Faculty News
Research:
LMI Research Institute has awarded Prof. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) a one-year, $43,805 grant for his project "Decision Support System for Malaria Vaccine Procurement and Inventory in Developing Countries." The goal of the project is to develop a comprehensive framework that offers novel approaches to how technology can improve decision-making for healthcare logistics in developing countries under conditions of uncertainty and risk. The project is motivated by the observation that many high-impact global interventions for universal childhood immunization have not achieved their intended objectives. The recent success of a new malaria vaccine in clinical trials boosts the expectation that the world's first malaria vaccine may be imminent. Prof. Shittu's project is just in time to prepare risk-hedging strategies for malaria vaccine procurement, delivery, and inventory.
Media Mentions:
Allan Friedman (research scientist, Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute) was quoted in the October 3 Politico Prostory, " Experts: JPMorgan hack could be worse" and in the October 2 Politico Pro Morning Cybersecurity daily briefing on politics and cybersecurity .
Prof. Lance Hoffman (CS) authored the letter to the editor " The golden key in the smartphone encryption debate ," which was published in the October 7 edition of The Washington Post.
Publications:
Prof. Samer Hamdar (CEE) and his colleagues from Northwestern University and Polytecnico di Torino have published the following paper: A. Talebpour, H. S. Mahmassani, F. Mete, and S. H. Hamdar (2014). "Near Crash Identification in a Connected Vehicle Environment," Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board , No. 2424, pp. 20-28. DOI: 10.3141/2424-03.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. Shelly Heller (CS) delivered the talk "Mind the Gap" at the Supercharged Reentry Workshop, held October 10 at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. She was invited to speak by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The topic of her talk was women in STEM (mainly academic areas) who take a career break. The talk considered the reasons for a career break, the issues that impact them during the career break (i.e., access to their profession), and the return from a career break (e.g., being up to speed, etc.).
Student News
2015 SEAS Student R & D Showcase: Application deadline —The November 1, 2014 deadline to apply for the R&D Showcase is fast approaching. This year's Showcase will be a two-day event, with the traditional poster competition held on Wednesday, February 18 and the keynote address and awards presentation on Thursday, February 19.
The Showcase is open to all SEAS undergraduate and graduate students, and this year it includes a new selection of prize categories:
• Theoretical Research
• Experimental Research
• Undergraduate Research
• Entrepreneurship
To be eligible to compete in the Showcase, students must submit their two-page abstracts by 5:00 pm on November 1. More information for student participants is available on the SEAS website's R&D Showcase Student Participants page.
CS undergraduate Lucas Chaufournier presented a poster titled "HyperVTPM: Minimizing the Trusted Code Base for Remote VM Attestation"at the Usenix Symposium on Operating System Design and Implementation, held October 6-8 in Broomfield, CO. The work was done in collaboration with Prof. Tim Wood (CS) , Masoud Koleini, and Michael Clarkson.
Other News
Office of Graduate Admissions : Congratulations to Lorena Shank, the associate director of graduate admissions. Lorena gave birth to an 8 lb, 12 oz baby boy, Martín Louis Shank, on October 7. This week, Anthony Spatola is recruiting at the GITEX convention in Dubai, UAE; at the EducationUSA centers in Dubai and AbhDhabi, UAE; and at the University of Qatar in Doha. Brittany Wright is recruiting at the QS World Grad Fairs in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. Trish Makovsky is recruiting at Harvey Mudd College and at California State at Fullerton, and Diane Hoover is recruiting at Cooper Union in New York City.
The GW SEAS Graduate Career Services Team is working with Leidos (formerly part of SAIC) to schedule opportunities for engagement with student clubs at SEAS. The GW Career Service Center will hold an International Student-Alumni Networking Night on Wednesday, October 15 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm in 407 Marvin Center. Students can register for the event on GWork. The International Services Office will hold an OPT information session for F-1 International Students in SEAS, CCAS & CPS onThursday, October 16 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. The location is still to be determined. Registration is not required.
College Captains needed for Viva Technology event —Great Minds in STEM announces that it needs 25 College Captains for the Viva Technology event, held here in DC on Friday, October 17. The stipend is $100, and the event runs from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm.
College Captains serve as role models to middle school students leading them through a series of hands-on mini-competitions. Become an inspiration to middle school students and motivate them to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Not only do you make a difference in these students' lives, but you get the opportunity to network with professionals yourself! Register here.
