ECE Annual Report 2024

DEPAR T MEN T OF ELE CTR ICAL AND COMPU TER ENGINEER ING 2024 ANNUAL R EPOR T

ECE Faculty PETER PACHOWICZ and team will build payload for NASA’s Landolt Mission though largest NASA grant given to GMU totaling

$19.5M

Largest

Letter from the Interim Chair............................................................................3 Research Grants..............................................................................................4

$3.75M NEW Nanofabrication facility opened up in spring ’24

New Center Focuses on Autonomy, Robotics, and Responsible AI...............8

Maryam Parsa Joins Three-Year, $2.4 Million 3D Chip Creation Project....... 12

MS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Computer Engineering ranked in top 50 among public universities

SE C T I O N 2 : G R OWI N G I N TO BI G PR OJ E C T S Multidisciplinary Team Earns $1.7 Million NTIA Wireless Innovation Fund Project................................................................................ 14 Optimizing Teaching and Learning................................................................ 16 Space Mission Seeks to Uncover the Secrets of Dark Energy..................... 18 Faculty Achievements 2023-24....................................................................20

ST U D E N T S

Full-time

TOP Enrollment in MS in computer engineering more than doubled within 3 years

Nanofabrication Facility Offers New Learning Opportunities..........................6

A Current of Research Runs Through Smart Grid Lab.................................. 10

UNDERGRADUATE + GRADUATE student cohorts in computer engineering in Academic year ’23-’24

50 x2

SE C T I O N 1 : G R OWI N G I N TO N E W SPACE S

B ACH E LO R’S 528 293 Computer Engineering 235 Electrical Engineering

M A S T E R’S

206

78 Computer Engineering 55 Electrical Engineering 48 Digital Forensics 25 Telecommunications

D O C TO R A L FAC U LT Y

78

35

SE C T I O N 3 : F O S T E R I N G S T U D E N T G R OW T H Department Faculty Team Incorporates Inclusive Teaching Practices...........22 Upneet Singh Pays it Forward with VEX Robotics........................................24 Alumnus Long Jiao Reflects on Lessons as First-Year Professor.................26 Taking a Byte Out of Apple...........................................................................28

O

ur department continues to grow in new and exciting directions and this year’s theme reflects that growth with its sections.

G R OWI N G I N TO N E W SPACE S: Our cover features Ethan Ahn and sophomore undergraduate Virginia Nardelli in the new Nanofabrication Facility (NFF) at our SciTech Campus in Manassas. Ethan has been involved in the development of this facility including the clean room, which he used in the spring 2024 semester to teach his new graduate course Nanoelectronics.

The Mason Autonomous Robotics Center (MARC), the newest research center within the college, had its official grand opening in April. Located in a newly renovated space in Research Hall, the MARC involves faculty from across several departments including ECE faculty members: Cameron Nowzari, Filipe Veiga, Xuan Wang, and Ningshi Yao. Fittingly, MARC director Missy Cummings, has a joint faculty appointment Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science. At the Mason Square Campus in Arlington, Liling Huang has been developing a new Smart Grid lab for research and teaching with the help of equipment donations from Amazon and Dominion Energy.

G R OWI N G I N TO BI G PR OJ E C T S captures recent achievements of our ECE faculty including Maryam Parsa’s NSF project on the development of a 3D chip that mimics the cognitive functions of the human hippocampus, Kai Zeng’s project on Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) testing funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and Piotr Pachowicz’s new NASA Landholt Mission project. In this section, you will also find a profile of Jill Nelson, who began her new role as the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in fall 2023.

Our final section, F O S T E R I N G S T U D E N T G R OW T H , highlights recent achievements of some of our students and alumni. This section also includes an article on an ongoing project focused on inclusive teaching of core ECE undergraduate courses.

The past year has also been a time of transition. At the end of spring 2024, Yariv Ephraim, Qiliang Li, and Andre Manitius retired and transitioned to emeritus status. Xiang Chen returned to his home country of China, joining Peking University as a faculty member. Qiliang Li will also be returning to China and joining Peking University in fall 2024. Each of them has made outstanding and lasting contributions to ECE. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors and hope they stay connected to ECE. Prior to the fall 2023 semester, Monson Hayes stepped down as the ECE chair after nine productive years in this role. He remains an active ECE faculty member, having developed and taught a new undergraduate course ECE 427 Introduction to Machine Learning and AI in spring 2024. In the meantime, I have had the honor and privilege to serve as the interim ECE chair. A search for the next ECE chair begins in fall 2024.

