In an important development related to the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University, the University President Dr. Graham Spanier was fired today, along with Joe Paterno, who is among the most successful football coaches ever. The Penn State board has named Dr. Rodney A. Erickson, executive vice president and provost, as the interim president of the University. Tom Bradley, assistant coach, has been named interim head football coach.

The Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal is a child sexual abuse scandal involving allegations against former Pennsylvania State University football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of a university coverup of those incidents. Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator under head coach Joe Paterno, retired in 1999 but retained access to Penn State’s athletic facilities. A 2011 grand jury investigation reported that Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant, told Paterno in 2002 that he had seen Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10-year-old boy in Penn State football’s shower facilities. Paterno then reported the allegations to Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. In November 2011, Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts of molesting eight young boys over a 15-year period. In addition, Curley and university Senior Vice President Gary Schultz resigned after being charged with failing to report the incident to police and lying to a grand jury regarding what they knew about the incident. Paterno and University President Graham Spanier were not charged, but both received criticism for their handling of the allegations. Earlier today, Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season, but hours later, Paterno and Spanier were formally removed from their positions, effective immediately, by the Penn State Board of Trustees.

After a series of cover ups and failing to uphold high moral standards, finally the board of trustees have taken a tough stand, which will hopefully lead to a safer environment at Penn State and elsewhere and set high standards of accountability. Those applying to Penn State should continue with their plans. We express solidarity with the Penn State community and with the victims of abuse.

Note: The matter is under investigation and all accused are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Dr. Spanier is not charged with a crime so far.

Ref: Penn State announcement

Yesterday Prof. Saul Perlmutter was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, to be shared with Adam G. Riess, 41, of The Johns Hopkins University and Brian Schmidt, 44, of Australian National University’s Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories. Perlmutter, 52, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), led the Supernova Cosmology Project that, in 1998, discovered that galaxies are receding from one another faster now than they were billions of years ago.

Perlmutter is the fifth Nobel winner for UC Berkeley in the past 11 years, and the 22nd Nobel prize winner overall. This is the ninth Nobel in Physics awarded to a UC Berkeley faculty member, the most recent winner being George Smoot in 2006. In addition, 25 alumni of UC Berkeley have won the Nobel Prize.

UC Berkeley has a unique tradition of rather generous reward for all its Nobel Laureates – a lifetime free parking on campus. In a press conference yesterday, Prof. Perlmutter said “The only reason to win a Nobel Prize is so that you can park on campus.”

Ref: Long list of Berkeley Nobel Laureates

[Based on an article by BY Christopher Vaughn, April 28, 2011]

Last month, Stanford University decided to create the first PhD program in the world in stem cell science dedicated to regenerative medicine. The new doctoral program in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine is also the first interdisciplinary doctoral program created by the School of Medicine in recent years. Creation of new PhD programs are rare as it requires lots of resources and prolonged commitment of funding.

Prospective students can begin applying in fall of 2011 to begin the program in the fall of 2012. The first class will be composed of three to six students, although the program will eventually enroll six students every year, for a program total of 24 students. Students will be required to take prescribed courses, pass a qualifying exam and write a dissertation. One of the distinguishing features of the PhD program is that all students will be required to undergo an immersive clinical rotation in which they will shadow attending surgeons, physicians, residents or fellows.

For furhter details, refer to the original article.

Dr. Renee Reijo Pera, professor of obstetrics and gynecology shall be the director of the new PhD program. app2us.com will carry an interview with her in the near future, this has been confirmed with Stanford university.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 was awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”. Elizabeth H. Blackburn is a Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Carol W. Greider is a Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics and Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University. Jack W. Szostak is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009 was shared by Charles K. Kao “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication” and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith “for the invention of an imaging George E. Smith earned his PhD from the University of Chicago with a dissertation of only 3 pages.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 was shared by Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” Venkatraman Ramakrishnan got his Ph.D. in Physics from Ohio University in 1976 and then spent two years studying biology as a graduate student at the UC San Diego while making a transition from theoretical physics to biology. Thomas A. Steitz is a Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009 was awarded to Herta Müller of Germany “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 was awarded to the US President Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” Barack Obama earned his and BA from University of Chicago and JD from Harvard Law School.

In an effort to augment scientific excellence in emerging areas of science and technology, the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) in association with Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of Department of Science and Technology (DST) announce the Indo-US Research Fellowships. The objective of these fellowships is to enable young researchers from India to carry out research in frontier areas of science and technology at a premier institution in USA. The fellowship will enable young Indian researchers to acquaint themselves with new scientific research methods and at the same time build strong collaborative linkages between the scientific communities of US and India.

Areas covered under the fellowship:

Atmospheric and Earth Sciences

Chemical Sciences

Engineering Sciences

Life Sciences

Medical Sciences

Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Physical Sciences

You can check out the guidelines and format at www.indousstf.org
Contact person:

Dr. Smriti Trikha

Indo-US Science and Technology Forum

12 Hailey Road, Fulbright House, New Delhi – 110001

Phone: 011-42691700

Email: fellowship@indousstf.org

[source: indousstf.org]

NEW DELHI – A U.S. University Fair will be held in New Delhi on Thursday, October 23, 1:30 pm to 6:00 pm, at Fulbright House, 12 Hailey Road. Organized by the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) in collaboration with Institute of International Education (IIE), the fair is free of charge and open to the public.

