State Climate Office hosts statewide drought conference

To help the N.C. Drought Monitoring Council better communicate with the news media, public and local water resource managers, the State Climate Office recently hosted a statewide conference and meeting of the Council on Centennial campus.

This was the first forum of its kind to discuss North Carolina's four-year drought in detail. About 150 people attended the two-hour conference, which featured presentations on various aspects of drought and its effects on the state.

With 80 percent of monitored streams at less than 1- percent their normal flow, and reservoirs losing more water to evaporation than what is gained from streams, the state's water supply is producing considerable concerns. Some areas have a total four-year rainfall deficit of 40 inches or more, and many water systems have less than four months' drinking water left.

During the conference, the Council developed recommended actions for Governor Mike Easley's consideration. Before the conference's end, the governor had not only approved the recommendations, but went even farther by calling for mandatory water restrictions across about two-thirds of the state.

PAMS is partner in new NSF-funded research center

Operational since July 1, the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) is a partnership among North Carolina State University, Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) in Research Triangle Park.

SAMSI is the first institute in the world to focus on simultaneously enlisting both the statistical and applied mathematical sciences to confront the very hardest and most important scientific challenges in scientific modeling and data analysis.

The Mathematics and Statistics departments, as well as the Center for Research in Scientific Computation, are the NC State entities involved in the SAMSI partnership. SAMSI will be key in attracting top students and faculty by providing new, unique research opportunities.

A news release about SAMSI can be found at: http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/univ_relations/news_services/press_releases/02_07/177.htm

PAMS has two new department heads

Dr. Sastry Pantula has been selected head of the Statistics Department. He has been a member of the department faculty since 1982 and has served as director of graduate programs and assistant department head. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in statistics at Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, India and his Ph.D. at Iowa State University.

Dr. Bernard Mair has joined PAMS as head of the Mathematics Department. He has held faculty

positions with Texas Tech, Penn State, Emory University and Dartmouth. He was a faculty member at the University of Florida since 1989, where he served as associate chair, graduate coordinator and director of the university's Center for Applied Mathematics. He earned his B.S. and M.S. at the University of the West Indies, and his Ph.D. at McGill University.

New laboratory building celebrated in unusual ceremony

The construction schedule would have put the groundbreaking for the Undergraduate Science Teaching Laboratory Building (USTL) in March - not the best time of year for an outdoor event.

Instead, we celebrated the start of construction on the USTL with a concrete-pouring ceremony in late May. Chancellor Marye Anne Fox used a hand-held switch to start pouring concrete from a mixer in front of an audience of about 150 well-wishers.

The new building is one of the many building projects included in the recent bond referendum. The USTL will provide state-of-the-art laboratory facilities for chemistry, physics and horticulture. The labs will replace the facilities in Withers Hall and should be open for classes in Fall 2003.