Faculty News
Honors & Awards:
Prof. Rumana Riffat (CEE) is the 2010 recipient of the Water Environment Federation's George Bradley Gascoigne Medal. The medal is awarded to the author(s) of an article that presents the solution to an important and complicated operational problem within a full-scale, operating wastewater treatment plant. Prof. Riffat received the award along with two of her former graduate students, Marija Peric and Dilli Neupane, at the 83rd Annual Water Environmental Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference in New Orleans, LA, on October 5. Pictured from left to right are Marija Peric, Prof. Riffat, and Dilli Neupane at the annual conference, WEFTEC 2010.
Prof. Lijie (Grace) Zhang (MAE) has won the Early Career Scientist Award from the International Journal of Nanomedicine and the American Society for Nanomedicine (ASNM). This award is presented to a scientist in the early stage of his or her career who has made significant contributions to the field of nanomedicine. The award ceremony was held at the annual conference of the American Society for Nanomedicine, in Potomac, MD, on October 14-16. Prof. Zhang was also invited to give a 25-minute plenary talk at the conference.
Papers:
A paper by Prof. Jonathan Deason (EMSE) and co-authors appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. The full citation is: Deason, J.P., Dickey, G.E., Kinnell, J.C. and Shabman, L.A. "An Integrated Planning Framework for Urban River Rehabilitation," Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, Volume 136, Issue 6, pp. 688-696.
Prof. Emeritus John Harrald and Prof. Greg Shaw (both of EMSE) co-authored a short paper on medical and public health resilience in disasters, entitled "A Missing Link in the Health Care After a Large-scale Flooding." The paper was published in the September/October issue of the Dutch magazine, National Safety and Crisis Management. The entire issue of the magazine is devoted to articles authored by the organizations comprising the Netherlands - US Water Crisis Research Network (NUCReN), which includes the GW Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management. GW and Virginia Tech will host the winter meeting of NUWCReN at GW in November.
Prof. Zderic (ECE), together with her Ph.D. student Shutao Wang and their NIH research collaborator Dr. Victor Frenkel, have recently published an invited review paper in Future Oncology on "Extracorporeal, Low-Energy Focused Ultrasound for Noninvasive and Nondestructive Targeted Hyperthermia." (Future Oncol. 2010;6(9):1497-511)
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. Pinhas Ben-Tzvi (MAE) and his doctoral student Paul Moubarak presented three conference proceedings papers at the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE 2010), held in Phoenix, Arizona, October 15-16. The papers are co-authored by graduate students of Prof. Ben-Tzvi. One of the papers was also co-authored by an undergraduate student from the Computer Science Department, Mr. Michael Shick, who is involved in research in the Robotics and Mechatronics Lab. The papers are:
- Moubarak, P., Ben-Tzvi, P., and Ma, Z., "A Generic Configuration of a Compact Dexterous and Self-Contained End-Effector for Mobile Robotic Platforms", Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE 2010), Phoenix, Arizona, pp. 116-121, October 15-16, 2010.
- Ben-Tzvi, P., Xu, X., "An Embedded Feature-Based Stereo Vision System for Autonomous Mobile Robots", Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE 2010), Phoenix, Arizona, pp. 176-181, October 15-16, 2010.
- Ben-Tzvi, P., Charifa, S., and Shick, M., "Extraction of 3D Images Using Pitch-Actuated 2D Laser Range Finder for Robotic Vision", Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE 2010), Phoenix, Arizona, pp. 140-145, October 15-16, 2010.
Prof. Ben-Tzvi also chaired the technical session "Wireless and Distributed Sensing Networks" at the same conference, and he served as a member of the Technical Program Committee for the conference.
Prof. David Nagel (ECE) presented a seminar entitled "Scientific and Other Challenges of Lattice-Enabled Nuclear Reactions" to the Department of Physics and Astronomy of George Mason University on October 24.
At the 31st Annual Conference of American Society for Engineering Management on October 15, Prof. Emeritus Robert Waters (EMSE) presented a paper entitled "Time to Think Outside the Box? Technical Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management Education." His objective was to obtain recognition by engineering management educators of the national need to encourage more engineers and scientists to think like entrepreneurs. He maintained that engineering management programs are the academic homes for the appropriate education. The conference was held October 13-16, in Rogers, AR.
Other News:
Prof. Azim Eskandarian (CEE) has accepted the invitation to serve on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Vehicle-Highway Automation (AHB30) for a three year term, 2010 - 2013. TRB is a division of the National Research Council (NRC), which is jointly administered by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. Prof. Eskandarian is also the GW university representative to TRB.
On October 16, Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE chair) participated in a program at the College of Southern Maryland aimed at interesting high school girls in pursuing studies in math and the sciences. The program, entitled "Women in Math: Infinite Options," featured a series of one-hour, active learning sessions with the girls. Prof. Ryan led a workshop in cryptography and later participated in a question-answer panel session with the girls and their parents.
Profs. Julie Ryan (EMSE chair) and Lance Hoffmann (CS) participated in the Summit on Education in Secure Software, an NSF sponsored event, on October 18-19. The Summit was co-sponsored by two directorates of NSF: the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorates. The Summit was by invitation only and featured active development of innovative concepts in teaching secure programming at all levels.