I invite you to learn more about what’s been happening in ECE within the pages of this report. Sincerely,

Brian Mark, Phd Professor and Interim Chair 2 | ECE 2024 ANNUAL REPORT

ECE 2024 ANNUAL REPORT | 3

Research Grants Our faculty research continues its forward momentum with total expenditures in 2022 exceeding $4M and 36 awards of greater than $100K, sponsored by federal agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF), DARPA, Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, Air Force Research Laboratory, and private industry such as Intel Corporation.

This research positions ECE as a valuable contributor to overall growth in research and development at the college and university levels.

ECE Faculty Member

Grant Sponsor

Project

ECE Faculty Member

Grant Sponsor

Project

Xiang Chen

NSF

NSF/MLWiNS: Deep Learning

Total Amount $499,999

Zhi Tian

NSF

NSF/CIF: Small: Distributed Data

$423,100

Xiang Chen

Duke University

Duke/AFRL/machine learning

$130,000

Zhi Tian

NSF

NSF/CR/SWIFT IDEA

$300,000

Xiang Chen

NSF

NSF/CAREER: AI Liquid Intelligence

$224,542

Zhi Tian

NSF

NSF/CCSS: Distributed Swarm Learning

$400,000

Robert James Elder

National Security Innovations (NSI), Inc.

NSI/DoD-SMA: Strategic Outcomes

$397,832

Zhi Tian

Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority

VRIF/NoVANodeFY22: EdgeComputing

$125,000

Robert James Elder

U.S. Department of the Air Force (U.S.AF)

AFRL/CL/MADD/NC3-JADC2

$322,999

Kathleen E. Wage

U.S. Department of the Navy

ONR/Adaptive Beamformers

$571,994

Krzysztof M. Gaj

National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)

NIST/Post-Quantum Cryptography

$500,000

Kathleen E. Wage

Office of Naval Research

ONR/Spectral Estimationand Beamform

$274,353

Kathleen E. Wage

Office of Naval Research

ONR/Deep Ocean Environments

$174,764

Krzysztof M. Gaj

NSF

NSF/Post-Quantum Crypto Algorithms

$450,000

Xuan Wang

NSF

NSF/Learning Coordination for MAMH

$344,626

Bijan Jabbari

NSF

NSF/Collab.Res: IRNC: Testbed: Bridges

$2,036,291

Weiwen Jiang

NSF

NSF/CyberTraining/Quantum Systems

$300,000

Yue Wang

NSF

NSF/CIF: Small: Signal Processing

$235,027

Weiwen Jiang

NSF

NSF/Coll Res/NISQ-era Devices

$330,000

Ningshi Yao

NSF

NSF/Complex Control System

$329,694

Jens-Peter Erich Kaps

NIST

NIST/Light Crypto in Hardware

$499,970

Kai Zeng

NSF

NSF/CollabRes: Powered Backscatter Com

$280,000

Khaled Khasawneh

NSF

NSF/CollabRes: SaTC: CORE: Med:Infrast

$616,000

Kai Zeng

Virginia Research Investment Fund

VRIF/CCI Reconfig Intelligent Surface

$220,000

Khasawneh Khaled

NSF

NSF/Coll Res: Accelerator Design

$195,362

Kai Zeng

U.S. Department of the Army

ARO/mmWave Massive MIMO 5G Network

$336,402

Khasawneh Khaled

Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority

VIPA/VT/NextG Cryptography

$100,000

Kai Zeng

NSF

NSF/TrackG: SecureTextingin5G

$750,000

Pelin Kurtay

Trenchant Analytics, U.S. CDAO

AI Scholars Program

$150,000

Kai Zeng

U.S. Department of the Navy

Navy/Wave Communications

$1,000,000

Qiliang Li

N5 Sensors Inc

N5/NASA/Hybrid Gas Sensors

$250,000

Kai Zeng

U.S. Department of the Army

U.S. Army/mmWave Testbed

$250,000

Brian L. Mark

NSF

NSF/CCSS: Wireless Networking

$241,361

Kai Zeng

NSF

NSF/CollabRes: SaTC: CORE: Med:SECURIS

$268,300

Brian L. Mark

Kryptowire LLC

KLLC/DARPA/IoT Cryptography

$1,352,742

Kai Zeng

Michigan State University

MSU/U.S. DOC/5G Radio Access Networks

$700,000

Cameron Nowzari

U.S. Department of the Navy

ONR/LTA Swarm System

$751,667

Cameron Nowzari

U.S. Department of the Navy

ONR/The Cycle of Emergence

$510,000

Cameron Nowzari

Office of Naval Research

ONR/AVIARE

$100,000

Bernd-Peter Paris

NSF

NSF/Collab: SWIFT: LARGE: AIR SynCD

$220,000

Bernd-Peter Paris

Arizona State University

ASU/DARPA/DR-DASH PROWESS

$100,000

Maryam Parsa

University of Michigan

UMICH/ARMY: ARC

$126,000

Maryam Parsa

NSF

NSF/CollabResearch: NCS-FR:DEJA VU

$200,000

Maryam Parsa

Intel Corporation

Intel/Learning Neuromorphic Physics

$194,616

Nathalia L. Peixoto

Rhein Tech Laboratories Inc.

