Hensel begins full time in Google’s Associate
“I figure the more money I make, the more I will get to Product Management program.
enjoy pizza.”
Much like his Columbia career, however, he intends to
Hensel had quite a fulfilling experience at Columbia En- keep one foot in academia and one in other endeavors.
gineering, where he finished his degree requirements last He’d like to be an adjunct professor of computer sci-
month. In addition to being a Rhodes finalist, he earned ence, while also working in a high tech field or in public
his degree in just seven semesters, making the Dean’s list policy.
each time and winding up with a 3.94 grade point aver-
age in his major. “I want to work to be happy,” he says. “Fortunately I have
thus far been able to work in fields allowing me to do so.”
Outside class and his studies, he was an officer in a fra-

­­ 12 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 13

 leaders making an impact

Clues to the Early Universe

Mi chael J . M a ssi m i n o
BS ’84 Industrial engineering and oper ations
re se arch
NASA A stro naut

Scientists and astronomers are beginning to see, for the weightlessness and whose job it is to simply make sure
first time, images of the earliest and most distant galaxies, everything goes as smoothly as possible or to confront the
providing a glimpse into the history of the early universe. unexpected with aplomb. As a result, said Massimino,
In the few short months since Mike “Mass” Massimino one of the most important qualities an astronaut can
and his team successfully updated the Hubble Space tele- possess is to be the quintessential team player—someone
scope, 21 new galaxies have been identified and we are who can work well with others in tight quarters and un-
seeing light that has been on its way to Earth for 13 bil- der often stressful circumstances.
lion years.
“I tell people being an astronaut is a lot like getting
At one point, though, Massimino and his partner Mike into Columbia,” said Massimino. “They don’t necessar-
Goode hit a snag that could have prevented these new ily take the ones with the highest SAT scores. They’re
views from ever being seen. During their fourth of five looking for someone who will be able to contribute in a
planned space walks, a handrail with a stuck bolt threat- meaningful way.”
ened to derail efforts to replace the Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph, an instrument that can detect The general public only sees those lucky few who are
supermassive black holes and the chemical makeup of tapped to fly a few times each year on one of the increas-
the atmosphere around distant alien planets. Massimino ingly rare shuttle missions. The rest of the time, Mas-
resorted to an indelicate solution that was not a part of simino and his fellow astronauts contribute to NASA by
the mission handbook. With oxygen running out and ig- fulfilling less glamorous but no less important roles that
noring all of the 117 tools at his disposal, many of which include helping other astronauts prepare for missions,
were created just for the repair mission, he grabbed hold designing and evaluating new equipment, and acting as
of the offending handrail, ripped it from the side of the the public face of the agency.
satellite, and then calmly continued with the repair job.
In all of his roles, Massimino finds himself regularly fall-
“Sometimes the simplest solution is the best,” said Mas- ing back on what he learned as a Columbia Engineer-
simino ’84. ing student. In particular, he says, it’s the engineering
mindset—a way of looking at a problem—that helps
To be fair, his admittedly primitive problem solving came him the most. “Engineering teaches you how to solve
at the suggestion of teammates on the ground who care- problems,” said Massimino. “It teaches you to look at
fully vetted the idea and determined it would take about a problem, decide what’s important, and break it down
60 linear pounds of force for Massimino to remove the into something you can engage.”
handrail. More importantly, they figured it would be the
safest way to quickly remove the obstacle. Whether that problem to be broken down is a balky
satellite or not, it appears Massimino has the solution
Space flight is like that. A few astronauts ride up to orbit well in hand.
on the shoulders of thousands of others who will never
experience the rush of liftoff or the unending freefall of

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leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Safer Groundwater
Brian Albert
BS ’10 Chemical Engineering
Brian Albert’s work in the laboratory of Chemical Engineer- “A portable electrochemical technique to be used on-site
ing Professor Alan West is helping lead to the first field test would be more cost-effective and convenient,” he says.
of groundwater for hazardous ammunition compounds.
Albert is inspired by his participation in the project to
Albert is working on a project to develop a portable and pursue a PhD in either chemical engineering or materials
highly sensitive electrochemical sensor of ammunition science. His long-term goal is to become a professor and
compounds in groundwater. Currently, such testing can lead a research group focused in energy-related areas, such
be done only by taking samples to laboratories. as photovoltaics and batteries, subjects in which he has al-
ready done some research.
He has been mentored by the project’s leader, Lt. Col. Rob-
ert Bozic of the U.S. Military Academy and an adjunct asso- “In the summers of 2006 and 2007 at Brookhaven Na-
ciate research scientist in the Department of Chemical En- tional Laboratory, I was assigned to conduct chemistry re-
gineering, and, since his first semester on campus working search that had potential applications to novel solar energy
in the lab, he has taken on a greater role in the research. technologies,” he says. “Because I already had a general in-
terest in alternative energy, after this experience I focused

Securing Air Space

“Initially, I was responsible for obtaining current response my curiosity on photovoltaic research and sought research
vs. concentration calibration curves for TNT and RDX (an opportunities in that area.
explosive nitroamine) in salt water using a rotating disc elec-
trode and solutions prepared in the laboratory,” he says. “As “My research focused on fabricating light trapping struc-
the project progressed, I helped construct microfluidic de- tures for silicon thin film photovoltaic cells. These photo-
vices via drilling and resin casting. More recently, I will be nic structures would help the cell absorb more incoming
Gus Ordoñez obtaining kinetics data on peptide adsorption of TNT.” radiation, thereby increasing the solar cell’s efficiency.”
ms ’82 Mechanical Engineering
Albert said that long-term monitoring is required at am-
managing director , defense enterprise, ha milton sundstr and munition disposal locations, since TNT is hazardous even
at parts per billion concentrations.
Gus Ordoñez remembers his time at Columbia as a work- ries of defense companies, including Northrop-Grumman,
out—for his body and his brain. Climbing the stairs in where he worked on the flight test program for the B-2
Mudd and Fairchild halls between Mechanical, Civil, and Stealth Bomber, and Honeywell, where he captured the first
Biomedical Engineering gave him the opportunity to get a mini-robotic reconnaissance drone contract that is now used
little exercise and it also set the stage for his eventual climb in Iraq. He also managed Plastek, a company that manufac-
to managing director of an S&P 500 company. tures a chemical compound used to restore clarity to pitted
and scratched cockpit canopies.
As a graduate student, Ordoñez studied a problem involv-
ing low-speed aerodynamics that required advice from pro- Today, Ordoñez finds himself doing more general manage-
fessors in all three departments. He also built the School’s ment than project management as the managing director of
first low-speed wind tunnel in the basement of Mudd so the Defense Enterprise at Hamilton Sundstrand Corpora-
that he could examine airflow over butterfly wings and tion, a part of United Technologies, where he oversees the
other structures. company’s operations, building and developing products
ranging from biological and chemical detectors to cryogenic
“I had to connect a lot of dots and rely on the full breadth of tanks for rockets. But he still traces his success scaling the cor-
my engineering knowledge to be successful,” said Ordoñez. porate ladder back to all those years climbing.
“It gave me the ability to learn from all different people. It
also opened up my mind to other disciplines that engineers “Innovation and creation come from being able to connect
can apply their knowledge to.” as many dots as possible,” said Ordoñez. “Whether it’s a
widget or software or anything, you still have to go back to
After graduation, Ordoñez went on to a career with a se- the fundamentals of engineering to make it work.”

­­ 16 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 17

leaders making an impact

Mega-Construction Projects
R aym o n d Dad da z i o
B S ’75, MS ’76 , EngS cD ’ 8 2 civi l en g i n eer i n g
CEO, Wei d li n g er A ss o ciate s

It has become common to describe the events of Septem- and conducting forensic analysis while also maintaining
ber 11, 2001, as a turning point. For Raymond Dadd- its core strengths in building and bridge design.
azio, the day marked a fundamental change in the way
he looked at and went about his work as a structural en- Daddazio has spent almost his entire career at Weidlinger
gineer. Associates, beginning in 1979 as a graduate student
studying the effects of shock waves on submerged, stiff-
In 2001, Daddazio was head of the Applied Sciences Di- ened thin shells. It was a specialized focus, and Dadd-
vision at Weidlinger Associates, a group started by Co- azio was studying under the mentorship of Baron, a
lumbia Professors Mario Salvadori and Melvin Baron to world-renowned expert on the physics of thin shells, a
advance the science underlying the field of structural en- near-perfect combination for an engineer to become pi-
gineering. As a whole, the firm itself was also continuing geonholed. But the culture at Weidlinger encouraged its
its tradition of designing iconic, cutting-edge structures, staff to follow their interests, and Daddazio soon found
such as the glass-and-steel cube at the American Museum himself addressing problems related to slope failure dur-
of Natural History, and major infrastructure projects, ing earthquakes and the dynamic response of structures
such as Boston’s Big Dig. to extreme loading.

