In support of President Hultin's Future of Polytechnic initiative, University Relations and Development has received gifts and pledges totaling more than $4.5 million, since June 1, 2006. Among the gifts received and scholarships established, under the direction of Vice President Richard Thorsen, are:

• A $1 million bequest to Polytechnic from the estates of William T. and Elva Hudtwalker has established the William T. Hudtwalker Scholarship Endowment to provide financial support to undergraduate students in electrical engineering. The bequest was part of the estate Mrs. Hudtmaker inherited upon the death of her husband in 1987. Over time, what began as a relatively modest amount grew into an appreciable sum, which was left to NYU-Poly when Mrs. Hudtwalker died in 2005 at the age of 94.
• Jenny Proskauer, the wife of 1984 honorary degree recipient Eric Proskauer, has bequest $500,000 to the Eric and Jenny R. Proskauer Scholarship Fund to assist qualified and deserving Polytechnic students.
• George Cha, ME '70, and his wife Assunta, fulfilled a $100,000 gift to establish an endowment named the Cha Family Endowed Scholarship, in support of a female student with a passion for the arts, sciences and community service.
• Norma Rancken Cossey, the late wife of C. Murray Cossey, CE '47, made an unrestricted bequest of $63,000. Notwithstanding her interest in several NYU-Poly organizations, Norma decided on an unrestricted gift so as to support university wide priorities as the Future of Polytechnic initiative unfolds.
• A total $105,000 in corporate completion gifts arising from Polytechnic's $1 million Promise Fund Dinner have been received from the General Electric Company, Motorola, MTV Networks, and Time Warner Cable.

Friends and alumni have given NYU-Poly a jump start as we begin our Future of Polytechnic initiatives. Among Poly's early stage "angel funders" investing in our future are: William Friend, Violet Jacobs, Linda Jacobs, Leonard Shustek and Donna Dubinsky, and Paul Soros. Now we need to grow our resources and invite the greater community to support our future ambitions. Given the support for "The Power of PolyThinking" from individuals and friends, NYU-Poly now needs the community-at-large to step up to the plate, alongside alumni and corporate benefactors.

If you are interested learning more about how you can help, please contact Craig Purinton, Executive Director of Development at 718 260-3575 or purinton@poly.edu

Professor Chalres Tapiero

Professor Charles Tapiero, the Topfer Chair, has been appointed the head of the newly established Financial Engineering program, a fast growing and highly-sought after engineering discipline designed to address the need for financial engineering skills and mathematically-based actuarial techniques used by the financial services industries.

Financial Engineering (FE) has been a program within the Department of Technology Management since its inception.  Over the past years, the FE program has achieved significant growth based upon an increasingly strong global financial sector in New York City. In response, the FE faculty have developed a strategic, interdisciplinary plan that provides for even greater growth, the increased diversity of its programs into new areas such as risk management, and collaboration with other departments throughout the university.

In tandem with back-to-back faculty/administration workshops, President Hultin provided a university-wide executive update and status report on the University, based on ongoing assessments and feedback he has received over the past year from faculty, staff, students, board members and other interested parties. The President's report, a confidential internal document circulated electronically to faculty and staff, covered a wide range of issues, including:

