Faculty News
Research:
Prof. Erica Gralla (EMSE) is the GW PI on a four-year, $562,536 USAID grant to MIT for the project “Feed the Future Uganda Market System Monitoring Activity.” The project aims to develop methods to evaluate the extent of systemic change in agricultural markets and to implement the methods to monitor the results of USAID's value chain activities in Uganda. The MIT PI on the project is Prof. Jarrod Goentzel.
Media Mentions:
Pacific Standard quoted Prof. Poorvi Vora (CS) in the July 11 article “Why Can’t We Just Vote Online?”
The Chronicle of Higher Education quoted Prof. Lorena Barba (MAE) in the July 18 article “Under the Gun.”
Publications:
Prof. Michael Keidar (MAE) and his co-authors have published the following article: X. Fang, A. Shashurin, G. Teel, and M. Keidar. “Determining synthesis region of the single wall carbon nanotubes in arc plasma volume,” Carbon (2016), pp. 273-280. DOI information: 10.1016/j.carbon.2016.05.061.
Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) has published the following articles: 1) Z. Ma, M. Tahersima, S. Khan, and V. J. Sorger. “2D material-based mode overlap engineering in electro-optic modulators,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics (May 2016); 2) K. Liu, C. Zhang, S. Mu, S. Wang, and V. J. Sorger. “Trench-coupler based silicon Mach-Zehnder thermo-optic switch with flexible two-dimensional design,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters (June 2016); 3) H. Huang, K. Liu, and V. J. Sorger. “Re-analysis of single-mode condition for silicon rib waveguides at 1550 nm wavelength,” Journal of Lightwave Technologies (June 2016); and 4) M. Tahersima and V. J. Sorger. “Going thin: atomic-layered 2D materials for photon conversion,” Journal of Optics, special issue on roadmap on Optical Energy Conversion, (July 2016).
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. David Broniatowski (EMSE) served as a track chair for the SBP-BRIMS 2016 conference, held June 28-30 in Washington, DC. He also served as session chair for the military and intelligence applications session.
On July 11, Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) gave an invited talk at the IEEE Summer Topicals Conference, held in Newport Beach, CA. His work summarized a recent paper submission to Nature Communications that explored fundamental nanophotonics scaling laws. His team, in collaboration with Prof. Arka Majumdar (University of Washington), explored opto-electronic scaling laws for the first time. The study was motivated by realizing that in electronics (i.e. transistors) “smaller is better”; hence, the question was how opto-electonic devices perform (speed, power, footprint) when scaled down into the nano-regime. The talk was part of a special symposium focusing on optical computing and optical data processing. Separately, Prof. Sorger gave an invited talk at the AFOSR Annual Young Investigator Award Winner meeting, held June 20 in Arlington, VA. Here he showed the recent progress of his lab in regards to: a) atto-joule per bit efficient optoelectronics; b) optical information processing using nanophotonics; and c) SMART IoT (Internet-of-Things) devices.
On June 29, Prof. Timothy Wood (CS) gave an invited talk and led a discussion section on network function virtualization at the 9th Cloud Control Workshop, held in Stockholm, Sweden.
Student News
Dian Hu and Michael Smith, both doctoral students of Prof. David Broniatowski (EMSE), made presentations at the SBP-BRIMS 2016 conference, held June 28-30 in Washington, DC: 1) D. Hu and D. A. Broniatowski, “Designing a Crowdsourcing Tool to Measure Perceived Causal Relationships Between Narrative Events,” (poster presentation) in K. Xu, D. Reitter, D. Lee, and N. Osgood (Editors), SBP-BRIMS, Springer International Publishing, June 2016; and 2) M. C. Smith and D. A. Broniatowski, “Modeling Influenza by Modulating Flu Awareness,” (oral presentation) in K. Xu, D. Reitter, D. Lee, and N. Osgood (Editors), SBP-BRIMS, Springer International Publishing, June 2016.
On June 20, doctoral student Sundaresan Rajasekaran (CS) presented the paper “Scalable Cloud Security via Asynchronous Virtual Machine Introspection” at the USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing (HotCloud 2016). The paper was co-authored with CS students Zhen Ni, Harpreet Singh Chawla, and Neel Shah, and their advisor Prof. Timothy Wood.
