Two recent articles in the Scientific American feature the work of Brown CS faculty member Andy van Dam and former graduate student Jim Hendler. The April '01 issue contained, in an article by VR guru Jaron Lanier, a highly laudatory description of Andy's work on tele-immersion. And the May issue featured an article co-authored by Jim Hendler, PhD '86 and now professor at the University of Maryland, called ``The Semantic Web'', with the precis ``A new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities''.

We're again delighted to report that Assistant Professor Nancy Pollard has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant, that agency's most prestigious award for junior faculty. `The CAREER program,' NSF says, `recognizes and supports the early career development of those faculty members ... most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.' CAREER awardees are selected `on the basis of creative, integrative, and effective research and education career development plans that build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education.'

Nancy's work under the grant will focus on quantifying humanlike enveloping grasps ...