Students and parents interested in obtaining information about studying in the U.S. will have the opportunity to meet representatives of 24 American institutions that are participating in the fair. One-on-one sessions with admission officers, reliable and authentic information about academic programs and guidance provided by University representatives will help students make “informed” choices about institutions and programs.

The participating schools represent the full offering of the U.S. education system, including large state institutions, private universities with programs at undergraduate, graduate and doctorate levels.

An informative presentation on student visas will also be offered by a U.S. Embassy consular officer at 4:30 pm. apart from group briefing sessions by university representatives where application forms, books and other material will be distributed. The USIEF information booth will distribute a fair guide containing detailed information on participating universities and information on other U.S. institutions.
For more information about the fair, please call USIEF at 011-42090977 or email luna@fulbright-India.org.

Randy Pausch, a Prefessor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University died earlier today of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. He is well known for his lecture in ‘The Last Lecture’ series at CMU, delivered in September 2007. At that time, doctors had given him a few months time to live. The last lecture series is a lecture where a professor delivers a lecture in a hypothetical scenario assuming this would be his or her last lecture. Ironically in case of Professor Pausch it was indeed to be one of his last lectures.

In his lecture Professor Paush talked about achieving one’s dreams and enabling others achieve their dreams. The lecture became a hit on Youtube with millions of hits. It became the basis for a book by the same title. We encourage you to watch the full lecture. It may change your life. You can read more about Randy Pausch at the CMU page – an enduring legacy.

Professor Pausch is survived by his wife Jai and three small children. The family requests that donations on his behalf be directed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245, or to Carnegie Mellon’s Randy Pausch Memorial Fund , which the university will use primarily to support continued work on the Alice project.

Reference: Carnegie Mellon University Website

Nevertheless, students who experience the different academic systems realize the benefits of each and become better students because of their exposure to both.

Students were asked to describe the differences between attending schools inside and outside of the US for a scholarship essay contest sponsored by University Language Services, a US-based company that translates academic transcripts, records and personal documents and provides assistance to students attending universities around the world.

The submissions came from students who have studied on six continents, in dozens of countries. The winner, SoRi Jang, is a high school senior from Centerville, Ohio, who attended schools in the US and Korea. She will enroll at the University of Chicago.

No matter their location, students often made similar remarks.

“The American school system was far easier than what I was used to. The class load was lighter, the expectations were lower, and teaching methods were very different,” wrote Seyram Adorka, a student at the University of Florida who moved to the US from Lesotho as a 13-year-old.

“The French educational system surprised me in the independence it asks of students, compared to the American system,” wrote Jacqueline Villadsen, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“My knowledge of European history has greatly expanded and I feel that the education I am receiving in Slovakia has allowed me to explore completely different realms of knowledge not offered by the American education system,” wrote Amanda Crawley, of Davis, Calif.

In addition, students wrote that schools in other countries differed in the emphasis they placed on individual achievement versus teamwork, said Jessica Hertz, chairwoman of the scholarship contest.

“A surprising number of essays noted that American students are taught to strive for individual success, but students elsewhere in the world are taught to cooperate and collaborate,” Hertz said.

Although many students described the dramatic differences they found regarding homework, their relationships with teachers and the material which they studied, few definitively stated that one style of education was better than the other. Rather, the differences they experienced abroad made them more motivated, prepared and independent students in the US.

The winning essays can be read in full at www.universitylanguage.com.
PRESS RELEASE INFO:
Contact: Diane Erwin
Tel.: 212-766-4111 ext. 144 May 1, 2008
Email: contentmanager@universitylanguage.com

The 2009 US News Rankings are out. The online access costs US dollars 14.95. While we do not endorse the rankings or suggest that you buy the online edition, it may not be a bad investment if you can afford it. Rankings are a good starting point to shortlist the Universities. Once you shortlist a few Universities based on your academic profile, app2us.com can help you make the final selection. Visit our forum at www.app2us.com

Here are the top 20 Engineering programs:

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. UC Berkeley
4. Georgia Tech
5. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
6. Cal Tech
7. Carnegie Mellon
8. University of Southern California
9. Cornell
10. University of Michigan Ann Arbor
11. UC San Diego
12. UT Austin
13. Texas A&M University College Station
14. UCLA
15. Purdue
16. University of Wisconsin Madison
17. University of Maryland College Park
18. Princeton University
19. UC Santa Barbara
20. Northwestern University

These are overall rankings of the Engineering schools, but the reputation carries over to individual programs. Employers visit Top Engineering Schools, not Top Mechanical or Chemical departments, so these rankings are of some significance. To explain this point, let us hypothetically assume that a certain engineering department at MIT is not ranked high enough. Still if you get into that department, you should take the offer because the MIT degree will give a tremendous boost to your career, who cares about the department ranking. If you are confused about how much importance should you accord to rankings, read our piece on Analysis of US University Rankings.