Faculty News
Publications:
Prof. Michael Keidar (MAE) and his Ph.D. student Olga Volotskova have published the following paper in Scientific Reports: O. Volotskova, T. S. Hawley, M. A. Stepp & M. Keidar, "Targeting the cancer cell cycle by cold atmospheric plasma," Scientific Reports, 2:636, September 6, 2012. Scientific Reports is published by the journal Nature.
Conferences and Presentations:
Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE) gave a seminar at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering on August 27. The title of his talk was "Massively parallel and high-order spectral difference simulation of unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wings."
Other News
Sergio de Cosmo, a recent Ph.D. graduate and now senior research associate in EMSE's Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management (ICDRM), was invited to present his dissertation research, "Decision support tool for mass fatality victim identification," to the Scientific Working Group on Disaster Victim Identification (SWGDVI) on August 7. The SWGDVI brings together the leading forensics experts from a range of U.S. and international organizations (such as DOJ, FBI, DOD, NTSB, Interpol and ICRC) "to identify and promulgate DVI guidelines and best practices." Dr. de Cosmo's seminal work developed quantitative methods to compare findings from post-mortem victim examinations with the physical features of missing persons reported by relatives and friends. The resulting system model and matching algorithms expedite victim identification in mass fatality situations. Talks are ongoing for the development of future joint projects with several different conference participants.
The GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering (GWIBE) announces the call for proposals for this year's Interdisciplinary Research Fund. Faculty interested in receiving internal funding from GWIBE to conduct pilot research may apply until October 1, 2012.
Guest Vignette
Prof. Volker Sorger's research group investigates nanoscale opto-electronic devices and systems, including their fundamental electrodynamic and material properties toward applications in communication and logic, 'green' engineering, and material science.
Prof. Sorger's group is especially interested in merging semiconductor plasmonics active metamaterials with photonic and electronic integration. Plasmonics and metamaterials are a unique class of devices and materials featuring intriguing properties not found in nature, such as subwavelength optical confinement, negative index materials, sub-diffraction-limited imaging, invisibility via electro-magnetic cloaking, optical loss management, and chirality. A particular focus of Prof. Sorger's group is the enhancement of light-matter-interactions, which pave the way for the development of a computer running on light instead of electrical currents. To this end, his group targets novel device architectures such as ultra-fast modulators, optical switches, and lasers smaller than the diffraction limit of light, enabling a continuation of "Moore's Law" in the form of photonic circuit integration and data bandwidth.
Prof. Sorger, the newly appointed assistant professor for "nano-power-research" at GW, also focuses on energy applications and devices. Here, smart design-choices enhance the interaction between light and matter such that energy harvesting and conversion in computing and data communication allow for extremely efficient atto-joule per bit links. Lastly, the precise photon management enables Prof. Sorger to explore new methods for next generation solar cells with unprecedented conversion efficiencies towards increasing the U.S.' energy security and sustainable energy production for a "greener" future.
In summary Prof. Sorger's research is centered on designing and testing novel opto-electronic building blocks at the nanoscale, and applying them to problems of national and global significance. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Volker Sorger of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)
SEAS Events
MAE Seminar: "Secrets of Fish Swimming"
Prof. Chui-Jie Wu, Dean, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dalian University of Technology, China
Wednesday, September 26
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
Dissertation Defenses
Name of Student Defending: Olga Volotskova
Title of Dissertation: " Biomedical applications of the cold atmospheric plasma: cell responses"
Advisor: Michael Keidar
Thursday, September 13
3:00 - 5:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall