News & Notes: O'Shea '16 fails to advance Jeopardy semifinals
Pooja PatelTerry O’Shea '16 was not able to advance from thesemifinals of “Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions” and closed out with a second-place finish. “It’s been a dream.
Terry O’Shea '16 was not able to advance from thesemifinals of “Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions” and closed out with a second-place finish. “It’s been a dream.
The Undergraduate Student Government is undertaking a project to introduce more outdoor lighting on campus. According to Ella Cheng '16, the chair of the University Student Life Committee, the idea began with her predecessor Greg Smith '15, who met with the Department of Public Safety to discuss walking through dark areas on campus together last winter. After receiving feedback about certain students not feeling completely safe on campus at night, Cheng said that she decided to tackle the issue. "I thought about the best ways to address it, and then I figured that actually taking administrators on a walk through campus would be the best way to illustrate to them where the need is on campus," Cheng said.
After more than two years and an estimated $20,000, a research group in the mechanical engineering department has created the first 3D printer capable of printing LED lights. The venture was led by researcher Yong Lin Kong and Ian Tamargo ’14, and was sponsored by the Air Force of Scientific Research and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. The research group McAlpine, led by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Michael McAlpine,made a breakthroughmore than a year ago after it successfully printed 3D bionic ears, devices that can hear sound frequencies beyond the capacity of a human ear, out of bovine cells. According to the team's website, the 10-person group explores “interweaving biology and nanomaterials” that “could enable the creation of bionic devices, possessing unique geometric, properties and functionalities for a variety of fundamental and applied research directions”. With this new 3D printing technology, the lab has shown the capability of printing “emissive semi-conducting inorganic nanoparticles, elastomeric matrix, organic polymers as charge transport laters, solid and liquid metal leads and a UV-adhesive transparent substrate layer cube of encapsulated LEDs," according to their report. “What we have presented here is an additional method to integrate electronics that can take into consideration the three-dimensional geometry of an object," Kong explained. He added that previously only simple mechanical structures were able to be printed using 3D technology and that McAlpine has presented the first example of the printing of a fully functional electronic device.
The Institute for Advanced Study’s plan to build new faculty housing will face a legal challenge from the Princeton Battlefield Society despite the Princeton Planning Board’s recent 6-0 vote to approve the plan. The planning board’s vote of approval allows IAS to use a special type of zoning for its housing development, meaning that the development will avoid a stream corridor governed by the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission.
A new super PAC called “Stand For Principle” was formed three days after the midterm elections to support a potential presidential bid by Sen.
The legal group Project on Fair Representation announced a lawsuit on Monday against Harvard for “employing racially and ethnically discriminatory policies” in its admissions decisions, according to The Harvard Crimson. “Harvard’s undergraduate admissions policies and procedures have injured and continue to injure Plaintiff’s members by intentionally and improperly discriminating against them on the basis of their race and ethnicity in violation of Title VI,” according to a copy of the filed complaint obtained by The Crimson. The plaintiff in the case, Students for Fair Admissions Inc., is a newly formed nonprofit law group that includes groups of students and parents who wish to change the use of race in Harvard's admissions policies and proposes an injunction against policies the group says are discriminatory. In November 2006, Jian Li, a Chinese-American student, filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights against Princeton alleging he had been rejected from the University because of his race, despite scoring a perfect score on the SAT and a number of AP tests.
The Department of Public Safety sent an email to the University community on Monday announcing that an unidentified male had allegedly been observed masturbating by a student in the lounge outside the Chancellor Green Library on campus. According to the email, the unknown male was in his late 50s or 60s and was encountered by the student at approximately 4:10 p.m. The suspect has light complexioned, dry, rough skin and long white hair, the email said.
The works of University faculty, staff and students whose research would benefit society were honored on Thursday at the annual Celebrate Princeton Innovation event. The three innovations that received the recognition were a method for discovering antibiotics, a mechanism to study developing lungs and a fuel-efficient engine design. Some of the highlighted inventions were created by chemistry assistant professor Mohammad Seyedsayamdost, chemical and biological engineeringassociate professorCeleste Nelson and astrophysical sciences professor Nathaniel Fisch. Two student-led companies formed during Princeton eLab, a summer program run by the Keller Center, were featured: SpaceTouch, which aims to commercialize a technology interacting with computers through hand gestures,andSignSchool, an online platform for learning American Sign Language. The event was held at the Chancellor Green Rotunda, and it offered researchers the opportunity to showcase their innovations to visiting members of the venture capital and business communities.
Queen Noor of Jordan — formerly Lisa Halaby ’73 — has been named the Woodrow Wilson Award winner, and Martin Eakes GS ’80, who earned a Masters in Public Affairs from the Wilson School, is the 2015 James Madison Medal winner.
