Previous Issues

George Kellner '64 on Hand at Recent Dedication of Trinity's George Kellner Squash Center

(L to R): Gerald Hansen, secretary of the College, Ronald Thomas, acting president; George Kellner '64; and Paul Assaianti, director of athletic development. Trinity recently dedicated its new state-of-the-art fsquast facility, the George Kellner Squash Center, on Saturday, February 2.  Kellner, a member of the Class of 1964, is a former Trinity squash champion and was a nationally ranked squash player for several decades.  He is the managing partner and CEO of Kellner, DiLeo & Company based in New York City. The new squash center will be the world's first squash facility with colored glass walls, designed to reduce exterior distractions as compared to traditional clear-walled courts.

SUCCEEDING		Emily Beaton  '75
		Engineering software solutions for air traffic management

For many, liberal arts and air traffic management may seem to be a disconnect, but for software engineer Emily Kimenker Beaton ’75, the two have come together in the most meaningful of ways.

Proving that prevention is the best cure, Beaton earned a patent for a software tool that has the potential to prevent air traffic congestion before it happens. SMART, the Self-Managed Arrival Re-Sequencing Tool, takes into account the number of planes on the ground and in the air at any given time and identifies potential congestion problems. SMART’s computer projections enable airlines to sequence their flight arrivals by delaying or expediting departures or altering the speed of flights already in the air.

Though SMART is designed for the airlines, Beaton says her work is generally geared toward meeting the needs of the FAA. Beaton is employed by the nonprofit MITRE Corporation’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, a federally funded research and development center that supports the FAA. Beaton, who lives with her husband on a farm in Hustontown, PA, is a telecommuter who works by phone and Internet from her home office, traveling only for the occasional face-to-face meetings and presentations to the FAA.

Recently, Beaton has worked as a program leader on the Collaborative Routing Coordination Tools program, an integrated set of software tools, the first of which is ready to be tested now. If the current prototype and the other tools are successfully transferred from the research stage to the workplace, air traffic managers will be able to use CRCT to monitor traffic flows, develop strategies to alleviate congestion problems, and visualize and compare the impact of various strategies.

Beaton notes that even though air traffic has been reduced since September 11, experts predict that the problem of congestion will be back within two years. It’s a thought that keeps her motivated. She says, “It’s not like we really have a whole lot of time to improve congestion management.”

A studio arts major at Trinity with a concentration in sculpture, Beaton developed an interest in architecture and in city planning. After graduation, she went to work for the Downtown Council in Hartford. It wasn’t long, though, before the West Hartford native realized she needed a change of venue. She moved to New York without settling on a career path, and when her husband’s work brought them to Harvard, Beaton audited a couple of computer science courses there and got hooked. She later earned her master’s in computer science from the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Drawing on a liberal arts background

Beaton, who quilts for a hobby, says that software engineering is a long way from sculpting, but not so very far from the fundamentals of her liberal arts education at Trinity. After all, she still writes papers and makes presentations. Plus, there’s the critical thinking involved in evaluating problems and devising solutions that involve such factors as user interfaces and production costs. Contrary to perception, she says,

computer science is not just math. “It’s a very creative thing to develop software,” she says. She also enjoys participating in the rewarding process that begins with research and ends—five, ten, or more than 15 years later—with software that affects the airline industry and public safety. “It’s pretty thrilling to see these tools go into production,” she says. “I like doing the research. It’s nice to know that what you’re working on means something to America and is going to make a difference.”

             –Leslie Virostek