RheinTech/USAF/IMLDS

$224,770

Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao

Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority

VRIF/NoVANodeFY22: VehicularNetworks

$125,000

Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao

NSF

NSF/Collab: EAGER: IC-Cloak: RevEng

$140,976

Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao

NSF

NSF/CNS Core: Small: NV-RGRA: Non

$325,261

Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao

Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority

VIPA/VT: Hub: Cyber Sentinel

$100,000

4 | ECE 2024 ANNUAL REPORT

Total Amount

ECE 2024 ANNUAL REPORT | 5

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Nanofabrication Facility Offers New Learning Opportunities eorge Mason University officials, faculty, regional economic leaders, government, and business partners gathered at SciTech Campus on May 3, 2024,

to cut the ribbon on the new $3.75 million NFF. Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact, Andre Marshall welcomed guests. President Gregory Washington and other special guests followed. After the ribbon cutting, attendees enjoyed a first-hand look at the new state-of-the-art space.

The NFF is the only cleanroom facility and resource for partners in Northern Virginia. It offers hands-

hands-on experience. Ahn taught George Mason’s

on nanofabrication workforce training in research

first-ever Nanoelectronics Fundamentals course

applications that will accelerate the growth of high-

during the spring 2024 semester.

tech companies.

Tannia Telento, Regional Director for U.S. Senator Newly appointed Virginia Microelectronics

Mark Warner’s Office offered remarks from the

Consortium Professor and ECE faculty member,

Senator. In the remarks, Senator Warner said,

Ethan Ahn, sees the new facility as a perfect

“The NFF will play an important role in education

opportunity to give students the chance to receive

and research, which is integral to securing the supply chain, bringing greater transparency to the

“The NFF will play an important role in education and research, which is integral to securing the supply chain,

microelectronics ecosystem, training tomorrow’s leaders, and ensuring our long-term national security.

I am excited to see the advancements that will come from the establishment of this facility right here in

bringing greater transparency to the

Virginia. The NFF will serve as a core laboratory for

microelectronics ecosystem, training

innovative research and development on the micro-

tomorrow’s leaders, and ensuring our long-term national security.”

and nano-scale.

Faculty from the CEC and the College of Science have already taught classes in the facility. This summer the facility will host camps, and in the fall workforce training will begin.

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ndustry executives, campus leaders, faculty, donors, and alumni attended the official opening of the CEC’s Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC), but the star of the show was a

New Center Focuses on Autonomy, Robotics, and Responsible AI

Boston Dynamics quadruped. As the bright yellow doglike robot held one end of the green ribbon, George Mason President Gregory Washington, MARC co-directors Professors Missy Cummings and Jesse Kirkpatrick cut the ribbon. Afterward, the quadruped roamed the event, opening doors for attendees and demonstrating its capabilities.

During her remarks, Cummings addressed the The event showcased Mason’s strength in important,

evolving role of robots in society. “People don’t want

emerging fields. In his welcoming remarks, Dean

autonomy to do their creative jobs,” she said. “They

Ken Ball said, “MARC is the focal point for our

want to do their art, they want to write their stories...

research in autonomy, robotics, and AI. Mason

what they want is the robot maid. Once we hit world

truly is a pacesetter in these areas.”

peak population in 55 years, we won’t have enough people to do the jobs we need. The dull, dirty,

Attendees explored the new facility in Mason’s

dangerous jobs are a great place for robots.”

Research Hall on the Fairfax Campus. The space includes a 1,649-square-foot, two-story aviary for

“We do autonomy, we do robotics, we do AI...but

testing drones, areas for lab experiments, faculty

we do it responsibly and that’s in our core,” said

offices, collaboration and study areas, and a

Kirkpatrick. “It’s in our principles, policies, practice,

student lounge.

and people. It’s across the research enterprise, and

“People don’t want autonomy to do their creative jobs,” she said.

“They want to do their art, they want to write their stories...what they want is the robot maid.”

it’s in our teaching. The leaders of today, tomorrow, and the day after have to get this right because it’s so absolutely critical.”

“Not just for engineering, MARC will be used by numerous colleges and departments across the university for many multidisciplinary projects.

This is a collaborative space for our students to work,” said Ball. “And it’s really important they have the opportunity to work in close proximity to our faculty.”

