Faculty News
Research:
Prof. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE) has received a NIST cooperative agreement, with initial funding of $125,000 for the first year, for the project "A Scalable Heterogeneous Architecture for Big Data." Prof. El-Ghazawi and his graduate students will work directly with NIST scientists on the development of a new reconfigurable hardware-software computer architecture that can guide the design of high-performance systems to enable big data science. The envisioned test bed will simplify the rapid deployment and testing of a range of multilayer configurations based on high-performance heterogeneous hardware architectures, resource management services, computational frameworks, high-performance input/output services, and application and resource monitors.
Prof. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) and co-PIs, Prof. Volker Sorger (ECE) and Prof. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE), have been awarded a two-year, $199,052 National Science Foundation grant for the project "An Interdisciplinary Practicum Approach to Nanotechnology Curricula Integration." The project will: 1) develop an undergraduate Nanotechnology Fellows Program to train GW students on nano- fabrication and characterization tools and techniques; 2) integrate nanotechnology research and concepts into the curriculum through two new interdisciplinary courses; and 3) provide teaching and learning resources and experiences for college and 6-12 grade teachers and students.
The National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Timothy Wood (CS) a three-year, $497,899 grant for his project "Software Defined Network Function Virtualization—Flexible, High Performance Network and Data Center Virtualization." The research is being done in collaboration with UC Riverside, and it investigates how network services that currently run on specialized hardware can be moved to software-based platforms that are more efficient, flexible, and resilient.
Media Mentions:
On September 3, Allan Friedman (research scientist, Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute) was interviewed on CCTV's (China) Biz Asia America to discuss the issue of companies being targeted by cyber criminals.
Publications:
Prof. Zhenyu Li (BME) , SEAS graduate students Baichen Li, Allan Guan and Quan Dong, and their collaborators at the Chinese Academy of Science, have published the following article: "A Smartphone Controlled Handheld Microfluidic Liquid Handling System," Lab on a Chip, DOI: 10.1039/C4LC00227J, 2014. On September 9, GW Today published the article "Medical Testing on the Go," which describes this work in layman's terms.
Other News
King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) of Saudi Arabia has become the latest member of the National Science Foundation's Industry University Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC) and has paid its first year membership dues. CHREC is a national center with four sites at GW, the University of Florida, Virginia Tech, and Brigham Young University. Prof. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE)serves as the principal investigator and the GW Center site director. CHREC is now in its eighth year, the third year of the second five-year cycle. Over the life of the center, GW has had many prestigious members, including Intel, AMD, HP, SGI, ONR, NRO, NSA and ARSC. Under CHREC each member provides a $40,000 membership, and the funds are pooled to undertake new projects under the guidance of the CHREC industrial advisory board.
Call for Proposals: The GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering (GWIBE) Interdisciplinary Research Fund is accepting proposals from GW faculty members interested in biomedical engineering research support. The application deadline is 5:00 pm on Wednesday, October 1. The competition is primarily for junior faculty to help them establish an active research program. Each award can be up to $20,000.
Graduate Admissions news: This week, the SEAS Office of Graduate Admissions will recruit at the Big Ten Grad School Exposition at Purdue University, and at Rose Hulman College in Terre Haute, IN.
Natalie Grandison , SEAS associate director of development and alumni relations, is resigning from GW to take a position as director of external relations for the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. Her last day at SEAS will be September 25. During her time at SEAS, Natalie has been instrumental in closing several notable major and planned gifts and has been a tremendous asset in connecting alumni with SEAS faculty and students. We wish Natalie the best of luck in her new position.
Guest Vignette
Smart metering systems have been widely adopted in many countries, i.e., the European Commission requires an 80% AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) coverage by 2020. However, recent research indicates that privacy-sensitive information, such as residents' actions and their presence/absence, can be revealed by analyzing smart meter recordings without a paramount effort. Such a privacy disclosure violates the safety and security laws in many countries – the deployment of smart meters in the Netherlands was even canceled by the parliament. Nevertheless, smart meter deployment is well under way in other European countries, the US, Canada, and Asia due to the significant power system efficiency improvement incurred. Therefore, protecting consumer privacy in AMI has attracted much attention in recent years.
The smart grid research team led by Prof. Xiuzhen Cheng at GW aims at designing an AMI architecture that can provide privacy-preserving fine-grained data collection and processing. The design faces a number of challenges such as the traceability of the smart meter data via side-channel information, the low computational capability of smart meters, and the real-time access requirement of smart meter data. This project is a component of a large project sponsored by the National Science Foundation under the CyberSEES program, which involves three collaborative institutions: University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, University of Michigan – Ann Arber, and The George Washington University. Our CyberSEES project is centered on computational methods for enhancing the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of next-generation power distribution networks. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Xiuzhen Cheng, Department of Computer Science)
SEAS Events
MAE Seminar: "Microscale Gas Transport in Insect Respiratory Systems"
Speaker: Dr. Anne Staples, Biomedical Engineering & Mechanics, Virginia Tech
Wednesday, September 17
1:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
Clark Scholars Program Event: "From Design through Construction: The Science and Engineering Hall Explained"
Thursday, September 18
6:00 – 7:45 pm
1957 E Street Building, Room 113
RSVP
Come hear a panel of engineers and architects discuss the challenges faced in the construction of GW's Science and Engineering Hall. Clark Construction Project Executive Mark Goodwin will moderate a discussion about the internal and external considerations the engineers and architects faced during the building's three-year construction. The program, which is open to the GW community, is for non-engineers and engineers alike and will include ample Q&A time. This event is sponsored by the Clark Scholars Program.
GW Alumni Weekend events—September 18-21: Students may attend the SEAS BBQ and the Hall and Oates concert during GW's Alumni Weekend. Seniors are especially encouraged to attend the SEAS BBQ and take the opportunity to network with alumni. The BBQ is listed among the AW2014 events on the Alumni Weekend registration page; it is not a separate event but part of the overall Alumni Weekend package. Registration is required.
MAE Seminar: "Roughness Effects on Wall-Bounded Turbulent Flows"
Speaker: Dr. Karen A. Flack, Mechanical Engineering Department, United States Naval Academy
Thursday, September 25
3:00 – 4:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: Genre and Structure: "Framing and Organizing Scientific Writing"
Speaker: Edward Helfers, GW University Writing Program
Wednesday, October 1
3:00 pm
2020 K Street NW, Room 24
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
Entrepreneurship News & Events
Lean Startup Workshop 1: The Basics
Wednesday, September 17
Marvin Center
5:30 – 7:30 pm
RSVP
Skills 101: Finding the Killer Idea
Thursday, September 18
5:30 – 7:30 pm
652 Duques Hall
RSVP
Entrepreneur Office Hour
Friday, September 19
2033 K Street, NW, Suite 750
4:00 – 5:00 pm
RSVP
DC TechDay
Thursday, October 2
10:00 am – 5:00 pm
National Building Museum
Washington, DC
Volunteers Needed for DC I-Corps Fall Cohort
The DC I-Corps Node is a regional program that provides real world, hands-on training on how to successfully commercialize scientific and technical research from universities and national laboratories. All GW professors, research staff, and graduate students with potentially commercializable research are eligible to participate. Some funding is available to support participation in the program for GW researchers with invention disclosures submitted to the GW Office of Technology Transfer.
External Events
2014 Solar Symposium: "Using Solar Energy to Generate Wealth in Lower Income Communities"
Tuesday, September 23
9:00 am – 4:30 pm
Jack Morton Auditorium (SMPA Building)
805 21st Street NW
Register
The GW Solar Institute will host the first national gathering of stakeholders dedicated to achieving solar energy affordability and accessibility for Americans with limited means .