After the World Trade Center towers fell, however, Dadd- Throughout it all, Daddazio found one constant—the
azio came to the realization that engineers do more than need for effective communication. As engineering work
just design major landmarks. “My whole concept of what expanded to include ever-greater interactions with experts
the job is changed at that point,” said Daddazio. “I found from other fields, including public policy, he kept falling
myself educating and interacting with decision makers, back on the basics instilled by Columbia’s Core Curricu-
many of whom do not have technical backgrounds, to lum. “One thing that differentiates me from many of my
help them decide how best to spend billions of dollars to colleagues is my ability to write and communicate,” he
protect infrastructure. That linkage was never cemented said. “No matter what you do, eventually you’re going to
before 9/11. Before, we would have worked on the proj- have to write something.”
ect as presented to us. Now, instead of being reactive, we
need to be more proactive in advising our clients.” But to Daddazio, no matter how wide ranging those col-
laborations become or how political the decisions are, it
The firm, too, quickly found its focus shifted and completed remains fundamentally important that he do his job and
the most extensive analysis of how and why the towers do it well. “Society needs engineers,” he said. “It’s up to
collapsed. Today, Daddazio is president of Weidlinger As- us to take on the problems no one else wants to solve and
sociates and has overseen a dramatic growth in the firm’s solve them well.”
work analyzing security threats, protecting infrastructure,

­­ 18 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 19

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Helping Haiti
Ch r i sti na Br el sfo r d
BS ’0 7 Ci vi l En g i n eer i n g
Co- foun d er of Ch r i sta’ s An g el s
To Christa Brelsford, sustainable development is not Today, Brelsford may not do much design and construc-
about building a perfect world, it’s about building one tion work, but she does see her role as building bridges
that works. Brelsford became interested in sustainability within the development community. Her ability to quan-
through her favorite undergraduate class—Engineering tify problems in particular has helped her make connec-
for Developing Communities. After graduation, she built tions across the many disciplines. “Understanding what
on that interest, completing the one-year MA in Climate you’re trying to count and why you’re trying to count it
and Society at Columbia before beginning a PhD in sus- are all questions an engineer deals with every day, but not
tainability at Arizona State University. everyone in the world has practice with that,” she said.
“It’s a pretty useful and unique skill set I bring to the
Just after New Year’s, Brelsford and her brother Julian developing world.”
went to Haiti, where she began an informal feasibility
study of a proposed retaining wall in a small town near Now she also brings some firsthand experience with the
Port-au-Prince intended to help protect the town from effects and aftermath of a natural disaster. On January
flooding caused by hurricanes. Brelsford hoped to find 12, Brelsford and her brother were at a friend’s house
a less expensive and simpler solution that also would ad- checking their e-mail when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake

Recasting Steel dress the root cause of the flooding.

“When you design something for the developing world,

devastated western Haiti. The house collapsed, pinning
under the rubble Christa’s right leg, which later had to be
amputated below the knee.
you still need to make it fit with existing infrastructure
Stanley A . R abin and existing conditions,” said Brelsford. “If you have a Brelsford and her family recently established Christa’s
BS ’59 Mining Engineering half million dollars to spend, it would probably be better Angels, a foundation intended to help the country re-
spent on reforestation efforts.” cover from the earthquake. Just one more way that she is
Former Chairman, Commercial Metal s Company, Inc. helping build a world that works.

Over the 28 years that he headed the Dallas-based steel sharing and using defined-contribution plans instead of
company Commercial Metals, Stanley Rabin dealt with traditional pensions, he says. He also started operations in
challenges from imports, workers, and competition. But the Poland, Croatia, Germany, and Singapore, always insisting
man whom Forbes magazine described as a “mild-mannered on ethical conduct. “You’re in markets where you may have
metallurgical engineer” simply put his engineering skills to competitors who are bribing,” he says. “I just made it clear
good use. that’s not how we’re going to operate.” That went for paying
corporate taxes, too.
To lower costs and maintain control over the entire steel-
making process, Rabin brought a new way of doing busi- After he graduated from Columbia’s dual-degree program
ness to Commercial Metals. Originally, the company just with a BA in 1958 and a BS in metallurgical engineering
collected scrap and processed it. Under Rabin’s leadership, in 1959, the Bronx High School of Science graduate left
the company became “vertically integrated,” producing steel New York. For more than 40 years, he has lived in Dallas
parts from start to finish. The company operation expanded with his wife, the former Barbara Benjamin. He keeps busy
to include gathering the scrap metal, melting it, casting and volunteering his time to the United Way, the American Jew-
fabricating it and, finally, distributing it for use in highway ish Joint Distribution Committee, and the American Jewish
and building construction. Committee. A member of Columbia’s crew team, he still
occasionally rows, but on a machine. He is no longer in-
To make his decisions, Rabin used the skills he learned as volved with the steel business (except as a shareholder), but
a metallurgical engineering student at Columbia—“how to he knows what he would do with federal stimulus money.
do things systematically, hopefully logically,” he says. For Spend it, wisely and carefully, on infrastructure. His motto
example, he kept his company out of debt and maintained a as a CEO, a volunteer, and an engineer is simple: “Do it
good relationship with workers by “treating all the employ- right.”
ees fairly and giving them some incentives,” such as profit

­­ 20 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 21

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Explosion-resistant Green
Buildings
Eve Hinman
BS ’82, MS ’83, PhD ’94 Civil Engineering
President, Hinman Consulting Engineering, Inc.
Eve Hinman is an accidental engineer. As a New York So in 1997, Hinman started her own San Francisco firm
City teenager, she attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia to help both retrofit and build new structures that can
High School of Music & Art. She asked to study calcu- survive explosions. (Think lots of concrete and steel.)
lus. No dice. “I was told it interfered with my art classes!” She started out with courthouses and moved into other
says Hinman, president of Hinman Consulting Engi- federal buildings. “Every time there’s a bombing, a new
neers, Inc., in San Francisco. She entered Queens College federal agency comes on board,” she says. Being a woman
and then Hunter College (it was closer to home)—but helps. “It’s a differentiator,” she says. “People remember
quickly realized liberal arts programs didn’t play to her me.” She gets a lot of female applicants, who know she
strengths. is “family friendly.” After all, she knows what it’s like to
be a working mom. She juggles running her 16-engineer
“I thought, maybe I’ll become an engineer. I like build- business with raising 7- and 9-year-old boys—and taking
ings a lot,” she says. “Maybe I’ll become a structural engi- the 40-minute bus ride to and from her home in Marin.
neer.” She took the pre-engineering curriculum and “aced (She met her husband, the IT consultant for her firm,
everything,” she says. While working her way through while mountain biking in the Sierra Nevada.)
school, she did data entry for a market-research firm—
and a colleague there suggested she apply to Columbia’s Today, business is booming, particularly with federal
engineering program. She did. At Columbia, where she stimulus money going toward her type of projects. Af-
was one of the seven women in her class of 28, she got her ter all, she and her fellow “blast consultants” help make
BS and her MS, both in civil engineering. She remains explosion-proof, but still green, buildings—just what the
grateful to the University for giving her a full scholarship White House wants to see. Steel is largely recycled, and
for the one-year master’s program. concrete is greener if it’s made with slag or fly ash (the
residue from coal combustion). Fortunately for her busi-
While working at a New York engineering firm, she ness, the federal stimulus money requires high levels of
spent 10 years getting her PhD (in 1994). For her dis- green design that can withstand everything from terrorist
sertation, she used chaos theory to look at how buildings attacks to earthquakes.
and soil interact during earthquakes. She promptly put
that knowledge to work. She headed to California, where “With climate change, it’s hard to know exactly what haz-
she worked at a forensic engineering firm and figured out ards your building is going to be exposed to in the next
how explosions (usually from gas leaks) occurred. One hundred years,” she says. “We don’t even need a terrorist
of her tasks: going to Oklahoma City after the bombing. to bomb our infrastructure. It may fall down by itself if
Previously, she had spent most of her time doing calcula- we don’t replace it soon, Or worse, it may collapse due to
tions in an office. “This was my first time on the site of natural hazards if we don’t rebuild it in a smart way that
a terrorist bombing,” she says. “It was an unbelievable anticipates future conditions. How can we build a build-
experience in terms of actually seeing what an explosion ing so it can withstand anything that is likely to happen
does to a building.” Through this experience, she realized in the next 100 years? That is the question we are work-
she wanted to help with the design and construction of ing on now.”
safe buildings, but her employer didn’t have the profes-
sional liability insurance for her to develop that practice
area.

