News & Impact
USC WiSE faculty and students are regularly making headlines for their research and achievements. Please visit the links below for recent news about the WiSE Program and WiSE-affiliated Faculty
September 2009
WiSE 10th Anniversary Celebration and Speaker Series In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the USC Women in Science & Engineering Program, WiSE has partnered with departments in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to highlight the many excellent women scientists and engineers visiting the USC campus this year. A broad range of disciplinary lectures featuring distinguished speakers will take place throughout the Fall and Spring semesters, with additional opportunities for faculty, students, and the university community to talk informally with guests about their training and professional development.
August 2009
The WiSE Women of Science For the past decade, USC’s Women in Science and Engineering program has been working to make academic research and scholarship more hospitable to women scientists. The reason is simple: In today’s global economic competition, American research universities need all the brainpower they can get.
May 2009
Assistant Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Burcin Becerik-Gerber, Profiled
April 2009
Urbashi Mitra Recognized for Service by Viterbi School of Engineering
Sarah Bottjer and Maja Mataric Honored with 2009 USC-Mellon Awards for Excellence in Mentoring
March 2009
Andrea Armani receives Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award
WiSE Women Recognized at 2009 "Remarkable Women" Awards Ceremony
February 2009
Hopf Algebras and Related Topics Conference Held at USC in in honor of Professor Susan Montgomery.
January 2009
Maria Todorovska among 18 prominent women in civil engineering selected worldwide as role models for aspiring female engineering students. Todorovska, a research professor in the Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is internationally known for her research in earthquake engineering and engineering seismology.
December 2008
Sarah Bottjer Among AAAS Fellows Neurobiologist Sarah Bottjer was honored among 5 USC faculty by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of their outstanding contributions in science and engineering.
September 2008
She Did the Math Pianist/computational engineer Elaine Chew discusses advantages of an operations research approach to new musical search technologies.
Robot Interaction May Help Youngsters USC studies document that children with autism disorders actively interact with robots. Creation of therapy tools is the next step.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Science study provides first proof of an unlikely phenomenon involving three-way splits of a molecule.
July 2008
New Faculty Joining the Viterbi School of Engineering include 3 new WiSE Faculty Andrea Armani, Burcin Becerik, and Michelle Povinelli arrive at USC in Fall 2008.
May 2008
Professor of Computer Science, Maja Mataric, is the the director of the Viterbi School's Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems and Senior Associate Dean for Research. She recently appeared on Paul Peterson's Channel 35 weekly discussion show to explain her vision of mechanical creatures who can help the elderly.
Cosmologist, Elena Pierpaoli focuses on big questions-- how the universe started, where it's going and what exactly it's made of. A satellite scheduled to launch later this year will provide new, in-depth data to fuel her research.
April 2008
WiSE Program Thanks Carolyn Webb de Macias
Urbashi Mitra and Lorraine Turcotte Honored with 2008 USC-Mellon Awards for Excellence in Mentoring
March 2008
USC Ph.D. student Lisa Alpert (Earth Sciences) and her family were featured in the US News and World Report 2009 Edition "America's Best Graduate Schools" as a recipient of a WiSE Child Care Subsidy.
WiSE Faculty Yolanda Gil and Jean Morrison honored as 2008 "Remarkable Women"
February 2008
USC Awarded $3.9M for Undersea Lab led by Katrina Edwards
With a $3.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, USC College researcher Katrina Edwards will lead a first-of-its-kind drilling expedition to study subseafloor life.
January 2008
Professor Amy Rechenmacher Wins NSF Early Career Award
Amy Rechenmacher, an assistant professor in the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has won a highly competitive National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her work in granular behavior and geotechnical engineering applications.
November 2007
David Bottjer and his graduate crew dig up new clues about ancient mass extinctions.
"One of the few men in the College to receive a grant from USC’s Women in Science and Engineering program (WiSE), Bottjer received $25,000 to help fund the work of four recent female graduate students — Powers, Fraiser, Nicole Bonuso and Sara Pruss. Pruss, who graduated in 2004, did a postdoc at Harvard before landing a faculty position at Smith College. Bonuso is now an assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton. The WiSE grant enabled the women to pursue studies at locales around the world and fueled their success."
USC ranks 9th in percentage of BS BME degrees awarded to women
Surpassing the national average, 50% of the USC Biomedical Engineering Bachelors degrees were awarded to women. This information was reported in the October 2007 issue of the ASEE Prism magazine.
Six from USC Attend Women in Computing Conference
CS Department, WiSE, and Viterbi join forces to send students to annual gathering.
October 2007
Two Women Faculty to Join Viterbi in 2008
Two women faculty specializing in photonics and health care systems engineering will become assistant professors in the Viterbi School of Engineering in 2008: Michelle Lynn Povinelli of Stanford University and Shinyi Wu of The RAND Corp.
Maja Mataric Among 5 USC Faculty Named as Fellows of the AAAS
Mataric, professor of computer science and neuroscience, was honored "for research in robotics, service to K-12 education, and as president of the Academic Senate and senior associate dean for research (in the USC Viterbi School)."
WiSE Faculty featured in the Fall 2007 issue of the USC Viterbi Engineer Magazine
Yolanda Gil: Taming Torrents of Data
Ellis Meng: Out of Sight Implants for the Eye
September 2007
Two Promising Young Faculty Named to Viterbi School Early Career Chairs
Ellis Meng, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been named to an early career chair for her exceptional research contributions.
