February 20-25, 2018

Newsletter

February 20, 2018

Faculty News
Awards & Honors:
Dr. Murray Loew (BME) has been elected a Fellow of the SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. The SPIE's president announced the new Fellows at the Medical Imaging conference on February 12.

 

Research:
Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) is the principal investigator (PI) on a five-year, $750,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) award to establish a new Industry University Cooperative Research Center, focused on high-pressure plasma energy, agriculture, and biomedical technologies. Industry partners will contribute an additional $750,000 to the center over the next five years. This is the only such center that will be dedicated to plasma technologies, and it will contain additional sites at the University of Michigan and Drexel University. Co-PIs on the grant are Dr. Michael Plesniak (MAE), Dr. Grace Zhang (MAE), Dr. Taeyoung Lee (MAE), and Dr. Jonathan Sherman (MFA).

 

Media Mentions:
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quoted Dr. Claire Monteleoni (CS) in the February 13 article “AI and climate: On the “bleeding edge” with a pioneering researcher.’’

 

TRT World spoke to Dr. Kim Roddis (CEE) in the February 12 piece “The Trump Presidency: US infrastructure plan faces challenges.”

 

Publications:
Dr. Igor Efimov (BME) and Dr. Matthew Kay (BME) have published the following paper in Nature’s Scientific Reports: C. Gloschat, K. Aras, S. Gupta, N. R. Faye, H. Zhang, R. A. Syunyaev, R. A. Pryamonosov, J. Rogers, M. W. Kay, and I. R. Efimov. “RHYTHM: An Open Source Imaging Toolkit for Cardiac Panoramic Optical Mapping,” Scientific Reports, 8: 2921 (2018).

 

Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) participated in the National Science Foundation Workshop “Real-Time Learning and Decision Making in Dynamical Systems,” held February 12-13 in Alexandria, VA. The goal of the workshop was to have a group of leading experts who have complementary backgrounds (in the area of control, signal processing, machine learning, communication, power and energy, autonomous systems, etc.) shape the research paradigm that arises from many real-time, data-driven dynamical systems.

 

Other News:
Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) has recently been appointed to the following positions: 1) associate editor for the Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy, a peer-reviewed, open-access, and bimonthly journal sponsored by NARI (Nanjing Automation Research Institute); 2) committee member for the CIGRE Working Group on Power System Resilience; 3) IEEE Region 2 (Eastern United States) Representative for IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Young Professionals Committee; 4) secretary for IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Big Data Access Working Group, IEEE PES Subcommittee on Big Data and Analytics for Power Systems (Note: a GW-domain website will host all related activities); 5) session chair, Resilience of Electrical Power and Energy Networks, Joint 2nd IEEE Industrial and Commercial Systems (I&CPS) Europe and 18th IEEE Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), to be held June 12-15 in Palermo, Italy; and 6) Scientific Committee Member, International Engineering and Natural Sciences Conference, to be held November 14-17 in Diyarbakir, Turkey.

 

Student News
On February 11 and 12, Kristina Landino (BME) and Shuyue Guan (BME), advised by Dr. Murray Loew (BME), each presented a paper at the SPIE Medical Imaging conference, held in Houston, TX: 1) K. Landino and M. Loew. “Comparing salience detection algorithms in mammograms.” (presented by Kristina Landino); and 2) S. Guan, H. Asfour, M. Loew, N. Sarvazyan, and N. Muselimyan. “Lesion detection for cardiac ablation from auto-fluorescence hyperspectral images.” (presented by Shuyue Guan)

 

studentnews0220

 

On February 3, graduate students Elizabeth Manning (CEE) and Mojolaoluwa Ladipo-Obasa (CEE), advised by Dr. Rumana Riffat (CEE), participated in an outreach event organized by GW’s Department of Anthropology. The event included lab tours and experimental demonstrations for BePolished, a local group focused on empowering middle and high school aged girls from single parent homes in the Washington, D.C. area.

 

SEAS Computing Facility
The SEAS Computing Facility (SEAS CF) will hold a series of workshops covering a range of topics throughout the spring semester:

 

MATLAB Workshops: Fridays, 1:00 – 3:00 pm (Tompkins 405)
MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language used in various backgrounds of engineering, science, and economics. These workshops will cover the fundamentals of MATLAB programming.

  • February 23: Figures & 3D plotting
  • March 2: Linear equation & ODE solving

Register
Download MATLAB: students can download and install MATLAB on their personal computers

 

Solidworks Workshops: Fridays, 3:00 – 5:00 pm (Tompkins 405)
Solidworks is a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) computer program that enables engineers and architects to design, inspect, and manage engineering projects within an integrated graphical user interface. Through these workshops you will learn how to navigate the Soldiworks interface, create sketches, set up parametric relations, and create 3D models. You will create the different parts of a V6 internal combustion engine from scratch, assemble it, and see it come to life.

  • February 23: Special features
  • March 2: Assembly

Register
Download Solidworks: students can download and install Solidworks on their personal computers

 

Tutoring:
MATLAB and Solidworks tutoring will be offered throughout the spring semester in Tompkins 401 on the following days:

  • Wednesdays: 12:00 – 5:00 pm
  • Thursdays: 12:00 – 3:30 pm
  • Fridays: 5:00 – 6:00 pm

To schedule a tutoring appointment, please email [email protected]. The MATLAB and Solidworks workshops and tutoring will be hosted by SEAS graduate student Makan Payandehazad.

