This is to inform our members that three of the elected main members are unfortunately resigned. In line with Section 18 of the Bylaws, the four remaining members decided unanimously to invite Mrs. Farzin Radkani and Mr. Ali Rasekh in order to fill two of the vacant seats and gain back the quorum. The board has now approved to carry out a wider search to find a suitable candidate for the 7th seat (and potentially substitute seats), as part of its responsibility to fill the vacant seats based on the said section.

Messrs Kianmehr, Hashemi and Sadri tendered their resignation after their proposed changes for the board in the first meeting, couldn't be approved. Majority of the board (and the advisors') found the request non-compliant with our bylaws after extended discussions which continued even after the first meeting.

We will keep you posted as we make progress with this process. Please also note that the board meeting minutes are available to regular members via SUTA website.

با کمال تاسف با خبر شدیم جناب دکتر قاسم میرعمادی معاون آموزشی و تحصیلات تکمیلی، و از اساتید دانشگاه صنعتی شریف هفته گذشته در تهران درگذشتند. دکتر میرعمادی سابقه بیش از 22 سال فعالیت در دانشگاه را در کارنامه خود داشته و نیز منشا اثرات فراوانی در نقش ها و سمت های مختلف بوده اند. قاسم میرعمادی در میان همکاران و دانشجویانش به قانون مداری، سخت کوشی، دقت، آینده نگری و صداقت شناخته می شدند.

سوتا ضمن تسلیت و ابراز همدردی با خانواده، دانشجویان و همکاران این عضو فرهیخته خانواده بزرگ شریف، امیدوار است آثار و تجربیات ایشان مورد توجه نهادهای علمی و آموزشی کشور بویژه دانشگاه صنعتی شریف قرارگیرد.

هیات مدیره سوتا

We would like to wish you and your family a happy Nowruz and hope spring and new year bring beautiful moments into your life. 

We are honored to inform you that the new SUTA board of directors has started to work and the four officers are as follow.

• Dr. Soheyla Kamal,       President
  
• Mr. Shayan Ghotbi,       Vice President
  
• Dr. Siamak Aram,          Treasurer
  
• Miss Parasto Jabbari      Secretary
  

We welcome and appreciate your involvement with SUTA and look forward to hearing more often from you.

With Warmest Wishes

Dr. Soheyla Kamal

SUTA President

SUTA's Complaint Against new U.S. President Executive Order

Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA) as the global alumni association of this university having over 6,000 alumni in the U.S. would like to express its utmost concern on the recent discriminatoryExecutive Order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday January 27^th 2017, banning Iranians and citizens of six other Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and the Syrian refugees for 120 days. While being a temporary measure, given the ongoing trends in US politics, there is a considerable likelihood that this or similar limitations become permanent.

Iranian nationals are listed as targeted people in this order (and previous measures such as 2015 visa waiver bill, H.R.158) despite the fact that no Iranian nationals has ever been confirmed to be involved in any terrorist activity in the United States. After 90 days, the Departments of State and Homeland Security (DS & DHS) will require the governments of listed countries to provide enough evidence about the visa applicant to prove that he/she poses no security threat to the US. Considering the political tensions between the U.S. and Iranian governments, it can be assumed that the Iranian government will not be cooperative on this matter, leading to Iranian citizens to be permanently banned from visiting the US.

Iranian scholars in general and graduates of Sharif University of Technology in particular have been significant contributor in the advancement of science and technology in the US over many decades. Moreover, U.S administrations have repeatedly emphasized on the improvement of cultural relations among the two nations particularly through academic means. Unfortunately, this executive order and expectedly strict follow up vetting measures will cut such cultural ties. It will have a devastating impact on many innocent and hard-working individuals and their families without any foreseeable improvement on the security of the United States.

We strongly urge current administration to revisit this decision and also call all our members especially those residing in the United States to immediate action to prevent such unfair treatment by raising their voices and expressing their complaints through all possible legal means including posting on social media, contacting public media, sending letters or emails to the White House, and contacting senators and the members of congress in any city or state they reside.

We hope the unified voices of Iranian community inside and outside the United States in conjunction with the expected solidarity from non-Iranian academician, artists, and politicians (such as Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of States) would encourage the politicians in Washington DC to stop this damaging order.

