faculty - SEAS - The George Washington University

Transcription

57198_Cvrx1_Cvr 11/29/10 12:48 AM Page 1
Fall 2010
Synergy
The George Washington University
School of Engineering & Applied Science
ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
A Passion for the
Next Big Idea
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First
Words
FROM THE DEAN:
David S. Dolling
Over the past two years, you might have noticed a theme in the publications, letters,
and other communications from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. You
might have noticed that we frequently speak of the transformation underway here
at SEAS. There is a reason for this: a transformation is, in fact, occurring here.
Although it is a continuous process—like any growth—we perceive it most clearly in
“stages“ or at certain moments. We primarily notice the transformation through
our successes . . . and SEAS has had a number of them this past year: increased
new faculty recruitment, improved student recruitment, new academic programs,
and new educational opportunities for our students, to name a few of the changes.
Perhaps the most talked about example is the Science and Engineering Complex.
Over the past two years, GW and SEAS have moved steadily to prepare the way
for the complex, and on October 15th of this year, the university's board of trustees
unanimously approved its construction.
This issue of Synergy describes several of our achievements over the past year, and
my article ( page 26), addresses our transformation in more detail. Inside this issue
are stories about some of the state-of-the-art research in our five departments,
profiles of our environmental engineering program and our efforts to build a culture
of entrepreneurship at SEAS, a look at new study abroad opportunities for SEAS
students, an introduction to new faculty, and a number of other articles that,
collectively, tell the story of our ongoing transformation.
Please take a moment to see what we’ve been doing here at SEAS. If you see
something that intrigues or particularly interests you, e-mail me at dolling@gwu.edu.
I’d be happy to talk to you about it.
Sincerely,
David S. Dolling
Dean
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SCHOOL of ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE
CONTENTS
Ballinger Architects
12
8 26
Synergy
FA L L 2 0 1 0
8
COVER STORY:
26
PERSPECTIVE:
GETTING IT STARTED
Promoting Entrepreneurship at SEAS
EDITOR
JOANNE WELSH
DESIGN
BRIAN COX – MINISCULE MOLECULE DESIGN SERVICE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
STEVEN KNAPP
DEAN
DAVID S. DOLLING
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
MARTHA PARDAVI-HORVATH
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH
& GRADUATE STUDIES
CAN E. KORMAN
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR UNDERGRADUATE
AFFAIRS & PROGRAMS
BHAGIRATH NARAHARI
A Status Report
2
GW ENGINEERING DEPARTMENTS
7
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AT SEAS
12
STUDENT PROFILE: Christine Penfold
13
ALUMNUS PROFILE: Shariar Zaimi
14
NEWS
18
FACULTY
24
STUDENT NEWS
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL
& ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
W. M. KIM RODDIS, CHAIR
29
DONORS
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
ABDOU S. YOUSSEF, CHAIR
34
ALUMNI
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL
& COMPUTER ENGINEERING
MONA ZAGHLOUL, CHAIR
38
CLASS NOTES
41
UPCOMING EVENTS
FALL 10
SYNERGY IS PUBLISHED BY THE GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY‘S SCHOOL OF
ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE.
106 TOMPKINS HALL • 725 23RD STREET, NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20052
202-994-6080 • WWW.SEAS.GWU.EDU
THE SEAS TRANSFORMATION:
SYNERGY
PHOTOGRAPHY
JULIE WOODFORD – JULIE ANN WOODFORD PHOTOGRAPHY
ELEANOR KAUFMAN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
& SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
JULIE J.C.H. RYAN, CHAIR
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL
& AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
MICHAEL W. PLESNIAK, CHAIR
1
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
PROFILE
Chair: Kim Roddis
202-994-4901
www.cee.seas.gwu.edu
Full-time faculty: 14
Undergraduate students: 104
Graduate students: 53
Annual research expenditures:
$3.0 million
FACULTY
Sameh S. Badie, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Kennerly H. Digges, RESEARCH PROFESSOR
Azim Eskandarian, PROFESSOR
Samer Hamdar, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Muhammad I. Haque, PROFESSOR
Cing-Dao “Steve“ Kan, ASSOCIATE RESEARCH PROFESSOR
Tianshu Li, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Khalid Mahmood, PROFESSOR
Majid T. Manzari, PROFESSOR
Dhafer Marzougui, ASSISTANT RESEARCH PROFESSOR
Baoxia Mi, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Rumana Riffat, PROFESSOR
Kim Roddis, PROFESSOR
Pedro Silva, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
RESEARCH AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
Mi, Riffat
STRUCTURAL/GEOTECHNICAL/EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING
Safety Tools
Dhafer Marzougui is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering and the director of the Highway Safety and Infrastructure Research Group
at GW‘s National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC). “Our focus is transportation safety,“
he says of the NCAC. “We develop the tools that researchers can use to improve
safety.“ Working toward this goal, Marzougui studies roadside hardware and highway
infrastructure by looking at the placement of cable median barriers, the design of
portable concrete barrier connections, height tolerances for guardrails, the design
of breakaway sign supports, and other topics.
The approach begins with extensive computer simulations to identify a particular
problem. “To make sure that the computer simulation is accurate,“ notes Marzougui,
“we compare its results to available crash tests. We use as many tests as we have our
hands on. Once we identify the problem, we select one or two critical cases and run
crash tests. The tests are well-documented using high-speed digital cameras and
accelerometers, gyros, and other sensors that obtain the vehicle response and measure
its speed.“ He continues, “Let‘s say that we found a particular roadside geometry that
is critical for a certain barrier. We perform the computer analysis and tests and develop
retrofits and recommendations or guidelines for the Federal Highway Administration.
These guidelines can be implemented to improve the safety of the barrier and reduce
the risk of injuries and fatalities.“
Marzougui is proud of the work his research team does and of the progress that they
have made over the years. “We use finite element modeling for crash analysis; the
structure is split into hundreds of thousands of small elements, a few millimeters in
size,“ Marzougui states. “Finite element analysis studies the response of the whole
structure by summing up the response of all these tiny elements; the smaller they
are, the closer the results are to reality. All part connections, contacts, and material
behaviors are also explicitly incorporated in the model.“ He adds, “The structure
behavior is computed in small time increments—microseconds—to predict the crash
event over the impact duration.“
Badie, Li, Manzari, Roddis, Silva
TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ENGINEERING
Digges, Eskandarian, Hamdar, Kan, Marzougui
According to Marzougui, computer simulation is a very powerful tool that gives
researchers a better result—and gives it to them more quickly—than alternative
methods. He recalls, “When we started, computers were not as powerful as today, so
our models were limited in size, and we couldn‘t include as many details in the models.
Advances in computer and simulation technologies have allowed for more efficient and
accurate analyses, and over the years our group has developed unmatched expertise
in terms of knowing the finite element aspects and the crash codes and how to apply
them in crash analyses.“
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Civil & Environmental Engineering
DEPARTMENTS
CLOSER TO REALITY: To analyze crashes, Professor Marzougui‘s team uses
finite element modeling that splits a structure into hundreds of thousands of small
elements; the smaller they are, the closer the results are to reality.
2
DEPARTMENTS
Chair: Abdou S. Youssef
202-994-7181
www.cs.gwu.edu
$2.0 million
FACULTY
Abdelghani Bellaachia, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Simon Berkovich, PROFESSOR
Peter Bock, PROFESSOR
Matthew Burke, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Xiuzhen “Susan“ Cheng, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Hyeong-Ah Choi, PROFESSOR
Evan Drumwright, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
James K. Hahn, PROFESSOR
Rachelle S. Heller, PROFESSOR
Lance J. Hoffman, DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR
FUSION: Professor Hahn‘s team created a system that fuses three imaging
modalities into one visualization space, allowing a surgeon to see right through
the surface of a patient and know where to make an incision.
X-ray Vision
James Hahn started his career doing research in computer graphics, visualization,
and computer animation with applications for military uses, science and engineering,
intelligence analysis, and entertainment. In the past ten years, however, he has moved
toward applying his expertise to the medical field. Hahn, a professor in the Department
of Computer Science, explains the shift, remarking, “I always thought we had great
tools, but it seemed we could apply them to solve problems that make a real difference
to patients.“
In 2002, Hahn led an effort to write a proposal to establish the GW Institute for
Biomedical Engineering (IBE), which the university funded under its Centers of
Excellence program. Hahn believes that the Centers of Excellence program has been
critical to the IBE‘s development. “This support helped gel the relationship between the
medical school and SEAS, and it helped us find seed funding for collaborative research
efforts,“ he recalls. Working through the IBE, he and his team have since undertaken a
number of externally-funded projects, including various medical simulators and image
guidance systems to help surgeons and other health care professionals.
AND ACM FELLOW
C. Dianne Martin, PROFESSOR AND ACM FELLOW
Bhagirath Narahari, PROFESSOR
Gabriel A. Parmer, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Rhys Price Jones, PROFESSOR
Shmuel Rotenstreich, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
John L. Sibert, PROFESSOR
Rahul Simha, PROFESSOR
Poorvi Vora, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Abdou S. Youssef, PROFESSOR
Nan Zhang, Assistant PROFESSOR
Computer Science
PROFILE
RESEARCH AREAS
ALGORITHMS AND THEORY
Bellaachia, Berkovich, Cheng, Choi, Price Jones,
Youssef, Zhang
BIOINFORMATICS AND BIOMEDICAL COMPUTING
Bellaachia, Berkovich, Cheng, Hahn, Price Jones,
Rotenstreich, Simha
COMPUTER SECURITY AND INFORMATION ASSURANCE
Cheng, Choi, Hoffman, Martin, Narahari, Simha,
Vora, Zhang
DIGITAL MEDIA
In 2005, the National Institutes of Health awarded the team a prestigious $2.8 million
R01 grant for research to improve a procedure called medialization laryngoplasty, which
helps patients who have partial paralysis of the vocal fold to regain their voice. The
procedure involves surgically placing a small implant through the thyroid cartilage,
but it requires the surgeon to make the incision essentially “blind,“ since the internal
anatomical structures are not visible from the outside. Hahn came up with a solution,
which he describes as “using image guidance to give the surgeon a kind of ‘x-ray vision.‘“
Hahn, Heller, Martin, Sibert, Youssef
MACHINE INTELLIGENCE AND COGNITION
Bock, Drumwright
NETWORKING AND MOBILE COMPUTING
Cheng, Choi, Narahari, Rotenstreich, Simha
PERVASIVE COMPUTING AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
Cheng, Narahari, Simha
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND SYSTEMS
FALL 10
Narahari, Parmer, Rotenstreich
SEARCH AND DATA MINING
Bellaachia, Berkovich, Youssef, Zhang
SYNERGY
Hahn explains, “Without our system, the surgeon looks at the patient, the pre-operative
CTs [computed tomography], and endoscopic images of the larynx and tries to register
and fuse all three spaces conceptually in his head. So there‘s a lot of variability—and
even for skilled surgeons, the revision rate (having to do the surgery over) is quite high.
With our system, all the imaging modalities are registered and fused by the computer
into one comprehensive visualization space that allows the surgeon to see right through
the surface of the patient and know where to make the incision.“
While Hahn still works on this project, he is also active in other research projects. In
2008, he spent his sabbatical at the Children‘s National Medical Center (CNMC). “After
spending a year at CNMC, I can see so many areas where we can make a real difference
in giving the best medical care to our children,“ says Hahn, who is clearly excited about
the possibilities of this effort.
3
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
Electrical & Computer Engineering
DEPARTMENTS
PROFILE
Chair: Mona Zaghloul
202-994-6083
www.ece.gwu.edu
$1.4 million
FACULTY
Shahrokh Ahmadi, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Lawrence Bennett, RESEARCH PROFESSOR AND
APS FELLOW
Robert L. Carroll, PROFESSOR
Edward Della Torre, PROFESSOR, IEEE AND APS FELLOW
Milos Doroslovacki, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Tarek A. El-Ghazawi, PROFESSOR
Kie-Bum Eom, PROFESSOR
Robert J. Harrington, PROFESSOR AND IEEE FELLOW
Hermann J. Helgert, PROFESSOR
Howie Huang, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Walter K. Kahn, PROFESSOR AND IEEE FELLOW
Matthew Kay, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Can E. Korman, PROFESSOR
Nicholas Kyriakopoulos, PROFESSOR
Tian Lan, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Roger H. Lang, PROFESSOR AND IEEE FELLOW
Ting N. Lee, PROFESSOR
Manlap “Alex“ Li, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Zhenyu Li, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Murray H. Loew, PROFESSOR, IEEE AND AIMBE FELLOW
Thomas J. Manuccia, PROFESSOR
Martha Pardavi-Horvath, PROFESSOR
Suresh Subramaniam, PROFESSOR
Guru P. Venkataramani, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Branimir R. Vojcic, PROFESSOR
Wasyl Wasylkiwskyj, PROFESSOR AND IEEE FELLOW
Mona Zaghloul, PROFESSOR AND IEEE FELLOW
Jason M. Zara, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Vesna Zderic, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
RESEARCH AREAS
Biomedical Engineering
UNPRECEDENTED DEMANDS: Data-intensive computing is creating
unprecedented storage, energy, and system support demands on computer engineers.
The Big Data Challenge
As the sciences become increasingly data-centric, computer engineers face unprecedented
demands for storage, more efficient energy use, and the need for better system support for
data-intensive computing. Although central processing units (CPUs) have been getting faster
and faster in an attempt to handle petabyte-scale datasets (a petabyte equals one quadrillion,
or 1015 bytes), hard disks have not. And this creates a big data challenge, which Professor
Howie Huang of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is working to tackle.
Researchers at a number of universities are working on various aspects of this problem,
but Huang is taking a holistic approach to it, which he believes ultimately will yield a
better result. “I‘m looking at it from both a hardware and software perspective and
working across layers of devices, systems, and applications,“ he explains.
This approach is reflected in his two primary research projects: modeling for emerging
memory technologies (flash memory, phase change memory, and solid-state drives or
SSDs) and developing system support for them. Flash-based SSDs are new storage devices
that hold the promise of high performance with low power consumption. However, to
better utilize these devices we first need to better understand them. To do that, Huang
is modeling them to be able to predict how they will behave in various scenarios.
MEDICAL IMAGING
Loew, Zara, Zderic
MEDICAL INSTRUMENTATION
Kay, Zhenyu Li, Zara, Zderic
Electrical Engineering
Through his other primary research project, Huang is attempting to re-optimize computer
systems in light of this new technology. “Hard drives are mechanical,“ says Huang,
“but SSDs don‘t have mechanical parts, so we want to know how we can re-optimize
the systems to utilize flash and SSDs intelligently.“ Huang finds both of these research
problems very interesting because, as he sees it, “big data is the problem in the future.“
COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Doroslovacki, Helgert, Lan, Subramaniam, Vojcic
ELECTRIC POWER AND ENERGY
FALL 10
Harrington
MICROWAVE ENGINEERING
Della Torre, Lang, Paradavi-Horvath, Wasylkiwskyj
SIGNAL AND IMAGE PROCESSING, SYSTEMS AND CONTROLS
Huang expects that his research will improve not only the overall performance of data-intensive
computing, but its energy efficiency in particular. “In 2006, computer servers consumed 61 billion
kilowatts per hour in power, and that figure will double next year,“ he states. “By then, it will be
three percent of U.S. electricity consumption. Computers will continue to consume more energy,
so we must care about energy efficiency and how to better utilize energy.“ Huang is working
on a balanced scalable architecture, Amdahl Blade, which utilizes low power CPUs, motherboards, and SSDs for data-intensive applications. This unique approach improves the application I/O throughput by an order of magnitude while keeping power consumption constant.
SYNERGY
Carroll, Doroslovacki, Eom, Kriakopoulos
Computer Engineering
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND NETWORKING
El-Ghazawi, Huang, Manlap Li, Venkataramani
MICROELECTRONICS, VLSI SYSTEMS, AND MEMS
Ahmadi, Korman, Zhenyu Li, Zaghloul
4
These are big challenges, but Huang feels up to the task. Referring to his primary research
goals, he muses, “The competition is high, but that makes it more exciting. I welcome
challenges.“ Fortunately, he has a history of managing the competition. Since coming
to SEAS in 2008, Huang has received a prestigious IBM Real-time Innovation Award and
a National Science Foundation High-End Computing University Research Activity grant,
which he is working on jointly with Professor Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins University.
DEPARTMENTS
He‘s a doctor—an emergency physician, actually—who is on the engineering faculty . . . and
he sees his job as building bridges, but not the concrete or steel variety. Dr. Joseph Barbera,
a member of the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering (EMSE)
faculty, sees management science as the bridge that can connect colleagues across
disciplines that otherwise do not often communicate or coordinate with each other.
Early in his career, Barbera worked as an emergency physician in a public hospital in the
Bronx, where he dealt with a large number of trauma cases from handguns and other
violence. He later joined a volunteer medical team that responded to deep coal mine fires,
roof collapses, and other mine emergencies. His experience with trauma and with medical
care in the austere coal mine setting prepared him for subsequent work as FEMA‘s point
person developing the medical elements of the national urban search and rescue system.
He learned quickly that “for medical personnel working in a complex task force, an effective
management system is required,“ but he says, “the principles for healthcare delivery are
the same across disaster types.“
Barbera came to the GW Medical Center in 1993, and in 1994 Professor John Harrald of
EMSE, Dr. Barbera, and Professor Gerald Post of GW‘s Elliott School co-founded the Institute
for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management. Since moving to the EMSE faculty in 1999, he has
focused on teaching emergency management principles and on a number of successful
research initiatives. His Institute research team produced a framework for the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services that coordinates healthcare resources across
levels of government and the private sector during disasters; it is now a central strategy in
the national Hospital Preparedness Program. He co-developed an emergency management
curriculum for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which the VA applied nationally
across its healthcare facilities. And, an emergency volunteer management system that his
team developed for Arlington County, VA, is now widely used in other locations.
PROFILE
Chair: Julie J. C. H. Ryan
202-994-7541
www.emse.gwu.edu
Graduate students: 1,297
Annual research expenditures: $3.6 million
FACULTY
Hernan G. Abeledo, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Joseph A. Barbera, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Enrique Campos-Nañez, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Jonathan P. Deason, PROFESSOR
Michael R. Duffey, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Howard Eisner, DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR,
IEEE AND INCOSE FELLOW
Royce Francis, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Thomas A. Mazzuchi, PROFESSOR
E. Lile Murphree, PROFESSOR
Julie J. C. H. Ryan, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Joost Reyes Santos, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Shahram Sarkani, PROFESSOR
Gregory L. Shaw, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Michael M. Stankosky, PROFESSOR
J. Rene van Dorp, PROFESSOR
RESEARCH AREAS
CRISIS, EMERGENCY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
Barbera also continues his work as an emergency medical responder, working both
nationally and internationally. His most recent effort was with the U.S. Government‘s
search and rescue task force sent to Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake.
Barbera blends his medical and management expertise in emergency response, but
believes that “by focusing on management issues you can in some ways make a much
bigger impact than by focusing primarily on the technical medical issues. Moving
resources, for example, is a management issue in disaster response, and you can
make a relatively big impact with a relatively narrow amount of work.“
Barbera, Mazzuchi, Santos, Sarkani, Shaw, van Dorp
ECONOMICS, FINANCE AND COST ENGINEERING
Duffey, Santos, van Dorp
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
Deason, Duffey, Eisner, Murphree, Shaw, Stankosky
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY MANAGEMENT
“At the end of the day, engineering is a science, medicine is a science, and management is a
science,“ he muses. “And if they respect each other, it‘s not that hard to construct an operating
system that can incorporate all three; really, the bridge is the management science.“
Deason, Francis
INFORMATION ASSURANCE
Ryan
ON-CALL: In addition to teaching and doing research, Dr. Joseph Barbera serves
KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
as an emergency medical responder, working both nationally and internationally.
Ryan, Stankosky
Eng. Management & Systems Eng.
The Bridge
OPERATIONS RESEARCH
Abeledo, Campos-Nañez, Mazzuchi, van Dorp
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Campos-Nañez, Duffey, Eisner, Mazzuchi, Ryan, Santos,
Sarkani, Stankosky, van Dorp
5
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
PROFILE
Chair: Michael W. Plesniak
202-994-9803
www.mae.seas.gwu.edu
$1.7 million
FACULTY
Philippe Bardet, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Pinhas Ben-Tzvi, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Andrew D. Cutler, PROFESSOR
David S. Dolling, PROFESSOR, AIAA AND ROYAL
AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY (UK) FELLOW
Charles A. Garris, PROFESSOR AND ASME FELLOW
Stephen M. Hsu, PROFESSOR AND ASME FELLOW
Michael Keidar, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
James D. Lee, PROFESSOR AND ASME FELLOW
Yongsheng Leng, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Chunlei “Charlie“ Liang, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Michael W. Plesniak, PROFESSOR, ASME AND APS FELLOW
Yin-Lin Shen, PROFESSOR
R. Ryan Vallance, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Adam M. Wickenheiser, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Lijie “Grace“ Zhang, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
A NEW PARADIGM: Professor Ben-Tzvi developed a new paradigm that
generated a revolutionary improvement in mobile robot design.
Talkin‘ about a Revolution
RESEARCH AREAS
AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
Cutler, Dolling, Garris, Keidar, Plesniak, Wickenheiser
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
Lee, Liang, Keidar, Plesniak, Zhang
DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING OF MECHANICAL
AND AEROSPACE SYSTEMS
Ben-Tzvi, Garris, Leng, Shen, Vallance
FLUID MECHANICS, THERMAL SCIENCE, AND ENERGY
Bardet, Cutler, Dolling, Garris, Hsu, Keidar, Liang,
Plesniak, Wickenheiser
SOLID MECHANICS AND MATERIALS SCIENCE
Hsu, Lee, Leng, Zhang
Professor Pinhas Ben-Tzvi conducts research on the advanced mechanics and control of robotics
and mechatronics systems, the design of intelligent autonomous systems, and the development
of novel sensors and actuators for microrobotic systems, miniature mechatronic systems, and
biomedical applications. Spend some time talking to him about this research, and you will notice
that he aspires to revolution. “There are only a few ways of improving things,“ he says. “There is
either evolutionary improvement or revolutionary improvement. I like revolutionary improvement.“
These aren‘t just words for Ben-Tzvi, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering and the director of GW‘s Robotics and Mechatronics Lab. In one of his robotics
research activities, Ben-Tzvi developed a new paradigm that generated a revolutionary
improvement in mobile robot design: a hybrid system that combined locomotion (the ability
to move) and manipulation (the ability to grasp, carry, etc.) and increased both the strength
and resiliency of the mobile robot.