 

Introduction to Linux Workshop:
This semester’s Linux workshops will be held on Fridays from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in Tompkins Hall 411. They will be hosted by SEAS Computing Facility Systems Engineers Marco Suarez, Hadi Mohammadi, and Jason Hurlburt. Please email [email protected] with any questions or comments about the workshops.
Register

 

SEAS Events
ECE Seminar: “Data Science for Networks: a Graph Signal Processing Perspective”
Speaker: Dr. Santiago Segarra, MIT
Tuesday, February 20
10:45 – 11:45 am
SEH, B1220

 

A Conversation with Christine Darden
Tuesday, February 20
5:00 – 8:00 pm
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
Register
Join the GW Deans’ Council of Women in Technology for a conversation with GW alumna Dr. Christine Darden, D.Sc. '83, and a showing of the 2016 film Hidden Figures. Dr. Darden began her career at NASA as a data analyst and became known as one of NASA’s “human computers” in the 60s and 70s. Her story features in the 2016 bestseller, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Light refreshments will be served. This event is sponsored by the GW Innovation Center and the SEAS Diversity and Inclusion Initiative.

 

SEAS Student R&D Showcase
Wednesday, February 21
2:00 – 5:00 pm: Poster session opens to the public (SEH, Ground Level)
2:00 – 4:00 pm: Showcase voting*
3:30 – 4:30 pm: Buffet lunch
5:00 – 6:00 pm: Keynote address and awards presentation (SEH, Lehman Auditorium)
Register to attend
* Three Showcase Visitor’s Prizes will be given to Showcase visitors who correctly match the judges’ selections for the top prize R&D winners.

 

MAE Seminar: “Towards Greener Aviation with Python at Petascale”
Speaker: Dr. Freddie Witherden, Stanford University
Thursday, February 22
2:00 – 3:00 pm
SEH, B1220

 

ECE Seminar: “Deep Learning for Action and Event Analysis in Videos”
Speaker: Dr. Chen Chen, University of Central Florida
Friday, February 23
10:45 – 11:45 am
SEH, B1270

 

Engineers’ Ball
Saturday, February 24
Doors open at 6:45 pm; Dinner at 7:30 pm
The Washington Marriott Wardman Park
2660 Woodley Road, NW
Washington, DC

 

ECE Distinguished Lecture Series: “Enhancing the Resilience of Large-Scale Electric Grids”
Speaker: Dr. Thomas Overbye, Texas A&M University and a member of the National Academy of Engineering
Wednesday, February 28
1:00 pm
Marvin Center, Room 302 (reception to follow immediately after lecture)

 

Entrepreneurship News & Events
Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Thursday, February 22
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
1957 E Street, City View Room (7th Floor)
The one-day Entrepreneur Bootcamp provides the university community, including clinicians and scientific faculty in the process of—or considering—getting involved in a new venture, the opportunity to discuss the business, legal, and practical issues facing today’s technology entrepreneurs. Local experienced business entrepreneurs attend, so valuable entrepreneurial networking opportunities are part of the program. The bootcamp is presented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati law firm and GW’s Technology Commercialization Office. Please contact Amara Conteh for details and to RSVP.

 

Workshop: “Getting Your Legal House in Order”
Thursday, February 22
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW Innovation Center (Tompkins Hall, M06)
Guest speaker Peter Weissman will discuss common legal challenges faced by startup companies, from formation of the company to contractual and patent issues. From this talk, you will learn why it is important to have a company, how to identify the key differences between the various company structures, how to avoid common contract issues, and what steps need to be taken to protect your team’s valuable patents and trademarks. Peter Weissman is a patent attorney and partner at Blank Rome LLP, a GW NVC sponsor, and a GW Law alumnus.

 

GW Innovation Center: Innovation+Art+Design Mixer
Wednesday, February 28
6:00 – 9:00 pm
GW Innovation Center, (Tompkins Hall, M06)
Come meet interdisciplinary collaborators at our Innovation+Art+Design mixer. Please RSVP to Erica Wortham.

 

George Hacks: Medical Hackathon
Saturday & Sunday, March 24-25
Registration open now
George Hacks is a new student-led, 24-hour innovation competition at GW that is open to students from for all majors and is breaking from traditional hackathons meant for computer science majors. Pitches will address needs for patients battling cancer, medical and social innovation solutions for the aging community, and more! 100 participants will participate in teams of four that will compete for prizes! Please email [email protected] to receive registration information, to apply to be part of the student organization next year, or to volunteer for our inaugural event in March. For additional information, visit the georgehacks.org website. This event is sponsored by SEAS and GW’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

 

Dissertation Defenses
Student’s Name: Yongbo Li
Dissertation Title: “Pushing the Envelope of Mobile Computing: Improving Security, Energy, and Latency by Bridging the Gap between Analytical Modeling and System Design”
Advisor: Dr. Tian Lan (ECE)
Wednesday, February 21
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
SEH, 5845