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A Current of Research Runs Through Smart Grid Lab

T

he lab continued to expand, with a RealTime Digital Simulator (RTDS) in place and staff trained in its use. By the end of July, the lab was equipped with a heat

In summer 2024, the lab hosted a weeklong summer camp titled, “Exploring

exchange module; a digital fault recorder; two server

Renewable Energy Engineering.” Rising

racks; and six workstations, allowing users to drill

high school sophomores and juniors

down on data related to wind, solar, microgrids, highvoltage direct currents, and pump storage. The lab

learned about renewable energy

is generously supported by Dominion Energy and

technologies, ideally sparking an interest

Amazon Web Services.

for environmental stewardship and

The lab is being used for teaching and research and

engineering excellence.

hosts events and demonstrations, including one for the university’s President’s Innovative Advisory Committee. In April, the Schar School of Policy and Government cohosted the National Capital Area Chapter of the United States Association for Energy Economics North American Conference. The daylong seminar’s theme was, “Ensuring Reliability: The Right Energy in the Right Places at the Right Times.” Liling Huang, who directs the lab and is an associate professor in ECE and Dominion Energy Faculty Fellow, presented on the lab’s ability to enable students and researchers to conduct various hands-on experiments, work with hardware-in-theLoop (HIL) simulations, and analyze simulation data related to power and energy systems.

In summer 2024, the lab hosted a week-long summer camp titled, “Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering.” Rising high school sophomores and juniors learned about renewable energy technologies, ideally sparking an interest for environmental stewardship and engineering excellence. Amazon Web Services provided funding for the camp.

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he hippocampus stores memories and makes connections between them, recognizing trends and helping the brain to learn and adapt to its environment.

One professor has joined a cross-university,

Maryam Parsa Joins Three-Year, $2.4 Million 3D Chip Creation Project

interdisciplinary team to create a chip that can

California, Irvine. Each collaborator will contribute

do the same.

their special skills to create 3D Solid-State Learning Machines for Various Cognitive Use-Cases. The

Maryam Parsa, an assistant professor in electrical

project will model and quantify key information

and computer engineering, is one of the four

processing steps in the hippocampus. These key

principal investigators on a three-year, $2.4 million

hippocampal functions will then be embedded on to

project funded by the NSF to create chips that

solid-state computing chips through state-of-the-art

processes information like the hippocampus.

hardware design techniques. A hippocampal-aware,

The project, DEJA-VU, involves four principal investigators: Maryam Parsa from George Mason, Akhilesh Jaiswal from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (project PI), Babak Shahbaba, and Norbert Fortin both from the University of

“The project has potential disruptive applications in the field of robotics and autonomous systems spanning industrial, consumer and defense sectors,”

hardware-aware algorithmic framework will augment the chip design efforts to enable online learning and decision-making in resource constrained environments.

“The project has potential disruptive applications in the field of robotics and autonomous systems spanning industrial, consumer and defense sectors,” said Parsa. She added, “The transformative potential of the project emerges from research conducted at three different levels of abstractions of neuroscience, hardware, and algorithm.”

Parsa’s portion of the project is $550,000 for the development of the hippocampal-aware, hardwareaware learning algorithm.

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wo CEC faculty members are part of a project awarded $1.7 million by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA)

Multidisciplinary Team Earns $1.7 Million NTIA Wireless Innovation Fund Project

Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund.

Kai Zeng, a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department, and Vijay K. Shah, an assistant professor in the cyber security engineering department, are part of a team led by researchers from Michigan State University to test O-RAN components using AI. Zeng, Shah, and their colleagues will use AI to

Zeng’s 5G/NextG wireless expertise and Shah’s

guide the process of running hundreds of millions

O-RAN research and development work in the

of test cases within complex O-RAN systems.

NextG Wireless Lab@George Mason University

“We can accelerate the testing process and

positioned the pair perfectly to join this project.

make it automatic [with AI],” said Zeng.

The project grew from Zeng’s working relationship with Michigan State and AT&T researchers, with

The team’s testing includes three objectives:

whom he completed an earlier project funded

test for whether the O-RAN is secure, test the

jointly by the NSF and the Department of Defense’s

O-RAN’s performance (i.e., its capacity for users

Securely Operating Through 5G Infrastructure

in different app environments), and, finally, test

program. That project developed a product called

for interoperability when a system passes these

WindTexter based on generative AI. Shah’s O-RAN

myriad tests.

work began late in 2020 with seed funding from

Inherently interoperable, O-RAN architecture is designed to comprise open and standardized interfaces for disaggregated RAN functions to lower the barrier for different vendors and third-party software developers to contribute to RAN innovation.

the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative xG Testbed.

He went on to secure a separate NSF grant, Open AI Cellular, which resulted in the development of a novel AI-driven controller to automatically control or configure O-RAN system parameters.

