Faculty News
Research:
Dr. Alex Beehler (research professor, EMSE) has received a $43,000 award from the Clearpath Foundation for his research project titled “Developing a Plan for the Army’s Nuclear Energy Utilization.” Dr. Beehler is the principal investigator (PI) on the project. Environmental and Energy Management Institute co-directors Joe Cascio and Dr. Jonathan Deason are co-PIs. Clearpath is a Washington, DC-based non-governmental organization focused on helping our nation develop the most reliable clean energy sources across all clean energy technologies.
Dr. Emilia Entcheva (BME) has received a two-year, $200,000 National Science Foundation grant for her project “PFI-TT: Automated Platform for Drug Testing in Human Heart Cells Using Light.” This translational project aims to advance the all-optical technology for cardiac electrophysiology developed in Dr. Entcheva’s laboratory over the last decade, and bring it closer to commercial use by miniaturization and validation. The intended market is drug screening in human (patient-derived) stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes. In addition to engineering design, this project involves close interactions with the technology commercialization office at GW and partner companies.
Dr. Murray Loew (BME) and his collaborator, Dr. Sharad Goyal (Radiation Oncology), have received second-year, competitive funding from the GW Cross-Disciplinary Research fund for their project, “Development of a novel radiomics platform to predict outcomes in advanced head and neck cancer.”
The National Science Foundation has awarded Dr. Joost Santos (EMSE) a four-year grant for the project “Collaborative Research: Organizing Decentralized Resilience in Critical Interdependent-infrastructure Systems and Processes (ORDER-CRISP).” This is a collaborative research project with Florida International University, Virginia Tech, University of Central Florida, and West Virginia University. The total amount of the grant is $2 million, and GW’s share is $201,574. Dr. Santos is the sole PI at GW.
Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) and his collaborator, Omega Optics, Inc, have received two NASA SBIR Phase 1 grants: 1) a six-month, $125,000 grant for “Monolithically Integrated TCC-VCSELs with Surface-Normal 2D Slow-Light PC Waveguide Arrays,” and 2) a two-month, $10,000 grant for “Flash Drive Integrated Label Free Silicon Nano-Photonic Bio-Assays for Space Station Bio-Diagnostics.” In this phase GW is a consultant.
Publications:
On August 23, Dr. David Broniatowski (EMSE) published the following paper: D. A. Broniatowski, A. M. Jamison, S. Qi, L. AlKulaib, T. Chen, A. Benton, S. C. Quinn, and M. Dredze. “Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate,” American Journal of Public Health, e1–e7. Since publication, the paper has been covered by 81 news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, Forbes, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, and others. It was the front page story in The Guardian on August 23.
Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) and his doctoral student Bo Wang have published the following journal article: B. Wang, J. A. Camacho, G. M. Pulliam, A. H. Etemadi, and P. Dehghanian. “A New Reward and Penalty Structure for Distribution Companies Utilizing Load Based Reliability Indices,” IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution, Vol. 12, No. 15, pp. 3647-3654, 2018.
“Insulator-metal transition in dense fluid deuterium,” a major paper of the CDAC group (Capital/DOE Alliance Center) was published in Science on August 17. The work was also featured in a BBC Horizon documentary Jupiter Revealed and was highlighted in the August 16 New York Times article “Settling Arguments about Hydrogen With 168 Giant Lasers.” The study resolves major issues associated with the metallization of hydrogen, a problem of longstanding interest in condensed matter physics, materials science, and astrophysics going back almost a century. Dr. Russell Hemley (CEE) is the senior author and principal investigator of this six-year effort. The paper citation is: P. M. Celliers, M. Millot, S. Brygoo, R. S. McWilliams, D. E. Fratanduono, J. R. Rygg, A. F. Goncharov, P. Loubeyre, J. H. Eggert, J. L. Peterson, N. B. Meezan, S. Le Pape, G. W. Collins, R. Jeanloz, and R. J. Hemley. “Insulator-metal transition in dense fluid deuterium,” Science, Vol. 361, Issue 6403, pp. 677-682.
Dr. Mona Zaghloul (ECE) and her co-authors, Dr. Yigal Lilach (GWNIC) and ECE doctoral student Yangyang Zhao, published the article “Design and fabrication of a plasmonic gas sensor” at the 61st IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems Conference. The conference was held August 6-8 in Windsor, Canada. The paper was awarded 1st Place in the Student Paper Competition.
Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) attended and participated in a number of conferences, meetings, and workshops over the summer. He was invited under a “Foreign Expert Initiative” to visit the North China Electric Power University, where he gave three seminars between June 28 and July 5: 1) “The Resilience of Electric Power Systems to High-Impact Low-Frequency Hazards;” 2) “Ongoing Research at GW Smart Grid Lab: Pathways to Electric Systems Resilience;” and 3) “Overview of the GW SEAS Graduate Programs and Admissions.” Prior to his visit to China, he attended the 2018 International Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems, held June 25-27 in in Boise, ID. After returning from China he served as a SEAS representative at the “Project Catalyst: How to Engineer Engineering Education” workshop held July 10-13 at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, PA. Finally, he attended the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting 2018, which was held August 5-9 in Portland, OR. There, he served as the secretary of the “Big Data Access” working group within the IEEE PES Subcommittee on Big Data & Analytics for Power Systems.
Dr. Tim Wood (CS) ran a full day tutorial on NFV and Kernel Bypass in High Performance Networking at the ACM SIGCOMM 2018 conference, held August 20-25 in Budapest, Hungary. SIGCOMM is the flagship annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) on the applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communication.
Other News:
Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) has been appointed series editor of the Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics. This is a three-year appointment.
Student News
The IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) selected ECE doctoral student Mohannad Alhazmi to attend and participate in the 3rd IEEE PES World Student Congress, taking place August 24-28 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mohannad, who currently serves as the secretary and financial chair for the IEEE PES-IAS Joint Student Chapter at GW, is representing GW and the GW IEEE Student Chapter. He is among a small number of US student representatives whom the IEEE PES supported to attend the event. Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) nominated Mohannad for the award.
CS doctoral student Grace Liu presented the paper “Microboxes: High Performance NFV with Customizable, Asynchronous TCP Stacks and Dynamic Subscriptions” at the ACM SIGCOMM 2018 conference, held August 20-25 in Budapest, Hungary. SIGCOMM is the flagship annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) on the applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communication. The presented work was a collaborative effort with CS undergraduate Nick Yurchenko, CS doctoral student Yuxin Ren, and Dr. Tim Wood (CS).
SEAS Events
Special SEAS Event: “Live from the International Space Station: Q&A with NASA Astronaut & SEAS Alumna Serena Auñón-Chancellor”
Tuesday, September 18
11:00 am – 2:00 pm (exact time to be announced)
New location: Jack Morton Auditorium (GW Media and Public Affairs Building)
Registration required
Are you curious about the experience of living in space, or what experiments NASA astronauts are working on—or something else related to the International Space Station (ISS) or being an astronaut? If so, this is your opportunity to listen to a NASA astronaut currently aboard the ISS, as she answers our questions. SEAS will host a 20-minute NASA downlink from the ISS, during which we get to pose questions of astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor (SEAS ’97). If you want to submit a question for Dr. Auñón-Chancellor, please visit the registration page to do so.
Immediately after the downlink, former NASA astronaut Charles Camarda (SEAS ‘80) will be present in the Jack Morton Auditorium for a discussion on the challenges of deep space exploration and a question-and-answer session. A reception will follow. Note: NASA has slated a three-hour window (11:00 am – 2:00 pm) for the downlink; on September 7, they will update SEAS with the actual 20-minute timeslot for the downlink. This event is open to the entire GW community. Space in the auditorium is limited, so register early.
CVP Speaker’s Series Event: “Navigating Your Career”
Tuesday, September 25
4:00 – 6:00 pm
SEH, B1270
Register (Register on Handshake)
SEAS Career Services has joined forces with CVP, a business and technology consulting company, to host this timely panel. Anirudh Kulkarni, the CEO and founder of CVP and a double alumnus of GW, will moderate the panel. Joining him will be four guests from different “walks of life” who will present diverse points of view and career insights. Come listen, learn, and ask questions. This event is open to all GW students.
External Events
GW COMPASS Event: Lunch and Learn with Chenega
Wednesday, September 5
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Milken Institute of Public Health, Room #2
Register
Join GW COMPASS for its first networking event of the 2018-2019 academic year, a lunch event with Chenega. Chenega is looking to fill STEM positions for contracts at the FDA, CDC, and other government agencies. This event is open to MS and Ph.D. students. Lunch will be provided.
GW Nanofabrication and Imaging Center Workshop: Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy Workshop
Monday, September 24 – Friday, September 28
9:00 am – 5:00 pm each day
SEH, Nanofabrication and Imaging Center
Register
The main theme of this workshop is correlating large-area images of the same sample created with both light and high-resolution electron microscopy. The workshop will be geared toward microscopists who are interested in learning new techniques for special projects or who are in the market for new instruments, particularly neuroscientists or anatomists who are interested in utilizing large area imaging in their research. Numerous vendors will demonstrate their instruments.
Entrepreneurship News & Events
GW’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) is looking for Entrepreneurial Fellows to work with its office during the upcoming academic year. The position is open to both FWS and non-FWS students. Interested students may find more information on the OIE website and may apply for the positions via Handshake.