Meg Whitman, president and chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will be the speaker at Carnegie Mellon University’s 120th Commencement at 11 a.m. Sunday, May 21, in Gesling Stadium on the Pittsburgh campus.

Whitman was president and CEO for Hewlett-Packard Company from 2011 through 2015, when she led the company’s turnaround and subsequent separation into two Fortune 100 companies — Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP, Inc.

“I’m proud to serve as Carnegie Mellon University’s 2017 commencement speaker,” Whitman said. “Carnegie Mellon is a unique community of scholars, creators and makers, and I’m confident its 2017 graduates will make a great impact on the world. I look forward to addressing the CMU community.”

Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, Whitman served as president and chief executive officer for eBay from 1998–2008. At eBay, she oversaw its growth from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue.

Whitman also has held executive positions at Hasbro, FTD, The Stride Rite Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and Bain & Company.

She currently serves on the board of directors for Procter & Gamble Company, DXC Technology and HP, Inc.

“Meg Whitman is among the most respected leaders in the business community and a champion for women in leadership across all sectors,” said Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh. “This university is committed to providing equal opportunities for women in every field, a fact that was underlined by our record number of first-year women undergraduate students in computer science and engineering this year. We are proud and very fortunate to have Meg Whitman as our speaker.”

This year’s student speaker is Chrystal Thomas, who will be receiving a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. Earlier this year, Thomas became the first student from Carnegie Mellon to be named a Schwarzman Scholar and will receive funding to complete a master’s degree in global affairs with a concentration in public policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In addition to Whitman, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Business Practice degree, this year’s honorary degree recipients are:

Mahzarin R. Banaji, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University and a renowned experimental psychologist, will receive a Doctor of Science and Technology degree. She is known for her study of implicit social cognition, especially the disparity between conscious expressions of attitudes and beliefs and their less conscious representations. She and colleague Anthony Greenwald authored the book “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People” in 2013.

Alumna (1944) Vivian Davidson Hewitt, who has enjoyed an illustrious career as a prominent librarian and African-American art collector, will be awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. She served as the first African-American Chief Librarian for the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations and President of the Special Libraries Association. “The Hewitt Collection” was recognized as one of the finest African-American art collections in the world.

Michael Keaton, a critically acclaimed actor, producer and director who has garnered critical and public acclaim most recently for his lead roles in “Spotlight” and “Birdman” — films that won Oscars for Best Picture — will be presented with a Doctor of Fine Arts degree. A visiting scholar at CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center, Keaton’s upcoming films include “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “American Assassin.”

Bernard Osher, a patron of education and the arts who has pursued a successful career in business, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He started The Bernard Osher Foundation in 1977, which seeks to improve quality of life through support for higher education and the arts. The foundation funds three national programs: postsecondary scholarships for non-traditional students; lifelong learning institutes for seasoned adults; and integrative medicine centers at select medical schools in the U.S. and Sweden

"I am truly honored to be a part of Carnegie Mellon's commencement ceremonies and deeply humbled being selected to receive an honorary degree from such a prestigious university,” said Keaton, a Pittsburgh native who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in “Birdman.” “As my career path led me away from graduating college, I am fortunate to be able to 'spread my wings' with the class of 2017."

It is a Carnegie Mellon tradition to award honorary degrees at commencement to exemplary leaders whose life and work serve as an inspiration for Carnegie Mellon students, faculty and staff.

More than 5,000 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees will be conferred at Carnegie Mellon’s main commencement ceremony.

The ceremony will be webcast at http://www.cmu.edu/commencement.

Learn more about the speakers and honorary degree recipients. 

Carnegie Mellon University and Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today took another historic step in their partnership by breaking ground for a new facility on the CMU campus in Pittsburgh. The new “TCS Hall” is supported by an unprecedented $35 million grant from TCS, the largest ever industry donation to CMU.

Facing Forbes Avenue, at the western entrance to the CMU campus, TCS Hall is slated to open in 2018. The building will house research and academic spaces where the two institutions will collaborate on promoting next-generation technologies that will drive the 4th Industrial Revolution, including cognitive systems and autonomous vehicles.

In addition to the research and academic spaces, the 48,000-square-foot building will feature an innovation courtyard, an eco-sustainable rain garden and a “robot yard.” The high-tech facility will feature a steel-and-brick architectural design, to pay homage to Pittsburgh’s historical contribution toward previous industrial revolutions. Leading the design of the building is architect Roger Duffy, a partner of SOM and a 1979 graduate of CMU’s School of Architecture.

“The leadership of TCS and Tata Sons are harnessing the power of one of the world’s largest business groups to bring some of most promising new technologies to the marketplace,” said CMU President Subra Suresh. “We believe that, operating at the intersection of technology and humanity, CMU and TCS each bring extraordinary strengths to this unique partnership.”

Suresh said TCS Hall would fit seamlessly into Carnegie Mellon’s pioneering work in leading the 4th Industrial Revolution.

“TCS’s capacity as a leader in global IT services will be a tremendous asset as the key ingredients of the 4th Industrial Revolution, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, machine learning, big data and deep data analytics, the internet of things, and cybersecurity become increasingly relevant in everyday life,” Suresh said.

N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, spoke of TCS’s beginnings in Pittsburgh.

“The history between the Tata Group and Pittsburgh has roots that go back more than a century. Our founder, Mr. Jamsetji Tata, came to the world’s steel-making capital in the early 20th century to understand technologies that he would later use to launch India’s own industrial revolution,” said Chandrasekaran. “We are pleased to come full circle and launch this facility, fostering further digital technology research in driving what is the largest economic and development opportunity ever faced by mankind — the 4th Industrial Revolution."

CMU has worked on cutting-edge technologies for many years, and Chandrasekaran praised its advances in the field.

“It is a great privilege for TCS to establish this TCS Hall and partner with CMU to promote the pioneering work in all of these technologies so that they’re able to create a better future and a better world for all of us,” Chandrasekaran said.