If the project goes well, Zeng said, the research team would like to see their hardware and software tools guide private industry in purchasing, testing, and, ultimately, adopting O-RAN.

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Optimizing Teaching and Learning

A

ssociate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Jill Nelson sees her role through the lens of mathematics and likens it to an optimization challenge.

In the simplest terms, optimization is making a process or system as fully perfect, and effective as

As she managed and followed ideas, proposals, and

possible––she wants to optimize undergraduate

then projects at NSF, she discovered similarities to

programs and student experiences.

following students, courses, and accreditation at CEC. “You ask what’s the guidance you can give

Nelson became associate dean at the CEC in

along the way what do you do to assess success,

the summer of 2023 after a career teaching and

how do you make this process as painless as

researching in the ECE department and a three-

possible,” she said. “I’m sure that both students and

year stint as a program director in the Division of

NSF PIs wouldn’t say that it’s painless, but in both

Undergraduate Education at the NSF.

cases, we try to have accountability. Obviously,

“The job at NSF exactly aligned with what I do now,” she said. As a program lead for NSF’s Improving

students are different than projects, but they are going through a pathway, and we try to help them.”

Undergrad STEM Education (IUSE) Program,

At George Mason, she says policy lives in the

she and her team explored everything from how

catalog where she looks for answers to policy

students learn math in a way that can be applied to

questions. When she needs clarification on policies,

engineering, to questions about how to increase the

she works with legal and the provost’s office to

number of students from different backgrounds, and

provide guidance. These gray areas interest her. “It’s

the look of the cohort process.

an optimization and I like to optimize. With policy

Her work with IUSE also focused on institutional and community transformation. “Organizational change was fascinating to me because we don’t learn this.

None of us (in STEM) study this unless we move to

appeals the like, they can’t lay out every use case, so we have to look at how we can improve and how to best think about what’s going to happen moving forward,” she said.

it later. The Division of Undergraduate Education at

As she moves forward, Nelson will be working on

NSF brought in colleagues in psychology and the

the ABET accreditation self-study and site visit for

social sciences who have different ways of thinking

CEC engineering programs and much more. “The

about student learning,” she said.

self-study is an opportunity to see how different departments approach their structure and their assessment. Through detailed reading and editing, I might find that different approaches between departments could lead to improvement throughout the entire college, and that’s exciting.”

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Space Mission Seeks to Uncover the Secrets of Dark Energy eorge Mason will be the home of the

design, build, and integrate the payload, which—

$19.5 million recently approved Landolt

because it’s going very high into geostationary

NASA Space Mission that will put an

orbit—must handle incredible challenges.”

artificial “star” in orbit around the Earth.

This artificial star will allow scientists to calibrate

Scientists know the universe is expanding, which is

telescopes and more accurately measure the

measured by calculating the brightness of numerous

brightness of stars ranging from those nearby to the

stars and by the number of photons-per-second

distant explosions of supernova in far-off galaxies.

they emit. According to Landolt Mission Primary

By establishing absolute flux calibration, the mission

Investigator Peter Plavchan, an associate professor

will begin to address several open challenges in

of physics and astronomy in the College of Science,

astrophysics including the speed and acceleration

more accurate measurements are needed for the

of the universe’s expansion.

next breakthroughs.

George Mason faculty and students from the College

Named for late astronomer Arlo Landolt, who

of Science and CEC will work together with NASA

assembled widely used catalogs of stellar brightness,

and NIST and nine other organizations for a first-of-

this mission will launch a light source into the sky

its-kind project for a university in the Washington,

in 2029 with a known emission rate of photons,

The payload, which is the size of a bread box, will

D.C., area. Piotr Pachowicz, associate professor in

and the team will observe it next to real stars to

be built in partnership with the National Institute of

ECE said, “This is an incredibly exciting opportunity

make new stellar brightness catalogs. The satellite

Standards and Technology (NIST), a world leader in

for George Mason and our students. Our team will

(artificial star) will have eight lasers shining at

measuring photon emissions. “This calibration under

ground optical telescopes in order to calibrate them

known laser wavelength and power will remove

for observations. The effort will not make the artificial

effects of atmosphere filtration of light and allow

stars so bright to see with the naked eye, but one

scientists to significantly improve measurements,”

can see it with own personal telescope at home.

explained Pachowicz, who is leading this component

“This is what is considered an infrastructure mission for NASA, supporting the science in a way that we’ve known we needed to do, but with a transformative change in how we do it.”

of the mission.

