ECE Spring 2019 Newsletter

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Ph.D. Dissertations Department of

ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING

Spring 2019 Newsletter

Shaping the technology leaders of tomorrow

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Message from the Chair

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Department at a Glance

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Faculty

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Faculty Member ProďŹ les RESEARCH

Advisory Board Faculty Updates Research

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Research Highlights

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Lab Spotlight Recent Research Awards Active Research Grants Selected Recent Publications RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Patents Awards & Honors

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Faculty Awards Student Awards

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Staff

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Ph.D. Dissertations

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Student Highlights

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Special Events

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Distinguished Lecture Series

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AWARDS & HONORS

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Message from the Chair Dear Friends of the ECE Department, We are closing in on another successful year for the department. Our new faculty that have joined in the past couple of years are becoming very productive. I am truly excited by the amount of collaboration that goes on in the department. We have successfully ďŹ lled an open tenure-track Assistant Professor position, and we are looking forward to welcome our new colleague in August 2019. At the same time, we had to bid farewell to two of our long-serving faculty. Prof. Robert Carroll retired from the ECE faculty after almost 40 years in the ECE department. I am sad to say that Prof. Edward Della Torre, a pioneer in the ďŹ eld of magnetics, passed away in December 2018. Prof. Della Torre was in the ECE department from 1982 until his death.

Our faculty continue to be greatly successful in their research endeavors, publishing award-winning papers and securing several large grants. The department boasts six IEEE Fellows and a Fellow of the APS. The department prides itself in the integration of students at all levels in faculty research. A large fraction of our UG students participate in sponsored research and pubsh papers with their mentors. As we prepare to graduate a new class of students, we are proud to see them to go on to top schools for graduate study, and to top research positions in academia and industry. You will see some of the students highlighted in this newsletter. We have formed an external advisory board for the department consisting of leaders from academia, industry, and the government, and we had a very successful meeting in GWU a few months ago.

If you would like to take a look at what we do or would like to be a part of us, please visit us or contact us otherwise.

Suresh Subramaniam Professor and Department Chair IEEE Fellow 3

Department at a Glance

Enrollment Figures

Degrees

Enrollment (Full-Time) Academic Year 2018-2019 Bachelors Masters Ph.D. Total

88 250 59 397

Degrees Granted Academic Year 2017-2018 Bachelor of Science Master of Science Ph.D. Total

14 70 4 88

Faculty Academic Year 2018-2019 Professors Associate Professors Assistant Professors Teaching Professors Assistant Professor of Practice Research Professors Total

10 4 3 1 1 2 21

Bachelor of Science (ABET-accredited) Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Master of Science Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Telecommunications Engineering Combined Five-Year Programs BS / MS Computer Engineering BS / MS Electrical Engineering BS Computer Engineering/MS Electrical Engineering BS Electrical Engineering/ MS Computer Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Minors & CertiďŹ cates Minor in Computer Engineering Minor in Electrical Engineering Graduate CertiďŹ cate in High-Performance Computing

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Department at a Glance RESEARCH AREAS

RESEARCH FACILITIES

Applied Electromagnetics

Adaptive Devices and Microsystems

Dr. Amir Aslani

Dr. Gina C. Adam

Dr. Lawrence H. Bennett (Research Professor) Dr. Can E. Korman

Applied Electromagnetics Laboratory Dr. Roger H. Lang

Dr. Roger H. Lang Electronics, Circuits, MEMS/NEMS, and Sensors Research

Communications and Networks Dr. Miloš Doroslovački Dr. Hermann J. Helgert

Laboratory Dr. Gina Adam Dr. Shahrokh Ahmadi Dr. Can E. Korman

Dr. Tian Lan Dr. Omur Ozel

Dr. Mona Zaghloul

Dr. Suresh Subramaniam

GW-Intel Parallel Computing Center

Computer Architecture and High-Performance Computing

High Performance Computing Architectures and

Dr. Tarek A. El-Ghazawi Dr. Howie Huang

Technologies Laboratory

Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi

Dr. Ahmed Louri

Dr. Ahmed Louri Dr. Guru Prasadh Venkataramani

High-Performance Computing Laboratory

Electrical Power and Energy

Institute for Massively Parallel Applications and Computing

Dr. Payman Dehghanian Dr. Robert Harrington

Technology

Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi

Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi Lab for Intelligent Networking and Computing

MEMS, Electronics, and Photonics

Dr. Suresh Subramaniam

Dr. Gina Adam

Dr. Miloš Doroslovački

Dr. Shahrokh Ahmadi Dr. Can E. Korman

Dr. Tian Lan Dr. Guru Prasadh Venkataramani Dr. Omur Ozel

Dr. David J. Nagel (Research Professor) Dr. Volker Sorger

LENR Energy and Spectroscopy Laboratory

Dr. Mona Zaghloul

Dr. David Nagel

Signal and Image Processing, Systems and

Magnetic Material Testing Laboratory Dr. Lawrence H. Bennett (Research Professor)

Controls Dr. Miloš Doroslovački

Magnetic Refrigeration Research Laboratory

Dr. Kie-Bum Eom

Dr. Lawrence H. Bennett (Research Professor) Magneto-Optics Laboratory Dr. Lawrence H. Bennett (Research Professor) Orthogonal Physics Enabled Nanophotonics Dr. Volker Sorger

IEEE Fellows: 6 Recent NSF CAREER Awards: 2 Humboldt Awards: 1 AFOSR-YIP Awards: 1

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Research

MEET OUR FACULTY

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Faculty GINA ADAM

PAYMAN DEHGHANIAN

Assistant Professor Ph.D. 2015, University of California Santa Barbara

Assistant Professor Ph.D. 2017, Texas A&M University

Electronic Devices, Nanotechnologies and Nanofabrication, Neuromorphic Computing

Smart Electric Power and Energy Systems

SHAHROKH AHMADI Teaching Professor Ph.D. 1994, University of Maryland at College Park

MILOŠ DOROSLOVAČKI Associate Professor and Associate Chair Ph.D. 1994, University of Cincinnati

Microelectronics, VLSI Systems Signal Processing for Communications, Adaptive Signal Processing, Detection and Estimation

AMIR ASLANI Assistant Professor of Practice Ph.D. 2016, The George Washington University Electromagnetics, Magnetic Devices, Magnetic Materials

LAWRENCE BENNETT Research Professor Ph.D. 1958, Rutgers University Magneto-optics; Magnetic Refrigeration

TAREK A. EL-GHAZAWI Professor Fellow of IEEE Ph.D. 1988, New Mexico State University

HPC, Computer Architecture, Big Data

KIE-BUM EOM Professor Ph.D. 1986, Purdue University Multimedia Processing, Image Processing

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Faculty ROBERT HARRINGTON Professor Fellow of IEEE and IET Ph.D. 1967, University of Liverpool Electric Power and Energy

HERMANN J. HELGERT Professor Ph.D. 1966, SUNY-Buffalo Satellite and Cellular Networks

TIAN LAN Associate Professor Ph.D. 2010, Princeton University Cloud/Fog Computing, IoT, Cyber Security, Datacenter Networks

ROGER LANG L. Stanley Crane Professor Fellow of IEEE Ph.D. 1968, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn Remote Sensing

HOWIE HUANG Professor Ph.D. 2008, University of Virginia HPC, Big Data, Cloud

AHMED LOURI David and Marilyn Karlgaard Endowed Professor Fellow of IEEE Ph.D. 1988, University of Southern California Computer Architecture, NoCs, HPC, Machine Learning, Datacenters

CAN KORMAN

DAVID NAGEL

Professor Ph.D. 1990, University of Maryland at College Park

Research Professor Ph.D. 1977, University of Maryland at College Park

Electromagnetics, Magnetism & Hysteresis, Device Electronics

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

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Faculty OMUR OZEL Assistant Professor Ph.D. 2015, University of Maryland at College Park Communications; Information Theory; Networks; IoT; Energy Harvesting

MONA ZAGHLOUL Professor Fellow of IEEE Ph.D. 1975, University of Waterloo MEMS Devices and Sensors including Bio and Chemical Sensors, and CMOS Electronics

VOLKER J. SORGER Associate Professor Ph.D. 2011, University of California, Berkeley Photonics, Optical Computing

SURESH SUBRAMANIAM Professor and Chair Fellow of IEEE Ph.D. 1997, University of Washington Optical Networking, Cloud/Fog Computing, IoT, Data Center Networks

GURU PRASADH VENKATARAMANI Associate Professor Ph.D. 2009, Georgia Institute of Technology Computer Architecture, Hardware Security

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Advisory Board

ECE Advisory Board 2018 The ECE department formed the advisory board with members from academia, industry, and government.

Name

Title

AfďŹ liation

Raheem Beyah

Motorola Foundation Professor of ECE

Georgia Institute of Technology

Gerry Borsuk

Associate Director of Research for Systems

Naval Research Laboratory

Maite Brandt-Pearce

Professor and Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

University of Virginia

Rama Chellapa

Minta Martin Professor of ECE

University of Maryland

Nedal Deeb

Founder and President

Delenova Energy

Nicholas Kyriakopoulos

Professor Emeritus

The George Washington University

Fabrizio Lombardi

ITC Endowed Professor

Northeastern University

Zoran Mladenovic

General Manager, Software Development Organization

Texas Instruments

Asghar Mostafa

President and CEO

Rubriq Corporation

Thyaga Nandagopal

Deputy Division Director

National Science Foundation

George Pappas

Joseph Moore Professor and Chair of ESE

University of Pennsylvania

Athina Petropulu

Distinguished Professor of ECE

Rutgers University

Yan Solihin

Charles N. Millican Chair Professor of Computer Science

University of Central Florida

Michael Souryal

Spectrum Sharing Lead, Communications Technology Lab

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Ananthram Swami

Director

Army Research Laboratory

Sennur Ulukus

Professor

University of Maryland

Anwar Walid

Head, Mathematics of Systems Research

Bell Labs, Murray Hill

Kevin Walsh

Samuel Fife Endowed Professor, Associate Dean for Research

University of Louisville

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Faculty

ECE Honors Dr. Robert Carroll’s Career

Dr. Robert Carroll was born and raised in North Carolina. He attended North Carolina State University, Raleigh and received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1967. Following that, he pursued a Master’s degree in Philosophy at Yale University, which he received in 1970. Dr. Carroll earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1973 from the University of Connecticut. Although he received various offers for postdoctoral research from institutions abroad in Ireland, Canada, and Germany, Dr. Carroll chose to go into industry.