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, called the CMU-TCS partnership a visionary collaboration of skills that will bring understanding between young people of India, the United States and other places in the world.

“Today, we’re not looking at heavy metal and millions of tons of steel. We’re looking at a collaboration of intellectual skills and the development of two countries together that might bring about global understanding between people,” Tata said.

Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO & MD of Tata Consultancy Services, drew a parallel between CMU’s and TCS’s upcoming 50th anniversaries.

“TCS and CMU share not only similar values and ambitions for strengthening education, but overlapping anniversary years as well. We are pleased to be laying the ground for this facility during CMU’s 50th year since its founding in 1967, and to see it come active during TCS’ own upcoming 50th year in 2018,” added Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO & MD of Tata Consultancy Services. “The research outcomes from this collaboration will drive applied innovation for our own clients worldwide, who are fast transforming themselves into agile businesses, built on digital platforms such as artificial intelligence, automation, cloud and robotics.”

The $35 million TCS grant also supports TCS Presidential Scholarships and Fellowships, with the first "TCS Scholars" selected and enrolled at CMU by the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018. TCS and CMU share a fundamental interest in STEM education. In the U.S., TCS is a founding partner of national initiatives such as MillionWomenMentors and US2020, and last week announced “Ignite My Future in Schools” to engage 20,000 U.S. teachers and 1 million K-12 students by embedding computer science and computational thinking into core subjects such as math, English and science. Carnegie Mellon, which has the nation’s top-ranked School of Computer Science, also continues to build on its own pipeline programs, including the Summer Academy for Math and Science, helping to prepare students from underserved communities.

"This is an exciting time for Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University," said Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. "We are very pleased to have TCS break ground in Pittsburgh, as they join a number of cutting-edge companies, which recognize the many benefits of locating in southwestern Pennsylvania. We look forward to increasing the state's economic growth by supporting university partnerships, which create jobs and enhance communities.”

Joining the celebration were Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive officer of TCS, Sury Kant, president of TCS in North America, a delegation of other corporate leaders from the United States, and Pittsburgh civic leaders, including Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

“I want to thank Subra Suresh for his great leadership in this region,” Fitzgerald said. “The TCS-CMU relationship and partnership will, I’m sure, be beneficial to both entities. Collaboration and innovation are something we really take pride in.”

About Carnegie Mellon University:
Carnegie Mellon University is a private, internationally ranked research university with distinctive cores of excellence in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. CMU faculty and scholars undertake ambitious research and performance projects at the intersection of technology and humanity, while its students go on to change the world through their professions and their lives. CMU challenges the curious and passionate to deliver work that matters.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS):
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 378,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 45 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of U.S. $16.5 billion for year ended March 31, 2016 and is listed on the BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com.

To stay up-to-date on TCS news in North America, follow @TCS_NA. For TCS global news, follow @TCS_News.

This story has been updated with quotes and images from the event.

Tom Mitchell says there is a dramatic shortage of information and data about the exact state of the workforce and automation.

Will a robot take away my job? Many people ask that question, yet policymakers don’t have the kind of information they need to answer it intelligently, say the authors of a new study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM).

“Policymakers are flying blind into what has been called the fourth industrial revolution,” said study co-chairs Tom M. Mitchell, the E. Fredkin University Professor in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science, and Erik Brynjolfsson, the Schussel Family Professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Government agencies need to start collecting different kinds of labor data if they are to accurately assess and predict how computer and robotic technologies will affect the workplace, Mitchell and Brynjolfsson said. Failure to do so, at best, could result in missed opportunities and, at worst, be disastrous.

The study, “Information Technology and the U.S. Workforce: Where Are We and Where Do We Go From Here,” was released today and a related commentary by Mitchell and Brynjolfsson was published today by the journal Nature.

Information technology, artificial intelligence and robotics are affecting almost every occupation, but just how that will occur for each is unclear. Many people will be displaced by technology, while the demand for other jobs will increase, new industries will be born and other as-yet-unimagined jobs will be created.

These future effects likely will be larger than have already been seen, the NASEM report says, but it is hard to say definitively if technology will expand or shrink the workforce.

“There is a dramatic shortage of information and data about the exact state of the workforce and automation, so policymakers don't know answers to even basic questions such as ‘Which types of technologies are currently having the greatest impacts on jobs?’ and ‘What new technologies are likely to have the greatest impact in the next few years?’” Mitchell said.

“Our NASEM study report details a number of influences of technology, both positive and negative, on the workforce,” Mitchell said. “These include replacing some jobs by automation, creating the opportunity for new types of freelance work in companies like Uber and Lyft, and making education and retraining courses available to everybody over the internet. But nobody can judge today the relative impacts of these different forces on the workforce, or the net outcome.”

More research is needed to better understand these different influences of technology on the workforce, and how they will add up. Automation is better than humans at some tasks, but not all. Routine information processing and manual tasks are readily automated, for instance, but people remain more creative, adaptable and have better interpersonal skills. Some occupations may be reorganized accordingly and some skills that today aren’t recognized or directly compensated may grow in value.

The NASEM panel recommended that to prepare students for a constantly changing workforce, schools should focus attention on those uniquely human characteristics that could differentiate people from machines in the workplace and emphasize training in fields expected to drive the future economy.

The panel said new data sources, methods and infrastructures are necessary to support this research. In their Nature commentary, Mitchell and Brynjolfsson go further, calling for the government to create an integrated information strategy to combine public and privately held data.

“Governments must learn the lessons that industry has learned over the past decade, about how to take advantage of the exploding volume of online, real-time data to design more attractive products and more effective management policies,” Mitchell said.

Similarly, he and Brynjolfsson argue, governments must shift from the current "plan then implement" paradigm for making policy, to a more iterative "sense and respond" paradigm that monitors the impacts of new policies, measures their effectiveness and adapts to optimize policies based on their observed impacts.

