Dietrich College News

Released at the beginning of each month, Dietrich College News is your chance to stay up-to-date on the latest news, events and accomplishments of Dietrich alumni, students, staff and faculty.

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Carnegie Mellon Professor Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History

Edda Fields-Black is a Carnegie Mellon University historian, author, librettist and -- now -- a Pulitzer Prize winner. Fields-Black's book "COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil War," was selected as a 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner in history.

Read about Fields-Black's prize-winning book.

Alumnus Nick Thieme Credits CMU in Pulitzer Prize Win

Just over a decade after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Statistics & Data Science, Nick Thieme (DC 2013) has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. This marks the second Pulitzer win of the year for Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Read about Thieme's data journalism.

The Consequences People Don't See Coming (But Probably Should)

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, organizers opted for an eco-friendly cooling system in athlete housing, skipping central air in favor of a low-energy alternative. Countries responded by bringing their own air conditioning units -- a move that undercut the original environmental goal. According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, this misstep is not an outlier, but part of a common thinking error known as "consequence neglect."

In a recent paper published in PLOS One, Christopher Rodriguez, a graduate student in behavioral decision research, and his advisor, Daniel Oppenheimer, a professor of social and decision sciences, said that people often focus too narrowly on solutions to the problem at hand and overlook foreseeable negative outcomes.

Read about Oppenheimer and Rodriguez's research on "consequence neglect."

Faculty Spotlight: Weijing Tang

Weijing Tang is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics & Data Science whose research focuses on developing statistical methodology and theory for analyzing massive and complex data from interdisciplinary research.

"My recent research focuses on developing latent variable models and theory to understand data with complex dependency structures," said Tang. "By embedding observed data into an unobserved latent space, we gain the flexibility to provide interpretable insights into observed dependencies and so as to uncover hidden patterns that can guide further analysis. Along this line, I have been working on applications involving network data and electronic health records."

Read more about Tang's work and goals for the next generation of scholars.

Upcoming Events

• Seattle IS Alumni Gathering with Larry Heimann: On July 29, between 7pm and 9pm, join other CMU alumni in visiting with information systems teaching professor Larry Heimann at Rhein Haus Seattle (912 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122).
• Alumni Events: From cherished, in-person Carnegie Mellon traditions to virtual learning experiences with researchers at the cutting-edge of their fields, CMU offers a variety of events for alumni to connect with each other and the university, expand their knowledge and networking opportunities, and make memories together. Explore alumni events.

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