October 15-21, 2018

Faculty News
Research:
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) has designated four new Centers of Excellence at universities across the nation as part of the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Program, awarding $40.5 million to the centers to advance nuclear stockpile science. Under a cooperative agreement with NNSA, GW will receive $12.5 million over five years to manage the Capital/DOE Alliance Center (CDAC). CDAC researches high pressure science and technology under Dr. Russell Hemley’s (CEE) leadership. Dr. Hemley’s students seek to enhance understanding of a broad range of materials in extreme pressure-temperature regimes and to integrate and coordinate static compression, dynamic compression, and theoretical studies of materials. The other three universities that received NNSA Centers of Excellence awards are Texas A&M ($12.5 million), University of California, San Diego ($10.5 million), and University of Michigan ($5 million).

Cardialen, a company founded by Dr. Igor Efimov (BME), has raised $17 million in Series B funding from venture capital. Dr. Efimov’s lab has developed a way to defibrillate the heart with a technique that uses a precisely timed series of low-voltage pulses, rather than one big shock, to reset the heart’s electric system. Cardialen is working to commercialize the therapy. The venture funding was mentioned in an October 10 article in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “Minneapolis startup Cardialen raises $17 million in venture capital.”

Media Mentions:
Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) and his colleagues co-authored the commentary “Explore space using swarms of tiny satellites,’’ published October 8 in Nature. The article highlights three ways in which space technology needs to advance: costs must be slashed; satellites should be small, nimble, and able to repair themselves; and they should operate in swarms.

Publications:
Dr. Igor Efimov (BME) recently published the following paper: H. A. Lin, X. L. Déan-Ben, M. Reiss, V. Schöttle, C. A. Wahl-Schott, I. R. Efimov, and D. Razansky. “Ultrafast Volumetric Optoacoustic Imaging of Whole Isolated Beating Mouse Heart,” Scientific Reports, 2018 Sep 20; 8(1):14132. Dr. Efimov has also had another paper accepted for publication: K. Aras, B. Cathey, N. R. Faye, and I. R. Efimov. “Critical Volume of Human Myocardium Necessary for Ventricular Fibrillation,” Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, 2018 (in press).

Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) and his colleagues have published the following paper: I. Levchenko, K. Bazaka, T. Belmonte, M. Keidar and S. Xu. “Advanced Materials for Next Generation Spacecraft,” Advanced Materials, 2018, 30, 1802201.

Dr. Kausik Sarkar (MAE) has published the following journal article with his recently graduated Ph.D. student, Dr. Lang Xia, and collaborators: F. Karandish, B. Mamnoon, L. Feng, M. K. Haldar, L. Xia, K. N. Gange, S. You, Y. Choi, K. Sarkar, and S. Mallik. “Tissue-penetrating, hypoxia-responsive echogenic polymersomes for drug delivery to solid tumors,” Biomacromolecules, 19, 4122-4132.

Conferences & Presentations:

On September 25-26, the SEAS Environmental and Energy Management Institute co-sponsored a symposium titled “Blueprint for Change: New Approaches and Needed Changes to Managing Natural Resource Risks, Liabilities and Opportunities.” Dr. Alex Beehler (EMSE) and Dr. Jonathan Deason (EMSE) participated in the two-day event, which was convened by the Industry Natural Resource Management Group, the GW Law School, the Environmental Law Institute, and the EEMI. It was conducted in the Jacob Burns Moot Court of the GW Law School.

Dr. Guru Venkataramani (ECE) served as an invited expert panelist for side channel research at the 36^th IEEE International Conference on Computer Design, held October 7-10 in Orlando, FL. The panelists discussed the impact of side channels in microarchitecture (meltdown and spectre) that were widely reported in the news earlier this year. Dr. Venkataramani presented his talk, “Do Side Channels decelerate the performance ramp in computing?” and discussed ways to incorporate performance-aware security into future computer architectures.

Student News

BME doctoral student Anna Gams won The American Physiological Society Abstract Travel Award at the 2018 APS Conference on Cardiovascular, Renal, and Metabolic Diseases: Sex-Specific Implications for Physiology. The conference was held September 30 – October 3 in Knoxville, TN. Anna’s research was titled “Sex Differences in Healthy Human Heart Revealed by Cap Analysis Gene Expression.”

SEAS Events Re-Cap

SEAS congratulates the newest members of the GW Engineering Hall of Fame, our 2018 inductees: Mr. Anirudh Kulkarni (BS ’86, MS ’88); Mr. Karl Gumtow (BS ‘92) and Ms. Vicki Gumtow (BS ‘91); and Mr. Dov Levy (BS ’83) and Ms. Elma Levy. They were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2018 ceremony, held October 11 at The Fairmont. During the ceremony, SEAS also honored our 2018 Distinguished Industry Partner, Leidos. Leidos has provided support for student and faculty research, alumni and student programming, and women in engineering efforts at SEAS, and they show by example what a commitment to engineering education can create.