“The previous approach was to create two platforms for the robot, a mobility platform with a
manipulation platform on top of it,“ explains Ben-Tzvi. “The problem with these designs was that
the degrees of freedom for mobility are used only for mobility and those for manipulation are used
only for manipulation. These robots work outside, for example in search and rescue missions or
earthquake sites, and it‘s highly likely that they will fall and flip over at some point and then break,
so they‘re very limited. The hybrid mechanism mobile robot typically has half of the number of
degrees of freedom, because its links are used simultaneously for both locomotion and manipulation;
they‘re sharing the functionalities symbiotically and they‘re not as susceptible to breaking.“
Under a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Ben-Tzvi‘s lab is now working
on a new mobile robot design with the capability of operating autonomously rather than through
wireless remote control. This is extremely difficult to do, because the infrastructure necessary
for autonomy requires much greater computing capacity and speed, new sensing capabilities,
and complex decision making algorithms in order to perceive the environment and act upon it.
“If you think about it, this is similar to what humans do,“ remarks Ben-Tzvi.
FALL 10
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
DEPARTMENTS
SYNERGY
Ben-Tzvi has also proposed a new project, Self-Configuring Robotic Pieces (SCoRP), which he
explains with a scenario. “We would design smaller mobile robots that can move around very effectively,
like agents,“ he states. “They would be scattered all around, say in a collapsed building after an
earthquake, and they would act as sensor agents collecting information through cameras and
sensors, which they would share through wireless communication. When a need arises to actually
act on the environment—for example, one of the robots finds a person in the rubble—then it calls the
other robots, which swarm in from various locations and they self-assemble into the hybrid
configuration needed for a particular task. We are going to pioneer this at GW,“ he says confidently.
6
SPOTLIGHT
Growing the Environmental
Engineering Program
SEEKING SOLUTIONS:
Both undergraduate and graduate
students in the environmental
engineering program have hands-on
research opportunities with
Professors Rumana Riffat (right)
and Baoxia Mi (left).
Professor Rumana Riffat of the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering leads the environmental engineering
program and the research program on wastewater and bio-solids
treatment. With funding from the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority,
she and her students conduct research for the Blue Plains
Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant to lower the level of
nitrogen in the discharge from the wastewater that goes into
the Chesapeake Bay. “As the regulations become tighter and
tighter, they will need to meet these lower level concentrations,
and we‘re looking at ways of helping them do that,“ she explains.
Riffat‘s team is also working on another project related to bio-solids.
“There are various classes of bio-solids that can be treated and
processed to be applied on land for various purposes, for example
to be used as fertilizer, soil conditioners, or in other ways. We are
studying production of Class A bio-solids—basically sludge—that
have been treated and processed, and we are trying to reduce the
pathogens in the sludge to a very, very low level so that they can be
applied on land for agricultural and other purposes,“ states Riffat.
Professor Baoxia Mi, who came to SEAS last year after finishing
a postdoctoral research position at Yale University, also conducts
research on water purification and taking pollutants out of the
water; however, her focus is on a treatment process that uses
membranes with nano-size pores to filter water and separate
“There are two advantages to this process,“ Mi says. “One is that it
uses less energy than the more traditional reverse osmosis process.
Another advantage of this process is that it can use renewable
energy sources like waste heat from power plants, solar energy, and
geo-thermal energy, unlike reverse osmosis, which must be driven
by electricity.“ In addition, forward osmosis can actually be used
to generate energy. “By mixing sea water and fresh water, we
are able to extract energy. There is actually energy stored in
the solution,“ Mi explains.
With the addition of Mi, the program has expanded not only its
research areas but also research opportunities for students, both
graduate and undergraduate. One of the strengths of the program,
in fact, is its ability to offer research opportunities to its undergraduate
students. “Both Professor Mi and I have undergraduate students
involved in our research,“ says Riffat. “This really helps to motivate
the students; it gives them a hands-on laboratory experience that
provides them with good exposure to research. This is not
something that many environmental engineering programs
are able to make available to their undergraduates.“
Perhaps one the greatest sources of pride in the program is its
record of preparing students for further study and careers in
environmental engineering. “Students who graduate from our program
have had excellent job offers or are now graduate students at UC
Berkeley, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and other well-regarded
schools. We prepare our students to gain admission into highly
competitive schools. Our graduate students are also very well-placed.
Currently, three of them are at Aecom Water, one of the largest
environmental companies in the world; others are at HDR,
Dewberry, and Michael Baker, among other places“ beams Riffat.
7
FALL 10
In research on water purification, wastewater treatment, and
management of bio-solids, the faculty and students are looking
for solutions that will help address problems associated with water
scarcity, environmental pollution and sustainability, and energy use.
particles, pathogens, bacteria, and even salt from the water.
The process is called forward osmosis, and according to Mi,
it is a novel process that holds a great deal of promise.
SYNERGY
T
he SEAS environmental engineering program is
growing in breadth and strength, developing research
and graduates who are making contributions to some
of the vexing environmental issues that our world faces.
Getting It
Started
“
FEATURE
COVER STORY:
Promoting Entrepreneurship at SEAS
Drawing on the Experience of ALUMNI ENTREPRENEURS and FRIENDS
“I knew that there was substantial interest among the NAC
for this effort, and I wanted them to lead this project, because of
their cumulative expertise and experience as entrepreneurs,“
said Dean Dolling.
Discovering the origin of the series
“depends on who you talk to,“ as
Dr. Randy Graves says with a smile.
Graves (D.Sc. ‘78), who has been
a member of the NAC since 1999,
has a long history of promoting
entrepreneurship at SEAS. “From
my point of view, the idea goes
back to six years ago,“ Graves says,
According to Tischler, passion was an
“when a group of us met regularly
important organizing factor for the
SAGE ADVICE: Alumni and friends
to put together some entrepreneurship
seminars. “We came up with four topics
share their wisdom with up-and-coming
and commercialization activities so
for the first year of the series,“ he
entrepreneurs. Back row, left to right:
that students could begin to see
recounts. “Some were passionate about
Lou Wagman, Elias Shams, Doug Humphrey,
what‘s available after graduation
one topic; others were passionate about
and Mark Walsh; front row: Dan Gordon
in terms of what they could do for
another topic. We used that to identify
and Marie-Louise Murville.
themselves, and also what kinds
who from the NAC would spearhead
of businesses entrepreneurs were
each topic and take care of moderating
starting.“ During the transition from the previous SEAS dean,
it and finding the panelists. It was a very cooperative effort. For
Timothy Tong, to Dean Dolling, the efforts subsided, but
example, Elias Shams [an NAC member and social entrepreneur]
Graves later suggested reinvigorating this program to Dean
was instrumental in finding panelists.“
Dolling. “Dean Dolling then brought it up to the NAC, and it
was very well-received. This whole idea of using the NAC and
Dean Dolling also notes the important role that passion and
some of the members of the Council who are entrepreneurs to
enthusiasm have played in the seminars. “Our NAC members, as
start this new series as a kick-off to future activities was Dean
well as several other friends and supporters of SEAS, have great
Dolling‘s idea,“ Graves recalls.
enthusiasm for this workshop series. Despite their very busy
9
FALL 10
Howard Tischler (M.S. ‘80), an NAC
member and the chairman of the
Council, also remembers interest
within the NAC for the project. “The
NAC had been kicking around the idea
that SEAS should get more involved in
entrepreneurship,“ he confirms. “When
you look at the U.S. and think about the
fact that engineering should be one of
the leading forces for the creation of
new products here, we thought we
should have some sort of program at
SEAS. Dean Dolling started pushing
more and more to do something
on entrepreneurship and he set the
direction, so to speak. He, Jim Howard
[assistant vice president for development
and alumni relations at SEAS], and
I met, and he asked if I would help
put this together and get it going.“
SYNERGY
W
“
hy?“ is sometimes the most interesting question
to ask. It‘s simple and direct, but it can evoke the
multiple reasons and motivations that people
often have for doing something. Take, for
instance, the SEAS Seminar Series
on Entrepreneurship, a new initiative
led by the SEAS National Advisory
Council (NAC) and Dean David
Dolling. In response to this simple
question, several NAC members and
Dean Dolling recently explained
their reasons for wanting to start
the new seminar series; and in
follow-on questions, they also
explained what the project covers
and how it can serve as a model
for other projects.
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FEATURE
“The first year was a success because of
the number of interested students and
alumni who turned out,“ states Graves.
Likewise, Lou Wagman (B.S. ‘64), an NAC
member and one of the seminar organizers,
sees promise in the effort. “We saw this as
being a first step, and maybe even a baby
step, in getting the school and the university more involved in entrepreneurial activities and education,“ he says.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
schedules, they have made themselves
available for many planning sessions, for
telephone conference calls, and as
moderators and panelists. Their collective
experience in starting successful businesses,
their willingness to share those experiences,
and their obvious passion bring those
experiences to life and have made this
series so engaging and credible to our
audiences. I can‘t thank them enough
for their contributions.“
The organizers kicked off the series in
January with “How I Got Started: Getting
Your Idea Off the Ground,“ a panel
discussion that covered the real-life
experiences of three SEAS alumni
entrepreneurs, Scott Gessay (M.S. ‘88),
Ashok Jha (M.S. ‘92), and Elias Shams
(M.S. ‘96). They followed in February with a
program on intellectual property presented
by Asghar Mostafa (B.S. ‘82), Randy Graves,
Charles Watt (M.S. ‘73, D.Sc. ‘86), and Jeff
Sonnabend (B.S. ‘89). In March, Elias Shams
lined up four experts—Dan Gordon, Doug
Humphrey, Marie-Louise Murville, and Mark
Walsh—who graciously volunteered their
time to come to campus to discuss strategies for getting access to capital. The final
seminar of the semester, “Product vs.
Service Entrepreneurs,“ took place during
the GW Summit on Entrepreneurship in
mid-April, and included panelists Allyn
Kilsheimer (B.S. ‘63), Terry Collins (D.Sc.
‘76), and Jonathan Gordon (B.S. ‘05).
The organizers will soon debrief to
evaluate its impact, but they are generally
quite happy with what they have seen.
10
Tischler is a bit more philosophical in his
response. “Are there things we could do
better? Yes. But the people who were there
for the spring sessions have given us good
feedback on the quality of these sessions,
and after each of the sessions there was
another half hour of one-on-one discussion
with the panelists, which shows that we‘re
promoting thought about these issues
with people.“ He adds, “I view success as
a journey not a destination. Clearly the
objective for the spring semester was to
get this started. In terms of meeting our
objective of getting this off the ground,
I‘m very pleased with the level of
participation of the students, faculty, and
alumni, and of the alumni participation
we have had on the panels. Whether
you‘re starting a business, a seminar
series, or whatever you‘re doing, one of
the hardest things to do is to just get it
started. We‘ve created the seed and the
seed has started to grow.“
The seed they hope to nurture is the start
of a full-fledged entrepreneurship and
technology commercialization program.
And they have a range of motivations
for offering it: it‘s important for SEAS
students; it‘s a wonderful service to offer
alumni; it will benefit the school and the
university; it can contribute to the
economic vitality of the country by
fostering new business ideas.
“When I joined the NAC, I started talking
about the need to get some entrepreneurship
programs going, to get the technology
commercialization going,“ recalls Graves,
“because it adds to the university‘s
reputation and prestige, and it also helps
bring in R&D dollars, which is a way to
have SEAS grow its research programs.“
Elias Shams concurs: “The purpose,“ he
says, “is to put our school on the radar
when it comes to entrepreneurship. GW is
not really branded as an entrepreneurial
school and we need to do that. We need
to connect with the recent generation and
use the power of social media to get the
word out about our initiative. Creating a
spirit of entrepreneurship in our students,
that‘s the goal.“
ALUMNI ENTREPRENEURS: Left to right: Asghar Mostafa,
Jeff Sonnabend, Randy Graves, Charles Watt, and Howard Tischler
FEATURE
REPRESENTING SEAS:
Tischler agrees, saying, “One goal is the
engagement of alumni and students in a
discussion around entrepreneurship, but the
bigger objective is to have more businesses
originate out of people associated with the
university. If you have more businesses
coming out of the student and alumni
populations, you probably have more money
coming back into the university. It‘s going to
raise the quality of the engineering school as
people see GW as a place to go and be
successful in starting new businesses.“
The leaders of the entrepreneurship series
also see their effort as a model for other
projects between GW schools and for projects
Left to right: SEAS alumni Jonathan Gordon, Allyn
Kilsheimer, Terry Collins, and Randy Graves at the GW Summit on Entrepreneurship
that will help contribute to the SEAS transformation. They point to the role of John Rollins,
an alumnus of the GW School of Business,
who helped organize the spring sessions and
was moderator of the first session. “John was
instrumental in helping me get this off the
ground,“ Tischler says. “He provided leadership for us early on, and then a number of
us from the engineering school helped John
with his business plan competition last spring.“
Wagman seconds the point, saying, “There‘s
tremendous synergy between what‘s happening in the business school educationally and
the technology that gets developed here at
SEAS. Of course looking at it more broadly,
one of the things that we‘ve talked about is
that this shouldn‘t be limited to just SEAS and
the business school. The hospital, the medical
school, and the law school are certainly
components of entrepreneurship as well.“
As for using the model internally, Wagman
remarks, “I think it‘s a great model and so
far my sense is that it‘s working very well.
The NAC members are all volunteers, and
everybody has been very engaged in this. I‘ve
seen more engagement in this program than
I have in any of the activities prior to this in
the NAC. When prompted for more details
about the success of the model, Wagman
modestly chalks it up to “the dean‘s passion
for this and Jim‘s thoroughness in being a
facilitator. [Jim] follows up on everything. He‘s
very organized, and he‘s kept us organized.
He has done a great job of making it happen.
But key to that is the leadership that the dean
is providing. You know, it‘s interesting, we‘re an
advisory group to the dean, and we suggested
this, but it‘s the dean‘s leadership that must
be there to make it happen. If he wasn‘t really
enthusiastic about it, it just wouldn‘t happen.“
In the end, after looking at the benefits
that could accrue to all participants from this
effort, Wagman brings it back to where it
belongs: the classroom. “I think the essential
part of all of this is to get the faculty involved
in this process, the commercialization of
intellectual property,“ he advises. “By doing
that, it provides recognition to the school,
to its faculty, but it also provides educational
opportunities as well. There are things that
come out of this that can and should end
up in the teaching curriculum.“
11
FALL 10
But what do these aspirations mean in
more concrete terms? Graves offers an
example. “Stanford made $330 million off
of the Google IPO. Now that‘s a once-in-alifetime chance, but both Stanford and MIT
bring in $30-$40 million a year just on
licensing new technologies, primarily in the
engineering schools. What I‘d like to see
eventually is a fully structured technology
commercialization program that would
be the center for graduate R&D and
eventually be a funding source for lots
of other GW engineering and science
activities through the revenues that would
come in from commercialization projects.
So, these initial programs are really part of
a much larger downstream program that
hopefully will bring GW to the forefront
of technology commercialization and
entrepreneurship in the mid-Atlantic region
and provide some leadership in the area.“
SYNERGY
Tischler, on the other hand, takes a macro
view. “I‘ve been an entrepreneur for a
number of years and I‘d like to see more
new ideas generated in this country than
I‘m seeing now. That‘s one of the great
things about the U.S.; it really is an
environment where people can start from
nothing and build on an idea, but a lot of
people don‘t know how to get started.
We‘re introducing this to people—how to
get started if they have an idea—and what
I‘d like to see happen is for more students,
alumni, and faculty from GW to start new
businesses. That‘s going to promote not
just economic recovery but sustainability
of the economy.“ He then adds, “Another
aspect was to engage more alumni in
something that they can participate in.
The nice thing about this is that we‘ve
gotten alumni to participate who were
not very active before; it‘s been very nice
to see.“ And as for the audience, “they
have had very high-quality panelists; they
have learned; and they have done so in a
very interactive setting.“
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PROFILES
Christine Penfold
Getting a Headstart on GETTING AHEAD
C
hristine Penfold doesn‘t shrink
from responsibility; in fact,
she seems to take it on
eagerly. And although it‘s not
uncommon for SEAS students to juggle
a rigorous curriculum with activities and
work, few take on the kind of workload
that Penfold embraced throughout her
undergraduate career.
Penfold came to GW in fall 2007 knowing
that she wanted to study systems engineering.
She had considered other options, but
chose GW‘s systems engineering program
after visiting. “I love math!“ she says
emphatically, “and systems engineering
is the application of mathematics and
statistics. I talked to Professor [Richard]
Soland pretty in-depth before I came to
SEAS and he detailed the curriculum and
the types of courses I would take, which
helped finalize my decision.“
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Penfold came prepared, having already
taken enough math, science, and
Advanced Placement courses in high
school to start college with a semester‘s
worth of credit. Not resting on her laurels,
she decided to take 18 credit-hours for
several semesters and graduated last
spring after only three years. But this is
only part of her story: on top of her heavy
class load, Penfold remained active in
a number of student organizations, an
internship, and at one point, even a
full-time job.
Now a master‘s student in the systems
engineering program, she already has the
kind of work experience many people do
not attain until they are a year or two
out of college. In January 2008, Penfold
began an internship with Booz-AllenHamilton, which she found using the SEAS
Career Services website. She began doing
data analysis, later transitioning into
developing business intelligence and
financial reports, and by January 2009
found herself working as the primary
12
person responsible for financial reporting
during her supervisor‘s absence. “At one
point, I was working 40 hours a week and
taking 18 hours of classes,“ she recalls.
Wanting to broaden and hone her skills, she
applied for a job in the summer of 2009 at
the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. She
kept the job over the school year and became
a permanent employee after graduation
last spring. During the spring semester,
she worked 32 hours per week as an IT
project manager. Noting that this level of
work is certainly not typical for students,
Dean David Dolling says, “Compared
even to the high demands placed on
engineering students, this is exceptional.
Christine is quite a high-achiever.“
“I‘m the youngest person at work,“ she
smiles. “I‘m deputy on one project and
lead project manager on another; both
have over 15 contractors on them. We go
through a pre-defined development life
cycle for the different releases and patches
for each project. Since we have worldwide
users, meetings can range from early morning
to late evening, demanding a flexible
schedule, which is sometimes difficult to
accommodate with my schedule.“
As is often the case, the fruit of such
responsibility is increased confidence.
“I‘ve learned a new set of skills because
this is basically a management position,
and I had no management experience
before this,“ Penfold states. “At my age,
it can sometimes be intimidating to play
my role at work. In the beginning I was a
little worried, but they‘ve given me a lot
of faith, and it‘s quite amazing that I can
deal with the different issues that come
up. There‘s never a day when I‘m not trying
to contact people to iron out details of the
projects.“ But lest anyone think she‘s not
an average college student, she sighs,
“Some days it‘s nice, but sometimes
I just want to plug in the headphones.“
PROFILES
Shariar Zaimi
Understanding Risks and TAKING THEM
explains. “We were a global company that
engineered and managed the construction
of data centers all over the world. I was
working to take the company public in
2000, when GE offered to buy us. I
became CEO of GE‘s engineering and
construction management business and
served there until February 2005.“
After GE, he retired for a while but
pretty quickly found out that retirement
“is over-rated,“ so he and three friends
started Primary Integration, which is
an industrial holding company. They
re-created the engineering firm as EDG2,
and then bought or created five other
companies from scratch.
The path he has followed since then is
the path of an entrepreneur. When asked
why he decided to go the route of an
entrepreneur, Zaimi laughs, “I guess I
wouldn‘t take orders very well.“ But in
Since taking that initial plunge, he has
built, sold, and bought companies—and
even gone into and out of retirement.
“I built EDG to be the largest mission-critical
engineering firm in the U.S.,“ Zaimi
After graduating from GW in 1979, Zaimi
first worked at other companies to build
contacts and project experience, and he
says that he was fortunate to be able to
work for great companies that gave him
experience working on “national projects
of extreme importance.“ In 1985 he
decided to go into business for himself
and in January 1986, he launched
Engineering Design Group (EDG).
“And that‘s a big plunge,“ he adds.
As for the key to his success, he believes
that it is perseverance. As he thinks
about it more, Zaimi offers, “When you
win, you celebrate your success for an
hour, and when you lose, you mourn it
for an hour, and then you move on. Both
are going to happen. The lesson always is
not to get too mournful about a defeat.“
EDITOR‘S NOTE: Shariar Zaimi is
a member of the SEAS National
Advisory Council.
FALL 10
a more serious response, he says,
“Entrepreneurship is in you or it‘s not.
You know in your heart that you can do
something better than it‘s being done.
I wanted to create a great engineering
company, the best at what it does.“
SYNERGY
S
hariar Zaimi (M.S. ‘79) came
to the U.S. in 1977 to study
electrical power engineering
at GW. When he left his home
country of Iran, he thought he eventually
would return to work in his father‘s
construction company, but with the
Iranian revolution of 1979, his plans
changed. Indeed, he recalls thinking
about changing his plans very early on,
even before the revolution occurred.
“I remember talking to my mom on the
phone, and I said, ‘You know what, this is
the culture I like, because it‘s a culture
of freedom and individual rights. It‘s a
society that is positive and optimistic
and always looking forward.‘ That‘s where
I felt my calling was.“
In the process, Zaimi believes that he
has learned a great deal. “You learn
a lot about yourself, a lot more than
you think,“ he says reflectively. “You
recognize your own risk tolerance and
the risk tolerance of those around you.
Each time you embark, the risk is pretty
high, and you have to realize that you
are not the only one taking the risk.
The people that work with you are
taking risks with you, and you have
a responsibility toward them and their
families and your family.“
13
T H E
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Dave Scavone/Scavone Photography
NEWS
followed by a keynote address by Dr.
Charles Vest, president of the National
Academy of Engineering, who spoke
about engineering challenges of the
21st century—a period that he called the
most exciting time in human history to
be an engineer.
“William Corcoran“ (right), the founder of the Corcoran Scientific School, marvels
at the achievements of SEAS, as Dean David Dolling (left) looks on.
SEAS Celebrates 125 Years
of Engineering at GW
SYNERGY
FALL 10
On October 1, 1884, the Corcoran
Scientific School—the precursor to
SEAS—opened its doors, bringing
college-level science and engineering
education not only to GW, but to the
District of Columbia as well. Prior to
the founding gift from William Corcoran
that established the school, no college
or university in Washington, D.C.
offered such an education. One hundred
and twenty-five years later, SEAS proudly
celebrated its founding with a series of
events, capped by the SEAS 125th
Anniversary Gala in October 2009.
Leading off with a special 125th
anniversary celebration of the
Engineers Ball during the National
Engineers Week activities in February
2009, SEAS continued to highlight the
anniversary of its founding with a
combination of events that ranged
from a special Frank Howard Lecture
series, a student softball game and
barbeque, and an October 1st “birthday“
celebration on the front lawn of
Tompkins Hall, to the premier event,
the SEAS 125th Anniversary Gala.
14
Held at Washington‘s magnificent Andrew
W. Mellon Auditorium on October 29th,
and attended by nearly 400 guests, the
Gala blended a light-hearted look back
at the school‘s history with a sharplyfocused look at its potential and at
expectations of its future successes.
At the conclusion of the program, Dean
Dolling addressed the crowd on the vital
role that creativity and confidence have
played and will continue to play in
supporting and sustaining transformations
through the years. “Creativity confronting
challenges; discoveries generating
confidence: that is how transformations
occur,“ he remarked. “And while a relative handful of people generally get the
credit for transformations that occur in
particular periods of history or particular
fields of study, we all know that these
achievements rest on the foundations
built by teams of people supporting their
efforts and encouraging their discoveries.
And so it will be for us here at SEAS.“
Dean David Dolling hosted the evening‘s
dinner and program, weaving together
moments from the past with a vision of
transformation for the future predicated
on confidence in creativity and discovery.
An actor impersonating William Corcoran,
the school‘s founder, greeted and
mingled with guests and bantered with
Dean Dolling at points throughout the
evening, while Dean Dolling tested the
audience‘s knowledge of SEAS‘ history in
“Trivial Pursuit, SEAS Edition,“ advising
participants to use the “learning aids“
distributed to them for the game (hornrimmed glasses and pocket protectors)
and telling them that wearing the glasses
and pocket protectors “might make you
look the part and feel like a real engineer.“
A highlight of the evening was the GW
Engineering Hall of Fame 2009 induction
ceremony, honoring six SEAS alumni for
their contributions to the engineering
profession (article on page 35). This was
EDITOR‘S NOTE: Portions of this
article are excerpted from “SEAS
Celebrates 125 Years with Gala,“
written by Jamie Freedman.
Dave Scavone/Scavone Photography
Events
NEWS
from the SEAS and GW administrations,
CSPRI has re-formed and is exploring several
potential projects, including a lecture series,
a periodic lunch series that brings together
researchers from various parts of the university
to discuss their computer security work, and
other projects. “The support from our new
dean and the GW administration was key to
this,“ says Hoffman. “There has been a
new awareness by the university community, by industry, and by the public at large
of the importance of cyber security. In some
sense, we were ahead of our time when we
formed CSPRI back in 1993, but many—
including Congress—are paying attention
to cyber security now, so there is a much
greater possibility of having an impact
than 17 years ago.“
R&D Showcase Highlights
Nearly 60 SEAS students competed through
posters and presentations for $4,000 in
prize money at the fourth annual SEAS
Student Research and Development
Showcase, held at GW‘s Marvin Center on
April 30, 2010. The competition‘ s winners
were: First Prize: Taisen Zhuang for “Micro
Vacuum Arc Thruster Propulsion System;“
Second Prize: Huda Asfour for “Motion
Reduction Algorithm Applied to Fluorescent
Signals from Rat Hearts Using Multilevel
Wavelet Analysis;“ and Third Prize: Autumn
Glenn for “Secondary Flow Measurements
in Models of Curved Arteries.“
The annual showcase highlights the latest
in student research and development
at SEAS and creates opportunities for
collaborating on cutting-edge research,
networking and partnerships, and
investing in promising technologies.
Research posters were on display throughout
the event as a panel of judges, comprised of
SEAS faculty and alumni, visited each display
and spoke with the student presenters. More
than 100 guests, including students, faculty,
administration, alumni, and visitors to GW,
attended. “We were very pleased with
this year‘s showcase,“ said Can Korman,
associate dean for research and graduate
studies at SEAS. “The turn-out for the
event was boosted by our outreach to
area technology companies, government
laboratories, and alumni. For the first time,
we included undergraduate students, and
we also invited prospective graduate
students to the event so that they can
directly see the quality of the SEAS
graduate programs from our students.“
The showcase was generously sponsored
by RiVidium and RCM, led by SEAS alumni
Manny Rivera and Ron Martin, respectively.
SEAS Redoubles Cyber
Security Efforts
Last fall, GW re-chartered the Cyber Security
Policy and Research Institute (CSPRI), and
SEAS Professor Lance Hoffman returned
from “semi-retirement,“ as he calls it, to
serve as its director.
Professor Hoffman was the first director of
the Institute, which he initially formed in 1993
to study computer security policy and
perform research. The charter lapsed in
2007 after its next director went on leave
from GW, but with new support and direction
In addition to research, CSPRI serves as a
very important vehicle for U.S. Department
of Defense, Department of Homeland
Security, and National Science Foundation
scholarships for students who want to study
computer security and information assurance
in exchange for two years of government
service after their graduation. “Between 2001
and 2009, our students received more than
$8 million in scholarships,“ remarks Hoffman,“
and we have prepared nearly 60 students in
computer security and information assurance
serving in 25 different agencies. We are
proud of our alumni who have served and
are serving in a number of federal positions,
and of our efforts to help build the government
cadre of computer security experts.“
FALL 10
David Dolling; Autumn Glenn, 3rd Prize winner; and Huda Asfour, 2nd Prize winner.
Hoffman says he also wants “to be a
pied piper“ to show others the GW projects
underway in this area. He has high hopes for
CSPRI, stating, “Cyber security is and will be
integral to so many fields, including intellectual
property, elections, medical devices, and
energy systems, just to name a few. I want
CSPRI to be a one-stop shop where people
inside and research sponsors outside
the university go when they have a
question about computer security policy
and research.“
SYNERGY
Left to right: Taisen Zhuang, 1st Prize winner; Associate Dean Can Korman; Dean
For more information, please visit
www.cspri.seas.gwu.edu or
www.seas.gwu.edu/cybercorps/
(scholarship program)
15
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
Ashley-Lynn Goldstein/The GW Hatchet
NEWS
ALLYN KILSHEIMER
Lectures, Games and E-Ball
Highlight E-Week 2010
A New Study Abroad Program
A common lament among engineering
graduates is that they were not able to
participate in a study abroad program
because their curriculum was too
prescribed; they could not join a study
abroad program without falling behind,
so they opted to stay on track and forfeit
an overseas experience. Fortunately for
SEAS students, this is not a trade-off
they will have to make.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Last spring, SEAS inaugurated a study
abroad program with University College
Dublin (UDC) in Ireland, and SEAS
students responded enthusiastically.
Fifteen students boarded planes bound
for Dublin in January, and they spent
the semester studying alongside their
Irish counterparts in a number of
engineering, social science, and
humanities courses that will count
toward their degree programs.
Matt Knouse, who is the dean‘s fellow for
study abroad programs and an alumnus
of other study abroad programs himself,
says that the appeal of the program is
its ease of application. “We‘ve made this
very easy for the students,“ he explains.
“Normally students have to do the
legwork to contact other universities
and then talk to their advisors to try
to put together a plan of courses that
16
will transfer. We met with UCD and
proactively mapped out the courses
in Dublin that are equivalent to our
courses, so this takes a lot of the effort
and uncertainty out of it for students.“
Once this impediment was removed,
students responded immediately. Other
factors have helped, too. According to
Knouse, the school‘s commitment to
study abroad also helped make the
experience possible for other students.
“SEAS is serious about study abroad.
The dean is 110 percent behind it, and the
travel grants that he provided to students
helped tremendously,“ says Knouse.
“In fact, money from the Dean‘s
Excellence Fund is being used for
these grants. Donors who contribute
to the fund are helping to make study
abroad possible for our students.“
Knouse adds, “Our counterparts at UDC
have been wonderful to work with, and
the program has been so successful that
we‘re looking to replicate it in several
other locations worldwide.“
SEAS students, faculty, and staff celebrated
National Engineers Week (E-Week) last year
with more than 20 events and activities,
most of them planned and implemented by
the students themselves.
Two highlights of the week were guest
lectures by SEAS alumnus Allyn Kilsheimer
(B.S. ‘63) and Col. Frederick Gregory, the
nation‘s first African-American astronaut
and a GW alumnus.
Mr. Kilsheimer addressed an audience of
students, faculty, and friends at the Jack
Morton Auditorium, recounting his experience leading the Phoenix Project team,
the team responsible for rebuilding the
Pentagon following the 9-11 terrorist
attacks. Using a large selection of slides
and some video, Mr. Kilsheimer took the
audience through the various stages of the
project, from the moment he received the
call to respond right down to the dedication
ceremony a year later, on September 11,
2002, when the rebuilding was completed,
far under budget and ahead of schedule.
Mr. Kilsheimer spoke very forthrightly
about his pride in this country, his anger at
those who perpetrated this crime against
it, and his passion for the rebuilding project.
He generously praised the many, many
contractors, civilians, and military personnel
who also dedicated themselves fully to the
task, sometimes working around the clock
and at great risk to their own safety. He also
recounted one anecdote after another that
demonstrated the ingenuity of those working
NEWS
Open to the entire SEAS community,
the seminars were designed to make
us aware of the global technological
challenges with which today‘s engineers
are grappling and to discuss the range
SEAS Research Review
The highlight of Col. Gregory‘s talk was
his recollection of being aboard the shuttle
and of the various sights and sensory experiences that were a part of it. He described
space as an enormous black
velvet drape dotted with gleaming white
diamonds, and recalled learning how to
maneuver as a weightless being inside
the shuttle.
E-Week 2010 also featured the perennial
favorite—the egg drop competition—as
well as a range of other games and
competitions, lectures, the Engineering
Industry Expo, and, of course, the
Engineers Ball, known as “E-Ball.“
In addition to dinner and dancing, the
evening included both faculty and student
awards. The winners of the Professor of
the Year awards were: Professors Sameh
Badie (Civil and Environmental
Engineering), Gabriel Parmer (Computer
Science), Shahrokh Ahmadi (Electrical and
Computer Engineering), Thomas Mazzuchi
(Engineering Management and Systems
Engineering), and David Chichka
(Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering).
Two students—Evan Tusini (Civil and
Environmental Engineering) and Alta
Berger (Electrical and Computer
Engineering)—received awards for their
leadership and involvement at SEAS.
Seminar Series Covers
Emerging Engineering
Challenges
Throughout the 2009-10 academic year,
SEAS hosted a seminar series that high-
SEAS faculty carried out an array of
research this past year across a number
of areas that impact important sectors.
By the end of the spring semester, the
faculty had received nearly $9.5 million in
funding to undertake this research.
Funding came from various sources. In
addition to National Science Foundation
(NSF) grants—which comprise the bulk of
the funding—SEAS faculty received
support from other U.S. Government
agencies, the private sector, GW, and
foreign governments. A sampling of the
research areas includes transportation
safety, high-performance and
supercomputing, nanotechnology
and bio-nanotechnology, independently
verifiable voting systems, image-guided
surgery, emergency management, plasma
applications to wound healing, robotics,
and magnetics research as it applies
to refrigeration.
Young faculty members and recentlyhired faculty members successfully
competed for research grants from the
NSF and other agencies. Professor Joost
Santos of the Department of Engineering
Management and Systems Engineering
received a grant to study extreme event
preparedness; Professor Howie Huang
of the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering (ECE) has a
collaborative grant with faculty at Johns
Hopkins University for data-intensive
supercomputing; Professor Vesna Zderic,
also of ECE, is studying ultrasoundenhanced ocular drug delivery for the
of research they are undertaking to
search for solutions to these challenges.
The bi-weekly seminars were presented
by various SEAS faculty members, with
each session devoted to a different topic.
A partial list of the topics addressed
includes: energy and climate change,
water quality and sustainability, cloud
computing, nanotechnology, intelligent
vehicle design and safety, and arms control
and environmental treaty monitoring.
National Eye Institute; and Professor
Pinhas Ben-Tzvi of the Department of
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
(MAE) is conducting robotics research
funded by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
Several faculty members are working
jointly or in teams with their SEAS
colleagues on nanotechnologies. For
example, Professors Michael Keidar
and Ryan Vallance of MAE are exploring
the use of carbon nanotubes to conduct
electricity or heat, while another group of
faculty from MAE, ECE, and the
Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering are working to develop
new courses in bio-nanotechnology
to better prepare undergraduate
engineering students for careers or
graduate studies in this emerging field.
Faculty members have also continued
their work with faculty from other
disciplines, both within GW and beyond.
Professor Rahul Simha of the
Department of Computer Science (CS)
is collaborating with colleagues from the
Departments of Physics and Mathematics
to continue research that aims to
better understand fundamental design
principles in nature‘s networks, in
particular the network of interactions
among molecules in an average cell.
Likewise, Professor James Hahn, also
of CS, has been working to help establish
a laboratory for image-guided surgery,
surgical simulations, and medical
visualization at the Institute for
Pediatric Surgical Innovation.
17
FALL 10
Later that same day, students were treated
to Col. Gregory‘s talk, which he styled as a
conversation, in order to invite questions
from the students. In his conversation, Col.
Gregory recounted his experiences growing
up in Washington, D.C., enrolling at the U.S.
Air Force Academy, going through helicopter
and flight training programs, serving in
Vietnam, and ultimately, serving as a pilot
or spacecraft commander on three Shuttle
missions in 1985, 1989, and 1991.
lighted a range of 21st century engineering
challenges that confront us—challenges
with potentially great impact for our
health, safety, security, or simply the
level of comfort that we define as
quality of life.
SYNERGY
on the project and the attitude that this was
not “business as usual.“
57198_20-41_new3_hiresx2_18_36 11/29/10 2:07 PM Page 18
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U N I V E R S I T Y
FACULTY
New Faculty
Dr. Philippe Bardet
Philippe Bardet is an assistant
professor in the Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering. He holds a Ph.D.
in nuclear engineering from
the University of California,
Berkeley. His research
interests are in experimental
fluid mechanics and thermalhydraulics, and he is particularly interested in turbulent free surface
heat and mass transfer, in chemically reacting flows, and in
high-temperature transfer for nuclear and solar thermal energy.
Bardet teaches courses in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.
Dr. Evan Drumwright
Evan Drumwright is an
assistant professor in the
Department of Computer
Science. Prior to joining
SEAS, he was a visiting
assistant professor at the
University of Memphis.
Drumwright‘s research
interests include physical
simulation and controlling humanoid and manipulator robots. His
previous research experience includes having collaborated with
Honda Research Institute and with Willow Garage to create better
robot simulations and to get their robots to perform occupational
tasks. Drumwright won the Best Paper Award, Artificial Intelligence
and Agents at the 2009 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing.
He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California.
Dr. Tian Lan
Tian Lan is an assistant
of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. Lan received
his Ph.D. from Princeton
University. His primary
research interests lie in
the area of network
security and communications.
Lan‘s research results have been published in various prestigious
conferences and journals, and he received the IEEE GLOBECOM
2009 Best Paper Award and the IEEE Signal Processing Society
2008 Best Paper Award.
Dr. Manlap “Alex“ Li
Manlap “Alex“ Li comes to
SEAS from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
where he received a Ph.D.in
computer science. He is an
Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering,
and his research interests
are computer architecture and hardware-software interaction, with
a focus on reliable and parallel architectures. He is particularly
interested in exploiting the hardware-software interface to derive
novel solutions for improving future systems. Li teaches courses
in computer engineering and conducts research to support
the school‘s signature program in high-performance computing.
Dr. Tianshu Li
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Dr. Royce Francis
Royce Francis is an assistant
of Engineering Management
and Systems Engineering.
He completed his Ph.D. at
Carnegie Mellon University
in the Departments of
Engineering and Public
Policy and Civil and
Environmental Engineering, and comes to GW from the Johns
Hopkins University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow. His
research interests include: infrastructure management, sustainability assessment and risk analysis; regulatory risk assessment and
policy-focused research, especially for environmental contaminants
and infrastructure systems; and statistical/mathematical modeling
approaches to decision support.
18
Tianshu Li has joined the
Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
as an assistant professor.
After obtaining his Ph.D.
in materials science from
the University of California,
Berkeley, he continued his
research as a postdoctoral
associate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of
California, Davis. Li is interested in exploring materials behavior
through computational approaches. His current research includes
the nucleation process in liquid-solid phase transition, the
mechanical properties of advanced alloys, and the opto-electronic
properties of semiconductor nanostructures.
FACULTY
Dr. Chunlei
“Charlie“ Liang
Chunlei “Charlie“ Liang
comes to SEAS from
Stanford University, where
he was a postdoctoral scientist
for three years. He obtained
his Ph.D. from the University
of London in 2005. Liang is
an assistant professor in
the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,
and his research interests are computational fluid dynamics and
turbulence modeling for incompressible and compressible flows.
He is particularly interested in developing efficient numerical
schemes for accurate solutions of Navier-Stokes equations via
high-performance computing.
Dr. Gabriel Parmer
Gabriel Parmer is an assistant
of Computer Science.
He completed his Ph.D.
in computer science
at Boston University,
where he also received
his B.S. degree. At Boston
University, he received
a best-paper award in 2006, his department‘s annual research
excellence award in 2007-08, and best poster award at Boston
University‘s annual Industry-Affiliates Day in 2008. His main
research interests include operating systems with a focus on
real-time and embedded systems, component-based design,
and system dependability. Parmer is teaching courses in
operating systems and related software and systems areas.
Dr. Joost Reyes
Santos
Joost Reyes Santos earned
his Ph.D. in systems
engineering at the University
of Virginia in 2003, with
distinction (Louis T. Rader
Outstanding Ph.D. Student).
Following his Ph.D., Santos
held a research assistant
professor position at the University of Virginia‘s Center for Risk
Management of Engineering Systems. He has been involved in
research projects that directly applied systems engineering and
risk analysis methods in modeling and managing infrastructure
system interoperability such as transportation and oil/gas
process control systems. Results of his research activities and
accomplishments are documented in more than 20 archival
journal articles. He has a current grant from the National
Science Foundation to pursue research on developing inventory
policy models to minimize disaster impacts on interdependent
sectors (in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma). Santos
has joined SEAS as an assistant professor in the Department of
Engineering Management and Systems Engineering.
Dr. Guru
Venkataramani
Guru Prasadh Venkataramani
is an assistant professor in
the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering.
Before joining SEAS, he
received his Ph.D. in computer
science from Georgia
Institute of Technology.
His research area is computer architecture with an emphasis on
providing efficient and low-cost hardware support for software
debugging, security, and programmability. He is also interested
in hardware solutions for performance tuning, especially for
multi-core and emerging many-core architectures. He teaches
courses in computer engineering and conducts research in support
of the school‘s program in high-performance computing.
FALL 10
Zhenyu Li comes to
SEAS from the California
Institute of Technology,
where he received his Ph.D.
in electrical engineering
and served recently as a
postdoctoral scholar. He is
an assistant professor in
the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his primary research
areas are micro- and nanotechnology for biology and medicine,
particularly the integration of nanophotonics and microfluidics
for single cell analysis, molecular diagnostics, stem cell research,
systems biology, and developmental biology.
SYNERGY
Dr. Zhenyu Li
19
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
Dr. Adam
Wickenheiser
Adam Wickenheiser has
joined SEAS as an assistant
of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering. He received a
Ph.D. in aerospace engineering
from Cornell University in
2008, and was subsequently
appointed an intelligence community postdoctoral fellow at
Cornell, before joining SEAS in January of this year. His
research interests include morphing and bio-inspired aircraft,
smart materials transduction, and vibration- and wind-based
energy harvesting systems. He is currently teaching a graduate
course in aero/hydrodynamics.
Dr. Lijie
“Grace“ Zhang
Lijie “Grace“ Zhang is an
Department of Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering,
where she runs the
Bioengineering Laboratory
for Nanomedicine and
Tissue Engineering. She
obtained her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Brown University
in 2009. After graduation, she did her postdoctoral training
at Harvard Medical School and Rice University. Zhang‘s main
research area is biomedical engineering, including nanomedicine;
biomaterials; bone, cartilage, and vascular tissue engineering;
drug delivery; stem cell; self-assembly tissue engineered
constructs; and biomechanics.
William Atkins/GW Today
FACULTY
Simha Named DC Professor of the Year
Each year since 1981, the Council for Advancement and Support
of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching recognize four national winners and
individual state winners as being Professors of the Year. The program
is the only national program that recognizes excellence in
undergraduate teaching and mentoring. This year, Professor Rahul
Simha of the Department of Computer Science (CS) has been
selected as the Professor of the Year for the District of Columbia.
“I was thrilled, but not surprised, when I learned that Professor
Simha had won this major award,“ said Dean David Dolling. “He
brings energy, excitement, and enthusiasm to the classroom. He
has been a leader for many years in developing new approaches
to teaching and training other faculty to teach, and he is a
wellspring of innovative ideas and approaches. The Carnegie
award is well deserved recognition of his passion for seeing
students learn and helping faculty teach.“
In addition to teaching several classes a semester, Simha
has helped to revamp and diversify the computer science
undergraduate curriculum. “I can state unequivocally that he has
had a significant positive impact on how undergraduate computer
science is taught at GW, and he continues to be forward-thinking
in proposing ways to update and improve the overall engineering
undergraduate curriculum,“ said Dianne Martin, associate vice
president for graduate studies and academic affairs, and a
member of the CS faculty.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
She described Simha as a “tough, fair and excellent teacher.“
“Students regard his sophomore and junior level software
engineering courses to be the toughest in the undergraduate
curriculum, but when they finish it, they have a real sense of
accomplishment. They leave with the confidence that they
are ready to do professional level programming,“ said Martin.
“Students also know that he is always ready to provide help
outside of class to enable them to master the material.“
Simha said he is thankful to have won the Professor of the Year
award because it brings recognition to GW. “I feel very lucky to
have the students and colleagues that I‘ve shared experiences with
these past 10 years. This award will help raise the profile of teaching
20
FACULTY
at GW at a time when we‘re also
expanding research,“ said Simha.
EDITOR‘S NOTE: Portions of this article
are excerpted from “Awarding Excellence
in Teaching,“ written by Jennifer Eder and
published by GW Today.
Friedman Joins SEAS to
Develop Biomedical
Engineering Programs
Friedman will work with Dean Dolling and
the SEAS faculty to further develop these
programs and to increase coordination,
communication, and cohesion among them.
SEAS Teaching and
Research Awards
On April 8, 2010, SEAS recognized three
faculty members for excellence in teaching
and research with an awards ceremony held
in the Marvin Center and attended by
faculty, students, staff, and several SEAS
National Advisory Council members.
Professor Roger Kaufman of the
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering received the 2010 SEAS
Distinguished Teacher Award. Kaufman was
selected for the award because of his long,
successful career as a teacher, mentor, and
motivator of students. Judging by the
testimonies of his nominators, the hallmarks
of his career are creativity, a sense of fun,
service to students, and a passion for
teaching, student advising, and mentoring.
As one of his student nominators stated,
“He wouldn‘t challenge the students to
complete a major design project without
also assigning or competing in the project
himself. It‘s always a good motivator to try
and beat Professor Kaufman at his own
game.“ In what is the highest praise a
teacher can receive, another student
nominator wrote, “My highest aspiration
is to someday become as good a teacher
as Professor Kaufman.“
As another tribute—one of many—to her
remarkable research career, Professor Mona
Zaghloul of the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering was selected
for the 2010 SEAS Distinguished Researcher
Award. Zaghloul is an internationally recognized scholar, IEEE Fellow, president of the
IEEE Sensors Council, and a recipient of the
IEEE Circuits and Systems Jubilee Medal in
2000. Throughout her engineering career,
which includes more than 20 years at GW,
she has focused on research that spans
several areas of VLSI (very-large-scale integration) and microelectronics systems, and
has built an impressive publications record
and impressive sponsored research programs.
Finally, Professor Nan Zhang of the
Department of Computer Science received
the 2010 SEAS Outstanding Young
Researcher Award. In the relatively short
time since starting his academic career,
he has established an impressive sponsored
research record, evidenced in part by the
National Science Foundation CAREER
Award Grant that he won in 2008. Zhang is
very active in the Computer Society and has
active research in computer privacy and
security, with a strong publication record
in quality journals and at conferences.
“These awards simply make public what
we already recognize in these faculty
members,“ said Dean David Dolling. “These
are dedicated, innovative teachers and
researchers. Our students know this;
our faculty know this; and we think it‘s
important for others to know this, too.“
21
FALL 10
“According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the number of engineers
engaged in biomedical engineering
is expected to grow an astonishing 72
percent over the next decade,“ notes Dean
David Dolling. “The increased engagement
of engineers with the life and clinical
sciences reflected in that number will be
something that all of the traditional
engineering disciplines will share in through
programs that train our students to apply
their skills as engineers to solve the myriad
problems in life science and medicine that
cannot be solved without them. GW is
excellently positioned, academically and
geographically, to develop such programs,
and indeed we already have a growing
research portfolio in this area, as well
as substantial student interest.“
Left to right: Professors Nan Zhang, Roger Kaufman, and Mona Zaghloul,
and Dean David Dolling
SYNERGY
Dr. Morton Friedman has joined SEAS as a
special assistant for biomedical engineering
program development. Friedman comes to
SEAS with a background in biomedical
engineering research and administration at
the Johns Hopkins and Ohio State
Universities, and most recently at Duke
University, where he was chair of its
nationally recognized Department
of Biomedical Engineering. A former
president of the Biomedical Engineering
Society, Friedman‘s research interests are
focused on the role of mechanical stresses
in the initiation of arterial disease,
including the use of clinical image
processing to estimate these stresses
and molecular biology techniques to
study their effects on the vessel wall.
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
FACULTY
In Memoriam: Samuel Kotz
CAN KORMAN & BHAGIRATH NARAHARI
Korman and Narahari Join
the SEAS Administration
Two seasoned faculty members joined the
SEAS administration in 2009 as part of
Dean David Dolling‘s efforts to strengthen
support for research activities and for
undergraduate and graduate education.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
To improve the school‘s graduate student
recruitment and its research infrastructure,
Dean Dolling created a new position, associate
dean for research and graduate studies.
Professor Can Korman, the former chairman
of the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, initially accepted the position on
an interim basis and later was named the
associate dean. In this position, Korman is
responsible for identifying research opportunities for individual faculty and collaborative
groups and for helping them with proposals.
He also is assisting in the planning of the new
Science and Engineering Complex.
Professor Bhagirath Narahari of the
Department of Computer Science also joined
the SEAS administration in 2009. Like
Korman, Narahari agreed to act as an interim
associate dean, and he was later named
associate dean for undergraduate affairs and
programs. He is working to develop a number
of resources to support undergraduates
and undergraduate programs. Among
other things, these include strengthening
the undergraduate experience through
internships, study abroad, and innovative
new educational programs that leverage
GW‘s location and strengths.
22
HOWARD EISNER
“When I asked Professor Korman and
Professor Narahari to take on these additional
responsibilities for SEAS, both of them were
willing to ‘step up to the plate‘ and do so,“
said Dean Dolling. “Our goal is to begin each
academic year in a stronger position than the
previous year, and to accomplish this, we rely
on faculty who are ready to take on
additional responsibilities and do their part
to contribute to the SEAS transformation.
Professors Korman and Narahari have
done that for the school.“
Howard Eisner Marks
50 Years with SEAS
SEAS congratulates Professor Howard
Eisner on 50 years of membership in the
SEAS community. Eisner, a member of the
Department of Engineering Management
and Systems Engineering (EMSE) faculty,
began at SEAS as a doctoral student. He
earned his doctoral degree in 1966 and
concurrently taught from 1960 to 1966 in
the then-named Department of Electrical
Engineering. Throughout that time, he
also worked in industry, where he remained
for 23 years, serving as a manager, executive,
and president of two systems engineering
companies. For the past 20 years, he has
taught systems engineering and engineering
management in the EMSE department,
and has written five books on systems
engineering, management, and related
topics. In 1994 he received the
Outstanding Achievement Award from
the GW Engineer Alumni Association.
Professor Samuel Kotz, passed away on
March 16, 2010, at the age of 79. Over the
course of his career, Kotz taught at the
University of Toronto; Temple University;
the University of Maryland, College Park;
and GW. He joined GW in 1997 after
retiring from the University of Maryland,
College Park, and was a member of the
Department of Engineering Management
and Systems Engineering (and its predecessor
department, the Department of Operations
Research). In addition, he held distinguished
visiting positions at Bucknell University,
Bowling Green State University, Tel Aviv
University, University of Guelph (Canada),
Harbin Institute of Technology (China),
and Luleå University (Sweden).
Kotz authored or co-authored more than
a dozen books and 150 articles in the field
of statistics and quality control, as well as
three Russian-English scientific dictionaries.
He was the editor-in-chief and founder of
the Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences
(1982-1999) and co-author of the fourvolume Compendium on Statistical
Distributions, and he was a world authority
on this subject area of statistics. He was
a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society,
the American Statistical Association, and
the Institute of Mathematical Statistics,
and an elected member of the
International Statistical Institute.
Kotz played a mentorship role for many
young researchers in the field of statistics
or related fields over the course of his
impressive career. To learn more about
Kotz‘s accomplishments, please visit:
www.seas.gwu.edu/~kotz.
FACULTY
Faculty Accomplishments
SEAS faculty have achieved a number
of notable accomplishments this year,
as they do each year. A sampling of
their successes is listed below. SEAS
congratulates these faculty from across our
five departments: Civil and Environmental
Engineering (CEE), Computer Science (CS),
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE),
Engineering Management and Systems
Engineering (EMSE), and Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering (MAE).
Patents & Licenses:
Azim Eskandarian (CEE): is working on
an intelligent signal processing
method to detect drivers‘ drowsiness,
which has been licensed by a commercial
vehicle OEM (Original Equipment
Manufacturer) through GW‘s Office of
Technology Transfer.
Joost Santos (EMSE): received the 2009
Leontief Memorial Prize Best Paper Award.
This award is given once every two years by
the International Input-Output Association.
Lijie “Grace“ Zhang (MAE): won the Early
Career Scientist Award from the International
Journal of Nanomedicine and the American
Society for Nanomedicine. Media Mentions:
Joseph Barbera (EMSE): was interviewed
by the Washington Post in response to
the Haiti earthquake in January 2010.
The article ran in the Post and in several
other papers after being picked up by AP.
Samer Hamdar (CEE): was interviewed
by FOX 5 News to answer questions about
Metro safety following the Metro train derailment in Washington, D.C. in February 2010.
Ryan Vallance (MAE): is a co-inventor
on Patent #7,555,900, “Linear Actuator
Using Shape Memory Wire with
Controller,“ issued by the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office on July 7, 2009.
Stephen Hsu (MAE): was interviewed
by WAMU radio on plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles and the need for infrastructures
for this new generation of vehicles. The
interview aired in September 2010.
Jason Zara (ECE): is a co-inventor on U.S.
Patent #7,573,627, “Amplified Bimorph
Scanning Mirror, Optical System and Method
of Scanning,“ issued by the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office on August 11, 2009.
Kim Roddis (CEE): appeared on the
Washington, D.C. segment of the History
Channel‘s series “Life without People.“
The episode aired in May 2010.
affiliate-WAMU radio covered the election.
Scantegrity is a voting system that she and
former GW doctoral student Stefan
Popoveniuc helped develop in collaboration
with several other universities.
Books:
Michael Stankosky (EMSE): is a joint editor,
along with former EMSE doctoral students Annie
Green and Linda Vandergriff, of In Search
of Knowledge Management: Pursuing
Primary Principles, published in December
2009 by Emerald Green publishers.
Vesna Zderic (ECE): co-edited Image-Guided
Therapy Systems with Shahram Vaezy. The book
was published in July 2009 by Artech House
Publishers. ECE Professors Matthew Kay and
Jason Zara contributed chapters to the book.
Other:
Pinhas Ben-Tzvi (MAE): was appointed to
the editorial board of the Journal of
Wireless Engineering and Technology.
Xiuzhen “Susan“ Cheng (CS): was named
an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions
on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
Kennerly Digges (CEE): received the
prestigious SAE Arnold W. Siegel
International Transportation Safety
Award during the SAE 2009 World
Congress. The award recognizes a
leader who has made an impact on
improving transportation safety and
whose accomplishments include
outstanding international research
innovation, and contributions to crash
injury protection, crash injury
biomechanics, and crash injury design.
Branimir Vojcic (ECE): was quoted in a July
2010 Wall Street Journal article, “Hidden
Formulas Send Mixed Signals on Cellphones.“
Rumana Riffat (CEE): received the Water
Environment Federation‘s George Bradley
Gascoigne Medal for a paper that she and
two of her former graduate students, Marija
Peric and Dilli Neupane, published in its
journal, Water Environment Research.
Poorvi Vora (CS): received attention
from both print media and radio when
the Scantegrity voting system was used in
the Takoma Park, MD, election in November
2009. Online articles appeared in Wired
magazine and Computerworld, and NPR
Nicholas Kyriakopoulos (ECE): served as
a member of the coordinating committee
that organized the International Scientific
Studies Conference on the capabilities and
readiness of the verification regime of the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty,
held in Vienna, Austria, in June 2009.
Chunlei “Charlie“ Liang (MAE): was
appointed to the editorial boards of both
Computers & Fluids and CFD Letters.
Greg Shaw (EMSE): was appointed to
the board of directors of the Emergency
Management Higher Education Consortium.
FALL 10
Pedro Silva and Azim Eskandarian (CEE):
appeared in a November 2010 Washington
Post article about earthquake engineering and
driver simulation research at GW‘s Virginia
Science and Technology Campus. Eskandarian
subsequently was quoted in a USA Today article
on drowsy driver traffic deaths, and Silva was
interviewed on National Public Radio about his
research on building materials that might
make structures more earthquake resistant.
Poorvi Vora (CS): began a three-year term
as associate editor of the IEEE Transactions
on Information Forensics and Security.
SYNERGY
Awards & Honors:
Ken Chong (MAE): was appointed an
editor of the new journal International
Journal of Smart and Nano Materials.
23
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
STUDENTS
Achievement
EDITOR‘S NOTE: The articles in this
section are derived from articles written
in spring 2010.
ALTA BERGER
Learning through Research
Alta Berger knew that she was interested in
both medicine and engineering when she
came to GW as a freshman, so biomedical
engineering was the obvious major for her.
Four years later, Berger can look back with
pride, realizing how much she has learned
by taking advantage of an array of
opportunities related to her major.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
During the summer after her sophomore
year, Berger had an internship at the
University of Pennsylvania that piqued
her interest in participating in research.
In speaking with an upperclassman upon
her return to SEAS, she subsequently
learned about the research that
Professor Matthew Kay of the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering
is doing, so she contacted Professor Kay
to inquire about working with him. She is
now in her fourth semester of research
in the lab, having worked with Professor
Kay‘s team since the fall of her junior year.
The lab team works on understanding the
electrical events associated with the heart
and studies the formation of heart arrhythmias.
Berger‘s role is to help determine where in
the heart a particular beat is originating. She
explains, “The lab has a camera that images
the florescence of a voltage-sensitive dye.
This allows voltages across the surface of the
heart to be recorded at very high speeds.
I study the fluorescence images to determine
the source of depolarization.“ She continues,
24
“Depolarization occurs with every beat, and
the electrical events then initiate the mechanical contraction of the heart. We‘re looking for
abnormal electrical events such as arrhythmias,
which are just abnormal rhythms of the
heart. My part has been to collect the
data and identify how depolarization
events change over time. My results have
been presented in a manuscript that the
lab has submitted to a professional journal.“
More recently, Berger has been working on
her senior design project, which is being
created for the lab. Previously the team
was using large electrodes that pick up the
voltage from the surface of the heart, but
Berger is building plunge needle electrodes
as her project. She describes them as “tiny
needles that have multiple electrodes inside
them so they can be inserted into the heart
to record the voltage within the wall of the
ventricle, as opposed to just the surface.“
The most difficult aspect of the project is
reducing the needles to the appropriate size
(approximately 380 microns in diameter) so
that they do not cause damage to the wall
tissue, which has a thickness of only four
millimeters. Berger received a research
fellowship from GW‘s Institute for Biomedical
Engineering to support her project.
Berger believes that she has “definitely
learned a lot doing research.“ She also
credits engineering in general with teaching
her good problem-solving skills, noting, “It‘s
more about critically analyzing a problem
and coming up with a solution when you
find an error: what is happening, why is this
happening, and what can I do to fix it?“
SEAS students have found time this
year to tutor high school students at the
neighboring School Without Walls. Since
the start of the fall semester, the students
have met weekly at the School Without
Walls to provide free, after-school tutoring
in math, physics, and some Advanced
Placement and humanities courses.
A dedicated core of mostly undergraduate
students provide the bulk of the tutoring,
and many other SEAS students—both
undergraduate and graduate
students—participate as they are able.
The program is open to other GW
students, and a handful of them have
tutored throughout the year, as well.
On average, the SEAS and GW students
assist 15-25 students from the School
Without Walls each week.
The tutoring program is a community service
effort that grew out of an earlier initiative
begun by Professor Shahrokh Ahmadi of
the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. “We started talking with the
School Without Walls principal last spring
about a community service program, but
the nature of the program was different,“
explains Ahmadi. “Last summer, we offered
the Young Engineers Program (YEP) to
School Without Walls students. The program
was an all-day, one-week program run by
our undergraduate SEAS students. They
introduced the students to engineering using
robotics as a hands-on project, and they
talked about engineers and their roles. Then
we thought that since we established the
relationship, we should do some sort of
continuous program throughout the year.“
Good Neighbors
Amid classes, labs, exams, internships, and
other extra-curricular activities, a number of
SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS VOLUNTEERS
Ahmadi is happy with the success of the
program this year and with the benefits it
STUDENTS
A Committed Entrepreneur
Ian Balina is a young entrepreneur—and very
passionate about it. As Balina sees it, passion
is simply essential. “If you‘re not passionate
about what you‘re doing, there‘s no point in
doing it, because you won‘t remain committed to it. You run out of gas,“ he states plainly.
Balina‘s passion is for Leximo, a company
that he and his friend and fellow SEAS
student, Asad Mahmood, started during their
sophomore years. “It started in [Tompkins
Hall] room 309 my sophomore year with my
friend Asad,“ Balina recounts. “I felt strongly
about business, and he was intrigued by it.
I love technology and learning about different
cultures and people. He was a spelling and
geography champion. He had a cool idea, and
we decided to start an interactive dictionary
site where people can add words in every
language. We launched Leximo in spring
2009.“ As is often the case for entrepreneurs,
they find the need to adapt their ideas as
they learn more about the market and consumer needs. “We spread the word about
Leximo,“ says Balina, “and we began to get
more followers. But then we noticed a bigger
IAN BALINA
Now a senior, Balina has learned a lot in
the process about trying to start a business.
He and Mahmood consulted the Colonial
Entrepreneurs, an alumni entrepreneurship
group, for advice in the early stages, and they
entered the GW Pitch George business plan
competition. “We didn‘t make it all the way to
the finals in the competition, but it allowed us
to re-evaluate the idea and make it stronger
than it was,“ he says. They are now continuing work on their business plan, and preparing to talk to venture capitalists and apply for
funding to prototype their technology.
And Balina has learned something else in the
process, too. “It‘s not as easy as I thought it
would be,“ he says of starting his business,
“but it shows me how resilient I am and how
committed to the idea I am.“
Protecting Drivers
While working on her master‘s degree in
her native Iran, Elham Sahraei discovered
GW‘s National Crash Analysis Center as she
was looking on the internet one day for
related research for a doctoral degree.
Sahraei‘s research at the time was a project
to protect drivers involved in frontal crashes.
In 2008, after coming to the U.S. to study,
Sahraei subsequently received a patent
for her research. The patent applies to a
structure she created, which can be mounted
under the driver‘s seat and will move the
seat backwards, away from the windshield,
to better protect the driver. Sahraei explains,
“This structure kind of neutralizes the natural
movement forward. I evaluated this on bus
models, but it can be used even for trains.“
Sahraei began studying for her doctoral
degree in the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering (CEE) in the
ELHAM SAHRAEI
summer of 2006, and while she is still
interested in pursuing the project for which
she earned her patent, she is content for the
time being to work in the slightly different
direction that her doctoral research has taken
her under the guidance of her research advisors,
Professors Kennerly Digges and Dhafer
Marzougui. Sahraei‘s dissertation research is
protection of rear seat occupants. For some
time, rear seat occupants have been considered better protected than front seat occupants;
however, she did some data analysis and
found that this is not the case in newer
models. “I worked on a method to evaluate
restraint systems for rear seat occupants and
found that to get a proper estimate of protection we need to have a proper methodology,“
asserts Sahraei. “One part of my research was
to modify the current methodology to make it
proper for our use; the other part was to identify
the factors in the vehicle fleet changes that
have compromised rear seat occupants.“
One of her other research areas has been
a collaboration with MIT‘s Impact and
Crashworthiness Lab to determine the crashworthiness of advanced automotive batteries.
“We expect to see a lot of electric vehicles in
the future, and we have to know what the
response of these batteries will be in the case
of a crash. This is not yet well studied. I made
a finite element model of a battery cell in
conjunction with the MIT lab to estimate
the battery‘s material properties, and from
that we could document damage to the
cell in case of a crash,“ states Sahraei.
A two-year recipient of the CEE Selective
Excellence Fellowship, Sahraei expects to
finish her degree by the end of the year.
25
FALL 10
As for the SEAS students, Ahmadi believes
that they also learn from providing this
service. “Community service is a way to
help the nation on a small level. Any change
comes on the community level, and it can
make a difference to the people doing the
service, too,“ he explains.
need not being met—the need for
communication between people who speak
different languages. So, Leximo is no longer
a website; now it‘s evolved into being a
technology whose purpose is to break down
language barriers.“ To accomplish this, Balina
and Mahmood are working on a concept to
develop a technology that can translate any
spoken language into any other language so
that people can talk on the phone with
anyone who speaks a different language.
SYNERGY
provides to all the students—both School
Without Walls and SEAS students. Within one
tutoring session, he has seen School Without
Walls students, who were going to be tested
the next day, move from struggling with
concepts to being able to answer correctly
most of the questions on a practice exam.
Ahmadi says, “We usually tutor for one and
a half to two hours, but we stay until all
their questions are answered.“
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
PERSPECTIVE
The SEAS Transformation:
A STATUS REPORT from SEAS DEAN DAVID S. DOLLING
I
n the last issue of Synergy,
when I introduced myself
and described my aspiration
for our school, I talked about
transformations: my personal
transformation from a schoolboy
growing up in an English seaside
town to now dean of SEAS; the
transformations that engineers
have wrought across society; and
our aspiration to transform SEAS
into “a world-class center for
engineering education and
innovation“ here in the heart
of the nation‘s capital.
Aspirations are catalysts. They
precipitate change. They are, as
the eighteenth century English
author Samuel Johnson wrote,
“our possibilities.“
When we begin to recognize aspirations as possibilities,
a question almost invariably rises in our minds: Can we
do this? Can we really do this? Some of you may recall
“From the Earth to the Moon,“ the HBO television series
that dramatized the Apollo space program. The title of the
very first episode was “Can We Do This?“ We all know now
that the answer was a resounding “yes,“ but that question had
to be asked. We have to ask the same question with respect to
the transformation of SEAS—and, similarly, the answer to the
question is a resounding “yes.“
SYNERGY
FALL 10
However, as critical as that question is, the more interesting
question is, “How?“ How can we do this? That‘s the question
I address in this article.
A critical component in the success of our transformation
will be the Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), which
will encompass almost the entire block between 22nd and
23rd and H and I Streets. The complex will be home to
faculty members, students, and professional researchers;
instructional laboratories and studio-style classrooms;
and it will provide space for student projects, clubs, and
meetings, and research programs in engineering, computer
science, medical science, biology, chemistry, physics, and
biological anthropology.