The artificial star will orbit earth 22,236 miles up, far enough away to look like a star to telescopes

The team also includes Blue Canyon Technologies;

back on Earth. This orbit also allows it to move at

California Institute of Technology; Lawrence Berkeley

the same speed of the Earth’s rotation, keeping it in

National Lab; Mississippi State University; Montreal

place over the United States during its first year in

Planetarium and iREx/University of Montreal; the

space. “This is what is considered an infrastructure

University of Florida; the University of Hawaii; the

mission for NASA, supporting the science in a

University of Minnesota, Duluth; and the University

way that we’ve known we needed to do, but with

of Victoria.

a transformative change in how we do it,” Plavchan explained.

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Faculty Achievements 2023-24 A new endowment, established

Bijan Jabbari was elected

by Dominion Energy, named

Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of

ECE Associate Professor

Communications and Networks

Liling Huang the Dominion

(JCN)! Bijan’s appointment to

Energy Faculty Fellow in Power

this role was effective January 1,

and Energy Engineering. The

2024. This is a great recognition

Dominion Energy Faculty Fellow endowment is a

for Bijan within the communications and networks

first for ECE and recognizes the strong relationship

research community and reflects very positively on

that Liling has established with Dominion Energy

ECE and George Mason.

and her leadership and efforts in building the power engineering program within ECE, including the

Kathleen Wage was awarded

power engineering concentrations in the BS EE, BS

the Rossing Prize in Acoustics

CpE and MS EE programs and the Smart Grid and

Education from the Acoustical

Renewable Energy Labs.

Society of America (ASA) acousticalsociety.org. The award

Gerry Tian was elected Editor-

recognizes “an individual who

in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on

has made significant contributions toward furthering

Signal Processing, the premier

acoustics education through distinguished teaching,

journal in the broad area of signal

creation of educational materials, textbook writing,

Maryam Parsa is helping

Two department faculty earned honors at the

processing. Her new role as EiC

and other activities.” John Buck (ASA Fellow and

to organize the International

CEC Dean’s Faculty Awards reception. They were:

began January 1. 2024

chancellor professor of electrical and computer

Conference on Neuromorphic

engineering at the University of Massachusetts

Systems (ICONS) as Program

This is a tremendous achievement for Gerry, which

Dartmouth) cited Wage’s “exceptional classroom

Co-Chair. This will be held at

recognizes her outstanding record as a researcher,

instruction, championing active learning, pioneering

Mason Square Arlington campus

contributor, and leader within the IEEE Signal

assessments and videos, and mentoring the next

from July 30 – August 2, 2024. ICONS is one of only

Processing Society. Gerry’s position as EiC will

generation in acoustic signal processing” in his

two conferences on neuromorphic computing held

bring greater recognition and visibility not only to

nominating letter.

annually in the U.S.

Excellence in Teaching: Liling Huang

her, but also to the ECE department, the CEC, and George Mason.

2 0 | SEC TION 2 : GROWING INTO BIG PROJEC TS

Monson Hayes was the

For 2023, DCCEAS honored

general co-chair of the ICASSP

Kafi Hassan as the recipient of

conference held in Seoul, South

the “Engineer of the Year Award”.

Korea. ICASSP is the world’s

Kafi, a Principal Technology

largest and most comprehensive

Development Strategist at

technical conference focused

the Advanced and Emerging

on signal processing and its applications. It offers

Technologies at T-Mobile USA, and an adjunct

a comprehensive technical program presenting

professor in the ECE department was recognized

all the latest developments in research and

for his achievements in industry, academia,

technology in the industry that attracts thousands

and professional services to the community.

of professionals annually.

north-virginia.chapters.comsoc.org/news

Excellence in Service or Outreach: Alok Berry

SEC TION 2 : GROWING INTO BIG PROJEC TS | 2 1

A

group of electrical and computer engineering faculty spent the spring 2024 semester discussing inclusive teaching strategies and applying them in two

Department Faculty Team Incorporates Inclusive Teaching Practices Nowzari explained to his class why they were practicing

foundational courses: Introduction to ECE taught by

these new methods of learning, which helped get

Cameron Nowzari and Introduction to Signals and

students to buy into the effort. Students seem to have

Systems taught by Kathleen Wage and Jill Nelson.

responded well to the team’s strategies thus far and

In addition to these instructors, the team included

realize that there are a lot of different ways to learn.

Khaled Khasawneh, Craig Lorie, Peter Paris, and Smriti Patwardhan. They won an Inclusive

Nowzari added that he encourages his students to take

Excellence in Teaching Mini-Grant from George

control of their own learning, “I’ve stressed this a lot in

Mason’s Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning

my classes: They’re going to have better professors than

for their proposal, “Volts, Wires, and Waves: Charging

I am. They’re going to have worse professors than I am.

Up, Building Connections, and Breaking Through”.

And if the professor affects their learning, that’s not in

The group met weekly throughout the semester to

the position they want to be in. So, ideally, they will be

brainstorm ideas and share what worked and what

able to find a way to have control over their own learning,

didn’t work in the classroom.

regardless of the figurehead at the front of the room.”

