Faculty News
Awards & Honors:
Congratulations to Dr. Chunlei Liang (MAE) (left) and Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) (right), whom President Trump recently named as winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). According to the White House, the PECASE is “the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research careers and who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.” Federal agencies can nominate potential winners, who eventually are selected by the president and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Learn more about Dr. Liang’s and Dr. Sorger’s accomplishments in GW Today.
Research:
The United States Patent Office has issued patent number US 10, 318, 680 B2, “The Reconfigurable Optical Computer,” to Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE), Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE), and their team. The patent is the product of work performed under the National Science Foundation project “RAISE: The Reconfigurable Optical Computer (ROC)” for which Dr. El-Ghazawi is the principal investigator (PI) and Dr. Sorger is the co-PI. This invention introduces a new class of reconfigurable computing devices, namely a nano-photonic, analog, reconfigurable computer that is capable of computing out of first principles by solving those partial differential equations (PDEs) that are used for most simulations in science and engineering. The PDEs would be directly solved using a network of electric components that are implemented using innovative nano-photonic devices.
Dr. Rachael Jonassen (director, Climate Change EEMI) has been appointed by the Asian Development Bank to lead a project in Hunan Province, China designing a roughly $500 million low carbon transformation for the city of Xiangtan. Xiangtan is a heavily polluted industrial city whose emissions have doubled in the past 10 years. The ADB team consists of 42 international and national experts in fields such as distributed energy, district heating, waste-to-energy, intelligent transport systems, smart energy building design, and green public finance.
Dr. Michael Keidar (MAE) and his colleague Dr. Jonathan Sherman have received a two-year, $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for their project “Cold plasma technology to enable a future cancer treatment device to reduce surgical margins.” The project focuses on the development of a flexible and focused cold atmospheric plasma source for the treatment of tumors. The project will translate the basic science of cold plasma physics from an NSF basic science grant toward new cancer therapies.
Publications:
Dr. Leila Farhadi (CEE) and her student Mohammad Nabian have published the following paper in the journal Water: M. A. Nabian and L. Farhadi. “MR-WC-MPS: A Multi-Resolution WC-MPS Method for Simulation of Free-Surface Flows,” Water, 2019, 11, 1349.
Dr. Samer Hamdar (CEE) and his colleagues from the University of New South Wales, Texas A&M University, and Technical University of Dresden have published the following paper: S. H. Hamdar, V. V. Dixit, A. Talebpour, and M. Treiber. “A behavioral microeconomic foundation for car-following models,” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2019, ISSN 0968-090X.
Dr. Kausik Sarkar (MAE) has published the following journal article with his Ph.D. student Jenna Osborn and collaborators: J. Pullan, M. Confeld, J. Osborn, J. Kim, K. Sarkar, and S. Mallik. “ Exosomes as drug carriers for cancer therapy,” Molecular Pharamaceutics, 16, 1789-1798.
Dr. Rene van Dorp (EMSE) and his co-author, Dr. M.C. Jones (Open University, UK), have published the following journal article: J. R. van Dorp and M. C. Jones. “The Johnson System of Frequency Curves – Historical, Graphical and Limiting Perspectives,” The American Statistician, July 8, 2019.
Dr. Mona Zaghloul (ECE) and her Ph.D. student Yangyang Zhao have published the following paper: Y. Zhao, K. Mukherjee, K. D. Benkstein, L. Sun, K. L. Steffens, C. B. Montgomery, S. Guo, S. Semancik, and M. E. Zaghloul. “Miniaturized nanohole array based plasmonic sensor for the detection of acetone and ethanol with insights into the kinetics of adsorptive plasmonic sensing,” Nanoscale, 2019,11, 11922-11932.
Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Igor Efimov (BME) recently presented two lectures. On June 27, he gave a plenary lecture titled “Mechanisms of Sudden Cardiac Death” at the 20th University of California System Bioengineering Symposium, held at University of California Merced. On July 2, he gave the invited lecture “Critical Mass of Ventricular Fibrillation” at Max-Planck Institute on Dynamics and Self-Organization in Goettingen, Germany.
On June 11, Cynthia Gayton (lecturer, EMSE) gave a presentation for “Getting Real: Authenticity and Law,” an event sponsored by the Center for Art Law. Her presentation was titled “AI and Art Authentication - data integrity, bias and access.”
On June 12, Dr. Samer Hamdar (CEE) presented “Beyond Collision Data: Vehicular Traffic Safety Analysis and Modeling” at the Delft University of Technology Transport Institute Seminar Series. The seminar was held at the Department of Transport and Planning at TU Delft (The Netherlands).
Other News:
The SEAS Environmental and Energy Management Institute was a co-host, along with the GW Environmental Law Program, of a July 12 day-long symposium titled “Climate Science for Judges.” Mr. Joe Cascio (research professor, EMSE) and Dr. Jonathan Deason (EMSE) were participants in the event, which was sponsored by the Climate Judiciary Project. The purpose of the symposium was to educate senior federal and state judges about the science behind global climate change issues to prepare them for a rapidly increasing caseload of climate-related legal cases. Among the 25 legal luminaries at the event were 10 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges, U.S. District Court judges, and State Superior and Appellate Court judges.
Student News
CS doctoral student Grace Liu has been selected as one of 10 “N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications.” The award recognizes the “10 most impacting and inspiring women in networking” each year. Grace, who is advised by Dr. Timothy Wood (CS), will graduate this summer and begin a post-doctoral position at Carnegie Mellon University.
CS Ph.D. student Michael Trotter presented his paper “Forecasting a Storm: Divining Optimal Configurations Using Genetic Algorithms and Supervised Learning” at the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC), held June 16-20 in Umea, Sweden. The paper, co-authored with Dr. Tim Wood (CS) and CS alumnus Jinho Hwang, was a runner up for the best paper award at the conference.
Other News
On June 27, SEAS alumnus and Hall of Fame member Christopher Scolese (MS ’82) was confirmed by the US Senate as the new director of the National Reconnaissance Office. He is currently director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Human Resources News
In this month's HR Corner, SEAS HR Manager Marion Flythe-Inman shares:
- the announcement of GW's new chief people officer,
- TRS changes for timekeepers,
- interviewing and hiring compliance training, and
- updates to SEAS job opportunities.
The HR Corner is a new web page for SEAS staff that contains HR-related news, information, and events. Marion encourages staff to visit the page to find information on GW's new time off and leave guide, events and trainings, SEAS employment opportunities, and much more.
Dissertation Defenses
Student Name: Roxana Leontie
Title: “Proprioceptive and Kinesthetic Feedback for Robotic Manipulation”
Advisor: Dr. Evan Drumwright/Presiding: Dr. Robert Pless (CS)
Tuesday, July 23
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
SEH, B1270
Entrepreneurship News & Events
Lemelson-MIT Student Prize: This national invention competition recognizes students at any U.S. college or university who have tested prototypes of technology-based inventions in healthcare, food/water and agriculture, transportation and mobility, or consumer devices. In each of the four categories, graduate students are awarded $15,000 and undergraduate teams are awarded $10,000. The initial application deadline is September 27. See complete details about the application process and eligibility requirements.