• Undergraduate/Graduate Full/Part-time Enrollment and Retention
• Enrollment Plans for FY2008
• The Appointment of Nine New Trustees
  • Glenn Britt - CEO of Time Warner Cable
  • Aviva Budd, Esq. - CEO of Aviva Realty
  • Deborah Devedjian - Managing Partner of Copernicus Learning Fund
  • Randy Frey - CEO of Frey Research
  • Patrick A. Garzillo - Vice President of Service Costs, Verizon
  • Michael O'Brien - Managing Partner of King Spalding
  • Mark Ronald - CEO of BAE Systems, Inc.
  • David Schweiger - Prof. of Strategic Management, Univ. of South Carolina
  • James Smith -  Chairman of EDO Corporation
• Faculty Growth
  • Professor Michael Plesniak, Eugene Kleiner Chair for Innovation, ME,
  • Associate Professor Rastilav Levicky, Othmer Chair, CBE
  • Assistant Professor Jin Kim, Jacobs Chair, CBE
  • James Airozo - Honors College
  • Natasha Assa - HUSS
  • Franziska Berger - Math
  • Anne-Laure Fayard - Management
  • Valerie Giordano - CBE
  • Michael Knox - ECE
  • Nancy Kwak - HUSS
  • Jin Montclare - CBS
  • Stanley Peterburgsky - Management
  • Maurizio Porfiri - ME
  • Garrett Rose - ECE
  • Nitesh Saxena -- CIS
• Administrative Leadership Positions Filled
  • Jane Alexander - Vice President of Research & Technology Initiatives
  • Erich Kunhardt - Provost
  • Susan Lestingi -Vice President of Marketing and Communications
  • Joy Colelli -Dean of Undergraduate Admissions & New Student Initiatives
  • Craig Purinton - Director of Capital Campaign
  • Ann Lubrano - Associate Provost/President's Chief of Staff
• Consultants Providing “Rifle Shot” Advice and Solutions
  To augment University resources in a cost-effective manner, without incurring the expense of full-time personnel in areas where we require additional expert knowledge, NYU-Poly is employing consultants on a project specific basis in the areas of:
  • Recruitment and admissions;
  • Fundraising campaigns and development;
  • Tuition and financial aid;
  • Improved classroom teaching;
  • Increased research funding from federal agencies;
  • Technology transfer and business development;
  • Appreciative inquiry and graphic recording for large workshops;
  • Leadership coaching;
  • Improving undergraduate education and finance returns;
  • Faculty development;
  • Strategic marketing analysis for university priorities;
  • Capital structure and bond refinancing; and,
  • Development rights appraisal, legal analysis, and real estate development.
• Poly's FY2006 Financial Status, including:    
  • An Audit Report to help increase revenue and improve cash flow;
    • Finalization of Endowment/Cy pres petition to allow the university to meet bond covenants and Title IV composite score requirement during 2006 by using endowment and not cash.  
    • Real estate negotiations to develop the approximately 800 thousand square feet of development rights based on Brooklyn's rezoning program, including Board overview/review of terms of the Letter of Intent (LOI). Ongoing discussions over the next 12-18 months are envisioned to work through details and contract terms. Polytechnic and the developer will complete a detailed design and the final financial terms of the transaction, and the University and the developer are working with CUNY's New York City College of Technology to assure architectural compatibity.
    • “Angel Fund” fundraising/development support totaling $4.5 million raised by President Hultin and V.P. Richard Thorsen from a small set of very loyal supporters.  Special thanks go to Len Shustek and Donna Dubinsky, Paul Soros, Linda Jacobs, Violet Jacobs, Michael Corey, and Bill Friend who all made major commitments.
    • Bond Restructuring to relieve burdensome cash reserve requirements that severely restrict liquidity. V.P. T.C. Westcott has been working with advisors at JPMorgan Chase to craft alternative financing techniques to refinance these bonds and reduce their financial burden.
• A Summary of The Future of Polytechnic Action Phase, including:
  • President's Workshops - Numerous faculty, staff, students and interested parties attended two university-wide workshops in September and October to devise an action plan for Future of Polytechnic's three priorities - Urban Systems, Health and Wellness; and Information Technologies/NC3MA.  Using “appreciative inquiry” and “graphic recording” communications techniques, the workshops are designed to lay the foundation to help develop a plan that will generate new programs and initiatives in undergraduate and graduate education, faculty growth, research, marketing and branding, fund raising, and more.
  • Undergraduate Curriculum Transformation - Consensus among senior faculty has resulted in a fast-track study to design a new curriculum that provides a more appealing, exciting and valuable educational experience to NYU-Poly undergraduates.  Priorities include: giving students more flexibility and options; increasing undergraduate research projects featuring invention and innovation; service learning; and, more internships with businesses. A final recommendation to the NYU-Poly faculty is anticipated in January 2007, approval of the new curriculum design is targeted for Spring 2007.  The goal is to open classes in fall 2008 using the new design.
  • New Academic Department Heads
    • Mel Horwitch - Chair of the Management Department
    • Bruce Garetz - Head of the new Chemical Biological Sciences Department
    • Jovan Mijovic - Head of the Chemical Biological Engineering Department
    • Lorcan Folan - Head of the new Physics Department
    • Rich Wener - Head of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department
    • Bud Griffis - Head of the Civil Engineering Department, and Dean of Engineering
    • Mary Cowman - Head of the Othmer Institute
  • Westchester Campus Initiatives - NYU-Poly has hired Andres Fortino, the current dean of Marist University, to become Associate Provost of Poly's Westchester campus. Dr. Fortino will be responsible for the growth of programs at Polytechnic's Westchester campus in Hawthorne, NY.
  • Branding Banners - The faces of NYU-Poly students alongside Poly's branding statement/initiative, “Discover the Power of PolyThinking” is appearing throughout MetroTech on campus buildings and in the subway. This is the work of a collaborative union between Susan Lestingi, our new Vice President for Marketing, and Michael Gerbino, a professor of design at Pratt Institute.
  • The NYU-Poly 100 Dinner - Last April, many of Poly's most important donors joined with faculty and staff for a festive dinner in New York City to celebrate the accomplishments of NYU-Poly faculty and the generosity of Poly's donors. NYU-Poly trustee, Dr. John Schaefer, presented a highly informative briefing on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the major initiative he now heads.