Mikaela Wolf-Sorokin, a Carnegie Mellon University junior majoring in global studies and Hispanic Studies, has won a 2017 Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Selected from 768 candidates, Wolf-Sorokin is one of 62 recipients of the prestigious national scholarship designed to support the next generation of public service leaders. She is the sixth overall CMU student to receive this award and the first since 2009.

“Mikaela is as passionate about public service as any student I’ve ever met,” said Richard Scheines, dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “Pretty much our only comment during mock interviews was to ‘slow down and breathe in between paragraphs!’ I actually feel better about the future of the planet knowing that people like Mikaela are throwing themselves into improving it so forcefully. The Truman Scholarship is a great honor, and Mikaela is a great choice.”

Truman Scholars receive a $30,000 scholarship toward graduate school and the opportunity to participate in professional development programming to help prepare them for careers in public service leadership. Wolf-Sorokin plans to attend law school and focus on immigration and social work. She currently is taking a gap semester and volunteering for an organization that provides humanitarian aid to migrants in the desert. Through an internship, she works with unaccompanied minors in a Tucson-area shelter and adults detained in immigration detention facilities in Florence, Ariz..

“I applied for the Truman Scholarship because it seemed like a great opportunity to meet a network of people who are all passionate about public service but interested in a variety of issues,” Wolf-Sorokin said. “I want to gain the skills to provide quality legal services to immigrants fleeing violence in their home country. Because of the nature of this work, most people have undergone terrible trauma. A law degree with a social work concentration will give me the necessary skills to support those individuals as we fight their legal cases.”

Wolf-Sorokin’s interest in migration began as a high school student at Brookline High School in Brookline, Mass., when she took a cultural awareness and learning trip to Cambodia. After arriving at CMU, she became involved with Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment (FORGE), a student organization that aids the local and global refugee cause, and eventually served as president. As a Truman Scholar, Wolf-Sorokin hopes to expand her experience by working in family detention centers.

Wolf-Sorokin relied on the expertise of Stephanie Wallach, assistant vice provost for education, and Richelle Bernazzoli, assistant director of undergraduate research and national fellowships, to guide her through the application process.

“At each point, we were amazed with Mikaela’s level of intellectual engagement as witnessed by her rigorous undergraduate curriculum coupled with her commitment to the betterment of underserved populations through activism on the ground and leadership of organizations like FORGE,” Wallach said. “The Truman Scholarship invests in people committed to careers in public service who they deem as ‘social change agents.’ I think that Mikaela will be an excellent representative of Carnegie Mellon who will make important contributions to bettering the world.”

The 2017 Truman Scholars will receive their awards at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum on May 28.

From Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh

Henry Hillman (center) with CMU Chairman of the Board James Rohr and President Subra Suresh. (October 2015)

Along with the entire Carnegie Mellon University community, I join the city of Pittsburgh and friends around the world in both the celebration of Henry Hillman’s historic life, and the profound sense of loss at his passing.

Henry’s wide-ranging curiosity and his sharp analysis of innovations in science, technology, and policy can be seen in the broad variety of causes he and his foundation supported here at Carnegie Mellon, ranging from computer science to transportation technologies to brain research. Those seemingly disparate commitments shared a common goal: to benefit humanity, and to put Pittsburgh at the forefront of that global progress.

Mary and I had the good fortune to get to know Henry and Elsie in recent years, and I am proud to be the inaugural holder of the Henry L. Hillman President’s Chair with a deep sense of honor and gratitude for all that title represents.

Henry Hillman’s extraordinary spirit and gifts live on through his family, including his daughter Lea Simonds, who serves as a CMU trustee. Our hearts go out to them at this difficult time.

Related Links:

Gifts Establish Henry L. Hillman President’s Chair

Gift Provides 'Front Door' Building for School of Computer Science

Pittsburgh Business Leader Henry L. Hillman Provides $5 Million Gift for Carnegie Mellon's New BrainHub Initiative

Event: Carnegie Mellon University’s annual Spring Carnival is set for April 20–22. Many events are free and open to the public, and a full schedule is available online. Follow the weekend on social media with #CMUcarnival.

Highlights include:

Spring Carnival Booths
3 to 11 p.m. on Thursday, April 20
10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, April 21, and Saturday, April 22
Located on the College of Fine Arts parking lot and lawn

The opening ceremony at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 20, on the Midway will include remarks by Spring Carnival Committee Chair Amalia Martinez, Associate Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs Gina Casalegno, and performances by the CMU Pipe and Kiltie bands. More than 20 student organizations are building booths with a “Time Hop” theme, including “Flintstones,” “’80s Hair Bands,” “Star Wars” and “Math in Ancient Greece.”

Sweepstakes Buggy Races
8 a.m. to noon on Friday, April 20, and Saturday, April 21
Held on Tech and Frew streets, and Schenley Drive

Buggies are aerodynamic pushcarts designed and built by student organizations. Each team includes five students who push the buggy in a relay-style race while a driver steers around the 4,400-foot course. Just an inch off the ground, buggies also roll freely reaching speeds of nearly 35 miles per hour. Student organizations cmuTV and WRCT 88.3-FM will broadcast the event on their websites.

Mobot Races
Noon, Friday, April 21
Outdoors, next to Wean Hall

The School of Computer Science challenges members of the CMU community to create and race small, autonomous vehicles (“MObile roBOTs”) along a slalom-style course.

Traffic Alert:

The City of Pittsburgh has granted permits to close several Oakland-area roads during CMU’s Spring Carnival and Sweepstakes buggy races.

Margaret Morrison Street, Tech Street, Frew Street, Circuit Road and Schenley Drive (Panther Hollow and Schenley bridges included) will be closed from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 21, and Saturday, April 22. Both City of Pittsburgh Police and Carnegie Mellon Police will be present during the races to help monitor traffic. Roads will re-open by 1:30 p.m. If inclement weather causes the cancellation of the Friday and Saturday competitions, races will be held Sunday, April 23, during the same time frame.