­­ 22 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 23

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Linking Ideas on the Providing Power in

Web Uganda
Nicholas Aretakis Janelle Heslop
bs ’84 Electrical Engineering BS ’10 Earth and Environmental
CEO, Ark ayne Engineering

Nicholas Aretakis spent 22 successful years in the semiconductor busi- Two life-changing experiences guide Earth and Environmental Engineering se-
ness, helping increase profits tenfold in the ’90s at ESS Technology, one nior Janelle Heslop to her May graduation date.
of the first to introduce an audio chip for PC motherboards. He also led
lucrative IPOs at two other semiconductor companies. The first happened nearly a decade ago, when she attended the summer science
program in her hometown of Yonkers, N.Y., after her sixth- and seventh-grade
Seems he learned more than engineering at Columbia as a transfer stu- years in that city’s public school system. The experience triggered her interest—
dent more than 25 years ago. and the attention of program advisers, who saw her potential —and led to schol-
arships at the exclusive Riverdale Country School in the Riverdale section of
Although he credits the competitiveness of his fellow students and the the Bronx.
talent and dedication of his professors for the quality of his education,
several experiences outside the classroom—including a brush with death, The second life-changing event happened here at Columbia, shortly after
an arduous summer job, and playing on the rugby team—were key ele- she joined the University’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). “It
ments that forged his character and leadership abilities that helped him changed my career path,” she says.
become a success as an entrepreneur and book author.
While Heslop knew she wanted to study some kind of engineering, her experi-
As a rugby player, he picked up some valuable entrepreneurial skills col- ences with EWB helped focus her attention on wanting to find sustainable solu-
laborating on a fundraising idea to cover international travel expenses. tions as a career. “I really want to serve communities,” she says.

“I contacted an alumnus at Columbia Pictures, and instead of money, I Heslop is the technical lead for the water team on EWB’s Uganda project, which
asked him if he could loan us a few recent movies so we could conduct seeks to supply power for agricultural machines via an engine that runs on ja-
a fundraiser on campus,” he says. “We raised enough to send everyone tropha oil obtained from seeds of a native tree. The Environmental Protection
overseas.” Agency awarded the project a $75,000 grant last fall.

By the time he was 30 years old, Aretakis had become a millionaire and Last summer, she was a member of one of two teams that went to Uganda. Her
later helped develop landmark technologies in computer sound and ad- team continued work on diesel engines that power generators, pumps, and other
vanced DSL capabilities. equipment. The team also assessed community needs, like water access and reli-
ability at the local school, and is continuing work back on campus designing the
His professional background includes 24 years in sales, marketing, and needed water systems for later installation.
operations leadership in Silicon Valley, and two successful high-tech
IPOs. Aretakis is also heavily involved leading Arkayne, a company he Heslop says the experience has opened her eyes to injustice on a global scale,
started several years ago with the intention of changing the way busi- while helping prepare her for finding ways to contribute something positive.
nesses can run online marketing campaigns. The company’s product is “It’s a great opportunity to serve an underserved community and apply some
a related-posts plugin, initially designed for blogs with some additional of the engineering skills I’ve learned in my academics,” she says. “I use my en-
features allowing networking and building links. The tool examines the gineering skills all the time (on the project). I’ve been applying just everything
content on a blog or any Web page and compares every post to other I’ve learned.”
content to create a list of related links within the user’s collection of
trusted friends and partner sites. Heslop plans to take a year off before graduate school, in part because she’s ex-
ploring which path to pursue. She is confident the past four years have prepared
Aretakis intends to see Arkayne repeat his past successes. her well to arrive at her decision. “Columbia Engineering has given me a set of
problem-solving skills I apply in all sorts of areas—the computational, quantita-
tive, and qualitative skills you need to succeed.”

­­ 24 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 25

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Engineering Public Health Understanding Knots

Paul Brandt-Rauf Mehvish Poshni and
BS ’70, MS ’73, EngScD ’74 Chemical Engineering, Imr an Farid Khan
MD ’79, MPH ’80, DrPH ’87 PhD ’10 Computer Science
Dean, School of Public Health
Husband and wife scientific teams are not new—think Pierre and Marie Cu-
University of Illinois at Chicago rie—and Columbia Engineering provides an environment that Mehvish Poshni
and Imran Farid Khan found welcoming.
Paul Brandt-Rauf is trying to prevent and reduce health tion.”
problems in the United States—and the rest of the world. “We know the engineering solutions, but we haven’t Both are PhD students in the Department of Computer Science, with an empha-
The challenges are huge: A third of Earth’s 6 billion in- been able to invest in them,” he says. Ninety-five percent sis in topological graph theory. Both are working with Professor Jonathan Gross.
habitants lack clean water and 45 million Americans go of health care dollars go toward treating, rather than pre- Both are Fulbright Scholars and came to Columbia Engineering from their native
without health insurance. venting, health problems. “Public health suffers from the Pakistan, and each hopes to return after earning their terminal degrees to become
problem that, when we do our jobs right, nobody notices professors in their homeland.
But engineering can come to the rescue, says Brandt- because nobody gets sick,” says Brandt-Rauf, who over-
Rauf, dean since last year of the school of public health at sees 100 faculty and 700 students. They say that balancing their five-year marriage with their shared career pursuit
the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Engineers can and is not as complicated as it might seem to others. “We have never had to con-
should be agents of social justice. Part of that is helping But Brandt-Rauf is trying to prevent disease. The father sciously balance work and life,” says Poshni. “It happens naturally.”
to ensure the health of the public.” There’s a precedent of five sits on the national board of directors for Engi-
for it. While antibiotics and vaccines improved Ameri- neers Without Borders, which uses engineering to solve It certainly does not seem as complex as the topological graph theory they are
cans’ health and longevity, water purification and sewer public health problems in Third World villages and gives exploring. Professor Gross explains that discovery in this field is an objective in
systems proved even more important. “Engineers were students vital, practical experiencing in solving real- its own right and that the motivating factor is rarely to seek a direct practical
able to re-engineer society in a way that gave us clean world problems. An advocate of engineers as agents of application. There is the potential for an eventual one, however, in the work the
water and sanitation,” says Brandt-Rauf. “If you think social justice, he says “engineering is not just a job or couple is doing with Gross.
about why the developing world has such poor health career but sort of a ‘calling,’ which entails a high respon-
now, it’s because they don’t have clean water and sanita- sibility to society and a duty to give back.” “A potential application of our work on topological aspects of network layouts is
to the design of computer chips, which could be realized by augmenting our to-
pological models with geometric specifications,” Gross says. “Our present work
on knots is aimed at developing a theory of design for the graphic art forms
called ‘Celtic knots,’ with the expectation that this will lead to a theory encom-
passing all knots. Knot theory is applicable to things as far apart as textiles and
string theory in physics. Nonetheless, our focus is on the mathematics, rather
than on these or any other applications.”

Poshni said that such theoretical flavors were what initially attracted them to
Columbia Engineering. “It was one of the few programs that both my husband
and I felt could provide the kind of academic development we were at the time
looking for,” she said.

“Mehvish and I have been jointly working with our adviser on developing meth-
ods for computing genus distribution of various families of graphs,” Khan said.
“Most of the prior work in this problem area by others had dealt with specific
families of graphs, whereas the methods that we have been developing are more
generic.”