SEAS was well-represented last month at the Grace Hopper Celebration, held in Houston, TX. The CS department coordinated the participation of ten current SEAS students and of adjunct faculty member Elyse Nicolas at this annual conference, which brought together approximately 20,000 attendees from all over the world. The CS department and the SEAS Office of Graduate Admissions and Student Services also hosted a booth to share information about our graduate programs and research with prospective students.

Upcoming SEAS Events
MAE Seminar: “Laboratory-Scaled Experiments on Impulsively Loaded Structures in a Fluid Environment”
Speaker: Dr. Christine Gilbert, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Thursday, October 18
2:00 - 3:00 pm
SEH, B1220

CEE Seminar: “Computational Nanoscience: Predicting the Shapes of Nanocrystals Grown in Solution”
Speaker: Dr. Kristen Fichthorn, Pennsylvania State University
Monday, October 22
2:30 – 3:30 pm
SEH, B1220

CS/EMSE Seminar: “Towards Personalized Antidepressant Recommendations with Prediction-Constrained Topic Models”
Speaker: Dr. Finale Doshi-Velez, Harvard University
Thursday, October 25
12:00 pm
SEH, 2000

MAE Seminar: “Material Characterization of Nanostructured Ferretic Alloy through Atomistic Modeling”
Speaker: Dr. Huijuan (Jane) Zhao, Clemson University
Thursday, October 25
2:00 - 3:00 pm
SEH, B1220

SEAS Frank Howard Distinguished Lecture and Dean's Reception at Colonials Weekend 2018
Saturday, October 27
2:00 – 4:00 pm
SEH, Lower Level Commons
RSVP
SEAS will host Mischel Kwon (SEAS ’04), founder and CEO of MKACyber, to deliver its annual Frank Howard Distinguished Lecture. Her presentation, “Cybersecurity - Today's Attacks and Defenses,” will review the current attacks and defenses that companies, the government, and average citizens face in the digital world. Afterwards, please join SEAS Interim Dean Rumana Riffat and fellow SEAS alumni, students, parents and friends for a networking reception.

MAE Seminar: “Unified Mechanics Theory: F=m a ((1-ϕ(s ̇ ))”
Speaker: Dr. Cemal Basaran, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Thursday, November 1
2:00 - 3:00 pm
SEH, B1220

CVP Speaker Series @ GW: “Innovation INC: The Business of Innovation”
Wednesday, November 7
4:00 – 6:00 pm (Panel begins at 4:00; refreshments follow panel at 5:00)
SEH, Lehman Auditorium
RSVP
No longer a “concept,” innovation is now the lifeblood of organizations, impacting technology, culture, clients, operations, and the bottom line. Regardless of vertical sector or business model, innovation is driving growth, is at the core of change, and is critical to success. But how does the business of innovation happen and how can it deliver a Return on Investment? Join the discussion with our panel of innovation leaders to find out how.

• Nagesh Rao, Director of Business Technology Solutions for the Small Business Administration
• Andrea Norris, Director, Center for Information Technology, and Chief Information Officer at the National Institutes of Health
• Phaedra Chrousos, Chief Innovation Officer of the Libra Group
• Annamaria Konya Tannon, Entrepreneur, Chief Evangelist, and Executive Director of the GW Innovation Center
• Moderator: Anirudh Kulkarni, CEO of CVP

MAE Seminar: “Growth and Remodeling Soft Tissue Mechanics in Pregnancy”
Speaker: Dr. Kristin Myers, Columbia University
Thursday November 15
2:00 – 3:00 pm
SEH, B1220

MAE Seminar: Model Predictive Control for Helicopter Ship Landing Operations
Speaker: Dr. Cornel Sultan, Virginia Tech
Friday, November 16
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
SEH, 2000

Career Events
Fourth Annual GW STEM Symposium: “The Future of Technology – Where Are We Headed . . . Trends and Predictions”
Monday, October 22
6:00 – 9:00 pm
SEH, B-1 Level
Register
The Symposium-facilitated panel and breakout sessions will address trends in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, biotech, energy, the environment, cyber security, robotics and much, much more. Companies and organizations represented at the event include: CAE, MITRE, Raytheon, M.C. Dean, FDA, EPA, and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.

Radify Labs Online Conference: Careers in Tech
Sunday-Tuesday, November 4-6
The conference will include speakers from YouTube, WeWork, and Twitter. In addition, students will be able to sign-up for virtual coffee chats with mentors from the world’s top tech firms and submit their resumes for exclusive job and internship opportunities. Students who sign up via this link, will receive a free ticket to the conference.

SEAS Computing Facility Workshops
Arduino and Raspberry Pi Workshops

• Saturday, October 20: Introduction to Raspberry Pi
• Saturday, November 3: Introduction to Arduino
• Saturday, November 10: Arduino/Raspberry Pi Project Lab

SEAS CF will host free interactive workshops on Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, which are inexpensive platforms for electronics and programming projects. Each workshop will be held from 1:00 to 4:00 pm in the SEH Studio Labs (SEH 1300/1400/1450).

