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For a half century, women have played leading roles in research, teaching and innovation at Princetons School of Engineering and Applied Science. Today, engineering faculty also includewomen who completed their graduate or undergraduate degrees at Princeton. Spanning different disciplines and generations, each of them has made outstanding contributions in her respective field, and each exemplifies Princetons traditions of fundamental research and engineering in the service of humanity.

This year, Princeton engineeringcelebrates Womens History Month and the100th anniversary of Princetons engineering schoolby featuring stories, perspectives and insights from three Princeton Engineering alumnae:

Jennifer Rexford, the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor in Engineering and a 1991 B.S.E. graduate;Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, the Theodora D. 78 and William H. Walton III 74 Professor in Engineering and a2001 Ph.D. graduate; andNing Lin, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a 2010 Ph.D. graduate.

Jennifer Rexford is the chair of the Department of Computer Science and the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor of Engineering. She received a B.S.E. in electrical engineering from Princeton, and masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Michigan. Rexford joined the Princeton faculty in 2005 after eight and a half years at AT&T Research.

Q. What reflections would you share from your time as an undergraduate at Princeton?

A. I decided to attend Princeton because I wanted the combination of a great engineering school and a great liberal arts education, while also being part of a small, close-knit community. That really narrowed down my choices! Another aspect of Princeton I only came to appreciate later was the opportunity to do research with the faculty. In pursuing my independent work projects in my junior and senior years, I fell in love with doing research, and that put me on the professional path Ive followed ever since.

While I truly appreciate my engineering education and my overall Princeton experience, I did find the two somewhat disjointed. These days, its much more integrated with the rest of the University, with many students taking engineering courses, getting involved in activities hosted by the Keller Center [for Innovation in Engineering Education] and the Center for Information Technology Policy, and more. I think thats a big win for Princeton students in general, whether engineering majors or not.

During my junior year, the campus was celebrating the 20th anniversary of coeducation at Princeton. My then-roommate Yvonne Ng 91 and I wanted to hear the stories of the women engineering students at Princeton, and particularly the early trailblazers. We embarked on a labor of love that became the book Shes an Engineer? Princeton Alumnae Reflect. It became a way for us to understand the experiences of women as engineering students and the place of engineering at Princeton.

Q. Whats most exciting about your research now?

A. My research focuses on computer networking, and particularly the internet. I have long been excited about how computer science in general, and the internet in particular, lower the barriers to innovation and enable a wider range of people to see their ideas flourish.In my own research, I am excited about making the underlying network infrastructure more programmable, so the internet can more easily evolve to be more secure, reliable and performant in the years ahead.

Q. What advice would you give to aspiring engineers?

A. I would encourage engineering students, whether at Princeton or elsewhere, to take advantage of every opportunity to take courses in the humanities and social sciences, not only to gain broad perspective or to hone your thinking and writing skills, but also because these intellectual pursuits are fascinating. I would also encourage students to resist the sense that they need to pick one passion or career over another. So often, we can find ways to combine our interests, and often engineering can offer a surprisingly relevant lens to topics that seem far afield.

Finally, I would encourage aspiring engineers to seek out mentors, whether among the faculty, practitioners, or more senior students and colleagues, and to realize that they can be wonderful mentors themselves, much earlier in their careers than they might realize.

Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo is the Theodora D. 78 and William H. Walton III 74 Professor in Engineering, a professor of chemical and biological engineering, and the director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. She earned dual bachelors degrees in chemical engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton. She joined the Princeton faculty in 2007.

Q. What stands out from your time as a Ph.D. student at Princeton?

A. I really grew as a scientist and as a person at Princeton. The environment was just right for me its small, and I was looking for a [research] group that was pretty hands-on, because I came here without much confidence in the direction I was going or knowing what I wanted to do. Rick Register was my adviser, and joining his group made the difference for me during my formative years of becoming a scientist.

At the same time, I think Princeton has a lot to offer graduate students. Where else can you go where you can be in a top engineering program and still have the opportunity to take classes with famous authors and thinkers? I sat in on classes with Toni Morrison and attended a seminar by Cornel West. As a double science major at the University of Pennsylvania, I didnt take many humanities and social science courses. Here, I enrolled in a sophomore-level English class, and thats where I really learned how to write.

Q. How did that experience lead you to your current research?

A. The work I was conducting [as a graduate student] was very fundamental; it was to understand how polymers crystallize. That taught me a lot it taught me how to be a deep thinker, it taught me how to be rigorous, it taught me a lot of fundamental polymer physics. But I knew that I wanted to work on something more applied, taking the knowledge and the experience that I had to look at functional materials. So, I did a postdoc at Bell Labs. And then I took the time to find my comfort zone between the very fundamental and very applied, and thats where my group currently sits.