­­ 26 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 27

 leaders making an impact

Pioneering Bioengineering
G lo r ia R ei n i sh
B S ’4 5 , MS ’4 8 elec tr i c al En g i n eer i n g , EngS cD ’ 7 4
Bi o en g i n eer i n g
Profe ss or of bioengineering , Fairleigh Dickinson
Univer sity

In the record books, Gloria Brooks Reinish can rightly After three children (two girls and a boy), she tried be-
claim to be the first woman graduate of Columbia En- ing a high school substitute teacher for math and phys-
gineering, receiving her BS degree in electrical engineer- ics. It was not a good fit. Then, in 1961, she sent her
ing in 1945. She is also a pioneer in the field of bioengi- qualifications to Fairleigh Dickinson University, 10
neering and, in 1974, became one of the first Columbia minutes from her home. “Much to my amazement, I
women to earn a doctorate in that emerging field. got a call immediately,” she says. Two days later, she
started teaching an electronics class there. That made
Reinish’s revolutionary work for her doctoral thesis was life a little difficult for her because her children were
on the electrical properties of human bones, using elec- then 1, 5, and 10 years old.
tricity to stimulate bone growth. Her expertise led to
an appointment as a consultant to the FDA panel that As it turns out, the children grew up unscathed, and all
approved medical devices designed to provide electrical engineers. Jim Reinish received his degree in operations
stimulation to help bones knit together more quickly. research from Columbia Engineering in 1982; Julie
Askins received her degree in electrical engineering from
But Reinish did not move directly from an established Princeton in 1977; and Nancy Passow received her de-
academic field (electrical engineering) to a nascent in- gree in chemical engineering from Columbia in 1972.
terdisciplinary one (bioengineering). Life, love, and Even in this arena, Reinish can boast of two “firsts.”
children intervened. She is the only woman who has been a student at Co-
lumbia Engineering at the same time as her daughter
Following her graduation from Columbia Engineering (Nancy Passow), and, in a matter of months, will be the
at the age of 19 (she was part of the war-time acceler- only Columbia alumna who can boast that a child (Jim
ated program), she went to work for Bell Labs and then Reinish) and grandchild (Jim’s daughter, Ariel ’10) are
to Sperry Gyroscope, where she worked on radar sys- also graduates of the School.
tems. Her research at Sperry led to a patent on a radar
ranging system. During her tenure at FDU, Reinish has been chair of
the Electrical Engineering Department and founding
During these years, she met her University of Pennsyl- chair of the bioengineering program. Reinish still teach-
vania-trained chemical engineer husband in the Poco- es at least four classes each semester, in the classroom
nos. They married in 1948, and he went on to become and on the Web.
a Research Fellow in R&D for detergents. When she
became pregnant in 1951, she retired from the work- As she approaches her 65th reunion this year, she is pre-
force—temporarily. She wanted to stay home with her pared to be one of the few engineers who are still work-
baby—at least for the short term. Soon she realized she ing, and certainly the only woman. In this respect, too,
also wanted something “mentally stimulating,” so she Reinish may go into the record books.
started taking some classes at Columbia. “I started out
not really thinking I was going to do it toward the doc-
torate,” she says.

­­ 28 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 29

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Advancing Medical Imaging Mending Hearts

R aymond A. Schulz Amandine Godier-Furnémont
MS ’75 Electrical Engineering BS ’09, PhD ’14 Biomedical Engineering
Senior Product Manager,
From the time she was a sophomore, Amandine Godi- says. “I’m really interested in going back to fundamentals
Varian Medical Systems er-Furnémont has been working in Professor Gordana and understanding how to generate an ideal heart cell—
Vunjak-Novakovic’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tis- one that both looks and behaves like any heart cell, can
sue Engineering, making strides in discovering how to assemble into heart tissue, and function optimally when
It’s hard to talk to Raymond Schulz and not notice how often he uses mend broken hearts using cell therapy. it’s implanted into the harsh environment of the heart.”
the word “fun”—to describe his career, his outside interests, the way
he approaches life. A self-described “outgoing guy who loves to get “Carrying out research as an undergraduate, I was given Godier-Furnémont is hopeful about her future and her
up on stage,” Schulz has spent his entire career advancing medical the opportunity to do a lot of independent work in design- chosen field.
imaging, first as a software developer and more recently as a medical ing and carrying out experiments, writing research papers,
marketing executive and technical marketer, along the way authoring and traveling to conferences and meeting other research- “The practical applications of my work are all in the near
or co-authoring nearly 200 papers, chapters, and books. ers,” she says. Some of Godier’s undergraduate research future, where I hope we can make some significant con-
was supported by an NHLBI Research Supplement for tributions to the already large body of knowledge of cell
Schulz came to Columbia in 1972 as a medical physicist with an research focusing on electrical signaling and using a native therapy for cardiovascular diseases,” she says. Her hope is
undergraduate degree in physics and an interest in developing non- heart matrix to develop functional cardiac tissue. to achieve this “by bridging the gap between basic research
invasive ways to study the human body. After doing early imaging and translational work that has already led to preclinical
research at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, he jumped Now, as a first-year PhD student who holds an NSF Graduate testing and early human trials for cell therapy.”
into the nascent field of computerized tomography, or CT scanning, Research Fellowship, she is continuing the work that initially
at the Columbia Medical Center’s Neurological Institute of New York. attracted her to biomedical engineering. “As a graduate stu- She intends to stay in academia, but acknowledges—with
During one heady two-year period, he used early minicomputers to dent, many of the courses I am taking are geared towards re- a smile—harboring other creative urges as well.
help make revolutionary strides in the speed and quality of whole- search applications, and there is this continued effort to foster
body scanning. collaborations throughout the departments here,” she says. “I still like to imagine achieving my childhood dreams of
having my own bakery.”
Schulz continued his passion for learning and staying ahead of the “I work with embryonic stem cell–derived heart cells to
curve by launching himself headlong into nascent fields every decade investigate how we can mediate repair in the heart,” she
or so—from CT in the 1970s, to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
in the 1980s, to digital holography in the 1990s. As part of the Surgi-
cal Sciences Group at Varian Medical Systems in Palo Alto, Calif.,
Schulz currently works with institutions around the world, including
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where he started, to advance
techniques in radiosurgery—a method of treating tumors with high
doses of radiation, guided into small places with three-dimensional
imagery, over one to five sessions.

Part of his enthusiasm for his life-saving work comes from a more
general enthusiasm for life, something he credits to his father, Helmut
W. Schulz. The elder Schulz, a highly respected professor of chemical
engineering at Columbia and the 2004 Egleston Medal recipient, lost
his sight at age 28 in a lab accident, but never let that hold him back.
“Dad taught us not to be afraid to open our arms to new ideas,” said
Schulz.

As an engineer, that philosophy has driven Schulz to open his arms to

new ideas and to push the boundaries of what it means to be an engi-
neer by becoming a leader in a field dominated by clinicians and phys-
icists. “I think it’s important to be more than just an engineer,” said
Schulz. “You have to be a whole person and not restrict yourself.”

­­ 30 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 31

leaders making an impact leaders making an impact

Technology Management Society, Industry, Government, and Academia

Anna Kazanjian Longobardo you, our alumni and students
BS ’49, MS ’52 Mechanical BS, MS, EngScD, PhD, any year , any department
Engineering

Anna Kazanjian Longobardo may be one of the few who can say that
she has had an impact on technology management in the air, on land,
and at sea. At Unisys, she directed a program to develop and test
radiation-tolerant computers for the Air Force and also managed a
program for the Federal Highway Safety Administration, studying
roadway geometries that caused accidents. Earlier, at United Tech-
nologies, she worked on board U.S. Navy submarines and destroyers.
Her innovative design to calibrate sonar increased navigational accu-
racy for submarines operating below periscope depth.

During her career, Longobardo took on larger and larger leadership

roles, becoming the senior woman executive at the Unisys Corpora-
tion defense unit, heading a global organization supporting complex
military and weather radar systems in more than 100 locations world-
wide, supervising nearly 900 engineers.

