SEAS Newsletter
Week of May 4-10, 2009
DEAN'S NEWS
SEAS hosted its 3rd Annual Graduate Student Research and Development Showcase last Thursday, with 54 poster entries from graduate students across the school. A panel of six faculty judges reviewed all the entries and selected three winners: Yi Jin and Shuo Gu of ECE (Faculty Advisors: Edward Della Torre/Lawrence Bennett) took the $1,000 first place prize; Mike Wakid and Can Kimizibayrak of CS (Faculty Advisor: James Hahn) received the $600 second place prize; and Mazdak Taghioskoui of ECE (Faculty Advisor: Mona Zaghloul) received the $400 third place prize. Congratulations to our winners, and, thank you to our faculty judges: Professors Sayed Hussein, Greg Shaw, Rahul Simha, Ryan Vallance, Branimir Vojcic, and Vesna Zderic.
On a separate note, I want to take a moment to mention that one of our students, Naomi Rapp (biomedical engineering), was selected by the university this year to speak at GW’s Commencement on May 17th. This is quite an honor for both Naomi and for SEAS. Congratulations to Naomi.
FACULTY NEWS
Research:
Profs. Hyeong-Ah Choi, Susan Cheng, and Nan Zhang, (CS) and Prof. Suresh Subramaniam (ECE) have received a GW Research Enhancement Fund award in the amount of $99,763 for a two-year period, starting July 1, 2009. The grant will be used to study cyber-physical systems.
Invited Talks, Presentations & Conferences:
Prof. Milos Doroslovacki (ECE) attended the April 20th – 24th IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing in Taipei, Taiwan, where he presented his paper, entitled “Gain allocation in proportionate-type NLMS algorithms for fast decay of output error at all times.” The paper is co-authored by ECE doctoral student, Kevin Wagner.
Prof. Azim Eskandarian (CEE) presented a paper at the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) World Congress & Exhibition 2009 on April 23rd. The paper, “Development of an Active Steering Control System in a Car Driving Simulator,” was co-authored by Azim Eskandarian, Damoon Soudbakhsh, Johann Moreau, and Julien Karcher, and it is published by SAE in the 2009 Intelligent Vehicles Initiative sessions proceedings.
Prof. Michael W. Plesniak (MAE) presented a seminar entitled “Unsteadiness and Turbulence in Biomedical Flows: From Phonation to Cardiovascular Flows” at Tufts University on April 23rd.
Prof. Suresh Subramaniam (ECE) presented the paper “Analysis of Blocking Probability for First-Fit RWA in Transmission Impaired Optical Networks” at IEEE Infocom 2009 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the week of April 22nd. He also presented the paper “Alternate Multihop Routing in Limited Reconfigurable Optical Networks” at the High Speed Networking Workshop held in conjunction with IEEE Infocom 2009.
Other:
Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE), graduate student Muhammad Zeeshan Khan, and undergraduate student Jordan Byrd participated in the technical tour of the FHWA Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center on April 15th. The tour was sponsored by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), DC Section.
Prof. Kim Roddis (CEE chair) was interviewed for the Washington, D.C. segment of the History Channel’s series “Life Without People.” This episode is scheduled to air on Tuesday, May 5th.
Prof. Greg Shaw (EMSE) has been appointed to the Board of Directors for Emergency Management Higher Education Consortium, effective April 29th. In addition to normal board duties, Prof. Shaw will serve as the central coordinator for doctoral level emergency management programs. The Consortium will coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Higher Education Program to promote and support emergency management undergraduate and graduate education programs throughout the United States.
STUDENT NEWS
SEAS congratulates the newly-elected 2009-2010 Engineers’ Council Board: Alessandra DeSarno (president); Jimmy Gomez (vice president); Kelsey Hurley (secretary); Pooja Agarwal (treasurer); Evan Tusini (DH House manager); James Friedman (sophomore representative); Ashley Kowalski (junior representative); and Jeryn Koritizinsky (senior representative). The freshman representative will be determined in the fall.
Evan Anderson (CEE) was recognized as the outstanding senior in GW's graduating class by the National Capitol Section of the American Concrete Institute at its 2009 Annual Awards Banquet on April 14th. This award is given to undergraduate students who show strong interest in concrete structures. Evan has taken two elective courses in concrete (CE206 and 207), in addition to the mandatory concrete course CE192. Evan was nominated by Prof. Sameh Badie.
OTHER NEWS
IEEE and ASCE Field Day: The IEEE and ASCE will sponsor a field day on Friday, May 8th, tentatively from 11:00 am – 3:00 pm. The event will be held in University Yard and will feature activities such as kickball, water balloon toss, and a three legged race, to name a few. In addition, snacks will be provided. We would like to invite the faculty (and family) of the ECE and CEE departments to join us for the afternoon. This event will coincide with the E-Council BBQ, so there will also be food (burgers and hot dogs) available during the day.
Colonial Inauguration, or CI, is GW's undergraduate orientation program, which is designed to welcome new students and their families to GW. It will be held during five sessions throughout the summer. The dates are:
Session 1: June 15th - 17th
Session 2: June 22nd – 24th
Session 3: June 26th – 28th
Session 4: June 30th – July 2nd
Session 5: August 27th – 28th
CS @ GW Summer Camp 2009 will have two sessions (Session I Beginning; Session II Advanced) and four classes offered each session (game development; animation; JAVA; robotics). Cost is $100 per session. Session I is July 6th – 10th; Session II is July 13th – 17th. Class instruction is 10:00am - 3:00pm, with snacks and lunch included, Monday through Friday. Online registration and more information about this Summer Camp is available at http://www.cs.gwu.edu/highschool/ . This is a day camp with pick up and return at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop.
GUEST VIGNETTE
A team of five SEAS undergraduates in CS 147 (Team Project Development and Professional Ethics) recently completed an excellent class project that provides a nationwide shipment visualization tool for the American Red Cross (ARC). The tool will enable the ARC to track blood supplies at all of its regional centers across the U.S. by blood type and expiration date to enable supplies to be moved quickly to areas of greatest need. The framework that the visualization will be built on is a simple 2D map of the U.S. Using clear, easy to interpret symbols, color coding, and displays, the map depicts the necessary data that the ARC would need to track blood supplies. This includes information about the type and location of each center; the inventory level of the blood products at each center; and the origin, destination, and status of shipments between centers. The aim of this project is to increase the ARC’s ability to plan and prepare for emergencies across the U.S.
The five students who completed this project are Sabrina Patel (EMSE), Ahmed Mushtag (EMSE), Valeriya Malobrodskaya (EMSE), George Rivara (CS), and Matthew Gagen (EMSE). (Provided courtesy of Prof. Dianne Martin of the Department of Computer Science)
LOOKING AHEAD
GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering Colloquium: May 11th
More info . . .
CEE Senior Design Presentations: May 12th
10:00 am, CEE Conference Room
Graduate Admissions Open House: May 12th
Virginia Campus
More info . . .
American Society for Engineering Management-National Capital Section Meeting: May 14th
4:30 pm, 1776 G Street, Basement
More info . . .
ECE Senior Design Project Showcase and Lab Open House: May 14th
11:00 am – 3:00 pm, Tompkins Hall, Third Floor
|