Additional topics raised in the Presidents Fall '06 Newsletter are discussed in separate articles throughout this issue of NYU-Poly eBriefs.

Polytechnic Institute of NYU hosted a half-day conference to prepare middle school teachers and their students for this year's FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition. Information sessions were led by Polytechnic students who are members of the PolyBOTS Club, as well as faculty and industry professionals. Topics discussed included: team organization; developing appropriate research assignments; and, winning the Nano Quest Challenge. The event was the city-wide kickoff for the FIRST Lego League activity, which requires five months of preparation, culminating in the finals in late January 2007. NYU-Poly is the " lead university" for FIRST Lego League in New York City.

President Hultin taking notes during the Mentoring Dinner

On September 13, 2006, Polytechnic's Office of Career Services hosted its third annual mentoring dinner where first and second year students dined with top engineers from the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME). The event is designed to help students meet and benefit from mentoring opportunities which provide support, guidance and information that enhance their education and professional development. The dinner's keynote lecture, "Work Hard at Work Worth Doing: The Role of the Engineering Leader," was delivered by Frank Lombardi, Chief Engineer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Adjunct Lecturer in the department of Civil Engineering.

The Office of Student Development and the Division of Student Affairs held a memorial in the Jasper Kane Private Dining Room to pause and reflect on the events of September 11, 2001. Student exhibits created immediately after 9-11 were on display and visitors were invited to help create a "Collage of Hope" in response to the events 5 years ago. A Counseling Center therapist was available for discussion, and singer-songwriter Joan Osborne performed in the MetroTech Commons as part of "The September Concert," a series of free concerts held annually on September 11 across the globe.

Professor Gandehari (second from left) with high school teachers

In a one-week summer course taught at Polytechnic Institute of NYU, New York City High School teachers received instruction on developing project-based course materials that generates student interest in science and engineering disciplines. Designed to assist teachers, the program demonstrates techniques that help students learn critical technology skills. Led by Professor Masoud Ghandehari, Department of Civil Engineering, and Beverly Johnson, Executive Director of the Center for Youth in Engineering & Science, the program integrates adult learning, classroom exercises and hands-on laboratory experience with field trips and short lectures. With the support of Poly's faculty and sponsoring organizations, the program assists secondary school teachers in developing pedagogies and curriculum that relate scientific concepts to the everyday experiences students encounter in the real world. According to Dr. Ghandehari, "By connecting the things kids see in the world to what they learn in class, teachers can help students understand how things work and, more importantly, why the lessons they're being taught are worth learning."