Despite the demands of her professional life, Longobardo always

found time to volunteer for Columbia. She has served as University All of you, our Columbia Engineering alumni and stu- importance. The impact of these disciplines on academia
Trustee for six years and is now a Trustee Emerita. The University dents, are leaders in your own field and have made a was recognized by the Trustees of Columbia, when they
cited her “indefatigable energy and intellect” in her retirement resolu- mark, and are continuing to make a mark, on the soci- agreed, in 1864, to a proposal by Thomas A. Egleston to
tion. The recipient of the University’s Alumni Medal for Service, she ety in which we are living. This issue of Columbia Engi- establish the Columbia College School of Mines.
has been the first woman to hold positions as president of the En- neering has been focused on our leaders of today—our
gineering Alumni Association, president of the University’s Alumni alumni—and our leaders of tomorrow—our students. There were very few engineering schools in the country at
Federation, and chair of the Dean’s Engineering Council, now the We have been limited by space in telling the story of all that time, and our School became the first in the nation
Board of Visitors. She is currently serving as chair of the Mechani- our great alumni and students, such as yourself and your to bear the sole designation as a School of Mines. Four
cal Engineering External Advisory Board. “I like to take a leadership classmates or program mates. Future issues will highlight years from now, in 2014, Columbia Engineering will cel-
role,” she says. “I’m talkative, and I say what I think.” other alumni leaders in different fields, but we are count- ebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding. We expect
ing on you to help us fill out our history with your most that this fact, and other facts about our School’s history,
Volunteering is second nature to Longobardo who, while an under- recent successes. will become more widely known during the special cel-
graduate, helped found the National Society of Women Engineers, ebration of our sesquicentennial year.
which elected her a fellow in 1991. She has also been involved in Columbia Engineering continues to be a school whose mis-
her community in many ways over the years. Currently, her civic sion is to educate socially responsible engineering and ap- This historic benchmark of our founding is one that we
posts include vice chair of the Bronxville (N.Y.) Planning Board and plied science leaders whose work results in the betterment already are eagerly anticipating. To help us learn more
chair of its Design Review Committee, and, in 2008, she was elected of the human condition, locally, nationally, and globally. about all of you, we are establishing a page on our Web
Westchester County’s Citizen Planner. site where you can tell your stories or bring to our atten-
We trace the academic lineage of educating engineering tion the most recent contributions of some of your fellow
Longobardo added another first to her portfolio when she became the and applied science leaders back to the original charter of alumni or students.
first woman to receive the Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engi- King’s College in 1754, when the nascent sciences and
neering achievement. “Whenever a new assignment or responsibility engineering were described as areas worthy of academic Become a proactive Columbia Engineering leader in this
was given to me, I just gave it my maximum effort,” she said. “I was endeavor. Following the American Revolution and early effort to record our history. Go to www.engineering.
immensely honored to be recognized by the Engineering alumni for development of the United States, engineering and ap- columbia.edu/leaders and let us know your story or that
my work; I never thought about being the first at anything.” Longo- plied science disciplines became more important and of someone you know.
bardo credits her Columbia Engineering professors, who, she says, scientific methods and research gained greater academic
“told us that they were preparing us for leadership roles in American
industry, and we believed them.”
­­ 32 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 33
T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science Shree
Nayar, the creator of the BigShot Camera, lower
left, is shown amid the candy-colored cameras
now in prototype and being used by children in
New York, Bengaluru, India, Vung Tau, Vietnam,
Little Big Shots
and Tokyo, Japan, to take photos such as those
illustrated here. Shree Nayar is well known in computer vision circles as the inven-
tor of the Omnicam, a camera that captures a 360 degree image,
but he is becoming even better known nationally and internation-
ally with grade schoolers.

As the creator of BigShot Camera, a build-it-yourself ic, and comes in an array of vibrant candy colors. Chil-
digital camera kit for children, Nayar is hoping to stimu- dren in New York City, Bangalore, India, and Vung Tau,
late children’s curiosity and, at the same time, hook them Vietnam, have been field-testing the cameras since this
on the wonders of science and technology summer. During the school year, Nayar holds workshops
“I’ve believed for a long time that the camera, as a piece on Saturdays at Columbia Engineering, bringing in 10
of technology, has a very special place in society,” says to 12 different neighborhood children for each session.
Nayar, the T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science. Each has an opportunity to learn about technology as
“It allows us to express ourselves and to communicate they build the camera, to learn about the fundamentals of
with each other in a very powerful way. In the hands of photography, and then to go outside and take pictures.
children, it becomes a way to learn about other cultures “This is an opportunity to use the camera to educate
and communities.” children,” says Nayar. “It is much more engaging than be-
Four years ago, Nayar had the idea to create a workable ing taught using a blackboard. We go from science to en-
digital camera with snap-together parts that could be put gineering to art, and ultimately, to communicating with
together by youngsters who would then take photos and kids from different cultures and communities.”
share them with each other, across the globe, via the In- While the long-term goal is to create a Flickr for kids
ternet. Each camera component teaches the builder about to upload and share and comment on photos, says Nayar,
science basics—how mechanical energy of the crank is they can upload their pictures now on the project’s Web
converted into electrical energy to power the battery, how site: bigshotcamera.org.
gears work, how light bends as it pass through a lens. “The photos are remarkable,” says Nayar. “The kids
“This process of building the camera exposes them to learn how things start as designs on paper and then be-
mechanics, to electromagnetism, to power generation and come real things.”
storage,” he says. “Before a piece is snapped together, they Nayar, whose current work is funded by Google, is
learn how it works—it is really a bait for learning.” looking for a partner to underwrite the manufacture of
BigShot also has big capabilities. It has a flash and the BigShot kit. Once that happens, the world will be full
three lenses, standard, stereoscopic (3-D), and panoram- of little Big Shots.

­­ 34 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 35

 Faculty honorees included:

Celebrating Faculty Excellence

Keren Bergman George Deodatis
Professor, Electrical Engineering Santiago and Robertina Calatrava Family Professor, Civil
Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
(IEEE) Elected president, International Association for Struc-
tural Safety and Reliability

José Blanchet Dan Ellis

Assistant Professor, Industrial Engineering and Operations Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering
Research NSF Frontiers of Engineering Selectee 2009
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) NSF Frontiers of Engineering Symposium Organizer
Award 2010

Marco Castaldi Tony Heinz

Assistant Professor, Earth and Environmental Engineering David M. Rickey Professor of Optical Communications,
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Electrical Engineering
Award Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics

Siu-Wai Chan Julia Hirschberg

Professor, Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics Professor, Computer Science
Fellow, American Ceramic Society Board of Directors Fellow, International Speech Communications
Association

D
Kartik Chandran Clark Hung
Assistant Professor, Earth and Environmental Engineering Professor, Biomedical Engineering
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Fellow, American Institute of Medical and Biological
Award Engineering

ean Feniosky Peña-Mora inaugurated an annual celebration of fac- Shih-Fu Chang Helen Lu
ulty excellence by honoring 32 faculty members who won major Professor and Chair, Electrical Engineering Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
awards during the 2008–2009 academic year. At a reception held 2009 Kiyo Tomiyasu Award Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and
at the newly renovated Faculty House, Dean Peña-Mora noted that Engineer (PECASE) (National Institutes of Health
many exceptional students became members of the faculty, including Michael I. Pupin, nominee)
Class of 1883, whose students included Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir of the Class of
1903, and Edwin Howard Armstrong, Class of 1913.
Xi Chen V. Faye McNeill
Associate Professor, Earth and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
“The hallmark of Columbia Engineering faculty always was, and continues to be, excel- NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and
lence and impact,” said the dean, addressing the honorees. “Each of you is part of this great Engineers (PECASE) (National Science Foundation Award
tradition of teaching and research, of excellence and impact. For some of you starting your nominee)
career, the awards you are honored for today are but the beginning. For those of you who
are more seasoned, these honors are but another recognition of decades-long contributions
to your field.” Maria Chudnovsky Van C. Mow
Associate Professor, Industrial Relations and Operations Stanley Dicker Professor of Biomedical Engineering and
Research Chair, Biomedical Engineering
Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize Associate Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the
Developing World

­­ 36 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 37

 Program
Gertrude F. Neumark John Taylor
Howe Professor Emerita of Materials Science and Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering and Engineering

Notes
Engineering and Professor Emerita, Applied Physics and Mechanics
Applied Mathematics Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship

Class Notes
Honorary Doctor of Science Degree

Reunions
Steven Nowick Vladimir Vapnik
Professor, Computer Science Professor, Computer Science, and Senior Research Scientist
Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at the Center for Computational Learning Systems
(IEEE) (CCLS)
Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award

Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park

Lenfest Earth Institute Assistant Professor of Climate
Change, Earth and Environmental Engineering
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)
Award
Latha Venkataraman
Assistant Professor, Applied Physics and Applied
Mathematics
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)
Award
alumni notes:
Aron Pinczuk Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
Professor, Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Elected Member, Women in Technology International
class notes: undergraduate alumni ally I led a research effort to seek nonaqueous
battery systems that could operate over a wide
Hall of Fame temperature range. When sponsorship of this
effort ceased in 1961, I was transferred into a

