September 24-30, 2018

Faculty News
Research:
Dr. Suresh Subramaniam (ECE) has received a three-year $368,000 National Science Foundation grant for the project “Resilience in Next-Generation Intelligent Optical Networks.” The world’s telecom infrastructure is dominated by fiber optics because of optical fiber’s tremendous bandwidth, and huge investments continue to be made in that infrastructure. However, as the insatiable demand for bandwidth grows, the network becomes more and more complex and harder to manage and protect. Network designers are, therefore, increasingly turning toward “disaggregated” optical nodes, which are composed of simple building blocks of essential functions. This project aims to equip the network infrastructure with resilience against failures, both small-scale, due to component or system degradation, and large-scale, due to disasters, for example. Resilience schemes at multiple granularity levels, ranging from component-level to network-level to service-level, will be developed. This research is a joint project between Dr. Subramaniam and collaborators from Nagoya University and Kagawa University in Japan, who will be funded separately by NICT, Japan's research and funding agency for telecom research.

Media Mentions:
Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE) and her work were quoted in the October 2018 issue of Scientific American in the article “Science under Scrutiny: The Problem of Reproducibility.”

Publications:
Dr. Amir Aslani (ECE) and Dr. Mohammadreza Ghahremani (ECE) at GW’s Institute for Magnetics Research have published the following paper: A. Aslani, M. Ghahremani, M. Zhang, L. H. Bennett, and E. Della Torre. “Customizing Magnetic and Structural Properties of Nanomaterials,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 54, 11, 2018. To make nanoparticles useful to fit various applications, the fundamental understanding of their magnetic and structural behavior is essential. Hence, a systematic study of the effect of field, temperature, and nanoparticles' size on the critical points, and magnetic properties has been performed. The results are significant as they explain and illustrate a better understanding of different phenomena in nanoparticles in order to effectively utilize them in a variety of scientific applications and devices.

Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) and his colleagues at Texas State University have published the following journal article: P. Dehghanian, S. Aslan, and P. Dehghanian. “Maintaining Electric System Safety through an Enhanced Network Resilience,” IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 54, No, 5, pp. 4927-4937.

Conferences & Presentations:
Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) gave an invited talk, titled “Attojoule Modulators for Photonic Neuromorphic Computing," at the IEEE Photonics in Switching and Computing Conference, held September 19-21 in Limassol, Cyprus. The presented work is being done in collaboration with Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE), and Dr. Paul Prucnal (Princeton).

On September 10, Dr. Johan Rene van Dorp (EMSE) presented a talk at the TU Delft Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, in a joint seminar of the Safety and Security Science section and the Policy Analysis section. His talk was titled “What Do Coin Tosses, Decision Making under Uncertainty, The Vessel Traffic Risk Assessment 2015 and Average Return Time Uncertainty Have in Common?” The Vessel Traffic Risk Assessment 2015 was separately mentioned in the September 13 The Globe and Mail article “With or without Trans Mountain, orcas in oil tankers’ path face perils from pollution, noise and starvation. Here’s how”.

Other News:
Dr. Feras Batarseh (CS, adjunct faculty) has issued a call for book chapters for the book Data Democratization: At the Nexus of Artificial Intelligence, Software Development, and Knowledge Engineering. Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit a proposal (no more than 600 words) that presents the main idea of their chapter and forecasts the number of pages and a title (PDF only). Submissions are due on or before November 8, and authors of accepted proposals will be notified within three weeks about the status of their submission. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by May 3, 2019, and all submitted chapters will be reviewed. The book is under contract by Elsevier's Academic Press. Please send inquiries and submissions to Feras Batarseh and Ruixin Yang.

SEAS Events Re-cap

On September 18, SEAS hosted a live conversation with NASA astronaut and SEAS alumna Dr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor (BS ’97), who is on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Sporting her “space hair” and flying the SEAS flag during the 20-minute NASA downlink, Dr. Auñón-Chancellor answered questions about living and working aboard the ISS. Immediately following the downlink, SEAS hosted a follow-on discussion on the challenges of deep space exploration with SEAS alumnus and former astronaut, Dr. Charles Camarda (MS ’80), who was present in the Jack Morton Auditorium for the event.