Masoud Olfat, Ph.D.

President of Sharif University Association (SUTA)

Masoud.olfat@suta.org

Great Falls, Virginia

USA

SUTA’s Awards Committee is delighted to announce the results of the 2016 SUTA Awards.   Dr. Amin’s Lifetime Achievement Award The fourth winner of the SUTA’s Dr. Amin’s Lifetime Achievement Award is Dr. Mohammad Ghodsi, professor of Computer Engineering Department at Sharif University of Technology (SUT). Professor Ghodsi who himself graduated from SUT in 1975 has been teaching in the university since 1979 with the exception of 5 years, during which he completed his PhD in the US in 1980’s. During this long tenure, he taught many courses, supervised close to 200 research projects (at BS, MS, and PhD levels), and held several positions including head of department. Through writing many books, co-founding Iran’s computer society, and involvement in campaigns such as anti-plagiarism, Dr. Ghodsi’s contributions reached out of the Sharif campus and benefited students and professionals nationwide. By presenting this award to Professor Ghodsi, SUTA continues the path that it took since the inception of Dr. Amin’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognizing dedicated individuals whose contributions have touched the lives of the most brilliant of our country’s young men and women. The previous winners of Dr. Amin’s Lifetime Achievement Award are Dr. Siavash Shahshahani (2010), Dr. Saeed Sohrabpour (2012), and Dr. Reza Mansouri (2014). Alumni Achievement Award The third winner of the SUTA’s Alumni Achievement Award is Mr. Hessam Armandehi. Mr. Armandehi is a 30 year old successful entrepreneur whose company, Cafe Bazaar which he founded in Iran, reached astonishing success and was featured in prominent publications worldwide (such as Wall Street Journal and Washington Post). He received his BSc in Computer Science from SUT in 2008 and his MSc from Chalmers University in Sweden in 2012. Upon graduation, he went back to Iran where he put his learnings into good use and founded Cafe Bazaar, a leading smartphone application marketplace for Persian speakers serving close to 25 million smartphone users. His company was one of the first successful startups in Iran employing many Sharif graduates and showing the world of possibilities to younger generations.  In presenting the award to Mr. Armandehi, SUTA appreciates the hard work of those graduates who, against all the odds, manage to create exciting new opportunities for the youth in Iran. The previous winners of Alumni Achievement Award are Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis (2012) and Dr. Mahmoud Tebiani (2014).   Staff Award The recipient of this year’s Staff Award is Mr. Ehsanollah Arzpeyma, the long serving officer of the university's registrar's office. Mr. Arzpeyma is such a known figure in the university and among the alumni that no justification seems to be necessary. He is indeed a monumental figure on campus as no Sharif graduate has left school without his/her academic record being meticulously examined by him. In addition to serving the university in the above-mentioned capacity for such long time, he has also been helping SUTA and the alumni association. Staff Award was formed this year by merging the two award categories of Alumni Distinguished Service Award and Staff Appreciation Award. The past winners of Alumni Distinguished Service Award are Dr. Alinaghi Mashayekhi (2012) and Mr. Alireza Hamzelou and Mr. Mehdi Hakimpour (2014). The past winners of Staff Appreciation Award are Ms. Afsaneh Tehrani and Mr. Mansour Ajoudani (2014).  Dr. Mojtahedi Awards have been announced in a prior communique.  Best Regards, SUTA 2016 Awards Committee Dr. Jalil Kamali Dr. Shahryar Makarechi Dr. Masoud Olfat Dr. Bahram Zahir

The Awards Committee is delighted to announce the results of SUTA’s 2016 Dr. MojtahediInnovation Awards.

We have received 12 submissions as follows:

4 in Mechanical Engineering

3 in Civil Engineering

2 in Chemical Engineering

1 in Chemistry

1 in Material Engineering

1 in Electrical Engineering

The submission in Electrical Engineering (EE) was not a project but rather introducing a research group with its publications and activities. Given this and the fact that a competition with just one project was inappropriate, EE was taken out of the competition.

We also combined Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Material Engineering into one category with 4 projects. And so we ended up with three categories as follows.