1942
was project engineer on Whirlwind and Hurri- highly classified photo-optical program, first as
cane computers and related devices. [I worked at] a tech writer and later as a systems engineer. I
Sperry Gyroscope Co., where we computerized gradually advanced to become a project engineer
Paul Sajda Chee-Wei Wong Loran C for tactical aircraft bombing; Fairchild
Class Correspondent: in the 1970s.This work is still under wraps. At
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering Camera and Instrument, innovating electronic
Fellow American Institute of Medical and Biological 2009 3M Young Faculty Award Arthur Graham at the end of 1980, I decided to retire after 36 years
scanning aerial cameras. I returned to Sperry to with EK, all on government contracts. For over
Engineering [email protected] set up computer-controlled automatic checkout 20 years I volunteered in the AARP’s Tax-Aide
equipment.” He also worked at Potter Instru- program as a counselor, local coordinator, and
Ruth and I continue to keep going. We visited ment Company in new product planning and de-
Grand Canyon, Bryce, and Zion national parks instructor. It was rewarding to provide free tax
velopment and was visiting professor and associ- preparation for low-income clients. Many volun-
Mischa Schwartz Y. Lawrence Yao in the spring and South America in February,
Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus, Electrical ate professor at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, teers are retired engineers.
Professor and Chair, Mechanical Engineering starting in Buenos Aires, going through the Strait where he developed a new curriculum for their
Engineering Fellow, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), of Magellan, and ending up in Valparaiso. I am “I married a local girl in 1951. We settled on a
IEEE Educational Activities Board Vice President’s new Systems Science and Business departments. small farm in Victor and have stayed there ever
and President, North American Manufacturing Re- president of the Columbia Club of Westchester,
Recognition Award “I founded Com Comp Computer, a computer since. We have one son in Ohio who is trying to
search Institution of SME am on a few boards including, among others, company to computerize hospital medical data. I get us to move near him as we become enfeebled.
my local JCC, the Society of Columbia Gradu- took it public at 3; it peaked at 12. I was CEO of
ates, the Columbia Alumni Association, and, of Since retiring I’ve spent much time researching
Theodore Zoli Fiber Optic Sensors, another high tech start-up. my wife’s ancestry, which goes back to early New
Nabil Simaan course, the Engineering Alumni Association. Also
Adjunct Professor, Civil Engineering and Engineering Presently, I’m an engineer turned author.” His England settlers.”
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering joined the Old Guard of White Plains, a group
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Mechanics first book, coming out shortly, is Barack Hussein
of us older members of society who get together Obama, Our New Messiah?
Award MacArthur Foundation Genius Award and socialize, and am active in my local temple. John H. Freund, who lives in Victor, N.Y.,
Here is news that was sent to me by some of our writes, “I’m one of the ten chemmies who took
classmates: their p-g year and received their ChE (now MS
Charles H. Doersam Jr. of Old Lyme, Conn., degree) in 1943. Then I spent 19 months at
Adam Sobel Gil Zussman writes that he worked at Bell Telephone Labs.
Associate Professor, Applied Physics and Applied Columbia working for Profs. Fink and Linford
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering “I did the computer for the BAT Missile; the
Mathematics on an OSRD contract for upgrading chemical
Young Investigator Award, Defense Threat Reduction Navy sank a Japanese destroyer with it! I was in
Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award of the American Agency timers for sabotage devices. Next, I moved to
the Combined Research Group of the Naval Re- Rochester, N.Y., to work for Eastman Kodak Co.
Meteorological Society Council search Laboratory, as civilian and officer UISNR, on a top-secret war program, later revealed as
and helped with IFF Mark V development and the proximity fuse. I was a battery development
the Special Devices Center of the USN, where I engineer. The work continued postwar. Eventu- Golden Lions pins

­­ 38 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 39

 tutorials in IEEE SOI, SSDM, ICCAD, CICC,
ASYNC, and AMC, and coauthored tutorials in
ISSCC and DAC. He holds 140 U.S. patents in
addition to several pending patents.

in memoriam
Joshi is an IEEE fellow and ISQED fellow.
He received the Lewis Winner Award in 1992
for an outstanding paper he coauthored at the
International Solid State Circuit Conference,
and, in 2009, the IEEE/ACM William J.
McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Award. He is in
program committees of IEEE ISLPED (Int.
Symposium Low Power Electronic Design),
IEEE VLSI design, IEEE Int. SOI conf
faculty instituted an annual award in his honor, the
Theodore R. Bashkow Award. Among his many
affiliations, Professor Bashkow was an active
also a member of the
National Academy of
Sciences, and a fel-
(2000–2003), ISQED. He was a general chair Theodore R. Bashkow member of IEEE, ACM, and Sigma Xi organiza- low of the American
for the 2004 ISLPED conference. In 2008, he Dr. Theodore R. Bashkow, professor emeri- tions. Academy of Arts and
was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award tus of electricial engineering and computer Sciences and of the
Irina Kalish’s children
from IIT, Bombay. science, died Dec. 23, 2009, at his home in Praveen Chaudhari American Physical
Katonah, N.Y. He was born in St. Louis, Mo., Praveen Chaudhari, a member of the National Society.
ment, my wife, Yukiko Tani, and I have trekked,
climbed, and done photography in Patagonia,
mechanical and attended Washington University, where
he received his BS
Academy of Engineering and winner of the
National Medal for Technology and an adjunct
Dr. Chaudhari
was active in many
the European Alps, and the Himalaya.  We also
engage ourselves in local hiking and photogra-
engineering degree in mechanical professor in the Department of Applied Physics committees nationwide and internationally,
engineering. He went and Applied Mathematics, died on Jan. 13, including the Physics Policy Committee of
phy, and via attendance at operatic, symphonic, on to receive his mas- 2010, at his home in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., the American Physical Society, the Governing
and classical ballet programs.” Guillermo Guzmán-Barrón MS ’90 writes,
ter’s and doctorate after a battle with cancer. Professor Chaudhari Board of the New York Academy of Sciences,
Steffen K. Kaldor MS ’98, PhD ’02 currently “I joined Microsoft in 1993 (after my MBA
degrees at Stanford and two colleagues discovered and developed the Advisory Board of the Mathematical and
works at IBM’s advanced 300 mm semiconduc- from CBS) and have spent the last 16 years at
University. He served a new class of materials, the amorphous mag- Physical Sciences of the National Science
tor fabricator in East Fishkill, N.Y., as the man- Microsoft in different jobs. Starting as product
in the U.S. Air Force netic materials that are the basis of erasable, Foundation, and the Scientific Advisory Council

Dean’s Day,
ager of manufacturing process integration and manager for Microsoft TechNet, then product
as a first lieutenant read-write, optical storage technology, now the of the International Center for Theoretical
yield improvement. He and his wife, Lu Ann, manager for Visual Tools for Latin America,
during World War II foundation of the worldwide magnetic-optic disk Physics. He served as the executive secretary
June 5
have two boys, Sebastian, 4, and Alexander, 1. customer unit manager for Microsoft Peru, small
from 1943 to 1945. industry. It was this technology that earned him of President Reagan’s Advisory Council on

Reunion Weekend
Steffen hopes everyone at Columbia is doing business group manager for Microsoft Colombia,
While in the Air Force, he served as maintenance the National Medal of Technology in 1995. Superconductivity and was a member of the
well. He can be reached at [email protected]. business group lead for Microsoft Andean
officer and helped to stage the Enola Gay. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology– National Commission on Superconductivity that

June 3–6, 2010

Irina Kalish MS ’07 writes, “We had a family Regiona, small and medium business market-
In the 1950s, while at Bell Labs, Professor Kharagpur, he received his doctoral degree from reported its findings to President Bush. In 1988,
addition this year. Our new daughter, Abigail ing manager for Latin America, and now as the
Bashkow became well known for his develop- Massachusetts Institute of Technology in physical he reported to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of
Lydia Kalish, was born on April 15, 2009.  So small, medium business, solutions and partners
ment of a new method for analyzing linear elec- metallurgy. He joined IBM in 1966 and held var- India on science and technology, and in 1993,
with three kids now—we are outnumbered!!! director for Microsoft Mexico. I am currently
trical networks, Professor Bashkow’s A matrix. ious research and management responsibilities for at the request of the Indian minister for sciences
married to Klijne with three kids, ages 7 to 2.”
He also became involved with digital comput- three decades in scientific research and technology and technology, led an IBM group to evaluate
ers. He joined the faculty of the Columbia development. He was appointed director in 1981 the parallel computer activities in India.