Following his graduate studies he worked as a Principal Research Engineer with Honeywell in Minneapolis, MN, after which he joined academia. Dr. Carroll worked as both an assistant and associate professor at the University of South Carolina from 1974-1977 and 19771979, respectively.

Dr. Carroll has been with the university for an astounding 39 years. He joined the George Washington University in 1979 when the department was still the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He has served the university and the department in a multitude of ways. During his years at GWU, Dr. Carroll founded the Control Systems Laboratory and Robotics Laboratory. In addition to his duties as a professor, he served as the associate department chair – drafting a 170 page student handbook - and has served and 11

Faculty chaired various departmental committees. Of his many contributions to the department, one in particular can be seen in the design of the Systems and Controls graduate curriculum. In addition to his teaching responsibilities in ECE, Dr. Carroll has designed and taught short courses in other GWU departments and has been invited as a lecturer to Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Jiao Tong University in China. He has also served as an advisor for the Open University in England.

The impact of Dr. Carroll’s service can be seen through the work of all his doctoral students – a total of 26 – most of whom are now faculty at world-wide universities. His hard work and contributions as a research director for his doctoral students can be seen by merely walking into his office, which bears shelves of dissertations.

Throughout his career, he received many fellowships for research from various institutions including the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NASA Langley, NASA Goddard, and the U.S. Air Force, Eglin, to name a few.

Other service activities include acting as President of the DC branch of the IEEE Control Systems Society, Editor of the Computers & Electrical Engineering: An International Journal, and serving as chairman of conferences such as ISMM Conference on Computer Applications in Design, Simulation, and Analysis.

When he is not serving his professional and academic communities, Dr. Carroll enjoys working on his green thumb growing both daffodils and cacti, collecting clocks and watches, and making music. This passion started in the 11th grade when he began playing the baritone sax and has continued throughout the years of his graduate studies and through his professional life.

We cannot begin to thank Dr. Carroll for his years of dedication and work within our community and can only wish him a fruitful retirement where he can continue to pursue his passions.

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Faculty

In Memoriam Dr. Edward Della Torre 1934-2018 Dr. Edward Della Torre was born in 1934 in Milan, Italy. At a young age he emigrated from Italy to the United States. He attended Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1954.

Following that, he pursued a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, which he received in 1956. In addition to a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Dr. Della Torre earned an M.S. in Physics from Rutgers University in 1961. Dr. Della Torre received his Doctor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1964 from Columbia University.

Following his graduate studies, he worked as an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Rutgers University (19561967). He engaged with industry for a brief period when he worked with the Solid State Physics Laboratory of Bell Telephone Laboratories (’67-‘68). Following his work in New Jersey, Dr. Della Torre went on to Ontario, Canada to work as a professor at McMaster University from 19681979. While he continued his work in Ontario as an adjunct professor at the University of Windsor from 1979-1984, he went on to join the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Wayne State University in Michigan. During his time at Wayne State University (1979-1982), Dr. Della Torre started off as a professor, after which he became the department chair.

Dr. Della Torre joined the George Washington University in 1982 before the department – then known as EECS – had been reorganized as the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and was with the university for an amazing 36 years. Throughout the years, he served the university and the department in a multitude of ways – both performing his duties as a professor and serving on various departmental committees. Dr. Della Torre additionally acted as the Director for the Institute for Magnetics Research on the Virginia Science & Technology Campus until 2018.

The impact of Dr. Della Torre’s service can be seen through the work of all his doctoral students – a total of 33 – by the profound impact he had on them. Dr. Aslani, an Assistant Professor in our department said that Dr. Della Torre inspired and encouraged him to be an educator. He recalls, “Professor Della Torre was an excellent mentor. I have learned immensely from him, not only things that were directly related to my education but also some other matters that have helped me to be a better person and citizen in life. Professor Della Torre was very passionate about guiding his students and contributing to the scientific community. I remember even in the time that he was away from campus dealing with health related issues he actively participated in the 13

Faculty weekly group meeting via Webex and Skype. He certainly kept everyone’s spirit up.” Former advisees of his mentioned that Dr. Della Torre was the best mentor they ever had and that he was like a father figure. Ali Jamali, Ph.D (SEAS ’18) shares of his relationship with his mentor: “I learned from him in several aspects. He was extremely knowledgeable at what he was doing.

Age never stopped him and he continued to be scientifically productive until his last days. Dr. Della Torre’s personal relations with his wife and those around him were unique.”

Along with his service to the university, Dr. Della Torre continuously served his technical community throughout his life. Some of his service activities include but are not limited to: Member, Editorial Board, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics; President, IEEE Magnetics Society; Chairman, INTERMAG Conference; Member, Editorial Advisory Board, IEEE Education Society; and Reviewer, Journal of Applied Physics. It is no surprise that Dr. Della Torre was appointed as a Life Fellow of the IEEE Magnetics Society and a Fellow of the American Physics Society. Dr. Della Torre also authored three books, including Magnetic Hysteresis, and published well over 500 technical papers. Dr. Della Torre was a very accomplished scientist who continued producing quality work and despite his health issues, continued to instruct and mentor students in the department. His last doctoral students successfully defended their dissertations in the past academic year, graduating in the Spring 2018 semester. His leadership and dedication to serving his communities are a testament to Dr. Della Torre’s kind and thoughtful character. He is fondly remembered as a humble and inspirational teacher by many.

Many in the department are honored to have had Dr. Della Torre as a friend and mentor and we were blessed to have had him as a colleague within our faculty. Dr. El-Ghazawi shared that: “Ed was a senior faculty when I joined the department as a junior visiting faculty more than twenty years ago […] On the human side, he was always calm, kind, smiling and soft spoken. Ed was a very honorable professional who never hesitated to express and argue for his honest opinions […] I always felt that Ed was an important part of the collective conscious of the department.” Dr. Subramaniam recalls of Dr. Della Torre “[He] was an extremely accomplished scientist who was widely known and respected by his peers in the research community. Personally, I found Ed to be a very kind and calm man who never hesitated to give a word of advice when needed.”

We cannot begin to thank Dr. Della Torre for his years of dedication and work within our community. Although we are saddened by his passing, we are uplifted by the kind sentiments and fond tributes many shared for Dr. Della Torre. We are honored to have had such an inspirational educator and kind person within our department and will cherish the time that we had with him.

We send our deepest sympathies to his wife Sonia and their family.

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Faculty

RESEARCH

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Research

Safeguarding the Nation’s Electric Power Grid

Dr. Payman Dehghanian

By Lujain Al-Khawi

One of ECE’s newest faculty members is electrical engineering assistant professor Payman Dehghanian, a “Young Scholar in the Next Generation of Researchers in Power Systems” as termed by the Global Power and Energy Academic and Professional Community.

As the director and principal investigator of the GW SmartGrid Laboratory, he and his collaborators are striving to propose resilience-assured toolkits that tackle significant loss of electricity during natural disaster emergencies and man-made cyber attacks, specifically unexpected extreme events dubbed as high-impact low-probability (HILP) events.

When did the interest in safeguarding the nation’s electric power grid pique for the young researcher?

In 2003, the event of a utility company’s power disturbance inspired the then-college student to study power systems reliability and resilience to prevent future extensive impacts to human life caused by disruptions in electric power systems.

Fourteen years later, Hurricane Irma struck Florida and knocked out the power of over 6.7 million electricity customers—67% of all customer accounts in the state. Various industries were halted for days, and hundreds of people in need of special health care at homes and nursing facilities lost their lives due to the sustained loss of electricity and the inability to swiftly restore their power.

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Research Professor Dehghanian’s research, therefore, is tackling the aforementioned challenges through a synergistic suite of technical advancements on “forecasting”, “monitoring,” and “controlling” the power grid, thereby realizing an end-to-end solution to its resilience during HILP events.

In order to efficiently deal with weather-driven or cyber-driven HILP incidents in a timely and effective manner, today’s operational planning tools should smartly account for high levels of unpredictability. They should take advantage of environmentally-friendly renewables as potential gridsupport resources equipped with both analytical and human insights in deriving resilient plans and emergency response strategies. The high variability and intermittency of renewables has, however, limited their integration and storage largely to day-to-day normal operating conditions. Indeed, existing technologies remain highly deficient in various respects, including (i) the lack of a highperformance high-fidelity forecaster for environmentally-driven renewable energies (considering the spatiotemporal correlations of these resources and fast, yet efficient, utilization of big data analytics); (ii) a lack of a computationally-efficient HILP event characterizer that can effectively handle the sheer number of possible scenarios in large-scale power grids; (iii) a failure to capture the “value of resilience” for grid planning and operations; (iv) solution incompatibility with modern power system monitoring, operation, and control paradigms (i.e., with reconfigurable architectural designs and advanced control mechanisms); and (v) a lack of user-friendly human-machine interactive platforms and risk-profile options for supporting operators’ decision-making.

Clearly, engineers must overcome these shortcomings to enable the large-scale adoption of environmentally friendly sources of energy, while guaranteeing system reliability, flexibility, and resiliency during normal and emergency operations. Finding holistic solutions to the above challenges is the focus of the research conducted at the GW SmartGrid Laboratory.

Finding attractive, yet computationally-efficient solutions to predict and prepare for emergency power loss events has earned Professor Dehghanian multiple roles in many prestigious peerreviewed journals and conferences within power systems engineering.

SmartGrid Laboratory Research Team

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Research

Creating the Next Generation Data Center Network

Dr. Suresh Subramaniam

By Lujain Al-Khawi

One of the endeavors of Professor Subramaniam’s research group is to develop architectures for the next generation of data centers, which are scalable and highly energy-efficient.

