Newsmakers
February 17, 2009 1:35 PM
USC Roski School of Fine Arts faculty member Sharon Lockhart screened her film Lunch Break at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival on Feb. 7 and 9.
The film, which features 42 shipyard workers at Maine’s Bath Iron Works taking their midday break, combines images and sounds to provide a meditation on a moment of rest during a day of labor.
Lockhart also was featured in a solo exhibition at the Secession gallery in Vienna, where her film was shown alongside a series of her photographs.
USC Roski faculty member Sherin Guirguis also has recently exhibited internationally. Her work was featured in the 11th Cairo Biennale, which runs until Feb. 20.
Going With the Grain
Progress in Materials Science, an international review journal, has named Terence G. Langdon the “most cited” author in 2005-08. Langdon is the William E. Leonhard Professor of Engineering in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.
The award, issued by the journal’s publisher, Elsevier, was given to Langdon and co-author R. Z. Valiev of Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Russia, for a paper published in September 2006.
Progress in Materials Science is considered the most authoritative journal in materials science.
Langdon, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, materials science and earth sciences at USC, is a pioneer in the field of processing and understanding the properties of ultra fine-grained and nanostructured materials. Such materials exhibit far greater strength and toughness than some of their coarse-grained counterparts.
Clear Signal
Sanjit Mitra, the Stephen and Etta Varra Professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering and a scholar in analog and digital signal and image processing, has won the Athanasios Papoulis Award for Excellence in Engineering Technology Education from the European Association for Signal Processing.
The award honors scientists whose work has had a major impact on signal processing education. It is offered only when there is an exceptional candidate.
Mitra, who is associated with the department’s Signal and Image Processing Institute, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member of several foreign academies.
He will accept the award in Scotland in August.
Tapping Into Resources
The Center for Effective Organizations at the USC Marshall School of Business was inducted into the 17th class of fellows of the National Academy of Human Resources, an honor considered the most prestigious in the field of human resources.
Other class members include two individuals: Laurie Siegel, senior vice president, human resources of Tyco International, and Santrupt B. Misra, director of group human resources and information technology of the Aditya Birla Group.
The Center for Effective Organizations was named an honored organization in recognition of 30 years of contributions to the human resources field.
Edward E. Lawler III, director of the Center for Effective Organizations, Distinguished Professor of Business and National Academy fellow, received the award on behalf of the center.
Their Best Schott
Brian Schott, a Virginia-based project leader with the USC Information Sciences Institute, will administer a pilot effort aimed at helping small manufacturers use sophisticated high-performance computing design tools.
Schott will work with computer scientist Lorin Hochstein on the effort, which will be run out of the institute’s campus in Arlington, Va.
According to Robert Graybill, director of the institute’s National Innovation Initiative, recent studies suggest that high-performance computing can help engineering companies address problems in their existing design processes.
But the same studies find that many companies are deterred by the high cost of obtaining high-performance computing resources and by a lack of expertise in the use of high-performance computing systems, Graybill said.
Across Campus
Go Figure
USC’s Center for High-Performance Computing and Communications houses the nation’s seventh fastest supercomputer in an academic setting, according to TOP500 Supercomputer Sites, which ranks the 500 most powerful computer systems in the world.
This fall, USC’s new supercomputer cluster clocked in at 44.19 teraflops, or 44.19 trillion floating-point calculations per second, on its 768-node, 10-gigabit backbone cluster, placing it seventh in the nation among academic supercomputers and 61st in the world among all supercomputers.
Just six months ago, USC’s supercomputer achieved a benchmark of 30.99 teraflops, earning a rank of ninth among academic supercomputers in the U.S. and 63rd among all supercomputers in the world.
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USC in the News
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The Wall Street Journal highlighted the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
KPCC-FM reported that this fall USC will offer Persian language courses for the first time. A $250,000 grant from the Farhang Foundation helped to establish the program. Bruce Zuckerman of the USC Dornsife College said he has many students interested in the Persian language, culture and region. “The Iranian region is one that has great impact on our lives today and has had great impact going back into ancient times,” he said. The story noted that USC and the Farhang Foundation hope to raise more money to create an Iranian studies minor. Payvand also featured the new courses.
American Songwriter ran a Q&A with Christopher Sampson of the USC Thornton School about the school’s Popular Music program, which Sampson founded. He noted that the program has been available as a major in Songwriting since 2009, and has incorporated a diverse range of musical genres. “We have now established a consistent track record of students having professional success to know that the program gets results,” Sampson said. He also highlighted the achievements of Songwriting faculty members Lamont Dozier, Andrea Stolpe and David Poe of the Thornton School.
The Economist featured research by Valter Longo of the USC Davis School finding that short periods of fasting could help cancer patients better tolerate chemotherapy, and may even make treatment more effective. The Globe and Mail (Canada) reported that cancerous tumors are essentially energy hogs. “They need to burn lots of energy just to stay alive,” Longo said. The study was also covered by Irish Independent (Ireland), Magyar Tavirati Iroda (Hungary), Anadolu Ajansi (Turkey), Son Haber (Netherlands), Vietnam+ (Vietnam), Turkish Radio and Television (Turkey) and Romania Libera (Romania).
L.A. Weekly featured research by USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, which has developed video games based around physical movement for people recovering from strokes or other injuries. The games develop strength in specific body parts. Traditional video games weren’t right for these patients, said the institute’s Belinda Lange. “Often, the fun parts of the game would only be unlocked after a series of other levels, which our patients often couldn’t achieve,” she said. The games are now being tested with physical therapists in three major clinics.
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