Phipps Conservatory will remain open during normal hours. Due to road closures, visitors will need to park on the streets by Carnegie Library and the surrounding area. City of Pittsburgh Police stationed at barricades will give bus drivers instructions for passenger unloading.

Parking: On-campus parking will be limited for non-permit holders and campus visitors, April 17–21. Additional parking will be available free of charge from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, April 21 at the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park, 5370 Schenley Dr., and a shuttle service will be provided to and from campus.

Free parking will be available in the East Campus Garage on a first-come, first-served basis on Saturday, April 22. More parking information is available on CMU’s Alumni Association website.

The School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University will feature the work of 34 graduating students in “Roll Call,” the senior art exhibition in CMU’s Miller Gallery. The exhibition, which opens with a reception 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 5, presents the work of students majoring in art and in the BXA Intercollege Degree programs.

“Art is thinking and theorizing manifest; it is a cousin of philosophy and a sibling to science, whose threads have exceeded the body and body politic to confront change through a series of radical proposals that have mapped humankind’s progression from the caves of Lascaux to contemporary conditions of post-humanism,” said professor Charlie White, head of the School of Art. “With all of this in mind, I invite you to take part in the now, as this exhibition is a testament — a ‘Roll Call’ — to the vision and voices of those who bear witness to the present and offer us a brief glimpse of tomorrow.”

The presenting artists are: Elizabeth Agyemang, Isabella Antolic-Soban, Clare Burdeshaw, Bonnie (Yan) Chan, Clair Chin, John Choi, Rebecca Epstein, Madeline Finn, Ethan Gladding, Jarel Grant, Autumn Hill, Miranda Jacoby, Amanda Jolley, Maya Kaisth, Sandra Kang, Nat Kent, Janice Kim, Bronwyn Kuehler, Kira Melville, Rachel Moeller, Natalie Moss, Miles Peyton, Bridget Quirk, Anna Rosati, Gwen Sadler, Caroline Santilli, Kaitlin Schaer, Christine (Zhuoyang) Shen, Charlotte Stiles, Joni Sullivan, Lauren Valley, Gerald Warhaftig, Nicole Yoon, Chengcheng Zhao.

The 103rd edition of Spring Carnival is serving up entertainment in a new way ... on the tennis courts.

This will be the first time tennis courts will house a stage for performances. DJs NGHTMRE and San Holo will perform on Saturday night and a variety of comedy and musical acts will perform Friday.

Joe Mertz, head of operations for the Spring Carnival Committee, said using a stage there would allow more people to hear and see performances as they wait in line for concessions or to visit booths.

“We’re banking on the weather and hoping that it will be a good move,” said Mertz, who noted the tennis court stage would connect carnival activities.

“You have the long lane of booths, and then at the end of the booths are the rides and games spread out in front of Baker/Porter Hall and the Hunt Library,” he said. “And at both ends are the start and finish lines for Buggy. It really unifies everything on that side of campus."

The 2017 theme is Timehop. Spring Carnival Chair Amalia Martinez said this year would feature three themed entryways to enter the entertainment zone between the Cohon University Center, and Tech and Frew streets, where Sweepstakes, also known as Buggy, takes place.

“As you’re walking through you’ll see different types of architecture, from trees and primitive structures to medieval styles and a futuristic entryway,” she said.

Martinez said it has been wonderful working with the many people it takes to pull the event together. More than 1,000 builders are involved in creating booths, and the Spring Carnival Committee has 50 members.

“I think what always excites me is the tradition. It’s such a uniquely Carnegie Mellon thing,” Martinez said. “It makes me have a lot of pride for my school.”

As a senior in the Tepper School of Business, Martinez said her role helped her prepare for a career after college.

“It helps a lot with project management and how to have a big picture view on everything and see everything that’s going on, and keep track of the different aspects of what goes into carnival,” she said.

For Pittsburgh native Mertz, Spring Carnival has been part of his entire life.

“I like everything about it. I like students coming together and doing these massive things. My favorite part is conveying to outside vendors what carnival is,” he said.

A senior in the School of Drama, Mertz said the work he has done for carnival involves a lot of planning.

“Live event production is what the carnival committee is,” he said. “And it’s similar to the type of work I plan to do after graduation.”

See the full schedule on the Alumni Association website.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) gathered for a regional meeting and symposium at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute to discuss cybersecurity, which is now one of the greatest challenges in the 21st century.

CMU President Subra Suresh's opening remarks on the intersection of technology and humanity noted the unintended consequences of technological advancements. Suresh referenced the NAE's 20 Greatest Engineering Achievements in the 20th Century, a list of inventions that revolutionized the way we live, including automobiles, spacecraft and computers. Several years later, the organization identified its 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century, and securing cyberspace is now one of them.

"The remarkable thing about this is, if you put the two lists side by side, you cannot help but wonder if there is at least some partial connection to the achievements we helped to create in the 20th century and the grand challenges we face today," Suresh said at the April 13 meeting.

NAE President C.D. Mote Jr. added that current challenges are not about things — they are about people.

"And they are about all people on the planet," he said.

David Hickton, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, delivered the keynote address, "Confronting the Cyber Threat." He gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at critical cybercrime cases solved during the six years he served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. During that time, he often worked with experts at CMU and the University of Pittsburgh.

"We have some of the best investigators here in Pittsburgh, and when they put their minds to it, they can find anybody," Hickton said.

Hickton described how cybersecurity professionals are protecting the safety and security of people, safeguarding the intellectual property of corporations and the jobs of their employees, building resilient infrastructure and leveling the playing field for individuals who follow the rule of law.

Following the keynote speech, several CMU faculty members shared their research. David Brumley, director of CyLab, CMU's security and privacy institute, presented his work aimed at automatically checking software for exploitable bugs. His spinoff, ForAllSecure, developed a fully autonomous system that won the 2016 DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, and he advises CMU's top-ranked Capture the Flag team, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning.

