February 3-9, 2014

Newsletter

February 3, 2014

Faculty News

Media Mentions:

Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE) appeared on CNN on January 29, giving his insights on the Atlanta traffic breakdown that was caused by the snow storm that hit the southeast U.S. the previous day. Video link

Prof. Lorena Barba (MAE) was interviewed for Campus Technology’s January 15 article, “How to Make the Most of the Flipped Classroom.”

Publishing:

“A Theory of Information Quality and its Implementation in Systems Engineering,” a paper co-authored by Michael Grenn (adjunct professor, EMSE) and Profs. Shahram Sarkani (EMSE) and Thomas Mazzuchi (EMSE), is available from the IEEE Systems Journal via early access on IEEE Xplore (Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSYST.2013.2290737). 

Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE) recently published the second journal article in a series with his colleagues at Stanford University: S. Premasuthan, C. Liang, and A. Jameson. “Computation of Flows with Shocks Using the Spectral Difference Method with Artificial Viscosity: Part II,” Modified Formulation and Local Mesh Refinement, 2014, Computers & Fluids.

Prof. Thomas Mazzuchi (EMSE) and doctoral candidate Emmanuel Donkor, together with their collaborators—Refik Soyer (GWSB) and Alan Roberson (AWWA)—have published the following article: E. Donkor, T. Mazzuchi, R. Soyer, and A. Roberson. “Urban Water Demand Forecasting: Review of Methods and Models,” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 140(2), 146–159.

Prof. Rumana Riffat (CEE) has published the following journal article with her doctoral student: S. Aynur, R. Riffat, and S. Murthy. “Efficiency of Autothermal Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion under Two Different Oxygen Flow Rates,” Water Environment Research, 86, 1, 87-96.

Profs. Shahram Sarkani (EMSE) and Thomas Mazzuchi (EMSE) and their graduate student Jessica Ryan have published the following article: J. Ryan, S. Sarkani, and T. A. Mazzuchi. “Leveraging Variability Modeling Techniques for Architecture Trade Studies and Analysis,” Systems Engineering. Vol. 17, No 1, 2014, pp. 10-25.

Prof. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) has published the following article: C. Weigelt and E. Shittu. “Being held back by the old: Incumbent inertia and renewable energy technologies,” Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management, Academy of Management Proceedings 2013 2013:1 14374; doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2013.138. 

Profs. Lijie Grace Zhang (MAE) and Michael Keidar (MAE) have published the following paper: M. Wang, X. Cheng, W. Zhu, B. Holmes, M. Keidar and L.G. Zhang. “Design of Biomimetic and Bioactive Cold Plasma Modified Nanostructured Scaffolds for Enhanced Osteogenic Differentiation of Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells,” Tissue Engineering Part A, doi:10.1089/ten.tea.2013.0235.

Conference & Presentations:

On February 14, Prof. Claire Monteleoni (CS) will give the invited talk “A Semi-Supervised Learning Approach to Differential Privacy” at the 2014 Information Theory and Applications Workshop, which is being organized by UC San Diego. Her talk is based on the paper of the same title, with authors Geetha Jagannathan, Claire Monteleoni, and Krishnan Pillaipakkamnatt (Hofstra University). Geetha Jagannathan is a visiting scholar at GW in the CS Department.

Other News:

NVIDIA Inc. has recognized Prof. Lorena Barba’s (MAE) research program by selecting GW as a 2014 CUDA Research Center. The award includes equipment donation, special pricing, designated NVIDIA personnel for technical liaison, live online training tailored to GW, and early access to new hardware releases.

Guest Vignette

Universities have teaching centers to serve as a resource for faculty, and to help faculty adopt new modes of teaching (online), effective techniques (active learning), and generally, promote best practices in teaching. GW's center is called the Teaching and Learning Collaborative (TLC), both to signify that teaching (the professor's role) and learning (the student's role) are equally important, and to underscore its philosophy that best practices often come about through collaboration amongst faculty.

