March 28 - April 3, 2016

Newsletter

March 28, 2016

Faculty News

Research:

Correction: Last week we reported that Prof. Igor Efimov (BME) and his colleagues, Dr. Natalia Trayanova (Johns Hopkins University) and Dr. Julia Gorelik (Imperial College London), received an $800,000 grant from Johns Hopkins University for their project, “Exploration of Arrhythmogenic Triggers and Substrates in Heart Failure.” Their grant is not funded by Johns Hopkins University; it is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The total amount of the grant is more than $2.7 million, and Prof. Efimov’s laboratory has a total estimated budget of more than $828,000 for the project.

Correction: Last week, we also reported on two Duke Energy Renewables Innovation Fund Awards that SEAS faculty received, one of which is the “Living Lab to Study Solar Farms.” This is a multidisciplinary project headed by Prof. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) and her SEAS colleagues, Profs. Leila Farhadi (CEE) and Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE), who are co-PIs on the grant. Last week’s entry did not mention Profs. Farhadi and Shittu.

Media Mentions:

On March 24, NBC affiliates aired an interview with Trey Herr (senior research associate, Cyber Security and Privacy Research Institute), about indictments for cyberattacks on U.S. banks and a dam.

Prof. Poorvi Vora (CS) was quoted in the March 21 Wired article “Utah’s Online Caucus Give Security Experts Heart Attacks.

Publications:

Prof. Claire Monteleoni (CS) has published the following article: A. Choromanska, K. Choromanski, G. Jagannathan, and C. Monteleoni. “Differentially-private learning of low dimensional manifolds,” Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 620, March 21, 2016, pp. 91-104.

Conferences & Presentations:

Prof. Shelly Heller (CS) presented "Women in STEM: Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Forward" on March 23 at the Washington, DC Office of Water and Office of the Chief Financial Officer's 2016 Women's History Month Commemoration Program. The theme of the program was "Working to Form a More Perfect Union: Honoring Women in Public Service and Government."

Profs. Murray Loew (BME) and Tim Wood (CS) attended and presented talks at the 2016 Spring International Workshop on Big Data, held March 15 at Korea University (Seoul). Prof. Claire Monteleoni (CS) was unable to attend but arranged for a video presentation in her absence. The workshop was sponsored in part by the KU-GW Joint Research Collaboration Program. The topics were “Radiomics and Big Data: Opportunities and Pitfalls” (Loew), “Cloud-Scale Network Analytics with SDN and NFV” (Wood), and “Big Data on Climate” (Monteleoni).

Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE) chaired the mini track “National Culture Impacts on Approaches to Cyberwarfare” at the 11th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ICCWS), held March 17-18 in Boston, MA. At that conference, two papers co-authored by Prof. Ryan were presented and published in the proceedings: “How Secure is Our Information Infrastructure?” (co-authored with Dan Ryan) and “Using Values-based Cultural Data to Shape Information Operations Strategies” (co-authored with Christine MacNulty).

Other News

Prof. Rene van Dorp (EMSE) was invited by to be a trainer for the “ International Early Stage Researcher Training School on Applying Expert Judgment Methodologies to Real Problems ,” held March 16-18 in Warsaw, Poland and hosted by the University of Warsaw’s faculty of management. Besides two training sessions, he gave a keynote presentation titled “A Causal Chain Risk Framework for Risk Management.”

Student News

On March 14, Chidubem Nwokoye (ECE graduate student), advised by Profs. Lawrence Bennett and Edward Della Torre (ECE), gave the following presentation at the American Physics Society March meeting, held in Baltimore, MD: C. Nwokoye, L. Bennett, E. Della Torre, A. Sidique, M. Zhang, and M. Wagner. “Magneto-Optical Phase Transition in a Nanostructured Co/Pd Thin Film.”

At the March 22 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) National Capital Section (NCS) annual banquet, Julian Olin (CEE) received the Outstanding GW Senior Award. In addition, three CEE students received scholarships: Sophie Martin won the $1,500 Williams Memorial Scholarship; and James Lafaso and Mojolaoluwa Ladipo-Obasa each won a $1,000 ASCE NCS scholarship. Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE), the GW ASCE faculty advisor, attend the banquet along with the students.

