April 6-12, 2020

Newsletter

April 6, 2020

Announcements

 

COVID-19 Promo Graphic

This week's HR Corner includes important information about changes to paycheck deductions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reports information on a live-answer GW Information Line and on faculty and staff services that are impacted by COVID-19-related closures and changes on campus, including: HR service delivery; I-9 processing; mail and package updates; and GW parking garages.

 

Other COVID-19-related News

Destie Provenzano and Dr. Yuan James Rao with respirators

Destie Provenzano, a PhD candidate advised by Dr. Murray Loew (BME), and her husband, Dr. Yuan James Rao, MD (GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences) had to cancel their honeymoon in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so they determined to use the time instead to help health care workers. They are doing this by developing 3D-printed N95 respirators to supplement the rapidly depleting stocks of these and other PPE (personal protective equipment). This SMHS article tells the story of the work they are doing. They are also getting help with the project from Dr. Loew, BME graduate and doctoral students Konstantin Mitic and Sofian Obaid, Dominique Pierce (GW Library); James Huckenpahler (Corcoran School of the Arts and Design); Jeffrey Berger (Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine), and Sharad Goyal (Department of Radiology).

GW Innovation Center logo

A number of SEAS faculty, staff, and students are working on projects to combat COVID-19. A list of SEAS-led COVID-19 projects is now available on the SEAS website and will continue to be updated as new information is available. Please take a look at the project list to learn how your colleagues are contributing to the fight against COVID-19.

The GW Innovation Center (GWIC) also has launched an effort to match volunteers to local projects, many of which are led by members of the SEAS community. To see their list of projects and volunteer opportunities, please visit GWIC’s GW page on the Solve for Good website. If you have a COVID-19-related project idea and would like others to join you in it, you may post your project to GWIC's GW page.

 

Faculty News
Publications:

Dr. Paymen Dehghanian

Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) has published the following journal article: S. Wang, P. Dehghanian, and L. Li. “Power Grid Online Surveillance through PMU-Embedded Convolutional Neural Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 1146-1155, March/April 2020. His GW SmartGrid Lab also published a conference paper in collaboration with colleagues at Clemson University at the Clemson University Power Systems Conference, held March 10-13, in Clemson, SC. The citation is: M. Babakmehr, F. Harirchi, M. Nazir, S. Wang, P. Dehghanian, and J. Enslin. “Sparse Representation-based Classification of Geomagnetically Induced Currents.”

Dr. Can Korman

Dr. Can Korman (ECE) has published the following article: C. E Korman and I. D. Mayergoyz. “On Hysteresis Based Random Number Generation,” AIP Advances, Vol. 10, Issue 4 (published online). DOI: 10.1063/1.5129981

 

Media Mentions:

Dr. John Helveston

Dr. John Helveston (EMSE) appeared in a Fox News Channel segment on the COVID-19-caused global slow-down of economic activity and the impact on the environment.

 

Student News

Congratulations to our SEAS students whose teams were selected as finalists in the 2020 GW New Venture Competition (NVC):

  • Benjamin Bowman, Craig Laprade, and Dr. Howie Huang (Team: CyberGraph)
  • Pedram Hosseini (Team: LingoCoach)
  • Jay Grieve (Team: Benjamin)
  • Daniel Nguyen (Team: Rice Wrap)

The NVC will be held virtually on April 16, and the GW community may RSVP to the live stream link. A full list of all GW finalists is available on the NVC website.

 

Many of us might enjoy a look back at the hustle and bustle of campus, pre-COVID-19, so BME undergraduate Karen Ruis submitted a video of the George Hacks Medical Hackathon from earlier this semester.

 

Dr. Peng Wei (MAE) announces that his PhD student Syed Shihab, who is from Dr. Wei’s research group, will join Kent State University (College of Aeronautics and Engineering) this coming August as a tenure-track assistant professor. Syed’s research focuses on reinforcement learning in airline revenue management, and urban air mobility fleet assignment. He is Dr. Wei’s first doctoral student entering academia.

Anna Warhol

Junior BME student and GW gymnast Anna Warhol has been named the 2020 East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) Scholar-Athlete of the Year. A GW Athletics press release details Anna’s accomplishments as a gymnast and scholar. The release notes that in addition to excelling in both pursuits this academic year, she also held a research position last summer at the Cleveland Clinic’s Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences department.

 

SEAS Computing Facility
MATLAB Online Office Hours: SEAS CF will continue to hold MATLAB open office hours throughout the Spring semester, but they will be offered online. Office hours are: Sundays (12:00 – 4:00 pm), Tuesdays (6:00 – 10:00 pm), and Fridays (1:00 – 5:00 pm). Please email us to schedule a tutoring appointment. The workshops and tutoring will be hosted by SEAS senior Emilie Lemieux via webex.gwu.edu/join/elemieux19. MATLAB and many other helpful programs are available to be downloaded onto any personal computer. For a complete list of applications, please visit the SEAS Computing Facility website.

 

Upcoming SEAS Events

Please note that all SEAS and GW in-person events are canceled through the end of the Spring 2020 semester.

 

CS Lecture: “Credit Card Fraud: Fighting the Bad Guys with Data”
Speaker: Dr. Paul Melby, Senior Director of Data Science, Capital One
Wednesday, April 15
4:30 – 6:00 pm
This webinar is a special topic lecture for the CSCI 6548: E-Commerce Security course. To attend, please RSVP to Dr. Hurriyet Ok by April 14. Registrants will receive the Webex video conference details from Dr. Ok.

 

CSPRI Webinar: “Case Study of World's Largest Cyber-Heist at Central Bank of Bangladesh”
Speaker: Rakesh Asthana, Managing Director & CEO, World Informatix Cyber Security
Thursday, April 16
12:00 noon
This event will be held as a webinar through Webex. Please RSVP to Dr. Hurriyet Ok to register for the talk. Registrants will receive the Webex video conference details from Dr. Ok.

 

Entrepreneurship News & Events

New Venture Competition Finals
Thursday, April 16
6:30 pm
RSVP to live stream link
In response to COVID-19, GW is moving the New Venture Competition to a virtual live stream! Find out who takes home a share of $500,000 in cash and prizes. Starting Tuesday, April 14, watch the video pitches and vote for your favorite team to win the $10,000 Viewers’ Choice Award.

 

Dissertation Defenses
Note: All dissertation defenses will be held online.

 

Student: Rubab Amin
Title: “Novel Material-based Heterogeneous-integrated Electro-Optic Modulators in Silicon Photonics”
Advisor: Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE)
Thursday, April 9
12:00 – 2:00 pm

 

Student: Xiao Xiao
Title: “A Physics-based Virtual Reality Framework for Medical Training and Simulation”
Advisor: Dr. James Hahn (CS); Presiding: Dr. Robert Pless (CS)
Wednesday, April 15
9:00 – 11:00 am

 

Human Resources News
HR Corner Hero

This week's HR Corner includes important information about changes to paycheck deductions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reports information on a live-answer GW Information Line and on faculty and staff services that are impacted by COVID-19-related closures and changes on campus, including: HR service delivery; I-9 processing; mail and package updates; and GW parking garages.