August 3-16, 2020

In the July 23 article “Miniature Device Could Instantly Diagnose COVID-19,” GW Today featured research conducted by Dr. Mona Zaghloul (ECE), her post-doc Yangyang Zhao, and Dr. Jeanne Jordan and Kamwing Jair of the Milken School of Public Health. The researchers have developed a miniscule device that could allow public health professionals to immediately diagnose and track COVID-19 infection using cell phones.

Dr. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) has been awarded a one-year, $69,565, grant from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation for his project, “Utilization-Driven Management of Connected Medical Equipment.” The project offers not only a value proposition for improving maintenance strategies and costs, but also a minimum viable product for alternative equipment maintenance (AEM) programs for biomedical assets. In recent years, AEM programs have gained traction in the healthcare technology management (HTM) field, but their full potential remains untapped as available data has been limited to maintenance records and risk assessments. This project will provide HTM professionals the requisite knowledge to incorporate utilization metrics into their decision making to prevent emergent equipment faults rather than addressing only the faults that are apparent at the time of planned inspections. On this project, Dr. Shittu is collaborating with EMSE alumnus Connor Roberts, who is the CEO of Opal HTM, a start-up company that is at the fore-front of revolutionizing condition-based maintenance of biomedical assets.

Dr. Emilia Entcheva (BME) and her laboratory, in collaboration with Dr. Patterson’s and Dr. Bub’s groups at Oxford University, UK, has published this paper: R. A. B. Burton, J. Tomek, C. M. Ambrosi . . . E. Entcheva, D. J. Patterson, and G. Bub. “Optical interrogation of sympathetic neuronal effects on macroscopic cardiomyocyte network dynamics,” iScience, Vol. 23, Issue 7: 101334, 2020. Using optogenetics and dye-free optical mapping, the work demonstrates how neuronal presence and activation can impact excitation wave dynamics in heart tissue.

Dr. John Helveston (EMSE) and his student Laura Roberson have published the following paper: L. A. Roberson and J. P. Helveton. “Electric vehicle adoption: can short experiences lead to big change?” Environmental Research Letters. Published online July 17, 2020. The authors fielded a survey at the 2019 DC Auto Show before and after people rode in an electric vehicle (EV) for three to five minutes (n = 6,518). Many prior studies find that riding in or driving an EV results in an increase in people's stated willingness to consider purchasing one, but these studies usually use long exposure times (days to months) with the EV and small sample sizes (n ~ 100). In contrast, Dr. Helveston and Laura found that even a short ride of three to five minutes can result in a significant, positive shift in people’s stated EV purchase intent, although some did have a negative shift. They also found that the vast majority of respondents were unable to correctly answer basic knowledge questions about refueling an EV and federal subsidies available for purchasing an EV.

Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) and a team of graduates, students, and post-docs have published the following paper: D. Yan, Q. Wang, M. Adhikari, A. Malyavko, L. Lin, D. Zolotukhin, X. Yao, M. Kirschner, J. Sherman, and M. Keidar. “A Physically Triggered Cell Death via Transbarrier Cold Atmospheric Plasma Cancer Treatment,” ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Published July 10, 2020.

Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) and Mario Miscuglio have published this paper: M. Miscuglio and V. J. Sorger. “Photonic tensor cores for machine learning,” Applied Physics Reviews, Vol.7, Issue 3. The paper was published online on July 21 and has already had more than 10,000 downloads. It also has been the topic of 19 news stories. Dr. Sorger and Mario have prepared B-roll video of their breakthrough, which is now available on YouTube.

Dr. Adam Aviv (CS) was quoted in the July 15 Fast Company article, “This technique was supposed to replace passwords. Turns out it’s surprisingly easy to hack,” which looks at research that he and his co-authors conducted on the security of LG’s knock codes.

Forbes quoted Dr. John Helveston (EMSE) in the July 25 article “This Is A Big Reason Electric Cars Still Aren’t Popular With Americans: Study.”

Dr. Amir Aslani (ECE) attended “REMOTE: The Connected Faculty Summit,” hosted by Arizona State University on July 13-14. During this virtual conference thousands of faculty colleagues, practice leaders from universities and colleges worldwide, and industry partners convened to share the best in higher education online, their perspectives on pedagogy and blended learning, and how to deliver engaging and effective experiences for students. The Summit helped faculty and administrators learn to design and deliver engaging experiences for learners, and provided actionable insight for online and hybrid teaching.

On July 18, Dr. Chung Hyuk Park (BME) gave an invited TEDx talk titled “Unlocking Your Inner Robot” at the Inaugural Event of TEDx Pearl Street (Theme: "Leading Change"), which was hosted virtually over an eight-hour Zoom broadcast with live music and interactive chats.

As the division chair for photonics and opto-electronics for OSA (The Optical Society), Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) was the lead organizer of the OSA 2020 Advanced Photonic Congress, held July 13-16. He also presented two papers during the conference, “Massively Parallel Fourier-Optical Convolutional Processor” and “Broadband GHz-fast micrometer compact ITO-based phase shifter.”

On July 28, the National Academy of Public Administration issued the report “Election 2020: Ensure Data Security and Privacy Rights of Individuals,” which was written by a group chaired by Dr. Costis Toregas (director, Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute). It is one of twelve reports on “Grand Challenges” facing the Administration that will take office in January 2021, and it will be circulated to both parties' transition teams.