Linda Peteanu

Welcome to the 2021 issue of The Initiator!

For all of us, the last year was defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. We dealt with quarantines, work-from-home orders, and remote learning. While the situation wasn’t ideal, we rose to the occasion. Our faculty and staff found new ways to educate our students online and conduct research at home. Others looked to make a difference worldwide.

You can read about two of these people in this issue of The Initiator: Professor Danith Ly who is developing a global pathogen surveillance system that could be used to identify the next pandemic before it begins; and alumna Mary Kosinski who helped to build the United States’ pandemic preparedness response.

And no matter what the obstacles, our faculty and students still succeeded during this very unusual year. You can read about professors like Stefan Bernhard and Oles Isayev who continued their work using automation and machine learning to identify new molecules and design new materials. Our faculty and students have been recognized with awards at the highest level, including Associate Professor Stefanie Sydlik who was named among the world’s leading young scientists by the World Economic Forum and doctoral candidate Mingyi Wang who was named a Siebel Scholar.

Now, we are happily looking forward to a fall semester where most activities will return to being in person, including classes and research. And we’re excitedly looking forward to the future of science. Shortly before this magazine went to print, the university announced a transformational $150 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. Of this grant, $75 million will serve as the lead gift for a new science building at the Pittsburgh campus. The building, along with a new automated cloud lab facility and support for the research of the future, are part of a $250 million commitment by Carnegie Mellon to a Future of Science Initiative. We hope you will help us to support this initiative in whatever way you can.