On September 29, Prof. Greg Shaw (EMSE) briefed representatives of Tribal Universities and Colleges on establishing and marketing an emergency management degree program. His briefing was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Emergency Management Institute program to address emergency management planning, preparedness, training and education for colleges and universities.
Student News
On October 15, the Fulbright Association awarded the 2010 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding to Bill and Melinda Gates. As part of the ceremony, the Fulbright Association selected five Fulbright fellows currently studying in the U.S. to pose a question to Bill and Melinda Gates. EMSE doctoral student Emmanuel Donkor, who is a Fulbright fellow from Ghana, was one of the five selected students.
Three Ph.D. students from the ECE department, Shutao Wang and Marjan Nabili (advised by Prof. Zderic), and Mohammadreza Ghahremani (advised by Prof. Zaghloul and Prof. Zderic), presented their work at the 2010 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium in San Diego last week:
- Nabili M, Patel H, Fardanesh M, Mahesh S, Liu J, Geist C, Zderic V. Ultrasound-Enhanced Delivery of Antibiotics into the Eye. Oral presentation.
- Wang S, Frenkel V, Zderic V. Optimization of Focused Ultrasound Exposures for Hyperthermia Mediated Drug Delivery in a Murine Subcutaneous Tumor Model. Poster presentation.
- Ghahremani M, Nabili M, Mahesh S, Liu J, Belyea D, Geist C, Zderic V, Zaghloul M. Surface Acoustic Wave Devices for Ocular Drug Delivery. Oral presentation.
Guest Vignette
With advances in engineering and medicine, the interdisciplinary field of biomedical engineering - which applies engineering principles and techniques to solve critical health problems - attracts more and more researchers' interests all over the world. Recently, the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering established the Bioengineering Laboratory for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering (BLNTE), led by Prof. Lijie (Grace) Zhang. The objective of the lab is to apply nanotechnology, tissue engineering, biomaterials, drug delivery, and biomechanics to create biologically inspired bone, cartilage, and osteochondral substitutes to replace damaged or diseased musculoskeletal tissues. In addition, stem cell related research will also be conducted in the BLNTE. The results of these projects will have the potential to be translated into clinical applications, thus improving current therapies. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Lijie (Grace) Zhang of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
Upcoming
SEAS Entrepreneurship Seminar: "Student Startups: From the Dorm Room to the Board Room"
Tuesday, October 26
6:00: Reception; 7:00: Panel Discussion
103 Funger Hall
Please join us for the first panel discussion in the 2010-2011 SEAS Entrepreneurship Seminar Series. This event will also be the kick-off for the $50,000 GW Business Plan Competition. Registration is required.
Institute for Knowledge and Innovation Seminar: Adapting for Success in a Knowledge-based Economy"
Tuesday, October 26
10:00 am - 3:30 pm
Virginia Science and Technology Campus, Research 1, Rooms 410-413
CS Colloquium: Query Processing in a Large Scale Web Search Engine
Dr. Joel Sherrill, Director of Research and Development for OAR Corporation; Dr. Cynthia Cicalese, Lead Software Systems Engineer, The MITRE Corporation
Tuesday, October 26
11:00 am
205 Tompkins Hall
Cybersecurity Seminar: Cybersecurity and Multidisciplinary Problems in Economics
Prof. Joseph Cordes, GW Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
Wednesday, October 27
12:00 pm
302 Marvin Center
ECE Colloquium: Electrical Power System Reliability and Economics: Applications and Challenges in the Emerging Energy Sector
Needal Deeb, Renergix, Fairfax, VA
Thursday, October 28
1:30 - 2:30 pm
640 Phillips
Looking Forward
ECE Colloquium: An Investigation of Magnetic Reversal at Almost the Nanoscale (IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecture Series 2010)
Prof. E. Dan Dahlberg, University of Minnesota
Wednesday, November 3
4:00 pm
640 Phillips
MAE Colloquium: How Aeros, Ag/Bio Engineers, Chemists, Food Scientists & MEs Work Together To Develop Advanced Rocket Motors
Paul Sojka, Purdue University
Monday, November 8
1:00 - 2:00 pm
736 Phillips
ECE Colloquium: A New Paradigm for Exchange Bias in Polycrystalline Films (IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecture Series 2010)
Prof. Kevin O'Grady, University of York (U.K.)
Wednesday, November 10
3:00 pm
640 Phillips
CEE Colloquium: Micro-to-Macro Connections in Geomechanics
Prof. A. (Rajah) Anandarajah, Johns Hopkins University
Monday, November 15
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering Colloquium: Dual-Mode Imaging of Cardiac Ischemia and Reperfusion in Contracting Hearts Using Contrast Echocardiography and Fluorescence Imaging
Profs. Vesna Zderic and Matthew Kay, ECE
Tuesday, November 16
2:30 - 3:30 pm
736 Phillips
"A Day in the Life of an Engineer"
Tuesday, November 16
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TBD
GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering Colloquium: The Role of Tissue Engineering and Nanomedicine for Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration
Prof. Lijie (Grace) Zhang, MAE
Tuesday, November 30
1:00 - 2:00 pm
736 Phillips