Faculty News
New Faculty:
Chung Hyuk Park joins SEAS this semester as an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He previously was an assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include assistive robotics, biomedical systems, machine learning, haptics, and multi-modal human-robot interaction. Prof. Park also worked for the LG Electronics Research Center, where his team received the “LG Electronics Best R&D TDR Award.” He is currently the lead-PI for the NIH project “NRI: Music-based Interactive Robotic Orchestration for Children with ASD,” funded through the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) program. Prof. Park received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Research:
Comcast has awarded Profs. Howie Huang (ECE) and Tim Wood (CS) a Comcast Technology Research and Development Fund award. This $40,000 gift supports their project “Automated Management of Flexible Resource Pools in Cloud Data Centers.” The project is part of their current effort to design and develop novel management tools for Cloud data centers.
Prof. Tianshu Li (CEE) has received a three-year, $231,294 NSF grant titled “Collaborative Research: Modeling-Based Design of Freeze-Cast Hybrid Materials.” Through this grant, Prof. Li will work with his experimental collaborators at Dartmouth College to design new hybrid materials through the freeze-cast method.
On August 13, the Department of Defense awarded EMSE Profs. Ekundayo Shittu (PI), Jonathan Deason (co-PI), and Joe Cascio a one-year $74,987 research grant through the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). The project will develop a portfolio optimization model to assist DoD decisions on component-level energy technology investments under conditions of uncertainty, including consideration of objectives such as reductions in vulnerability, intermittency, cost, and greenhouse gas production. The grant is the third received to-date by GW’s new Environmental and Energy Management Institute, chartered by the Office of the Vice President for Research last April.
Media Mentions:
The New York Times featured research by Prof. Megan Leftwich (MAE) in its August 27 article “The Sea Lion's Smooth Moves.”
Engineering.com featured the EMSE systems engineering online program in its August 24 article “Online Systems Engineering Master's Comes From Corporate Education Roots.”
Publications:
Prof. Zhenyu Li (BME), his Ph.D. student Allan Guan (BME), and their collaborators at FDA/CDRH have published the following paper: J. Frey, A. Guan, Z. Y. Li, S. Turtil, and K. S. Phillips. “Hemoglobin assay for validation and quality control of medical device reprocessing,” Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 407, Issue 22, pp 6885-6889, 2015.
Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) has published the following article: N. Li, K. Liu, D. K. Sadana, and V. J. Sorger. “Nano III-V Plasmonic Light-Sources for Monolithic Integration on Silicon,” Nature: Scientific Reports, (2015). The work investigates the plasmon nanolasers, their defect density, and sensitivity on fabrication processes. It shows how that these light sources can be made defect-free due to their small size. Defects are the major limitation for III-V material-based lasers. Hence, overcoming this bottleneck opens opportunities for optical sources on-chip.
Prof. Zoe Szajnfarber (EMSE) and her graduate student Isabel Bignon have published the following paper: I. Bignon and Z. Szajnfarber. “Technical Professionals’ Identities in the R&D Context: Beyond the Scientist Versus Engineer Dichotomy,” in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, doi: 10.1109/TEM.2015.2455056. This work explores the work motivations of scientists and engineers as a basis for improving incentives in scientific R&D organizations.
Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Ahmed El Desouky, a postdoctoral scientist advised by Prof. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE), presented a talk and conference proceedings paper titled “Selective Laser Melting of a Bismuth Telluride Thermoelectric Material” on August 12 at the International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium in Austin, TX. This work was done in collaboration with Prof. Philippe Bardet (MAE) and his postdoctoral researcher, Matthieu Andre.
On September 26, Adjunct Prof. Charles Jackson (CS) and his co-authors, Dr. Coleman Bazelon and Dr. Dorothy Robyn, will present two papers at the 2015 TPRC | 43rd Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy. Both papers address technical and economic issues associated with unlicensed operations in the 600 MHz guard bands and the TV white space. The paper titles are: “Unlicensed Operations in the Lower Spectrum Bands: Why is No One Using the TV White Space and What Does That Mean for the FCC's Order on the 600 MHz Guard Bands?” and “Unlicensed Operations in the 600 MHz Guard Bands: Potential Impact of Interference on the Outcome of the Incentive Auction.”
Prof. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) presented an invited talk titled “Materials and Manufacturing Costs of Novel Thermoelectric Materials” on August 11 at the 4th International Symposium on Energy Challenged and Mechanics in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Prof. James Lee (MAE) organized the mini-symposium “Multiscale Modeling and Characterization of Multiphysics for Nano, Bio, and Smart Materials” at the 13th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics, held July 26-30, in San Diego, CA. The symposium included 11 presentations. Prof. Lee, his doctoral student Zhen Zhang, and his former student, Dr. Jiaoyan Li, presented the following manuscripts: 1) J. Li and J. Lee. “Reformulation of Nose-Hoover thermostat for heat conduction simulation at nanoscale;” 2) J. Lee, J. Li and Z. Zhang. “Multiscale modeling of multiphysics: from atom to continuum;” and 3) Z. Zhang, J. Li and J. Lee. “Heat conduction in atomistic/continuum system based on coarse-grained molecular dynamics.”