Were interested in understanding structure-function relationships of electrically active materials. We use them to make solar cells, we make transistors, and, in particular, were excited about transparent solar cells that can be integrated into windows to provide point-of-use power sources to run smart windows that can cut down on building energy consumption. And it ties into the dual energy challenge that we often talk about, which refers to the need to increase energy access and living standards around the world, while reducing carbon emissions on a large scale.

Q. What advice would you share with students who are just getting started in science or engineering?

A. When I talk to prospective students, I tell them, You know who you are. Be true to yourself and know where your comfort zone is. And then, you take two steps outside your comfort zone. You dont take 10 steps outside your comfort zone, because then the learning curve is too steep and youre bogged down by all the nomenclature and all the things that you need to learn before you can make progress, and that can be very discouraging.

But if you take two steps outside your comfort zone, thats where you can maximize your own personal growth, your satisfaction and your impact on the world. Today, the most impactful work is at the boundaries of disciplines, so being open to exploring, collaborating and communicating with people who are very different from you whether by background, experience or expertise thats how youre going to maximize impact.

Ning Lin is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and an associated faculty member of the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment. She earned a bachelors degree in civil engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology; and a masters degree from Texas Tech University and a Ph.D. from Princeton, both in civil and environmental engineering. She joined the Princeton faculty in 2012.

Q. What were some of your experiences as a student at Princeton, and how did they shape your career?

A. I was super excited to be at Princeton, but early on I felt behind because other students seemed to have more preparation and background. But I quickly saw opportunities in the classroom. Of course, Princeton courses are very rigorous, but the professors always start from the basic concepts and they always welcome students who have little background in the topic. My classmates were also friendly and willing to help.

The course requirement for [civil and environmental engineering] graduate students is 10 courses, but I ended up taking over 20 courses in different departments: engineering, natural sciences, public policy, applied math. My adviser, Erik Vanmarcke [now an emeritus professor], was very open and he supported me exploring ideas through courses and interacting with other scholars and students. I built a strong foundation in math and physics, but at the same time broadened my horizons, which led to my cross-disciplinary research on hurricane hazards and risk.

My initial field of research was risk analysis in engineering, but Ive become more focused on hurricane hazards and risk. I had learned wind engineering and structural engineering before, which means looking at how we design structures to resist strong wind effects, but when I came to Princeton I got more interested in hurricane science and the effects of climate change.

Q. How does your research bring together climate science with engineering and policy?

A. Much of my research has been focused on the risks of different hazards induced by hurricanes: extreme wind, storm surge, rainfall and flooding. I also model the hurricanes themselves using physical models and statistical models. A big focus is on the effects of climate change on hurricane features and hazards, and the resulting impacts on engineering systems and communities and social systems.

Traditionally, engineering design has been based on historical records of environmental loads, assuming that the future will be similar to the past. But these infrastructure systems will be used for a long time 50 or 100 years so, they will be affected by climate change, including changes in wind, temperature, precipitation, sea level and storm surge.

We have to incorporate understanding of climate change into our design, but we dont have a framework to do that yet because its a whole new idea for design, and the climate science itself is still developing and has a lot of uncertainties. In my research and also in my teaching, I try to incorporate climate change into risk analysis to develop a new framework for engineering design and decision-making.

Q. What insights would you share with those who are just beginning their careers in engineering?

A. When I was an undergraduate, I thought engineering was a narrow discipline, but now I feel that engineering is getting broader and becoming more connected to social science, natural science, policy and art. And our society is becoming more connected and more global. So, engineers have to take on challenges and solve problems on larger scales, including problems like climate change. I would encourage engineering students to broaden their research scope and make friends in various fields. Engineers should be prepared totackle big problems related to the well-being of society.

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Women's History Month: Engineering faculty and alumnae reflections - Princeton University

AMES, Iowa It has been a tug-of-war for the top spot among the graduate programs in biological/agricultural engineering ranked by U.S. News and World Report magazine.

Two years ago the programs at Iowa State and Indianas Purdue University tied for first. Last year, Iowa State was first. This year, Iowa State is second.

Iowa States program has a lot to offer its graduate students, said Amy Kaleita, the departments interim chair and a professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering (ABE).

While COVID-19 has been a difficult time in higher education, were pleased that ABE has sustained our research funding over the last year, she said. These funds provide great opportunities for graduate students to engage in the high-impact research happening in ABE.

Kaleita said the departments graduate students are doing amazing work winning superior paper awards from our professional society, winning Iowa States three-minute-thesis competition, and providing leadership in campus and national organizations.