Data centers are dedicated facilities used to power and house a large number of compute servers and storage systems. Large clusters of computers are connected together to process huge amounts of data, and this results in a high consumption of energy. As a result, a lot of heat is generated, and fans and chillers must be used to reduce the hazardous overheating of data centers.

In his collaboration with MIT Professor Eytan Modiano, Professor Subramaniam’s research focuses on replacing current data center communications with optical networks to increase the computer clusters’ speed and reduce their power consumption.

Optical communications relies on light to transmit information using laser signals. A transmitter first encodes a non-optical message into an optical signal, which is then received by a receiver that translates the message back to its original form.

This process is more efficient than electronic communications systems, such as wireless and wireline networks, which consume more power and take more time to process information. Additionally, wires within wireline networks can interfere with each other when they are spaced too close together, a complication optical networking prevents.

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Research However, optical communications are still in their budding years, and despite tremendous progress in the past few decades the technology is still not as mature as electronic communications.

Therefore, Professor Subramaniam’s research must judiciously architect the network using available features, and rely on intelligent algorithms to overcome the limitations.

Professor Subramaniam and his students, along with his collaborators, have developed an architecture and algorithms and have published their results in leading journals and conferences.

On a similar theme, in his collaboration with computer engineering professor Guru Venkataramani, Professor Subramaniam works with sophisticated computer architecture focused on reducing power consumption. Some of their work was published in the highly-reputable Transactions on Green Communications and Networks, a journal dedicated to green communications and networks.

Current data centers consume 2% of the nation’s energy supply, and the share is expected to grow further as the nation’s need for data processing and consumption continues to skyrocket. Any saving in energy can reduce the increasing carbon footprint. Professor Subramaniam believes in a future of optical communications, and his research group is looking for ways to apply their expertise in solving these real-world problems.

Jingxin Wu and Dr. Suresh Subramaniam

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Lab Spotlight: The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology

Research

Dr. Mona Zaghloul

Lab Mission MEMS/NEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems/Nano –Electro-Mechanical Systems) are the merger of the Integrated Circuits (IC) world with the mechanical world. Using established IC fabrication techniques along with additional chemical and mechanical processes, microscopic structures and devices can be constructed. These structures bridge the gap between the "electrical/computer world" and the real physical world at the microscopic level. This allows integration of the Micro/Nano sensors and actuators with IC circuitry at an unprecedented level. The Institute consists of faculty members from ECE, BME and several graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers. The lab is directed by Dr. Mona E. Zaghloul.

The research in the lab addresses the challenges in designing Micro/Nano sensors and actuators using state of the art Micro/Nano fabrications and integrating the sensors/actuators with IC electronics to attain smart sensors with wireless communication to the cloud or to identify an iPhone. Our applications include Chemical Nano-sensors and Biosensors on flexible substrate to accommodate wearable devices. In addition, we design novel electronics with applications in power systems and RF communications.

The faculty affiliated with the Institute include Professor Can Korman (ECE), Professor David Nagel (ECE), Professor Jason Zara (BME), Professor Shahrokh Ahmadi (ECE), Professor Zhenyu Li (BME), and Professor Gina Adam (ECE).

The MEMS/NEMS research at the lab is focused on using different technologies combined with pre- and/or postprocessing steps. Several novel devices have been realized using a variety of technologies, including RF MEMS devices, Power sensors, Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) chemical gas sensors, SAW biosensors, Nano hole Plasmonics Sensors for Chemical and Biosensor applications. Several patents were filed through the USPTO and technology transfer is accomplished through companies using the technology developed in our lab. The research group uses CMOS IC to add active circuitry to the sensor and thus create a complete system.

In addition, several courses are designed to support the research directions.

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Research

Research at The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology Current Research Topics at the Lab of the Institute of MEMS/NEMS and VLSI Technology Research on Designing Wearable and Stationary Sensors for Study of Pediatric Asthma Causes NIH Grant Title: Pediatric Research using Integrated Sensor Monitoring Systems (PRISMS) Program, Professor Zhenyu Li –PI (BME), and Professor Mona E. Zaghloul CO-PI (ECE) Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in children, affecting approximately 6.1 million children under 18 in the US. The annual cost of treating pediatric asthma is 3.2 billion dollars. In this project, we are designing sensors to detect toxic gases in the environment that children are exposed to, in the children, and in homes that trigger asthma in children. The Sensors provided are to be worn by the children as well as stationary sensors are placed in the children’s homes. Electronics are designed to read the sensors and transmit the data through wireless to cloud or to and iPhone. The electronics are encased in a small package to be wearable in the form of a watch structure. The data is being stored in the cloud for analysis. The work is in collaboration with the doctors at the DC National Pediatric Hospital. The general architecture of the cloudbased wearable IoT aldehyde sensor system for asthma research and management is shown in the attached Figure.

Several other sensors were developed and were deployed on asthma patients.

The work was published in several papers, and it set the ground for IoT distributed sensors.

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Research

Research at The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology Research on 2D Materials Properties and Use for Chemical Gas Sensors Professor Mona E. Zaghloul (ECE), Professor C. Korman (ECE), and Dr. A. Davydov (NIST) Toxic gas such as NO2 and irritant gas such as NH3 are one of the harshest aspects that trigger or exacerbate of respiration for asthma patients. Current detectors lack portability and cannot provide daily real-time detection. Our work introduces a light, inexpensive epidermal gas sensor based on ultra-large MoSe2 Nanosheet. The material was prepared by a NIST group under the supervision of Dr. Davydov. We obtained MoSe2 Nano-sheet with gold-assist exfoliation method and characterized the electrical and optical properties of the film. The high performing gas sensor for NO2 and NH3 was fabricated to be coupled with human skin and showed great stability with up to 30% tensile strain. In particular, the device is able to detect down to 1 parts per million (ppm) with fast response. It is effective in providing timely warnings and the sensing data can be uploaded to a cloud-based terminal so that the medical institute can easily access and provide a more accurate diagnosis.

(a) The figure shows diagram a of the circuit design for sensor data processing and delivery. (b-c) Optical image of the assembly of the device with flexible PCB under the bandage, the optical image of detailed block circuit on flexible PCB, where 1 is the voltage divider, 2 is the amplifier ,and 3 is the microcontroller. (d) Gas response on smartphone application under flow of gas. (e) Gas response on smartphone application without the flow of gas. (f) Continuous detection of pulsed gas response curve with the connection of smartphone over 10 min.

Research for Optoelectronics and Using Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) to Improve Quantum Efficiency Professor Mona E. Zaghloul (ECE), Professor A. Affanasev (PHYS) Photocathodes are used as a source of electrons for numerous applications that include photomultipliers, electron microscopes, and particle accelerators. If spin-polarized electrons are required for applications, a standard choice is III-V semiconductors activated to negative electron affinity (NEA). High quantum efficiency (QE) of the photocathodes is an important requirement for Electron-Ion Collider for next-generation fundamental research in nuclear physics, where spin-polarized electron beams are needed to achieve research objectives.

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Research

Research at The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology In this work, we study the effect of piezoelectric fields on the minority carriers in p-doped GaAs photocathode. This research was motivated by findings that piezoelectric fields generated in GaAs by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) suppress recombination and lead to extended electron lifetimes in this material system. Several SAWs devices were fabricated at the GWU Clean Room and measurements were done in our laboratory.

The described method to increase photocathode QE is expected to have a number of important applications, namely: Polarized electron sources for particle accelerator, where the proposed method of modifying electron dynamics can be combined with a distributed Bragg reflector method to increase light absorption in order to obtain high-intensity low-emittance beams for fundamental nuclear physics research. Highbrightness unpolarized electron sources for high-energy physics, whereby increasing QE without changing the laser beam spot size on a photocathode surface provides higher beam brightness. Electron microscopy, for which electron beam emittance can be reduced for the same beam intensity due to reduced laser-spot size. Photomultipliers and photon detectors, for which the spectral range can be improved, especially the sensitivity for the photon energies approaching the semiconductor’s band gap.

Research for Using Plasmonic Nano Hole for Chemical and Biosensors Professor Mona E. Zaghloul (ECE), Dr. S. Semancik (NIST) We developed a Plasmonic Nano-Hole sensor which was designed and fabricated at the GWU Clean Room.

The Nano-Hole diameters is in the range of 200nm. The Plasmonic Nano-Hole could be used for Gas chemical molecules sensing as well as for Biosensor for biomaterial.

The fabricated sensor is highly sensitive. For absorbing the gases molecules metal organic framework (MOF) -coated Nanohole array (NHA) plasmonic sensor array was design and fabricated. The sensor is able to detect concentrations as low as 500 nmol/mol (ppb) of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as acetone and ethanol at room temperature. The optical responses at visible wavelengths for this gas sensor using acetone and ethanol at varying concentrations from 500 nmol/mol to 10 umol/mol was tested. Furthermore, a temperature control system was induced to the sensor to study the thermal kinetics of its response as a means of increasing the analytical capabilities of the sensor. Results demonstrated the MOF-coated NHA plasmonic gas sensor can reach limit of detection in the nmol/mol range with rapid response and that temperature dependent kinetic analysis can be applied to discriminate the absorbed gases. To further improve the performance of the sensor, Nano-Holes with smaller dimensions (50 nm) will be fabricated to improve the sensitivity and multi-spots on the response spectra will be studied to increase the selectivity of the sensor.

Developed sensor with schematic dimensions and SEM images

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Research

Research at The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology Research for Steering Beam Antenna Using Metasurface Material Professor Mona E. Zaghloul (ECE), Professor S. Ahmadi (ECE) An antenna is a reciprocal structure that receives and transmits a signal at the same direction. In this project, for the ďŹ rst time, a meta-surface structure that makes a non-reciprocal antenna is proposed. The concept of Snell’s law is changed to a generalized formula in a way that a phase can be added to the signal when it is travelling through this meta-surface. The phase that is added to the signal is different based on the direction of the signal; as a result, a non-reciprocal structure will be designed. The main part of the meta-surface is the phase shifter, which consists of passive and active circuits. The phase shifter circuits will be implemented between two dielectric substrates by using a surface-circuit-surface technology. One of the interesting applications of this idea is in satellite communication where a satellite can communicate with two ground stations at the same time with a single antenna.

The concept of a non-reciprocal meta-surface. The antenna transmits the signal to one direction and receives it from the other direction.

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Research

Research at The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology Research for Low SAR Antenna by Using Meta-material Professor Mona E. Zaghloul (ECE) , Professor S. Ahmadi (ECE) Various researchers have proven that holding mobile phones next to the ears and head will increase the chance of neurological diseases, impact cognition and cancer in the long term. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is a defined parameter for evaluating power deposition in human tissue. In this project Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is decreased by 70 percent. Any metallic structure can block the electromagnetic signal.

This concept is used to block the signal from a phone’s antenna to the human head. However, using a metallic structure close to a phone’s antenna will make the antenna inefficient. In order to mitigate this problem, a metamaterial structure is proposed, designed and implemented. By using this proposed structure along with any antenna the SAR value can be dramatically reduced. The measurement results of the implemented metamaterial structure matches with the earlier simulation results. Furthermore, the testing and measurements show a reduction in the SAR value by 70 percent, as simulation has suggested earlier.

(a) (b) (a) The proposed metamaterial structure with an antenna in an anechoic chamber for radiation pattern measurement (b) SAR distribution in a human head The Institute for MEMS & VLSI Technology Research Team

Please visit http://mems.seas.gwu.edu to learn more about MEMS 26

Research

Recent Research Awards Forest Modelling for Mountain Communications Source: ARO

Period: 2018-2021

Amount: $360,000

Dr. Roger Lang has received a three-year $360,000 grant from the Army Research Office (ARO) to investigate ultra high frequency (UHF) propagation in mountainous environments. Microwave links that have no lineof-sight propagation path can nevertheless communicate. Waves are reflected from tree covered mountainsides. In a joint effort with the Army Cold Region Research and Electronic Labs, Dr. Lang will use his forest models to understand how tree covered mountainsides can reflect UHF signals.

Rethinking Erasure Codes for Cloud Storage: A Novel Framework for Latency, Reliability, and Resource Optimization Source: CISCO

Period: 2018-2020

Amount: $150,000

Dr. Tian Lan has received a one-year, $150,466 research grant from CISCO. The project is a collaborative effort with Dr. Vaneet Aggarwal (Purdue University). The team will investigate novel use of erasure coding in online distributed storage for improved performance and reliability.

Multilayer Heterostructure Prototyping Within Seconds & Integrated Optoelectronics Device Test System Source: AFOSR/ARO

Period: 2019-2022

Amount: $190,000

Dr. Volker Sorger (ECE) has received two Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grants for his project “Multilayer Heterostructure Prototyping Within Seconds & Integrated Optoelectronics Device Test System.� The grants, totaling $190,000, were funded by the Army Research Office and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The program funds specific proposals from university investigators conducting foundational science and engineering research of importance to national defense.

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Research

Recent Research Awards Power Grid Resilience to Extreme Weather Conditions: Unlocking the Full Potential of Grid-Scale Renewables and Battery Storages Source: IEEE-IAS

Period: 2019-2020

Amount: $25,000

Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) was awarded the Myron-Zucker IEEE-IAS Student-Faculty Grant Program Fund for the project “Power Grid Resilience to Extreme Weather Conditions: Unlocking the Full Potential of Grid-Scale Renewables and Battery Storages.” This $25,000 grant is from the IEEE Foundation.

Weathering the Storms: Maximum Wind Utilization and Harnessing the Power Grids’ Built-In Flexibility Source: Duke Energy Innovation Fund Amount: $14,000

Period: 2019-2020

Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE) and his colleague Dr. Miguel Lejeune (GW Business School) have received a 2019-2020 Duke Energy Innovation Fund grant of $13,583 for their project, “Weathering the Storms: Maximum Wind Utilization and Harnessing the Power Grids’ Built-In Flexibility.” They will work with the leadership team at Sustainable GW to accomplish the project goals and the envisioned milestones. Dr. Dehghanian is the lead principal investigator (PI) on the project, and Dr. Miguel Lejeune is the co-PI. Student and faculty at the GW SmartGrid Laboratory strive to collaborate with researchers in various fields and from diverse backgrounds to enhance the ways in which they think, design, plan, operate, and control the smart electricity grid and the energy infrastructure for enhanced resilience against weather disasters and cyber-attacks.

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Research

Active Research Grants Payman Dehghanian “Power Grid Resilience to Extreme Weather Conditions: Unlocking the Full Potential of Grid-Scale Renewables and Battery Storages“ Myron-Zucker IEEE-IAS Student-Faculty Grant Program Fund, IEEE Foundation Payman Dehghanian “Weathering the Storms: Maximum Wind Utilization and Harnessing the Power Grids’ BuiltIn Flexibility" Duke Energy Innovation Fund Payman Dehghanian “Examining Community Solar Programs to Understand the Factors Influencing Adoption Trends and Patterns” Alfred P Sloan Foundation Early Career Research Grant, Co-PI. Miloš Doroslovački “STARSS:Small: Defending Against Hardware Covert Timing Channels” National Science Foundation and Semiconductor Research Corporation, Co-PI Tarek El-Ghazawi “RAISE: The Reconfigurable Optical Computer (ROC)” National Science Foundation Tarek El-Ghazawi "E2CDA: Collaborative Proposal: Nanophotonic-enabled Optical Neuromorphic Computing on Silicon " National Science Foundation, Co-PI Tarek El-Ghazawi "GW-IPCC: GW Intel Parallel Computing Center" Intel Howie Huang “Machine Learning Approaches for Cognitive Radio Research, Prototyping & Demonstration” Raytheon Company Howie Huang "Graph Learning System for Automated Threat Detection and Characterizations" Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Howie Huang “GWU Cognitive Radio Machine Learning” Raytheon Company Howie Huang “SHF: Small: Accelerating Graph Traversal on GPUs” National Science Foundation Howie Huang “CAREER: Hardware Error Resilient Virtualization Infrastructure” National Science Foundation Howie Huang "IO-Efficient Computer System for Graph Analytics" National Science Foundation Howie Huang "High-Performance Graph Algorithms on Near-Memory Processing Architecture" Booz Allen Hamilton, Co-PI Tian Lan “NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Rethinking Erasure Codes for Cloud Storage: A Quantitative Framework for Latency, Reliability, and Cost Optimization” National Science Foundation Tian Lan "DIALECT: Communication Protocols Customization via Feature DIAgnosis, Lacing, Elimination, Crossgrafting, and Trimming" Office of Naval Research Tian Lan "Rethinking Erasure Codes for Cloud Storage: A Novel Framework for Latency, Reliability, and Resource Optimization" CISCO Systems Roger Lang “Dielectric Constant Measurement for Remote Sensing of Seawater Salinity” NASA-Goddard Roger Lang “P/L Passive Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture” NASA-Goddard Roger Lang “Forest Modelling for Mountain Communications” Army Research Development & Engineering Command Ahmed Louri “SHF: Small: Collaborative Research: An Integrated Framework for System-Level Approximate Computing ” National Science Foundation Ahmed Louri “Collaborative Research: Power-Efficient and Reliable 3D Stacked Reconfigurable Photonic Network -on-Chips for Scalable Multicores “ National Science Foundation

29

Research

Active Research Grants Ahmed Louri “A Holistic Design Methodology for Fault-Tolerant and Robust Network-on-Chips (NoCs) Architectures ” National Science Foundation Ahmed Louri “Collaborative Research: SPARTA: A Stream-based Processor and Run-Time Architecture ” National Science Foundation Ahmed Louri “SHF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Scaling On-chip Networks to 1000-core Systems using Heterogeneous Emerging Interconnect Technologies” National Science Foundation Ahmed Louri “SHF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Machine Learning Enabled Network-on-Chip Architectures for Optimized Energy, Performance and Reliability ” National Science Foundation Matthew Lumb “Micro-scale Ultra-high Efficiency CPV/Diffuse Hybrid Arrays” Department of Energy Matthew Lumb “Wide-Angle Planar Microtracking Microcell Concentrator Photovoltaics ” Pennsylvania State University David Nagel “Semiconductor Device Technology for Space and Terrestrial Applications” Semiconductor Device Tech Volker Sorger “RAISE: The Reconfigurable Optical Computer (ROC)” National Science Foundation, Co-PI. Volker Sorger “High-Performance Graph Algorithms on Near-Memory Processing Architecture” Booz Allen Hamilton Volker Sorger “E2CDA: Collaborative Proposal: Nanophotonic-enabled Optical Neuromorphic Computing on Silicon” National Science Foundation and Semiconductor Research Corporation Volker Sorger “Toward Ultra-Dense Integrated Plasmonic Circuits - Phase II” Omega Optics, Inc Volker Sorger “Material-Based Electro-Optic Modulation on a Silicon Platform” Department of the Army Volker Sorger "From Direct Optical to Field-Induced Modulation of Photonic Modes Enabled by Novel 2D Materials" Air Force Office of Scientific Research Volker Sorger "An Automated Integrated Optoelectronics Device Test System " Army Research Development & Engineering Command and Air Force Office of Scientific Research Suresh Subramaniam “NeTS:Small:Collaborative Research: Ultrascale WDM-based Datacenter Networks: Architecture Design and Control Algorithms” National Science Foundation Suresh Subramaniam "NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Design and Provisioning for Inter-Datacenter Multigranular Flexible Optical Networks" National Science Foundation Suresh Subramaniam “NeTS: JUNO2: Resilience in Next-Generation Intelligent Optical Networks” National Science Foundation Suresh Subramaniam “A Server-Network Cooperative Approach for Datacenter Energy Optimization” National Science Foundation, Co-PI Guru Prasadh Venkataramani “STARSS:Small: Defending Against Hardware Covert Timing Channels” National Science Foundation Guru Prasadh Venkataramani “A Server-Network Cooperative Approach for Datacenter Energy Optimization” National Science Foundation Guru Prasadh Venkataramani "DIALECT: Communication Protocols Customization via Feature DIAgnosis, Lacing, Elimination, Cross-grafting, and Trimming" Office of Naval Research, Co-PI Mona Zaghloul ”Ambulatory Sensor Arrays for Real-Life Monitoring of Pediatric Patients with Asthma” National Institutes of Health, Co-PI

30

Research

Selected Recent Publications G. C. Adam, A. Khiat, T. Prodromakis, “Challenges hindering memristive neuromorphic hardware from going mainstream,” Nature Communications,” Vol. 9, No. 5267, Dec. 2018.

