Welcome to Cornell 2014-2015 by Cornell Graduate School

Welcome to

Cornell University Graduate School

resources research UNIQUE SCHOLARSHIP historic

IDEAS

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RESPOND RESPONDING TO YOUR ADMISSION OFFER

Accept Cornellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s offer of admission online at www.gradschool.cornell.edu/response. Our secure form is convenient and easy to use.

Six Mile Creek Vineyard

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Graduate Faculty | 7 Graduate Students | 8

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yourResponse Responding to your admission offer | inside front and back covers

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Deadline for housing decisions | ASAP Deadline for response to admission | April 15 (or date requested by admitting field) International Graduate and Professional Student Orientation | August 23 Graduate School Welcome and Resource Fair | August 25 Fall term instruction begins | August 26 Students of Color Welcoming Reception | TBA

Cover photo: Graduate student poets read from a chapbook, prepared for an annual outreach initiative in New York City, featuring their verse. The eight Creative Writing Program M.F.A. students are in Ishion Hutchinson’s graduate poetry seminar.

Cornell’s campus is located above Cayuga Lake in New York State’s Finger Lakes region.

Statue of A. D. White

Cornell is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator and employer. Printed on paper with recycled content. Photography: University Photography and Charles Harrington Photography unless otherwise noted Produced by University Communications at Cornell University 1/14 FLP 1.6M

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Experience Kenneth Lyons, graduate student in materials science and engineering, in the lab

Our History The key to Cornell University’s success, as historian Morris Bishop wrote, is the greatness of its ideas.

choice

On April 27, 1865, an idea now known as Cornell University became a reality among the institutions of higher education in America. Criticized by some and laughed at by many, Cornell University came to symbolize a new educational hope. Ezra Cornell told friends of his intention to found “an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”

“Any person…” The founders’ intention always was to admit “any person.” Women took classes at Cornell as early as 1870, and by 1872, women were admitted formally. Cornell was the only major educational institution to which both male and female African American students could apply and attend together. The first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. at Cornell was May Preston in 1880 with the first bachelor’s degrees awarded to African American students in 1897. In 1936, Cornell was the first university to award a Ph.D. to an African American woman, Flemmie Kittrell.

“Any study…” Some have called Cornell the “first American university.” At its founding, the university opened its doors to all and combined a traditional emphasis on classics and humanistic disciplines with an equal emphasis on the theoretical and applied sciences. Ezra Cornell’s idea of combining scientific research with practical applications and service to society was so exciting that more than 2,000 students applied to join the first class. Graduate study has been a part of the Cornell curriculum since the founding of the university.

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The 2013 Graduate Students of Color Renaissance Ball

Graduate and professional students enjoy snacks and beverages at Tell Grads It’s Friday (TGIF) at the Big Red Barn. Student rides past Sage Hall

Cornell was one of the first U.S. institutions of higher education to offer advanced degrees. Cornell awarded an M.S. degree in civil engineering in 1870 to Henry Turner Eddy, who also became Cornell’s first Ph.D. in 1872, just seven years after the founding of the university. At that time, there were fewer than 200 graduate students in the United States. Today, with more than 5,000 graduate and professional students and almost 100 fields of study, Cornell’s Graduate School has an international reputation and the broadest range of programs in the Ivy League.

Our System of Graduate Education Cornell’s interdisciplinary system of graduate education crosses disciplinary and traditional department boundaries, enabling students to pursue their own academic interests. For students in research degree programs (Ph.D., M.S., and M.A.), most of the nearly 100 fields of study have no core course requirements. Instead, students design their own academic program under the guidance of a faculty advisor.

community Cornell’s Ithaca campus Cornell’s Ithaca Campus sits on a hilltop overlooking 40-mile-long, 400-foot-deep Cayuga Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes of central New York State. Two sides of the campus are bound by gorges, created after the last glaciation. This is an area of great natural beauty, a place that contributes to a healthy and pleasurable quality of life. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Cornell campus is the seamless interconnection between nature and the built environment. Cornell Plantations, curator of the university’s natural areas, maintains trails, arboretums, and gardens that intertwine and blend with the university’s graceful quads and inspiring architecture.

fitness & sports

Students choose a group of faculty members from any combination of graduate fields depending on their research interests. These faculty members compose the special committee, which will guide the student’s academic career. The advisor (also known as the special committee chair) works closely with the student to make sure academic objectives are met. Both the field and special committee systems encourage faculty and students to make unexpected connections and integrate ideas and disciplines to address current and emerging societal challenges.

