Faculty News
Media Mentions:
Prof. Lance Hoffman (CS) was quoted in the October 17 Washington Post article, " FBI Director Comey calls on Congress to stop unlockable encryption. Good luck with that."
Publications:
Profs. Lawrence Bennett (ECE) and Edward Della Torre (ECE) have published the paper " Bose-Einstein Condensation of Confined Magnons in Nanostructures," in the Journal of Modern Physics, 5, 693-705 2014. The paper is a review of a new field of physics created by Profs. Bennett and Della Torre. The study of atomic Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has yielded rich dividends. A promising extension is to magnons—spin-wave quanta that behave as bosonic quasiparticles—in magnetic nanoparticles. This system has unique characteristics differentiating it from atomic BEC, creating the potential for a whole new variety of interesting behaviors and applications that include novel nanomagnetic devices.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. James Lee (MAE) and his doctoral student, Mr. Leyu Wang, attended the 51st Society of Engineering Science Annual Technical Meeting, held October 1-3 at Purdue University. They presented the following works:
- Leyu Wang and James D. Lee. "Energy Release Rate-based Dynamic Crack Propogation"
- Jiaoyan Li and James D. Lee. "Finite Element Analysis of Thermomechanical Coupling"
- Jiaoyan Li, Lijie Zhang (Professor, MAE), and James D. Lee. "Computational Modeling of Biomechanics: Biological Growth and Morphogenesis"
- Zidong Yang, James D. Lee, and Azim Eskandarian (Professor, CEE). "Objectivity in Molecular Dynamics"
- Jiaoyan Li and James D. Lee. "Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Multi-physics"
At the invitation of the AIAA National Capital Section, Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE) delivered the 2014 Hal Andrews Lecture at the University of Maryland on October 14. The title of his lecture was "Spectral Difference Method for Computational Fluid Dynamics: From Flapping/Rotary Wing Aerodynamics to Thermal Convection of the Sun."
Other News:
On October 17, GW's Cyber Security and Privacy Research Institute (CSPRI) hosted a delegation of German industry and government representatives who met in the dean's conference room in Tompkins Hall with U.S. government officials and researchers to discuss shared cyber security issues and concerns. Present at the meeting were representatives of the U.S. State Department, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Rand Corporation, and the Information Technology Industry Council. The discussion topics included the new framework for cyber security promulgated by NIST and the concept of cyber insurance as a policy instrument to address cyber threats. At the end of the discussion, the head of the German delegation, Mr. Arne Schoenbohm, and Prof. Lance Hoffman (CSPRI director) signed an agreement to organize a long term, sustained program of academic exchanges, seminars and collaborative research intended to rebuild the trust between the two nations—traditional actors in a strong partnership in cyber security efforts—that recently has undergone challenges. The point of contact is Prof. Costis Toregas at CSPRI, [email protected].
Prof. Azim Eskandarian (CEE) served as one of three program chairs of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference 2014, held October 8-11 in Qingdao, China. This conference is the flagship conference of the IEEE ITS Society, and this year's program became the largest and most selective conference in the history of the society. At the conference, Prof. Eskandarian was the chair of the plenary session for the IEEE ITS Society Awards, at which three awards are granted annually to Best Research, Best Application, and Lead Institute, as well as to three students with the best doctoral dissertations (selected by a panel). Prof. Eskandarian also participated as the chair of the society's technical committee for vehicle safety technologies and applications. These activities bring national and international visibility and reputation to GW's transportation safety area.
Student News
2015 SEAS Student R & D Showcase: Application deadline —The November 1, 2014 deadline to apply for the R&D Showcase is fast approaching. This year's Showcase will be a two-day event, with the traditional poster competition held on Wednesday, February 18 and the keynote address and awards presentation on Thursday, February 19.
The Showcase is open to all SEAS undergraduate and graduate students, and this year it includes a new selection of prize categories:
• Theoretical Research
• Experimental Research
• Undergraduate Research
• Entrepreneurship
To be eligible to compete in the Showcase, students must submit their two-page abstracts by 5:00 pm on November 1. More information for student participants is available on the SEAS website's R&D Showcase Student Participants page.
Other News
Graduate Recruiting & Admissions: This week, Brittany Wright is recruiting at the QS World Grad Fair and the EducationUSA Center in Bucharest, Romania. Anthony Spatola is conducting our first site visit to The Technion in Haifa, Israel, and Trish Makovsky is recruiting at Penn State, Bucknell University, and Lehigh University. She also will hold an online information session on October 22 at 7:00 pm. Diane Hoover is recruiting at the Bio-Medical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, and Winnie Carr is recruiting at the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWE), along with our graduate ambassador and EMSE doctoral candidate Ira Payosova. More information about graduate recruiting can be found at our microsite at graduate.seas.gwu.edu. SEAS is continuing to take admissions applications for the spring 2015 semester.
Graduate Career Services: The GW SEAS Graduate Career Services Team hosted its first live WebEx workshop. The workshop received positive feedback from students, so additional efforts will be made to continue to offer workshops online, as well as in-person. Boeing will host a career day on October 21 in the Jack Morton Auditorium from 3:30 to 6:00 pm. The Boeing team will provide information about internship and full-time opportunities across the country. Space is limited, so students should RSVP on GWork.
Guest Vignette
Two-dimensional few-layer materials, including the extensively studied graphene and recently rising transition-metal dichalcogenides, offer unique electrical, chemical, and mechanical properties. A more exciting opportunity is to achieve novel optoelectronics and energy harvesting devices by creating heterostructures where individual layers of very different characters are combined, and engineering the strain and defects in these novel materials.
Prof. Tianshu Li has been taking the initiative to explore the opportunities for creating novel heterostructured 2D few-layer materials. Toward this goal, he is currently focused on gaining a fundamental understanding of the nature of the 2D materials, by investigating their intrinsic properties and the interactions arising when multiple layers are combined. Employing an advanced computational approach, Prof. Li has predicted the variation of the electronic and mechanical properties of monolayer MoS2 upon strain. Very recently, his research team also discovered the origin of the interlayer electronic coupling when two monolayer MoS2 layers are arbitrarily stacked to form 2D bilayers. This finding provides the theoretical explanation to the photoluminescence spectroscopy measured in twisted MoS2 bilayers. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Tianshu Li, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
SEAS Events
MAE Seminar: "Sharks and Butterflies: Micro-Sized Scales Have Macro Effects"
Speaker: Dr. Amy Lang, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics, University of Alabama
Thursday, October 23
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
U.S. Department of State Information Session
Thursday, October 23
5:00 – 7:00 pm
SEAS Dean's Conference Room, Tompkins Hall
Representatives will discuss the Foreign Service Information Management Specialist position, as well as other technical positions in the Foreign Service, which will become available on USA jobs on October 22. All students in tech-related majors are welcome to attend. U.S. citizenship is required for employment. Recommended attire for Information Sessions is either business professional or business casual attire. RSVP in GWork: log in, click on the "Events" tab in the upper right of the screen, and then select "Information Sessions." Questions? Contact Emmy Rashid, director of SEAS Career Services, at 202-994-7892 or [email protected].
SEAS Society of Women Engineers Conference Reception in Los Angeles, CA
Friday, October 24
4:30 – 6:30 pm
G.W. Marriott LA Live
All students, staff, faculty, and alumni attending the SWE conference (or who are in the area then) are welcome to attend the SEAS reception. Alumnae will also be in attendance, so come network, discuss the conference, and meet new GW friends. Find more information and register for the reception at: http://go.gwu.edu/swereception.
MAE Seminar: "Molecular Engineering of Microbubble Shells"
Speaker: Dr. Mark Borden, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering and Bioengineering, University of Colorado, Boulder
Thursday, October 30
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Bio-inspired Flow Sensing, Control, and Actuation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles"
Speaker: Dr. Derek A. Paley, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland
Wednesday, November 5
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Mechanics in Action: From Nano to Continuum"
Speaker: Prof. Ken Chong (SEAS MAE)
Thursday, November 13
3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
External Events
University Seminar: "Emerging Issues in Internet Freedom and Governance"
Roundtable 1: Thursday, October 23
3:00 – 5:00 pm
The Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has joined a cooperative effort with the School of Media and Public Affairs in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for International Economic Policy in the Elliot School of International Affairs, and the Law School to present this seminar series. Running themes include the tensions between freedom and (cyber)security, privacy and publicity, and commercial development and the public good. The series events frame the underlying issues and address competing prescriptive measures, such as industry self-regulation and transparency reporting, as well as the technological implications and constraints. More details on all the four roundtable events this academic year and background material for the first meeting (on the topic of Net Neutrality) are available at go.gwu.edu/gwifg .