She also noted new facilities are opening including the new Feed Mill and Grain Science Complex, the Soil-Machine Dynamics Laboratory, and the Off-Highway Vehicle Chassis Dynamometer that will provide graduate students access to state-of-the-art resources for advancing their research and building their professional portfolio.

The magazine released its annual rankings of various graduate programs this week. Other highlights for Iowa State include top 26 rankings among public universities for engineering and business schools, as well as eight engineering departments ranking among the top 25 publics.

Each year, the magazine ranks programs in business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing. Those rankings are based on different measures in each field, but generally include data about incoming students and the career or academic outcomes for graduates.

The magazine also periodically ranks programs in the sciences and humanities. Those rankings are based on the ratings of academic experts.

The magazines latest rankings of Iowa State graduate programs include:

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Agricultural and biosystems engineering graduate program ranked among the best - Iowa State University News Service

Alfred V. Aho, Lawrence Gussman Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, has won the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) A.M. Turing Award, known informally as the Nobel Prize of computing. Professor Aho is being recognized for fundamental algorithms and theory underlying programming language implementation and for synthesizing these results and those of others in highly influential books that educated generations of computer scientists.

Aho shares the award with his long-time collaborator Jeffrey David Ullman, the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Stanford University, who received his BS from Columbia Engineering in 1963.

I am honored and humbled to receive this prestigious award, said Aho. I am delighted that with this award ACM recognizes the foundational importance of abstractions and algorithms in the design and implementation of programming languages.

The Turing Award carries a $1 million prize, with financial support provided by Google, Inc. It is named for Alan M. Turing, the British mathematician who articulated the mathematical foundation and limits of computing.

On behalf of Columbia Engineering, I congratulate Professor Aho on this landmark achievement, said Mary C. Boyce, Dean of Columbia Engineering. The Turing Award is the most prestigious award in computer science and rightly recognizes his groundbreaking signature contributions in programming languages over the course of a remarkable career in both industry and academia.

Aho and Ullman began working together at Bell Labs in 1967 and their early efforts included developing efficient algorithms for analyzing and translating programming languages. Even when Ullman began a career in academia in 1969 while Aho remained at Bell Labs, they continued their collaboration for several decades and shaped the foundations of programming language theory and implementation, as well as algorithm design and analysis.

They made broad and fundamental contributions to the field of programming language compilers through their technical contributions and influential textbooks, The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms (1974) and Principles of Compiler Design (1977). Their early joint work in algorithm design and analysis techniques contributed crucial approaches to the theoretical core of computer science that emerged during this period.

Aho spent more than 30 years at Bell Labs, ultimately becoming the Vice President of the Computing Sciences Research Center, the laboratory that invented UNIX, C, and C++.

He joined the department of computer science at Columbia in 1995. He received the Great Teacher Award for 2003 from the Society of Columbia Graduates. In 2014 he was again recognized for his teaching excellence by winning the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award from the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association.

Aho received his BSin Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto in 1963 and earned his Masters and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science from Princeton University in 1967. His many honors include the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and the NEC C&C Foundation C&C Prize. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of Canada. He is also a fellow of ACM, IEEE, Bell Labs, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Alfred Aho Wins the 2020 ACM Turing Award - Columbia University

Missouri S&T is again one of the nations top-ranked institutions for pursuing a graduate degree in engineering, and several specific degree programs are on the rise, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Missouri S&T is ranked 50th among public universities and 84th overall in U.S. News Best Engineering Schools ranking, announced today (Tuesday, March 30, 2021).

In addition, graduate programs in six S&T engineering disciplines climbed in this years national graduate program rankings:

Missouri S&Ts civil engineering and materials science and engineering graduate programs maintained their rankings of 46 and 54, respectively.

The gains in rankings of six of our eleven programs shows that the word is getting out our strong engineering program is clearly getting stronger. Particularly gratifying is the 16% increase in rank for our rapidly expanding aerospace program, says Dr. Richard Wlezien, vice provost and dean of the College of Engineering and Computing at S&T. Our graduates are sought by leading engineering firms, and our future-focused programs are preparing students for successful careers.

Missouri S&Ts online graduate engineering programs are also gaining national recognition. Earlier this year, U.S. News ranked S&Ts 14 online graduate engineering programs 14th among the nations best public online programs and 18th overall.

U.S. News based its ranking on surveys of all 216 U.S. universities that grant doctoral degrees in engineering. The rankings are based on assessments of academic quality, faculty resources, student-to-faculty ratios, research activity and student selectivity.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,600 students and part of the four-campus University of Missouri System. Located in Rolla, Missouri S&T offers 99 different degree programs in 40 areas of study and is ranked by College Factual as the best public university to study engineering. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit http://www.mst.edu.

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Missouri S&T graduate engineering programs on the rise in U.S. News & World Report rankings - Missouri S&T News and Research