Image submitted by Lilian Loh, law student, for the 2012–2013 Graduate School Photo Contest.

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unique A student jogs by the Beebe Lake Dam on Triphammer Foot Bridge.

breathtaking

Minns Garden gate by ironworker Durand Van Dorn

The Herb Garden at Cornell Plantations

Fellowships, Assistantships, and Grants The Graduate School places a very high priority on providing research degree students with support— whether through fellowships, assistantships, or grants. Cornell currently funds 97 percent of its on-campus doctoral students and 78 percent of its research-oriented master’s degree students. Each year, Cornell’s top-notch graduate students receive NSF, Fulbright, and other prestigious national awards in addition to a significant number of research training grants and national research grants administered by individual faculty. Special fellowships designed to increase the diversity of Cornell’s graduate student population may be available on a competitive basis to U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Cornell provides a competitive funding package that includes tuition, fees, health insurance, and a living allowance or stipend for nearly all students in research Ph.D. programs. Stipends are set at a rate that assures a comfortable standard of living in

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natura Ithaca. The terms of the award may vary according to field of study. For additional information, please contact your field of study. Professional programs at Cornell provide limited financial assistance. The terms of the awards may vary according to the program. For more information, please contact the individual professional program. U.S. citizens and permanent residents may be eligible for federal loans. For more information, please contact the Financial Aid Office at 607.255.5145 or finaid@cornell.edu.

Assistantships If you are awarded an assistantship, you will be notified at the time of admission. Tuition is typically processed in August and stipend checks are issued twice a month. Assistants are expected to maintain academic performance constituting good standing in the graduate field and satisfactory performance in teaching and research assignments.

Upper gorge of Treman State Park near Ithaca

al beauty Fellowships and Training Grants

If you are awarded a fellowship or training grant, your admission letter will contain the details. Tuition is typically processed in August, and fellows and trainees receive a single check in a lump sum at the beginning of each semester. Fellows and trainees are expected to maintain satisfactory progress toward the degree, as defined by the field, during the tenure of the award. Fellowships or supplements granted by a field or college are contingent on continued registration in that field or college; transfer to another field may result in loss of all or part of the fellowship or supplements from the field or college. Cornell does not allow the duplication of awards (holding both a major outside fellowship and a Cornell award concurrently). If you have been awarded an outside fellowship and a university award, please contact your graduate field to discuss arrangements.

Disability Services Cornell was founded on the principles of diversity and inclusiveness and has a proud legacy of serving the needs of students with a wide range of disabilities in every college and academic program. Examples of conditions that qualify for disability services are blindness or low vision, deafness and difficulties with hearing, chronic medical conditions, psychiatric conditions, mobility impairments, and learning disabilities, among others. Information shared by a student about his or her disability is confidential and is not shared with any academic department or unit.

graduate school choice. Staff in the Student Disability Services Office can confidentially answer your questions about services, documentation requirements, and campus accessibility. Contact them at:

I hope we have laid the foundation of an institution

Student Disability Services 420 CCC, Garden Avenue Ext. Ithaca, NY 14853-6601 Phone: 607.254.4545 (voice) For TDD use 711 Relay Fax: 607.255.1562 Email: sds_cu@cornell.edu Web: www.sds.cornell.edu

which shall combine practical

Tuition

mastering all the practical

At Cornell University, the tuition you are charged depends on your graduate field and degree program. For 2013–14, rates range from $20,800 for research degree programs in the contract colleges to $45,130 for professional degree programs in the endowed colleges. Please visit the bursar’s website for fieldspecific rates and policies, www.dfa.cornell.edu/ treasurer/bursar/studentsparents/tuition/index.cfm.

with liberal education, which shall fit the youth of our country for the professions, the farms, the mines, the manufactories, for the investigations of science and for questions of life with success and honor. –Ezra Cornell, Oct. 7, 1868

If you are a prospective student, knowing more about the disability services and federal requirements will help you make an informed Image submitted by Yiming Kang, master’s student in biomedical engineering, for the 2012–2013 Graduate School Photo Contest.

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People

connected

Ph.D. Hooding Ceremony Ph.D. Recognition Ceremony

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JON M. KLEINBERG • DAVID A. EASLEY Jon M. Kleinberg, computer science, and David A. Easley, economics, study how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected. In their book, Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World (Cambridge University Press, 2010), they look at networks, incentives, and the aggregate behavior of groups of people; for example, the rapid growth of the internet and the web, the ease of global communication, and the ability of news and information, epidemics, and financial crises to spread swiftly around the world. The authors apply different scientific perspectives—economics, sociology, computing and information science, and applied mathematics—to broad questions about networks and behavior.

Graduate Faculty The 1,800 members of Cornell’s graduate faculty represent nearly 100 fields of study. Many have been recognized for their outstanding teaching, research, and scholarship. Forty-two Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with Cornell as faculty members or students. Nearly 150 faculty members are members in the National Academies (Science, Engineering, Medicine). Recent Cornell University faculty honors include: • Two John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowships (Genius Awards) in 2013 • Two new fellows in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013 • Two 2011 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (presented at the 2012 awards ceremony) • Six National Science Foundation 2013 Faculty Early Career Development Awards • A National Institutes of Health 2012 New Innovator Award • An Alfred P. Sloan Foundation 2013 Fellowship • A 2013 Fulbright Scholar award

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Graduate Fields, Cross-Disciplinary by Design

Graduate study at Cornell is cross-disciplinary by design. Graduate fields are composed of faculty members who come together around a shared intellectual interest, not necessarily tied to their core discipline. Most graduate faculty serve in more than one field, and more than half of all fields span college lines. For example, the graduate field of economics includes faculty from six of the seven undergraduate colleges with research interests ranging from applied microeconomic theory to urban and regional economics. The Graduate School’s unique organization into fields of study ensures that faculty and students across the university can share ideas and work together freely and without undue administrative barriers.

RUTH E. LEY Ruth E. Ley, microbiology, asks basic questions about the world of microbes in the gut. With a 2010 Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering of $875,000, she studies the genes of twins to understand how gut microbes coevolved with humans and their diets. With a 2010 National Institutes of Health New Innovator grant of $1.5 million, she investigates the relationship between chronic disease and microbes in the gut. In 2009, Ley received a Beckman Foundation Young Investigator award for her work on how defensins, antimicrobial peptides produced in the intestine, influence the diversity of bacteria in the gut. Ley thinks that people’s mix of microbes—which outnumber human cells ten to one in the body—could be just as important to their health as their genes.

ID EAS HOD LIPSON

ANNETTE RICHARDS Annette Richards, music, led an international, multidisciplinary project to build an organ at Cornell in the “style and scope appropriate to the music of noted German organist composers of the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly Johann Sebastian Bach.” This worldclass instrument was unveiled in November 2010 in Anabel Taylor Chapel. The organ was constructed using authentic 18th-century techniques, and it has many voices—“powerful, sweet, lovely, tender, proud.” The dedication of this historic organ took place March 2011 with a concert festival and a major conference, Keyboard Culture in 18th-Century Berlin and the German Sense of History. Cornell’s new Baroque organ was a decade in the making, promoted by an international team of more than 100 researchers and artisans.

Hod Lipson, mechanical and aerospace engineering/computing and information science, and research collaborators created a versatile robotic gripper using ground coffee and a latex party balloon, instead of traditional designs based on the human hand. The researchers call their creation a universal gripper because it conforms to the object it is holding, rather than fitting just one object. The gripper has limitless future applications, including robotic arms in factories, robot feet that could walk on walls, and prosthetic limbs. The military could use the gripper to dismantle explosive devices or move dangerous objects. The Graduate School | 7

Graduate Students

students

More than 5,000 graduate and professional students from across the United States and 115 countries around the world are pursuing their advanced study at Cornell. The Graduate School prides itself on the diversity, depth, and wide-ranging interests of its students, 44 percent of whom hail from countries outside the United States. Each year, nearly 700 students receive competitive national and international fellowships, including awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Education.

ANNIELEONARD Degree: M.R.P.

A genuine sense of camaraderie—particularly between faculty and students—fosters collaborations and community, while supportive staff help guide students through their life at Cornell. Students develop cross-disciplinary friendships and partnerships that last a lifetime.

Field: City and Regional Planning

Notable: Her animated film The Story of Stuff, a viral hit, shows how disposable products generate a steady stream of trash that poses ongoing, worsening global challenges. It has led to The Story of Stuff Project, additional films, a New York Times best-selling book, and a thriving community of activists.