Dr. David Dolling (MAE) moderated both conversations for SEAS. More than 80 K-12 students from six local schools participated, some of them getting to ask questions directly of Dr. Auñón-Chancellor. GW live streamed the full program via GW Facebook; the live stream recording has garnered more than 4,600 views. GW Today covered the event in the article “GW Alumna Talks about Life on the International Space Station.”

Later in the afternoon, Dr. Camarda visited the GW Innovation Center for a discussion with students there, and then concluded the day with an open forum for SEAS students on how an engineering education prepares them to tackle the challenges of the future.

On Monday September 17, the Office of Graduate Admissions & Student Services hosted a visiting delegation of faculty members from a partner institution, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in India. Associate Dean Can Korman led discussions about possible areas for additional academic and research collaboration and provided a tour of the SEH. A special thanks to the SEAS faculty members who joined the discussion and lunch with VIT.

Twenty-six alumnae returned to SEAS on September 19 to join SEAS faculty, staff, student leaders, and new students at the SEAS Welcome for First Year Women event. All told, 87 members of the SEAS community participated in the event, including 40 new students. The gathering provided an opportunity to introduce new students to the larger community of SEAS women, particularly alumnae, and to the resources available at SEAS to support them. The networking and learning reception included brief remarks from Dean Rumana Riffat and representatives of SEAS faculty, staff, student organizations, and alumnae.

Upcoming SEAS Events
CVP Speaker’s Series Event: “Navigating Your Career”
Tuesday, September 25
4:00 – 6:00 pm
SEH, B1270
Register (Register on Handshake)
SEAS Career Services has joined forces with CVP, a business and technology consulting company, to host this timely panel. Anirudh Kulkarni, the CEO and founder of CVP and a double alumnus of GW, will moderate the panel. Joining him will be four guests from different “walks of life” who will present diverse points of view and career insights. Come listen, learn, and ask questions. This event is open to all GW students.

CEE Seminar: “The Long and Winding Road: Predicting Molecular and Material Properties Through Computation”
Speaker: Dr. Giulia Galli, University of Chicago
Wednesday, September 26
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
SEH, 2000B

MAE Seminar: "Bubble Deformation and Breakup in Strong Turbulence”
Speaker: Dr. Rui Ni, The Johns Hopkins University
Thursday, September 27
2:00 - 3:00pm
SEH, B1220

MAE Seminar: “Laboratory-Scaled Experiments on Impulsively Loaded Structures in a Fluid Environment”
Speaker: Dr. Christine Gilbert, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Thursday, October 18
2:00 - 3:00pm
SEH, B1220

CEE Seminar: “Computational Nanoscience: Predicting the Shapes of Nanocrystals Grown in Solution”
Speaker: Dr. Kristen Fichthorn, Pennsylvania State University
Monday, October 22
2:30 – 3:30 pm
SEH, B1220

MAE Seminar: “Material Characterization of Nanostructured Ferretic Alloy through Atomistic Modeling”
Speaker: Dr. Huijuan (Jane) Zhao, Clemson University
Thursday, October 25
2:00 - 3:00pm
SEH, B1220

MAE Seminar: “Unified Mechanics Theory: F=m a ((1-ϕ(s ̇ ))”
Speaker: Dr. Cemal Basaran, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Thursday, November 1
2:00 - 3:00pm
SEH, B1220

External Events
GW Nanofabrication and Imaging Center Workshop: Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy Workshop
Monday, September 24 – Friday, September 28
9:00 am – 5:00 pm each day
SEH, Nanofabrication and Imaging Center
Register
The main theme of this workshop is correlating large-area images of the same sample created with both light and high-resolution electron microscopy. The workshop will be geared toward microscopists who are interested in learning new techniques for special projects or who are in the market for new instruments, particularly neuroscientists or anatomists who are interested in utilizing large area imaging in their research. Numerous vendors will demonstrate their instruments.