Mechanical Engineering (4 projects)

ChemEng/MatEng/Chemistry (4 projects)

Civil Engineering (3 projects)

The evaluation has been performed in just one round, as the turn out was relatively low, and the winners are announced as follows:

Mechanical Engineering:

Dr. Amir Shamloo, Ms. Sara Salehi, "Applications of MEMS in Biological Sciences"

ChemEng/MatEng/Chemistry:

Dr. Mohammad Jafar Abedkhodai, Ms. Elaheh Jooybar, “Construction of polymer careers to transport platelet lysate to be used in the reconstruction of cartilage tissues”

Civil Engineering:

Mr. Aref Samadi-Dooki, “The effects of Substrate’s Physical Properties on Cells Adhesion.”

We would like to congratulate our winners and to sincerely thank our judges, and all teams who sent us their projects. 

Best Regards,

SUTA 2016 Awards Committee

Dr. Jalil Kamali

Dr. Shahryar Makarechi

Dr. Masoud Olfat

Dr. Bahram Zahir

Dr. Mojtahedi's Innovation Award: SUTA is inviting researchers of Sharif University to take part in the competition. Details can be found in the announcement here. Also the form to be completed for nominees is included here.

Dear members,

it is with great pleasure to announce to the membership that the bi-annual SUTA awards will be held for the fourth time in conjunction with the 2016 SUTA Reunion. These awards will be given in four categories as follows:

1.       Dr. Mojtahedi’s Innovation Award to recognize the best research conducted in every department of Sharif University of Technology.

2.       Dr. Amin’s Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize a scholar with outstanding contribution to the university.

3.       Alumni Achievement Award to recognize an alumnus with outstanding achievement in industry or academia.

4.       Staff and Alumni Service Award to recognize an alumnus or university staff with outstanding service to the university, SUTA, or the society (This award is formed as a combination of the Alumni Distinguished Service Award and the Staff Appreciation Award).

In cooperation with the university, SUTA is reviving Dr. Mojtahedi’s innovation award which was dormant after its inception in 2010. For the other three categories, as usual, we are soliciting input from SUTA membership. We would like to encourage our members to inform us of their nominations for these awards by October 31, 2015. The nominations must be sent to awards@suta.org and should include a short biography of the candidate and an explanation to justify the candidacy.

For further information about the awards and its past recipients, we invite members to visit SUTA web-site and read Dr. Jalil Kamali’s article in SUTA Newsletter No. 77.

Best Regards

SUTA Awards Committee

SUTA has raised its concern on the new policy taken by University of Massachusetts in prohibiting Iranian students to get admitted in  graduate studies. We have sent the following letter to University Presidents.

                                                                                                                 February 16, 2015

Dr. Robert L. Caret,

President of the University of Massachusetts,

Dr. Kumble R. Subbaswamy,

Chancellor UMASS Amherst,

Dr. John J. McCarthy, 

Dean of UMASS Graduate School

Dear Sirs,

On behalf of Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA), I am writing you to express our concern about University of Massachusetts Amherst’s new policy on prohibiting the admittance of Iranian students for Science and Technology studies.

In the last 10 years, several US institutions such as IEEE and American Chemical Society have introduced restrictions on membership and publication by Iranians, with the argument to comply with the U.S. sanction laws, but they subsequently removed these restrictions, due to pressure from their own members, and reconsideration of U.S. sanction laws. We believe no US academic institution has been fined for accepting Iranian students until now.

Iranian scholars in general, and graduates of Sharif University of Technologies in particular have been very instrumental in the development and advancement of US academic programs around the nation. Moreover, U.S administrations have always stressed on the improvement of cultural relations among the two nations, particularly through academic relations.

Even with the current U.S Sanctions against Iran, We believe that the measure taken by UMass is an extreme interpretation of U.S. Sanction law. The emphasis of many U.S officials on more rigorous cultural exchange among two nations is a sign of how U.S sanctions on Iran is targeted on particular areas, and should not be extended to any cultural and academic relations among nationals of two countries.

We hope the values of academic and cultural relations would prevail and UMass Amherst would reconsider its decision.

Masoud Olfat, Ph.D.

President of Sharif University Association (SUTA)

Masoud.olfat@SUTA.org,