Dr. Kalle Levon teaching the essentials of scattering nanoparticles and liquid crystalline materials.

Under the guidance of Polytechnic professors, Dr. Victor Barinov and Dr. Kalle Levon, 20 Cardozo High School sophomores, juniors and seniors designed and conducted nanotechnology and stem cell-pc12 experiments during the 2006 summer break at Polytechnic Institute of NYU's Bio-Nano Summer Camp. The Cardozo students who signed up for the two-week course rank among the top in their class, having demonstrated an express interest in science, technology and engineering. Working under the instruction of Polytechnic scientists, technicians and PhD candidates who crafted the program to be a hands-on learning experience, the students had an opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills in real world working laboratories. The "Bio-Nano Summer Camp" program is designed to give young scientists first-hand empirical experience in the lab, and provides students with academic credentials which can be used in college applications. Most important, the experience teaches students how to think creatively. According to Dr. Levon, "America's future is in knowledge-based society. This is where the innovation happens."

Chemical Engineering Doctoral student, Andrea Tuckett, demonstrates how to study nanofibers.

Read more about the Bio-Nano summer program on the NYU-Poly website

With the arrival of the Class of 2010, the Department of Student Affairs hosted a wide range of New Student Orientation Activities to familiarize these future PolyThinkers with academic and administrative logistics, as well as a host of recreational extracurricular activities. In addition to obtaining photo IDs, getting set up in the Residence Hall, registering for class, and meeting faculty and staff, activities for Poly's new students included such events as:

• a private tour with President Jerry Hultin of the USS Intrepid Aircraft Carrier, a national historic landmark which houses the Sea, Air and Space Museum;
• a Hudson River speedboat ride on "The Beast;"
• Bodies...The Exhibition at the South Street Seaport Exhibition Centre;
• a visit to the Hayden Planetarium & the American Museum of Natural History;
• a Major League baseball game between the N.Y. Yankees and Poly's Namesake, the Toronto Blue Jays;
• a field trip to Six Flags Great Adventure; and,
• tours of lower Manhattan's historic Financial District and Greenwich Village, and the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Heights.

Given a finite period of time, typical ways to increase output include: working faster; carrying a heavier load with each pass; or assigning more workers to the job. In the first case, for instance, to move more cars through the toll at the George Washington Bridge during rush hour, EZ-passes decreased transaction time and thereby increased throughput. Another way to handle the load would have been to remove the toll gates altogether and add more lanes when there's more traffic, but given the physical constraints of highway infrastructure, that's just silly.

In the IT switching community, however, just such architecture was discussed by Dr. Saad Mneimneh, of Hunter College, City University of New York on October 12, 2006. For some types of traffic patterns load balancing concerns can be addressed by intelligently applying the third method. Instead of scaling an individual switches' speed, or burden, proportional to demand, Dr. Mneimneh suggests using a single load-balanced switch with sub-switches scaled to handle throughput based on packet size. A problem however arises when large and small packets get jumbled together and then reordered, which results in wasted bandwidth the same way lag occurs when cars and trucks share a single toll gate. To quantify this concern, Dr. Mneimneh suggested using a routing algorithm that preserves the integrity of individual packets within the same flow while simultaneously optimizing throughput, and then measuring resultant waste.

Standing in line at the Post Office on tax day would be significantly improved if an intelligent, scaleable queuing system could mitigate flow control in a fair and reasonable manner, thereby smoothly processing transactions without emotion and unnecessary angst. Perhaps that is too much to hope for, but when handling raw data, a systems approach employing smoothed multiplexed buffering, that allocates appropriate bandwidth on the fly, without instability and jitter, doesn't seem unimaginable, does it?