Pre-Award Grant Development Boot Camp
Tuesday, September 25
1:00 – 4:30 pm
Marvin Center, 310
Find more information and register

Post-Award Grant Management Boot Camp
Thursday, September 27
1:00 – 4:30 pm
Marvin Center, 405
Find more information and register

Entrepreneurship News & Events
NSF I-Corps AccelerateGW Introduction to I-Corps Course: The next offering of the National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps AccelerateGW Introduction to I-Corps Course will begin on October 24. This two-week workshop introduces participants to the key concepts and techniques of the Lean Startup method for exploring the commercial potential of new technologies, as used in the NSF I-Corps program. The course requires participants to attend three half-day, in-person sessions in Foggy Bottom and to conduct 20 customer interviews over the two weeks of the course. GW teams that are accepted are eligible for a $3,000 grant to cover expenses for doing customer discovery interviews through the AccelerateGW I-Corps Site program.

Jumpstart 2-Day Bootcamp
Saturday, September 29, – Sunday, September 30
10:00 am – 5:00 pm (both days)
GW Gelman Library, Room 219
Register
Jumpstart your ideas and passions with this experiential and interactive two-day bootcamp that exposes you to the tools, tactics, and frameworks used by innovators and entrepreneurs to create new startups, businesses, and social enterprises.

Pitching Your Best Foot Forward: What Investors Want to Hear
Thursday, October 4
5:30 – 7:00 pm
The Alley powered by Verizon (2055 L Street NW, Suite 400)
Register
For start-ups seeking to fund raise successfully through investors, the Pitch is a critical first step to gaining their interest. It is important, however, to keep in mind that this is only the beginning in a series of steps. Becoming educated on the in’s and out’s of each step will differentiate you in the eyes of investors and hopefully get you the funding you’ve worked hard to get for your start-up.

Advising Emerging Companies: How Lawyers and Entrepreneurs Make Innovation Happen
Wednesday, October 10
6:00 – 7:00 pm
GW Law School, Faculty Conference Center - 5^th Floor Burns
Register
How do lawyers support the creation and growth of new, innovative, and high-growth companies? How can lawyers incorporate innovative and entrepreneurial thinking into their own practices? Join the Business and Finance Law Program as they host three experienced legal advisors to high-growth companies for a discussion of some of the roles that lawyers can play in innovation-driven entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Webinar: Where Do I Start?
Thursday, October 11
12:00 – 1:00 pm
WebEx Room: webex.gwu.edu/join/jbautista
Register
Do you have a business or social enterprise idea, but don't know where to start? Are you interested in getting feedback on your idea and getting guidance on how to move your idea forward? Join us for an interactive discussion on how you can get your startup idea going!

Immigration Legal Clinic for GW Student Entrepreneurs
Friday, October 12
9:00 am – 12:00 pm
GW Marvin Center, Room 407
Register
International students who wish to start a business here in the U.S. are welcome to join us for a lecture on all the processes to move your business forward. Students will also be able to schedule a one-on-one with a lawyer onsite during this event to discuss options catered to your situation.

Human Centered Design Workshop: Designing Innovative Solutions for Social Challenges
Monday, October 15
5:45 – 7:45 pm
GW Gelman Library, Room 219
Register
This experiential and interactive workshop exposes students to the tools, tactics, and frameworks used by innovators, entrepreneurs, and designers to empathize with populations they seek to serve, define problem sets, and come up with innovative solutions.

So you need an app: What you should know before you start!
Wednesday, October 17
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW Gelman Library, Room 219
Register
Amelia Friedman, co-founder and COO of Hatch Apps (Y Combinator), will lead this interactive workshop covering explanations of when building an app is the right solution, what you'll need to prepare before starting the development, what software development options are available, and what the key evaluation criteria are.

Workshop: Where Do I Start?
Thursday, October 25
5:30 – 7:00 pm
GW District House, Room B117
Register
Do you have a business or social enterprise idea, but don't know where to start? Are you interested in getting feedback on your idea and getting guidance on how to move your idea forward? Join us for an interactive discussion on how you can get your startup idea going!

Alumni Entrepreneurship Panel
Saturday, October 27
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Duques Hall, Room 151
Register
Join us during Colonials Weekend for a panel event that will feature several extraordinary GW alumni entrepreneurs. Hear their accounts of their journeys from student life in Foggy Bottom to success in the cut-throat business world.