New faculty

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.

Robert J. Kwortnik

Assistant professor, marketing
College:School of Hotel Administration
Academic focus: Research interests are consumer information processing and decision making, marketing communications, and services marketing strategy. Teaching interests are consumer behavior and marketing strategy. His dissertation is on the role of positive emotions in consumer choice for hedonic, experiential products, such as leisure travel.
Previous positions: Visiting instructor, Department of Marketing, Villanova University.
Academic background: B.A., journalism, Temple University, 1987; MBA, California State University-Northridge, 1994; Ph.D., business administration (marketing), Temple University, 2002.

Amit Lal

Assistant professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) and bio-MEMS. His work involves ultrasonic actuators, surgical instruments and novel energy sources based on MEMS. His work centers on making the devices practical for use in industry by focusing on their systems aspects.
Previous position: Assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and of biomedical engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998-2002.
Academic background: B.S., electrical engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1990; Ph.D., MEMS in electrical engineering, University of California- Berkeley, 1996.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen

Professor, nutritional sciences
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Research, teaching and interaction with policy-makers on food and nutrition policy, with emphasis on policies to improve the global food system for the benefit of the nutritional status of low-income people.
Previous positions: General director, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 1992-2002; director, Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program and professor of food economics, Cornell, 1987-92.
Academic background: B.S., agricultural economics, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, 1965; M.S., 1967, and Ph.D., 1969, both in agricultural economics, Oklahoma State University.

Huseyin Topaloglu

Assistant professor, operations research and industrial engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Applied operations research and systems engineering. He is mainly interested in optimal allocation of resources under uncertainty with applications in transportation, supply-chain and manufacturing logistics. The methodology areas he focuses on are dynamic, stochastic optimization and linear programming.
Previous position: Postdoctoral research fellow, Princeton University, Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering.
Academic background: B.S., Bogazici University, Istanbul, industrial engineering, 1997; M.A.,1999, and Ph.D., 2001, both at Princeton University and in operations research and financial engineering.

R. Bruce van Dover

Professor, materials science and engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Superconducting, magnetic and electronic materials and devices. His current research foci include the growth and properties of magnetic, dielectric, superconducting and optical thin films; fabrication and characterization of thin film devices; properties of magnetic and superconducting ceramics; and the development and use of high-throughput synthesis/evaluation experimental strategies, also known as "combinatorial materials science."
Previous position: Distinguished member of the technical staff, Bell Laboratories, 1980-2002, most recently in Lucent Technologies/Agere Systems.
Academic background: B.S., electrical engineering, Princeton University, 1974, summa cum laude; M.S., 1975, and Ph.D., 1980, both in applied physics, from Stanford University.

January 23, 2003