Dr. Rajiv V. Joshi EngScD ’90 is a research
mathematical methods staff member at T. J. Watson Research Center,
Electrical Engineering Department in 1958 and
helped transform the Electrical Engineering
and vice-president of science in 1982. During his
stewardship, IBM scientists were awarded Nobel
IBM. He received his BTech degree from Indian
David Levin MS ’68 writes, “I earned my MS
in mathematical methods of operations research
Institute of Technology (Bombay, India), MS
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Department into the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science. When,
in 1979, this department was divided into the
Prizes for two consecutive years and the science
programs at the IBM research laboratories across
the globe grew significantly.
alumni
in 1968. Finals were canceled because of the
student unrest. I worked in the quantitative
area of finance and securities for a number of
doctorate in engineering science from Columbia.
He joined IBM in November 1983 and worked
on VLSI Technology (NMOS, and CMOS,
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
departments, Bashkow became one of the found-
ing faculty members of Computer Science.
After retiring from IBM in March 2003, he
became the director of Brookhaven National
Laboratory, a position he held until April
1930
sub-0.5 m CMOS logic, DRAM and SRAM Richard (Dick) Silberstein died Nov. 30, 2009,
years and have most recently (last nine years)
Send my news
He taught courses in digital logic, computer 2006. With the help of New York’s senators
technologies). He developed novel interconnect in his home of natural causes. He was 103 years
been teaching math at a Bronx public high organization, and computer programming. He and with private funding from Renaissance
processes and structures for aluminum, tungsten, old. He received an electrical engineering degree
to
school. Recently, I attended a presentation by did research on parallel processing. In collabora- Technology, he enabled Brookhaven to imple-
and copper technologies widely used in IBM from Columbia University in 1930 and did
the Salvadori Center, which was, of course, tion with Herbert Sullivan, he pioneered a new
u
ment a new vision and set itself on a growth

[email protected]
for various sub-0.5 m memory and logic tech- graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
begun by the late Professor Mario Salvadori, approach to that subject through the develop- curve that continues to this day. After 2006,
nologies as well as across the globe. His circuit Silberstein first became fascinated with radio

before
to increase an appreciation for mathematics by ment of CHoPP,  Columbia Homogeneous he continued to work at Brookhaven part time
and CAD work is used in IBM main frame when, at age 9, he saw equipment operating
utilizing hands-on engineering modeling for Parallel Processor, a large-scale, homogeneous, as a research scientist and joined Columbia

July 1, 2010
and power PC processors. He has received 3 aboard a coastal steamship. This interest pro-
younger students.” fully distributed parallel machine. A number of Engineering as an adjunct professor in the
corporate and 2 outstanding technical achieve- duced a lifetime hobby (amateur radio) and
Columbia graduate students and a junior faculty Materials Science Program.
ment awards from IBM. He also received 48 eventually a professional career. His interests also
member, David Klappholz, were also involved at He was the author of more than 160 scientific
Invention Plateau awards from IBM, authored included travel and photography, but amateur
various stages. papers and held more than three dozen patents.
and coauthored over 140 research papers, and radio was always his primary hobby. During the
In 1980, the Computer Science Department In addition to his election to the NAE, he was
presented several invited and keynote talks and Great Depression, he held various jobs or was

­­ 52 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 53

 1945
self-employed in the radio industry. In 1941, In 1960, he became senior partner and forged British behind Japanese lines, dropping Gurkha Ralph Mattson ’54CC, a resident of Green in a rock climbing accident in Hawaii, where he
he joined the National Bureau of Standards in strong working relationships with many leading paratroopers on Rangoon and flying the treacher- Valley, Ariz., died on Oct. 17, 2009. He was a was stationed. He had recently returned from a
Washington, D.C. In 1948, he married Florence architects. Active with the firm for more than ous mountains that lie between India and China. mining engineer and ran gold and copper opera- tour of Iraq.
K. Baker, and in 1954 the couple moved to Jerome W. Heller passed away Nov. 27, 2009, 40 years, he retired in 1990. Morton remained a He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, tions in the Orient, South America, and other According to newspaper reports, Garland and
Boulder, where Richard was involved with radio- in Corona del Mar, Calif. He received his BS partner in Olde Post Mall Associates in Fishkill, the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, and countries throughout his career. He is survived a friend Sunday had returned to a rocky cliff
propagation research for the Department of and MS degrees in industrial engineering and N.Y. He also served as president of Beechwood several battle stars. After the war, he received a BS by his wife of 27 years, Prabha (Anneke); two in the remote and rural Makaha Valley near
Commerce. Then after a 6-year period of work- operations research from Columbia Engineering. Homeowners Association, a townhouse develop- in industrial engineering from Columbia. After brothers; as well as nephews, nieces, cousins, Honolulu to try to retrieve a tent one of them
ing as a radio engineer for the Army in New Heller served as a naval officer in WWII and ment where he and his wife, Beverly, resided for graduating, he worked first at IBM, helping to and more family in Finland, Thailand, and the dropped days earlier while hiking. He apparently
Jersey, Dick took retirement. He is survived by Korea. 20 years. An aficionado of all the arts, he was an develop the new technology of computer operated Netherlands. fell while trying to reach the gear.
his wife. accomplished oenophile, delighted in traveling the manufacturing, and later with RCA. In a story in the Albany Times Union, one
William F. Schreiber, professor emeritus at world, and always remained a student of different friend said that he had “certain deep beliefs

1940
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died
suddenly at home on Sept. 21, 2009, at the
age of 84. Dr. Schreiber attended New York
cultures and architecture. As the active patriarch
of an extended family, he was known and loved
for his generosity of spirit, time, love, and humor. 1954 1957 about social justice, conservation and kindness
that he tried to put into practice.” In 2007, he
enlisted in the Army and completed Officers
James Michael Kennedy died on Nov. 12,
City public schools and Columbia Engineering, Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga. He was
George H. Brown ’40, ChE ’41, ’39CC died Robert J. Spinrad, a pioneer in computer 2009. A life-long resident of New York City, he
where he received BS and MS degrees in electri- Richard F. Gonseth of Yonkers, N.Y., died on commissioned as 2nd lieutenant and subsequent-
Sept. 24, 2009. He was a chemical engineer design, died Sept. 2, 2009, in Palo Alto, Calif. was the valedictorian of his class at Xavier High
cal engineering. In 1953, he received the PhD Sept. 22, 2009. A native of Brooklyn, he attended ly was deployed to Iraq in November 2008. He
for 48 years with Pfizer, Inc. His wife, Elinor Spinrad carried out his work in scientific School. He earned a BA degree from Fordham
in applied physics at Harvard, where he was a the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was promoted to 1st lieutenant before return-
Schubert ’42 Barnard, wrote, “His Columbia automation first at Brookhaven National University and an MS degree from Columbia
Gordon McKay and Charles Coffin Fellow. joined the Navy, where he trained as a pilot. He ing to Hawaii last fall. While in Iraq, he was
education was the key to a successful career and Laboratory and later at Xerox. He was director Engineering. After completing his formal studies,
Dr. Schreiber worked at Sylvania and at graduated from Columbia Engineering in 1948, awarded the Bronze Star. His intensity for life
a long life of 93 years.” of the Palo Alto Research Center as the personal he joined the staff of the Columbia University
Technicolor Corporation in Hollywood, Calif., where he was on the rowing and wrestling teams. and diversity of interests was legendary. He stud-
computing technology invented there in the Electronics Research Laboratories (CUERL) as a
prior to l959, when he joined the faculty at He worked as an engineer for IBM for over 35 ied Spanish in Costa Rica, bungee jumped in
1970s was commercialized. mathematical analyst. He continued his employ-

1942
Massachusetts Institute of Technology as profes- years and was a long-time resident of Tarrytown, South Africa, ran with the bulls in Spain, crossed
While a student at Columbia Engineering, ment at Riverside Research Institute (RRI),
sor of electrical engineering. He was director of N.Y., with his family, and an active parishioner North America by motorcycle, went deep sea
he built his own computer from discarded the successor of CUERL, where he served as
the Advanced Television Research Program from and trustee of Transfiguration Church. diving in Malaysia, taught English in Japan, and
Charles (Chuck) Newlon of West Knoxville, telephone switching equipment. After arriving executive vice president. He retired from RRI in
1983 until his retirement in 1990. journeyed from Mexico City to Peru. Read other
Tenn., died on Oct. 20, 2009. He was a long- at Brookhaven, Spinrad spent a summer at Los December 1995, after 40 years of service.
Dr. Schreiber’s major professional interest was remembrances of Garland in the Alumni Notes