P. Dehghanian, Y. Guan, M. Kezunovic, “Real-Time Life-Cycle Assessment of High Voltage Circuit Breakers for Maintenance using Online Condition Monitoring Data,” IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol.

55, no. 2, pp. 1135-1146, Mar.-Apr. 2019.

P. Dehghanian, B. Zhang, T. Dokic, M. Kezunovic, “Predictive Risk Analytics for Weather-Resilient Operation of Electric Power Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 3-15, Jan. 2019.

B. Zhang, P. Dehghanian, M. Kezunovic, “Optimal Allocation of PV Generation and Battery Storage for Enhanced Resilience,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 535-545, Jan. 2019.

T. Becejac, P. Dehghanian, “PMU Multilevel End-to-End Testing to Assess Synchrophasor Measurements during Faults,” IEEE Power and Energy Technology Systems Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 71-80, Mar. 2019.

S. Wang, P. Dehghanian, M. Alhazmi, J. Su, B. Shinde, “Resilience-Assured Protective Control of DC/AC Inverters under Unbalanced and Fault Scenarios,” The 10th IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies-North America (ISGT-NA), 18-21 Feb. 2019.

H. Fang, M. Doroslovački, G. Venkataramani, “EraseMe: A Defense Mechanism against Information Leakage exploiting GPU Memory,” ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI, May 2019.

H. Fang, F. Yao, M. Doroslovački, G. Venkataramani, “Negative Correlation, Non-linear Filtering and Discovering Repetitiveness for Cache Timing Channel Detection,” IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, May 2019.

H. Fang, S. Dayapule, F. Yao, M. Doroslovački, G. Venkataramani, "PrODACT: Prefetch-obfuscator to defend against cache timing channels,"International Journal of Parallel Programming, Nov. 2018.

F. Yao, M. Doroslovački, G. Venkataramani, "Covert timing channels exploiting cache coherence hardware: Characterization and defense," International Journal of Parallel Programming, Nov. 2018.

M. Bari, A. B. Ambaw, M. Doroslovački, "Comparison of machine learning algorithms for raw handwritten digits recognition," Fifty -second Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, Oct. 2018.

H. Fang, S. S. Dayapule, F. Yao, M. Doroslovački, and G. Venkataramani, "A noise-resilient detection method against advanced cache timing channel attack," Fifty -second Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, Oct. 2018.

L. Li, M. Doroslovački, and M. H. Loew, "Discriminant Analysis Deep Neural Networks," Fifty-third Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Mar. 2019.

P. Kumar, H. Huang, "GraphOne: A Data Store for Real-time Analytics on Evolving Graphs," In: Proceedings of USENIX conference on File and storage technologies (FAST), Feb. 2019.

Y. Li, T. Lan, "Multichoice Games for Optimizing Task Assignment in Edge Computing", IEEE Globecom, Dec. 2018.

K. Wang, A. Louri, A. Karanth, R. Bunescu, “Reinforcement Learning for Fault-tolerant, Energy-efficient NoC Design,” in Proceedings of Design and Test in Europe (DATE’19), Mar. 25-29, 2019.

31

Research

Selected Recent Publications Q. Fettes, M. Clark, R. Bunescu, A. Kodi, A. Louri, “Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling in NoCs with Supervised and Reinforcement Learning Techniques,” IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), DOI: 10.1109/ TC.2018.2875476, vol. 68, no. 3, Mar. 2019.

A. Louri, J. Collet, A. Kodi, “Limit of Hardware Solutions for Self-Protecting Fault-Tolerant NoCs,”ACM Journal of Emerging Technologies for Computing, Feb. 2019.

T.F. Canan, S. Kaya, A. Karanth, A. Louri, H. Xin, “Ambipolar SB-FinFETs: A New Path to Ultra-Compact sub10nm Logic Circuits,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices (TED), vol. 66, no. 1, Jan. 2019.

T. F. Canan, S. Kaya, A. Kodi, H. Xin and Ahmed Louri, “10T and 8T Full Adders Based on Ambipolar XOR Gates with SB-FinFETs,” in Proceedings of 25th IEEE International Conference on Electronic Circuits and Systems (ICECS), Bordeaux, France, Dec. 9-12, 2018.

M. Miscuglio, A. Mehrabian, Z. Hu, S. Azzam, J. George, A. Kildishev, M. Pelton, V. Sorger, “All-optical nonlinear activation function for photonic neural networks,” Optical Materials Express, Optical Society of America, Dec. 2018.

R. Amin, R. Maiti, C. Carfano, Z. Ma, M. Tahersima, Y. Lilach, D. Ratnayake, H. Dalir, V. J Sorger, “0.52 V mm ITO-based Mach-Zehnder modulator in silicon photonics,” APL Photonics, AIP Publishing, Dec. 2018.

J. George, A. Mehrabian, R. Amin, P. Prucnal, T. El-Ghazawi, V. Sorger, “Neural Network Activation Functions with Electro-Optic Absorption Modulators,” 2018 IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC), Nov. 2018.

H. Göktaş, F. Gökhan, V. Sorger, “Electrical-Driven Plasmon Source of Silicon Based on Quantum Tunneling,” ACS Photonics, Nov. 2018 L. Bartels, V. Sorger, R. Maiti, R. Hemnani, R. Amin, Z. Ma, M. Tahersima, T. Empante, H. Dalir, R. Agarwal, “A semi-empirical integrated microring cavity approach for 2D material optical index identification at 1.55 μm,” Nanophotonics, Dec. 2018.

I. Amiri, M. Ariannejad, V. Sorger, P. Yupapin, “Silicon microring resonator waveguide-based graphene photodetector,” Microsystem Technologies, Jan. 2019.

H. Pakarzadeh, R. Golabi, I. Amiri, R. Maiti, V. Sorger, P. Yupapin, “Two-pump optical parametric amplification in the S-band using a tellurite microstructured optical fiber,” Indian Journal of Physics, Jan. 2019.

R. Maiti, C. Patil, R. Hemnani, M. Miscuglio, R. Amin, Z. Ma, R. Chaudhary, A. Johnson, L. Bartels, R. Agarwal, V. Sorger, “Loss and coupling tuning via heterogeneous integration of MoS2 layers in silicon photonics,” Optical Materials Express, Feb. 2019.

J. George, A. Mehrabian, R. Amin, J. Meng, T. Ferreira de Lima, A. Tait, B. Shastri, T. El-Ghazawi, P. Prucnal, V. Sorger, “Neuromorphic photonics with electro-absorption modulators,” Optics express, Feb. 2019.

R Amin, M Zhizhen, M Tahersima, Rishi Maiti, Mario Miscuglio, Hamed Dalir, Volker J Sorger, “A Guide for Material and Design Choices for Electro-Optic Modulators,” Optical Fiber Communication Conference, Mar. 2019.

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Research

Selected Recent Publications M. Krainak, M. Stephen, E. Troupaki, S. Tedder, B. Reyna, J. Klamkin, H. Zhao, B. Song, J. Fridlander, M. Tran, J. Bowers, K. Bergman, M. Lipson, A. Rizzo, I. Datta, N. Abrams, S. Mookherjea, S. Ho, Q. Bei, Y. Huang, Y. Tu, B. Moslehi, J. Harris, A. Matsko, A. Savchenkov, G. Liu, R. Proietti, S. Yoo, L. Johansson, C. Dorrer, F. Arteaga-Sierra, J. Qiao, S. Gong, T. Gu, O. Ohanian, X. Ni, Y. Ding, Y. Duan, H. Dalir, R. Chen, V. Sorger, T. Komljenovic, “Integrated photonics for NASA applications,” Components and Packaging for Laser Systems V, Feb. 2019.

Y. Chen, B. Ai, E. Heidari, B. Dunbar, V. Sorger, Z. J. Wong, R. T Chen, H. Dalir, “Bottom to in-plane grating coupler with high coupling efficiency and directionality,” RF, Millimeter, and Submillimeter-Wave Technology and Applications XII, International Society for Optics and Photonics, Terahertz, Mar. 2019.

M. Teimourpour, E. Heidari, H. Dalir, V. Sorger, R. Chen, “Non-Hermitian engineered single-mode laser array,” Optical Interconnects XIX, International Society for Optics and Photonics, Mar. 2019.

E. Heidari, Z. Ma, H. Dalir, V. Esfandyarpour, V. Sorger, R. Chen, “Ultrafast graphene photonics for futuristic generation of datacoms,” Optical Interconnects XIX, International Society for Optics and Photonics, Mar. 2019.

I. Amiri, V. Sorger, P. Yupapin, “Zinc Oxide nanowire gratings for light absorption control through polarization manipulation,” Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures, Mar. 2019.

F. Yao, J. Wu, G. Venkataramani, and S. Subramaniam, "TS-BatPro: Improving energy efficiency in data centers by leveraging temporal-spatial batching," IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 236-249, Mar. 2019.

A. Basu, J. L. Greathouse, G. Venkataramani, J. Vesely, “Interference from GPU System Service Requests,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Workload Characterization, Oct. 2018.

A. Morales, M. Zaghloul, “Highly Sensitive Wearable Piezoelectric Force Sensor with Quasi-Static Load Testing,” IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol. 18, issue 24, pp9916-9918, Dec. 2018.

