C A M P U S C U R R E N T Faculty Activities Faculty Appointment to Provide Study


Abroad Opportunities A key appointment is enabling Harvey Mudd College professors Ran Libeskind-Hadas (computer science) and Michael Orrison (mathematics) to provide opportunities for HMC and other North American students of computer science, engin- eering and allied fields to spend a semester of study in Budapest, Hungary. The two professors are among the founding


Michael Orrison and Ran Libeskind-Hadas


members of the advisory council of the Aquincum Institute of Technology (AIT) study abroad program in Budapest. As North American co- directors, Libeskind-Hadas and Orrison will join colleagues from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Smith College, Swarthmore College and Williams College to provide ongoing collaborative advice for AIT and guidance on curriculum and related aspects of the program, which features a novel blend of courses in


foundations of computing, design and entrepreneurship. Libeskind-Hadas said, “There are very few study-abroad


programs that focus on computing and engineering, fewer yet that meld the design and business components into the curriculum, and perhaps no other program that does this in English in a non-English speaking country.”


What Makes a Genius? Arthur Benjamin, HMC’s resident “mathemagician,” was featured on the Science Channel on August 16 in the U.S. premiere of the BBC program “What Makes A Genius?” The documentary featured Benjamin along with an


impressive line-up of researchers and artists, including neurobiologist Manuel Casanova of the University of Louisville who claims to have detected differences in brain structure that may account for unusual intelligence, and Elly Nedivi of MIT, who may have found a gene tied to learning. During his segment, Benjamin amazed BBC host Du Sautoy


and several passersby in a Boston train station with a demon- stration of his impressive mathematical skills.


Happy 95th


F a c u l t y N e w s


Founding President Emeritus Joseph Platt celebrated his 95th birthday in August with family. Platt is shown with one of his daughters, Elizabeth (Beth) Platt Garrow.


Next-generation Recording In May, 2010, Professor of Engineering Emeritus James Monson attended the ninth Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Sendai, Japan. In 1984, Monson participated in some of the early research on perpendicular recording in Shun-ichi Iwasaki’s laboratory at Tohoku University in Japan. It took a long time for perpendicular recording technology to overtake conventional longitudinal magnetic recording in the magnetic data storage hard disk environment. For the last two years, however, virtually all hard disk drives manufactured have used perpendicular magnetic recording. A number of HMC alumni—including Bob Fung ’81, Vince Tobin ’83 and Jason Goldberg ’94—have participated in the development of perpendicular magnetic recording technology.


Green Chemistry for Undergrad Labs Recent graduates who worked in the lab of David Vosburg, assistant professor of chemistry, have had their work published in the Journal of Chemical Education. The articles describe efforts to develop innovative green chemistry experiments for undergraduate teaching labs. In one case, students make the anti-coagulant (blood-thinning) drug warfarin in a single catalytic step with greater purity than if the drug were prescribed. In another article, students describe using an enzyme from horseradish to couple two molecules of vanillin (from vanilla) to form divanillin, which can enhance the flavoring properties of vanillin. Vosburg said, “Each of these experiments has been optimized to reduce energy and chemical


6 H a r v e y Mu d d C o l l e g e S UMME R 2 0 1 0


COURTESY OF THE PLATTS


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