Faculty News
Publications:
Profs. Chunlei Liang and Michael Plesniak (both of MAE) published the following paper with their doctoral student, Mr. Christopher Cox: C. Liang, C. Cox, M. Plesniak. “A Comparison of Computational Efficiencies of Spectral Difference Method and Correction Procedure via Reconstruction,” Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 239, pp 138-146.
Conferences and Presentations:
Prof. Rumana Riffat (CEE) gave an invited presentation titled "Small Scale Sewage Treatment and Wastewater Reuse System for Pakistan" at the Pakistan-United States Science and Technology Symposium, held in Islamabad, Pakistan, January 31 - February 1. During her stay, she was interviewed by a local TV channel (PTV World) and participated in a local radio program (Tea Time with Kellee), elaborating on her USAID funded collaborative project with Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.
Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE) served as a panelist at the AAAS 2013 annual meeting, held February 14-18 in Boston, MA. The panel, “Democratizing Science: Virtualization and Global Natural History Depositories,” addressed the “growing need in interdisciplinary and collaborative academic pursuits to create multi-level access, virtual repositories, and scientific cyber-infrastructures that will allow researchers to access, integrate, and mine diverse collections and data assemblages at scales not currently possible within current research paradigms.” The effort stemmed from an NSF-funded workshop that brought together archaeologists, anthropologists, hominid-paleobiologists, and museum curators to discuss the promise and challenges associated with creating virtual repositories of artifacts. Prof. Ryan and her colleague, Corey Schou of Idaho State University, assisted the scientists with understanding the security design issues associated with virtual repositories.
Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) gave an invited talk titled "Lambda-size Silicon-based Modulator" at the SPIE Photonics West annual meeting in San Francisco, CA, on February 5.
Prof. Lijie Grace Zhang (MAE) gave the following two conference presentations at the ASME Nano Engineering for Medicine & Biology Congress, held February 3-6 in Boston, MA: 1) B. Holmes, N. Castro, J. Li and L. Zhang. “Development of a Biomimetic Electrospun Microfibrous Scaffold with Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes for Cartilage Regeneration,” and 2) M. Wang, S. Fu, and L. Zhang. “Biomimetic Three-Dimensional Tissue Engineered Nanostructured Bone Model for Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis Study.”
Student News
Huachuan Wang (MAE), a doctoral student of Prof. Yongsheng Leng, won an Outstanding Paper Award in the graduate student paper competition at the 2013 ASME Global Congress on Nano Engineering for Medicine and Biology. She also won the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Chemical Physics New Investigator Travel Award, which will support her to present a paper at the APS March Meeting.
The GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 GWIBE Undergraduate Research Fellowship:
Gillian Costa: "Deformable Cardiac Sensor to Directly Measure Mechanical Functionality" (Mentors: Profs. Zhenyu Li and Matthew Kay)
Darwin Rinderer: "3D Inkjet Bioprinting of a Bioactive Biomimetic 3D Scaffold for Osteochondral Regeneration" (Mentor: Prof. Lijie Grace Zhang)
Other News
On February 11, GW and SEAS hosted SEAS alumna and NASA astronaut Serena Aunon (BS ’97) for a visit back to campus. During her visit, Dr. Aunon met with faculty and administrators of SEAS, the GW School of Medicine, and GW School of Public Health and Health Services, and was provided a tour of the SEH site. She later had a luncheon meeting with the Clark Scholars, and she closed off the visit as the guest speaker for the program “How Do I Become an Astronaut?” During the program, which took the format of a conversation, Dr. Aunon answered a series of questions posed by Dean Dolling and then later answered questions from the audience. A GW Today article on the program is available, as is a video.
On February 14, the GW Hatchet published an article on the recent surge in computer science enrollment at GW and the factors that account for it.
Guest Vignette
The advancement of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) continues to be a concern for academia and for our nation. Typically fewer than 20% of the faculty and even fewer academic leaders are women. Most of my NSF grants have been devoted to addressing this problem, primarily with FORWARD to Professorship, a series of national workshops designed for faculty development.
Having a sabbatical is a chance to deepen research and course developments without too many distractions. That was what I was hoping for when I applied for a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship. I received interesting invitations from a few countries and decided to work with the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and one of the Slovenia’s few senior women scientists.
I arrived knowing only my host and not having a complete idea of what I would do or how we would establish a research project. But in good time I was off and running. First I gave a talk at the Pregel colloquium, their premier colloquium named for the Slovenian Nobel prize chemist, Fritz Pregel. That talk generated one newspaper article in the science section of the national paper and two more invitations to speak on the subject of women in STEM, one at the university in Koper, Slovenia, and one public lecture sponsored by the Rotary Club of Ljubljana.
The next step was to establish a research project. In 1999, the MIT study laid the groundwork and benchmarks related to the resources afforded women and men in academic institutions in science. Other studies have examined the climate for women, especially in departments where there are few women. We agreed to create a survey to gather baseline information here in Slovenia. But how to find participants for the study? Universities and institutes do not readily list all of the professionals and even where they do, this would require brute force to gather the contacts. It turned out that the secretaries had heard about our dilemma and provided the emails.
The survey was launched and we have begun to collect the first-ever data concerning the status of women scientists in Slovenia. News of the survey traveled quickly and we have been invited by the European Union commission on the status of women to share our results with them. While my time in Slovenia is coming to an end, the first phase of our research project is almost done and we have plans to request financing to create a mentoring program and a series of workshops around the topic of advancing women in STEM. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Shelly Heller of the Department of Computer Science)
SEAS Events
SEAS Student R&D Showcase
Wednesday, February 20
3:00 - 6:00 pm
Marvin Center, Grand Ballroom
SEAS Engineering Expo: a career and networking fair exclusively for SEAS students, alumni and employers
Thursday, February 21
6:00 - 9:00 pm
GW Marvin Center
Schedule:
6:00 - 6:45 pm: Q&A Panel (RSVP Required) - Meeting room 309
7:00 - 9:00 pm: Career & Networking Fair - Continental Ballroom
ECE Faculty Candidate Colloquium: “End-to-End Research in Wireless Health”
Wenyao Xu, Ph.D. candidate, University of California, Los Angeles
Thursday, February 21
2:00 - 3:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
ECE Faculty Candidate Colloquium: “Development and Clinical Translation of Deformation Compensation Strategies for Image-guided Liver Surgery”
Dr. Amber Simpson, Research Fellow, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Friday February 22
2:00 - 3:00 pm
204 Rome Hall
MAE & Institute for Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series
J.D. Humphrey, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University
Friday, February 22
11:00 am
771 Rome Hall
ECE Research Blitz #2, Featuring Graduate Students
Monday, February 25
3:00 - 4:30 pm
405 Marvin Center
ECE graduate students will provide five-minute descriptions of their research projects. Topics include biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer engineering. GW faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students are invited. Refreshments will be served.
CS Colloquium: “Hardening Code without a Large Trusted Computing Base”
Dr. Greg Morrisett, Harvard University
Monday March 18
4:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
Dissertation Defenses
Name of Student Defending: Scott Steward
Title of Dissertation: "A Study of Business Preparedness Factors and Preparedness Measure Selection"
Advisor: Prof. Gregory Shaw
Tuesday, February 19
12:00 pm
1776 G Street, Conference Room 120
Name of Student Defending: Jeff Miller
Title of Dissertation: “Analysis and Process Model Development for Situation Awareness during Military Humanitarian Assistance Operations”
Advisor: Prof. Joseph Barbera
Monday, March 4
2:00 pm
1776 G Street, Conference Room 120