Other News
From June 27 through 29, EMSE hosted CESUN 2016, the 5th International Engineering Systems Symposium. CESUN is the premiere academic conference in the burgeoning field of engineering systems, and it featured several high-profile keynote talks and presentations. Prof. Zoe Szajnfarber (EMSE) was the driving force behind hosting CESUN at GW, and several EMSE faculty and students presented their work at the conference. They include:
Workshops:
D. A. Broniatowski and C. S. Tucker. “The role of big data and associated theory in complex engineered systems.”
E. Gralla and Z. Szajnfarber. “Qualitative Field Research.”
J. Panchal and J. Crusan. “Experiments in Engineering Systems Research.”
Talks:
D. A. Broniatowski. “Flexibility Due to Decomposition and Abstraction in a Simulated Intermodal Transportation Network.”
A. Cox and Z. Szajnfarber. “Post-Production Change to Complex Systems.”
I. DeLuque and E. Shittu. “Investment Risk Mitigation Analysis of Energy Technology Deployments.”
H. D. Marti and D. A. Broniatowski. “Improving Expert Decision Making Processes on High Impact Low Probability Events.”
Z. Pirtle, A. Hamilton, and Z. Szajnfarber. “Engineering Model Independence: What Should Be the ‘Strategy of Model Building’ in Engineering Systems.”
C. Tobias, A. Azhar, J. Herrmann, and E. Gralla. “Problem decomposition by design teams: a study of facility design.”
Posters:
J. Crusan and Z. Szajnfarber. “Insights on Problem Complexity in Open Innovation.”
B. Greenberg and E. Gralla. “Impact of Network Structure on Disaster Response Information Sharing.”
D. Hu and D. A. Broniatowski. “Designing a crowdsourcing tool to understand the spread of online rumors using causal narrative networks.”
S. Marquart and Z. Szajnfarber. “Understanding the Burden of Oversight Related Activities.”
H. D. Marti and D. A. Broniatowski. “Measuring Emotional Dimensions on Twitter: A Case Study in Tracking Fear of the Flu.”
S. Mukherjee and Z. Szajnfarber. “Infusion Processes in Complex Systems with Architectural Uncertainty.”
J. H. Park and D. A. Broniatowski. “Cultural worldviews of technical expert committee for the aerospace industry.”
K. Rickard, J. Pines, and R. Van Dorp. “Modeling Hospital Operations: A Discrete-Event Simulation Approach to Reduce Emergency Department Crowding While Accounting for Provider Variation in Scheduling.”
M. C. Smith and D. A. Broniatowski. “Using Twitter to examine social rationales for vaccine refusal.”
A. Vrolijk and Z. Szajnfarber. “Do As I Mean, Not As I Say - Bolstering NASA's Decision-Making Processes by Understanding Public Input Solicitation.”
K. Walker and D. A. Broniatowski. “Worldviews of the medical device community.”
Awards:
S. Marquart and Z. Szajnfarber won first prize for their poster, “Understanding the Burden of Oversight Related Activities.”
H. D. Marti and D. A. Broniatowski won an honorable mention award for their poster, “Measuring Emotional Dimensions on Twitter: A Case Study in Tracking Fear of the Flu.”
Session Chairs:
Prof. David Broniatowski introduced Dr. Julian Goldman (keynote speaker), served as session chair for the Systems Architecture and Complexity session, chaired the Systems Architecture and Complexity panel, and served on a panel titled “Methodology in Engineering Systems.”
Prof. Royce Francis chaired a plenary session titled “Reinventing our Lifeline Infrastructure Services for the 21st Century.” He also served as track chair for the Infrastructure Systems track.
Prof. Erica Gralla served as track chair for the Humans in Engineering Systems track, chaired a panel on humans in engineering systems, organized the “Funding CESUN-style research” panel, served on the Methodology in Engineering Systems panel, and organized the inaugural CESUN Student Poster Competition.
Prof. Tom Mazzuchi and P. Herder (TUDelft) organized a panel discussion on graduate education in systems engineering.
Prof. Ekundayo Shittu co-chaired and served on a technology management and policy plenary session titled “National and Enterprise Innovation Policy.” He also served as track co-chair for the Technology Management and Policy track and chaired the Energy and Environmental Policy technical session.
Career Services Events
Intel Corp Information Session for Graduate Students
Thursday, August 11
4:00 – 6:00 pm
SEH, 2845
RSVP required via GWORK>Information Session>Intel
Join Intel Corporation representatives for an information session regarding the many opportunities for graduate students at Intel. Bring your resume and discuss the exciting opportunities for graduates with degrees in civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, chemistry, mechanical engineering, materials science, biochemistry, physics, optics, and more. For more information about the event, please contact [email protected].
Google Career Expo @ GW
Thursday, August 18
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
SEH, Atrium
RSVP required at: https://goo.gl/rSm0AK
Google will partner with GW to hold a career planning session for undergraduate students interested in any profession. They will offer résumé critiques, mock interviews, and career planning conversations.
Dissertation & Thesis Defenses
Student’s Name: Scott McQuade
MS Thesis Title: “Algorithms for Learning from Spatiotemporal Data”
Advisor: Prof. Claire Monteleoni (CS)
Friday, July 29
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
SEH, 2000B