In the News, February 2012

The Boston Globe recently published a column of the ten most powerful women on Boston’s technology scene. Rebecca Rhoads, CA N ’80, was listed as the most powerful woman on the criteria of impact, connectivity, and thought leadership. Rhoads is Raytheon’s CIO and “oversees the IT infrastructure of the defense contractor.”

Fifth on the list was another Tau Bate, Helen Greiner (MA B ’89). She was a co-founder of iRobot and is now working on a new start-up “developing flying bots for the military and industrial customers” at CyPhy Works. Greiner also serves as president of the Robotics Technology Consortium. Read the full article

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After nearly 13 years as dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering, Dr. Paul S. Peercy has announced plans to retire. Dr. Peercy, WI A ’61, focused on retention of engineering students and “partnering engineering with a new range of science endeavors.”

Before becoming dean, he spent time as president of SEMI/SEMATECH, a consortium, “steering technical issues for the nation’s top suppliers to the semiconductor industry.” For more information, read the news announcement

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Dr. Joel Voldman, MA Z ’95, and his colleagues “have designed a unique, flexible neural probe that can be attached directly to an insect’s ventral nerve cord” as part of a US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program.

Dr. Voldman is an associate professor at MIT. Click here to read the article from New Scientist, which details more about the research and the potential uses of this technology.

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