August 27, 2009

Dear SEAS Community Members,

Welcome to the new academic year.

I appreciate how everyone here has made me feel so welcome. As this is my first official semester at Harvard, I feel a bit like a freshman again. Moreover, just like all those parents in the Yard, I am helping my own daughter get settled for her first year at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in nearby Providence.

The summer has been a busy one for all of us at SEAS---and a particularly productive and exciting one. Some highlights include …

• A group of researchers received a $10M NSF grant for work on developing robotic bees (to which I say, “how cool!”).
• One of our current graduate students and two alumni affiliated with SEAS were named as part of Technology Review’s prestigious TR35 list of young innovators.
• Major technical renovations were completed by the Extension School on two core classrooms in Maxwell Dworkin and TECH opened up a new innovation space on the top floor of the Harvard Student Agencies.
• The Communications and CIT offices launched a new public website that better reflects our status as a school.
• Two new computer scientists, Stephen Chong and Krzysztof Gajos, joined our faculty, and we welcomed the return of bioengineer Kit Parker from his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Future faculty members Katia Bertoldi, Neel Joshi (joint with the Wyss Institute), and Chad Vecitis accepted our offers and will be joining SEAS in the coming year.
• On the heels of the voluntary staff early retirement program, we said goodbye to many longtime colleagues and friends and hello to new members of our community.

The above, of course, only scratches the surface. As Frans mentioned during his SEAS-wide town hall meeting last May, we are all in this together and everyone---faculty, staff, and students---plays a vital part in advancing the teaching and research mission of SEAS and Harvard. Even during a challenging year, we continued to accomplish astounding things. In fact, you will be able to read about our progress over the past academic year in our annual report due to be sent in mid-September.

***
I am fired up about the possibilities for 2009-2010. While I have only been here about two months, I am in awe of the level of excellence and collaboration we have here at SEAS.

We are small, but we think big and accomplish big things. Relative to our size, our citation impact is unmatched and we are tackling global issues such as energy, privacy and security, environment, and health. We are both a close-knit community and one that builds bridges across Harvard. From open-access scholarship to bio-inspired engineering, our members are spearheading major, University-wide endeavors. And as teachers, creators, and innovators we inspire wonder and excitement. Experience-based learning, from using prototype printers to final project fairs, is becoming more commonplace.

As I mentioned to some of you prior to my July 1 start-date, I will use this year for developing a comprehensive strategy to guide SEAS forward. To that end, I am leading a planning process, engaging faculty, administrators, and staff to determine how to best build upon the recent renewal and growth at SEAS under Dean Venky and to further connect such success to the broader academic and research goals of the University.

I have already pulled together a general steering committee; begun to outline various sub-committees (or task forces) dedicated to particular academic areas or activities; and started the process of appointing chairs. I have been spending the last two months meeting with members of the SEAS community as well as deans and administrators across the University.

In October, I will host an “all hands” meeting to present a broad outline of our course of action. The specific details of our strategic plan, from areas of emphasis to curricula, will evolve and emerge from the task forces during the course of this year. I see this as an organic, multi-layered, Web 2.0-style, approach. To ensure everyone remains involved and informed, I will provide periodic updates of our progress during the rest of the year.

***
In closing, SEAS has deep expertise in many aspects of what is and will continue to be important for advancing knowledge in the 21^st century: the nature, design, and manipulation of materials; the marriage of the biological and artificial; the art and science of information; and the design and implementation of systems and networks.

I am struck by how fortunate we are to be part of a global University that celebrates “the power of ideas” and, in our case, supports translating them into practical possibilities. Engineering at its best is the creative application of science---and is essential for making continued progress.

As fantastic as the future possibilities are, from new medical cures to alternative means of energy, we will not take them lightly or in isolation. By joining with other parts of FAS and the professional schools and by informing what we do with everything from art to ethics, we can work together to improve our society and planet in a thoughtful, respective way.

I look forward to getting to know all of you better in the coming weeks and months.

Best and thanks,

Cherry A. Murray
Dean, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences