Faculty News
Research:
Prof. Howie Huang (ECE), with his collaborators Profs. Chen Zhen (CCAS/Physics) and Raja Mazumder (SMHS/Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), was awarded a CCAS Dean’s Interdisciplinary Collaboration Excellence (DICE) Award. This cross-disciplinary project, titled “Build a Computational Biodefense Platform,” proposes a new computational strategy that targets the host protein complexes that a virus desperately needs, in order to shut down the virus and reduce the odds of forming drug-resistant strains. As we know, viruses pose a serious threat to public health, and worse still, when targeted directly, they can evolve into drug-resistant strains because they mutate very quickly. In contrast to traditional therapeutics, in which viral proteins are targeted directly for drug discovery, this project aims to develop a comprehensive and effective biodefense platform against any virus via a combined effort in high performance computing, large-scale biomolecule simulations, and complex network analysis.
Publications:
Prof. David Broniatowski (EMSE) has published a paper with colleagues from Johns Hopkins University. The paper citation is: D. A. Broniatowski, M. Dredze, M. J. Paul, and A. Dugas, “Using Social Media to Perform Local Influenza Surveillance in an Inner-City Hospital: A Retrospective Observational Study,” Journal of Medical Internet Research: Public Health and Surveillance, Vol. 11, No. 1.
Prof. Leila Farhadi (CEE) has published the following paper with research scientists at NASA Goddard: L. Farhadi, R. H. Reichle, G. J. M. De Lannoy, and J. S. Kimball, “Assimilation of Freeze/Thaw Observations into the NASA Catchment Land Surface Model,” Journal of Hydrometeorology, 16(2), 730-743, doi:10.1175/JHM-D-14-0065.1.
Prof. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) has published the following paper: J. Kuan, S. Rombe-Shulman, and E. Shittu, “The political economy of technology adoption: The case of Saharan salt mining,” The Extractive Industries and Society, April 2015, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pages 328-338.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. David Broniatowski (EMSE) presented three talks at the 2015 IIE Annual Conference and Expo, held in Nashville, TN. On June 1, he gave the following two talks: 1) “Expert Teams and Shared Knowledge Networks: Review and Future Directions,” which was co-authored with Mark Avnet of Texas A&M University's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering; and 2) “Systems Risk Assessment: Better is the Enemy of Good,” of which he is the sole author. On June 2, he presented “Does System Architecture Drive Risk Perception?”
Professor Erica Gralla (EMSE) gave three presentations along with her co-authors at the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) conference, held May 8-11 in Washington, DC: 1) “Problem Formulation and Solution Mechanisms: A Behavioral Study of Humanitarian Transportation Planning,” with Jarrod Goentzel and Charles Fine of MIT; 2) “Processes and Models for Locating and Sizing FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Centers,” with first author Julia Moline of FEMA and Jarrod Goentzel of MIT; and 3) “Implementing Operational Standards in Decentralized Humanitarian Organizations through Process Mapping,” with first author Jarrod Goentzel of MIT and Ira Haavisto of Hanken.
On June 3, Prof. Tianshu Li (CEE) gave an invited seminar at Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory. The seminar was titled “Gaining insight into the nucleation of ice and hydrates by advanced molecular simulations.”
On June 2, Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE) presented a paper co-authored with two of his Ph.D. students, Bin Zhang and Jingjing Yang, at the ASME 34th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE2015) in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. The presentation was titled “A high-order computational framework for large eddy simulations of rotating/oscillating wing wind- or hydro-power generator.”
Other News:
Four electrical engineering students from Keimyung University in South Korea will visit Prof. Larry Bennett (ECE) on July 16 to discuss magnetic cooling with him.
An abstract by Prof. David Broniatowski (EMSE) was presented at the 3rd International Conference on Digital Disease Detection, held May 18-22 in Florence, Italy. The title of the talk was “Tracking Public Awareness of Influenza through Twitter.”
Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE) wrote the forward to a new publication, Enterprise Cybersecurity: How to Build a Successful Cyber Defense Program Against Advanced Threats . The four authors of this book include two alumni of the EMSE information security program: Chris Williams (MS 2013) and Abdul Aslam (MS 2013). As noted in the forward, “Cybersecurity as a problem area is one that we can expect to grow and it is everyone’s concern. Simply knowing where to start is valuable knowledge. Understanding how to start, continue, and improve is even better. Here’s to the hope that enterprises, large and small, benefit from this compilation of knowledge and strategy.”
Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) recently published a commentary in the Journal of Nanophotonics. His commentary reflects on the status and outlook of materials development within the field of nanoscale photonics and optics. V. J. Sorger, “Editorial,” Nanophotonics, 4, 1, 1 (2015), DOI 10.1515/nanoph-2015-0001.
Dissertation Defenses
Student’s Name: Damon Conover
Dissertation Title: “Fusion of reflectance and x-ray fluorescence imaging spectroscopy data for the improved identification of artists’ materials”
Wednesday, June 17
Advisor: Prof. Murray Loew (ECE)
2:00 – 4:00
SEH, B1220