Campus briefs
Students Ride for Ataxia
Two Santa Clara freshmen, Ryan Voreyer and John Towers, participated in the Ride Ataxia cycling event on May 15 and 16. The event, sponsored by the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance, helps generate research funding for Friedreich's Ataxia, a debilitating, life-shortening, degenerative neuro-muscular disorder.
Along with the other participants, Ryan and John traveled 100 miles over two days from Folsom to Grass Valley and back. Both Ryan and John are riding for a fellow Santa Clara student who is afflicted with the disorder. "The three of us have been friends since middle school," John said, "and this is actually our second year in a row doing the ride. Last year's ride was from Portland to Seattle." "A really important aspect of the event is that a lot of attention and awareness is being brought to the disorder," Ryan said, "there's over 150 people riding this year."
Ryan and John have created a Facebook group to help gain support for the Ride Ataxia events.
Ride Ataxia was founded by Kyle Bryant in 2007 with a 2,500 mile ride from San Diego, CA to Memphis, TN. Since then, the Ride Ataxia team has traveled 3,300 miles in three years, raising invaluable awareness for Friedreich's Ataxia and research funds approaching $1 million. This year, Ride Ataxia will feature both challenging and family-friendly rides in Tampa Bay, FL, Philadelphia, PA and Northern and Southern California. The event will expand to Dallas and Chicago in the near future.
Electrical Engineering Professor Wins Prestigious Award
According to a post in the Santa Clara Faculty-Staff Newsletter, Dragoslav D. Siljak, a professor in the School of Engineering, has won a prestigious engineering award for his contributions to control systems.
Siljak has analyzed several models in the areas of gene regulation, robotics and population biology. He has also written several books, such as "Decentralized Control of Complex Systems," which, according to the newsletter post, topped Amazon's sales list for the Systems and Control category. The post also noted that the highly-demanded book, now ten years out of print, would sell for more than $800 per copy in an online auction.
"When we study these models, we don't want to know just what the world is, we want to find what the world can become," Siljak said, according to the post.
The Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award is considered the highest recognition for professional achievement for U.S. control systems engineers.
The award will be given to Siljak formally at a session during the American Control Conference on July 1 in Baltimore, MD.
Stanford Blood Center Hosting Blood Drive
Stanford Blood Center will be hosting a blood drive on Thursday May 27, and on Friday May 28 in the California Mission Room. The drives will be taking place from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., respectively.
Students can register online to donate blood at https://www.sbcdonor.org/index.cfm?group=op&expand=2162&zc=95053 but registration is not necessary for donation.
From staff reports. E-mail news@thesantaclara.com.