Faculty News
Research:
Dr. Taeyoung Lee (MAE) recently received two research grants. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research awarded him a three-year, $600,000 grant for the project “Uncertainty Quantification, Estimation, and Optimal Control for Stochastic Hybrid Systems on a Manifold.” The project aims to construct an intrinsic framework of stochastic analysis for complex dynamical systems undergoing both continuous stochastic processes and discrete random transitions on a manifold. The award includes a subcontract of $282,137 to his co-investigator, Dr. Leok (Department of Mathematics, University of California, San Diego). Separately, the National Science Foundation awarded Dr. Lee a three-year, $260,895 grant for his project “Dynamics and Control of Long Range Micro Air Vehicles Inspired by Monarch Butterflies.” The goal of this project is to study the biomechanics of the monarch butterfly—which exhibits the longest flight range among insects—and utilize them in the design and control of flapping-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
Dr. Pedro Silva (CEE) and his collaborator, Dr. Rigoberto Burgueno (Michigan State University), have received three-year grants totaling $400,000 and $330,000, respectively, from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation. The grants will support their project, “Collaborative Research: Self-Centering Pendulum Shear Walls in Buildings via Nonlinear Elastic Kinematics.” Drs. Silva and Burgeuno propose to test Dr. Silva’s hypothesis that changing the interface between a wall and its footer from a flat surface to a curved surface will increase the amount of energy that can be dissipated during an earthquake, thereby limiting damage to the wall and deformations to the building from the earthquake.
Media Mentions:
Dr. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) is one of 20 engineering faculty across the country highlighted in the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism article “Early Risers: 20 High-Achieving Researchers and Educators Under 40.” The article was published in the magazine’s Summer 2018 issue. (Article available online to ASEE members only)
Publications:
Dr. Muhtar Ahart (CEE), Dr. Russell Hemley (CEE), and their colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory have published the following article: T. C. Ransom, M. Ahart, R. J. Hemley, and C. M. Roland. “Acoustic properties and density of polyurea at pressure up to 13.5 GPa through Brillouin scattering spectroscopy," Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 123, Issue 19. The article was selected as the Editor’s Pick for that issue of the journal. Drs. Ahart and Hemley are affiliated with CEE’s Institute of Materials Science, and their work is supported by the Capital/Department of Energy Alliance Center (CDAC) at GW.
Dr. David Broniatowski (EMSE) has published the following journal article: D. A. Broniatowski, E. Y. Klein, L. May, E. M. Martinez, C. Ware, and V. F. Reyna. “Patients’ and Clinicians’ Perceptions of Antibiotic Prescribing for Upper Respiratory Infections in the Acute Care Setting,” Medical Decision Making, Vol. 38, Issue 5.
Dr. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) and the team of undergraduate EMSE students who participated in the 2017 Pelton Award for Outstanding Senior Project have published a journal article based on the team’s senior design project. The students are: Dor Hirsh Bar Gai, Zachary Graybill, and Paule Voevodsky. The citation is: D. H. Bar Gai, Z. Graybill, P. Voevodsky, and E. Shittu. “Evaluating scenarios of locations and capacities for vaccine storage in Nigeria,” Vaccine, Vol. 36, Issue 24, pp. 3505–3512, May 2018.
Conferences & Presentations:
On May 15, Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE) gave an invited talk at the Jupyter Popup DC event, organized by O’Reilly Media and held in the GW Marvin Center. Her talk was titled “Flipped Learning with Jupyter: Experiences, Good Practices, Supporting Research.” (View the slides)
Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE) served as the general chair of the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on the Cluster, Cloud, and Grid Computing, held May 1-4 in Washington DC. Approximately 200 people participated in the conference, which had a very selective program and a 20 percent acceptance rate of submitted research papers. The conference included plenary talks by some of the field’s luminaries and a discussion panel on the future of high-performance computing by key leaders from: the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Cornell University; the University of Chicago; the University of Maryland; the National Security Agency; the National Science Foundation; the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA); and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As a member of the conference steering committee, Dr. El-Ghazawi also held a meeting during the conference to discuss the future plans of the conference series.
Dr. Russell Hemley (CEE) was an invited speaker at the international symposium “Superconductivity and Pressure: A Fruitful Relationship on the Road to Room Temperature Superconductivity,” held May 21-22 in Madrid, Spain. The title of Dr. Hemley’s lecture was “Progress on Hydride, Superhydride, and Hydrogen Superconductors," and during the lecture, he presented the first evidence for superconductivity near room temperature (i.e., 260° K). The research he presented was conducted by his team at SEAS and supported by the two Department of Energy-funded centers at GW, Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments (EFree) and the Capital/Department of Energy Alliance Center (CDAC).
Other News:
EdSurge featured Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE) in the May 24 article “A Case for Flipping Learning—Without Videos.” The article is part of the EdSurge Guide, “21st Century Teaching,” a project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) has been elected to serve as an associate editor for the IEEE Industry Applications Society - Energy Systems Committee.
Student News
BME doctoral student Frederick Zasadny has received a prestigious pre-doctoral research fellowship from the American Heart Association for his project, “Rapid spectral mapping of ventricular absorbance to quantify homeostatic energetics in failing hearts.” The fellowship will provide $53,700 over two years for Frederick to conduct his research under the mentorship of his research advisor, Dr. Matthew Kay (BME).
BME undergraduate Shirali Nigam has received a GW Undergraduate Research Award to study the structure and function of cardiac neurons in transgenic mice, using optogenetics and two-photon microscopy. She will conduct her research under the mentorship of Dr. Matthew Kay (BME).
Other News
On May 24, SEAS alumni discussed blockchain and cyber security on Beverly Allen's podcast “Practical Security” on Arlington community radio station WERA 96.7. Ms. Allen hosts the weekly show. She invited Cynthia Gayton (EMSE professorial lecturer) and Amit Garg to talk about this new technology and related security issues. Ms. Allen and Mr. Garg hold graduate degrees from GW in systems engineering and engineering management, respectively.
GW Today featured SEAS alumna and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, BS ’97, in its May 31 article, “GW Alumna Prepares for International Space Station Mission. Dr. Auñón-Chancellor and her crewmates will launch for the ISS on June 6. See the details of the SEAS launch viewing event below.
SEAS Events
NASA Astronaut & SEAS Alumna Serena Auñón-Chancellor Space Launch Event
Wednesday, June 6
7:00 – 8:30 am
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
Register
Come watch the live stream launch of NASA astronaut and SEAS alumna Dr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor to the International Space Station. Official launch time is 7:12 am. Refreshments will be provided.
Entrepreneurship News & Events
Dolphin Tank
Thursday, June 28
Deadline to apply to pitch: Thursday, June 7
Join us for the 2nd Springboard Dolphin Tank event with BEACON, the community-led campaign to make Washington, DC the #1 city for women entrepreneurs!