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HELENTREJO • NIDIATREJO Degree: M.A., Ph.D. Field: Fiber Science and Apparel Design Highlight: Helen explores the local apparel supply-chain in New York, and how it can be used to foster development of rural economies and textile industries in Upstate and Central New York. A survey of fiber-animal farmers will help determine resources available, annual yield, and marketing strategies. Nidia is determining the best way to put tiny magnetic beads, or nanoparticles, onto nanofibers that are hundreds of times thinner than a human hair. Eventually, the bead coated fibers may be used to detect and remove pollution from water or for anti-counterfeiting applications. Notable: Helen was a teaching volunteer at the local non-profit organization, SewGreen, part of the Youth Mentorship Program. Nidia tutors for Cornell’s Upward Bound program.

innovative

Highlight: In the spring of 1988, Leonard had nearly finished the requirements for her two-year Master of Regional Planning degree. Then, while interning in Washington, D.C., she was offered a job at the environmental organization Greenpeace, where she quickly got immersed in her work. She spent nearly 25 years traveling the world, investigating environmental health issues and ecological sustainability. Leonard’s nearly completed degree was still on her mind, however. Last year, she was welcomed back by the two members of her graduate committee; this spring, she completed her degree.

PAJAU VANGAY Degree: M.S. Field: Food Science

global progressive

inspiring

Highlight: Vangay left a successful career as a software engineer to attend Cornell and study food science. Focusing on food microbiology, Vangay hopes to address global food security and ensure the safety and supply of the world’s food by applying novel approaches in technology. Notable: Vangay has already participated in several international research projects. In 2012, she visited Kenya with the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development to work on product development and provide food safety practices consultation. Vangay also spent four months interning in Thailand where she worked on banana and wheat grass development, promoted food safety education, and surveyed rice and strawberry plants. In the coming year, she plans to join the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico City as a Bioinformatics Department research intern.

PINSHANEHUANG Degree: Ph.D. Field: Applied and Engineering Physics Highlight: Huang’s research is the intersection of materials science and physics, where she investigate what happens when atoms go rogue. She studies some of the thinnest materials in the world, including graphene and the thinnest pane of glass. She uses an electron microscope to zoom in and look at the individual atoms that have gone haywire, are out of place. Her latest work uses the microscope to watch what happens on an atomic scale when you bend and break glass. Notable: Huang’s work has been published in major research journals including Science and Nature. She has been invited to give talks across the country and around the world, including in Beijing, Nice, and Sydney. She has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Research Fellowship, and a Cornell Univerity 2013 William Nichols Findley Award for Exceptional Research.

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Resources Libraries

IT Infrastructure

Cornell University Library is one of the 10 largest academic research libraries in North America and a national leader in the use of digital technologies and electronic resources. Its holdings include outstanding special collections on Asia, the history of science, 19th-century kinematic models and machines, beekeeping, American history, women’s history, and gender issues.

The Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research (CISER) provides statistical computing services, access to data archives, computer accounts, consulting, and training to eligible researchers and their graduate students.

arXiv Twenty years ago, physicist Paul Ginsparg developed an electronic database to let fellow physicists share unpublished academic manuscripts without photocopying and paper mail.

REM ARK ABLE

Over the past two decades, this project has revolutionized the way scientists share information. Today, arXiv—a free scientific repository of research in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and related disciplines—boasts 700,000 “preprint” articles, a million downloads a week, and hundreds of thousands of contributors.

Graduate student Apoorva Kiran (mechanical and aerospace engineering), shows a 3D-printed speaker in the Creative Machines Lab.

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The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing provides high-end computing resources for researchers with computationally intensive applications that are too large to run on departmental systems. IT@Cornell provides campus wide high-speed internet and network connectivity and a wireless data network, Red Rover, that blankets university libraries, academic buildings, campus housing, and other key spaces.

