Flexible Gold Circuits
Assistant Professor Christopher Chen (Biomedical Engineering), and team have developed a new electronic circuit, made from gold wire coiled in waves and encased in a chip made of a springy polymer instead of silicon. The wires are 20 times thinner than a human hair and the circuits can be stretched by over half their initial length. The potentials for such flexible circuitry are enormous and Chen speculates that wiring like this could be used in everything from sports clothing to monitor athletic performance to developing rubbery needles for Parkinson’s disease patients, whose tremors are treated with electrical stimulation in the brain. Chen’s work was featured in the journal Nature, Science Update Online.
Modeling Brain Processes
Associate professor Reza Shadmehr (Biomedical Engineering) and colleagues have developed a new model to help understand how humans learn to perform complex movements through the brain’s processing of motor commands. The results show that the brain builds models of the physical world through a combination of motor primitives. Their research is reported in the November issue of PLoS Biology.
Electronic Voting Concerns Continue
Avi Rubin, associate professor of computer science and technical director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute (ISI), continues to draw the public’s attention to security concerns around electronic voting as primaries take place throughout the country this spring. In a report released last summer by Dr. Rubin, Dan Wallach, assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, and doctoral students Adam Stubblefield (JHU) and Yoshi Kohno (UCSD), the issues of electronic voting vulnerabilities and how hackers might tamper with the new voting machines began a national debate that remains heated.
In addition, this January Avi Rubin and colleagues brought national attention to an Internet voting system (SERVE—Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment) under development by the U.S. Department of Defense. SERVE would have allowed online absentee voting for eligible overseas citizens. However, on the advice of Rubin and other experts analyzing the system, the government decided to abandon the plan due to security concerns.
In his graduate-level class at Hopkins, Security and Privacy in Computing, Rubin has students working on just these types of real-world problems. “As a society, we will have to start prioritizing security…users will have to know more about what’s going on in their computers and vendors will have to develop more secure computers,” says Rubin. Read more.
Robotics Camp Serves as Model for High Schools
Professor Russell Taylor (Computer Science), director of the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (ERC CISST) was praised by Congressman Elijah Cummings for the center’s efforts and support in the Woodlawn High School Summer Robotics Camp for middle school children. In a letter of commendation Representative Cummings stated, “the summer camp of 2004 will be used as a baseline model within Baltimore County to provide a summer enrichment program in science and technology.”
Four faculty members received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Awards for 2004. NSF’s CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. The four Whiting School recipients include:
Jason Eisner (Computer Science) for his research in finite-state machine learning on strings and sequences.
Justin Hanes (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering) for his research in real-time transport phenomena of non-viral DNA nanocarriers in live cells.
Allison Okamura (Mechanical Engineering) for her research in haptic exploration and modeling of unknown environments.
Lester Su (Mechanical Engineering) for his research in application-driven combustion and fluid flow imaging.
In another award for young investigators, assistant professors Jennifer Elisseeff (Biomedical Engineering) and Allison Okamura (Mechanical Engineering) received Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Research Grants. These grants, established in 1976 when biomedical engineering did not fit well into traditional grant programs, enable young investigators to establish themselves and the field of biomedical research. This is the final year that the Whitaker Foundation will award these grants.
Other Awards and Honors to faculty this winter include:
Associate Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings (Electrical & Computer Engineering) will start a two-year term in 2004 as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE/Circuits and Systems Society. Dr. Etienne-Cummings will play a significant role in the governance of the IEEE/CAS as a member of the BOG. In addition, Dr. Etienne-Cummings was recently profiled in the online journal BlackEngineer.com.
Professor Steve H. Hanke (Geography & Environmental Engineering) was honored by the Universidad del Azuay in Cuenca, Ecuador as well as awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award from Ekos magazine in that country for his advisory work to the minister of finance, credited with helping turn around the Ecuadorian economy in recent years.
Professor Omar Knio (Mechanical Engineering) received the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander van Humboldt Foundation of Germany. The award is bestowed in recognition of lifetime achievements in science, for younger, outstanding scientists and scholars who reside outside of Germany.
Professor Jerry Prince (Electrical & Computer Engineering) was elected an IEEE Fellow in January 2004, “for contributions to signal and image processing for medical imaging.”
Professor Andrea Prosperetti (Mechanical Engineering) has won the Senior Award from the International Conference on Multiphase Flow (ICMF). This prestigious award is granted every 3 years; Dr. Prosperetti is invited to give the Award Lecture at the ICMF- 2004, to be held in Yokohama, Japan.
Associate Professor Avi Rubin (Computer Science) was named a “Baltimorean of the Year” for his role in the “debate over the future of electronic voting systems,” in the January 2004 issue of Baltimore magazine.
Professor James West (Electrical & Computer Engineering) received the John William Struitt, 3rd Baron of Rayleigh 2003 Award, presented last fall by the Mexican Institute of Acoustics and the 10th Mexican Congress on Acoustics.
Rene Vidal joins Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Imaging Science (CIS) as an assistant professor. His Ph.D. degrees are in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley in 2000 and 2003, respectively. His research focuses on inference problems in computer vision, machine learning, robotics and control involving geometry, dynamics, photometry and statistics.
Lian Shen joins Civil Engineering as an assistant professor. He received his Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics from MIT in 2000. Dr. Shen’s research interests include ocean engineering, coastal processes, and environmental fluid flows, computational fluid dynamics, high-performance computing, and parallel computing.
PTE's annual faculty meeting was held this month featuring keynote speaker, Suzanne Jenniches, Vice President of Northrop Grumman, who addressed the issue of Homeland Security and the need for educating the workforce in homeland security systems.
Also at the meeting, faculty members were presented awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions in 2004 to the Part-Time Programs in Engineering and Applied Science:
John Romano and Zohreh Movahed
Excellence in Teaching Award;
Special Awards for publishing books used in PTE classes were presented to:
Edwin Addison
Leveraging the Horizon: Secrets of a Serial Entrepreneur
James Spall
Introduction to Stochastic Search and Optimization:
Estimation, Simulation and Control.
HeadsUP held its fourth annual What is Engineering? Fair in February 2004 to introduce high school students to the world of engineering and to offer registration for college-level courses at Hopkins for high school students during the summer. This year’s fair, supported by Lockheed Martin, attracted over a dozen companies who brought in exhibits as well as engineers, scientists, and human resource representatives to talk with the 500 students and family members in attendance. Many of these students will be seeking internships as well this summer (a part-time summer job, paid or unpaid). If your company (or one you may know of) has possible internship openings, please contact Richard Scott: 301-294-7170 (email: rscott@jhu.edu).
HeadsUP also offers financial support to need-based, academically accomplished students. Again this year, the Bechtel Foundation will support a student with a full scholarship and an internship, supporting engineering tasks in the Bechtel Power Corporation. If your company might be a candidate for joining the HeadsUP TEAM (Targeted Educational Assistance and Mentoring) by offering full or partial tuition support to a young, budding engineer, please contact Richard Scott.
Undergraduate student, Ryan Hanley, Civil Engineering, has been selected a George J. Mitchell Scholar—one of 12 chosen nationwide for a year of graduate study at universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Hanley plans to pursue a master’s degree in civil engineering at Trinity College in Dublin. Read more.
Albert Swiston, Jr., Materials Science and Engineering, has received the 2004 TMS / SMD Scholarship (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society / Structural Materials Division). The award is presented to an outstanding undergraduate student majoring in structural materials during the 2002-2003 academic year.
A number of engineering students received the 2004 Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards at Hopkins in recognition of their research achievements, including:
Biomedical Engineering: William Hsu, Harish Krishnaswamy, Michael Lee, Eric Simone , Bhuvan Srinivasan, John Rittenhouse, Ankit Tejani.
Civil Engineering: Alan Olson
Electrical & Computer Engineering: Brent Kutscher
Undergraduate Brett Kutscher, Electrical & Computer Science, reached another milestone as well—publishing a paper in a special collection of articles with Science magazine focusing on the interface between mathematics and biology. Brett’s paper presents an interactive Java applet that illustrates a model of a cellular signaling mechanism, underlying the ability of chemotactic cells to respond to small gradients in the concentration of chemoattractants.
Three graduate students received the 2004-2005 Achievement Rewards for College Students (ARCS), granted by the ARCS Foundation, providing scholarships to academically outstanding students completing degrees in science, medicine, and engineering. The scholarships, $15,000 each, were awarded to:
Brian Weibler , Mechanical Engineering
Michael Daily, Chemical & Biomedical Engineering
Junghae Suh, Biomedical Engineering
Biomedical Engineering students Athar Malik and Seth Townsend are among three undergraduates at Hopkins honored in USA Today’s annual recognition of academic performance and leadership among a select group of college and university students. Read more about Malik and Townsend.
Advisory Council Member Walter Robb Challenges Graduate Fellowship Donors
Dr. Walter Robb of Schenectady, New York has issued a challenge to Whiting School donors to support graduate students who choose to pursue advanced degrees in engineering at Johns Hopkins. Give $50,000 or more toward the creation of an endowed fellowship, and he will match it up to $500,000. To qualify, pledges must be paid within five years and they must come from donors who have not previously endowed a student aid fund at Hopkins nor given to Johns Hopkins at the $50,000 level previously. Corporate matching gifts are welcomed, but cannot count toward the $50,000 qualifying amount, and matches will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis according to the receipt of a signed gift agreement.
Dr. Robb, a chemical Engineer, has shared his wisdom and leadership with the Johns Hopkins University by serving on the Advisory Council of the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute in 1996, being a Presidential Counselor in 2002, and currently holding a seat on the Whiting School’s National Advisory Council. He brings to the school a wealth of valuable professional expertise. For many years, Dr. Robb helped lead the General Electric Company, serving as their Senior Vice President of Corporate Research and Development before leaving the firm in 1992 to start his own company, Vantage Management in January, 1993. Dr. Robb is also the majority owner of the Albany River Rats, an American Hockey League affiliate of New Jersey Devils. For more information please call (410) 516-8723 or email rfergu13@jhu.edu.
Blumenthal Award & Wenk Lecture
This year’s Blumenthal Award recipient and lecturer will be Jeong H. Kim, Ph.D. '82 '89, and University Trustee. As a notable entrepreneur and businessman, Dr. Kim has broad professional experience and wide-ranging interests, including successfully leading a high technology start-up as Chairman & CEO and providing strategic direction and leadership as a key Senior Executive with a Fortune 50 corporation.
The Blumenthal lecture will be held, Monday, April 19, 2004 in the Shafler Auditorium in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy at 3:30 p.m. on the Homewood Campus. This annual lecture and award was established by the late Sydney C. Blumenthal '37 and his wife, Mitzi to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to management and technology and to enable them to present their ideas to engineering students as well as the greater Hopkins community.
The 2004 Wenk Lecture will feature Dr. Joseph Bordogna, Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation, on Thursday, April 29, 2004 at 4:00 p.m. in Hodson Hall, Room 110, on the Homewood Campus. The Wenk Lecture was established by Dr. and Mrs. Edward Wenk '40 to help raise awareness and highlight the importance of the connection between technology and public policy.
Operation Engineering Internship
Join us in developing Operation Engineering Internship, a program designed to assist engineering students with finding internships. We are currently recruiting alumni and others who would like to serve as mentors, or who may either have or know of any internship opportunities. This program is a collaboration between the Society of Engineering Alumni (SEA), the Whiting School’s Office of Industrial Initiatives, and the Johns Hopkins Career Center. The SEA and the Office of Industrial Initiatives are also creating a database for students to search for potential summer employment. For more information, click here, or contact Kimberly Bittner at kbittner@jhu.edu.
SEA-Calling for Nominations
If you are interested in serving on the Society of Engineering Alumni (SEA) council, or know of anyone who may be, please forward all names to Megan Howie at megan@jhu.edu by June 1, 2004. The SEA council meets annually and will be meeting this year on Saturday, October 23, 2004 during Johns Hopkins Alumni Leadership weekend. To learn more about the SEA and how you can get involved, visit: http://engineering.jhu.edu/~alumni, or contact Megan Howie at megan@jhu.edu.
Save These Dates…Thursday, April 29- Sunday, May 2, 2004. Reunion/Homecoming is just around the corner. Please make plans now to join your reunion class. For more information, visit: http://alumni.jhu.edu/reunion.
Abel Wolman: The Father of Sanitary Engineering
New "Great Ideas" Pocast: WSE Acoustical Engineer, Jim West, Discusses the Problem of Hospital Noise.
The Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-2608
410-516-4050 | engineeringinfo@jhu.edu