26
On October 15th of this year, the
university‘s board of trustees voted
unanimously to approve its construction.
The board understands that a state-ofthe-art science and engineering complex
is absolutely essential for the types of
learning and discovery that today‘s
most successful science and engineering
schools offer. The building‘s very design
will accelerate the collaborative and
interdisciplinary teaching and research
programs that we are now developing.
Traditional classrooms and laboratories
will be combined, and new studio-style
learning spaces created to encourage
faculty-student interactions and small
group “hands-on“ learning. The many
new research spaces and programs
will also offer a myriad of opportunities
for undergraduates to participate
in research.
Now just three-to-four years away, the SEC will provide many
exciting opportunities for a full spectrum of interactions with
our government and private partners, from collaborative
research projects to hosting seminars and workshops to
creating intellectual property and developing start ups.
Its multi-use auditorium will allow the university to host
science and engineering symposia, conferences, and keynote
addresses by distinguished visitors. The new facility truly puts
SEAS on the path of transformation.
An expanded and strengthened faculty and undergraduate
and graduate student bodies will also be critical to our
success. We are making tremendous progress in these areas.
In September 2009, we welcomed five new faculty to SEAS.
In September of this year, we welcomed an additional eight.
They are spread across the five departments and were
recruited from some of the nation‘s most highly ranked
engineering schools, including Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon,
Caltech, Princeton, and Georgia Tech. Almost all of them
had one or more exciting postdoctoral experiences in
academic and/or industrial settings. Their research and
teaching expertise encompasses a broad array of key fields,
from robotics and computer security, to nanotechnologies
and environmental sustainability, to risk analysis. This year
we will undergo another major faculty recruiting drive and are
PERSPECTIVE
Left: A rendering of a possible design for the
Science and Engineering Complex
Below: SEAS students discuss their
state-of-the-art research at the Student
Research and Development Showcase.
Recruiting the very best and brightest
students is especially competitive.
Our ability to offer scholarships and
fellowships to these students is critical,
and we are raising funds for these
purposes. Similarly, endowed
professorships and fellowships are
essential if we are to attract and
retain the most creative and energetic
faculty, and we are making progress
on this front, as well. In addition to
financial resources, relevant programs
are also imperative. We have growing
research programs in cyber security,
One of our new initiatives is detailed
in the feature article, “Getting It
Started: Promoting Entrepreneurship
at SEAS“ (article on page 8). Working
closely with the SEAS National
Advisory Council, we are promoting
entrepreneurship education and
opportunities for our undergraduate
and graduate students, as well as our
alumni. The SEAS Entrepreneurship
Seminar Series, which is in its second
year, is the cornerstone of this effort,
but this year we have also added the
SEAS Entrepreneurs Club, through
which SEAS alumni and friends mentor
students in entrepreneurship. In both
of these efforts, and through the GW
Business Plan Competition, we are
working closely with GW‘s newly
established Office of Entrepreneurship,
which is unifying entrepreneurial
activities across campus.
Another important initiative we are
developing for SEAS students is study
abroad. In a world where technological
challenges demand interdisciplinary
approaches and teams that may be
spread across the globe, cutting across
cultures and time zones, I believe that
our graduates can no longer be simply
technical experts. They must be able
to understand and embrace complexity,
and lead the teams I have just
described. Studying abroad helps lay
the foundation for the development
of these skills. In the past, engineering
students have often found it difficult
to study abroad because of the
rigorous requirements and timelines
27
FALL 10
Likewise, we had a very successful
recruitment effort at the undergraduate
level last spring, and we welcomed a
strong freshman class of about 200
this fall, the largest class in at least five
years. In addition, our freshman class
has the highest average SAT scores and
high school class ranking of any entering
SEAS class in recent years.
nanotechnology, transportation safety,
high performance computing, energy,
and risk and crisis management. Our
faculty regularly win new research
grants and are in the news on account
of their research contributions. We
are building new undergraduate and
graduate programs in robotics, energy,
and sustainability. And, we are developing
new initiatives outside the classroom
to give SEAS students experiences
that will increase their competitiveness
in the professional world.
SYNERGY
looking forward to welcoming another 10
new faces in September 2011.
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
PERSPECTIVE
of the various engineering curricula.
Opportunities have been available,
but they have been limited, and
students have largely had to “go it on
their own“ to arrange for study abroad.
That is changing at SEAS, where we
are developing cohort-programs in
which groups of students take up to
four courses during their semester
abroad, all of which are pre-approved
as meeting our curricular needs and,
therefore, transfer back to SEAS for
credit. Thus, our students do not miss
a beat on their path to graduation. In
spring 2010, 15 of our students spent a
semester at University College Dublin, in
Ireland. Our undergraduates soon will also
have the opportunity to study alongside
Korean students and professors and
extend their learning across the world,
thanks to the generosity of Simon S. Lee
(M.S. ‘05) and Anna H. Lee. The Lees have
given SEAS a gift of $1 million to endow
a student exchange program between
SEAS and Korea University in Seoul.
This new endowment will provide
assistance for our students who wish
to study abroad at Korea University. We
have begun recruiting students this fall,
with the first exchange of about 10
students expected to occur in spring
2011. In all of these efforts—recruitment,
new programs and initiatives, and
the new SEC—we have been working
tirelessly with SEAS stakeholders
to build and transform SEAS:
step-by-step, and with the creativity
and confidence that is a necessary
part of any successful transformation.
That‘s the way it‘s done.
Just as with the Apollo program,
our vision will not be easy to achieve.
Our goal is ambitious and, like the
Apollo mission, it will take a team,
working toward the common goal,
taking risks, inventing processes
along the way, discarding those that
fail, strengthening those that work.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
A key ingredient to our success is you:
alumni, friends, and supporters of the
school. We‘ve been joined by many
of you already, and on behalf of the
students, faculty, and staff of SEAS,
I thank you for your time, your talent,
your spirit, and your generosity. As SEAS
grows stronger, more and more of you
are becoming engaged in the life of the
school, and this growing desire to
“Be a Part of It“—as we like to say—is
palpable. For those of you who are
not yet involved in the transformation
underway, please join us in whatever
way you can: by volunteering your
time, by providing financial support,
by sharing your expertise. There is a
role for everyone in this transformation.
Please consider yours.
28
DONORS
Honor Roll of SEAS Donors
Luther Rice Society
Tempietto Circle of the Heritage Society
Christopher K. Agrawal
Rodolfo Alvarez, Jr.
W. Scott Amey and Deborah Amey⁺
Davinder K. Anand and Asha Anand⁺
Ibrahim A. Ashie and Ms. Audrey Hughes
Irving G. Bard and Judy Bard
Gurminder S. Bedi and Tricia Bedi
David W. Berg and Diane Berg⁺
Daphne L. Borroto
Francesco A. Calabrese
Jorge J. Calvo and Patricia B. Calvo⁺
Nelson A. Carbonell, Jr. and
Michele Carbonell⁺
Bernard B. Chew and Eleanor L. Chew⁺
Dean J. Coclin and Antonia Coclin
Terry L. Collins and Alisann Collins⁺
Edwin H. Copenhaver III⁺
Kevin B. Deasy and Charleen Deasy⁺
Sidney O. Dewberry and Reva Dewberry
Donald B. Dinger and Ann Dinger⁺
Thomas J. Doherty⁺
Siyuan Feng
Emilio A. Fernandez, Jr. and
Ofelia Fernandez
Alfred J. Ferrari and Evelyn K. Ferrari
John M. Ferriter and Sandra M. Ferriter⁺
Charles W. Field, Jr. and Joan Field⁺
John A. Fitch III⁺
David W. Fung
Michael R. Gaiman
James F. George and Lyndale George⁺
Lauren R. Gitlitz
Frederick G. Gluck and Andrea Rhodes⁺
Ram Govind
Aran Hegarty
Joel T. Hicks, USN
Mark V. Hughes III and Susan D. Hughes⁺
Robert H. Huie
Ashok K. Jha and Pam Jha
Cheryl S. Jobe⁺
Douglas L. Jones and
Mary O‘Brien Jones⁺
David C. Karlgaard and Marilyn Karlgaard
Pradeep P. Kaul
Isabelle L. Kaye
Bradley J. Kellogg
Bernard L. Kilday, Jr.
Allyn E. Kilsheimer and
Catherine E. Henry
Shaun Kim and Bernadette Kim
Frederick H. Kohloss, Esq. and
Margaret Kohloss⁺
William W. Lee and Kate F. Lee
Simon S. Lee and Anna H. Lee⁺
David Lepe
Thaddeus A. Lindner and Mary J. Lindner⁺
Michael Lorenzo, RADM⁺
John F. Luman III and Rebecca Luman⁺
Joseph S. Magnano and
Catherine L. Magnano
Michael M. Margob
Ronald C. Martin
Henry C. Mayo ⁺
D. James McDowell and Joanne McDowell
Gerald R. McNichols and Paula McNichols
Sincerely,
David S. Dolling
Dean
L‘Enfant Society
The L‘Enfant Society is named for the
architect of the city of Washington,
Pierre-Charles L‘Enfant, whose vision
guided its growth. The most prestigious of GW‘s gift societies, the
L‘Enfant Society recognizes donors
whose generosity and foresight have
a transformational and enduring
impact on GW. Membership is
extended to individuals, corporations,
and foundations whose annual or
cumulative giving totals are $5
million or more. L‘Enfant Society
members who have made
contributions to the School of
Engineering and Applied Science:
Ford Motor Company
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation⁺
The David and Lucille Packard
Foundation⁺
Science Applications International
Corporation⁺
Lloyd H. Elliott and Evelyn E. Elliott*⁺
Amitai Etzioni⁺
Morton I. Funger and Norma Lee Funger⁺
GlaxoSmithKline⁺
Hewlett-Packard Company Foundation
Mark V. Hughes III and Susan D. Hughes⁺
Hyundai Motor Company & Kia Motors
Corporation
IBM Corporation
W. M. Keck Foundation⁺
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Merck Partnership for Giving⁺
Asghar D. Mostafa and Holly S. Mostafa
Rolls-Royce North America, Inc.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The Honorable Mark Warner and
Ms. Lisa Collis
George Washington Society
Established in 2004, this esteemed
Society was named in honor of the
year the University was founded, and
embodies both the spirit of GW and
the spirit of private philanthropy.
Membership is extended to individuals,
corporations, and foundations whose
annual or cumulative giving totals are
$1,000,000 to $4,999,999. 1821
Benefactors who have made
Established in 1990, the George
Washington Society was named to
honor the forward-thinking spirit of
the University‘s namesake, whose
vision has guided GW‘s growth.
Membership in the George
Washington Society is extended
to alumni and friends whose annual
or cumulative giving totals are
$500,000 to $999,999. The requirement for membership was changed
for the first time in 2007. Donors
who have given a total of $100,000
to $499,999 prior to September 1,
2007 have been granted membership
in this Society. George Washington
Society members who have made
American Heart Association⁺
ARCS Foundation, Inc.⁺
AT&T Foundation⁺
Nelson A. Carbonell, Jr. and
Michele Carbonell⁺
Carnegie Corporation of New York⁺
A. James and Alice Clark
Communitarian Network
Community Foundation for the National
Capital Region⁺
Consolidated Rail Corporation
Gail E. Boggs and Burda Boggs
Dirk S. Brady and Judy W. Brady
Ofelia Fernandez
Julius Fleischman
Leatrice J. Harpster*
Norris C. Hekimian* and Joan E. Hekimian
Vincent N. Hobday* and Dulcie Hobday
William H. Holt, Esq. and Kathleen D. Holt
1821 Benefactors
The Tempietto Circle is named for
the campus landmark that so thoroughly symbolizes GW, its history
and traditions. The Tempietto Circle
recognizes individuals whose commitment to the University today will
have a transforming impact tomorrow. Membership is extended to
those individuals who make documented, planned gifts of $500,000
or more. Tempietto Circle members
who have made contributions to
the School of Engineering and
Applied Science:
Lloyd H. Elliott and Evelyn E. Elliott*⁺
Ernest H. Forman and Maryanne Forman
Morton I. Funger and Norma Lee Funger⁺
Margaret Kohloss⁺
Thaddeus A Lindner and Mary J. Lindner⁺
Daniel A. McBride* and Julia A. McBride
David I. Wang and Cecile Wang
Phillip R. Wheeler* and Minh Wheeler
Heritage Society
The Heritage Society honors alumni,
friends, faculty, and staff who have
chosen to support the University
through planned gifts. GW recognizes
the significant role that these donors
play in ensuring the University‘s
future, and acknowledges their
philanthropic leadership and vision.
Membership in the Heritage Society
is granted to individuals who make
documented, planned gifts to the
University in any amount. Heritage
Society members who have made
Ivan B. Alexander
William H. Alkire and Alice Alkire
Philip E. Battey
Gail E. Boggs and Burda Boggs
Alan L. Breitler and Elaine Breitler
Stephen A. Cannistra* and
Clara L. Cannistra
Charles O. Holliday, Jr. and Ann B. Holliday
Robert C. Minor and Carole Minor
Robert L Morris and Jacqueline Morris
Edward R. Murray, Jr.
William B. Oakley⁺
Ralph Ochsman and Rece Ochsman*
John T. Sapienza, Esq.⁺
Stephen J. Trachtenberg and
Francine Z. Trachtenberg⁺
The Luther Rice Society is named for
the founder of Columbian College,
now The George Washington
University. In 1821, driven by
President George Washington‘s
vision, Luther Rice lobbied President
James Monroe and Congress to
officially charter the institution and
raised the $6,000 needed to
purchase land for the Columbian
College. Members of the Luther Rice
Society carry on the tradition laid
forth by George Washington and
Luther Rice by helping GW raise its
status as a world-class institution.
Membership is extended to alumni
and friends who make gifts of $1,000
or more between July 1 and June 30
of each fiscal year, and to recent
graduates ($250 or more for alumni
within 5 years of graduation; $500
or more for alumni 6-9 years
after graduation).
29
FALL 10
Support from you—our alumni, parents, corporate partners,
foundations, students, faculty, staff, friends, and others—
is vitally important to the SEAS transformation. The support
that you provide to the school helps make a difference in
how far and how fast that transformation advances. It can
help us enhance scholarships and fellowships for students,
sustain important faculty research, and build new learning
initiatives. In short, your generosity strengthens the
building blocks of the SEAS transformation: our students
and faculty.
Margaret Kohloss⁺
Peter B. Kovler
Robert Gaylord Layton
Simon S. Lee and Anna H. Lee⁺
Betty Mae March
Patrick J. Martin and
Donna Knutson Martin
Daniel A. McBride* and Julia A. McBride
Ralph Ochsman and Rece Ochsman*
Nicholas G. Paleologos and
Suellen Paleologos⁺
John T. Sapienza, Esq.⁺
Reza Sarafzadeh and Shore Sarafzadeh
STG, Inc.
Stephen J. Trachtenberg and
Francine Z. Trachtenberg⁺
James A. Turner⁺
David I. Wang and Cecile Wang
Phillip R. Wheeler* and Minh Wheeler
William G. White* and Christine White
David H. Wilson
SYNERGY
THANK YOU
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
DONORS
Eric S. Mendelsohn and
Frances Mendelsohn⁺
Michael J. Miller
Edward F. Mitchell, Jr. and
Suzanne S. Mitchell⁺
Reginald S. Mitchell
Beverly Mohl⁺
Colleen S. Morith
Michael J. Morsberger
Asghar D. Mostafa and Holly Mostafa
Frank Moy and Marcia Mau⁺
William Nahill and Susan Nahill
Michael Najdzin
Alok C. Nigam and Akanksha Nigam
Anna N. Noteboom
Uchenna F. Obaji
Michael H. Page
Matthew F. Koff and Sasha R. Pailet Koff
Suellen Paleologos⁺
Ricardo Parra P.E. and Jane A. Parra⁺
Joseph N. Pelton and Eloise Pelton
Yogesh Rajashekharaiah
Richard M. Reich and Carolyn Reich⁺
Elsa P. Rhoads
Robert Richardson and Debra Richardson⁺
Manny Rivera
Andre R. Rogers and Tarita C. Ford-Rogers
William S. Rone, Jr
Steven Sheriff and Michele Alperin
Lior J. Shimonovich
Theodore M. Slabey and
Mary Robinson-Slabey
Richard M. Soland⁺
Gilmore T. Spivey and Shelba Spivey⁺
Michael N. Suder
James L. Swanson
Howard L. Tischler and Lorraine Tischler
Paul D. Travesky and Marie Travesky⁺
Timothy E. Udicious and
Debra A. Udicious⁺
L. William Varner III⁺
Louis P. Wagman and Naomi Pliskow
Sean P. Walsh, USN and Linda Walsh⁺
Charles K. Watt and Linda Watt
Raymond J. Wean III and Susanne Wean⁺
Anitha L. Williams⁺
Derya O. Yavalar and Mary Yavalar
Jeremy L. Zafran
Shariar Zaimi and Laura H. Zaimi
2009-2010 SEAS Benefactors
The School of Engineering and
Applied Science is happy to
acknowledge and thank alumni,
parents, friends, faculty, students,
staff, businesses, and foundations
who made a gift to the school as
well as all SEAS alumni who made
a gift to the university between
July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
$100,000-999,999
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
Leatrice J. Harpster*
Asghar Mostafa and Holly Hartman⁺
National Center for Manufacturing Science
$10,000-99,999
ARCS Foundation, Inc.
Automotive Safety Research Institute
Nelson A. Carbonell, Jr. and Michele Carbonell
Cummins, Inc.
Donald B. Dinger and Ann Dinger
Mark V. Hughes III and Susan D. Hughes
Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies
David C. Karlgaard and Marilyn Karlgaard
Isabelle L. Kaye
Allyn E. Kilsheimer and Catherine K. Henry
Simon S. Lee and Anna H. Lee
William W. Lee and Kate F. Lee
Michael J. Miller
Beverly Mohl
Suellen Paleologos
Andre R. Rogers and Tarita C. Ford-Rogers
STG Inc.
The Elsie & Marvin Dekelboum Family
Foundation
Derya O. Yavalar and Mary Yavalar
30
$2,500-9,999
The American Learnership
Ibrahim A. Ashie and Audrey Hughes
The Ayco Charitable Foundation⁺
David W. Berg and Diane Berg⁺
Francesco A. Calabrese
Cives Steel Company
Dean J. Coclin and Antonia Coclin
Terry L. Collins and Alisann Collins⁺
Sidney O. Dewberry and Reva Dewberry⁺
The Double Eagle Foundation
Frederick G. Gluck and Andrea Rhodes⁺
Ashok K. Jha and Pam Jha
Pradeep P. Kaul
Bernard L. Kilday, Jr.
Michael Lorenzo, RADM⁺
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Global
Impact Funding Trust Inc.
Frank Moy and Marcia Mau⁺
Ricardo Parra and Jane A. Parra⁺
Society of Satellite Professionals Intl.
Richard M. Soland⁺
Howard L. Tischler and Lorraine Tischler
Charles K. Watt and Linda Watt⁺
Raymond J. Wean, III and Susanne Wean⁺
Xilinx, Inc.
$1,000 - 2,499
Davinder K. Anand and Asha Anand⁺
Irving G. Bard and Judy Bard
Jorge J. Calvo and Patricia B. Calvo⁺
Bernard B. Chew and Eleanor Chew⁺
Compuware Corporation
Edwin H. Copenhaver III⁺
Kevin B. Deasy⁺
Thomas J. Doherty⁺
Ofelia Fernandez
Alfred J. Ferrari and Evelyn K. Ferrari
John M. Ferriter and Sandra Ferriter⁺
Charles W. Field, Jr. and Joan Field⁺
John A. Fitch III⁺
Aran Hegarty
Joel T. Hicks, USN
Robert H. Huie
International Test & Evaluation
Association, GW Chapter
Cheryl S. Jobe⁺
The Kaul Family Foundation
Shaun Kim and Bernadette Kim
Margaret Kohloss⁺
Matthew F. Koff and Sasha R. Pailet Koff
David Lepe
John F. Luman III and Rebecca Luman⁺
Joseph S. Magnano and
Catherine L. Magnano
Michael M. Margob
Ronald C. Martin
Henry C. Mayo⁺
D. James McDowell and Joanne McDowell
Gerald R. McNichols and Paula McNichols
Eric S. Mendelsohn and
Frances Mendelsohn⁺
Edward F. Mitchell, Jr. and
Suzanne S. Mitchell⁺
Reginald S. Mitchell
William Nahill and Susan Nahill
Michael Najdzin
Alok C. Nigam and Akanksha Nigam
Michael H. Page
Joseph N. Pelton and Eloise Pelton
RCM Solutions Inc.
Richard M. Reich and Carolyn Reich⁺
Robert T. Richardson and
Debra Richardson⁺
Manny Rivera
Rividium Inc.
Steven Sheriff and Michele Alperin
Theodore M. Slabey and
Mary Robinson-Slabey
Gilmore T. Spivey and Shelba Spivey⁺
Michael N. Suder
Paul D. Travesky and Marie Travesky⁺
Timothy E. Udicious and Debra A. Udicious ⁺
L. William Varner III⁺
Louis P. Wagman and Naomi Pliskow
Sean P. Walsh, USN and Linda Walsh⁺
Anitha L. Williams⁺
Richard D. Yentis
Shariar Zaimi and Laura H. Zaimi
$500-999
Rodolfo Alvarez, Jr.
Victor A. Bartlett, Jr.
