Campus news in brief

Kamlet steps down as provost, vice president

A university-wide email from university President Subra Suresh on April 8 announced that Mark Kamlet, university provost and executive vice president, is stepping down from his post and returning as faculty effective at the end of the academic year on July 1.

According to the email, Kamlet has been a “consummate university citizen in taking on numerous assignments in addition to his primary role as the chief academic officer.”

Suresh said in the email that the university will soon begin a national search for a new provost and executive vice president. Until then, the Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz distinguished professor of biological sciences Nathan Urban will serve as the interim provost.

Urban has worked at Carnegie Mellon since 2002, after four years as a research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany.

John Lehoczsky, dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences since 2000, will be the interim executive vice president. Lehoczsky has been working at Carnegie Mellon after receiving his doctoral degree from Stanford University in 1969 and served as department head of the statistics department from 1984–1995.

“As a dean, he has had a substantial impact on the university through many activities, including his leadership of the Dietrich College Humanities Initiative, which comprises the Humanities Scholars Program, the Center for the Arts in Society, and the Humanities Center,” the email said.
Urban and Lechoczsky will take up their interim roles on July 1.

CMU awarded $1.54 billion in patent dispute

On March 9, 2009 Carnegie Mellon filed a lawsuit against Marvell Technology Group, Ltd. and Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. for infringing two Carnegie Mellon patents filed in the late 90s, including a chip technology that, according to the university’s website, “significantly improves the ability of detectors to more accurately detect data stored on hard disk drives.”

Last week, a U.S. district judge Nora Fischer awarded Carnegie Mellon $1.54 billion in the suit, which was less than the university originally sought.
According to an article for ABC News, the California-based chipmaking company has said that it will appeal the ruling as soon as the judgment is final. This judgment comes on the heels of a 2012 ruling in which a federal jury ruled that Marvell willfully violated the university’s patents.

The patents at the center of the dispute were born from the work of José M.F. Moura, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and then-student Alex Kavcic (CIT ’98).