Professor Raj Rajkumar of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department shared milestones from more than 30 years of autonomous vehicle research at CMU. He said emerging connected vehicle technology can improve safety, however, researchers also must address the multiple entry points it provides for malicious attacks.

Lorrie Cranor presented her work to make privacy and security software and systems more effective and easier to use. Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory, recently returned to the university after spending a year as the Federal Trade Commission's chief technologist.

David Manz, senior cybersecurity scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research laboratory, previewed his forthcoming book, "Research Methods for Cybersecurity," co-authored with PNNL's Thomas W. Edgar. While a majority of cybersecurity research falls into an applied category, Manz said, we need to push the rigor for more scientific approaches.

In her hardware-focused talk, Cyber Research Scientist Katie Liszewski provided an overview of cyber threats to the electronic supply chain. She explained ways her team at Battelle, a global research and development organization, developed time- and cost-effective machine learning techniques to test hardware for cloned and counterfeit materials.

Greg Shannon, chief scientist in the SEI's CERT division, recently returned to CMU after a stint at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as assistant director for cybersecurity strategy. He concluded the NAE symposium by addressing a fundamental step in solving the grand challenge of securing cyberspace: Experts must understand the nature of how humans perceive the building and breaking of trust.

"We chose cybersecurity as our theme today because it is such a pressing challenge that extends across engineering disciplines," said Paul Nielsen, director and CEO of the SEI, and master of ceremonies for the event. "Our growing dependence on autonomous systems and other technologies underscores the urgency of the work still to be done in assuring the security of the systems we use now and will depend on in the future."

By Emily Durham

From left to right, Antonio Garcia-Smith, Danielle Quan, Sean Reidy, Abha Agrawal and Adam Zeloof are members of the RoboBuggy team.

For the first time in history, two self-driving buggies will be part of Carnegie Mellon University's Spring Carnival Sweepstakes.

Carnegie Mellon has been at the forefront of autonomous driving technology for three decades, and students have been working to bring that technology to the buggy races. This year they succeeded.

During early morning practice sessions this month, two buggies driven by computers, rather than by students tucked inside the three-wheeled, torpedo-like shell, successfully steered and braked their way around the 4,412-foot-long course.

On April 8, team RoboBuggy fielded the first autonomous buggy to steer itself through the course. And on April 9, the Atlas Project, part of the Carnegie Involvement Association, also known as CIA, completed its first successful autonomous run.

Like traditional buggies, the machines are pushed uphill by humans on Tech Street, then freeroll down Schenley Drive before being pushed up Frew Street. The difference is the buggy is doing the steering and navigation throughout.

Both self-driving buggies will be on display during the Sweepstakes Design Showcase and Buggy Races as part of Spring Carnival 2017, April 20-22.

"I joined RoboClub, which is the organization that sponsors RoboBuggy, in my freshman year," said Danielle Quan, chairman of RoboBuggy and a junior majoring in mechanical engineering and robotics. "This is very quintessentially CMU — it's buggies and robots, so I immediately wanted to get involved."

Matt White, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science in 1996, first began the RoboBuggy project with a conversation between himself and Mark Stehlik, now associate dean for outreach in the School of Computer Science. He said they had the idea of adapting the technology coming out of CMU's Field Robotics Center's NavLab project for Buggy. He worked on a hardware platform as an independent study.

Since then, RoboBuggy has been revived by several interdisciplinary student teams. The most recent iteration of RoboBuggy has existed since 2013 as a project within the CMU Robotics Club. The Atlas Project started two years ago.

"It was surreal, honestly, watching it steer itself after having failed every other time," said Benjamin Warwick, founder of the Atlas Project and a junior in mechanical engineering. "What I'm hoping this will do is encourage other people to start robotic buggies of their own."

The first buggy races were held as part of the first alumni celebration, called Campus Week, in 1920. In 1928, Campus Week was replaced by Spring Carnival and a booth competition was introduced. Frew Street was completed and the course took on its present-day format.

Miller Gallery and the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University will jointly present “What Do We Know?” in the Miller Gallery from Thursday, April 27, through Saturday, April 29. The exhibition includes final thesis works and independent projects from 11 seniors in CMU’s School of Architecture.

The exhibition features a reception from 6 – 8 p.m. Friday, April 28, and two full days of project reviews from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., April 28-29. The exhibit, reception and reviews are free and open to the public.

The Class of 2017 says they have “dedicated themselves to the process of revealing latent potential in a diverse set of architectural focuses.” Despite the varied scope of the theses topics, the students describe their work as “reach[ing] far past the safe confines of conventional architecture.” The projects expand the scope of the profession to address the “how and why” of design, “investigate the physicality of architecture,” and to “question the goals of the design process itself, railing against latent hierarchies and demanding a more mindful process.”

“The S17 thesis/IP studio has operated with energy, creativity and criticality to produce 11 distinct architectural propositions in response to today’s deeply divided world,” said Mary-Lou Arscott, studio professor and associate head of the School of Architecture. “While the results are exuberant, we should be cautioned by their conclusions.”

The Exhibitors + Their Projects:

Thesis: CRITICAL MASS, Dyani Robarge | ARCHITECTURE BY THE LANDSCAPE, Scott Holmes | MAKING MINDFULNESS, Matt Porter | SOFT: An Investigation of Gender Expression in Architecture, Amy Rosen | PETROCHEMICAL LANDSCAPES, Sophie Riedel | PALIMPSEST FUTURE, Kirk Newton

Independent Projects: PP: PLASTIC PAVILION, Cy Kim + Bobby Esposito | AID.E+ Alexa Roberts | HOUSE-FREE, Ana Mernik | OSTRANENIE, Sam Day

In the words of the exhibiting students, “Each of the installations asks a pointed, politically charged question, and provides some equally radical reactions. This exhibit is not a collection of work, but the manifesto of a new generation of architects graduating into the world. What do we know? Come in and find out.”

