MOORE RECEIVES SIMON TEACHING AWARD...Who was praised as "funny", and even "intelligent"? Andrew Moore, the 1999 winner of the Herbert A. Simon Award for Teaching Excellence In Computer Science. Established in 1986, the award recognizes excellence and dedication to teaching by an SCS faculty member. As well articulated by one of the nominating students, "The enthusiasm that Professor Moore brings to each and every lecture rubs off on the students, encouraging them to think about AI and its applications away from the lecture hall. He does a remarkable job of conveying information on an appropriate level...Andrew's incisive understanding of his subject material, careful preparation, and infectious enthusiasm make his classroom scintillate with excitement!" Our collective thanks to Andrew for sharing his personal and professional best with our students and community.

ANDERSON ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY...John Anderson, the Walter VanDyke Bingham Professor of Psychology and Computer Science has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. This newest distinction comes on the heels of his recent election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is joined in this honor by fellow CMU faculty, Stephen Feinberg, Maurice Falk University of Professor of Statistics and Social Sciences, who currently serves on the CALD Advisory Board. Many congratulations to our colleagues.

KALAI A DISTINGUISHED FELLOW!...Adam Kalai has been awarded the "IBM Distinguished Research Fellowship" for the 1999/2000 academic year. As noted by Avrim Blum, "this is an especially prestigious version of the IBM research fellowship...awarded to only three people across the country this year." Hoorays for Adam!

TAKE NOTE OF OUR WINNERS!...It's "back to work" for the winners of this year's SCS Staff Recognition Awards :-) Our heartiest congratulations to Tina Cobb, Laura Forsyth, and Paul Mazaitis for exemplying the very best in job performance, dedication, and winning attitude. And to all this year's winners and nominees, including Jean Harpley, Jennifer Landefeld, Carolyn Ludwig, Stephanie Riso, Patty Mackiweicz, Susan Pallone, Dennis Royse, Cleah Schlueter, Ken Sharp, Diane Stidle and Weiyi Yang...another round of well-earned and wild applause. SCS is richer, wiser, and more productive from all your efforts. And special cudos to Robert McDivett for 20 (!) years service to Computer Science!

CLARKE DELIVERS ROSSER MEMORIAL LECTURE...Ed Clarke presented "Automatic Verification of Finite-State Concurrent Systems" as the 1999 J. Barkley Rosser Memorial Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Computer Sciences Department on April 21. Professor Rosser, who served as the Director of the Mathematics Research Center and Professor of Computer Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin and was instrumental in its formation and initial shaping, was an authority on symbolic logic, numerical analysis, and ballistics.

CS/RI FACULTY CANDIDATE...
May 10: JEREMY DE BONET, MIT, "Statistical Multiresolution Texture Modeling", 10:00 am, Wean 4623. Faculty host: Steve Seitz (Joint CS/RI).
May 11: BOBBY BHATTACHARJEE, Georgia Institute of Technology, "Active Networking: Architecture and Applications." Faculty host: Dave O'Hallaron.

IN DEFENSE...
LEEMON BAIRD ascends to new heights with "Reinforcement Learning Through Gradient Descent" at his CS thesis oral on Friday, May 7 at 1:30 pm in Wean 5409.. His commitee includes: Andrew Moore (Chair), Tom Mitchell, Scott Fahlman, and Leslie Kaelbling (Brown University).
BWOLEN YANGwill be "Optimizing Model Checking Based on BDD Characterization" at his CS oral on Friday, May 7 at 10:00 am in Wean 5409. Checking out his performance are: David O'Hallaron (Chir), Randy Bryant, Ed Clarke, Thomas Gross, and Kenneth McMillan (Cadance Berkeley Labs).
EUGENE FINK tackles "Automatic Representation Changes in Problem Solving" at his CS defense on Monday, May 10 at 1:00 pm in Wean 5409. Serving on his committee are: Herbert Simon (Co-Chair), Jaime Carbonell (Co-Chair), Manuela Veloso, and Richard Korf (University of California, Los Angeles).
DARIO SALVUCCI looked into "Mapping Eye Movements to Cognitive Processes" during his CS thesis oral on April 27. His committee consisted of: John Anderson (Chair), Herbert Simon, Kenneth Koedinger, and Keith Rayner (University of Massachusetts, Amherst).

PROPOSALS...
ADAM BERGER probed "Information Retrieval and Information Theory" at his CS proposal on May 6. His well-informed commitee included: John Lafferty (Chair), Jaime Carbonell, Daniel Sleator, Jamie Callan (University of Massachusetts, Amherst and LTI), and Jan Pederson (InfoSeek).
ROB MILLER manipulated "Lightweight Structured Text Processing" at his CS proposal on April 30. His committee included: Brad Myers (Co-Chair), David Garlan (Co-Chair), Ji Morris, and Brian Kernighan (Bell Labs).

THE ANNUAL DECFIVE PICNIC!...is scheduled from 2:00-8:00 pm on Monday, May 10 at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Pavilion in Schenley Park (near the swimming pool). As DEC/5 notes, "stop your brooding about whether you'll get any work done that afternoon, because you'll be WAY TOO BUSY rocking out with us at the NTH ANNUAL SPRING PICNIC." Need we say anymore?

BLACK FRIDAY!...CS pays hommage to this occasion on May 13-14 in Wean 4623. May 13 entertains AI and Theory at 10:00 am, followed by CS and PS at 2:00 pm The full group meeting begins 10:00 am on May 14. Be kind :-)

CAPS & GOWN DISTRIBUTION...Don't forget to pick up your commencement regalia between Wednesday, May 12 and Sunday, May 16 at the McKenna/Peter/Wright Room in the University Center at the following times:

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