1951
time and faithful member of Church Street Alamos National Laboratories, where he learned Kennedy is survived by his wife of 43 years,
image processing systems, including printing, section, page 48.
United Methodist Church and the Murphy about scientific computer design by studying Mary Alice Kennedy McDonald, and family and
facsimile, and television. This work included
Builders Sunday School Class. Born in Point an early machine known as Maniac, designed countless friends around the world. He was a
theory and extensive practical applications,
Louis Forte, 85, died Jan. 14, 2010, in Virginia by Nicholas Metropolis, a physicist. Spinrad’s member of Holy Trinity Church of West 82nd
Marion, Pa., he attended Columbia through a including the development of a number of suc- We also have learned of the passing of the follow-
Beach, Va., after a short illness. He was drafted group at Brookhaven developed techniques for Street in Manhattan, and the Ancient Order of
music scholarship, receiving a BS and MS in cessful commercial products that incorporated ing alumni and friends:
and served in the U.S. Army as an MP dur- using computers to run experiments and to Hibernians, Jack Kehoe Division, Girardville,
chemical engineering. His college nickname, innovative image-processing technology devel-
ing World War II. After the war, he attended analyze and display data as well as to control and the New Cavendish Club of London.
“Tuba Charlie,” followed him throughout oped under his direction. He worked in graphic Harold C. Sperry ’39
Columbia Engineering, graduating with a BS in experiments interactively in response to earlier
his lifetime. While employed at E. I. DuPont arts, including color correction, color printing, Clark I. Fellers ’40, ’41, ’39CC
1951. He worked as an engineer at Northrop measurements.

1972
in Charleston, W. Va., he married Dorothy and laser scanner and recorder design, in facsim- Charles M. Kuhbach ’41, ’41, ’39CC
Grumman and the Manhattan Transit Authority He has been hailed as the father of modern
Craumer on June 17, 1944. A veteran of the ile, and in television. His work included digital James W. Cronenberg ’42, ’41CC
until his retirement in 1987. He had been laboratory automation. After leaving
U.S. Army during WWII, he was transferred television and high-definition television. He was Boris J. Sterk ’42, ’41CC
involved in several community and profes- Brookhaven, Spinrad joined Scientific Data
to Oak Ridge, Tenn., in 1944 to work on the awarded the Honors Award of the Technical Steven Zeff ’69CC of Harrington Park, N.J., George L. Hesse ’43, ’41CC
sional organizations, including Toast Masters, Systems in Los Angeles as a computer designer
Manhattan Project. Following the war, he joined Association for the Graphic Arts, the David died on Oct. 6, 2009. Born in Brooklyn, Raymond W. Arnesen ’46, ’48CC
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Sons and manager. When the company was bought
Union Carbide as a nuclear engineer specializing Sarnoff Gold Medal from the Society of Motion N.Y., he grew up in Valley Stream, N.Y., and Norman Rosenberg ’46
of Italy, and The Round Table at Stony Brook by the Xerox Corporation in an effort to
in national health safety until his retirement in Picture and Television Engineers, the Gold moved to Harrington Park in 1978. He gradu- Kenneth J. Sabella ’46, ’48CC
University. He is survived by his daughter, compete with I.B.M., he participated in Xerox’s
1971. Medal of the International Society for Optical ated as valedictorian from Columbia College Dr. Robert L. Thompson ’46
Lonia, and her husband Alfred Broderick Jr. of decision to put a research laboratory next to the
During his career, several of his inventions Engineering, and was a four-time recipient of in 1969 and received his MS from Columbia Dr. Peter L. Tea Jr. ’47, ’55
Virginia Beach, Va., their children, Delion and campus of Stanford. Xerox’s Palo Alto Research
were patented, and he developed a mathemati- the Journal Award of SMPTE. He was a mem- Engineering in 1972. In 1973, Mr. Zeff Dr. Sherman S. Weidenbaum ’47, ’48, ’53
Eden; son Jeffrey Forte of Fredonia, N.Y.; his Center pioneered the technology that led
cal formula still used today for measuring the ber of the National Academy of Engineering. founded SRZ Software Services in Ridgewood, Walter Morykwas ’48
brother, Jerry Sr., and his wife, Jean Forte, of directly to the modern personal computer and
volume inside a cone. He was a member of N.J. After selling SRZ Software Services, he Dr. Carl Gans ’50
Colorado Springs, Co.; his sister, Roseanne, and office data networks.
the American Society of Chemical Engineers, founded Spantech Software, Inc., in 1988. He George E. Canuel ’51

1948
her husband, Ed Pfennig, of Wading River, N.Y. Taking over as director of the laboratory
Who’s Who of Men of Science, and a Fellow of sold Spantech in 2007 but continued to serve Maurice Rifkin ’53
American Chemists. in 1978, Spinrad oversaw a period when the
as administrator. Zeff is survived by his wife, Sheldon Bilgrei ’55
laboratory’s technology was commercialized,

1952
After retirement, he became an avid tennis Marion; son, Jeremy and his wife Alyssa; daugh- Anthony J. Delano ’55
Morton Herbert Eligator died Dec. 1, 2009. including the first modern personal computer, the
player, traveled worldwide, and created the ter, Dr. Karen Hebert and her husband, Varian; Philip G. Luckhardt ’56
After serving in the Army during World War ethernet local area network, and the laser printer.
“Charles E. Newlon and Dotty Jean” musical mother, Shirley; grandson, Nathan; and sister, Dr. Hugh D. McNiven ’58
II, Eligator received a BS in civil engineering He received his BS in electrical engineering
show, entertaining at nursing homes throughout Arthur W. Camp died on Oct. 23, 2009, at Dr. Marjorie Zeff. Bijaya C. Mahapatra ’76
and joined the consulting engineering firm of from Columbia and a PhD from the
the area. He was also a generous philanthropist Samaritan Hospice at the age of 87. He has been Hanan Livneh ’79
Weiskopf & Pickworth in 1948. During the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In
to many charities. He is survived by his beloved a resident of Moorestown, N.J., for 42 years. Linda R. Heffner (Friend)

2004
1950s he helped build the firm through col- addition to his wife, Verna, he is survived
wife of 65 years, Dorothy Craumer Newlon, two During World War II he served as a pilot with Dr. Anthony Kurtz (Friend)
laboration with prominent architects, bringing it by two children, Paul, of San Francisco, and
sons, and two daughters. the Air Commandos in the China-Burma-India Connie S. Maniatty ’43CC (Friend)
to the fore of modernism in the United States. Susan Spinrad Esterly, of Palo Alto, and three
theater. His duties included working with the
grandchildren. Garland English, a civil engineering major who
was an Army platoon leader, died Jan. 10, 2010,

­­ 54 | engineering news­­ | spring 2010 ­­ columbia engineering | spring 2010 | 55

 leaders making an impact

Dr. Sheldon E. Isakoff, former director of Engineering Research and Development at

Giving Back:
DuPont, was a major force in research at DuPont for more than 40 years. After receiving
his PhD from Columbia Engineering, his began his work at DuPont, which culminated

Homecoming
in many patented developments, including the EFT Dacron and nylon processes, Mylar

Sheldon E. Isakoff and Cronar process improvements, and the first Lycra plant in the world.

During his career at DuPont, Isakoff pioneered many developments in process dynamics

BS ’45, MS ’47, PhD ’52 and computer applications as both research director of the engineering materials labora-
tory and director of the engineering physics laboratory. He is a member of the National
Chemical Engineering Academy of Engineering and served as president of the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers (AIChE). He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, a former member of the Dean’s Engineering Council, now the Board of Visitors,
and an adviser to the Chemical Engineering Department. He was awarded the Alumni
Association’s Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement in 1993. Dur-
ing his retirement, Isakoff was president of United Engineering Trustees and chairman of
the board of the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

Isakoff has been an ardent support of Columbia since his student days. In 1996, he estab-
lished the Sheldon E. Isakoff Scholarship in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
“Giving back to Columbia was crucial for me. I’ve been associated with Columbia since
1942 and I wanted to give back to the institution that gave me so much,” says Isakoff.
Despite all the best cheering efforts and hopeful spirits of faithful Columbians, the Lions
suffered a 27–13 loss to perennial Ivy rival UPenn at the Homecoming football game. For Brian Albert ’10, who has held the Isakoff Scholarship for three years, is shown above
with Isakoff and his wife, Anita. “You might say now, because of our scholarship, Brian is
Engineering alumni, the day was not entirely a loss. They were able to keep warm in the
a member of our extended family.”
stands with special long striped scarves provided by the School to commemorate the event
and then enjoyed the party in the Boathouse afterward, sponsored by the Engineering Read more about Brian on page 17.
Alumni Association.