On August 9, Prof. Zhenyu Li (BME) gave an invited talk titled “Optical imaging for digital biosensing” at the SPIE Optics + Photonics 2015 Conference, held in San Diego, CA. Prof. Li also served on the organizing committee for the Ultrafast Nonlinear Imaging and Spectroscopy III sub-conference, and chaired its Imaging through Multi-mode Fibers session.
Prof. Claire Monteleoni (CS) gave an invited talk at the NSF-funded Fifth Annual Workshop on Understanding Climate Change from Data, which was held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her August 4 talk was titled “Advances in Climate Informatics: Machine Learning Approaches to Improving the Multi-Model Ensemble and Defining Extreme Events.”
Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) attended the SPIE Optics & Photonics 2015 Conference, held in San Diego, CA, where he gave an invited talk and served as facilitator for the SPIE annual student chapter leadership workshop. His paper was titled “2D Materials for Photon Conversion and Nanophotonics.” While in California, he also gave a colloquium titled “Fundamental scaling laws & light-matter enhanced nanophotonic devices” at the University of California, Riverside. The meeting was part of a collaborative NSF grant with Dr. Bartels on the topic of 2D materials. Separately, Prof. Sorger gave an August 23 invited talk titled "Graphene Electro-optic Modulators" at the SiEPIC workshop on active Silicon Photonics devices, held in Vancouver, Canada. In addition, he gave a research colloquium titled “Optoelectronic scaling laws & light-matter enhanced on-chip devices” at the University of Washington, in Seattle, WA on August 21.
Other News:
Prof. Michael Keidar (MAE) has been appointed academic editor of AIP Advances and will begin his duties on September 1.
Prof. Poorvi Vora (CS) served on the technical team of the End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting Project of the U.S. Vote Foundation, which released its report on July 10. The project team consisted of international experts in cryptographic voting systems, voting system analysis, usability, policy, and elections. The report was covered by a number of news outlets, including CNN, PC World, ComputerWorld, and Yahoo News.
Student News
Joseph Paleologos and Zachary Humayun's (MAE '15) senior design project, “3D Printed Polycarbonate Heat Sink Optimized for LED Cooling," was selected as one of 15 finalists worldwide for the ASME Innovative Additive Manufacturing 3D Challenge. The project was advised by Profs. Saniya LeBlanc and Andrew Cutler (MAE). The students were invited to present their project at the ASME International Design and Engineering Technical Conference and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference and Additive Manufacturing 3D Printing Conference, held August 2 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Other News
Seven engineers from the HVAC&R Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—Dr. Piotr Domanski, Vance Payne, Harrison Skye, Dr. Mark Kedzierski, Hong Hyun Cho, Donggyu Kang, and Riccardo Brignoli—will visit GW’s Institute for Magnetics Research’s magnetic refrigeration laboratory on September 29, in preparation for their inauguration of a magnetic refrigeration program. Dr. Mohammadreza Ghahremani and Amir Aslani will demonstrate the operations of a magnetic refrigerator. GW students and faculty are welcome to attend. The visit will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 am in Exploration Hall, Room 220A at the Virginia Science and Technology Campus.
SEAS News
Workshop: “Facing the Minotaur”
Saturday, September 12
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
SEH, B1270
RSVP
This is the first of a three-part series created by Dr. Annie Green and Cynthia Gayton, J.D., and supported in part by EMSE and GW’s College of Professional Studies to explore new methods and strategies to manage knowledge and innovation. The event is free, but RSVPs are required and space is limited to 50 participants. Light refreshments will be served.
External Events
GW Cyber Academy Open House
Wednesday, September 16
7:30 am – 12:00 pm
Enterprise Hall, 44983, Virginia Science and Technology Campus
More info
Symposium: “Open edX Universities Symposium”
Wednesday, November 11
8:30 am – 6:00 pm
Milken School of Public Health, Room 100
The symposium will be structured around topics of general concern in online learning: web-enhanced learning and pedagogy; learning analytics; and inter-institutional collaboration. Please visit the symposium website to register and see the list of speakers and panelists, many of whom are top figures in the field. Anyone can attend, but space is limited. The registration fee is $75. This event is hosted by the GW Vice-Provost of Online Learning and Academic Innovation.
Entrepreneurship Events
GW New Venture Competition Kickoff
Thursday, September 10
5:30 – 7:30 pm
Marvin Center 308
Register
Entrepreneur Workshop: Where Do I Start?
Wednesday, September 16
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Marvin Center 311
Register
Life's a Pitch
Wednesday, September 23
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Duques Hall 453
Register
Entrepreneur Workshop: International Students
Wednesday, September 30
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Marvin Center 405
Register
GWERT 100 Mentor Match-up
Thursday, October 8
5:30 – 8:30 pm
1957 E Street, City View Room (7th Floor)
Register