Faculty News
Research:
Prof. Evan Drumwright (CS) has received a three year, $330,000 grant from the Army Research Office for his project, “Adaptively Integrating Differential Complementarity Problems without Constraint Violation.” His project seeks to increase the accuracy of robotic simulations while reducing their running times.
Prof. Igor Efimov (BME) and his colleagues, Dr. Natalia Trayanova (Johns Hopkins University) and Dr. Julia Gorelik (Imperial College London), have received an $800,000 grant from Johns Hopkins University for their project, “Exploration of Arrhythmogenic Triggers and Substrates in Heart Failure.” Their project aims to develop novel therapeutic approaches to treat heart failure in humans.
Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE) has received a one-year, $126,428 US Department of Transportation award, titled “Active Transportation and Demand Management (ATDM) Application of Tools for Tactical and Strategic Decision-making for Operations; Data Collection and Research Plan.” Prof. Hamdar's research team will work with Battelle Inc. and under the supervision of the Federal Highway Administration to devise ATDM guidelines that help overcome “travelers' inertia” in a highly dynamic transportation environment.
Profs. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) and Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) head two of the three GW research teams led that recently were selected for the inaugural Duke Energy Renewables Innovation Fund Awards , a multi-year research grant program for energy research. Prof. Shittu heads the “Microgrid Financing: Challenges and Solutions” team, and Prof. LeBlanc heads the “Living Lab to Study Solar Farms” team. Prof. Shittu’s team will look at states like California, Connecticut, and New Jersey that have invested in microgrids to see what they can learn from their models, and they will assess financial barriers, technical design, and development of policies to support investment. Graduate students in Prof. LeBlanc’s Nanotechnology in Energy Applications course will travel to the Duke Energy Renewables solar farm in North Carolina this month for their project. They will study the soil type, catalogue the energy output, and analyze the design. They also will examine the system to see how the surrounding environment is affected by the change in land use and the economic costs associated with building the farm
Media Mentions:
Voice of America quoted Prof. Zhenyu Li (BME) in the March 13 article “New Life-saving Devices Quickly Identify Health Problems,’’ by Deborah Block.
Publications:
Dr. Jin-Hee Cho (CS, adjunct faculty) has published the following journal papers: 1) J.H. Cho, I.R. Chen, and K. Chan. “Trust Threshold based Public Key Management in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,” Ad Hoc Networks, February 2016; and 2) J.H. Cho and I.R. Chen. “PROVEST: Provenance-based Trust Model for Delay Tolerant Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, February 2016.
Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE); his former MS student, Ms. Lingqiao Qin; and his colleague at Texas A&M University, Dr. Alireza Talebpour, have published the following paper: S. H. Hamdar, L. Qin, and A. Talebpour (2016). “Weather and road geometry impact on longitudinal driving behavior: Exploratory analysis using an empirically supported acceleration modeling framework,” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Vol. 67, pp. 193-213. Prof. Hamdar’s research team utilized the GW driver simulator to explicitly model driver longitudinal acceleration risk-taking tendencies under different weather and road geometry conditions.
Prof. Kausik Sarkar (MAE) and his student, Krishna Nandan Kumar, have published the following peer-reviewed journal paper: K. N. Kumar and K. Sarkar. “Interfacial Rheological Properties of Contrast Microbubble Targestar P as a Function of Ambient Pressure,” Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 42, 1010-1017.
Prof. Mona Zaghloul (ECE) and Ioana Voiculesco edited the recently published book Nanocantilever Beams, Modeling, Fabrication, and Application, Pan Stanford Publishing, ISBN98-981-4613-23-1, 2016. Prof. Zaghloul also has published the following articles: 1) M. Taghioskoui and M. Zaghloul. “Plasma Ionization under Simulated Ambient Mars Conditions for Quantification of Methane with Mass Spectrometry,” Analyst, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2016, DOI: 10. , 1039/C5AN02305J. March 2016; and 2) B. Mehta, K. Benkstein, S. Semancik, and M. Zaghloul. “Gas Sensing with Bare and Graphene-covered Optical Nanoantenna Structures,” Nature, Scientific Reports, 6, 21287, 2016, February 17, 2016.
Conferences & Presentations:
At the March 3 Hill Summit, hosted by the House Entertainment Industries Caucus, Prof. James Hahn (CS) gave a talk at a panel on the legal and technical aspects of scanned avatars.
Prof. Michael Keidar (MAE) gave a talk titled “Micro-Cathode Arc Thruster for Small Satellite Propulsion” at the 2016 IEEE Aerospace Meeting, held March 7 in Big Sky, MT.
