February 18-23, 2020

Newsletter

February 19, 2020

Faculty News
Research:

Dr. Adam Aviv

Dr. Adam Aviv (CS) has received a $78,645 Google Faculty Research Award for the project “Security Assessment of In-App Authentication on Android.” The goal of this project is to study how Android app developers are deploying second-level authentication at the application level by performing a large measurement of the Android application marketplace, and performing developer studies and user studies for how users select this authentication and interact with different authentication implementations.

Dr. Leila Farhadi

Dr. Leila Farhadi (CEE) received a $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER award for the project “Observation-Driven Mapping of the Linkages between the Terrestrial Water, Energy and Carbon Cycles.” The exchange of heat (energy), water, and carbon between the land and the atmosphere plays a key role in the Earth’s climate. Understanding the links between these cycles helps us explain how the environment will respond to changing conditions, including climate change and land use change. Currently the lack of proper representation of the linkages results in a wide range of uncertainties and variations in simulated climate projections. Dr. Farhadi will use a novel observation-driven approach to diagnose and map the linkages at regional scales from the implicit (hidden) information embedded in land surface state observations, available through space-borne remote sensing data.

 

Conferences and Presentations:

Dr. Mahdi Imani

On January 31, Dr. Mahdi Imani (ECE) gave an invited talk titled “Scalable and Reliable Experimental Design: A Bayesian Perspective” at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

 

Other News:

Dr. Lorena Barba

Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE) was announced as the conference General Chair for JupyterCon 2020, the user and developer conference for Project Jupyter. The conference will take place August 10-14, in Berlin, Germany. You can read Dr. Barba’s post on the Jupyter Blog.

 

Other News

 

Dean Lach and Dr. Abron shaking handsDean Lach with Dr. Abron at the January 17, 2020 EEMI Board Meeting.

 

Dr. Lilia Abron, a long-time member of the Board of Advisors of the SEAS Environmental and Energy Management Institute (EEMI), recently was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional honors that can be bestowed on engineers. According to the press release announcing Dr. Abron's election, “Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature.” Dr. Abron will be formally inducted into the Academy during a ceremony to be conducted at the NAE's annual meeting in Washington, DC, on October 4.

 

GW Computer Science alumnus Michael Specter, now in the doctoral program at MIT, is the lead author of an important paper describing flaws in the internet voting system Voatz, which is featured in the February 13 New York Times article “Voting on Your Phone: New Elections App Ignites Security Debate.”

 

SEAS Computing Facility
MATLAB Workshops: The SEAS Computing Facility (SEASCF) will hold five MATLAB workshops this semester. The workshops will be held in Tompkins 406 from 12:00 to 2:00 pm on the following dates:

  • Sunday, February 23: Figures & 3D Plotting
  • Sunday, March 1: Linear Equation & ODE Solving
  • Sunday, March 8: Image Processing and Toolboxes

Register

 

MATLAB Office Hours: SEAS CF will also hold MATLAB open office hours throughout the Spring semester in Tompkins 406. Office hours are: Sundays (2:00 – 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. 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

E-Week Events:

 

NSBE: Black Renaissance Fair
Tuesday, February 18
7:00 pm
Elliott School, City View Room (1957 E Street, NW)

 

Trivia Night with ASME
Tuesday, February 18
8:00 – 9:00 pm
SEH, B1 Green Wall

 

Women in Engineering Panel: “The World Beyond College: What it's Really Like to Be a Female Engineer”
Wednesday, February 19
6:00 – 8:00 pm
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
RSVP
What is it really like to be a female engineer once you graduate? You’ll have a wonderful opportunity to learn all about it from our panel of experts, who will describe the challenges and opportunities in their careers, as well as a personal reflection on what it takes to succeed. Come and enjoy an engaging discussion with plenty of time allowed for your own questions and a networking reception following the one-hour panel discussion. Read about our panelists. Contact WiE if you have any questions.