At the Introduction to Raspberry Pi and Introduction to Arduino workshops, attendees will learn about the basics of these technologies and how to get started. Attendees will also create some introductory projects involving sensors and LEDs, and they will gain experience with basic programming in Python (for Raspberry Pi) and C/C++ (for Arduino), as well as simple circuits.

Then, at the Raspberry Pi/Arduino Project Lab, the equipment will be available along with self-guided project instructions to put the skills into use. Staff will be available to help. Potential projects to choose from include programmable cars, a Raspberry Pi Pong game, an Arduino paper piano, a weather station with a Twitter bot, and a security system with a camera and motion detection. The introduction tutorials will also be available in self-guided form for any attendees who couldn't make it to an introduction workshop or just want to learn at their own pace.

Experience specifically with Python, C/C++, or circuits is not required for either. All equipment will be provided. Group work is encouraged. You may register for any or all of the three workshops. Please email [email protected] with any questions.
Register

Introduction to Linux Workshop

The second of two Introduction to Linux workshops will take place on Friday, October 19 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in Tompkins Hall 411. This session covers: an introduction to modules; SSH and communicating with other machines; public/private key generation and .ssh/config; SFTP, SCP, and file transfer; and porting X11 sessions to your local machine. No prior Linux knowledge is necessary to attend the workshop. Please email [email protected] with any questions.
Register

Introduction to MATLAB Workshops

Remaining workshops:

• Thursday, October 18: Figures & 3D Plotting
• Thursday, October 25: Linear Equation & ODE Solving

MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language used in various backgrounds of engineering, science, and economics. These workshops will cover the fundamentals of MATLAB programming. The workshops will be held from 7:00 to 8:00 pm in Tompkins 406. Please email [email protected] with any questions.
Register

MATLAB and SolidWorks Tutoring

• Tuesdays: 6:00 – 10:00 pm
• Thursdays: 8:00 – 10:00 pm

MATLAB and SolidWorks tutoring will be offered throughout the fall semester in Tompkins 401. To schedule a tutoring appointment, please email [email protected]. The workshops and tutoring will be hosted by SEAS Senior Keily Gleason.

Engineering Software installation on personal computers: Most engineering programs installed in the SEAS Computing Labs—including MATLAB, SolidWorks, and others—are available for install on students' personal computers. For a complete list of applications, please visit the SEAS Computing Facility website.

GW News & Events
Duke Energy Renewables Innovation Fund: Sustainable GW announces the 2019 round of the Duke Energy Renewables Innovation Fund competition. This program makes up to $85,000 available for multi-disciplinary faculty research. Visit Sustainability at GW for application details. Please send any questions to Sustainable GW Research Director Robert Orttung.

Post-Award Management Training Series: “Effectively Document, Submit, Review and Approve Expenditures”
Thursday, October 25
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Marvin Center, 403
Register

Post-Award Management Training Series: “Effectively Document, Submit, Review and Approve Expenditures”
Thursday, October 25
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Marvin Center, 403
Register

GWNIC Vacuum Technology Workshop
Thursday, October 25
9:30 am – 4:00 pm
SEH, B1270
Course topics, schedule and registration

Entrepreneurship News & Events
NSF 2026 Idea Machine: This is a competition to help set the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science and engineering. Participants can earn prizes and receive public recognition by suggesting the pressing research questions that need to be answered in the coming decade, the next set of “Big Ideas” for future investment by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The deadline to enter is October 26.

Human Centered Design Workshop: Designing Innovative Solutions for Social Challenges
Monday, October 15
5:45 – 7:45 pm
GW Gelman Library, Room 219
Register
This experiential and interactive workshop exposes students to the tools, tactics, and frameworks used by innovators, entrepreneurs, and designers to empathize with populations they seek to serve, define problem sets, and come up with innovative solutions.

So you need an app: What you should know before you start!
Wednesday, October 17
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW Gelman Library, Room 219
Register
Amelia Friedman, co-founder and COO of Hatch Apps (Y Combinator), will lead this interactive workshop covering explanations of when building an app is the right solution, what you'll need to prepare before starting the development, what software development options are available, and what the key evaluation criteria are.

Workshop: Where Do I Start?
Thursday, October 25
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW District House, Room B117
Register
Do you have a business or social enterprise idea, but don't know where to start? Are you interested in getting feedback on your idea and getting guidance on how to move your idea forward? Join us for an interactive discussion on how you can get your startup idea going!

Alumni Entrepreneurship Panel
Saturday, October 27
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Duques Hall, Room 151
Register
Join us during Colonials Weekend for a panel event that will feature several extraordinary GW alumni entrepreneurs. Hear their accounts of their journeys from student life in Foggy Bottom to success in the cut-throat business world.