ISI's Pegasus Grid Workflow System Sprouts $1.7 Million NSF Wings
The U.S. Office of CyberInfrastructure recently gave a 3-year grant to Ewa Deelman's project, which, says Deelman, "automatically chains dependent tasks together, so that a single scientist can complete complex computations that once required many different people."
August 2007
Incoming Epstein Faculty Member Wins RAND honor
Shinyi Wu, a RAND Corporation engineer who joins the Viterbi School's Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering faculty in January, 2008, was recently honored by RAND for "outstanding contributions to furthering RAND's mission of improving policy and decision making through research and analysis."
July 2007
The Newest AI Computing Tool: People
The problem of categorizing a fast-growing collection of documents on the Web may be solved by the individuals who use it on a daily basis, says USC Viterbi computer scientist, Kristina Lerman.
June 2007
Denice Denton Memorial
Denice Denton paved the way for excellence in engineering and science education in so many respects, always understanding that the path to excellence is linked with developing the talents of a truly diverse group of students, faculty, and other professionals. On June 24, 2007, the first anniversary of her death, we recognize her achievements and remember Denice for the enormously positive impact she had on science and engineering in the US.
Elaine Chew Selected as 2007–2008 Radcliffe Fellow
Radcliffe Institute Announces 2007–2008 Fellows and Their Projects
USC Team Earns Harvard Fellowships
Elaine Chew and Alexandre Francois are two of 51 scholars and scientists selected by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
May 2007
Good Taste Is No Accident
USC College neuroscientist Emily Liman reveals a pathway from the tongue to the brain.
Elaine Chew Promoted to Associate Professor
April 2007
Hanna Reisler and Amy Cassidy Honored with USC-Mellon Awards for Excellence in Mentoring
March 2007
Eva Kanso Wins NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award
Eva Kanso, assistant professor in the Viterbi School's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, has won a highly competitive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation.
It Computes: A Cyber-Facility for Chemists
New center aims to add computational chemistry to the experimentalist’s toolkit. USC College theoretical chemist Anna Krylov's research lab has no beakers, no bottles of chemicals labeled in fine print.
Elaine Chew Performance Featured at the National University of Singapore Arts Festival
What has art got to do with mathematics and science? For Elaine Chew, the answer is everything and with her performance, “The Mathematics in Music,” it seems like the United States-based pianist-engineer is making headway convincing audiences to agree with her.
Women in Physics Find Common Ground
The second annual conference hosted at USC encourages women to pursue graduate studies and inspires other universities to follow suit.
Hanna Reisler and Meghna Patel named 2007 "Remarkable Women"
Feburary 2007
Susan Forsburg named 2007 Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Fellow
January 2007
Keeping women in physics is aim of conference for undergrads
Elaine Chew Appointed as Assistant Professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
ISI (and ICT) Women WiSE Up
ISI hosts a delegation from USC's Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) organization
Urbashi Mitra Elected Fellow of the IEEE
December 2006
Anna Krylov Awarded the 2007 Dirac Medal
October 2006
Five Viterbi Students Attend Women in Computing Conference
Department pays for attendance at “inspiring” gathering of 1300 female scientists
Morrison Appointed Vice Provost of Graduate Programs
ISI Associate Named to Prestigious NSF Advisory Board
The USC Information Science Institute’s Yolanda Gil has been has been appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation.
September 2006
Six New WiSE Faculty Join the USC College in 06-07
Nano Know-How
Physicist Jia Grace Lu's nanoworld explorations may lead to better chemical sensors and other small-scale, high-speed electronics.
Autumn 2006
Kinder, Gentler Robots
Computer scientist Maja Mataric is developing a new breed of robots programmed to infiltrate our schools, hospitals, even retirement homes. Forget the Terminator. These machines aren’t killers. They’re care-givers.
Summer 2006
Patching a Leaky Pipeline
Student-organized conference encourages women to pursue careers in physics
July 2006
A good robot has personality but not looks
Robots are poised to enter our homes, schools and hospitals as cleaners, educational aides and medical assistants. So how can designers ensure we make the most of our robotic helpers?
Engineering a musical analysis
Elaine Chew has melded her industrial engineering and musical careers.
March 2006
Boosting a Young Scientist's Career
Computational biologist Jasmine Zhou is named a 2006 Sloan Fellow. The two-year grant will allow her to establish independent research programs.
Maria Yang Awarded NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award
Maria Yang, an assistant professor in the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has won a highly competitive National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her work in early stage design process modeling.
February 2006
Ellis Meng Wins NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award
Ellis Meng, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and an expert in bioMEMS fabrication, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation.
January 2006
USC Participates in Chemical First
An international team featuring three Trojan representatives observes a reaction in real time from the molecule's point of view.
Two Hires Can Be Better Than One
Marking a five-year milestone, USC's Women in Science and Engineering Program continues its goal of recruiting female scholars. Because of intense competition for worthy candidates, the process may include the pursuit of their partners as well.
Viterbi School Solves "Two-Body" Problem And Recruits a Hopkins Couple
Amy Rechenmacher and Roger Ghanem Say Flexibility and Understanding a Major Draw
December 2005
Exploring the Biological Unknown
USC College geneticist Susan Forsburg studies yeast for insight into cell growth and cancer. In the long run, her research could yield new ways to treat the disease.
November 2004
College Scientists Recognized by AAAS
The world’s largest general scientific society elects USC faculty members as Fellows for significant advancements in their fields.
September 2004
Hardwiring the Nervous System
How developing neurons find their way.
July 2004
Body Mechanics
Unique,3-D modeling techniques have turned some USC athletes into Olympic medalists.
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