K. McKnight, A. Darwish, M. Zaghloul, ”A compact output Power Combiner for Broad”, Electronics, Volume 8, issue 3, 275, Mar. 2019.

S. Guo, D. Yang, S. Zhang, Q. Dong, B. Li, N. Tran, Z. Li, X. Xong, M.. Zaghloul, “Development of CloudBased Epidermal MoSe2 Device for Hazardous Gas Sensing," Advanced Functional Materials Journal, Feb. 2019.

B. Li, Q. Dong, R. Dowen, N. Tran, J. Jackson, D. Pillai, M. Zaghloul, Z. Li, “A wearable IoT Aldehyde Sensor for Pediatric Asthma Research and management," Journal of Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Elsevier, Volume 287, May 2019.

K. Mukherjee, C. Ekuma, Y. Zhao, A. Maikap, S. Najmaei, M. Zaghloul, ”Discrimination of 1- and 2-Propanol

by Using the Transient Current Change of a Semiconducting ZnFe2O4 Chemiresistor”, Journal of ChemPlusChem, Apr. 2019.

D. Yang, S. Guo, K. Wu, C. Li, S. Zhang, H. Wang, Z. Sun, D. Xi, J. Ma, W. Ding, M. Zaghloul, C. Wang, Y. Ni, Y. Zhao, Y. Xiong, “Wearable Smart Sensor Systems Integrated on Soft Contact Lenses Based on MoS2 Nanosheets”, Advanced Materials Technologies, Apr. 2019.

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Research

Patents US Patent #10139382 for “Device having an array of sensors on a single chip.”

On November 27, 2018 the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Dr. Mona Zaghloul US Patent #10139382 for “Device having an array of sensors on a single chip.” The abstract for the patent reads, “A nanostructure sensing device comprises a semiconductor nanostructure having an outer surface, and at least one of metal or metal-oxide nanoparticle clusters functionalizing the outer surface of the nanostructure and forming a photoconductive nanostructure/nanocluster hybrid sensor enabling light-assisted sensing of a target analyte.”

US Patent #10,148,593 for “Directional allocation of communication links based on data traffic loads.”

On December 4, 2018 the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Dr. Ahmed Louri, David and Marylin Karlgaard Endowed Chair of ECE, US Patent # 10,148,593 Title: “Directional allocation of communication links based on data traffic loads”. This patent introduces interconnection links that have four functions: these links can dynamically function as (1) forward repeaters, (2) backward repeaters, (3) forward buffers, and (4) backward buffers. This enables significant power reduction while enabling circuits to both improve performance and reliability.

US Patent #10,185,824 for the invention “System and Method for Uncovering Covert Timing Channels.”

On January 22, 2019 the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Dr. Guru Venkataramani and his former Ph.D. student, Jie Chen, US Patent #10,185,824 for the invention “System and Method for Uncovering Covert Timing Channels.” The invention identifies hardware events in computer processors behind timing channel-based information leakage attacks, and has innovative hardware algorithm designs to detect these security attacks during system runtime. These timing channels were exploited in the now infamous Meltdown and Spectre widely reported in the news earlier this year. The inventions span detection of timing channel activity in both combinational and sequential hardware structures in processor architectures. A preliminary version of the detection framework was debuted at the prestigious 47th IEEE International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO), 2014 held in Cambridge, UK.

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Awards & Honors

AWARDS & HONORS

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Awards & Honors

Faculty Awards & Honors Dr. Louri appointed Chair of 2019 Fellow Evaluating Committee The IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors has appointed Dr. Ahmed Louri chair of the Computer Society’s 2019 Fellow Evaluating Committee. The IEEE Fellow Evaluating Committee must determine whether the work of each candidate is recognized and considered outstanding in the Computer Society's field of interest. Based on the recommendation of the Fellow Committee, the IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number selected for the grade of Fellow in any one year does not exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting Institute membership.

Dr. Amir Aslani is the Recipient of the 2018-2019 ECE Professor Of The Year Dr. Amir Aslani received the 2018-2019 Professor of The Year Award for the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the George Washington University because of his care for and effort to helping his students’ success, and for creating excellent lectures. The award is given through the SEAS Engineers' Council. Each year students nominate and vote for the professor who has positively influenced their academic lives and careers.

Dr. Volker Sorger and Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi awarded the Highest Expected Future Impact Paper at the 2018 Cognitive Computing Conference Dr. Volker Sorger was awarded the Highest Expected Future Impact Paper prize at the 2018 Cognitive Computing Conference, held December 18-20 in Hannover, Germany. The paper, titled “Photonic Neuromorphic Processors and Convolutional Neural Network Accelerator,” represented a joint effort with Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi (ECE) and Dr. Paul Prucnal (Princeton).

Dr. Subramaniam completed an IEEE Distinguished Lecture Tour of Australia Dr. Suresh Subramaniam completed an IEEE Distinguished Lecture Tour of Australia the week of March 11. The title of his lecture was “The Evolution of Data Center Network Architectures.” He gave lectures arranged by the following IEEE chapters: New South Wales (Wollongong, March 12, and Sydney, March 13), South Australia (Adelaide, March 14), and Victoria (Melbourne, March 15).

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Awards & Honors DEED R&D Funding The American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development program funds research, pilot projects, and education to improve the operations and services of public power utilities.

Shiyuan Wang and Bhavesh Shinde

ECE students awarded DEED Student Research Grants Ph.D. student in the SmartGrid Lab, Shiyuan Wang, was awarded the $5,000 American Public Power Association (APPA)'s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development (DEED) Research Grant Scholarship. He will be working on the project "Event Detection and Classification in Power Grids Using Machine Learning and Synchrophasor Technology" with the Municipal Electric Power Association of Virginia.

M.S. student in the SmartGrid Lab, Bhavesh Shinde, was awarded the $5,000 American Public Power Association (APPA)'s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development (DEED) Research Grant Scholarship. He will be working on the project "Advanced Artificial Intelligence for Online Power System Stability Surveillance" with the City of Manassas Department of Electric Utilities.

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Awards & Honors IEEE Industry Application Society The Industry Applications Society, as a transnational organization, is interested in advancement of the theory and practice of electrical and electronic engineering in the development, design, manufacture and application of electrical systems, apparatus, devices and controls to the processes and equipment of industry and commerce; promotion of safe, reliable and economic installations; industry leadership in energy conservation and environmental, health, and safety issues; creation of voluntary engineering standards and recommended practices; and the professional development of its membership.

Bo Wang

ECE student Bo Wang received the 2019 IEEE Industry Application Society Myron Zucker Award ECE doctoral student Bo Wang is one of six awardees worldwide to receive the 2019 IEEE Industry Application Society (IAS) Myron Zucker Award on Electrical Safety through Design Student Initiative. His submission was titled “Electrical Safety Considerations in Large-Scale Electric Vehicle Charging Stations.� This program awards talented and promising students who have a passion for electrical safety by subsidizing travel, lodging, and registration for participation in the IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Workshop. Bo presented his proposal at the 2019 workshop, which was held March 4-8 in Jacksonville, FL. Bo is advised by Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE).

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Awards & Honors Journal of Modern Power and Clean Energy The Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy (MPCE) is a peer-reviewed, open accessed and bimonthly published journal.

Mostafa Nazemi

ECE student Mostafa Nazemi awarded Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing The editorial board committee of the Journal of Modern Power and Clean Energy has awarded ECE doctoral student Mostafa Nazemi the 2018 “Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing” for his contributions to the journal last year. Mostafa is advised by Dr. Payman Dehghanian (ECE).

Mostafa Nazemi received his B.S. degree from K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2015, and his M.S. degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2017, in electrical engineering and in energy systems engineering, respectively. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA. His research interests include power system resilience, power system planning and operation, energy optimizations, and smart electricity grid applications.

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Awards & Honors What is George Hacks?

George Hacks empowers students to revolutionize the way they view their education and their role in the workforce. We are teaching the language of innovation and providing a platform for the next generation of students to think outside the box, find solutions to their challenges, and have confidence in their skillset.

We’re bridging the divide between majors in traditional education, teaching students to work together to achieve revolutionary goals.

Matt Taylor, Ji-Eun Kim, Karen Rius , and Lujain Al-Khawi

ECE student Matt Taylor and Teammates awarded Best Pitch at 2019 Medical Solutions Hackathon George Hacks: Best Pitch: awarded to team "Bioelectrics," also for the pitch “Adapting prosthetics for uneven terrain.” Team members included: Lujain Al-Khawi (BME), Karen Rius (BME), Matt Taylor (ECE), and Ji-Eun Kim (BME).

The Annual GW Hacks Medical Solutions innovation competition is a 24-hour ‘hackathon’ style event that challenges interdisciplinary teams of two to four. This year, pitches encompassed three themes. 

Business/Entrepreneurship



Medical Technologies



Public Health

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Awards & Honors GW Research Days This annual event is dedicated to highlighting the breadth of research and discovery on issues of major disciplinary, crossdisciplinary and global significance being done at GW through poster sessions, presentations and guest speakers.

ECE students win awards at 2019 GW Research Days competition Graduate Presenters Electrical and Computer Engineering: 1st: Hao Zheng Power and Performance-Efficient Manycore Architectures Research Mentor: Dr. Ahmed Louri 2nd: Mostafa Nazemi Energy Storage Planning for Enhanced Seismic Resilience of Power Systems Research Mentor: Dr. Payman Dehghanian GWNIC Award for Nanofabrication Techniques 1st (Tie): Rubab Amin 0.52 V•mm ITO-based Mach-Zehnder Modulator in Silicon-on-Insulator Platform Research Mentor: Dr. Volker J. Sorger 1st (Tie): Shiqi Guo The Self-inspired Artificial Intelligence Device for Toxic Gas Detection and 'Murderers' Prediction Research Mentor: Dr. Mona Zaghloul AccelerateGW I-Corps Site Grants: Yuan Li Accelerator-Rich Heterogeneous Architectures Research Mentor: Dr. Ahmed Louri Mostafa Nazemi Energy Storage Planning for Enhanced Seismic Resilience of Power Systems Research Mentor: Dr. Payman Dehghanian Hao Zheng Power and Performance-Efficient Manycore Architectures Research Mentor: Dr. Ahmed Louri

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Awards & Honors TCO Innovation Competition The Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) strives to enhance research, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit among the George Washington University research community.

