ing prestige of the college. "Jay and Ravi
are two great additions to the faculty," he
says. "They represent the best of what
we want to project to the world: outstand-
ing academic credentials combined with
the ability to apply theory to practice."
Lea Ruscio's fledgling career has
already taken her more places
she recently accepted a three-year post
as a systems engineer. She'll be part of
the NATO Battlefield Intelligence
Collection and Exploitation Systems
Agency, which runs the computer net-
work NATO member nations use to
communicate with one another.
says the Massachusetts native. "Right
now I'm in the quintessential English
countryside, with thatched roofs and
sheep and cows everywhere."
when she completed study-abroad
experiences at Oxford University and
Goldsmiths College at the University
of London. She also completed a co-op
at the University of St. Andrews,
Scotland, with Northeastern Professor
Gene Cooperman, funded by a National
Science Foundation grant program
known as Research Experience for
Undergraduates.
won a highly competitive Marshall
Scholarship for two years of graduate
study in the U.K. She chose the
University of Edinburgh, where she
completed a master's degree in artificial
intelligence (AI) in the first year.
the area that most caught my attention."
at Edinburgh, taking whatever courses
captured her imagination: European
Union studies, Italian, and Scottish
Gallic. "I figured that since I was in
Europe, it was a good chance to study
the politics and culture of the area,"
she says.
called Mitre Corporation, a former co-op
employer who had been holding a job
for her back in the United States, and
told her manager she needed more time.
The manager did a quick search and
found a two-year information manage-
ment position available at Mitre
Corporation's U.K. office.
lot of counts."
major hadn't yet been introduced at
Northeastern when she was a student--
she says the computer science skills she
learned have served her well. "A lot of
what I do at Mitre is programming," she
explains. "I'm designing systems to deal
with a lot of information."
up her Mitre appointment and about
to embark on her NATO adventure.
But stay tuned. If the past is any indica-
tion, this next stop certainly won't be
her last.
including information retrieval, machine
learning, and networking and security.
At Dartmouth, he was named one of
the best professors on campus by the
Dartmouth Review, which cited him for
making complex subjects accessible as
well as being "an eloquent critic of gov-
ernment control over your computer."
accept a job at NATO.
his colleague, Aslam sees his work as a
bridge between the theoretical and the
practical.
practical application," he says. Aslam