VOL. CLXXI NO.131
SUNNY HIGH 59 LOW 39
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Mills invites ‘hard questions’
Grant to support data processing in genetic research
B y ERIN LEE
MIRROR
PLAYING FOR HIGHER PURPOSE
DANNY KIM/THE DARTMOUTH
Mills said he hopes Thursday’s town hall is just the first in a series of open discussions.
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B y BRYN MORGAN
PUTTING DARTMOUTH IN PERSPECTIVE
The Dartmouth Staff
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OPINION
VERBUM ULTIMUM: PUSHING FOR PARTNERSHIP PAGE 4
SPORTS
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In a town hall meeting with around 115 faculty and staff Thursday, executive vice president and chief financial officer Rick Mills called for cross-campus dialogue about the College’s future. The informal, open gathering featured a brief talk by Mills, focused on current shifts in
higher education, followed by questions from the audience. Mills, who arrived at Dartmouth in summer 2013, said he would like the town hall to become the first in a series. Although he has focused on working with smaller groups in his time at the College so far, Mills said he wanted to converse with a wider audience. “My pledge to all of you in
this first town hall is that I will be as open and transparent as I possibly can,” Mills said. “I wanted to start a conversation with the campus, an ongoing conversation about what it’s like to be at Dartmouth, and see where it takes us. I thought it might be a use to opening up a dialogue that isn’t centered on a specific topic. For those SEE MILLS PAGE 3
Program to offer taste of West Coast start-up culture B y JiSU SONG
Twelve undergraduates will visit start-up firms and established companies on the West Coast in December as part of a new Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network program. DEN, which will finance the program, released applications earlier this week. Three second-year Tuck School of Business students will mentor participants for the program’s duration, which includes a month-long training
With a five-year, $1.5 million grant, Geisel School of Medicine professor Casey Greene will further his research in genomic data processing. Greene, who was named a Moore Investigator in Data-Driven Discovery by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation earlier this month, said he plans to use the money to develop algorithms that can reveal patterns in genomic data and build web servers to share them with other biology labs. There are currently more than 1.5 million publicly available assays of gene expression , Greene said, and he hopes to develop techniques that will allow researchers to analyze this data and better understand biological mechanisms, such as genetic pathways related to cancer. Greene is introduc-
ing deep learning, which involves data-processing techniques used in computer science for image and video processing, into biology and bioinformatics. This approach incorporates methods from different disciplines, Greene said. “The techniques we’re using aren’t based entirely on known biology, whereas other techniques, even the ones that we’ve developed in the past, have always been based given the understanding of biology that we have,” he said. Greene’s lab emphasizes open source research, which means that anyone will be able to use the code and technology they develop. Lab programmer Rene Zelaya ’12 said that open access to information in academia is important. Founded by Intel coSEE GEISEL PAGE 2
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU TOMATOES
period and two-week trip, Innovation Center director Jamie Coughlin said. During the first month, the mentors will oversee undergraduates’ work researching specific problems faced by the start-up companies they will later visit, Coughlin said. Based on their work on campus, students will then present their findings to the firms during their visits to companies in Seattle, San Francisco and Palo Alto. NATALIE CANTAVE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
SEE DEN PAGE 2
A piece of surrealist poetic art by Serge Pey was performed in Brace Commons.