Yangyang Zhao and Libin Sun

ECE Faculty and Students win at the TCO Innovation Competition ECE congratulates Dr. Mona Zaghloul, Dr. Tarek A. El-Ghazawi, Dr. Volker J. Sorger, Dr. Matthew Lumb, Yangyang Zhao, Libin Sun, Engin Kayraklioglu, and Shuai Sun for winning at this year’s Technology Commercialization Office Innovation competition.

Dr. Mona Zaghloul and her PhD students Yangyang Zhao and Libin Sun were awarded the First Place prize ($10,000) for their pitch in the life science category at GWU TCO Innovation Competition 2019. Their work "Ultra- Small Portable Nano Hole Array based Gas/Condensed Phase Sensing System for Hazard Warning and Health Monitoring" provides a promising technology towards next generation smart sensing systems. The work is in collaboration with NIST. Dr. Matthew Lumb (research scientist, ECE) won the First Place Prize in the physical science category for his poster, "Switching-free DC Voltage Conversion.” This type of converter could be useful in devices with components sensitive to excess noise, such as medical devices or defense systems. Dr. Lumb’s converter would be an alternative to current options, which generate waste heat and can require multiple components.

"An opto-electronic computer invention based on the NSF-funded project titled “RAISE: The Reconfigurable Optical Computer (ROC)”, for which Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi is the PI and Dr. Volker Sorger is the Co-PI, has won the Second Place prize ($5,000) in the physical science category at the GW Technology Commercialization Office Innovation Challenge. The project was presented by ECE doctoral students Engin Kayraklioglu and Shuai Sun. The ultimate goal of this bold interdisciplinary project is to engender a new class of reconfigurable opto-electronic computing devices. This nanophotonic analog reconfigurable computer (ROC) 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 team has already a patent approved by the U.S. Patent Application No. 15/369,371: T. El-Ghazawi, V. J. Sorger, S. Sun, A. H. A. Badawy, V. K. Narayana, (2017).

“Reconfigurable optical computer”.

The Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) showcases promising and impactful GW research with commercial potential. The competition features a poster session from which a panel of experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and industry professionals select the top technologies to advance to pitch in front of the judges and audience. The best pitch in the "Physical Science" and "Life Science" categories will each win prizes for development and market research. The awards aid researchers in creating a prototype/proof-of-concept for their respective technologies.

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MEET OUR STAFF

Staff

Staff MARK A. AGLIPAY Computer Applications Specialist BS, 2004, University Of Maryland Information Systems Management

ECE Welcomes Steven Gordon as the new ECE Laboratory Manager

ROBERT J. BADEN

Department Operations Manager MA, 2009, Shepherd University College Student Development & Administration

BRENDA FLORES Department Operations Assistant BA, 2017, Georgetown University Classics & Psychology

Steven Gordon received his a BS in Computer Engineering from Lawrence Technological University in suburban Detroit in 2009. As a member of LTU’s staff, he researched the use of magnetic flux leakage for non-destructive detection of corrosion of steel structural members in reinforced concrete bridge beams in 2014 for the Michigan Department of Transportation. This included laboratory testing of deteriorated beams salvaged from a decommissioned 35-year-old bridge and field testing of beams on two active bridges. He also managed the operation of the undergraduate teaching laboratories for LTU’s ECE department for three years prior to joining GW.

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Ph.D. Dissertations

Ph.D. DISSERTATIONS

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Ph.D. Dissertations Deadline-aware Job and Task Scheduling in Cloud Environment ABSTRACT The Data-intensive jobs, e.g., financial analysis and log mining, need to process huge amount of data, and those jobs are suitable to run on the cloud environment, which provides computing and storage resource by connecting thousands of servers. A data-sensitive job splits dataset into multiple data chunks, and distributes chunks to different machines. Then, the job launches tasks to process chunks on machines. Multiple jobs might run simultaneously in a cloud computing system. Schedulers, e.g., FIFO, Fair and Capacity, allocate resources among multiple jobs. However, these schedulers do not take job deadlines into account. Users submit jobs to cloud computing environment, and expects cloud service provider can meet users’ Service Level Agreement (SLA), e.g., meet jobs’ deadlines. To meet jobs’ deadlines, the service provider allocates different resources for jobs. This dissertation aims to provide job and task scheduling algorithms to meet jobs’ deadlines under different constraints.

The first part of this dissertation considers cloud right-sizing with execution deadlines and data locality constraints. Processing and analyzing data within certain deadlines have become more and more important to meet SLA. Also, to improve data access efficiency and task throughput, data locality is often maximized by assigning tasks only to nodes that contain their input data. We present a novel framework CRED, which jointly optimizes data placement and task scheduling in data centers with the aim of minimizing the number of nodes needed while meeting users’ SLA requirements. We formulate CRED as an integer optimization problem and present a heuristic algorithm with provable performance guarantees to solve the problem. Competitive ratios of the proposed algorithm are quantified in closed form for arbitrary task parameters and cloud configurations. We also extend our work to obtain a resilient solution, which allows successful recovery at run time from any single node failure and is guaranteed to meet both deadline and locality constraints.

The second part of this dissertation presents Chronos, a quantitative framework that optimizes the speculative execution for offering guaranteed SLAs to meet application deadlines. We bring several speculative scheduling strategies together under a unifying optimization framework, called Chronos, which defines a new metric, Probability of Completion before Deadlines (PoCD), to measure the probability that MapReduce jobs meet their desired deadlines.

We systematically analyze PoCD for popular strategies including Clone, Speculative-Restart, and Speculative-Resume, and quantify their PoCD in closed-form. The result illuminates an important tradeoff between PoCD and the cost of speculative execution, measured by the total (virtual) machine time required under different strategies. We propose an optimization problem to jointly optimize PoCD and execution cost, and develop an algorithmic solution that is guaranteed to be optimal.

The third part of this dissertation presents LASER, a deep learning approach for speculative execution and replication of deadline-critical jobs. Machine learning has been successfully used to solve a large variety of classification and prediction problems. In particular, the deep neural network (DNN), consisting of multiple hidden layers of units between input and output layers, can provide more accurate regression (prediction) than traditional machine learning algorithms. We compare LASER with SRQuant, a speculative-resume strategy that is based on quantitative analysis. Both these scheduling algorithms aim to improve Probability of Completion before Deadlines (PoCD), i.e., the probability that MapReduce jobs meet their desired deadlines, and reduce the cost of speculative execution, measured by the total (virtual) machine time.

The final part of this dissertation presents a new scheduling framework for training machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models. We combine Bayesian Optimization (BO) with Reinforcement Learning (RL). In particularly, jobs are scheduled in online manner. At each time slot, RL determines if jobs should be scheduled based vion jobs’ characteristics and machines’ available resources. If jobs will be scheduled, BO is launched to find optimal or near-optimal job scheduling order based on jobs’ characteristics and machines’ available resources.

MAOTONG XU M.S. Electrical Engineering, May 2014, The George Washington University, DC DISSERTATION: Deadline-aware Job and Task Scheduling in Cloud Environment FIELD OF STUDY: Communications and Networks ADMISSION TO DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM: Fall 2014 ADVISOR OF THE CANDIDATE’S RESEARCH: Professor Suresh Subramaniam

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Ph.D. Dissertations TMDC-based Soft and Wearable Bioelectronics Toward Precision Health Care ABSTRACT Driven by the tremendous increasing demand for timely and continuous health monitoring and recording, precision health care devices on the body and in the home are gaining attraction for both researchers and the market. Epidermal and wearable sensor systems with the ability to monitor the physiological signals and the surrounding environment are gathering significant interest due to their formidable potential for practical applications in health monitoring. New sensing nanomaterials, such as quantum dots, nanotube, nanowire, graphene and two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) are recently offering candidates that allow room temperature sensing with high sensitivity, high selectivity and fast response. Among them, TMDC is now attracting substantial attention owing to its large surface-to-volume ratio, tunable bandgap, flexibility, biocompatibility, promising physical, electronic and optical properties. This work contains researching electrical and optical properties of Molybdenum Diselenide (MoSe2) and optimized exfoliation and transferring process to achieve large and thin layers of the material. Based on the technique, an epidermal asthma-triggered gas sensor and a wearable gas sensor based on MoSe2 were demonstrated separately with distinct fabrication process, circuit design, platform and methods. In addition, more physiological parameters were measured and obtained by a soft smart contact lens system with embedded sensors based on MoS2. In this design, a temperature sensor, a photodetector and a glucose sensor are placed on the surface of a contact lens for data collection from eyeballs and biomarkers in tears.

Shiqi Gou B.S. Mechanical Engineering, June 2011, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China M.S. Computer Engineering, May 2013, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. DISSERTATION: TMDC-based Soft and Wearable Bioelectronics Toward Precision Health Care FIELD OF STUDY: Electronics, Photonics, and MEMS ADMISSION TO DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM: Fall 2013 ADVISOR OF THE CANDIDATE’S RESEARCH: Professor Mona E. Zaghloul

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Ph.D. Dissertations Exploiting Structure and Variable-Dependency Modeling in Image Reconstruction in the Presence of Non-linear Mixtures ABSTRACT With the introduction of Compressed Sensing (CS) Theory, investigation into exploiting sparseness and optimizing compressive sensing performance has ensued. Compressed Sensing is highly applicable to images, which naturally have sparse representations. Improvements in the area of image denoising have resulted from the combination of highly-directional transforms with shrinkage and thresholding techniques along with imposition of a model to account for statistical properties of images.

