Berkeleyan

New Briefs

19 March 2008

Berkeleyan to return April 3

Next week is Spring Recess; we'll be back the following week. In the interim, keep up with campus news and events at newscenter.berkeley.edu.

Sheila O'Rourke joins campus leadership

Sheila O'Rourke has been appointed assistant provost for academic affairs, effective March 1. She comes to Berkeley from the UC Office of the President, where she has worked since 1999; most recently she held the position of assistant vice provost for equity and diversity there.

Prior to joining the Office of the President, O'Rourke was assistant vice provost at Berkeley, a civil-rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School. She has a J.D. from Berkeley's School of Law and an A.B. from Stanford University.

O'Rourke, who reports to Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Faculty Welfare Sheldon Zedeck, will work closely with Associate Vice Provost Angelica Stacy and Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri. Her responsibilities include helping develop policies, practices, and programs that will enhance faculty recruitment and advancement with an emphasis on equity and diversity.

O'Rourke has been a national leader in promoting faculty equity and diversity during her UC career. She was instrumental in convening the President's Summit on Faculty Gender Equity in 2002, the President's Task Force on Faculty Diversity in 2006, and the Regents' Study Group on Diversity in 2007. She worked with the Academic Senate to develop significant amendments to policies including the Faculty Code of Conduct, faculty disciplinary and grievance procedures, and family accommodations. She also has been a leader in systemwide initiatives to institutionalize faculty diversity.

Parallel-computing research center is launched here by Intel and Microsoft

On Tuesday, March 18, it was announced that the campus is partnering with Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to accelerate developments in parallel computing and advance the powerful benefits of multi-core processing to mainstream consumer and business computers.

Microsoft and Intel announced the creation of two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC), the first at Berkeley and another at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The two centers comprise what is considered the nation's first joint industry/university research alliance of this magnitude focused on mainstream parallel computing.

The funding for Berkeley's UPCRC, to be directed by David Patterson, professor of computer science, forms the foundation for the campus's Parallel Computing Laboratory, or Par Lab, a multidisciplinary research project exploring the future of parallel processing. Over the next five years, Intel and Microsoft expect to invest a combined $20 million in the two university centers, with each center receiving half. Research from this effort is expected to lead to powerful new mainstream applications.

For more on this announcement, visit newscenter.berkeley.edu/goto/parlab.

Lecture series on climate change and health concludes March 21

The special lecture series on Climate Change for Health Scientists that has been ongoing since February, sponsored by the School of Public Health, concludes this week with a presentation on infectious disease and outdoor air pollution by Eva Harris, associate professor of public health, and Michael Jerrett, associate professor of environmental health sciences. The lecture will take place on Friday, March 21, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in 2319 Tolman. For information, call 643-9016.

Three Ernest Bloch lectures on tap through May 2

Steven Mackey, a professor of music at Princeton, teaches composition, theory, 20th-century music, and improvisation; he is also co-director of the Composers Ensemble at Princeton. On Monday, March 31, at 8 p.m. in Hertz Concert Hall, he will deliver the first of three Ernest Bloch Visiting Lectures, under the series title "Whim and Rigor: Rethinking Musical Influence."

The opening lecture will be titled "Memoir of a Mutt, Part 1." It will be followed, on Friday, April 18, by "Memoir of a Mutt, Part 2," to be delivered at 3 p.m. in 125 Morrison. The third and final lecture, "Creative Process," takes place on Friday, May 2, again at 3 p.m. in 125 Morrison.

For information, phone 642-4864.

For the record . . .

A caption in last week's issue mistakenly referred to Mike Hamilton, director of Berkeley's new Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, as its manager. The caption also erred in misidentifying Hamilton and Berkeley biologist Todd Dawson by one another's names.