For more information about the exhibition, visit the Miller Gallery website. For further details on the April 28 reception and to RSVP, visit the event Facebook page.

For the second consecutive year, Carnegie Mellon University will host the Pennsylvania Special Olympics Western Sectional Spring Games on Saturday, April 29. More than 600 special olympians ranging from 8- to 60-years-old will come to campus to compete in basketball, track & field, swimming, tennis, bocce and golf.

Leading the university-wide effort in partnering with the Pennsylvania Special Olympics to host the games are CMU Police, the Department of Athletics and the CMU ROTC program.

“It has been so inspiring to see our entire university community embrace the Special Olympic Games as a way to demonstrate our core values of respect and inclusion for people of all abilities,” said Provost Farnam Jahanian.

Among those special athletes competing will be Tim Spence, who serves on the planning committee.

“Without Special Olympics, life would be dull. When I give speeches, I say that my life would be like a black and white photo without Special Olympics,” Spence said. “Special Olympics gives me something to look forward to, goals to work toward and confidence that I will succeed.”

Joining Spence on the planning committee are many CMU student-athletes.

“The excitement, competitiveness and hard work you get to see in these athletes is truly an incredible experience,” said Lisa Murphy, a senior psychology major and the all-time leading scorer on the women’s basketball team. “I get the chance to interact with dedicated, fun and courageous athletes. The ‘joy of sport’ is always evident in Special Olympics athletes and seeing their beaming faces at the awards ceremony is really special.”

“I say that my life would be like a black and white photo without Special Olympics.” — Tim Spence

Carnegie Mellon University Police support Special Olympics through various fundraisers during the year, including the Polar Plunge, an annual event in which members of police departments, organizations and groups take a winter dip into the Ohio River.

“I got involved with the Plunge about nine years ago, which is how a lot of cops get involved with the Special Olympics,” said CMU Lt. Joe Meyers. “From there I found myself getting in deeper and deeper with Special Olympics. It’s just something I believe in.”

Bringing the Special Olympics to Carnegie Mellon was something Meyers and other members of the University Police Department have been planning for years. Their efforts paid off last spring.

“The reception from the Carnegie Mellon community in 2016 was amazing. The effort and focus from the committee made the 2016 event a success, and the work they have put in will make 2017 even better,” said Mike Ermer, a western Pennsylvania director for the Special Olympics.

As the games draw near, more and more members of the university community are getting involved. Jahanian and six university deans participated in ‘Dunk-A-Dean’ at this year’s Spring Carnival to raise funds for Special Olympics. Many students, faculty and staff have volunteered to help during the games and some have signed up to be “Fans in the Stands” to cheer on the participants.

“I am particularly proud to have joined forces with CMU Police in the Carnival Dunk Tank again this year to raise money and awareness for this event – it was an honor to get dunked for such a worthy cause!” Jahanian said.

Special Olympics Pennsylvania provides year-round training and competition in 21 Olympic-type sports to nearly 20,000 children and adults with intellectual disabilities or closely related developmental disabilities.

For more information about how you can help “Reveal the Champion Inside” thousands of Special Olympics athletes, visit www.specialolympicspa.org.

Register online to volunteer for the games or be a “Fan in the Stands.”

A research team, including scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, has received a $7 million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) to extend the work of the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC) through 2022. The work will expand the ASC’s sample to include more than 50,000 families.

Established in 2010, the ASC collects and shares samples and genetic data from individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Kathryn Roeder is a principal investigator on the project.

In addition to Carnegie Mellon, team partners are the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of California at San Francisco.

"In our latest project we analyze the entire genomes of 500 autism families. That’s a tremendous amount of data — 3 billion base pairs per genome. The challenges involved in attempting to find a signal in such a vast amount of data are enormous," said Kathryn Roeder, professor of statistics and computational biology at CMU and a principal investigator on the project.

Currently, the ASC includes more than 150 researchers who have generated gene-sequencing data from roughly 29,000 individuals, making it the largest sequencing study to date in autism.

"Increasing the sample size so substantially is an important step in making important discoveries about the disorder," said Bernie Devlin, professor of psychiatry and human genetics at Pitt’s School of Medicine, who is also a principal investigator on the grant.

"Historically, the number of risk genes found has steadily increased with the number of patients studied, so it’s important that we continue to add patients to the data set,” said Joseph D. Buxbaum, the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Research Professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Genetics and Genomic Sciences at Mount Sinai. “We are thrilled to receive this grant, which will enable our unique, collaborative research consortium to continue the work that is accelerating such important discovery."

Research by the ASC has included developing new statistical tools that identified 65 genes associated with risk for ASD and predicted that several hundred more are yet to be found; providing clues about the genetic makeup of the disorder; and determining that although rare mutations can have a big impact on genetic risk for autism, most risk stems from common inherited genetic variants.

The NIMH, part of the National Institutes of Health, previously awarded the ASC $2.25 million in 2013.

Carnegie Mellon was recognized as one of the best universities for technology transfer, ranking 10th out of more than 200 universities, according to a new report from the Milken Institute.

The report, “Concept to Commercialization: The Best Universities for Technology Transfer,” cited CMU’s world-class computer science and robotics research and several of its technology transfer and commercialization programs, including the Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation (CTTEC).

Although it does not have a medical school, Carnegie Mellon attracted $244 million in research expenditures in 2015. Overall, 312 licenses were issued between 2012 and 2015, and $38 million in licensing income was generated over the same period.

To bolster its efforts, the university recently received a gift from CMU professor Aleksandar Kavčić and his wife, Dr. Sofija Kavčić, to create the Mary Jo Howard Dively Fund for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation. The $3 million fund will further expand CTTEC’s capacity and is named after Carnegie Mellon’s vice president and general counsel in recognition of her support.