Jay M. Bhatt
Daphne L. Borroto
William B. Buchanan
Eugene B. Dec⁺
Betty G. Edelson
Cesar E. Edery⁺
James E. Feir
Wilbur R. Garrett, Jr.⁺
Roderick H. Gee⁺
James F. George and Lyndale George⁺
Lauren R. Gitlitz
Ram Govind
Rachelle S. Heller
James P. Howard
Paul R. Hunter
Jon A. Jannucci
Bradley J. Kellogg
Charles A. Kengla
Edward J. Kessler⁺
James F. McArthur⁺
Joseph R. Miletta and Suzanne Miletta⁺
Colleen S. Morith
Anna N. Noteboom
Charles E. Polinger
Steven P. Rosenfield
Betti S. Smith⁺
The Fabric of America Fund
Charles M. Waespy
Marguerite M. Walter
Jack R. Warner
Wallace H. Weiss⁺
Lin Weng
Carl E. Wick⁺
Jeffrey P. Winbourne⁺
Thomas G. Woolston
$100-499
Amrith M. Aakre
Ronald C. Aasen
Ali Abbas
Jack W. Abbott
Nana A. Ackah⁺
Bennet R. Ackerman
Christopher K. Agrawal
Jay P. Agrawal
Saad A. Alajlan
James F. Aldrich
Harry E. Allen, III
Alison S. Alvarez
Ahmed J. Alwani
Joseph R. Amsden
Gilbert D. Armour⁺
David R. Armstrong
Daniel F. Arnaud⁺
George T. Aschenbrenner III⁺
William M. Askins⁺
Frank F. Atwood
Roland D. August⁺
Serena M. Aunon
Marshall J. Azrael
Le T. Bai
Frederick D. Bailey⁺
James S. Ballard
Samir M. Bannout⁺
Jonathan F. Bard
Kenneth D. Barker⁺
Wylie W. Barrow
Rohini Battu
John D. Bauersfeld⁺
John B. Beach⁺
C. E. Becraft⁺
Jeffrey P. Bedford
Izaak B. Beekman
George B. Beeler
Wade D. Belcher⁺
Lonnie J. Bellamy
Stephen H. Bennett
Evan M. Benoit
Peter W. Benoliel
Kenneth Bergen
J. L. Berger
Marc Bergman
Keith S. Best
Bradford D. Bingel
Elizabeth Y. Birdsall
William C. Bishop
H. R. Blacksten⁺
Daniel W. Blocher
Michael L. Blumenthal⁺
Gregory R. Bornhoft
Garet A. Bornstein⁺
Amy M. Bossong
Jo R. Boukhira
David M. Bovet⁺
Robert K. Boyd
J. M. Brame⁺
Jonathan S. Bransky
George E. Breen
William F. Brittle, Jr.
James T. Brooks
John F. Buescher
Richard W. Burns⁺
Robert B. Bussler⁺
Marcia M. Camarda
Robert R. Caron⁺
William H. Casson
John S. Cavallini
Pomsit Chakkaphak
David S. Chamish
Theodore P. Chaojareon
Douglas M. Chapin
Arton Chau
Jawahar L. Chaudhary⁺
Eric H. Chen
Yiping Chen
Kuo T. Chiang
Alessandro Chierici
Norman W. Chlosta
Ki J. Cho
Evan Y. Chu⁺
Duke C. Chung
David W. Clark
Robert A. Cloutier
John H. Cocowitch
Craig A. Cofrancesco
Ellen M. Cohen
Jeffrey S. Cohen
Kenan L. Cole
Catherine S. Collins
Robert H. Compton⁺
Debra J. Conley
Elena Constantine⁺
Thomas Z. Cooper
James L. Corder⁺
Gerald K. Cornelius⁺
Jorge A. Cortina
Montie R. Craddock
Philip J. Crossfield⁺
Richard M. Curtin
Vincent J. Cushing
John D. Cuthbertson⁺
Mark W. Cutlip⁺
Norman Czajkowski
Brendan M. Dahl
Duy M. Dang
Charles O. Dankwah⁺
Christine M. Darden
Allen R. Davidson, Jr.
Gideon C. Davis
Gordon E. Davison
Frederic A. de Sibert
Blythe M. Debenport
Hillary B. Debenport
Ted L. DeCorte
Linda S. Delbridge
Nathan S. Denver
Neil Desarno
Erin L. Dias
Michael E. DiFrancisco
Han T. Dinh⁺
Tiffany T. Do
Thomas R. Dobyns
John E. Dodge⁺
Deborah G. Drimer
Carroll G. Dudley⁺
William G. Duff⁺
Michael C. Dunn
Elizabeth A. Dunphy
Tri Q. Duong
Frederick C. Durant III
Anthony Durso
William J. Edison
Samuel Einfrank⁺
Howard Eisner⁺
Mary A. Elliott
Robert A. Elliott⁺
Sharon M. Embrey
Joseph O. Er
John R. Etherton⁺
Gregory S. Ewell
Carl B. Fausey⁺
Jerome P. Feldman⁺
Siyuan Feng
Christian M. Fernholz⁺
Wayne J. Fischer
Eugene G. Flurie
Charles A. Fowler III⁺
William J. Frahm
Calvin C. Frantz⁺
Michael J. Frazier
Susan L. Fredman
William E. Freeborne⁺
Dan J. Friel⁺
Edward E. Frisa, Jr.
Jeffrey A. Fritz
Michael R. Gaiman
Judith H. Gallman
DONORS
Manuel A. Ojeda
Hurriyet Ok
Chudi I. Onyilimba
Alan E. Opresko, Ph.D.⁺
Samira Osman
David K. Owens
James R. Owens⁺
John R. Pagan
William G. Paine, Jr.
Richard E. Park⁺
Young H. Park
Margaret D. Pasquerella⁺
Bruno Pattan⁺
Giovanna S. Patterson
Michael T. Payne
Robert S. Pearman
Ammon W. Peffley III
David M. Perkins
Richard J. Peters, Jr.
Gregg E. Petersen⁺
George P. Pham
Richard L. Phelps⁺
Mohinder Phull
Jeffrey S. Pierce
Michael G. Polak⁺
John D. Pope⁺
Nicholas A. Poulos
Philip C. Powers
Stephen R. Pratt
Lawrence R. Pryluck
Venkata R. Puppala
Ravi K. Purohit
Scott B. Pustay
Asnaf Qadir
John D. Quigley
Herbert B. Quinn, Jr.⁺
Diyan S. Rahaman
Yogesh Rajashekharaiah
William D. Randolph⁺
Donald I. Rasmussen
Syed O. Razi
M. C. Reilly⁺
Arlene V. Reynolds
Joseph M. Reynolds
Elsa P. Rhoads
Habibollah Riazi
Vincent W. Rider
Sandra J. Riela
Frederick M. Ritchie⁺
Lincoln E. Roberts
Fred Roberts
Sandra J. Robertson
Rachel H. Rogers⁺
Wilfred A. Rohde
Stephen B. Rose⁺
Benjamin A. Rosenfeld
Barbara H. Rostosky
James A. Royston⁺
Joseph P. Rubin
Richard J. Salerno
Debra P. Sarvela
Kevin P. Scharpf
Douglas G. Schinke⁺
Paul E. Schmid
Bernard S. Schuchner
Christian Schumacher⁺
William K. Schwan
James E. Sclater
Christopher J. Scolese
James E. Sczepanski
William G. Sewall
Thomas H. Seymour⁺
Nimish C. Shah
Lior J. Shimonovich
Esther Silverman⁺
Howell B. Simmons
Dalzid E. Singh⁺
Joseph H. Sinnott
Alois A. Slepicka⁺
Douglas L. Smith
Laurie A. Smith
Shane R. Smith
Steven A. Smith
Arthur L. Smookler⁺
Thomas J. Smyth
Arnold L. Snyder, Jr.⁺
George A. Sofianos
Ralph E. Spencer
Robert J. Sperberg
Marvin J. Spivak
Raymond J. Stanekenas⁺
Clifford B. Stearns⁺
Lena C. Steele⁺
David T. Sterrett
Fred M. Stewart
Cathrin Stickney
Robert H. Stine
Marion R. Stogsdill
Amanda L. Stokes
George Stoll
Kevin D. Stone
Michael C. Straub
Rajakumari Sudeswaran
James B. Swecker
Cynthia R. Swim⁺
Peter Sypher
Robert J. Tallent
Norma J. Talley
Robert S. Tamaru⁺
Peter A. Tamilin
Hen Y. Tan
Robert J. Tarcza⁺
James S. Taylor⁺
Diane R. Thomas
Stephen W. Thomas
John F. Todd
Kwok F. Tom
Susan M. Trakimas
Stanley P. Trocchia
T. J. Tsai⁺
Richard W. Tucker⁺
Charles F. Turner
David T. Tzou
George D. Urban
Swati H. Vakharia
James K. Van Buren⁺
Muthu K. Vellayan
Jan Visintainer
Philip Vitale
Rudolph H. Volin⁺
Bruce P. Voris
Sakellarios G. Vouvalis⁺
Vladislav Vucetic
Melvin T. Wahlberg⁺
Timothy A. Waire, Jr.
Michael A. Wallace⁺
Ronald G. Wallace
Jiayi Wang
Kuo-Ping Wang⁺
Ray Wang
Cleveland F. Watkins
Donald B. Weaver
Alban C. Weber
Claude M. Weil⁺
Jeffrey M. Weiss
Raymond D. Whipple⁺
John V. White⁺
Alan R. Whitehouse⁺
Horace A. Whitworth⁺
James E. Whitworth
Steven M. Wichtendahl
Angela E. Williams
John B. Williams
Roger M. Williams⁺
Frank G. Wilson⁺
James B. Withers, Jr., Esq.
Thomas H. Wittrock
Scott D. Wofsy
Adam I. Wolf
Frank Wong⁺
William W. Wu
Ruby Wyly⁺
Jixiang Xiang
Min Xu
Jun Yang
Seth E. Yazdian
Mo Yi
Hsun-Tse Yin
Ivar B. Ylvisaker⁺
Jason D. Young
Kenneth O. Young⁺
Joseph A. Zaloom
Wenjun Zeng
Xianping Zhang⁺
Stephen Zilliacus
Up to $100
John F. Abate
Leonardo Acosta
Robert S. Adams
Robert B. Adamson
Charles N. Adkins⁺
Mahmood Ahrabian
Huda Akhavannik
Ohiorenuan G. Akhigbe
Georges K. Akpoly
Javier Aldrete
Layla M. Al-Fawzan
William H. Alkire
Brenda J. Allen
Ravikumar V. Alligala
Iman S. Alsharkawi
Stephen J. Alter
William M. Ampeh
Ernest J. Anastasi, Jr.
Allan H. Anderson
FALL 10
Charles E. Knadler, Jr.
Michael R. Koch
Richard G. Kocinski
Daniel M. Korn
Satish W. Korpe
William E. Kotwas⁺
Robert Kramer⁺
Gad Krosner⁺
Karl H. Krueger⁺
George J. Kyparisis⁺
Andrew R. Lacher
Elizabeth Smith Lacher
Elsa H. Lam
Richard E. Lang⁺
Charles R. Lasko
Meka E. Laster⁺
Adina M. Lav
Molly A. Law
Daniel J. Lawall
David Lee
Wayne C. Lee
William S. Lee
Alvin P. Lehnerd
Thomas W. Lesniakowski⁺
Delbert F. Lewis⁺
Robert H. Lightsey⁺
Jamehl E. Lillie-Holland⁺
Chi H. Liou
Benjamin Lisowski⁺
Shoa-Kai Liu
William C. Lohnes
Anna M. Long
Mitchell D. Louie
Christopher J. Louten
Grady A. Lovett
Peter P. Lozis III
Robert H. Lyon⁺
Kenneth E. Lyons
Michael C. Maar
Lyle O. Malotky
Joseph J. Mancuso
Michael J. Mangan
Frank A. Manja, Jr.
Daniel T. Mannerino⁺
Peter J. Manning⁺
Alexander Marion
Duke R. Markley
Richard Marlowe
Steven A. Marlowe
Michael P. Marsili⁺
Thomas G. Martin⁺
Carlos E. Martinez
Joseph R. Martini⁺
Joseph R. Masciarelli
George Masiuk⁺
Jaswinder S. Matharu
Michael G. Mathews
Marvin M. Matus
Allen R. Maxwell, USN
John P. Mazz⁺
Omar Mazzoni
Philip G. McCoy
Kathryn K. McCreight⁺
Douglas E. McCusker
David H. McElveen, USAF
Lawrence J. McGee
Karen E. Mcginty
Barton W. McPheeters
William R. McWhirter, Jr.⁺
Richard D. Menard⁺
Charles R. Merritt⁺
Richard F. Messalle⁺
Herbert Meyerson⁺
Thomas R. Millar
Donald L. Miller⁺
Miriam S. Mishkin
Steven T. Momii
Thomas W. Montemarano
Thomas J. Moore
Blas V. Moreno
Michael J. Morsberger
James N. Moss⁺
Edward R. Murray, Jr.
David D. Myre⁺
Eunmi Myung
Thomas E. Nadolny
Joseph C. Naftel⁺
Tibor Nagy
Sarfaraz A. Naqvi
Timothy E. Neble
David H. Nelson⁺
Jane D. Newell
Duc M. Nguyen
Edward N. Nguyen
Hua Ni⁺
Richard C. Nickels, Jr.
Foyeoc J. Njemini
Uchenna F. Obaji
SYNERGY
Kevin G. Garrahan
William V. Gaymon⁺
Anthony P. Gigioli
Harold C. Gillens
Charles M. Gilmore
Jerry G. Gonick
Charles A. Good⁺
Robert L. Goodman⁺
John M. Goto⁺
Tanya Gould
Vernon Grapes
Rebecca D. Grasser⁺
Edward G. Grems III
Larry I. Gritz
Lawrence J. Guidry
Michel R. Habib
James F. Hahn, Jr.⁺
William R. Hahn
Paul M. Haldeman, Jr.
Tiffany A. Hallman
James T. Ham, Jr
John D. Hamann
Dale L. Hamilton
Harry A. Hamilton
Neil A. Hamlett
John B. Handy
Robert F. Hanlon⁺
Craig C. Harner
Ann E. Harrison⁺
Dwight F. Hastings⁺
Robert E. Hayes
John H. Heidema⁺
R. K. Heist
Fonya Helm⁺
Gary E. Hendrzak
Vincent H. Hennessy⁺
Russell J. Hens
Merrill Herbster
William A. Herman
Lee P. Herndon
Alexander Herrera
Stephen A. Herrlein
Elahe Hessamfar
Eric A. Hillenbrand
Marcia Hirsch
Peter Hoch
Dorothy D. Hodges
Julia F. Holloway
John B. Holmblad
William H. Holt
James Holt
Dan Holtshouse
William W. Hom
Kevin L. Hopkins
Andrew C. Hosmer
Arthur L. Howard
Ying-Po Hsiao
Richard C. Hu
Nina S. Hufford⁺
Edmund C. Hughes, CEC, USN Ret.⁺
Paul K. Hughes II
Van T. HuLamm
William H. Hunley
Xiaobo Huo
John H. Hurd, Jr.⁺
Morris A. Hymes, Jr.
Ikiddeh S. Ikiddeh
The Morningstar Foundation
Luigi Iori
Neal H. Ishman
Alan M. Israel
Carol L. Izumi
Richard S. Izumi⁺
Jibran K. Jahshan
Dennis S. Jarabak
Michael W. Jecko
Teresa L. Jenkins⁺
Girard R. Jetton, Jr.
Mary Johnson
Edwin E. Johnson
Gregory L. Johnson
James W. Johnson, Jr., Esq.⁺
Harry N. Jones⁺
Theodore P. Jones
James S. Joo
Blair A. Jost
Robert A. Judge
David M. Karasevich
Basim M. Kattan
Seth J. Katz
Orron E. Kee⁺
Warren E. Keene⁺
Matthew J. Kerper⁺
Yeong Cheol Kim
Karen W. Kirby
James J. Kisenwether⁺
John A. Klayman
William R. Klocko⁺
31
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
SYNERGY
FALL 10
DONORS
Todd H. Anderson
Martin S. Annett
Sadiq A. Ansari
James Anthony⁺
Alexandra L. Antoni
Khurshid Anwar
Ralph E. Architzel
Jason P. Arcido
Lawrence J. Arena
Donald W. Armistead
Eugene L. Aronne⁺
Mohit Arora
Collins Arsem
Karl B. Avellar⁺
Manouchehr Azami-Soheily
Edward Bacanskas⁺
Abdoulaye Bah
Kevin M. Baker
Edward Balaban
Sushil K. Baluja
Vytautas B. Bandjunis
James S. Barney
Lee E. Barrett⁺
Edward C. Barrett
James V. Bartlett
George M. Bartman
Anthony L. Bartos
Robert C. Basinger, Jr.
David G. Baxter
Robert A. Bean
Eric J. Becker⁺
Berhane A. Belay
Steven C. Belling
Wendell K. Belvin
Samuel D. Benn
Sonita S. Bennett
Alta M. Berger
Robert F. Bernstein
Michael Beron⁺
James V. Bertoch
Richard E. Bertrand
Rudolph F. Besier
John H. Bickford, P.E.
William L. Bird, Sr.
Gregory B. Blank
Robert A. Boardway
Lori S. Bocklund
Virginia E. Bolano
Denise T. Bolton
Peter F. Bonaccorsi
Susan J. Bone
Marc E. Bookbinder⁺
Walter I. Borges
Tejdipto Bose
Bernice S. Boulware
Dixon F. Boulware
James R. Bounds⁺
Thomas C. Bowen
Bruce A. Boyer
Harry J. Bracken, Jr.⁺
Bennett M. Brady⁺
Tasha Braga
Frederick C. Briggs, Jr.
Bennett M. Brooks
Stephen E. Brooks
Marilyn D. Brower
Leneld E. Brown, USA
Louis B. Brown
Maria Brown
Rick-Jay M. Brown
William L. Bryan, USN (Ret.)
Deborah Bullett
Richard A. Burdette
Darrell N. Burrell
Michael C. Burstein
John R. Butler
Matthew J. Byrne
James J. Byrnes
Keith A. Byron
Antonio M. Caballero
Mary M. Calkins
John M. Callahan
Richard S. Campbell⁺
James A. Carelock, Jr.
Ronald L. Carlberg, USAF Ret.⁺
Thurston P. Carleton⁺
Mark S. Castellani⁺
Dudley M. Cate⁺
Marsha Celler
Francis M. Cevasco, Jr.
Robert F. Chandler
Kent W. Chang
Robert M. Chapman⁺
Michael J. Cheamitru
Michael W. Chen
Runzhong Chen
Deepak D. Chheda
Esmail H. Chitalwala
32
Ting-shan Chiu
Andrew D. Choi
Isabel M. Chong Hok Yuen
Muhieddine M. Chouman
Donald L. Chu
Uzo E. Chukwu
Daniel A. Citrenbaum
Arthur B. Clark
Craig J. Clark
Stephen L. Clarke
David H. Clayton
Jeff I. Cleveland II
Dean R. Clough
George A. Cohen
Lewis C. Cohen⁺
Ronald D. Colangelo
William H. Colden
Rachel L. Coleman
Kevin G. Conlon
Edward A. Connell III
Pauline F. Cook
Duane A. Coordes
Jefferson D. Copeland
M. J. Costello
Andrew G. Cotterman⁺
Bruce Cranford, Jr.⁺
John C. Crawford
George H. Cronin II Esq.
David A. Crouch
Daniel F. Crowley
Yuling Cui
Kevin J. Cummings
Forrest C. Cunningham
Duncan S. Currie
Curtis H. Dalton
Brian P. Danahy
Nolan K. Danchik
Anuraj R. Dandgaval
Michael B. Danko
Abdallah I. Daoud
Michael G. Dasovich
Dara Dastyar
John C. Davies III⁺
Nancy Davis
William J. Deane, Jr.
Jonathan P. Deason
Ion V. Deaton
Rudolph M. Decatur, Jr.⁺
Alicia N. DeCesaris
Olivier M. Delperdange
Tao Deng
Elizabeth C. Dennison
Larry A. Denyer
John L. Dettbarn, Jr.
Marco F. Devito
Madan G. Dhawan
James F. Diggs⁺
Megan C. Dillon
Jae Kyung Do
Yong-Suk Do
William A. Dodd, USAF
Samuel M. Dollyhigh
Kenneth L. Donnelly
Alan S. Dorenfeld
Zahra Dorriz
Trudy C. Doss⁺
Ryan J. Douglass
Robert J. Doyle⁺
Roger W. Doyon⁺
Howard G. Draisen
Earle C. Drake
Mark J. Drayton
Joseph E. Dressel⁺
Richard P. Dunbar, USN Ret.⁺
Anthony F. Durham⁺
Willie E. Durham
Gary T. Edem⁺
Guy H. Edwards⁺
Dennis L. Egan⁺
Efremfon F. Ekpo
Andrew E. Elam
Rolland V. Elliott⁺
Raymond Eng⁺
William J. Escher
William P. Eshelman
Donald G. Evans⁺
Brad L. Fahland
Bruce B. Fakhari⁺
Rola O. Fakhouri
Imtiaz I. Fakhruddin
Christine Falzerno
Kaveh Farboud⁺
Nemat Fazli
John T. Fearnow, Jr.
Michael G. Fekete, Jr.
Bela Feketekuty
Armel N. Femnou
Robert E. Fenton, USCG, Ret
James E. Ferl
Lowell E. Finch⁺
Stephen F. Fiore
Steven A. Fischer, USAF
Robert W. Fisher
Russell C. Fisher, Jr.⁺
Ariel T. Fister
James D. Fitzpatrick
Edward E. Flamboe
John R. Flanagan⁺
Harvey J. Flatt
Michael R. Fleming
Larry A. Fletcher
Terry J. Fletcher
Carlos A. Flores
Judith A. Flynn⁺
Kenneth P. Foley
Kenneth H. Folse
Larry E. Forbes⁺
Steven C. Forehand
Van Patten T. Foster
Henry J. Franks, Jr.⁺
Kara M. Frech⁺
Harold S. Freed
Ernest R. Freeman
J. L. Frenk⁺
Inger P. Friedman
Lillian N. Frisbie
Hubert O. Fry
Rex A. Frye
Henri D. Fuhrmann
David W. Fung
John J. Gabriel⁺
William E. Gaines
Sean P. Gallagher
Dennis G. Gallino
John R. Gallo, USA Ret.
Robert E. Gardner
Elizabeth A. Garrison
Frederick J. Gauvreau
David W. Geer
Norma J. Geiger⁺
Kenneth E. Geisinger
Olga Gelbart
Aneek A. George
Sharon E. George
Kenneth F. Gerard, Jr.
Sanjar Ghaem
Tiffany J. Gibbs
Dennis M. Giblin⁺
Mary Jo Gibson
Mohinder P. Gill
Thane Gilman
Douglas D. Gish
Patricia P. Gluss⁺
Reza Golampor, P.E.