On October 12, Prof. Si-Min He, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, presented research intended to address such chip/circuit design considerations when processing data through switches. Dr. Si-Min proposed a novel smoothed buffered crossbar switch, or sBUX, based on the concept of smoothness and the smoothed multiplexer sMUX. The smoothed multiplexer sMUX allocates bandwidth among competing flows sharing a link, and guarantees almost ideal smoothness bounds for each flow. The sBUX switch uses sMUX as both input and output schedulers, with a buffer of just three cells at each crosspoint. sBUX can utilize 100 percent of the switch capacity to provide deterministic guarantees of bandwidth, fairness, delay and jitter bounds for each flow. Coupled with a bandwidth regulator, sBUX can also support best-effort services with good performance, as shown by simulations.

Now, just imagine if we could do that at the Post Office.

Visit the ECE Lecture Series to learn more about Dr. Si-Min's research.

The David Packard Center for Technology and Educational Alliances held its first Principal's Scholars Dinner-Symposium of the current school year on October 5^th, 2006. The speaker, Prof. Jin Montclare, addressed a group of 90 high school students and teachers on "Engineering Biological Systems." This is the Packard Center's 10^th year to offer this series of presentations by leading NYU-Poly faculty members to inform and encourage students and their teachers on topics of interest in science and engineering.

William H. May

William H. May, Senior Director of Credit Market Research at FitchRatings, kicked off Poly's annual Alumni Leadership Lectures Series on September 25, 2006. In his day job, Mr. May is responsible for accessing risk at FitchRatings, a Financial Services company covering financial institutions, banks, corporations, loan products, structured finance, insurance, sovereigns and public finance markets worldwide. Mr. May's presentation, "A Career in Financial Services," discussed how an engineering background can be parlayed into a successful career in the financial services industry, by providing fundamental tools for surveillance and analysis of a wide range of industry sectors, such as financial institutions, structured financings, municipal bonds ratings and the tax-exempt markets.

Conference speakers and attendees included, left to right, Polytechnic Institute of NYU President, Jerry Hultin, Bruce Niswander (Technology Transfer/Venture Capital Consultant), Deborah Devedjian (Managing Partner, Copernicus Learning Fund; Polytechnic trustee), Harold Sjursen (Department Head of Humanities and Social Sciences), and Gregory Gunn (Chief Scientist & Co-Founder, Wireless Generation).

Polytechnic hosted the "Fifth Global Congress on Engineering Education," which emphasized the various cross-disciplinary skills required of today's engineers, and the importance of raising the profile of engineering professions to meet America's growing demand for technology professionals. The week-long event drew over 100 attendees and focused on applying engineering principles to address world-wide problems, such as global warming and future energy needs.

Read more about the conference on the NYU-Poly website.

Dr. Michael Hutmaker, Dean of Student Affairs, together with his father Gene, has co-authored a new book, Banned in the Bronx: The Yankee Hater Memoirs 1953-2005. The book chronicles the past 50 years of Yankee baseball through the eyes of George Steinbrenner's nemesis, co-author Gene Hutmaker. Given the fact that Dr. Hutmaker works in New York City he has, however, gone out of his way to assure friends and colleagues that this is a journalistic piece of work and that he is, in fact, a Yankee Fan. Those who feel differently can purchase the anti-Yankee diatribe at Amazon.com. Given the Yankees' recent shortcomings in the 2006 playoffs, Dr. Hutmaker has more material in the next edition of his book.

Professor Jose Pinto, of the Othmer-Jacobs Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, chaired the "Business Decision Support" session and delivered the following talks at the 16^th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering and the 9^th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering (ESCAPE 16 & PSE 2006) on July 9^th through July 13^th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany:

• P. Chen, J.M. Pinto, "Lagrangean-based Techniques for the Supply Chain Management of Flexible Process Networks"
• J.M.S. Natali, J.M. Pinto, "Reconstruction of Transcriptional Regulatory Networks via Integer Linear Programming"
• S.R. Micheletto, Petrobras-Petroleo S.A., São Paulo/BR; J.M. Pinto, "Operational Optimization of the Thermoelectric System of an Oil Refinery"

Jonathan Chao, Ph.D. (chao@poly.edu)

Patents

United States Patent No.: 7,103,056
Awarded: September 5, 2006
H. J. Chao and E. Oki, "Scheduling the dispatch of cells in multistage switches using a hierarchical arbitration scheme for matching non-empty virtual output queues of a module with outgoing links of the module."