Inspired by Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting

Wage added that some of their inclusive teaching

Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly Hogan and

practices have aided the team in identifying ways to

Viji Sathy, Wage wanted to try new approaches aimed

handle students coming to class with varying levels of

at providing all students with the strong foundation

preparation from high school, as well as ways to convey

they need to succeed in ECE programs. “That book

best practices to students who are part of the first

sparked the idea in me, and I was looking for a

generation of their family to attend college.

group to work with on it. Luckily, I found a fun group of colleagues who were willing to try new teaching methods,” Wage said. The team experimented with new in-class exercises and several different approaches for assessing student learning, including daily online quizzes and iclicker classroom response systems.

“There’s been a lot of focus on metacognition,” said Nelson. For example, the team has prompted students to think about their optimal learning approach.

Though the microgrant ended this semester, they plan to continue their efforts next year. The group hopes that these initial efforts will help to develop the department’s strategic plan for broadening participation in computing and engineering.

Their next step is comparing data on student success from prior offerings of ECE 101 and 201 to data from this spring 2024.

“Ideally, we’d like to give students a strong foundation, so more of them can succeed in the higher-level courses,” said Wage.

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SECTION 3: FOSTERING STUDENT GROWTH | 23

Upneet Singh Pays it Forward with VEX Robotics

R

ecent graduate in electrical and computer

Tolga Soyata, to present two hands-on

engineering Upneet Singh is dedicated to

demonstrations of electrical and computer

bringing practical engineering experiences

engineering concepts to attendees.

to students in elementary and high school.

“We showed off last semester’s senior design

Singh, who is continuing to earn a Master’s degree

project winner and one of Professor Soyata’s

via his department’s Bachelor’s to Accelerated

personal projects to engage and interest students

Master’s (BAM) program, got his own start in

in continuing STEM beyond high school,” said Singh.

engineering by participating in VEX Robotics

The senior design project was a self-balancing robot,

competitions in middle school. Despite his high

which amazed students with its ability to stabilize

school not offering VEX Robotics, Singh took

itself after being pushed. The other project involved

the initiative to start his own team, continuing his

a computer-vision application for playing rock-

participation throughout high school. Now, he

paper-scissors.

participates in VEX Robotics as a mentor and volunteer.

“We wanted to pick projects that the students could really touch and get a feel for,” Singh emphasized.

“I am who I am today because of VEX Robotics.

“The goal is to show students that STEM is

I did it for seven years of my life, and it took me

everywhere and to inspire them to continue pursuing

from knowing nothing about technology to knowing

STEM education.”

everything that I know today,” said Singh. “So I love trying to give back to it.”

After earning his Master’s next spring, Singh intends to pursue just such a practical, impactful career in

At the 2024 VEX Robotics Championship for the

engineering, as he aims to combine technology with

Commonwealth of Virginia, Singh coordinated

meaningful interactions that improve people’s lives.

with one of his mentors, Associate Professor “From the time that I started robotics, I really just wanted to get in the workforce,” said Singh.

He mentioned defense and biotech as industries of interest.

Singh’s story is both a testament to the impact of hands-on learning and a brilliant example of a member of the Mason nation giving back to the community that shaped him. He plans to continue bringing George Mason’s robotics-related research to students at VEX Robotics events. In fact, at next year’s Virginia championships, he hopes to include demonstrations from other schools such as Virginia Tech and University of Virginia as well. 24 | SECTION 3: FOSTERING STUDENT GROWTH

SSEECCTTI O I ONN 33: : FFOOSSTTEERRI INNGG SSTTUUD DEEN N TT G GR RO OW WT H | 2 5

Alumnus Long Jiao Reflects on Lessons as First-Year Professor

L

ong Jiao, who received his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering in 2023, is finishing up his first year as a college professor. As a faculty member in the

Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Jiao has continued his research while learning the ropes of

As an alum of George Mason, Jiao

curriculum design and student engagement.

remains committed to nurturing the

Jiao’s research aims to fortify the digital world.