The Milken Institute research report highlights the vital role played by research universities and argues research funding should be a top priority for enhancing economic growth in the United States. Authored by Ross DeVol, Joe Lee and Minoli Ratnatunga, the report focuses on four key indicators of technology transfer success: patents issued, licenses issued, licensing income and startups formed. To address the productivity of commercialization activity, it normalizes each of these outcome measures by research expenditures at each institution.

Matteo Pozzi sees great potential in sensors and robotic technology that collect data to help inform decision-making. The National Science Foundation sees great potential in him.

The NSF has given the associate professor of civil and environmental engineering a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to suggest strategies that are optimal for collecting information and for taking actions. The CAREER Award is one of the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research and education.

Through integrating models and computational approaches, Pozzi said he hopes to optimize infrastructure operation and maintenance, and the continued collection of information.

“Because we are managing such limited resources, data collection and this process of learning about the infrastructure, must be optimized,” he said, proposing that algorithms could offer guidance on where and when to add more sensors, schedule inspections or conduct strategic testing.

“Managers also have to compare the benefits of collecting information with the benefits of repairing various components, where each choice is expensive,” he said.

As Pozzi establishes and refines his algorithms, he also will develop methods to teach infrastructure planning and analysis. Partnering with CMU’s Summer Engineering Experience for Girls program, Pozzi plans to build a simulation game in which students act as virtual infrastructure managers who must develop, test and revise decision-making strategies in the face of persistent risk and uncertainty.

“I'm excited because it's an expansive, long-term project that allows me to investigate topics I am passionate about, to educate students and to form a path in the direction in which I want to research and teach,” he said.

Four students from Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa) attended the Facebook Developer Conference F8 in San Jose, Calif., where they showcased their messenger bots to some of the world’s top tech developers.

Lenah Chacha, Aimable Rwema, Joshua Ocero and Davy Uwizera were selected to attend the conference after distinguishing themselves during a CMU-Africa bot party and hackathon competition last month.

A bot for Messenger communicates with customers using the Messenger platform and combines aspects of artificial intelligence to learn from that interaction. Bots are applications that typically perform tasks that are structured and repetitive at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human, such as Sephora’s Virtual Artist, which matches an image sent by users through Messenger to the lipstick closest in color in Sephora’s stock.

The bot party and hackathon at CMU-Africa was one of 33 taking place in Africa and the Middle East, but the only bot party in the region that was followed by a 24-hour hackathon. During the bot party, students could interact with the team from Facebook to gain insight on Messenger’s technology. The team included Jennifer Fong, the strategic partnerships manager from Facebook U.S., and Proud Dzambukir, the strategic partnerships manager from Facebook South Africa. In the hackathon competition, students had 24 hours to come up with their own Messenger bots to address a local issue.

“We built the hackathon into our event because we wanted to provide an opportunity for our students to showcase their technical abilities and encourage them to submit their bots to the regional Middle East and Africa Bots for Messenger Challenge,” said Bruce Krogh, director of CMU-Africa.

The winning team was Chacha and Rwema, both of whom are pursuing a master’s degree in information technology at CMU-Africa. The two built BiasharaBot, which enables merchants, who do not have access to expensive inventory software, to catalogue inventory on their platform and connect them with buyers. The bot also facilitates the buying process by presenting buyers with all available options for items they are looking for on demand.

Information technology master’s degree students Ocero and Uwizera emerged as the runners-up with FARMBOT. Their bot connects farmers (or cooperatives) and buyers to sell or purchase produce while estimating crop price by location based on the bot interaction, which helps stakeholders react accordingly. In the long run, the bot can give early warnings on food security by location and can help plan transportation in rural areas based on the data collected by the bot.

“The bot party and hackathon showed me the importance of building a business or idea on a social media platform,” Rwema said. “Messenger is used by over a billion people worldwide, so building your business model on something that accesses such a huge market is something that will help you reach your goals once you start a company.”

The winners, as well as the other 15 teams that participated from CMU-Africa, will have the opportunity to submit their bot for Facebook’s global Bots for Messenger Challenge on April 28.

“Attending F8 is a great opportunity to mingle with Facebook developers from around the world and to view their perspectives — but even more exciting is having the opportunity to visit Silicon Valley, where people’s dreams become reality,” Ocero said.

Carnegie Mellon University's IDeATe Network recently was featured in Adam Savage's Maker Tour series on Tested.com.

Savage, the former co-host of "MythBusters" and current editor-in-chief of Tested.com, interviewed students and faculty in the Integrative Design, Arts and Technology (IDeATe) Network and explored its labs in the basement of Hunt Library last fall during a national tour focused on maker spaces and innovation in education, entrepreneurship and workforce development.

Keith Webster, CMU's dean of University Libraries and director of emerging and integrative media initiatives, told Savage the program brings together students from across the university, who learn how others outside of their respective fields think.

"In the 21st century, our students are going to be dealing with big challenges, which no one can solve on their own," Webster said. "We need to find a way in which students can gain those experiences of learning to work with other people and what each other brings to the problem."

Read more at: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/march/savage-visits-maker-spaces.html

Imagine using the electrical properties of neurons to illuminate aspects of neural diseases. Imagine screening for drugs using the electric signals of the brain. Imagine devices better able to communicate with brain cells.

Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Tzahi Cohen-Karni is conducting the research leading to these applications. He recently was awarded the Office of Naval Research’s Young Investigator Award, which supports scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for creative research early in their career.

Cohen-Karni and researchers in his lab are investigating the communication of neurons, basic units of the brain that transmit information to other nerve, muscle or gland cells, at the nanoscale level. The project is called, “Three-Dimensional Nanosensors Array For Measurement of the Electrical Activity of Microscale Human Brain Tissue.”

While many approaches exist for studying the electrophysiological signals of the brain, Cohen-Karni will take an approach that both complements and improves current methods.

