Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

On April 27, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released the “Report to the President and Congress on the Fourth Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI),” a congressionally mandated biennial review. Five of the 24 researchers providing input to the report were from the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts School of Public Policy (SPP). The PCAST recommendations will be influential in the approval of $1.8 billion in federal funding proposed for fiscal year (FY) 2013 for 15 agencies with budgets dedicated to nanotechnology research and development.

Nihad Farooq, assistant professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, has received a visiting research fellowship from the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. 

Richard Utz has been named chair of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts School of Literature, Communication, and Culture.  The appointment follows a national search. Utz will assume the position August 1. 

The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts has selected Russian scholar Dina Khapaeva to chair its School of Modern Languages. The appointment is the result of an international search. Dr. Khapaeva will assume the position August 1.

Following a national search, the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts has selected David Laband to chair its School of Economics. The appointment is effective August 1.

“It is no longer only that we [the U.S.] are dependent on trade in order to continue to be wealthy; we now cannot even produce ‘our’ products and services alone,” said Dan Breznitz, professor in The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, addressing congress's U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on May 10th. “The financial system in the United States is not built any longer to [invest in] doing that,” despite the fact that sectors like cleantech remain critical to U.S. national security.

"Joseph Tranquillo and his colleague in the humanities, John Hunter, spoke about the tension between technology and memory at the Neuro-Humanities Entanglement Conference at Georgia Tech in April [organized by LCC Visiting Professor Barbara Maria Stafford and supported by IAC], where academics and thinkers from a variety of disciplines came together to discuss how their seemingly disparate areas of study might connect." Source: CNN.com - May 7, 2012

Climate and energy policy professor Marilyn Brown has been named an inaugural ambassador in U.S. Department of Energy / MIT Women in Clean Energy Program for the United States.

Hans Klein, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy, has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to the Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Advisory Committee (ITS PAC).

Valerie Thomas visited with U.S. congressional members from Georgia last week, advocating for federal funding for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) research and energy research.

Aaron Levine, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy, has received the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award, a particularly notable achievement for faculty working in the social sciences.

"It's hard to classify [the game 'The Republia Times'] as any proper type of newsgame, whether that be an editorial game or a literacy-building game," writes Simon Ferrari, a 2010 Knight News Challenge Winner and Digital Media Ph.D. student in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture.

Susan Cozzens will assume her new role in the Office of the Provost on June 1.

"While many Web sites, conferences, and blogs dedicated to digital pedagogy have since been created and offer invaluable help, some of us still face particular challenges," writes Aaron Santesso, an associate professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. Santesso continues, "I teach 17th- and 18th-century literature at a science-and-engineering university, meaning I must make the great era of 'paper-based textual artifacts' accessible to students who are more comfortable with the virtual. My students are smart, eager, and creative.

William H. Foege, who was honored by Georgia Tech in March with the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage, has been named by President Obama as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"If perhaps three to four percent of GDP in government spending in Denmark, New Zealand or Australia were reallocated to reward and incentivize science and technology, then maybe the best and brightest would switch over, and you would see technological powerhouses develop in these countries," said Mark "Zak" Taylor, an assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Source: Innovation News Daily - April 26, 2012