Guest Vignette
Prof. Philippe Bardet and his colleagues, Profs. Elias Balaras (MAE) and Majid Manzari (CEE), were awarded more than $860,000 in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study the behavior of nuclear reactor cores during earthquakes. They are working in collaboration with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. One of the main questions they are trying to address is how fuel assemblies containing the nuclear fuel behave during an earthquake, because there are no accurate tools to answer this question.
The research team, which includes doctoral students Morteza Rahimi (CEE) and Noah Weichselbaum (MAE), built the model for simulating fuel assembly vibrations inside of a nuclear reactor core on the "shake table" located in the Earthquake Engineering and Structures Laboratory at GW's Virginia Science and Technology Campus. Their model will test turbulence and ground motion together, which is the first time that fuel assemblies will be tested in this manner.
The model consists of a single bundle of simulated fuel rods inside the core of a common type of nuclear reactor, called a pressurized water reactor. The fuel rods generate heat and are cooled down by highly turbulent water flowing vertically around them. The heat is then utilized to generate electricity. The team will be observing the interaction between the fuel rods and the fluid around it, as different types of earthquakes will be simulated on the shake table. Advanced optical diagnostic tools have been specifically developed to instrument this multi-scale and multi-physics phenomenon.
It is known that fuel bundles are effectively stiffer in the presence of turbulence but, to date, no models can predict this behavior. The team will provide data that will help in elucidating this physical process. The data will also assist in validating high-fidelity numerical models that are being developed by DOE. Once validated, these models will become the next generation of simulation-based design and safety codes for nuclear reactors. (This vignette is excerpted from the GW Today article, "GW Researchers Build Model to Better Understand Nuclear Reactor Behavior during Earthquakes." It is provided courtesy of Prof. Philippe Bardet, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
SEAS Events
MAE Seminar: "Predictive Modeling Of Failure In Ductile Materials"
Speaker: Dr. Krishnaswamy Ravi-Chandar, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Texas at Austin
Friday, October 10
11:00 am
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Spectral Methods in Motion"
Speaker: Dr. David Kopriva, Professor of Mathematics, Florida State University
Thursday, October 16
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Sharks and Butterflies: Micro-Sized Scales Have Macro Effects"
Speaker: Dr. Amy Lang, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics, University of Alabama
Thursday, October 23
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
SEAS Society of Women Engineers Conference Reception in Los Angeles, CA
Friday, October 24
4:30 – 6:30 pm
G.W. Marriott LA Live
All students, staff, faculty, and alumni attending the SWE conference (or who are in the area then) are welcome to attend the SEAS reception. Alumnae will also be in attendance, so come network, discuss the conference, and meet new GW friends. Find more information and register for the reception at: http://go.gwu.edu/swereception.
MAE Seminar: "Molecular Engineering of Microbubble Shells"
Speaker: Dr. Mark Borden, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering and Bioengineering, University of Colorado, Boulder
Thursday, October 30
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Bio-inspired Flow Sensing, Control, and Actuation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles"
Speaker: Dr. Derek A. Paley, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland
Wednesday, November 5
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
Entrepreneurship Events
Skills Workshop: Become a Market Research Wiz
Tuesday, October 14
5:30 – 7:30 pm
356 Duques Hall
RSVP
GW + Y Comb Course: How to Build Products Users Love, Pt. 1
Tuesday, October 14
7:10 – 9:00 pm
255 Duques Hall
RSVP
Lean Startup Workshop 2: Advanced
Wednesday, October 15
5:30 – 7:30 pm
451 Duques Hall
RSVP
External Events
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
SEAS is hosting the following National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) events in Tompkins Hall during the month of October. To learn more about other NCSAM events at GW, please visit http://it.gwu.edu/ncsam.
Spot a Phish!
Monday, October 13
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Tompkins Hall Lobby
Sign-up for SANS 'Securing the Human' training
Live demo and information booth in Tompkins lobby
Symantec Endpoint Protection – Install, Scan and Stay Safe Online
Monday, October 20
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Tompkins Hall Lobby
On-the-spot spot quiz – Answer4Security
Information booth in Tompkins lobby
Hackathon (Sponsored by Modevwear)
Sunday, October 19
The hackathon will include Intel, Sony, Pebble, Mashery, SparkFun and more. Prizes will be awarded for the best hacks. Students may register at: www.modevwear.com . Students and faculty who wish to attend the full conference on October 20 and 21 may use the code "STUDENT" to receive the faculty/student conference discount.
Dissertations
Student's Name : Jie Chen
Dissertation Title : "Next Generation Hardware Monitoring Infrastructure for Multi-core Resource Auditing"
Advisor: Prof. Guru Venkataramani (ECE)
Monday, October 13
1:00 pm
218A Gelman Library
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