Princeton’s new 1,265-square-foot Dinky train station located across from Forbes College and 460 feet south of its original location began operating on Monday, marking an important milestone in the University’s Arts and Transit Project. The Arts and Transit Project is a $330 million development involving new arts buildings, dining services, transportation facilities and other amenities. The new Wawa convenience store built next to the new station will open Friday with uninterrupted services, according to the University’s website. In addition to its “dramatic” new design, the station features an air-conditioned and heated waiting area, restrooms, information kiosks and bike racks, according to the University website.
The University has received approximately 3,830 early action applications so far this year for the Class of 2019, according to Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye.Last year, the University received 3,854 early action applications, but Rapelye said more applications could still come in this year.
James Lebenthal ’49, America’s beloved municipal bond salesman known for phrases such as “bonds are my babies,” died in New York last weekend.
The much-adored, 40-year-old Wawa will be closing its current doors permanently on Friday. The store’s new location onthe east side of Alexander Road within the Dinky transit complex will open the same day about 450 feet from the station’s original location. The Wawa staff said that they anticipate a positive response to the store at the new location due to added features like new equipment and more space for customers to navigate. Violette Ireland, the store’s general manager, said the relocation is also going to result in a more aesthetically pleasing building with less clutter. “The needs of the customers and the business have really outgrown this space, and so I’m very, very excited.
The Undergraduate Student Government senate convenedon Sundayto discuss progress on preparations for Class of 2019 welcome events, updates on current diversity awareness initiatives and opportunities for students to get involved with the Office of Information Technology. The senate noted that the 2015 Preview program will, like the 2014 Preview, be a one-day event.
The Center for Jewish Life maintains ties to the University, including a lucrative fundraising partnership, despite its official status as a separate nonprofit organization, a review of financial disclosure forms by The Daily Princetonian has found. Meanwhile, the CJL's operator, a nonprofit calledHillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, has only contributed a few thousand dollars to the CJL in the past few years.
Two teams were named overall winners at HackPrinceton — one for creating a texting application and another for designing a product for those who communicate in sign language. The hacking competition is designed to bring together college students from all over the country to compete for various prizes by working on their own software projects. Rohan Doshi ’18, Juan Sepulveda Varon ’18 and Ruiqi Mao, a freshman from Brown, won the best software design category, whileEthan Gordon ’17, David Liu ’17 and Jeffrey Han ’17 won the best hardware design category. While the two categories both employ software in their products, the hardware category requires that the competitors use an external device that is not a regular computer as an integral part of their finished product. “I feel like I’m on top of the world right now,” said Doshi, whose team created an application called Justext, which was designed to enable users to send questions via text message to a server that replies with the information he or she is requesting. For winning the best software category, the team was awarded $1,000 in prize money, three Dell touchscreen monitors, Bluetooth speakers and an electronic whiteboard, among other rewards.The team also won the Best Use of Microsoft Technology Award, which earned it another $4,000. According to Doshi, the app is designed to connect all phones to the Internet, regardless of whether or not they have web browsing capabilities. “For people with ‘dumb-phones’ that do not have Internet capabilities, this app can connect them to the web,” Doshi added.
William H. Scheide ’36, philanthropist, scholar and noted Bach enthusiast, died on Friday in his Princeton home.
Unlike recent years, most Undergraduate Student Government elections this year will be contested, according to an email from USG president Shawon Jackson '15 announcing the candidates on Friday. Three candidates are vying for the presidency: William Gansa ’17,USG vice president Molly Stoneman ’16 andchair of the USG University Student Life Committee Ella Cheng ’16. This is a marked departure from last year’s USG elections, in which there were only two presidential candidates, both of whom were male. According to chief elections manager Amara Nnaeto ’17, the campaigning process has begun smoothly without any serious disputes.
Alumni interviewers must now complete a short online questionnaire before they are able to meet with the prospective students assigned to them, according to a version of the rules obtained by The Daily Princetonian. Alumni interviewers are required to disclose whether they havefelony convictions or an online presence that parents "mightdeem inappropriate." In both cases, alumni must obtain advance written permission from the Office of Admission in order to interview applicants.The guidelines don't offer any explanation or examples of what administrators mean by "inappropriate." In addition, they must also disclose any immediate family members applying to the University or any other college, if they are employed by a for-profit admissions venture and if they have a criminal record. This update to the rules for alumni interviewers is part of a new series of guidelines released by the Office of Admission. The change came after the University admission office received telephone calls from parents, school counselors and students who found information online they deemed concerning about alumni assigned to interview University applicants, according to University spokesperson Martin Mbugua.