Faculty News
Research:
Prof. Timothy Wood (CS) has received a one-year, $48,000 Google Faculty Research Award to support a collaboration with Haris Gavranovic of the International University of Sarajevo on optimizing the placement of applications in distributed data centers.
Media Mentions:
Prof. Lance Hoffman (CS) was quoted in the February 19 NerdScholar article, “NerdScholar Favorites: Cybersecurity Programs,” NerdScholar compiled a list of the top five cybersecurity programs in the country and named GW the "Best Location" for studying cybersecurity.
The February 21 Washington Post article, “Google's Project Tango: Five things you could do with a phone that maps your room,” mentions that GW is one of the 16 organizations with which Google is partnering to create the technology for Project Tango. Prof. Gabe Sibley's (CS) group is responsible for GW's role in the project. Through a $1.2 million grant from Motorola Mobility LLC, Prof. Sibley's group developed the code that runs on the phone for visual-inertial self calibration. Their software package "Calibu" defines the camera models Google uses. More information about Project Tango is available from Google and in this TechCrunch article.
Student News
EMSE doctoral student Iryna Payosova was interviewed on Voice of America Television about the potential environmental impacts of two large proposed Chinese developments in the Crimea region of Ukraine. Iryna is the graduate assistant for EMSE's Environmental and Energy Management program. Avideo of the interview was broadcast throughout Eastern Europe on February 16. Although the broadcast is in the Ukrainian language, an accompanying English transcript will appear if the link is opened in the Google Chrome web browser.
Other News
Make-up classes due to snow day closings: In mid-March, the Registrar's Office will set a definitive make-up schedule for cancelled classes. In the meantime, the likely make-up schedule is as follows:
- Tuesday, April 29: likely will be the make-up day for the classes cancelled on January 21.
- Wednesday, April 30: likely will remain a designated Monday. This means that classes that normally meet on Monday will be held that day.
- Thursday, May 1: likely will be converted from a reading day to a make-up day for the classes cancelled on February 13.
Guest Vignette
“Sea lion swimming: a model for hydrodynamically quiet swimming”
We want to determine a mechanism for underwater propulsion that leaves little traceable wake structure while producing high levels of thrust. A potential biological model is the California sea lion, a highly maneuverable aquatic mammal that produces thrust primarily with its fore flippers. To understand sea lion hydrodynamics, we must first characterize its kinematics. Previous efforts to do so, which inform this work, do not include quantitative descriptions of the relevant parameters for a detailed, controlled hydrodynamic study. At this time, we are conducting a comprehensive field study of the California sea lion at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC.
The California Sea lion relies predominantly on its fore flippers for thrust production. The large flippers move through the water in a clapping motion that ends with each flipper pressed against the animal’s torso. This flipper-based motion differs significantly from other large fish and marine mammals, which typically have a dominant oscillation frequency. Each clap is followed by a prolonged glide—particularly unusual for large, high thrust producing swimmers—and is assisted by the animal’s low drag coefficient. Using observational data that we digitize to track a single fore flipper, we are characterizing the complete kinematics of the sea lion clap. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Megan Leftwich of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
SEAS Events
Society of Women Engineers (SWE): Networking Night for Students, Faculty, and Alumni
Wednesday, February 26
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Duques Hall, 6th Floor
The GW student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers invites SEAS alumni, students, and faculty to their spring networking night. Meet new contacts and reconnect with familiar faces. Refreshments will be served.
CEE Seminar: “Emergent Metal-insulator Transition in Vanadates”
Speaker: Dr. Jiwei Lu, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia
Friday, February 28
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
CS Colloquium: “A Scalable Information-Centric Networking Architecture for the Future Internet”
Speaker: Dr. Hang Liu, Catholic University of America
Friday, February 28
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
CEE Seminar: “The Influence and Role of Technical Institutes in Advancing the Industry”
Speaker: William Nickas, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute
Tuesday, March 4
2:20 – 3:35 pm
359 Duques Hall
MAE Seminar: “From Molecular Recording to Biometallurgy: Applications of Synthetic Biology”
Speaker: Dr. Bradley Zamft, Harvard Medical School & Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy: US Department of Energy
Wednesday, March 5
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: “Filtered Two-fluid Models for Fluidized Gas-particle Suspensions”
Speaker: Professor Sankaran Sundaresan, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Princeton University
Wednesday, March 19
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: “Statistical Analysis and Simulation of Random Shock Waves in Burgers Turbulence”
Speaker: Professor Daniele Venturi, Division of Applied Mathematics, Brown University
Monday, April 7
1:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: “Modeling Inelastic Behavior of Metals at Multiple Scales for Multiple Purposes”
Speaker: Dr. David L. McDowell, Georgia Institute of Technology
Tuesday, April 8
11:00 am
736 Phillips Hall
Career Center Events
Spring 2014 Career & Internship Fair
Thursday, February 27
1:00 – 5:00 pm
Marvin Center Grand Ballroom
Entrepreneurship Events
Entrepreneurial Session 9: Getting Your Legal House in Order
Wednesday, March 5
5:10 – 7:00 pm
353 Duques Hall
Registration link not yet available
Other Events
GW-wide Big Data Town Hall Meeting
Led by the GW Task Force on Big Data
Tuesday February 25
1:00 – 4:30 pm
407 Marvin Center