Introducing New Members of the Faculty

To help introduce to the Cornell community the new members of the university's faculty, the Cornell Chronicle is publishing brief, new-faculty profiles each week during the semester.

Rachel A. Davidson

Assistant professor, civil and environmental engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Applied research in natural disaster risk assessment and management. Her research deals with multiple hazards (currently focusing on earthquakes and hurricanes) and multiple users and uses of risk assessment. Her current research includes forecasting the change in hurricane risk over time; assessing the vulnerability of electric power infrastructures to hurricanes; and understanding urban seismic risk around the world.
Previous position: Assistant professor, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Academic background: B.S.E., Princeton University, civil engineering, 1993; M.S., Stanford University, civil engineering, 1994; Ph.D., Stanford, civil engineering, 1997.

Robin McNeal

Assistant professor, Asian studies
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Ancient Chinese literature, history and classical language; early Chinese political and military philosophy, as well as developments in social organization and mobilization.
Previous position: Lecturer, University of Washington 1998-99, Department of Asian Languages and Literature and Department of History; Chiang Ching-kuo Dissertation fellow, 1999-2000.
Academic background: B.A., history, University of New Mexico, 1987; and M.A., 1995, and Ph.D., 2000, both in Chinese history from the University of Washington.

Philip E. Protter

Professor, operations research and industrial engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Mathematical finance theory; stochastic numerical analysis; stochastic analysis and its applications; weak convergence; and filtering theory.
Previous position: Professor of mathematics and statistics, Purdue University, 1978-2000.
Academic background: B.A., Yale University, mathematics, 1971; Ph.D., University of California-San Diego, math, 1975.

W. Evan Speight

Assistant professor, electrical and computer engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Parallel programming environments for use on cluster-based parallel computers; user-level network protocols; fault-tolerant computing; parallel computer architecture; distributed systems; and operating systems research.
Previous position: Postdoctoral research scientist, Rice University.
Academic background: B.S., Stanford University, electrical engineering, 1991; and M.S., 1994, and Ph.D. 1998, both from Rice University, electrical engineering.

Harrison Tsai

H.C. Wang Assistant Professor, mathematics
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Algorithms for D-modules. He also is interested in their application to algebraic geometry and algebraic analysis and in their implementation in computer algebra systems (in particular, Stillman's Macaulay 2). More generally, he is interested in the applications of algebraic methods in mathematics and science.
Previous position: Doctoral candidate, University of California-Berkeley.
Academic background: A.B., Harvard University, mathematics, 1996; Ph.D., mathematics, University of California-Berkeley, 2000.

November 30, 2000