Ernesto A. Gonzaga
Julio Gonzalez
Jonathan I. Gordon
Johnnie W. Grant
Dustin Graves
Frederic C. Gray
Bradford E. Green
Dorothy A. Green⁺
John A. Green
Tyran L. Green
Bunnatine H. Greenhouse
John E. Greiner
Robert B. Grupp⁺
Allan Guan
Zhu Guan
Todd J. Gwaltney
Maliha D. Haddad⁺
Edward P. Hagarty
David Hagler
Joseph R. Haines, Jr.
John W. Hale
Michelle L. Hall
Renee S. Hall
Axel A. Hallo de Wolf
Sean T. Hanlon
Donald J. Hanrahan
Ida S. Hantgan
Laurence A. Harlan
Shirley H. Harmon
Harvey R. Harrison
Stephen F. Harvin
Reginald Y. Haseltine
Deborah S. Hasty
Scott D. Haugan
William M. Hawes⁺
Karyn H. Hayes-Ryan
Steven C. Heifner
James D. Henderson⁺
Scott P. Henderson⁺
Deborah T. Henry⁺
Herbert G. Herrmann III⁺
Norman J. Hess⁺
Samuel H. Hicks
Robert D. Higgins
Earl E. Hill, Jr.
Edward Hill, Jr.
William J. Hill⁺
Joyce A. Hires⁺
John S. Hisler
I. J. Hlass⁺
David L. Hobson⁺
John E. Holt
Ali Hooshmandnia
Charles R. Hoover⁺
Allen G. Hovest
Dean T. Huang⁺
Richard M. Hueschen
Craig P. Hugger
Hermon Huggins
Joseph G. Hugo
Peter S. Hui⁺
Tanya Hurley
Daniel F. Hurley
Naeem K. Hussain
Maria H. Hussainzadah
Mark D. Hutcheson
Sharon A. Ingram
George I. Izumi
Atef Jacoub
Dharam V. Jain⁺
David W. James
Festus B. James
Harold L. James, USAF Ret
John W. James, Jr.
Duane J. Jarc
William H. Jarvis
Wail Jastaniah
Farshad Javadi-Isfahn
Loretta E. Jeffrey-Idun
Cynthia L. Jennings
Nelson A. Jennings
Shixin Jiang
Clayton J. Johanson, USAF Ret⁺
Dean A. Johnson
James M. Johnson
Matthew E. Johnson⁺
Pamela L. Johnson
Stephen M. Johnson
Horace T. Jones, Jr.
Hubert Jones, Jr.
Maris Juberts
David H. Judson
Fernand K. Kabundi
James E. Kalshoven, Jr.
Eduardo A. Kamenetzky
Jerry Kaminetzky⁺
Amit Kapoor
Olexiy N. Karakcheyev
Lawrence J. Kastner, Jr.⁺
Bryan J. Kauffman
Jeremy A. Keen
June E. Keller
Howard M. Kellman
Robert J. Keltie⁺
Robert E. Kemelhor
William J. Kenis
Simon H. Kfoury⁺
Farid M. Khadduri
Alireza Khalilzadeh⁺
Ahmad A. Khashan
Shin H. Kim
Yong S. Kim⁺
Suzanne E. Kimball⁺
John J. Kinloch⁺
John P. Kissinger, Jr.
Francis M. Klisch
John H. Klote
James J. Knitis
William L. Konick⁺
Mohamed M. Koroma
George B. Korte, Jr.⁺
Peter D. Koutsandreas⁺
William E. Kozak⁺
Katherine M. Kraenzle⁺
Clif Kranish⁺
Richard A. Krasney⁺
Trina N. Krichmar⁺
Michelle L. Kubokawa
James A. Kudzal⁺
Richard L. Kujawa
Edward L. Kules
Ajay Kumar
Preety Kumar
Ratan Kumar
Nicholas T. Lagen⁺
Ryan J. Lagola
Tiffani R. Langdon⁺
Deborah A. Langheld
Sara C. Langston
Robert H. Laning⁺
DONORS
Robert R. Rodriguez
Lonnie J. Rogers
Michael W. Rohrer
Yvonne R. Romero
William S. Rone, Jr
Ronald Rosas
Nadejda Rose
Dennis W. Rowe
Franklin D. Rowland, Jr., USA
Ruby Roy
James C. Rushing
Kenneth W. Rutland⁺
Andrew Salko III
Frank A. Sarro
Ronald J. Sasiela
Michael Schildcrout⁺
Jennifer Schletter
Martin S. Schletter⁺
Alan R. Schmidt
Irene R. Schmidt
Nickolaus A. Schoeffler
Ward E. Schoonover
Michael H. Schwartz⁺
Paul J. Schwegler
Sethu Sekhar
Alfred P. Sendolo
Pat P. Senyo
Arvind M. Shah
Rajiv C. Shah
Shabnam N. Shahmohammad
Haya J. Shajaiah
Rajiv Sharma
Gregory L. Shaw
Richard E. Shaw
Paul V. Shebalin⁺
Eric W. Shellhouse
Allen K. Shelton
Sheng S. Shen
Ann Sherif
Mary L. Sherlock
Howard I. Sherman
David S. Shimp
Paula J. Shorten
Thamnu Sihsobhon⁺
Nisha Singh
G. W. Singley
James A. Sinsabaugh⁺
Steven R. Sior
Carleton L. Smith⁺
Maryn J. Smith-Hadley
Robert K. Smith
Xueyang Song
Joel S. Sonnabend
Ornulv Sonsteby⁺
Michael F. Souza
John B. Sowell⁺
Donald W. Soyka*
Stephen P. Spaseff
Louis L. Speas
Ned A. Spencer⁺
Richard A. Spires
Ronald Spitalney⁺
Alok Srivastava
Daniel P. Stapor
George M. Starken
Thomas Stathopoulos
Jason R. Staufenberg
Gordon R. Stauffer
R. L. Steinhoff
Edwin O. Stengard⁺
Judith W. Stern
Zachary D. Stern
Joan E. Sternberg
Mitchell J. Stevens
William L. Strickland
Aubrey J. Stringer
Alfred Stroh, Jr.⁺
Danton D. Stuart
Ralph M. Sullivan⁺
Ping Sun-zheng
Lori L. Sussman
Everett J. Sutherland
James L. Swanson
Charles F. Swats
David G. Sweet
Richard C. Szymanski⁺
Dawn J. Tabor
Michael A. Talley
Ning Tang
Joseph B. Taphorn
Rachel K. Tardiff
Morse N. Taxon
Beverley E. Taylor
Harry W. Taylor
John G. Taylor
Shirley Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Becky F. Terry
Malcolm V. Thaden, Jr.
Chirathat Theerathada
Richard C. Thoesen
Lawrence A. Thomas
Kurt R. Thompson
Ronald J. Thomson⁺
Onur Tigli
Kimberly W. Todd⁺
Robert L. Tomaine
Darryl B. Toms
Charles F. Touchton⁺
Chase V. Tran
Doan M. Tran
Huan H. Tran
Toan Q. Tran⁺
Joseph T. Triolo
Elizabeth H. Trively
Roger S. Trouesdale
Alvin Y. Tsao
Siu Fai Tsui
Johnny Tucker
Thomas L. Tuite
Sean C. Tully
Steven G. Turner
Evan P. Tusini
Mark Ujczo
Richard M. Ulrich
Rachel M. Usdan
Ardalan Vahidi
Ahmad Vahidi⁺
Leannah Z. Van der Geest
Dennis P. Van Derlaske
Amy Van Treuren
Pedro M. Vasquez-Urbano
Donald R. Vaughn
Philip R. Viars⁺
Valdo Villalba
Jonathan L. Villanos
William F. Vogelzang
Maria R. Voreh
Kanu R. Vyas
Angelo G. Wade
David T. Walker
James A. Walker
Kenneth L. Walker
Robert L. Walker
Edward L. Wallace
Sudhakar S. Wasnik
Daria D. Webb⁺
Donald D. Weidhuner
Jocelyn L. Weinberg
David E. Weinreich
Clarence H. Weissenstein
Cedric Welch
Ulysses Weldon
Robert P. Wenzel
Harry D. White, Jr.
Jeanne M. White
Henry K. Whitesel
Melvin S. Whitt
Timothy M. Wierbinski
Larry J. Wiese
James W. Williams
Vicky D. Williams
Christopher J. Willy
John H. Wilson, III
Mark S. Winkler⁺
Patricia Witham
Peter W. Witherell⁺
Michael J. Wojcik
Zelalem S. Wollie
Josef A. Wonsever⁺
Barry E. Wood⁺
Daniel H. Wood
N. D. Wrinkle
Katina Xouria
Jingmu Yang
Leonard T. Yashinski III
Ali Yazdi⁺
Sinan Yildirim
Dov Z. Yoran
Elvin Yuzugullu
Jeremy L. Zafran
Alan J. Zampella⁺
Xiaobo Zhu
Glenn T. Zora
Marina Zuban
FALL 10
John E. Moye⁺
Paul Mule III
Daniel Mulville⁺
Ronald K. Mundt⁺
B. J. Nabatkhorian
Roland J. Nadeau
Lawrence S. Nagielski
Jason P. Nagy
Errol W. Nakai
Michael C. Natrella
Michelle S. Neff⁺
Vikki J. Nelson
Kathryn Newell
William D. Newhouse
Chac P. Nguyen
William S. Nicholas
Linda C. Nichols
Patrick J. Nichols
Mia G. Nicholson
Jackie M. Noel
John F. Norton
Robert J. Noteboom
George A. Nowak
Barry D. Nussbaum
Lawrence C. Oakley
Mortimer F. O“ Connor
Thomas J. O“ Connor
Michele K. Odems
Dai H. Oh
Daniel C. Oimoen
Tokuo Oishi
George C. Okorie
John D. Olah
Jamie V. Olson
Michael A. O“ Neal
David A. Oppenheimer
Andrew E. Orebaugh⁺
Jorge B. Ortega
Abdias Ortiz
Miguel Ossandon
Nune Pambukhchyan
Mark S. Pape
Susan G. Parente
Samir F. Parkar
William J. Parker
Susan C. Partyka⁺
Jimit K. Patel
Shweta K. Patel
Sachin K. Patil
Margaret C. Patterson
Kimberley K. Pellegrini
William A. Percival⁺
Ronald E. Perison
Tim S. Perkins
Victor P. Petrolati
Fred R. Phelleps
Jan M. Pickrel
Smitha Pillai
Maurice W. Pitt⁺
Robert C. Piwko
Michael J. Podolsky
Michael K. Ponton⁺
Elaine Porter
John C. Poulos
Thomas H. Powell
Jean O. Powers
Ihor M. Procinsky
William S. Prusch
James C. Pyne
David S. Querubin
Gopinathan Raju
Ivatury Raju⁺
Rex H. Rambo
Anne H. Ramsey
Grover C. Randle, Jr.
Michael J. Raphael
Harold K. Rappoport⁺
Michael L. Raudabaugh
Krishna Ravinuthala
Carl G. Ray
Jeffrey S. Ray⁺
Shambhavi Ray
Tassos D. Recachinas
Srinivasa L. Reddivalam
William L. Reed, Jr.
Ann Elizabeth D. Reimers
Peter Repak*
John M. Rhatigan
Robert W. Rhodes
Karen L. Rice
Terence M. Rice
Eric D. Richmond
Rolland L. Riley
Roderick E. Ritterbusch
Sherwin Rivas
David A. Roberts
John W. Roberts, Jr.⁺
James M. Robinette
Key
Deceased = *
Five-year consistent donor = +
SYNERGY
Thomas A. LaVigna
Michael T. Lear
Eddie Lee⁺
Stephen J. Leete
Howard N. Leighton
Howard L. Leikin⁺
Stephen T. Leubecker*
Michael D. Levine
Zachary I. Levine⁺
John A. Lewis
John W. Lewis
Chiao-Wen Li
Jianhong Liang
Stephen M. Liebold
Tian S. Lim⁺
Gee C. Lin
James E. Linehan
William A. Lintner⁺
John C. Linz
Raymond F. Lippitt
Edward G. Lippitt, Jr.⁺
Michael P. Litchfield
Karen G. Locke
Joseph K. Loehle
James A. Logan
Donald C. Lokerson
John W. Lorentz
William C. Loring
Brian P. Lounsberry
Samuel S. Lovelady
Christopher J. Lowrance
Henry E. Lubean⁺
Don S. Lucero⁺
Dana C. Lynn
Martin J. Lynn⁺
Jason G. Mader
Ahmed F. Mady
Winston W. Mah
Saiban E. Mahamooth
Kay Mahan
Kalisankar Mallik⁺
Cedric L. Mann
Edward N. Mann
Victor M. Marcos
Donald L. Margolies
Ray M. Marhamati
Kifle H. Mariam
Scott W. Marmulstein
Victor D. Marone⁺
Kenneth L. Marsh
David L. Martens
Donald J. Martin
Diego Martinez
Michael E. Martinka
Arlon S. Matsunaga
Matthew J. Matteson
Timothy M. Mauery
Elizabeth H. May-Salazar
David D. McCarthy⁺
Donald W. McChesney⁺
Charles R. McClinton
Andrew B. McDonald
Judy A. McDonald
Ruth G. McDonald
William F. McGovern
John E. McKeever
Stephen J. McNeil
Luther F. McPherson IV
James L. McVoy, USN Ret.
James P. Melendez
Samia M. Melhem
Philip T. Mellinger
Robert J. Melvin, PE
George Merkel
Alma C. Miller
Chester E. Miller
Jared B. Miller
Paul J. Miller
Thomas E. Miller
Philip E. Merritt
Roger D. Mingo
Jeanette T. Mino⁺
Richard Minton
Alaeddin Mirsaeedi
Victoria D. Mock
Carl R. Mockler, USCG Ret.⁺
Helen H. Moeller
Mohammad N. Moktader
Richard G. Moldt
Primo J. Mondin
Donna R. Mones⁺
Ernest R. Montagne, Jr.
Donald H. Moore
Morrow H. Moore, Jr.
Cindy E. Moran⁺
Seth E. Morash
Ralph C. Morehead
William M. Morris
33
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
ALUMNI
From the Office of
Development and Alumni
Relations
Thank you!
To everyone listed on the SEAS Donor
Report in the preceding pages whose
gifts strengthen this great school, thank
you. Your generosity makes an important
and meaningful difference to students,
faculty and programs, and through your
support, you have partnered in a growing
effort to move the School of Engineering
and Applied Science forward.
This is a particularly exciting time in the
history of SEAS, and we are thrilled to
see a growing number of alumni and
friends finding ways to be involved.
Financial support is one of many ways
you can contribute to SEAS, and it is a
vital one. Just as households, businesses,
and nations depend on income to
prosper, grow, and achieve success, the
extent to which GW and SEAS prosper
in the years ahead is closely linked to
private philanthropic support.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
You Can Make a Difference
An annual gift to SEAS is one way that
everyone can participate. Much is said
about the very large and often transformative gifts, but what is not as well
known is that those gifts are almost
always given to institutions with an
established and loyal base of annual
donors. When was the last time you saw
a $50 million gift to an existing non-profit
that was its only gift? I do not know of
any. Your annual gift helps to encourage
the larger gifts. So, if your name does not
appear on the SEAS Donor Report, we
34
hope we can list it in the next issue
of Synergy. And whether you give $25,
$100, $1,000 or some other amount,
when you give annually, your gift
becomes part of the Dean‘s Fund for
Excellence and you become part of
the team.
In addition to annual support, the less
frequent but important special gifts
are those that are typically directed to
a specific area of support. For example,
an endowment fund can be established
to provide perpetual income for student
financial aid, for a graduate student
fellowship, or for faculty or departmental
support. These funds strengthen SEAS
and help us to recruit and reward
exceptional students and faculty.
Endowment funds can be established
through outright gifts or multi-year
pledges of $100,000 or more or can
be set up through your estate.
With the recent unanimous approval
for the new Science and Engineering
Complex by the university‘s board of
trustees, we are now fully engaged in
raising funds for that facility. It is
encouraging to see and hear the
excitement that this building is generating
among our current and prospective
students, as well as among our faculty.
Everyone we talk with recognizes the
importance of the new building in propelling SEAS into a whole new league of
opportunities for teaching, discovery, and
innovation. We are currently working on
a document that will visually convey the
capabilities and versatility of the building,
and we look forward to sharing that with
you. In the meantime, if you are interested
in learning more, please let us know.
For those of you who would like to
discuss ways to help and be involved,
I hope you will be in touch. We welcome
your thoughts and the opportunity to
explore ways you can become part of
the school‘s transformation. Until
then, please know that your school,
your alma mater, is moving ahead . . .
and gaining momentum!
Thank you for your support.
Jim Howard
Assistant Vice President
Development and Alumni Relations
jphoward@gwu.edu
Tel: 202-994-4121
Zaid Hamid
ALUMNI
years later, not by making contact with
him, but by paying a $600 headhunter‘s
fee. Mr. Davis began as chief engineer for
the firm, and by 1968, was elevated from
senior associate to full partner. And as
Mr. Davis liked to remind Mr. Dewberry, the
$600 headhunter‘s fee that Mr. Dewberry
had to pay was ‘the best investment you
ever made.‘“
With the induction of these six gentlemen,
the GW Engineering Hall of Fame,
established in 2006, now has 21 members.
Left to right: Dr. Charles Vest (National Academy of Engineering president),
Dean David Dolling, Sidney Dewberry, Michael Davis and Susanna Trefsgar
(accepting on behalf of their father, Richard Davis), David Karlgaard, Scott
EDITOR‘S NOTE: As Synergy magazine
went to press, SEAS hosted the 2010 GW
Engineering Hall of Fame, at which the
school inducted seven new members.
Amey, Allyn Kilsheimer, and GW President Steven Knapp
The Hall of Fame recognizes and honors
individuals who have contributed to
engineering, technology, or management
in a sustained and significant way during
their careers, and who bring distinction to
GW through their achievements and their
contributions to their professions, the
University, and society-at-large. “By
honoring the achievements of these six
individuals,“ said Dean David Dolling,
“we help build the SEAS history that
future classes of SEAS students inherit,
and will be challenged by, and will use
as a measure of their own success.“
Lastly, adding some levity to the ceremony,
Dean Dolling recounted the story of how
two of the members, who served in World
War II and subsequently earned engineering degrees at GW, reconnected nine years
later when one hired the other. “While
a student in 1948, Mr. Richard Davis was
going fishing when he stopped to pick
up a hitchhiker he recognized as a fellow
student,“ explained Dean Dolling. “Nine
years later, in 1957, Mr. Sidney Dewberry,
the hitchhiker he had picked up, invited
him to join the firm of Greenhorn, O‘Mara,
Dewberry & Nealon. As life would have it,
Mr. Dewberry found Mr. Davis those nine
By unanimous consent of the National
Advisory Council (NAC) membership,
Mr. Howard Tischler, has been elected the
Council‘s next chairman. Tischler‘s term
began following the April 2010 NAC meeting and will run through April 2012. He has
been a member of the NAC since 2003.
Tischler follows in the footsteps of Dr.
David Karlgaard (D.Sc. ‘74), who just
completed his two-year term as NAC
chairman at the April meeting. Karlgaard
has been a member of the NAC since 2003
and, as immediate past chair, will remain a
member of the NAC Executive Committee.
“We are most appreciative to Dave for his
devoted service to the NAC and SEAS. He
provided valuable NAC leadership during
the transition to Dean Dolling‘s administration,“ says Jim Howard, assistant vice president for development and alumni relations
at SEAS. “We are very glad to be working
with Howard Tischler, as well, and we know
HOWARD TISCHLER
FALL 10
SEAS welcomed six new members into the
GW Engineering Hall of Fame at the 2009
induction ceremony, held during the SEAS
125th Anniversary Gala last October. The
six inductees are: W. Scott Amey (M.S. ‘75),
chairman, CEO, and president of Amyx Inc.;
Sidney O. Dewberry (B.S. ‘51), chairman
and founder of Dewberry LLC; Mr.
Dewberry‘s former business partner, the
late Richard N. Davis (B.S. ‘50) (inducted
posthumously); Michael D. Griffin (M.S.
‘98), eminent scholar at the University of
Alabama, Huntsville, and former administrator of NASA; David C. Karlgaard (D.Sc.
‘74), co-founder of PEC Solutions; and Allyn
E. Kilsheimer (B.S. ‘63), founder, president,
and CEO of KCE Structural Engineers, PC.
Howard Tischler Elected NAC Chair
SYNERGY
SEAS Inducts Six
Hall of Fame Members
As Dean Dolling introduced each new
member of the Hall of Fame during the
induction ceremony, he highlighted not
only their obvious professional successes
but also something of their character
or history to provide some insight into
who they are and what they value. The
qualities are impressive. One member has
a legendary work ethic and is said to begin
many of his workdays during the middle
of the night, when the rest of us are sound
asleep. One member‘s code of integrity
has prompted his company to undertake
only those projects “which we are certain
we can perform with distinction.“ One has
a lifelong love of learning that prompted
him to obtain seven university degrees,
and another has achieved tremendous
success by combining his knowledge
of engineering principles with a great
deal of business acumen.
Zaid Hamid
News
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
ALUMNI
that he will continue to strengthen the
role of the NAC here at SEAS.“
Tischler, an entrepreneur, is CEO and
founder of Enfocel, an internet-based lead
generation business, and the lead director
of DealerTrack, a public company provider
of on-demand software and data solutions
for the automotive retail industry. Tischler
received a B.S. in mathematics from the
University of Maryland in 1975 and an M.S.
in operations research from GW in 1980.
David Karlgaard and Asghar
Mostafa Receive GW Awards
SEAS congratulates Dr. David Karlgaard
(D.Sc. ‘74) and Mr. Asghar Mostafa
(B.S. ‘82) on receiving two prestigious
GW awards.
David Karlgaard was one of seven
GW alumni honored by the GW Alumni
Association (GWAA) on April 29th, at the
2010 Alumni Outstanding Service Award
ceremony. These awards are conferred
each year by the GWAA on a handful of
GW graduates who have generously
volunteered their time and service
for the benefit of the university or
their communities.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
A very deserving recipient, Karlgaard
has shown an outstanding commitment
to GW in a number of capacities. He has
been an active member of the SEAS
National Advisory Council since joining
it in 2003, including serving as its
chairman from 2008-10. Karlgaard served
on the SEAS Dean‘s Search Committee in
2007-08, participated in GW Leadership
Retreats and the GW Commission for
SEAS 2020, served on the Advisory
Board of the Department of Computer
Science in 2008, and delivered the SEAS
Commencement keynote speech in 2006.
Karlgaard is also engaged in a number
of charitable organizations, including the
foundation of his undergraduate alma
mater, the University of Wisconsin–Eau
Clair. He serves on the board of trustees
of INOVA Health System Foundation and
has been active with Northern Virginia
Family Service, an organization operating
36
on the principle that families are the
foundation of a strong society.
Throughout his career, Karlgaard has
served in volunteer leadership capacities
in a number of professional and charitable
organizations, as well, including Northern
Virginia Technology Council, Professional
Services Council, the American Electronics
Association, and others.
On September 30th, Asghar Mostafa was
also honored by the GWAA, with the 2010
Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.
The Distinguished Alumni Achievement
Award is the highest form of recognition
that the university and the GWAA give on
an annual basis to GW graduates. Mostafa
was one of five GW alumni to receive the
award this year.
Since graduating from GW, Mostafa has
embarked on a highly successful and
groundbreaking career in the technology
and electronics fields. Over the past 25
years, he has created and built several very
successful technology companies, including
enTourage Systems, Inc.; Vinci Systems;
Advanced Switching Communications,
Inc.; and ISDN Systems Corporation.
In his most recent venture, enTourage
Systems, Inc., Mostafa created an
electronic textbook—enTourage eDGe—that
has the potential to revolutionize the
education textbook industry by reducing
the cost of textbooks by approximately
50 percent and by providing affordable,
wireless, web-based access to information
and upgrades. Through enTourage eDGe,
Mostafa hopes to break the cost and
technology barriers faced by education
and professional mobile users.
DAVID KARLGAARD
Noblis Endows Lydia W.
Thomas Scholarship
Dr. Lydia Thomas—a successful corporate
executive, dedicated volunteer, and longtime friend of SEAS and GW—received an
unusual gift when she retired as CEO and
president of Noblis, Inc. The corporation
(formerly Mitretek Systems) recognized
her accomplishments as an engineer
and as a role model for young women
by establishing the Lydia W. Thomas
Scholarship Endowment at GW. The
endowment provides, in perpetuity, annual
scholarship support for undergraduate
women studying science or engineering.
“It is an amazing privilege to be honored
in such a way,“ Thomas said. “There
is a dearth of females in science and
engineering, and it is my hope that this
scholarship will encourage young women
to pursue these disciplines and foster a
new generation of leaders in the fields.“
The Black Engineer Conference named
Thomas the Engineer of the Year in
2003; Science Spectrum recognized her
as one of “50 Most Important Blacks“
in research science in 2004; and Ebony
honored her with the Ebony Image
Award for Public Service in 1990.
Thomas was a member of the university‘s
board of trustees from 2000 to 2010, and
served part of that time as a vice chair.
In addition to her leadership service as
a trustee, Thomas is a dedicated philanthropist who has supported the Africana
Research Center Fund at Gelman Library,
the President‘s Fund for Excellence, the
Cancer Institute Gala, the Annual Fund,
and athletics.
ASGHAR MOSTAFA
ALUMNI
Faculty Create Award
and Scholarship Funds
SEAS is grateful to Professors Pelton and
Soland for their generous gifts in support
of SEAS students.
patentable, as determined by a panel
the first
of judges. In May, SEAS hosted
Joseph
Pelton,
a
former
professor
in
the
Pelton
Senior
Design
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at which
Department
of Electrical
and Computer
seniors Kimberly Turley of the Department
Engineering,
has
established
the
Pelton
of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
Award
for Outstanding Senior Project.
and Alex Florescu of the Department of
This endowment, named in his honor and
Computer Science took first and second
places, respectively, for their designs.
inhonor of his family‘s tradition of innovation
Discover
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Phone: —————————————————————————
———————————————————
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Sample
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Email:
For
For more
more information,
information, including a
personalized
personalized illustration,
illustration,
please contact:
contact:
SEAS Office
Office of Development
Development
202-994-8474
seas@gwu.edu
seas@gwu.edu
FALL 10
Richard Soland, professor emeritus of
operations research, has established the
Soland-Goikoetxea Doctoral Scholarship
for Engineering Management and Systems
Engineering (EMSE). This fund will provide
scholarships to full-time doctoral students
in the EMSE department who are conducting,
or who intend to conduct, research in
multiple criteria decision making
and/or optimization.
—————————————————————————
———————————————————
——————————————————
George Wash
hingt
gto
on Universit
sity
The G
Office of Planned Giving
W, Suite 310
2100 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
SYNERGY
SEAS is very pleased to announce
that two recently retired SEAS faculty
members, Professors Joseph Pelton
and Richard Soland, have generously
provided funding to create two new
that
students.
funds
will benefit
SEAS
and patented inventions, funds a
competitive award that goes to the best
senior design project among graduating
SEAS seniors. The fund provides first and
second place awards and gives an incentive
for projects that are environmentally
and
those
that
are beneficial
for
SEAS 2010
37
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
CLASS NOTES
Happenings
Edward Cannon, MEA ‘86, resides in
Hyattsville, MD, and is currently a Fellow
Engineer at Northrop-Grumman Electronics
Systems in Baltimore, MD. He has been
there for 13 years; prior to that he was
with Tektron Microelectronics, in Hanover,
MD, for nine years and at Ericsson/GE
(Sony-Ericsson), in Lynchburg, VA, for
seven years. He is a past president of
the Baltimore Chapter of the Virginia
Tech Alumni Association.
Christopher Capelli, BS (electrical
engineering) ‘90, joined Leason Ellis
LLP, an intellectual property law firm
based in White Plains, NY, in November
2009. He was the former chief IP counsel
for MeadWestvaco Corporation, where
he had management responsibilities for
a global IP portfolio of more than 6,000
patents and trademarks.
After marrying in April 2007, Michael
Deneff, MS (systems engineering) ‘09,
and his wife, Luanne, MS (systems
engineering) ‘09, had to begin working
in separate cities in June 2009. They
lived apart for 10 months, after which
Luanne received a promotion and a
new position that allowed her to return to
Colorado Springs, where she and Michael
are living in the same city again and even
working in the same building. Michael
congratulates Luanne on her new position.
Alex Dietrich, BS (civil engineering) ‘01,
became engaged last New Year‘s to
Michael Greene, who received a master‘s
degree in systems engineering last May.
A passionate supporter of recycling
nuclear waste, Jan Forsythe, D.Sc.
(engineering management) ‘03,
wrote 3R‘s of Nuclear Power: Reading,
Recycling, and Reprocessing…Making
a Better Tomorrow for Little Joe (2009)
to allay the public‘s fear of everything
nuclear and present the realities of the
benefits to the U.S. of embracing nuclear
as the best source of energy to power
its electricity generating plants.
Jonathan Gordon, BA (applied science
and technology) ‘05, is the founder,
owner, and lead designer of GordonRides,
LLC, an amusement ride development
firm established in 2008. GordonRides
was established to design and develop
innovative amusement rides, which are
exclusively derived from Mr. Gordon‘s
patents and intellectual property.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
After completing his BS, Christopher
Harvell, BS (electrical engineering) ‘98,
worked for the management consulting
firm, Booz Allen in the Health Care,
Communications, Media & Telecom and
Financial Services Groups. At Booz Allen,
he focused on corporate and business
strategy formulation, organizational
development, business performance,
process improvement, and technology
strategy development. He also founded a
recruitment program focused on identify-
38
ing minority talent. He also worked
on a pro-bono basis with Bill Clinton‘s
Harlem Small Business Initiative, where
he was responsible for identifying and
implementing areas for operational
improvements and increasing the
financial viability of selected Harlem
small businesses. Chris then attended
Columbia University‘s Graduate School
of Business and received his MBA with a
concentration in finance and real estate.
Chris was an investment banker in the
Real Estate Finance Group at Credit
Suisse based in NY. In 2008,
he transitioned from banking to
entrepreneurship and co-founded
Dental Kidz in downtown Newark,
with his wife, Lezli, a pediatric dentist.
Jose Hernandez-Rebollar, D.Sc.
(electrical engineering) ‘03, inventor
of the Acceleglove at GW, is glad to
announce that AnthroTronix is offering
the Acceleglove as a commercial product.
Lockheed Martin, as one of the partners in
the efforts, paid for the product development
process, securing suppliers, manufacturers,
and building beta products. For more
information, see www.acceleglove.com.
Reginald Herndon, BS (civil engineering)
‘96, co-founded CAPITAL Construction
Group, LLC (CCG) in 2005 and works
as the general manager. CCG
(www.ccg-wdc.com) is a commercial
general contracting firm based in
Washington, DC, and it is celebrating
five years in business serving small-to
medium-size businesses.
Henry Herz, MS (operations research)
‘84, recently joined L-3 Communications
(www.L-3com.com) as the senior program
manager of its InControl product line.
InControl software is used for
communication satellite commanding
and telemetry by a range of government
and domestic and international commercial
customers. L-3 Communications is a
Fortune 500 prime contractor in command,
control and communications, intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance (C3ISR);
government services, and aircraft modernization and maintenance. While not
CLASS NOTES
Kathy Helen Pappas Jatras, MS
(operations research) ‘85, started her
own fee-only financial advisor/tax prep
firm in 1989 and has been doing that
ever since. She and her husband have
two daughters (ages 25 and 23), 21
Godchildren, and are new grandparents.
Elliott Kugel, CFP, MS (computer
science) ‘83, was named in the February
22, 2010 issue of Barron’s magazine
as one of the “Top 1,000 Advisers in
America“ and was recognized as one of
the top 25 advisers in New Jersey. Elliott
works at Merrill Lynch in Bridgewater, NJ.
Larry Laubscher, BS (electrical
engineering) ‘52, continues the practice
of intellectual property law, on a reduced
schedule with golf interruptions, at his
satellite home office in St. George, UT.
The main office of his firm, Laubscher
& Laubscher, P.C., in Annapolis, MD, is
run by his son, Larry, Jr. Larry writes,
“I look back fondly on my days at GWU,
and appreciate every day the invaluable
education–both engineering and
legal–that I received there. My very best
regards to all of my old engineering
school buddies who are still around.“
Harvard Business Review, Journal of
Finance, MIT Sloan Management Review,
and others. Chung-Shing is an associate
professor in the School of Business at
Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.
Lawrence is available on the homepage.
Lawrence is also the corporate secretary
of Pinnacle Aeronautics, Inc., a private
corporation engaged in the design,
development, and future manufacture
of business jet aircraft.
Manny Rivera, MS (computer science)
‘05, is president and CEO of RiVidium
Inc. Last year Manny was invited to
discuss future directions in networked
sensing systems for the Fifth
International Conference on Mobile
Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks (MSN 2009)
sponsored by IEEE. This conference
brought experts from all corners of the
globe to China‘s Wu Yi Mountains to
collaborate and contribute to research
and innovation in these related fields.
Rob Maier, BS (computer engineering)
‘98, currently works as a patent attorney
in New York at a large international law
firm, Baker Botts LLP, where he focuses
primarily on patent litigation and counseling. His full web bio is available at:
www.bakerbotts.com/lawyers/detail.asp
x?id=22a24162-c2fc-436b-b3043468f7b3609e. He recently got
engaged to his fiancee, Shanna, who
teaches at an inner city high school in
Brooklyn, and they married on 10/01/10,
“a binary wedding date, all too fitting
for a computer engineering major,“
Rob writes.
Richard C. Millar, D.Sc. (systems
engineering) ‘08, has been an associate
professor in the Department of Systems
Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate
School (NAS Patuxent River, MD),
detached from the Monterey facility,
for 18 months. He is a tenure track faculty
member performing NAVAIR & ONR funded
research in systems engineering.
Lawrence Oakley, BS (mechanical
engineering) ‘48, is still going strong
at age 85. He writes, “I retired three
times and decided two decades ago that
I‘ll never do that again. I‘m the editor and
publisher of www.WallStreetCorner.com
and have regular readers in 96
countries.“ More information about
Jesús M. Rohena y Correa, P.E., MS
(civil engineering) ‘95, is the senior
tunnel engineer for the Federal Highway
Administration in Washington, DC. In
addition to being an engineer, he also
enjoys painting and photography. Last
year, he participated in an art exhibition
at the US DOT. To see more of his art
work, please visit http://fineartamerica.com/featured/flordemaga-jesusrohena.html
Pragnesh “Prag“ Shah, BS ‘90, MS
‘93 (mechanical engineering), is vice
president and general manager of Web
39
FALL 10
Charles Hickey, BS (electrical engineering)
‘84, was awarded U.S. Patent #7,641,594
B2 on January 5, 2010, for his product
invention entitled “Apparatus for Cooling
Trampolines.“ Charles (Chuck) is in the
early stages of licensing his product
invention under the trade mark
“RingMister™.“ Chuck credits the initial
concept of the design to an afternoon of
play with his two young daughters, their
trampoline, and an extreme need to cool
down one very hot afternoon in St.
Louis. Chuck would love to hear from his
fellow alumni and current GW students,
faculty, and staff. He can be reached at
charles.hickey@wisperhome.com.
Chung-Shing Lee, D.Sc. (engineering
management) ‘97, and his co-author
Dr. Jonathan C. Ho won an Emerald
Management Reviews Citation of
Excellence for their research paper
“The DNA of Industrial Competitors,“
published in Research Technology
Management, 51(4). Their article was
selected as one of the top 50 from the
15,000 articles reviewed throughout 2008
by the Emerald Management Reviews,
which covers every article in the top
400 business and management journals
world-wide, including titles such as
SYNERGY
(yet) Fortune 500 entrepreneurs, his sons
Joshua (10) and Harrison (8) have started
their own web-based small businesses,
J&H LEGO Gifts, JH Bases & Terrain,
and YardCritters.
T H E
G E O R G E
W A S H I N G T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
CLASS NOTES
Storefront and User Experience at
NetworkSolutions, where he leads web
channels, user experience, e-commerce,
and content strategy for the company‘s
core online channels and products.
Tim Sheckler, BS (civil engineering) ‘91,
MBA ‘03, was recently selected for the
position of director of the Real Property
Utilization and Disposal Division for the
General Services Administration (GSA)
National Capital Region. In this position,
he is responsible for the re-utilization
and/or disposal of excess and surplus
real property for GSA and other
federal agencies.
Richard Spires, MS (telecommunications)
‘87, was appointed CIO of the Department
of Homeland Security in July 2009. As
CIO, Richard is responsible for managing
and directing information management
support processes, combining the
functions of information technology and
telecommunications to provide coordinated
support strategies for meeting DHSmission related information needs.
SYNERGY
FALL 10
Javid Sonde, MS (information systems
management) ‘91, is CEO of Global
Techpro. Javid was named for the second
year in a row to SMARTCEO magazine‘s
2010 Smart100 list. The Smart100 is
made up of thought leaders across all
industries in Greater Washington. The CEOs
were selected based on their leadership,
strategic vision, and character.
Jeffrey Sonnabend, BS (electrical
engineering) ‘89, is the founder of
SonnabendLaw, a law firm specializing
in intellectual property and technology
law for individuals, startups, and
smaller businesses. Jeff has been practicing
intellectual and technology law (except
for a brief detour into the world of
culinary arts) since graduating from
Cardozo School of Law in 1992. He
began his career servicing Fortune 500
corporations while associated with
firms such as Rogers & Wells (now
Clifford Chance) in New York City.
40
L. William Varner, BS (electrical
engineering) ‘73, was named
president of the ManTech Mission,
Cyber & Technology Solutions Group
in September 2009. Before joining
ManTech, Bill was a vice president,
corporate officer, and executive director
of the Intelligence Operations Operating
Unit for Northrop Grumman/TASC,
which specializes in highly technical
engineering and operations support
to the intelligence community. While
at TASC, his business grew substantially
and his team earned Capability Maturity
Model Integration Level 5 certification
in software development. He joined TASC
in 1978 and held positions of increasing
responsibility in project, program, and
line management before becoming a
senior executive.
In Memoriam:
Patrick J. Wells, MEM ‘93, works for
the Federal Aviation Administration and
was awarded the Lawrence R. Schneider
Award last year. The award is presented
annually to an especially competent and
productive practicing Department of
Transportation attorney who has been
admitted to the bar within the last ten
years. Patrick was selected “For
outstanding dedication and exemplary
service to improve aviation and efficiency
including exceptional performance on
the O‘Hare Modernization Program.“
It is with great sadness that Synergy
reports the tragic death on May 16,
2010, of Taylor Hubbard, a sophomore
majoring in biomedical engineering.
Taylor died from injuries he sustained
after falling from the window of a GW
residence hall. He had moved home
at the end of the semester, but had
returned to campus to help a friend
move into summer housing. Taylor was
from Lexington Park, MD, and graduated
from Great Mills High School in 2008.
He enjoyed playing ultimate frisbee
and soccer, and was described by
friends as “incredibly athletic.“
He was also a member of Alpha Chi
Sigma, a co-ed professional fraternity
in chemistry. As most of his classmates
had already left campus at the time
of his death last spring, his friends and
members of the university community
gathered on Kogan Plaza on September
1st to remember him.
Norris Hekimian, BS (electrical
engineering) ‘49, passed away on June
10, 2010. Dr. Hekimian was a member of
the GW Engineer Alumni Association and
a former alumni trustee on the GW Board
of Trustees.
Peter McGee Hoffman, BS (mechanical
engineering) ‘07, passed away on March
28, 2009, at his parents‘ home in London
after a seven-month struggle with cancer.
After graduating from GW, Peter left for
Australia where he lived, worked, and
indulged his passion for sports before
returning to London in August 2008,
where his cancer was diagnosed. Peter‘s
passing has left a huge void in the lives
of all who knew and loved him.
T
57198_Cvrx1_Cvr 11/29/10 12:48 AM Page 3
EVENTS
Upcoming Alumni Events
Volunteer Opportunities
Young Alumni Network
There are many ways alumni can be
involved at SEAS and at GW. Visit
www.alumni.gwu.edu/volunteer or
contact Erin Pitts at espitts@gwu.edu for
a complete list of volunteer opportunities.
The Young Alumni Network (YAN)
sponsors programming and provides
benefits designed to meet the social,
networking, and educational needs and
interests of graduates from the past 10
years. Join the dedicated recent
graduates who provide the inspiration
for YAN activities!
Engineer Alumni Association,
Call for Volunteers
We are building new and dynamic alumni
programming at SEAS, and we need
alumni volunteers to help build alumni
engagement. We ask volunteers to commit
to a year of service, during which you
will assist in planning SEAS alumni
programming, attend three meetings
annually, and attend at least two SEAS
alumni events. If you are interested in
participating, please contact:
Erin Pitts
Associate Director
School Alumni Programs
Alumni House @ 1918 F Street NW
Washington, D.C.
Phone: (202) 994-2355
Email: espitts@gwu.edu
Career Advisor Network
Share insights with other graduates
and current students seeking career
assistance. Register to be a career
advisor at www.alumni.gwu.edu/
networking.
Connect with Students
From hosting a dinner with students to
delivering a guest lecture, you have a lot
to offer. Participate in a student-alumni
program to build connections with
current students.
Spring 2011
EAA Volunteer Council: Spring Meeting
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
SEAS Entrepreneurship
Seminar: Building Your Early
Stage Startup Team*
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Upcoming Alumni Events
Stay connected with SEAS alumni, faculty,
and current students by attending our
SEAS alumni events listed below. Events
are updated and added often, so be sure
to visit the online alumni events calendar
at www.alumni.gwu.edu/calendar for
more detailed information.
SEAS Entrepreneurship Seminar:
Managing Growth*
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
SEAS Student R&D Showcase
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
SEAS Career Expo
Thursday, February 24, 2011
SEAS Entrepreneurship Seminar:
Marketing: How to Find
Your Customers*
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
GW Summit on Entrepreneurship*
Thursday & Friday, April 14 & 15, 2011
Pelton Design Competition
and Senior/Alumni BBQ
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
* To register for the SEAS
Entrepreneurship Seminars,
please visit alumni.gwu.edu/calendar.
FALL 10
GW Alumni Association Board
SYNERGY
The GW Alumni Association works collaboratively with the university to implement
programs and services that benefit GW
alumni. Board elections take place in the
spring of each year.
41
57198_Cvrx1_Cvr 11/29/10 12:48 AM Page 4
School of Engineering & Applied Science
The George Washington University
Tompkins Hall
725 23rd Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20052
Non-Profit
Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Mpls, MN
Permit No. 2431
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
Contact Us
SEAS ADMINISTRATION
David S. Dolling, Dean
202-994-6080
Joanne Welsh, Director
Communications
202-994-2050
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Martha Pardavi-Horvath
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
202-994-8591
Emmy Rashid, Director
SEAS Student Career Services Office
202-994-7892
ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Can E. Korman, Associate Dean for
Research and Graduate Studies
202-994-2245
Howard Davis, Director
Undergraduate Advising
and Student Services
202-994-6158
MECHANICAL & AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
Bhagirath Narahari, Associate Dean
for Undergraduate Affairs and
Programs
202-994-6719
202-994-6083
www.ece.gwu.edu
202-994-7541
www.emse.gwu.edu
202-994-6749
www.mae.seas.gwu.edu
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
Adina Lav, Director
Graduate Admissions
202-596-7239
202-994-7541
www.emse.gwu.edu
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND COMPUTERS
GW SERVICES
Alumni House
1-800-ALUMNI-7
Erin Pitts, Associate Director
School Alumni Programs, SEAS
202-994-2355
SEAS SUPPORT SERVICES
James Howard
Assistant Vice President
Development and Alumni Relations
202-994-4121
Jo Boukhira
Associate Director of
Development, SEAS
202-994-6059
Colleen Morith
Assistant Director of Development,
SEAS
202-994-1858
ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
APPLIED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
202-994-7541
www.emse.gwu.edu
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
202-994-6083
www.ece.gwu.edu
CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
202-994-4901
www.cee.seas.gwu.edu
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
202-994-6083
www.ece.gwu.edu
COMPUTER SCIENCE
202-994-7181
www.cs.gwu.edu
202-994-6083
www.ece.gwu.edu

faculty - SEAS - The George Washington University

Transcription

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