Other News
The Atlantic Council holds an annual competition called the Cyber 9/12 Challenge, in which student teams from across the nation come together to analyze and propose national security responses to a postulated cybersecurity attack scenario. This year, 40 teams competed in the two-day exercise. GW fielded two teams, one interdisciplinary and one from the CS department. The interdisciplinary team was captained by Christopher Olson (GSEHD) and coached by Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE). Team members included Anna Noteboom (EMSE), Ferozan Walizai (ESIA), and Cory Stephens (ESIA). The all-female computer science team was captained by Samantha Delduca and coached by Prof. George Trawick (National Defense University and CS adjunct faculty member). Team members included Aalisha Gupta, Norah Alnashmi, and Nora Alhelal. While neither team won the competition, all participants agreed that it was an amazing experience that provided a unique and valuable learning opportunity.
Prof. Mona Zaghloul (ECE) has been invited to be on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. She will serve a two-year term, until March 2018
Student News
On March 17, CEE graduate students Boxiao Cao and Yuanfei Bi, both advised by Prof. Tianshu Li (CEE), gave the following presentations at the American Physics Society March meeting, held in Baltimore, MD: 1) C. Boxiao and T.Li. “Interlayer coupling in few-layers transition metal dichalcogenides;” and 2) Y. Bi, R. Cabriolu, and T. Li, “Exploring the coupling between surface crystallinity and surface hydrophilicity in heterogeneous ice nucleation.”
Other News
Nominate someone for the 2016 GW Engineering Hall of Fame. Since 2006, SEAS has honored distinguished SEAS alumni, faculty, staff, and friends who have contributed to engineering, technology, or management in a sustained and significant way during their careers. These are individuals who bring distinction to GW through their achievements and their contributions to their professions, the University, and society-at-large. Last year's honorees included alumni from NASA, Office of Naval Research, CAE Inc., LGS Innovations, DLBA, Rolls Royce, and Johns Hopkins University. The deadline for consideration is Thursday, March 31.
SEAS Events
BME Seminar: “Good Breaks: Circumventing Biological Barriers to Drug Delivery”
Speaker: Dr. Tyrone Porter, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
Monday, March 21
4:00 – 5:00 pm
SEH, B1220
2016 Frank Howard Distinguished Lecture: “Engineering with Soul: The Nuts and Bolts of Compassion in Action”
Speaker: Dr. Bernard Amadei, founding president of Engineers Without Borders – USA; co-founder of the Engineers Without Borders-International network; and the Mortenson Endowed Chair in Global Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder
Tuesday, April 26
6:30 – 8:30 pm
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
RSVP by April 24
The talk will examine the critical role of engineers over the next two decades, when almost two billion additional people are expected to populate the earth, 95% of them in developing or underdeveloped countries. This growth will create unprecedented demands for energy, food, land, water, transportation, materials, waste disposal, earth moving, health care, environmental cleanup, telecommunication, and infrastructure. Engineers will be critical in fulfilling those demands. A simple question arises: Do engineers today have the skills and tools to address the global problems that our planet and humans are facing today, or will be facing within the next 20 years?
External Events
Seminar: “Broader Implications of Apple vs. the FBI for Cyber Security and Privacy”
Thursday, March 24
12:00 – 2:00 pm (Lunch provided)
GW Law School Jacob Burns Moot Court Room, Lerner Hall
2000 H Street, NW
RSVP required
Co-sponsored by CSPRI and moderated by Prof. Lance Hoffman (CS). Panelists:
- Paul Rosenzweig, professorial lecturer at GW Law School; previously deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security
- Ari Schwartz, managing director of cybersecurity services, Venable LLP; previously special assistant to the president and senior director for cybersecurity at the White House
- Amitai Etzioni, university professor at GW, director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies, author of Privacy in a Cyber Age: Policy and Practice
Entrepreneurship Events
Pitching to Investors and Funders (Lex McCusker)
Tuesday, March 22
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Duques Hall, Room 258
Register
Lex McCusker, director of the GW New Venture Competition, presents methods for conveying facts about a startup venture effectively and efficiently. This workshop explores approaches for generating enthusiasm for your venture and addressing the fears and concerns that investors and funders have about any new venture.
Dolphin Tank
Tuesday, March 29 Register
Wednesday, March 30 Register
5:30 – 9:00 pm
Duques Hall, Room 553
Based on a similar premise as the popular ABC show, The Shark Tank, the Dolphin Tank allows GW constituents to pitch their entrepreneurial and innovative ideas to a panel of friendly and “seasoned” industry experts and entrepreneurs. Within the short time it takes for each pitch to be completed, the panel offers constructive feedback and helps pre-selected presenters make edits to their messages. Participation as a presenter in these Dolphin Tank sessions is limited to Finalists in the 2016 GW New Venture Competition.
Dissertation Defense
Student Name: Junfeng Wang
Title: “CHORUS Code for Stellar and Planetary Convection”
Advisor: Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE)
Tuesday, April 12
2:00 – 4:00 pm
SEH, Room 2000B