Alumni

Dear Tufts Engineering Graduate:

Spring semester is off to a fantastic start!

I am pleased to report that, for the first time, the number of applications to our undergraduate programs has surpassed 3,000. This represents an astonishing 15 percent increase over last year and our seventh consecutive record applicant pool. Overall, engineering applications have risen 75 percent in the past decade. This is also a historic moment for both undergraduate schools, with acceptance rates for undergraduates in the class of 2017 projected to fall below 20 percent.

In faculty news, I am pleased to announce that we have received Trustee approval for three named professorships: Mechanical Engineering Chair William Messner is the first holder of the John R. Beaver Professorship; Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering, has been named the Frank C. Doble Professor; and Benjamin Shapiro, assistant professor of computer science is the McDonnell Family Professor in Engineering Education.

Ben is among a group of talented new tenure-track faculty members beginning their careers at Tufts mid-year. This January, we also welcomed Associate Professor Mai Vu (ECE) whose research interests include wireless communications, information theory, and signal processing and Professor Igor Sokolov (ME) whose work focuses on nanomechanics of soft material, cells and biomolecules, and nanophotonics. Also of special note, Noah Mendelsohn was named as the computer science department’s first professor of the practice.

I am also extremely proud of our junior faculty members who recently received prestigious early career awards. Assistant Professor Babak Moaveni (CEE) is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop new and improved methods for monitoring structural health. Catherine Kuo (BME) received a NSF CAREER award for her bioengineering research on how internal cell scaffolding regulates the mechanical properties of developing tissue. Tom Vandervelde (ECE), a 2011 NSF CAREER awardee, was awarded the Intelligence Community Young Investigator Award for his work on monovalent-barrier photodiodes.

I also want to extend my congratulations to Professor Diane Souvaine (CS) who has been tapped by Tufts' leadership as the university's new Vice Provost for Research. Diane brings much talent and experience to this role, and we are delighted that the university has selected one of our own for this important position.

Thank you to all our alumni who joined us for the recent Lyon and Bendheim Lecture with David Greenwald who taught our successful High-Technology Entrepreneurship graduate-level course at Tufts Gordon Institute this fall. (If you missed the fall Lyon and Bendheim Lecture with Seth Godin, E82, be sure to watch the video of his lecture.) Thanks also to those alumni who joined us for our annual student-alumni networking night.

We hope to see you on campus in the spring!

Best regards,

Linda M. Abriola
Dean of Engineering