Research Cornell is one of the world’s largest academic and research universities. Last year, the university received more than $764 million to conduct research on everything from aerospace engineering to zoology. As a graduate student, you’ll have access to some of the best facilities in the world, including: • Cancer Protein Expression Laboratory • Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM) • Center for Biochemical Optoelectronic Microsystems (CBOM) • Center for the Study of Economy and Society (SCES) • Center for the Study of Inequality (CSI) • Center for the Study of Pulsed-Power-Driven High Energy Density Plasmas

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HEALTH SERVICES Gannett Health Services is an accredited ambulatory health care facility that provides primary care medical services, counseling and psychological services, physical therapy, and health education for all students. Located on central campus, Gannett serves as the primary care provider for Cornell students. Student spouses, same-sex partners, and children over the age of 14 also are eligible for medical care at Gannett. Fees are charged for most services, but many expenses will be covered by the Cornell University Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP). Medical care and counseling services and records are confidential. Gannett Health Services Ithaca, NY 14853-3101

• Cornell Cooperative Extension • Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a half-mile long particle accelerator ring, situated below the track and varsity soccer fields • Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging (CITRA) • Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility • Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing • Computational Materials Institute • David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future • East Asia Program • Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies • Institute for European Studies • Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) • National Biomedical Center for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance Technology (ACERT) • Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU) in Geneva, NY • Society for the Humanities • U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory • Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research fosters research to understand and discover solutions to human problems across multiple levels of analysis (individual, interpersonal, community, organizational, governmental), and to identify, evaluate, and disseminate evidence-based and costefficient practices and programs. Cornell NYC Tech offers a distinctive model of graduate technology education in the heart of New York City that fuses educational excellence with realworld applications and commercializes technology rooted in the latest academic research. Currently, the

Physical Sciences Building

607.255.5155 gannett@cornell.edu www.gannett.cornell.edu

tech campus offers a master of engineering (M.Eng.) degree in computer science. Additional master’s degree programs will be offered in fields such as information science, operations research, and electrical and computer engineering.

Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP)

The David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) is a bold initiative to focus the brightest minds spanning all disciplines—from the humanities to engineering—on creating new approaches, techniques, and technologies to find solutions to some of society’s most complex challenges and pressing problems. The Einaudi Center provides logistical and financial support for overseas research. It has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Resource Center for programs in East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Cornell’s New Life Sciences Initiative (NLSI), the most comprehensive and integrated science effort in Cornell’s history, includes the addition of research facilities geared to enable the increasingly collaborative nature of the advancement of knowledge and technology. Three new NLSI facilities were constructed on the Ithaca campus: Duffield Hall (advanced materials and nanoscience), Weill Hall (biological, computational, engineering, physical, and social sciences), and the Physical Sciences Building (chemistry and physics).

Cornell’s SHIP has been developed especially for Cornell students and is reviewed annually by a committee of students, faculty, and staff members. The plan meets or exceeds all F-1 and J-1 visa requirements, as well as all health insurance standards developed by the American College Health Association. The university pays the premium for all graduate students registered with the Graduate School who are receiving full tuition and a full stipend from or through Cornell. SHIP participants can enroll dependents in the plan for an additional fee. Optional dental and vision plans are available. Student Insurance Office 409 College Avenue S-211 Ithaca, NY 14850-4694 607.255.6363 sicu@cornell.edu studentinsurance.cornell.edu

Computing and Information Science at Cornell, funded with a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will help make Cornell a model for education in the age of digital information. Cornell’s “information campus” includes a new signature building, William H. Gates Hall, which enhances and focuses multidisciplinary creative interaction throughout the Cornell community. The Graduate School | 11

UNIQUE

Robotics demonstrations in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory

Graduate Student Services The Student Services Office is your primary administrative resource at the Graduate School. You will find assistance with forms, registration, petitions, and guidance on Cornell policies. To contact the Student Services Office, please email gradstudserv@ cornell.edu, call 607-255-5820, or visit 143 Caldwell Hall.

Graduate School and Related Offices The Big Red Barn Graduate and Professional Student Center (BRB) is located in the

center of campus. The BRB is the heart of student life for graduate and professional students, hosting more than 200 events per year, including the ever-popular TGIF (Tell Grads It’s Friday), International Conversation Hour, Trivia Night, Nerd Nite, pumpkin carving, and the Second Chance Prom.

The Office of Graduate Student Life directs services for

student crisis management and programs related to student life. The assistant dean helps students,

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faculty, and staff with cocurricular questions and develops programming to support a healthy study-life balance.

The Office of Inclusion and Professional Development (OIPD) supports the

recruitment, retention, and professional development of graduate and professional students, postdoctoral fellows, and associates and fosters inclusion, engagement, and achievement. OIPD supports student organizations, the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, and the Graduate Diversity Council. The office develops programming for all graduate and professional students, including professional development workshops, panels on navigating graduate school, and the Graduate Students Mentoring Undergraduates program.

The Office of Postdoctoral Studies monitors the status and

needs of the postdoctoral campus community and serves as an advocate for postdoctoral issues to Cornell’s administration and the vice provost for research. The office supports the Postdoc Advisory Committee, creates and coordinates professional development workshops, and provides one-on-one career counseling.

The Office of Student Services and Admissions works with graduate students to maintain their registration, enroll in courses, and receive support on most other administrative requirements of their academic career. Graduate students work closely with their fields of study throughout the admission process. Most questions should be directed to individual graduate fields until matriculation.

The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) offers a wide

array of research-based programs and services that support teaching and reflective practice. Programs include the GET SET workshop series, the Graduate Teaching Assistant Fellow Program, the Graduate Research and Teaching Fellowship Program, and Teaching in Higher Education.

Cornell University’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CU-CIRTL),

part of a national network of 25 universities, prepares graduate students and postdocs for the future professoriate with a focus on three areas: evidence-based practice of teaching in higher education, inclusive teaching and learning, and mentoring undergraduates, graduate

students, and postdocs. In addition to online courses and seminars through the national CIRTL Network, CU-CIRTL programs include a workshop series on building mentoring skills for a career in academia, learning communities on coursebased assessment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and panel discussions on the academic job search process, diversity in the college classroom, and effective teaching with technology.

Cornell Career Services helps

students through the career development process: understanding strengths, interests, and values; exploring career options; and taking action through developing job search skills. Programs include the NonAcademic Job Search Workshop, Preparing for the Career Fair, and Envisioning Yourself Outside of Academia.

success Vinay Pagay, Ph.D. candidate in horticulture, holds a tiny water-sensing chip that is embedded in plants to measure moisture content.

Selected Research Distinctions at Cornell Energy Recovery Linac (ERL). A linear

accelerator-driven, ultrabright x-ray source— essential for studying all types of materials, physical phenomena, biological molecules, and chemical processes—the ERL is in progress as Cornell scientists build and test a prototype, continuing Cornell’s legacy in high energy physics.

Biophysics. Leading in research and education,

Cornell biophysicists invented multiphoton microscopy, a widely used technology that allows researchers to see what happens inside living cells.

Nanotechnology/Nanoscience. Cornell is a

longtime global force, particularly in advanced electron beam and optical lithography and complex process integration.

Genetics/Genomics. With a long tradition of

leadership, Cornell scientists have earned national recognition for implementing and utilizing the latest sequencing technologies as shared resources.

Astronomy and Space Sciences. Cornell

managed the world’s greatest radio telescope for 50 years, created the famous Mars exploration rovers Opportunity and Spirit, and now leads the world’s largest and highest 25-meter submillimeter wave telescope project in the Atacama Desert.

Literary Theory. Cornell theorists are among the most highly regarded in the field.

The Cornell Population Center (CPC). The

CPC serves as the intellectual hub for demographic research and training at Cornell University. The CPC supports demographic research relating broadly to three core themes: families and children; health behaviors and disparities; and poverty and inequality.

Society for the Humanities. The society brings

distinguished visiting fellows and Cornell faculty and graduate student fellows together each year to pursue research on a broadly interdisciplinary focal theme. The society’s presence at Cornell has fostered path-breaking interdisciplinary dialogue and theoretical reflection on the humanities at large with our internationally recognized fellows.

RESPOND ONLINE RESPONDING TO YOUR ADMISSION OFFER Accept Cornell’s offer of admission online at

www.gradschool.cornell.edu/response

Council of Graduate Schools Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants Acceptance of an offer of financial support (such as a graduate scholarship, fellowship, traineeship, or assistantship) for the next academic year by a prospective or enrolled graduate student completes an agreement that both student and graduate school expect to honor. In that context, the conditions affecting such offers and their acceptance must be defined carefully and understood by all parties. Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this resolution. If in those instances a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer. It is further agreed by the institutions and organizations subscribing to the above resolution that a copy of this resolution should accompany every scholarship, fellowship, traineeship, and assistantship offer. A list of other universities that are signatories to the charter is at www.cgsnet.org

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“Footprints in the Snow,” submitted by Jessica Coulson for the 2012–2013 Graduate School Photo Contest