Abstract:
A multiple phase cell dispatch scheme, in which each phase uses a simple and fair (e.g., round robin) arbitration methods, is described. Virtual Output Queues of an input module and outgoing links of the input module are matched in a first phase. An outgoing link of an input module is matched with an outgoing link of a central module in a second phase. The arbiters become desynchronized under stable conditions which contributes to the switch's high throughput characteristic. Using this dispatch scheme, a scalable multiple-stage switch able to operate at high throughput, without needing to resort to speeding up the switching fabric and without needing to use buffers in the second stage, is possible. The cost of speed-up and the cell out-of-sequence problems that may occur when buffers are used in the second stage are therefore avoided. A hierarchical arbitration scheme used in the input modules reduces the time needed for scheduling and reduces connection lines.

Spencer Kuo, Ph.D., (skuo@duke.poly.edu)

Journal Publications

• S. P. Kuo, "On Plasma Mitigation of Shock Waves", Phys. Scr., 74, 398-404, doi:10.1088/0031-8949/74/3/017, 2006.
• S. P. Kuo, M. Rubinraut, S. Popovic, Daniel Bivolaru, "Characteristic Study of a Portable Arc-Microwave Plasma Torch", IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci., 34(6), Dec. 2006.

Patents

United States Patent No.: US 7,091,441
Date of Patent: August 15, 2006
Spencer Kuo, "Portable Arc-seeded Microwave Plasma Torch,"

Two views of Dr. Kuo's Microwave-Plasma Torch, Patent: US 7,091,441 B1. Top shows torch without air flow, bottom shows effect of air flow.

Abstract:
Arc plasma torch generated by a torch module installed on the bottom wall in a narrow section of a tapered S-band rectangular cavity, is used to seed microwave discharge where the microwave electric field is maximum. The microwave-enhanced discharge increases the size, cycle energy, and duty cycle of the seeding arc-torch plasma considerably. This torch can be run stably without introducing gas flow or run just using air flow. This torch may produce an abundance of reactive atomic oxygen, and therefore may be used in applications for rapidly destroying a broad spectrum of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents.

The Packard Center has won a $20,000 grant from the Consolidated Edison Company to support the Future Cities Competition, which they conduct for 7^th and 8^th grade students, in a partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Metropolitan Regional Finals for this event will be conducted at NYU-Poly on Saturday, January 20, 2007. The top-ranked middle school team at this event will go to Washington, D.C. as the Metropolitan Region's representative at the National Future Cities Finals. Held during National Engineers Week in February, Polytechnic's team will compete for scholarships and prizes against teams drawn from around the United States.

Professor Stavroula Sofou, of the Othmer-Jacobs Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has won the prestigious Wallace H. Coulter Foundation 2006 Early Career Award for her research on "Liposomes containing raft-switches for targeted therapy of solid tumors." This highly competitive award provides Assistant Professors in Biomedical Engineering Departments across North America with $200,000 of funding over two years. Dr. Sofou was among 23 privileged biomedical engineering researchers who received the award this year. She has also presented her work on liposomes for targeted cancer therapy at the Gordon Research Conference, and has given a talk at the Controlled Release Society annual meeting in Vienna, Austria in July 2006.

Read more about the award on the NYU-Poly website.

Each year, thousands of alumni and friends of NYU-Poly contribute to the university through the Polytechnic Fund. Raising gifts, a multi-part process managed by the Office of Alumni Relations, involves soliciting support from alumni and friends of the University through mailings and other overtures. In 2006, 16% of undergraduate alumni and 12% of all alumni made contributions to Poly; the average unrestricted gift was $189. Nearly 650 individuals gave $100, Poly's most common gift, and over 440 donors participated in corporate matching gift programs.

The Polytechnic Fund provides general, unrestricted support to the university by bridging the gap between tuition and research revenue and the actual cost of university operations. These contributions support scholarships, renovations, repairs, upgrades and keeping the lights and heat on while students cram for exams and run experiments.