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.

The CEE department and students have been working diligently since last summer to prepare to host the 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Virginia Student Conference. Later this week, CEE will host more than 300 students, faculty, and professionals from 14 ASCE student chapters at universities in DC, VA, and WV. A listing of the events and competitions is below. For more information on the conference, please contact Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE) at [email protected] or CEE student Julian Olin at [email protected].

Friday, April 1
7:00 am – 4:00 pm: Steel Bridge (construction, aesthetics, loading) – Lerner Health & Wellness Center
9:00 am – 1:00 pm: Canoe presentations SEH – Lehman Auditorium (B1220 & B1270)
10:30 am – 2:30 pm: Hardy Cross Oratory SEH – Dean’s Conference Room (2000B)
1:30 – 4:30 pm: Transportation Competition SEH – B1 Common Area
5:00 – 6:30 pm: Business Meeting SEH – Lehman Auditorium (B1220)
7:00 – 9:00 pm: Banquet Washington Marriott, Georgetown

Saturday, April 2
6:00 am – 2:00 pm: Canoe (Display, Races) Thompson Boat Centre
9:30 am – 1:30 pm: Environmental Competition Square 80 SEH 1300-1450
4:00 – 5:00 pm: Awards Ceremony SEH – Lehman Auditorium (B1220 & B1270)

SEAS Computing Facility

SEAS Computing Facility Workshop: “LaTeX”

  • April 2: Introduction & Technical Reports
  • April 9: Presentations and Slides
  • April 16: Posters & Thesis Writing

12:00 – 3:00 pm
Tompkins Hall, Room 411
Entry is free and open to all. Contact Farhad Goodarzi [email protected] with questions.
RSVP

SEAS Events

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

GSEHD-hosted Presentation: Introduction to ResearchKit
Speakers: Lina Lander, development executive, Apple Inc., and A. J. Triano, vice president, Digital, THREAD Research
Tuesday, March 29
10:00 – 11:00 am
1957 E Street, City View Room (7th floor)
RSVP
The Graduate School of Education and Human Development invites you to join Apple and THREAD Research for an information session to help you and your research team learn more about ResearchKit, an open source software product that can support faculty and students in creating apps for your research.

Research Resources Showcase during Research Days
Tuesday, March 29
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Marvin Center, Continental Ballroom
The Division of Information Technology, along with its research partners around campus, has organized a Research Resources Showcase as part of Research Days. Don't miss this one-stop opportunity to learn more about research-related services available to the GW community.

Resources include:

  • Data Management Plan Tool
  • Data Management Support Services
  • Funding Agency Requirements
  • Colonial One HPC Support Services
  • Principal Investigator's Dashboard
  • Executive Level Award Dashboard
  • Expert Finder
  • Capital Area Advanced Research & Education Network
  • and much more!

Entrepreneurship Events

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.
 

Campus to Career: Entrepreneurship & Financial Services
Tuesday, April 5
Alumni House, 1918 F Street
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Register
Are you thinking of starting your own business or are you pursuing career options in the financial sector? Do you have an idea for a social or a commercial startup venture? Are you interested in joining an existing startup venture? If so, then please join us for this unique opportunity to meet and talk with alumni over dinner in DC who either work in finance or who have made their entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

2016 GW New Venture Competition Finals
Tuesday, April 19
Jack Morton Auditorium
5:30 – 8:30 pm
Register
This long-awaited event is the culmination of a year-long competition, which began with 195 entries from all-throughout the GW student body. From there, 42 semi-finalists were chosen and now the top 10 teams will be competing for the top spot and for over $250,000 worth of cash and in-kind prizes at the Finals!  Join us in witnessing great work from our GW community.  Admission is open to the public.  Audience members also have the opportunity to select their favorite team to win the Audience Choice Award.  Don't miss out on this grand event!

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