Using this approach, statistical modeling of dependencies in the transform domain is incorporated into high-performance and efficient state-of-the-art CS image reconstruction algorithms with highly-directional transforms incorporating redundancy and bivariate shrinkage and thresholding to further refine image reconstruction performance improvements. Additionally, hierarchical structural dependency modeling is incorporated to account for parent-child coefficient relationships. These techniques exploit hierarchical structure and multiscale subbands of frequencies and orientation, exploiting dependencies across and within scales. Additionally, these techniques are incorporated with minimal additional CPU execution time into block-based CS (BCS) algorithms, which are known for their efficient and fast computation time. Experimental results show increased refinements of image reconstruction performance over current state-of-the-art image reconstruction algorithms, particularly at the higher CS ratios (lower sampling rates) of interest in compressed sensing.

LYNN KEUTHAN B.S. Computer Science, May 1985, Geneva College, PA M.S. Electrical Engineering, December 1986, Georgia Institute of Technology, GA DISSERTATION: Exploiting Structure and Variable-Dependency Modeling in Image Reconstruction in the Presence of Non-linear Mixtures FIELD OF STUDY: Communications and Networks ADMISSION TO DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM: Spring 2011 ADVISOR OF THE CANDIDATE’S RESEARCH: Professor Robert J. Harrington

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STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Student Highlights

Sebastian Velasquez-Foubert, Class of 2019

ECE senior in the computer engineering program reflects back on his experiences within the department. Sebastian will be joining Microsoft in Seattle, WA in the fall working as a Software Engineer with the Azure Division. Sebastian recalls on the point when he realized he was interested in the field - a math professor of his had them code on TS calculators, something which enlightened him to the applications and benefits of programming. When faced with the decision between CS and CE in college, Sebastian ultimately went with computer engineering because he felt that it perfectly combined two interests of his - the electrical/circuits aspects of engineering and computer science.

Throughout his undergraduate years Sebastian took advantage of every opportunity he could find. He started off working with Dr. Louri’s research group his freshman through junior years and has worked with Dr. Palmer (CS) his senior year. As for internships, Sebastian secured internships with Intel as well as with Nvidia -- all of which, helped him find his true interests in the field: distributed systems and operating systems development . Apart from these extracurricular activities, he also found time to be part of GW’s chapters of ACM and IEEE and was a Learning Assistant for ECE 2110 and an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for ECE 2115 within the department.

What advice would you give current students?: “Definitely be involved with the department, they are here to help. One thing the department, especially Robert, does well is to listen to and help students with their issues. During my time here I never felt as though there was a wall between the department -- the opposite rather, I felt as though there was open communication with those in charge. I definitely encourage those interested to reach out to professors if you are interested in research and just speak to them about their research interests to see if they align with your own. Another thing to take an opportunity of is the Learning Assistant position, it allowed me to create more relationships not only with professors (who I was then able to ask for recommendations) but also with other students with whom I formed mentor relationships.”

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Student Highlights

Joelle Dowling, Class of 2019

Joelle Dowling, a senior in the ECE department sat down with us to speak about her experiences. She will be pursuing her MS in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. At what point did her interest in the field begin? Joelle actually began her studies at GW in a different department, but once she learned of the options for electrical engineering she reconsidered her original major. The availability of the Energy Option and her experience in her Circuit Theory course led to her decision to transfer to ECE in her sophomore year. Once in the department, a significant experience she fondly remembers is her Senior Capstone group with whom she was paired spring junior year, and who she considers good friends and great work partners. Currently the group is working on their final project which is a greenhouse wireless sensor network for the Wilbur V. Harlan Greenhouse in SEH. As a transfer, she felt the instructors in the department and students in the program were always welcoming.

Her biggest piece of advice to current undergrads is to take any opportunity they can and not to be afraid of trying new things – to definitely go for it. Joelle herself went for it and not only took the opportunity to study abroad at Korea University but also held internships abroad her sophomore and junior years. She recalls that it was a difficult transition both in course work and culture when studying abroad but that the experiences were well worth the effort. At the end of her semester in Korea she loved living in Seoul so much that she decided to work in Power and Energy Lab at Korea University for the summer. Additionally, the confidence those experiences instilled in her emboldened her to apply for (and receive) an NSFfunded summer internship following her junior year. Joelle found the opportunity through the department and interned at the Technical University of Madrid for the Center for Industrial Electronics. Apart from this, Joelle is a Clark Scholar, a member of Kappa Delta, and has worked as an UTA for the department and worked with Dr. Lang’s research group her senior year.

When asked why she chose to continue her education as opposed to going into industry, Joelle put it simply: she’d always loved the program and the content in her courses and felt like she had not learned all there was to electrical engineering. In the future, she sees herself joining industry and perhaps pursuing a Ph.D. later on in life. She hopes she can use the knowledge from her studies and apply her education for the betterment of the environment.

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Student Highlights

Recent Doctoral Student Highlights Dr. Fan Yao Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Engineering (Summer 2018) Area of Focus: Computer Architecture and High-Performance Computing

Dr. Fan Yao has joined the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida as a tenure-track assistant professor. Throughout his years of graduate study at GW, Fan worked with Dr. Guru Venkataramani (advisor) and was part of the LINC Lab. His research focus was computer architecture – namely, designing more energy efficient and secure hardware for next -generation computing systems. Their work published in HPCA 2018 was the first to unveil the security problem of hardware coherence fabric in modern processors. Hardware security has become one of the most prominent issues in our community. He felt very proud that his work at GWU ECE was among the first to contribute to this area. Located in the heart of the capital, GW is one of the top national universities that offers diversified culture, top-notch education, more importantly world changing research experience. Fan felt that the faculty members in the ECE department provided profound research training that prepared him for his future career.

During his years as a graduate student, Fan received the Norris & Betty Hekimian Engineering Endowment Fellowship in 2017. His research work also won 2nd Place at the GWU SEAS R&D showcase in 2018.

Recently, one of his research projects on leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf hardware support to enhance hardware security was accepted in IEEE Hardware-oriented Security and Trust (HOST’19).

The conference is to be held in May 2019. Outside of his duties as a professor, Fan has been involved with many conferences. He is a program committee member for the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD 2019) and also on the organizing committee of the IEEE International Symposium on Workload Characterization (IISWC 2019) – two of the leading conferences in computer architecture.

Dr. Yao is currently building a research lab at the ECE Department of University of Central Florida.

His research group is currently working on the security of emerging computing infrastructure and its applications. At UCF Fan’s, five-year vision is to lead his research group to not only tackle key research issues in computing, but also transform research outcomes to practical solutions to build robust, secure and efficient computing systems.

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Student Highlights

Recent Doctoral Student Highlights Maotong Xu Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering (Spring 2019) Area of Focus: Communications and Networks

Maotong recently defended his dissertation successfully in late February. He has gone on to join Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, CA as a Research Scientist. Also a member of the LINC Lab, Maotong’s advisor was Dr. Subramaniam. His research focused on Cloud Computing mainly. Throughout the course of his program he helped design and implement optimal or near-optimal algorithms for job scheduling, cluster resource management, etc. Besides working on Cloud Computing, he also worked on the design of data-center architectures to reduce power consumption and monetary cost and they introduced a Bayesian Optimization based algorithm for data-center architecture configuration. Maotong chose to pursue his Ph.D at GW because the opportunity to work with such a breadth of expertise was exciting to him. The stimulating academic environment, the interaction with the distinguished faculty and the convenience of state-of-the-art research facilities would prove immensely fruitful and fulfill both his academic and career goals.

Maotong worked on many research projects during his years of graduate study. In the summer of 2017 he joined MIT as a visiting scholar to conduct research and collaborate on research projects with some faculty. The following summer Maotong secured an internship at Facebook, where he was able to work on complex technical projects with large scale.

In five years Maotong still sees himself in the technology industry. Because things change so quickly in the field, it's impossible to know exactly where he will be in 5 years, but he hopes to continue working on significant projects. Currently, he enjoys the engineering work that he is doing and he is keen to progress with Facebook in the next five years. Maotong is eager to learn more about its products, improve his skills, prove his value, take on more responsibility, and make some impact.

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SPECIAL EVENTS

ECE Events

Mid-Atlantic Regional ECE Department Heads Meeting

The Mid-Atlantic Regional ECE Department Heads (ECEDHA) meeting was hosted in the Science and Engineering Hall on December 1st. The meeting was attended by more than 15 department heads from the region and featured talks by a few ECE faculty members.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Anthony Kuh of the National Science Foundation. The department heads held discussions regarding student recruitment and retention, undergraduate curriculum and senior design, and graduate student funding. The focus of the meeting was to discuss challenges and opportunities in ECE education and to work together towards possible solutions.

ECE Advisory Board Meeting

The ECE department held a meeting with the advisory board which consists of members from academia, industry, and government. Productive talks were held about the current state of the department and ways in which the department can be improved. The advisory board provided the department invaluable advice on various aspects from notes regarding the upcoming ABET evaluation to program curriculum requirements.

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The ECE Distinguished Lecture Series February 15th

Processing Data Where It Makes Sense in Modern Computing Systems: Enabling In-Memory Computation Dr. Onur Mutlu Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich ACM Fellow IEEE Fellow

February 21st

Persistency and Security Challenges of Non-Volatile Main Memory Dr. Yan Solihin Charles N. Millican Chair Professor of Computer Science Director for Cybersecurity and Privacy Cluster at the University of Central Florida IEEE Fellow

April 15th

Optimizing Device Placement in Machine Learning Workloads using Deep Reinforcement Learning Dr. Baochun Li Bell Canada Endowed Chair in Computer Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto IEEE Fellow

April 22nd

A Personal View of Real-Time Computing Dr. Edward A. Lee Director of Berkeley Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems Research Center of the Berkeley Ptolemy Project Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California, Berkeley IEEE Fellow

Ph.D. Dissertations

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The George Washington University Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering 800 22nd Street NW 5000 Science & Engineering Hall Washington, DC 20052

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Contact Us Give us a call for more information The George Washington University

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering 800 22nd Street NW 5000 Science & Engineering Hall Washington, DC 20052 (202) 994-6083 ece@gwu.edu Visit us on the web at: www.ece.seas.gwu.edu Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering