Faculty News
Research:
Profs. Amir Etemadi (ECE) and Ergun Simsek (ECE) have received a three-year, $327,246 grant from the National Science Foundation for their project, “Catastrophic impacts of geomagnetic disturbances on power system operation: Analysis and Mitigation.” The project will create accurate modeling techniques and mitigation approaches to prevent severe impacts of geomagnetic disturbances on power system equipment and operations. To this end, the major contributions of the project include: 1) spectral element analysis of power transformers; 2) nonlinear harmonic power flow analysis of power systems; and 3) development of optimization-based mitigation approaches. Prof. Etemadi is the PI on the project, and Prof. Simsek is the co-PI.
Profs. Erica Gralla (EMSE) and Zoe Szajnfarber (EMSE) have been awarded a three-year, $239,214 National Science Foundation grant for their project, “Hidden costs of decomposition: the need for ‘fit’ between technical and organizational architectures.” Their project involves studying concurrent design teams at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to understand how the “fit” between the technical system architecture of a spacecraft and the organizational structure of the design team impacts the success of the design process. Prof. Gralla is the PI on the project, and Prof. Szajnfarber is the co-PI.
Prof. Majid Manzari (CEE) has received a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation to lead an international collaborative research project aimed at producing high quality experimental data to establish the validity and range of applicability of existing computational models and simulation procedures for soil liquefaction analysis. Liquefaction is a pervasive problem during earthquakes that causes significant and costly damages to civil infrastructure. The research partners include GW as the lead institution, University of California at Davis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Cambridge University (UK), Kyoto University (Japan), NCU (Taiwan), Zhejiang University (China), IFSTTAR (France), KAIST and KWater (Korea), and HKUST (Hong Kong). The NSF support for the U.S. institutions (GW, UCD, and RPI) is more than $1.3 million, of which $407,000 is the GW share. The international participants also receive funding from the NSF counterparts in their respective countries.
Prof. Kausik Sarkar (MAE) has been awarded a three-year $227,742 National Science Foundation grant for his project “Collaborative Research: Acoustic micro-streaming in the aqueous core of bubble containing liposomes for controlled release via shear induced bilayer reorganization.” This is a collaborative project with Prof. Steven Wrenn (Drexel University), who has received a parallel award of $224,274 for the same project. Their project will investigate and model lipid coated micro-bubbles encapsulated in liposomes for their biomedical applications in drug delivery and contrast enhanced ultrasound imaging.
The National Science Foundation has awarded $69,500 to GW for additional support for “PISCES 2019: Partnership in Securing Cyberspace through Education and Service: Renewal.” With this amendment, the PISCES award to GW totals $4,233,002 and ends August 31, 2019. The project is operated under the direction of Profs. Lance Hoffman (CS), Shelly Heller (CS), and Costis Toregas (CS).
Publications:
The Institute for Magnetics Research (IMR) has published the following paper: M. Ghahremani, A. Aslani, A. Sidiqque, L. H. Bennett, and E. Della Torre. “Tuning the heat transfer medium and operating conditions in magnetic refrigeration,” AIP Advances Journal, 6, 075221 (2016). It is expected that the optimization procedure described in this paper will permit the design of a more efficient, commercially viable, magnetic refrigeration system.
Prof. Ergun Simsek (ECE) and his students have published the following paper: B. Mukherjee, B. Varghese, M. Zheng, E. S. Tok, E. Simsek, and C. H. Sow. “Photoconductivity in VO2-ZnO Inter-Nanowire Junction and Nanonetwork Device,” Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Letters, 8, 492-497 (2016).
Conferences & Presentations:
On July 13, Prof. Ekundayo Shittu (EMSE) gave an invited seminar titled “Investments in Energy Technological Change under Regulatory and Learning Uncertainties” at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) of the University of Idaho. The CAES is located within the premises of Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, ID, and the seminar was attended by staff scientists of the INL and CAES. Prof. Shittu also recently attended the LMI Research Institute’s (LRI) 3rd annual Government-University Forum, held at LMI headquarters in Tysons, VA. He is captured in this video of the event.
Prof. Tim Wood (CS) was invited to present a tutorial on network function virtualization at the EU-sponsored CleanSky ITN Conference, held August 4-5 in Trondheim, Norway.
Other News
Research by Prof. Michael Plesniak (MAE) and his Ph.D. student Ian Carr, “Three-dimensional flow separation over a surface-mounted hemisphere in pulsatile flow,” is featured currently on the homepage of Advances in Engineering. The featured synopsis was invited based on their publication: I. A. Carr and M. W. Plesniak. “Three-dimensional flow separation over a surface-mounted hemisphere in pulsatile flow,” Experiments in Fluids (2016) 57: 9. doi:10.1007/s00348-015-2099-z.
Student News
The paper “NetKV: Scalable, Self-Managing, Load Balancing as a Network Function,” by Ph.D. student Wei Zhang (CS) and Prof. Tim Wood (CS), won the inaugural Karsten Schwan Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing, held July 18-22 in Wurzburg, Germany.
Career Services Events
Intel Corp Information Session for Graduate Students
Thursday, August 11
4:00 – 6:00 pm
SEH, 2845
RSVP required via GWORK>Information Session>Intel
Join Intel Corporation representatives for an information session regarding the many opportunities for graduate students at Intel. Bring your resume and discuss the exciting opportunities for graduates with degrees in civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, chemistry, mechanical engineering, materials science, biochemistry, physics, optics, and more. For more information about the event, please contact [email protected].
Google Career Expo @ GW
Thursday, August 18
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
SEH, Atrium
RSVP required at: https://goo.gl/rSm0AK
Google will partner with GW to hold a career planning session for undergraduate students interested in any profession. They will offer résumé critiques, mock interviews, and career planning conversations.
SEAS Events
BME Seminar: “Digital Holographic Microscope (DHM) - Presentation and Demo”
Speaker: Dr. Frank Liu, Lyncée Tec, Lausanne, Switzerland
Tuesday, August 9
4:00 – 5:00 pm
SEH, 2000