Campus Briefs
COUNT ON IT.
This election year, colleges and universities want to ensure voting technology
won’t get in the way of accurate results, and an audit trail is key. The
Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project (http://vote.caltech.edu/%20Reports/reports.html), established in 2000 by Caltech (CA)
President David Baltimore and MIT’s then-President Charles
Vest, prefers paper for now, but in the future, a write-once memory card could
serve as an official ballot.
BEYOND THE VOTING BOOTH.
At Carnegie Mellon University (PA), researchers are developing
high-telepresence audio and video Web software for “deliberative democracy”
(caae.phil.cmu.edu/caae/dp),
enabling virtual face-to-face town-hall-style encounters among citizens regarding
community issues.
TOP INNOVATORS NOTED.
Technology Review, the “magazine of innovation,” has released its
fourth annual TR100—a listing of the Top Innovators under 35 who are transforming
technology. Among higher ed notables is Srinidhi Varadarajan, director of Virginia
Tech’s Terascale Computing Facility and designer of System X,
the fastest supercomputer at any university on the planet.
MEGACONFERENCE VI.
Invited: Everyone in the world. The December 9 interactive, multiway, global
participatory video conference (www.megaconference.org)
will connect hundreds of participants around the globe to demonstrate the state
of high-speed Internet collaboration. You’ll need an H.323 video conferencing
station to get in on the action. Hurry! Register by November 30.
TRIMMING THE HIGH COST OF CONFLICT.
Lawsuits and employee attrition resulting from conflicts on the job are costing
businesses a fortune, but never fear: The Usery Center for the Workplace at
Georgia State University is developing a technology-based system for resolving
workplace disputes. g new faces in familiar places. Many college and university
presidents serve hefty terms in office. This fall, Susan Hockfield succeeds
Charles M. Vest, who chose to step aside to allow MIT to renew itself with a
new president after 13 years... Richard H. Brodhead assumed Duke’s presidency
in July, when past president Nannerl O. Keohane decided to return to teaching
and research after 11 years... and Daniel J. Carey takes the reins from James
Ebben, who retired after 17 years as president of Edgewood College (WI).
RESEARCH BIOINFORMATICS.
The Oregon Health & Science University has launched a Center for Biostatistics,
Computing, and Informatics in Biology and Medicine to support cross-discipline
research and education on campus and provide advanced data and computing support.
LIGHT WORK.
An ultra-secure network run by researchers at Boston University and Harvard
University (MA) leverages the physics of photons to encrypt information with
“quantum cryptography.”
GRANTS$GRANTS$GRANTS: CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH.
The Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses at the University of California-San
Diego will receive $6.2 million in NSF funding over five years to research Internet
worms and viruses.
NANOSCALE GONE UPSCALE.
$12.4 million in NSF funding will establish a nanotechnology research center
at Northeastern U (MA), where the school will investigate miniscule manufacturing
techniques with researchers from UMass-
Lowell, the University of New Hampshire-Durham, and industry partners.