AlumniIssue Winter 2013
AlumniIssue Winter 2013
Engineering Alumni Gather at the Torch Club to Reaffirm Their Bonds
A biting wind chilled pedestrians making their way down Waverly Place on February 21, but inside the NYU Torch Club, a blazing fire glowed. Alumni from NYU-Poly and NYU Heights who had convened to celebrate National Engineers Week gathered around the hearth to warm themselves, and soon conversations were equally warm.
AlumniIssue Winter 2013
In late October 2012, members of the International Board of Directors of the Polytechnic Institute Alumni Association (PIAA) eagerly approved the formation of the Taiwan Alumni Section, which will serve some 300 Poly grads in that region.
AlumniIssue Winter 2013
Asking the average American art lover to name at least one Indian artist might elicit mention of the iconic M.F. Husain, who made headlines in 2008 when one of his paintings sold for $1.6 million at a Christie's auction. Fewer are familiar with Husain’s compatriots—Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar, Francis Newton Souza, Bal Chabda, S. H. Raza, Akbar Padamsee, and V. S. Gaitonde—although they are hugely popular in their native country.
AlumniIssue Winter 2013
Mary Cowman, associate provost for programs, planning and development and a professor of biochemistry, remembers one former student with particular fondness. “Pinyen Lin personifies the Poly mission,” she said. “He came to America with intelligence and ambition. He studied hard, and he was dedicated to excellence. He used his education to achieve a remarkable record in the integrated-circuit industry, with more than 70 patents. Now that’s inventive!”
AlumniIssue Fall 2012
“A thousand years ago, conventional wisdom was that the world was flat. That doesn’t mean it was true,” said Daniel Rose, chairman of real estate organization Rose Associates and founder of the acclaimed Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF). Rose’s approach to education, one rooted “not in teaching, which is what takes place on a blackboard, but on learning, which is what happens inside the mind of a young person” bucks most of the conventions of today’s classrooms, but Rose wouldn’t have it any other way.
AlumniIssue Fall 2012
AlumniIssue Fall 2012
Father Valery Lukianov ’55CE is most likely the only priest ever to engineer and build his own cathedral. Decades before building his church, however, the Shanghai-born Russian Orthodox priest began an immigrant’s journey that took him halfway around the world.
AlumniIssue Fall 2012
Computers today are true thinking machines, with the ability to weigh and decide among alternatives, almost as people do. That is possible due in large part to the work of Judea Pearl, who received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic in 1965. While his dissertation was on superconducting currents, and led to the discovery of what physicists call today the “Pearl vortex,” his later work has focused on artificial intelligence (AI).
AlumniIssue Summer 2012
In late April, alumni representing more than 55 years of Polytechnic's history gathered in Brooklyn to reminisce and reconnect with their alma mater at Alumni Weekend & Back to School Day.
