REDDY TO STEP-DOWN IN 1999...Raj Reddy has announced that he will step down as Dean in June 1999. "As many of you know, I had expected to serve as Dean for a single term, i.e., until June 1997. However, to help smooth the Presidential transition, I have agreed to serve until June 1999. If we identify an acceptable candidate earlier, we may be able to effect the transition sooner." Raj intends to return to full time research and teaching. He notes that the President and Provost are forming a committee "to assess the state of the School and to identify the expectations for the new Dean. An SCS Dean Search Committee will be formed in the Summer of 1998 with the goal of interviewing and selecting acceptable candidates for consideration by the President by the end 1998." SCS has been very fortunate...

IN DEFENSE...Karen Zita Haigh uses a "Rogue" approach to "Learning Situation-Dependent Planning Knowledge from Uncertain Robot Execution Data" at her CS thesis oral on Wednesday, February 4 at 2:30 pm in Wean 4623. Her committee includes: Manuela Veloso (Chair), Tom Mitchell, Reid Simmons, and R. James Firby (Neodesic Corporation).

CONALD 98...The Conference on Automated Learning and Discovery, sponsored by CALD, will "bring together leading researchers from scientific disciplines concerned with learning from data" on June 11-13. Among the plenary speakers are: Tom Dieterrich, Stuart Geman, David Heckerman, Michael Jordan, Daryl Pregibon, Herbert Simon and Robert Tibshirani. The deadline for paper submissions is coming up soom -- Monday, February 16! For more details, contact conald@cs.cmu.edu or visit /www.cs.cmu.edu/~conald.

SCS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE...Jonathan R. Shewchuk, Post Doctoral Fellow in Computer Science, will examine "Mesh Generation by Delaunay Refinement (With Applications to Scientific Computing, Graphics, and More)" at the next SCS Distinguished/Computer Science Doctoral Dissertation Award Lecture on Thursday, February 12. Both Jonathan and co-winner, Xudong Zhao, now a researcher at Intel, will be on hand for a special award ceremony preceeding the talk. The program begins sharply at 4:00 pm, with refreshments at 3:30 pm (special time). Xudong will be the featured speaker at the Emigration Course on the following day, Friday, February 13. Congratulations to both!

SCS INVITED SPEAKERS...Edmund Clarke presented a Distinguished Lecture on "Model Checking" at the University of Virginia (his undergrad alma mater!) on January 26.

MOBOT RACES...Thinking of signing up for the 4th Annual Mobot Race? If so, get those queries in soon. New features of the race will make it possible for even the inexperienced, overworked and overloaded to take part. Contact mobot@cs.cmu.edu to get on the distribution list!

TAKE A "SLICE OF LIFE"...on Saturday, February 7 at the Slice of Conference presented by the Student Alumni Relations Council (SARC) and the Career Center. Whether heading off to your first job, graduate school, or still considering how to handle/build your future....this conference has something to offer you. Alumni will discuss such topics as: "Balancing Act", "Don't Buy That Until You've Heard This", "Going Global", "Investing 101", "Public Speaking", "Using your Alumni Connections", "So, You Want to Own Your Own Business?" and much more. The program is free, but the registration deadline is on Tuesday, February 3. To register, visit: /www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sarc or visit the Career Center (Warner Hall 19).

SPECIAL INFORMATION SESSIONS...
**Hewlett-Packard will host an Information Session on Tuesday, February 3 at 6:30 pm in Wean 5409. Pizza will be served.
**Ben Croy (Systems Development Manager), Mike Blum (Core/3D Software Tools Lead), Streve Groom (Systems Development Integration Engineer), and Heidi Andersen (CGI and Technology Recruiter) will offer an Introduction to Feature Animation and Technology in Support of Movie Making and overview the Technology and Core 3D Organization at Walt Disney Feature Animation on Thursday, February 5 at 4:30 pm in Wean 7500. Refreshments will be served.
**Ben Wegbreit of Epiphany Marketing Software investigates the "Anatomy of a Startup" at this career/information session on Tuesday, February 10 at 5:00 pm in Wean Hall 5409. See the bboards for particulars.

NO ROOMS AT THE INN(S)...Commencement 98 (number 101!) is scheduled for May 16-17, 1998. If you have not started, you "should" be considering hotel accommodations for your family and friends. Forbes Travel (1/800/433-8785) is the official travel agency for the event and the Marriott Hotel (downtown Pittsburgh, 412/471-4000 or 1/888/456-6600) our official host hotel. Don't delay...rooms are filling fast! Watch for updates in the coming weeks.

WORDS FOR THOUGHT...
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3
**AI SEMINAR: Yiming Yang, "Translingual Information Retrieval: Learning from Bilingual Corpa", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4
**HCII SEMINAR: Shojira Nagata, NHK Science and Technical Research Labs, "Information Processing of Motion Parallax for Depth Perception", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.
**POP SEMINAR: Brigitte Pinetka, Cornell University, "Finding Substitutions for Meta-Variables in Specification Proofs", 3:30 pm, Wean 8220.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6
**ROBOTICS SEMINAR: Sebastian Thrun, "Statistical Techniques for Building Maps with Mobile Robots" 3:30 pm, Adamson Wing.

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