By making a gift to the Polytechnic Fund faculty, staff and alumni demonstrate their belief in Poly's future; but their support need not stop there. Encouraging former students to stay in touch with the University and making a contribution to the Polytechnic Fund helps NYU-Poly in a number of ways. A surprising number of alumni do not know that their gift enhances Polytechnic's ranking in U.S. News & World Report College Rankings, which is reviewed by many potential students considering enrolling at Poly.

Gifts to the Polytechnic Fund can be made in a number of ways, the quickest is to visit the on-line giving site at www.poly.edu/alumni/donate. If you would like more information about the Polytechnic Fund please contact Donald Ivanoff, director of alumni relations, at 718-260-3424 or Natalie Blake, associate director of annual and anniversary giving at 718-260-3844.

The October 16^th issue of Crain's New York Business featured an article on Polytechnic Institute of NYU and President Jerry Hultin, who talked about the university's prestigious history, recent turn around in enrollment, and future opportunities in developing tomorrow's scientists and engineers in an increasingly technologically dependant world. Polytechnic's Chairman Craig Matthews said, "Jerry was a shot in the arm, he energized us. This year, thanks to Jerry and the sweat and tears of the faculty and constituencies, enrollment is up. I couldn't be happier." Highlighting Poly's increased undergraduate and graduate enrollment, a 13-1 student-to-teacher ratio, new initiatives in urban security, health and information technology, as well as real estate development opportunities and recent fundraising successes, the article provides more than 234,000 top executives who read Crain's New York Business a fresh perspective on the university's ongoing dedication to science, technology, engineering, education and research.

Read the Crain's featured article on the NYU-Poly website

In a feature article discussing the competitive edge provided by specialized degree programs provide, Time Out New York profiled Polytechnic Institute of NYU's master of science in financial engineering program, offered by the University's Department of Technology Management. "This is a unique program that prepares students with a background in science and technology to build a successful career in the financial sector," said university spokesperson Emily Zyborowicz. Emphasizing the strategic advantage to students interested in pursuing educational opportunities in engineering, science and technology within New York City, the article highlights various degrees directly relevant to the numerous biomed, media, retail and financial services industries throughout the city.

Read more about it in the Time Out New York article.

Dr. Jane Alexander

Dr. Jane A. (Xan) Alexander, a leader in executing innovative research and development programs for the federal government, has joined NYU-Poly as Vice President of Research and Technology Initiatives. With nearly two decades experience in the federal government, most recently as Deputy Director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dr. Alexander brings a broad array of experience in developing and managing research and development programs to Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

Working with the faculty and the University's Cabinet, Dr. Alexander will focus on: increasing funding for research; implementing new strategic research initiatives; drawing world class faculty to the University; and facilitating cutting-edge science and technology research among the faculty, students and industry.

Dr. Alexander holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her BS in Physics from Stanford University. Among her awards are the Arthur S. Flemming Award honoring the top ten Federal employees under 40 years of age, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, and the Department of Defense Distinguished Medal for Civilian Service.

Dr. Mary Cowman

Dr. Mary Cowman, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, has been named the Director of the Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies. Dr. Cowman, recipient of Poly's 2006 Distinguished Teacher Award, received her Ph.D. in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1976 and joined Polytechnic’s faculty in 1982. Cowman is well-known as an expert in the study of the structure and properties of biologically important polysaccharides.

Acting as a magnet for talent and ideas, the Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies provides a unique intellectual home for scholars from a variety of backgrounds. The Institute supports innovative, interdisciplinary research as well as educational curriculum development. Focusing on technological arenas that entail both risk and the potential for high returns. The Institute works in tandem with academic initiatives at Poly, and serves as a source of seed funding for research applications. In addition to academic program development and the creation of new and effective pedagogies, the institute aims to foster new and important areas of research that offer innovative, breakthrough results.

For information on job openings at poly, visit the Office of Human Resources' list of job openings.