December 2011 eNotes

Congratulations to the winners of the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program (ITP) Fall Challenge, an annual event in which telecommunications and law students debate both sides of a question after an intense period of research and the writing of a paper. This year's Challenge focused on the question of whether the FCC should mandate that every telecommunications carrier is obligated to accept interconnected voice traffic from other providers in an IP/SIP format.

First Place ($1,800) Award: Invincibles: Marissa Johnson from Law School, Akshay Kulkarni, and Vishwas Nandeeshappa from ITP

Second Place ($1,000) Award: Pikes Peak: Aparna Bhuktar and Nitin Khanna from ITP, Juan Hoyos and Matthew Oetting from the ITP Digital Energy Program

Third Place ($600) Award: Last Men Standing: Shyam Chandrasekar, Abhijit Kaul, and Ramakrishnan Mahadevan from ITP

Challenge judges represented the following companies: OneRain, Inc., Perficient, CableLabs, Steese & Evans, Intrado, Google, Level3, and Cisco.

Congratulations to the following individuals on their outstanding achievements:

Faculty

• Michael Lightner of electrical, computer, and energy engineering has been elected IEEE vice president of educational activities.
• Tim Brown of interdisciplinary telecommunications received the Champion of International Education Award for 2011.
• Dan Schwartz of chemical and biological engineering was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Students

• Tushar Thorve of interdisciplinary telecommunications was a winner in the Office of International Education photo contest.
• Julie Stiver of chemical and biological engineering was selected to receive a National Science Foundation Fellowship.

Staff

• Claire Yang of aerospace engineering sciences was selected to receive an award from the Women's Resource Center recognizing Women Who Make a Difference. She was nominated by an aerospace student.
• Linda Rose, research coordinator in the Dean's Office, was selected to receive the Employee Recognition Award for November.
• Nick Stites, module engineer in the ITL Laboratory, was selected to receive the Employee Recognition Award for December.

The following staff members received the college's Commitment to Excellence Award, recognizing outstanding staff who have reached a five-year anniversary of continuous service and received the highest performance rating for the most recent three years:

• Morgan Bayes (5) and Adam Sadoff (15) of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering
• Gwendolyn Miller (5) of CADSWES
• Lesley McDowell (5) of Computer Science
• Dragan Mejic (10) and Frannie Ray-Earle (5) of Chemical and Biological Engineering
• Courtney Staufer (5) and Mary Steiner (5) of the Dean's Office
• LaMark Taylor (5) of the ITL Laboratory