 

Self-Care & Cookies
Thursday, February 20
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
SEH, 1st Floor Lobby

 

Edible Car Contest with SWE and WiE
Monday, February 24
6:00 – 7:30 pm
SEH, B1 Green Wall
Register

 

Professional Development Night with WiE
Tuesday, February 25
5:30 – 9:00 pm
SEH, B1 Green Wall
Mock interview registration

 

Research Open House and Mocktail Hour
Wednesday, February 26
10:00 am – 4:00 pm (Mocktails: 4:00 – 6:00 pm)
SEH, B1 Green Wall

 

GW AIAA: “A Panel Discussion on Climate Change: Engineering and Policy Issues”
Thursday, February 27
6:00 – 7:00 pm (Panel)
7:00 – 7:30 pm (Food, refreshments, and networking)
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
RSVP
Join AIAA for this E-Week discussion featuring esteemed panelists who are leading voices in addressing climate change from NASA, Earthrise Alliance, and Resources for the Future. Potential topics include the emerging policy and engineering landscape of climate change, and the economic incentives of solving climate change.

 

GW's STEM + Health Career Connection Fair
Friday, February 28
1:00 – 3:00 pm
Marvin Center
GW's STEM + Health Career Connection Fair is an excellent opportunity for undergraduate students to connect with potential employers from clinical research and science to biotech, engineering, and public health. Register on Handshake for the Fair and for the GW STEM+Health Symposium: Forecasting Professional Futures in Science, Technology, & Healthcare, held before the Fair, from 9:00 am to noon.

 

The Engineers' Ball
Saturday, February 29
6:30 – 11:30 pm
The Mayflower Hotel (1127 Connecticut Ave, NW)
Tickets are required. Ticket are $40/person for SEAS undergraduates; for all other guests they are $50/person. Tickets can be purchased with cash only at the SEAS Student Services Front Desk (SEH 2500) Monday-Friday, 9:30 am – 5:30 pm. Please email E-Council if you have any questions.

 

Other SEAS Events:

 

Python and Jupyter Study Hall Sessions
Every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the semester
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Academic Commons (Gelman Library, 2nd floor)
All students are welcome to visit the study hall sessions to get help with Python and Jupyter. These sessions were set up to support courses (MAE 1117 and MAE 2117) in engineering computations, but they are open to all SEAS students who want help with computational assignments or projects.

 

CS Lecture: “Blockchain Technologies and Applications Concept, Initiatives, Status, Problems, and Potential Solutions”
Speaker: Dr. Sead Muftic, CEO, BIX® System Corporation
Wednesday, February 19
4:30 – 6:00 pm
SEH, B1270
This is a special topic lecture for the CSCI 6548: E-Commerce Security course. To attend, please RSVP to Dr. Hurriyet Ok by February 18.

 

CSPRI Talk: “Leveraging the Cloud to Automate Threat Detection, Hunting and Mitigation Using Frameworks Like the NIST CSF and MITRE ATT&CK”
Speaker: Darren House, WWPS Specialty SA – Security, Amazon
Thursday, February 20
12:00 pm (An informal lunch will be served)
SEH, 2990
RSVP for lunch

 

MAE Seminar: “Towards Building a Robust Computational Framework and Software Engineering Process for Simulations of Multiphysics and Multiscale Problems”
Speaker: Dr. Lucy Zhang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Thursday, February 20
2:00 pm
Location correction: SEH, B1220

 

ECE Seminar: “Efficient Hardware Acceleration of Unsupervised Deep Learning”
Speaker: Ms. Fan Chen, Ph.D. candidate at Duke University
Friday, February 21
10:45 am
Marvin Center, Room 301

 

CS Lecture: “Using Virtual Reality to Visualize Disasters, Climate, and Extreme Weather Impacts”
Speaker: Shayna Skolnik, Navteca / NASA Headquarters Disaster Applications Group
Thursday, February 27
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Corcoran Hall, Room 103
This is a special topic lecture for the CSCI 6907 Augmented and Virtual Reality course. To attend, please RSVP to Dr. Hurriyet Ok by February 26.

 

BME Seminar: “iPSC-Derived Engineered Micro-Heart Muscle to Study the Relationship between Cardiomyopathy-Genotypes, Mechanical Loading and Arrhythmia”
Speaker: Dr. Nathaniel Huebsch, Washington University in St. Louis
Wednesday, March 11
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Marvin Center, Room 301

 

Entrepreneurship News & Events
2020 GW Startup Career & Internship Fair
Wednesday, February 19
12:00 – 2:30 pm
Marvin Center, Grand Ballroom
GW Registration
Non-GW Registration
Do you want to gain experience working with some of DC's top startups? Don't miss out on the largest gathering of startup employers in the DC area! The Startup Career & Internship Fair is a big event where some of the hottest startups along with hundreds of the most entrepreneurial students from the greater DC area gather to network for future internships and job opportunities.