Professor Rahul Simha, a founding member of the TLC and its faculty lead, currently runs several of its programs including the Faculty Learning Community for Junior Faculty (FLC-Jr), the Peer-Reviewed Explorations in Teaching program, the TLC's Faculty Advisory Board, and the recent NSF-funded GW Reform and Advancement of STEM-education Practices (GRASP) program. The GRASP project, in particular, brings together more than 18 faculty from GW's STEM departments to promote evidenced-based pedagogical practices in undergraduate STEM courses, as well as to find ways to improve retention, recruit students from underrepresented minorities, and develop assessment instruments for student learning and student attitude towards STEM careers.  (Provided courtesy of Prof. Rahul Simha of the Department of Computer Science)

SEAS Events

ECE Colloquium: “Controlling Latency in the Cloud”
Speaker: Dr. Indra Widjaja, IEEE Fellow, Bell Labs
Monday, February 3
2:00 – 3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall

MAE and GW Institute of Nanotechnology Seminar: “Touching the Bottom -the Smallest Metallic Nanorods Using PVD”
Speaker: Dr. Hanchen Huang, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University
Tuesday, February 4
11:00 am
736 Phillips Hall

ECE Colloquium: IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecture Series 2014, “Opportunities and Challenges in Two-Dimensional Magnetic Recording”
Speaker: Jonathan Coker, HGST, a Western Digital Company
Wednesday, February 5
2:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall

CS Colloquium: “Measurement Study of Video Call Applications”
Speaker: Dr. Yong Liu, New York University
Friday, February 7
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall

MAE Seminar: “Drag Augmentation via Supersonic Retropropulsion for Atmospheric Deceleration”
Speaker: Dr. Noel Bakhtian, U.S. Department of Energy
Tuesday, February 11
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall

8th Annual SEAS Student Research & Development Showcase
Wednesday, February 19
12:00 – 3:00 pm (Poster set-up, Judging)
  3:00 – 6:00 pm (Opens to the public)
Marvin Center Grand Ballroom
More info
Note: All guests (faculty, staff, students, alumni and others) must RSVP to attend the Showcase.  Student contestants and their mentors will receive separate instructions for registering for the Showcase.

The Engineers’ Ball: A night of fine dining, dancing, and celebrating our engineering faculty, staff and students
Saturday, February 22
Cocktail Reception: 6:30 pm
Dinner & Dancing: 7:30 pm
Tickets are available in Tompkins 104

  • Engineering undergrad $30
  • Non-engineering undergrad $35
  • Faculty, staff, grad students $40

Questions? Contact E-Council at: [email protected]

Society of Women Engineers (SWE): Networking Night for Students, Faculty, and Alumni
Wednesday, February 26
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Duques Hall, 6th Floor
Register
The evening provides a relaxed setting for the SEAS community to socialize and network.  Refreshments will be served. Guests who register online before February 12 have the opportunity to purchase the 2014 SWE tee shirt when registering.

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

Engineering Career Fair & Panel
A career and networking fair exclusively for SEAS students, alumni and employers
Thursday, February 20
6:00 – 6:45 pm: Q&A Panel (Student RSVP Required)
7:00 – 9:00 pm: Career & Networking Fair
GW Marvin Center Grand Ballroom

Entrepreneurship Events

Entrepreneurial Session 7: Writing a Successful Business Plan (with John Rollins)
Wednesday, February 5
5:10 – 7:00 pm
353 Duques Hall

Other Events

Panel: “How Do I Become A Leader in Sustainability?”
Tuesday, February 4
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Alumni House (1918 F Street, NW)
This panel of distinguished alumni leaders in the areas of green business, energy, and sustainability will discuss their roles and answer your questions about the opportunities to work in this field. A reception will follow. This event is open to students and alumni. Space is limited.
Registration & panelists info

Strategies for Interdisciplinary Publishing Success Panel: “Writing and Publishing in Cybersecurity”
Wednesday, February 12
12:00 noon – 1:30 pm
702 of Gelman Library
Scholars and experts from multiple disciplines, as well as government and industry, will address topics related to research, authorship, and publishing.

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