Faculty News
Publications:
Dr. David Broniatowski (EMSE) has a new publication: A. M. Jamison, D. A. Broniatowski, M. Dredze, Z. Wood-Doughty, D. Khan, and S. C. Quinn. “Vaccine-related advertising in the Facebook Ad Archive,” Vaccine. Online November 13, 2019. The research was featured in a November 13 article in The Guardian, “Majority of anti-vaxx ads on Facebook are funded by just two organizations,” as well as in the November 15 Washington Post article “Majority of anti-vaccine ads on Facebook were funded by two groups,” and in the November 14 IFL Science article “Two Groups Finance Over Half Of Facebook’s Anti-Vax Ads.”
A commentary by Dr. John Helveston (EMSE) and Jonas Nahm (Johns Hopkins University) was published in Science on November 15. The citation is: J. Helveston and J. Nahm. “China’s key role in scaling low-carbon energy technologies,” Science, Vol. 366, Issue 6467. GW Today covered the publication of Dr. Helveston’s commentary in “ Collaboration with China Is Critical to Achieving Climate Goals,” a Q&A with him about the topic.
Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE), Dr. Elias Balaras (MAE) and their graduate students, Luiz Martinez, Akash Dhruv, and Li Lin, have published the following article: L. Martinez, A. Dhruv, L. Lin, E. Balaras, and M. Keidar. “Interaction between a helium atmospheric plasma jet and targets and dynamics of the interface,” Plasma Source Science and Technology, 28 (11), 115002, 2019.
Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Amir Aslani (ECE) gave a presentation titled “Hysteresis Loss Reduction and Magnetocaloric Effect Improvement in the Ni-Co-Mn-In Alloys” at the 64th Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, held November 4-8 in Las Vegas, NV. The work presented by Dr. Aslani is based on research collaboration between the Institute for Magnetics Research and Dr. Mohammadreza Ghahremani’s Biomagnetics Laboratory at Shepherd University.
On November 11, Dr. David Broniatowski (EMSE) gave an invited panel presentation at the Fifth Annual Pandemic Policy Summit: Pandemic & Biosecurity Threats in the 21st Century, held at the Bush School of Government & Public Service in College Station, TX. He also gave a talk on November 13, in London, UK, at the Advancing Research on Social Media and Vaccine Confidence meeting, hosted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr. Chung Hyuk Park (BME) recently made two presentations and served as a session chair at international conferences. On October 15, he gave an invited talk titled “Empathetic Agent and Interactions with Children with ASD” at the “Can We Build Baymax” Workshop, which was part of the Humanoids 2019 Conference held in Toronto, Canada. On November 6, he presented his Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) journal paper, titled “Interactions with an Empathetic Agent: Regulating Emotions and Improving Engagement in Autism,” in the RAM Invited Session at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), held in Macau, China. He also served as the session chair for the technical session “Social Human-Robot Interaction IV” at IROS 2019.
On November 16, EMSE Visiting Scholar Scott Sklar, director of renewable energy for the SEAS Environmental and Energy Management Institute, gave the presentation “Resilience Strategies: Building a New Puerto Rican Energy” at the Washington DC Summit 2019, sponsored by Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies. The event was held at GW’s Elliott School. Centro is a research institute that is dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States and that produces and disseminates relevant interdisciplinary research.
On November 15, Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) gave an invited seminar titled “Heterogeneous Photonics for Next Generation Opto-electronics and Analog Processors” at the University of California-Santa Barbara’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
A co-author of Dr. Arkady Yerukhimovich (CS) presented their paper, “Stormy: Statistics in Tor by Measuring Securely,” at the 26th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, held November 11-15 in London, UK. The authors are: R Wails, A. Johnson, D. Starin, A. Yerukhimovich, and S. D. Gordon.
Student News
The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) recently selected MAE senior Allegra Farrar as a USRA Distinguished Undergraduate and awarded her its John R. Sevier Memorial Scholarship Award. The scholarship was awarded to Allegra on the basis of her scholastic record, letters of recommendation, and her statement of her educational and career goals. SEAS Associate Dean Bhagi Narahari (CS) presented the award to Allegra at a brief ceremony on November 14. Also attending were Dr. Michael Plesniak (MAE), Dr. David Dolling (MAE), and Dr. Murray Snyder (MAE, and Clark Scholars Program director). Dr. Zoe Szajnfarber (EMSE), who is GW’s USRA representative, was not able to be present at the ceremony.
SEAS seniors Caitlin Carfano and Monica Kavathekar had an idea as freshmen to develop a free, after-school STEM education program for elementary students in the Washington, DC area. Their idea took root, and four years later the Atoms to Astronauts program has 30 student volunteers who lead STEM activities at five elementary schools throughout the academic year.
Learn more about the Atoms to Astronauts program.