 

Easy Financials for Startups Workshop
Thursday, February 20
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW I+E Lab
Register
Entrepreneurs are often stumped as to why investors expect financial projections for new startups even before the product is built and while the market is still being defined. Join us for an engaging workshop that will help student entrepreneurs and other innovators learn how to not only understand what it means to put together a startup's financial projections but also how to present this data in a way that will help you land more investments!

 

Dolphin Tanks: GWomen X Springboard
Session 1: Monday, February 24 | 6:00 – 8:00 pm | 740 15th St NW, Floor 9
Register | Meet the Presenters
Session 2: Wednesday, February 26 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm | GW Marvin Center, Room 302
Register | Meet the Presenters
Join our top GWomen innovators as they give their final pitches! Dolphin Tanks®, a friendly version of Shark Tanks, encourage the pitching of innovative ideas to a panel of friendly and seasoned industry experts. Selected students in the GWomen program will each deliver a 3-minute pitch showcasing their idea and will get feedback, connections, and strategies sourced from the room.

 

Creating a Business Model Canvas for Startups Workshop
Tuesday, February 25
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW I+E Lab
Register
Originally created by Alex Osterwalder, the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool. It gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a "back of the napkin" sketch. Join us for a hands-on workshop that will include a brief overview of the BMC, along with details about the nine key elements of a startup venture.

 

External Events
IDDP Event: “2020: A Disinformation Preview”
Speaker: Craig Silverman
Tuesday, February 18
3:00 – 4:00 pm
Lindner Family Commons, 1957 E Street, NW
More information
Drawing on more than a decade of experience researching and reporting on online influence and manipulation campaigns, Craig Silverman will reveal the threats we can expect, and highlight how journalists, researchers, and the public can rise to meet the challenge. Mr. Silverman is an award-winning journalist and author and one of the world's leading experts on online misinformation, fake news, and content verification. He is the media editor of BuzzFeed News, where he leads a global beat covering platforms, online misinformation, and media manipulation. This event is hosted by the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics.

 

Virtual Career Fair
Thursday, February 20
12:00 – 3:00 pm
Register
Are you looking for a paid STEM internship opportunity? If so, this event is for you! The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is hosting a virtual career fair to highlight the paid internships, fellowships, and research associate programs available to college students and recent graduates at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest U.S. Department of Energy science and energy laboratory!

 

RCR Workshop: Rigor and Reproducibility
Thursday, February 20
2:00 – 3:30 pm
Marvin Center, Room 310
RSVP
Increasingly, funding agencies, journal editors, and researchers themselves are encouraging the dissemination of reproducible research conducted in accordance with rigorous practices. This session will engage participants in a series of activities to identify and describe the concepts of rigor and reproducibility, familiarize themselves with current issues in reproducibility, learn best practices/common oversights for reproducible research, and highlight issues that may be experienced as a part of the scientific and publishing workflow. The discussion will be facilitated by GW Libraries and Academic Innovation’s Data Services Librarians Ms. Megan Potterbusch and Dr. Ann Myatt James. Anyone engaging in research or scholarly activity at GW, including undergraduate and graduate students, administrative staff, researchers, postdocs and faculty, is encouraged to attend.

 

Save the Date: GW Research Showcase
Tuesday, April 7
Charles E. Smith Center (600 22nd Street, NW)
The abstract submission form is open, and the deadline to apply is Monday, March 2. Find out more about the showcase.

 

Dissertation Defenses
Student’s Name: Reham Kaifi
Dissertation Title: “The Effect of Image Analysis on Intra- and Interobserver Reliability and Variability of Femoral Artery Pseudoaneurysm Measurements from B-mode Ultrasound Images”
Advisor: Dr. Vesna Zderic (BME)
Thursday, March 5
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
SEH, 5605

 

Student’s Name: Chong Liu
Dissertation Title: “A Machine Learning Method for Positioning in the 5G Cellular Networks”
Advisor: Dr. Hermann Helgert (ECE)
Thursday, March 5
2:30 – 3:30 pm
SEH, 5845

 

Human Resources News
HR Corner Hero

Please visit this week's HR Corner, where HR manager Marion Flythe-Inman shares the most recent GW HR news and updates regarding:

 

  • A new benefit available beginning July 2020
  • GW Buff and Blue Day
  • SEAS staffing updates
  • New SEAS employment opportunities
  • Benefits reminders