“We’re trying to develop security measures for the

next generation of scholars, determined to foster academic excellence and pay it forward.

physical layer of wireless networks, which often gets overlooked,” he said. Jiao earned both his master’s

“Teaching is like solving a puzzle,” Jiao reflected.

and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from

“Sometimes, what works in your head doesn’t

George Mason. Spending seven years as a graduate

quite click with the students.”

student in Professor Kai Zeng’s lab, Jiao delved deep into the intricacies of securing the physical layer

Flexibility emerged as a cornerstone of Jiao’s

of wireless networks. His work not only addressed

teaching philosophy, allowing him to adapt his

theoretical concerns but also ventured into practical

methods to suit students’ needs effectively. By

implementations, thanks to fruitful collaborations and

incorporating comprehensive reviews, interactive

continuous funding support.

lessons, and flexible syllabi, Jiao not only enhanced learning outcomes but also fostered meaningful

Jiao’s transition from doctoral student to both

connections with his students.

researcher and faculty member came with new challenges, particularly in managing large classes

Jiao’s early strides in academia serve as an

and catering to diverse educational backgrounds.

inspiration to aspiring researchers and educators

Seeking guidance, he turned to his former advisor,

alike. His journey underscores the transformative

Zeng, who provided invaluable insights.

power of perseverance, mentorship, and a relentless pursuit of knowledge.

As an alum of George Mason, Jiao remains committed to nurturing the next generation of scholars, determined to foster academic excellence and pay it forward.

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SECTION 3: FOSTERING STUDENT GROWTH | 27

Taking a Byte Out of Apple “What I learned from Dr. Gaj was to be dedicated,

Farahmand advises current

The Department of Electrical and

do the hard work, and keep learning different topics.

students to stay curious and to

Computer Engineering at George

not be afraid to learn about a

Mason will be starting their search for

separately, he pulled us all together in one room

different topic; take every chance

a new department chair this fall. This

at the same time,” said Farahmand. Sitting in long

you can to learn something new

is an exciting and highly impactful

meetings with lab mates, he learned about related

and different.

position within a growing and dynamic

And we used to have very long weekly meetings with him instead of meeting with each of his students

A

2020 graduate of the Department of

topics and said that experience led him to his

Electrical and Computer Engineering

internship with Google.

Iranian-born Farnoud Farahmand works for tech giant Apple in Silicon Valley

Chair Search

Before the internship, Farahmand was focused on

doing a job he hadn’t thought about as an undergrad

hardware implementation, but other people were

or even a grad student. Farahmand’s journey to

working on side-channel analysis, and applied to

California covered more miles than an American

Google online. “The thing is you don’t know the

pioneer’s and his attitude mirrored the same qualities

positions. The job descriptions are very general when

of curiosity, grit, and determination as those of

you apply for internships at Google. “The internship

Western settlers.

was mostly related to side-channel analysis but because I was in those meetings with Dr. Gaj and

department in Virginia’s largest When he interviewed for a permanent position with Google, he said everything went well but at the height of the pandemic, the company wasn’t hiring.

While he waited for Google’s hiring freeze to thaw, Apple came through with an offer.

public research university. The job posting describing further details about the position is expected to be available by mid-September and candidates are invited to submit their CV together with

That detour, and Farahmand’s new job, led to an opportunity in still another topic. The new job deals with modeling power based on the features that will be added in future generations of Apple electronics.

other supporting materials through the University’s career application portal at listings.jobs.gmu.edu/jobs/search

Farahmand said he chose George Mason because

others for 2-3 years, I learned all these topics and

he had family living in Virginia and found George

then when I went for an interview when they asked

Farahmand had never worked on power optimization

Please use the keyword “ECE” within

Mason a good match for his goals, and his interest in

all these questions, I was ready to answer.”

in his research but through his internship experience

the portal to access the posting.

digital design and embedded systems. “Mason had a

with side-channel analysis, its relationship to

good program. I saw there were some specializations

Farahmand advises current students to stay curious

in digital design and that was a great fit for me,” he

and to not be afraid to learn about a different topic;

said. Farahmand credits his PhD advisor, Professor

take every chance you can to learn something new

Krzysztof (Kris) Gaj for teaching him the value of

and different. “If I wanted to just focus on what I

teamwork and nurturing his burgeoning curiosity.

worked on from the beginning, which was doing

“It was a very good fit for the position and now that

digital design and implementing ciphers in hardware,

I’m working on it, I really like it. One thing that I

then maybe I wouldn’t have had the confidence for

see from students and for myself as well, we know

my internship interviews,” he said.

general topics like digital design, verification, and

Farahmand thought that after interning successfully at Google he would be a good fit and applied for a job. Covid’s trajectory and downturn in the tech industry caused a detour that led him elsewhere.

evaluating the power consumption of a chip, and power analysis and simulations, the hiring committee made the connection and offered him the position.

physical design. Positions related to these topics are more widely available, but sometimes there are niche positions available in good companies. We don’t search for them, so we don’t find them.” By keeping his options open and looking for jobs in unexpected areas Farahmand discovered an unexpected path to success.

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SECTION 3: FOSTERING STUDENT GROWTH | III

Nguyen Engineering Building, Room 3100 Mail Stop: 1G5 4400 University Drive Fairfax, VA 22030 703-993-1569 | ece@gmu.edu | ece.gmu.edu