SEAS Colonial Cable

Message from Dean David Dolling


As you may recall from your time at SEAS, the end of the academic year always brings a whirlwind of activity. This year is no exception. Students are taking final exams, feverishly putting the finishing touches on their senior design projects, or perhaps packing up their dorm rooms or apartments. Faculty are busily grading exams, preparing for summer research projects, and trying to turn their attention to things that clamored for, but couldn’t claim, their attention during the rush of the school year.

No doubt your lives are equally busy. Despite our hectic schedules, I’d like to mention a few upcoming SEAS activities that you might want to consider attending.

Next Saturday evening, May 16th, we will host the SEAS Celebration, at which graduating SEAS students will get to walk across the stage and be individually recognized in advance of the university-wide Commencement on Sunday. Because this is a special year for SEAS as we celebrate our 125th anniversary, we are making a special point of celebrating our history—and you, our alumni, are a part of that history. To help make our new graduates, their parents, visiting dignitaries, and other guests more aware of our proud history, we plan to set aside a section of VIP seating for our alumni in order to recognize you during the ceremony. We hope that many of you who are local will be able to join us to celebrate our graduates and the part of our history that they—like you—are becoming. Details of the event and registration are available on our website.

Finally, for those of you in California, please consider attending one of the upcoming GW alumni events. I will be in Los Angeles on May 27th and San Diego on May 28th to attend and participate in GW and SEAS alumni events, and I hope to meet many of you there. Please check the highlighted city links directly above for more details of these events.

Sincerely,
Signature David Dolling

David S. Dolling, Ph.D.
Dean

News & Events

 

A message from Development . . .

James Howard

With the latest issue of Synergy magazine about to reach your mailbox (if it does not arrive in the next week or so, please let us know!), I hope you can sense the spirit of excitement and progress going on here at SEAS. From the leadership of Dean Dolling, to the award-winning teaching and research going on in the classrooms and laboratories, to students who are busily preparing for finals and—for some—graduation, the School is vibrant.

We are also very pleased to see more alumni coming out to take part in the life of SEAS. Just in the past few weeks we have had alumni participate as science fair judges; lead stimulating panel discussions on cyber security during the National Advisory Council meeting; sit with students for resume and career counseling; host a group of students for dinner to talk about career opportunities; participate in the Graduate Research and Development Showcase; and lead career discussions with students, just to name a few.

This week I read a Wall Street Journal article about how some "safe" havens for retirement funds no longer seem safe. As I considered that, I couldn't help but think about an investment in SEAS and in our students. If there ever was a safe bet for a positive return on investment, I believe this is it. A SEAS education is an investment in the lives and minds of students who will go on to develop and create solutions, wealth and opportunities. If you agree, and are interested in discussing opportunities to make a difference here, I or a member of the SEAS development staff would be pleased for a chance to visit with you.

As this issue of Synergy relates, William Corcoran had a vision for a "scientific school" for GW when he founded SEAS in 1884, and he lead the charge to make it happen. We are now building on that vision to prepare SEAS for the generations to come. With your help, we will make it happen!

Thank you, and my best regards,
Jim Howard

Assistant Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations
210 Tompkins Hall
jphoward@gwu.edu
Tel: 202-994-4121

~~ SEAS 2009 - Celebrating 125 Years of Engineering ~~

 


 

Computer Science Faculty Win Air Force Grant

SEAS Professors Bhagirath Narahari and Rahul Simha, both of the Department of Computer Science, recently received a $487,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to support a research project entitled "Architectural support for detection and recovery using hardware wrappers."

This research explores computer architecture and programming language features to enable the design, development, and secure execution of software applications that use software packages developed by a variety of vendors. The current reliance on existing software packages—a widespread software development methodology today—opens the door to a new class of attacks that go beyond traditional software exploits. For example, attacks could be engineered by malicious software developers writing open-source code. The research project undertaken by Professors Narahari and Simha provides an integrated hardware-software approach that detects such software attacks and provides automated recovery after an attack.


 

Four SEAS Faculty Receive Excellence Awards

Left to right: Professor Jason Zara, James Lee, and Rahul Simha. Professor Michael Keidar is not pictured.

 

SEAS established its own teaching and research awards this year to recognize faculty who are making outstanding contributions to the school as teachers or researchers, and the school celebrated the four winners at an awards reception on April 16.

Professor Rahul Simha of the Department of Computer Science was selected as the 2009 SEAS Distinguished Teacher in recognition of his long record of excellent teaching at GW, his significant contributions to course and program development, and his ability to engage his students in their studies. As one of his nominators testified, “By enabling us to uncover theories with our own minds, [Professor Simha] built our foundation to become better learners. We became passionate about our studies and we became hungry to come back to class for next week’s adventure.”

Professor Jason Zara of the Department of Electrical and Computer Science was chosen as the 2009 SEAS Outstanding Young Teacher, because of his passion for teaching, as demonstrated by his innovative teaching practices, his mentoring of students, and his development of engaging biomedical engineering courses.

Professor James Lee of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering received the 2009 SEAS Distinguished Researcher Award because of his truly distinguished record and his notable achievements as a scholar and researcher in a broad range of mechanical engineering areas of study, particularly in the mechanics of materials. His recent work on the development of a multiscale field theory that unifies molecular and continuum mechanics is a landmark achievement in the mechanics of materials.

Finally, Professor Michael Keidar, also of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received the 2009 SEAS Outstanding Young Researcher Award. Professor Keidar’s award was given in recognition of the substantial research and scholarly record that he has already compiled and of his new and promising work in biomedical engineering.

 


 

SEAS Hosts 3rd Annual Graduate Student Research and Development Showcase

 

SEAS hosted its 3rd Annual Graduate Student Research and Development Showcase on April 30th, with 54 poster entries from graduate students across the school. A panel of six faculty judges reviewed all the entries and selected three winners: Yi Jin and Shuo Gu from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Faculty Advisors: Profs. Edward Della Torre and Lawrence Bennett) took the $1,000 first place prize; Mike Wakid and Can Kimizibayrak from the Department of Computer Science (Faculty Advisor: Prof. James Hahn) received the $600 second place prize; and Mazdak Taghioskoui, also of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Faculty Advisor: Prof. Mona Zaghloul), received the $400 third place prize.

Please visit our website to see photos of the event and learn more about the winning projects.

 


 

Takoma Park Holds Mock Election to Test Voting System Partly Developed at SEAS

The city of Takoma Park, MD, held a mock election on April 11th, using Scantegrity, the cryptographic “voter-verifiable" voting system that is a joint project of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Ottawa; University of Waterloo; University of Newcastle upon Tyne; GW; and David Chaum, its chief inventor. SEAS faculty member Poorvi Vora, of the Department of Computer Science, has spearheaded the project for GW, and most of the software for Scantegrity was written by computer science doctoral student Stefan Popoveniuc.

The city is considering using the Scantegrity voting system for its November 2009 City Council elections; the purpose of the mock election was to give voters the opportunity to test its capabilities. The mock election was held with the city's annual Arbor Day celebration. Ninety-five voters participated, voting for their favorite tree and forest animal.

After the problems with electronic voting over the last few years, several jurisdictions in the U.S. have switched to the use of optical scan voting systems, which use paper ballots and provide an electronic count. The paper ballots allow for the possibility of a manual recount, should the electronic count be suspect. However, it is still possible for ballots to be lost or misplaced, or intentionally altered or damaged. Thus the integrity of the election outcome depends on a secure chain of custody of the ballots. The Scantegrity system is the only system that enables voters using optical scan voting systems to independently verify the tally, without requiring them to trust the chain of custody or the electronic count. Voters receive a confirmation code that they are allowed to write down, take home, and check online. The confirmation number does not indicate how the person voted; it simply indicates that the vote was included in the final tally and that the machine read the vote correctly. The confirmation codes are processed in a verifiable manner to obtain the tally; anyone may write software—or use independently written software—to check the correctness of the computations.

 


 

Come Celebrate 125 Years of Engineering at GW

 

This year we celebrate 125 years of engineering at GW! Dean David S. Dolling invites you to come to the SEAS Graduation Celebration and be recognized during the ceremony as part of our history and to represent our great SEAS alumni community. We have reserved a section of VIP seating for alumni.

After graduation, SEAS will host a reception for graduates, their guests, alumni, and SEAS faculty and staff in the Marvin Center. (Read more and register . . .)

 


 

CS @ GW Summer Camp 2009

 

Do you know middle or high school students who have an interest in computers? For the second year, the Department of Computer Science at SEAS is offering a summer camp to expose high school and middle school students in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area to interesting topics in the field of computer science. The camp is designed to be a fun and informative experience for the students.

The summer camp will have two sessions: Session I is for beginning students; Session II is for advanced students. Four classes will be offered each session (game development; animation; JAVA; robotics), and the cost of the camp is $100 per session. Session I will run from July 6th – 10th; Session II, from July 13th – 17th. Class instruction is 10:00 am - 3:00 pm, with snacks and lunch included, Monday through Friday. Online registration and more information about the summer camp is available at http://www.cs.gwu.edu/highschool/. This is a day camp with pick up and return at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop.

 


 

Upcoming SEAS Events

And the Winner Is . . . An Evening With Award-Winning GW Alumni
Hosted by Dean David S. Dolling

Date:

 Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Time:

 6:30 pm Reception
7:30 pm Discussion
8:45 pm Dessert Reception

Location:

 Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Hollywood, CA

GW is rolling out the red carpet! Join fellow alumni, family, and friends for a reception and panel discussion hosted by David S. Dolling, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Dean Dolling will provide an update about the exciting things happening at GW and will lead a panel discussion featuring prominent award-winning GW alumni. Panelists include Oscar winners Roy Lee, CCAS BA ’91; Bill Westenhofer, SEAS MS ’95; and Emmy winner Richard Wolf, ESIA BA ’72. Before and after the discussion you will have the opportunity to meet and network with members of the GW community while enjoying complimentary cocktails, heavy hors d’oeuvres and dessert. (Read more and register. . .)

 

An Evening With GW in San Diego
Hosted by Dean David S. Dolling

Date:

 Thursday, May 28, 2009

Time:

 6:30 pm Reception
7:30 pm Discussion

Location:

 Napa Valley Grille
San Diego, CA

You are cordially invited to attend a reception and discussion with David S. Dolling, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Network and mingle with members of the GW community while enjoying complimentary cocktails, heavy hors d’oeuvres, and dessert. Then meet Dean Dolling and learn about all of the exciting things happening at GW. (Read more and register. . .)

 

Engineer Alumni Association, Call for Volunteers

Volunteer for our newly structured EAA. We are building new and dynamic alumni programming at SEAS, and we need alumni volunteers who can provide direction and feedback to the Office of Alumni Relations and SEAS to help build alumni engagement with a focus on Alumni Programs, Student/Alumni Programs, and Recruitment and Outreach.

We are asking volunteers to commit to a year of service, during which you will assist in planning SEAS alumni programs, attend three meetings per year, participate on at least on of the focus area committees, and attend at least two SEAS alumni events per year.

If you are interested in participating in this integral part of programming for SEAS alumni, please contact:
Erin Pitts
Associate Director, School Alumni Programs
Alumni House @ 1918 F Street NW
(202) 994-2355 phone
espitts@gwu.edu


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