Welcome back, SEAS students

Dear SEAS Students,

Welcome back to campus!

I am writing to summarize some of the exciting things we are doing to better integrate design and experiential learning into every aspect of the SEAS curriculum.

First, I would like to thank Visiting Lecturer Barry Griffin ’71 and Professor Rob Howe, former Associate Dean for Academic Programs, for their hard work this past year. From designing portable disaster shelters to providing individualized and focused help to student groups and students in ES 96 and ES 100, both helped to introduce new approaches in engineering design and experiential learning.

New hires, expanded roles

As I noted in an earlier announcement to the entire SEAS community, Fawwaz Habbal is taking on a new position as Executive Dean of Education and Research. Fawwaz and Professor Gu-Yeon Wei, our Associate Dean for Academic Programs, will be working together to further enhance our educational programs.

We have also hired some new people and expanded existing roles in ways that will enhance hands-on learning.

David Malan, A.B. ’99, Ph.D. ’07, who has lectured in CS 50 for the past few years, has been appointed as a Senior Lecturer at SEAS and as the Director of Educational Innovation. In his new role, he will continue to teach CS50. He will also develop new CS courses and help SEAS faculty and TFs better use technology to enhance teaching and learning.

Anas Chalah, Director of Instructional Laboratories and Lecturer in SEAS, has been helping our faculty instructors with enhanced lab components for their courses, and with introducing elements of design into those labs. He and his staff continue to support more and more courses each semester. Anas will play an even more active role in managing overarching efforts in design and overseeing related staff; given the increased emphasis on students doing sophisticated modeling and building, he has also updated the teaching lab safety program. Under the guidance of University Environmental Health, Safety & Emergency Management Services, all shop and tool users will benefit from the expanded training and safety assessments.

Sujata Bhatia, our new Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies for Biomedical engineering, will bring her industry experience to bear on engineering design in addition to her advising and teaching roles. Sujata received her pre-doctoral training in biology and chemical engineering at the University of Delaware and received her MD./Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She most recently was at DuPont, where she was working on the development of bioadhesive technologies.

Joe Zinter recently joined us as Preceptor in Design. He was previously at Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Joe earned his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his Ph.D. at Yale, where he developed a course that focused on enabling technologies in the developing world. Joe will coordinate our design team activities and provide mechanical engineering support for all aspects of student design.

Avinash “Avi” Uttamchandani, a 2010 electrical engineering graduate of Olin College, who has worked as a design verification engineer at Analog Devices, will provide support for all aspects of student design as Preceptor in Design.

In addition, Preceptor Pia Sörensen, who earned her B.S. from Yale and Ph.D. from Harvard,will help Professor David Weitz and his team of instructors and guest chefs take the “Science and Cooking” course to even greater heights.

Hands-on learning

A designed-focused curriculum has necessitated making big investments in our undergraduate laboratory facilities and repurposing existing spaces to promote teamwork.

Jim MacArthur, Director of the Electronic Instrument Design Lab for SEAS and Physics, will remain the go-to person for designing and building custom electronics. Likewise, Stan Cotreau manages thePhysics/SEAS Instructional Instrument Lab located in Lyman, which is open 24 hours a day.

Students who work in our scientific and machining labs will find several welcome improvements. For projects big and small, Louie Defeo, Director of the Instrumentation Design and Production Shop, and his staff, are now fully up and running in their improved space in the Northwest Building Annex, B156 . Definitely stop by and take a look.

We are also making progress to create additional student spaces. The CS50 lounge, which debuted last year on the ground floor of Maxwell Dworkin, is an ideal place for socializing and coding. In the coming weeks, the former MD café will be transformed into a design space for classes and extracurricular activities. It will be ready for use by the end of September and fully built-out by October. The basement of MD will be redesigned to better accommodate a new interactive classroom and new teaching labs and Applied Math students will soon have a lounge on the 3rd floor of Pierce to call their own.

We expect these improvements will go beyond just courses, but serve the many extracurricular activities based at SEAS. The projects in Maxwell Dworkin and Pierce represent just the start of a multi-phased process to make our student spaces state-of-the-art.

Innovation in action

The “Facebook Effect” describes the increased interest in student start-ups and innovation in light of the social networking revolution. The effect is alive and well at SEAS and Harvard—and innovation is a high priority of President Faust and of mine.

To that end, we are in the process of incorporating Professor David Edward’s “The Laboratory” into SEAS as well as integrating entrepreneurship and innovation into our curriculum. Professor Edwards and Instructor Beth Altringer are teaming up to offer Engineering Sciences 20: “How to Create Things and Have them Matter,” and introducing a new course called Engineering Sciences 21: “The Innovators Practice: Finding, Building, and Leading Good Ideas.”

The Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH), based at SEAS and headed up by Paul Bottino, will once again organize business plan competitions, the Harvard College Innovation Challenge, and offer expertise on start-ups.

As you may have heard, the new cross-Harvard Innovation Lab (or i-Lab) will be opening in Allston this September with an official launch slated for November. I sit on the i-Lab’s advisory board and am working with Fawwaz, Paul, David Malan, and Professor Edwards to build connections that will join together innovative pedagogy and design and hands-on learning with idea translation, or getting from a concept to a start-up company or a product.

Advising and support

Finally, I encourage our concentrators and anyone else interested in SEAS to get to know our fantastic advising and student affairs team.

Assistant Dean Marie Dahleh is now joined by Margo Levine, our Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies for Applied Mathematics (who received her undergraduate degree in civil and environmental engineering at Cornell and her graduate degree in applied math at Northwestern). In addition Professor Neel Joshi is serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies for Biomedical Engineering, and as previously mentioned, Sujata Bhatia is serving as Assistant Director for Biomedical Engineering.

Professor Harry Lewis will continue his role as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Computer Science; Professors Yiling Chen and Eli Tizperman will alternate as the DUS for Applied Mathematics in fall and spring, respectively; and Professor Evelyn Hu will cover Engineering Sciences. You can see the entire advising team online.

I encourage you to let them and me know how we can make the student experience at SEAS even better.

Last but not least, in response to our concentrators who are balancing academics and athletics, we are engaged in an ongoing process to have course times complement practice times.

I look forward to seeing you on campus in the coming weeks.

Best,

Cherry A. Murray
Dean, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences;
John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences;
Professor of Physics