“Think about a tiny bit of engineered brain with sensors embedded in it. Each sensor is a site. You keep it in a dish, and every so often you plug it in and record the signals,” Cohen-Karni said. “The challenge will be in the development of the platforms and the interpretation of the data we collect.”

Cohen-Karni and his team will develop a platform that can record and influence the electrical signals of neurons in three dimensions. Current methods involve bulky systems, such as glass capillaries (called patch clamp pipettes) used to record intracellular signals. Cohen-Karni’s approach will use smaller sensors to record signals from a smaller subset of cells, with mechanical properties closer to that of human tissue.

While the bulk of the work is yet to happen, Ph.D. students Sahil Rastogi and Anna Kalmykov are working on a graphene-based sensors and 3-D assembly.

“Now we are trying to bring the ideas from each direction and fuse them together,” Cohen-Karni said.

Cohen-Karni will collaborate with Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Ge Yang, who works on optical detection of biological processes with cells. Through their collaboration, they will be able to correlate the electrical signals of the brain with optical signals.

“Many things we do will be the inception of other things,” Cohen-Karni said. “Say we develop a certain device or sensor for this project, then we can use it for other applications, too.”

While serving as the groundwork for revolutionary bioelectronics research for the U.S. Navy, this technology will be used to fuse the biological world with the digital world, affecting the input and output of brain signals. It also will lead to new prosthetics that can restore motion and vision.

“Many current techniques only provide snapshots,” Cohen-Karni said. “You label a cell and fix it, and take it to the microscope. We are trying to have a way to continuously monitor a state of tissue. In theory it sounds easy to do, but it will actually take a long while to do this.”

Watch the video.

One of Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Professor Howie Choset's famous snake-like robots crawled up the even more famous leg of comedian Jimmy Fallon during an April 25 appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon."

"Slow down there, mister!" Fallon exclaimed as the robot reached his knee, much to the delight of the studio audience. The robot swung its head, which contains a video camera, and peered up at the host, as the view of Fallon's face was shared with the nationwide audience.

Matt Travers, systems scientist in the Robotics Institute and co-director with Choset of the Biorobotics Lab, controlled the snakebot from off-stage.

Choset and the snakebot were joined on stage by Hanson Robotics' human-like Sophia robot and Festo AG's eMotion butterfly robots during the segment, the first of a recurring feature on the program called Tonight Showbotics.

Fallon expressed surprise at the strength of the delicate-looking robot and the pressure he felt as the device wrapped itself around his leg.

"We can do it a little harder, if you like," Choset said.

"Oh no, please don't!" Fallon replied.

Choset explained how the unique architecture of the snake robot enables it to go places other robots can't — creeping through rubble, pipes and small spaces and climbing up poles, pipes and even legs. It has applications in urban search and rescue, nuclear power plant inspection and, in miniaturized form, in surgery, he added.

Sophia followed snakebot's appearance, telling a joke to Fallon and challenging him to a game of "robot rock, paper, scissors." The eMotion butterflies closed the segment, with Fallon launching one of the lightweight robots over the audience, where it was joined by three additional butterfly robots.

Choset's research has long focused on snake robots, but more recently has branched into modular robots, in which modular pieces can be readily assembled into a variety of forms. Choset also is chief technology officer of the newly formed $250 million Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute.

A new report by the Association of American Universities (AAU) documents significant investments and improvements that its members, including Carnegie Mellon and other leading universities, have made in recent years to prevent and address sexual assault and sexual misconduct.

The report gives extensive data and anecdotes about new efforts undertaken by the AAU 62 member universities in response to campus surveys undertaken in and around 2015. As examples of such improvements, the report cites steps CMU has taken to address underreporting of sexual misconduct, and new ways in which CMU has tailored its outreach and education to specific campus audiences.

The report was released following a meeting of the AAU presidents over the weekend.

AAU conducted the new research to follow up on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct, a comprehensive campus climate survey conducted by AAU among 150,000 students in 2015. The new report also covers many universities such as CMU that conducted their own campus-wide surveys.

Some key findings include:

• Over the last three academic years, all 55 institutions that responded to the survey have developed, redefined, or enhanced programs to assist victims of sexual assault and misconduct.
• 100 percent of responding institutions have surveyed students on issues related to sexual assault and misconduct at least once since 2013.
• 87 percent (48/55) of responding institutions indicated that surveys or data from surveys stimulated new or changed existing conversations with students about sexual assault and misconduct.
• Over the last three academic years, 100 percent of responding institutions have changed or are in the process of changing their education and training for students and faculty.
• Over the last three academic years, 84 percent (46/55) of institutions have developed new programs, education, or interventions for specific student populations or types of students.

The purpose of the new report is to assist AAU universities in their efforts to combat sexual assault and sexual misconduct by providing data and examples of the efforts their peer institutions are making in this area, noted AAU President Mary Sue Coleman.

"Our 2015 survey was sobering; university leaders understand the seriousness of this issue," President Coleman wrote in a letter accompanying the report. "We hope the stories and resources in this report will be useful not only to AAU universities but to all colleges and universities as we work to reduce sexual assault and misconduct on our campuses."

Like all the universities surveyed, CMU conducted a survey of its students on issues relating to sexual assault and misconduct, has improved education and training of students, staff and faculty to prevent and respond to sexual assault and sexual misconduct, and has significantly enhanced programs to assist victims of sexual assault and misconduct.

Important priorities have been to encourage reporting of incidents by victims and to encourage bystanders to intervene when they witness circumstances in which sexual assault or sexual misconduct seems like a potential outcome.

Other actions taken by CMU are:

• Centralizing and standardizing outreach, case management and support to both reporting and responding parties;
• Launching a website and streamlined print resource guide;
• Expanding training and prevention education for students, staff and faculty;
• Working with University Police, other universities and city law enforcement to ensure best practices in training, first response and investigation; and
• Developing schematics to help explain the University's process.

CMU has also taken steps to ensure that its adjudication process for reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct is fair to both victims and those accused of committing violations.