Upcoming SEAS Events
ECE Distinguished Lecture Series: “Advanced 5G and SATCOM Phased-Arrays and UaV-Detection Radars Using Low-Cost Silicon Technologies: The End of the Marconi Era Is Near”
Speaker: Dr. Gabriel Rebeiz, University of California at San Diego
Monday, November 18
2:00 pm (Reception to follow)
SEH, B1220
CEE Seminar: “Highlight of Recently Announced NSF Solicitations in the CBET Division”
Speaker: Dr. Christina Payne, Program Director, Interfacial Engineering Program, National Science Foundation
Monday, November 18
2:30 pm
SEH, 2000B
SCWiE and MAE Presentation and Discussion: Raytheon’s Hypersonics Programs
Speaker: Megan Heard, Advanced Systems Development Center, Raytheon Missile Systems Division
Tuesday, November 19
Part 1: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Megan will discuss some of the technical challenges Raytheon has with designing and building hypersonic vehicles.
Part 2: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm: Megan will lead a discussion on life working as a junior engineer for a defense contractor.
1957 E Street, Room B-10
RSVP (Please include your first and last names, and indicate whether you will attend Part 1, Part 2, or both parts of the discussion.)
The SEAS Center for Women in Engineering and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering invite you to participate in a discussion with a systems engineer and aero-thermal lead on one of Raytheon’s hypersonics programs.
CVP Speaker Series @ GW: “Cybersecurity and Data Science: Partnering for the Future”
Wednesday, November 20
5:00 – 7:00 pm
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
RSVP
Cybersecurity attacks are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, putting organizations’ valuable data at greater risk. Failure to prepare and stay up-to-date on developments in cybersecurity and data science could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. How we can protect environments from threats targeting data and valuable assets, and what kinds of organizational cultural changes are required to integrate cybersecurity and data science? Join us for a panel discussion of these and other related questions.
Software Carpentry Workshop: shell/git/Python
Thursday and Friday, November 21 and 22
9:00 am – 4:30 pm
Gelman Library, Rooms 301/302
Register
FREE to GW-affiliated participants
Join Academic Commons and SEAS Computing for the Software Carpentry Workshop, two days of hands-on instruction in automating tasks with the Unix shell, version control with Git, and data analysis and visualization with Python. The course is intended for GW graduate students, faculty, and other researchers. Advanced undergraduates are also welcome. The workshop is free to GW-affiliated participants. Attendees don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop. Participants must register in advance and must attend both days of the workshop. Registration and further details are available on the workshop website.
CSPRI Talk: “Cybersecurity for Connected and Automated Vehicles”
Speaker: Duncan Woodbury, Founder & CEO, DTLLC
Thursday, November 21
12:00 noon (An informal lunch will be served)
SEH, B1220
RSVP for lunch
The intent of this and future Cyber Security and Privacy Research Institute (CSPRI) lunches is to give GW faculty and students glimpses of the vibrant security and privacy private sector in the Washington region and to promote dialog and debate regarding breakthrough initiatives. The potential for support for research or conference papers on related topics will be part of the discussion.
ECE Seminar: “Optimizing Storage on the Edge”
Speaker: Dr. Ming Zhao, Arizona State University
Monday, November 25
11:00 am
SEH, B1220
ECE Talk: “Optimization and Codesign of Power Electronics Converters”
Speaker: Kristen Booth, Post-doctoral Researcher, The Ohio State University
Tuesday, December 10
2:00 pm
SEH, B1220
Entrepreneurship News & Events
Make-A-Thing Open Studio @ GW Innovation Center
Fridays throughout the semester
1:00 – 6:00 pm
Tompkins Hall, M06
The studio is open to the GW community. For more information, please email the GW Innovation Center.
External Events
Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Winter Forum
Speaker: Seth Goldman, Founder and TeaEO of Honest Tea, and Executive Chairman of Beyond Meat
Thursday, November 21
7:30 – 11:30 am
Marvin Center, Grand Ballroom.
Tickets and more information
This is a great opportunity for SEAS faculty, staff, and students to see how GW’s Office of Technology Commercialization gets your inventions before an audience of investors and experienced start-up professionals. Note: A limited number of complimentary tickets for GW students are available through Ms. Jasmine Bautista of GW’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Students who wish to apply for complimentary tickets should email Ms. Bautista and supply their name, email address, and venture name.
3rd Annual Global Virtual Reality Day
Saturday, November 23
12:00 – 6:00 pm
MAKE Offices, 2000 Pennsylvania Ave, #7000
RSVP
Virtual Reality Day is a series of VR/AR events organized worldwide to help virtual and augmented reality become more mainstream. This is a completely voluntary and grassroots effort. This event is free to attend.
Dissertation Defenses
Student Name: Fahad Ghamdi
Dissertation Title: “A Unified Framework for Computational Processing of Linguistic Code Switching”
Advisor: Dr. Mona Diab (CS)
Tuesday, November 19
1:00 – 3:00 pm
SEH, 4605
Human Resources News
In this month's HR Corner, SEAS HR Manager Marion Flythe-Inman shares new information on:
- How to share your GW employment stories with HR
- GW's Career Milestones Celebrations in December
The HR Corner is a web page for SEAS staff that contains HR-related news, information, and events. Marion encourages staff to visit the page to find information on GW's new time off and leave guide, events and trainings, SEAS employment opportunities, and much more.