Faculty News
Awards & Honor:
Prof. Gabriel Parmer (CS)) has been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation's CAREER award for his work on a reliable operating system for embedded systems. The system, called C3, assumes that faults within the computational system will happen and provides novel techniques for reincarnating faulty parts of the system. This will prevent software faults from making embedded systems ranging from those controlling airplanes and cars to medical equipment.
Research:
Prof. Tianshu Li (CEE) has received a two-year, $119,288 grant from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a collaborative proposal with an international team composed of 14 scientists from the U.S. and Europe. The team is affiliated with the "physics and chemistry of carbon" directorate of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), created by the Geophysical Laboratory at Carnegie Institute of Washington. The team will carry out experimental and theoretical investigations of thermochemical properties of carbon bearing systems in the deep earth mantle. As the single PI at GW, Prof. Li will focus on developing theoretic tools for understanding the crystallization and growth of carbon bearing phases and minerals. As part of this effort, he was invited to attend the DCO science advisory committee meeting at the Carnegie Institution of Washington on February 8 and 9. The meeting brought the four DCO Scientific Steering Committees (Deep Energy, Deep Life, Physics and Chemistry of Carbon, and Reservoirs and Fluxes) and DCO executive committees together and discussed the strategic plans for the DCO over the next eight years.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE) participated in the National Evacuation Conference held in New Orleans, LA, February 7-9. He chaired the " Impact of Social Media" session and presented his paper, " Vehicular Use During Extreme Events: Behavioral Patterns vs. Network Performance during Flooding.""
Students News
More than 45 SEAS undergraduate students from Gamma Beta Chapter attended the 2012 Spring Regional Conference of Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity in Blacksburg, VA, February 3-5. They joined more than 150 other students representing Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, Old Dominion, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and UNC-Charlotte. The students met on Saturday to exchange ideas on improving their programs and activities and to hear updates on the state of the fraternity nationwide. The day was topped off by a professional dinner that gave additional opportunities to meet with students from the other schools.
Other News
Nominations for the 2012 SEAS Excellence Awards for Teaching and Research are due by Friday, February 17th. The criteria and nomination forms for each of the awards are posted on the SEAS website at:
- SEAS Distinguished Teacher Award for Full Professors and Associate Professors
- SEAS Outstanding Young Teacher Award for Assistant Professors
- SEAS Researcher Awards (the Distinguished Researcher and Outstanding Young Researcher awards share the same nomination form)
The awards will be announced by mid-March, and shortly after that, Dean Dolling will host an awards ceremony, at which each recipient will receive a $5,000 cash award and a commemorative plaque.
Guest Vignette
What do information security and archaeology have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out. Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE) was recently invited to participate in an NSF-funded workshop at Idaho State University on the development of virtual repositories to support global research efforts in archaeological science. The need to develop virtual repositories is acute, particularly when dealing with artifacts that may have multiple ownership claims or where elements of collections are physically very distant. The goal of creating virtual repositories is meant to alleviate the researcher's dilemma of attempting to manage scarce resources, such as time and travel money. There are additional benefits to virtual repositories as well, such as the ability to examine artifacts in false light, internally, and over compressed time lapse scales. The overlay of augmented reality aspects brings new tools to bear on the study of the artifacts as well. But whenever information is gathered together, security considerations come as well. The Virtual Repository Workshop brought together experts in many domains to address the various design needs of virtual repositories. A final report from the workshop is being compiled from all the inputs and is expected to be published this year. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Julie Ryan, chair of the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering)
SEAS Events
CSPRI Seminar: "The End of K Street Deals?: Is Netizen Direct Lobbying the New Norm?"<
Wednesday, February 15
12:00 pm (Lunch at 1:00 pm)
302 Marvin Center
MAE Seminar: "The Evils of Symmetry and Other Lessons Learned from High-Fidelity Nuclear Energy Simulations"<
Dr. W. David Pointer, Argonne National Laboratory
Thursday, February 16
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
Engineers Week
University Seminar on Technology in Emergency Carer
Tuesday, February 21
5:00 - 7:00 pm
405 Marvin Center
SAVE THE DATE: SEAS Student R&D Showcase
Monday, February 27
3:00 - 6:00 pm
Marvin Center Grand Ballroom
MAE Seminar: "Autonomy is Overrated: Towards Shared Human-Machine Control for Vehicles and Other
Mechanical Systems"
Karl Iagnemma, Principal Research Scientist, Mechanical Engineering, MIT
Tuesday, February 28
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
Save the Date: SEAS Graduation Celebration
Friday, May 18
7:30 pm
Smith Center (a reception in the Marvin Center Ballrooms precedes the event)
Entrepreneurship Events
Incentives for Your High Tech Business in the District:
How the DC High Tech Incentive Program Can Help You Grow Your Business
Friday, February 24
12:30-2:00 pm
Startup DC Student Career Expo
Monday, March 5
1:00 - 4:00 pm
Marvin Center, 3rd Floor