Title:

WVU Libraries Resources for CSEE Graduate Students

Speaker:                Marian Armour-Gemmen

Date:                      Monday, August. 28th, 2017

Time:                      5:00 PM - 6:00 PM             

Place:                     G102 Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

Abstract:  She will introduce the services and resources available through the WVU Libraries.  These library resources may be critical to your graduate research.

 

Speaker Bio:  Marian Armour-Gemmen is the Engineering Research librarian at WVU.  She also has been the Patent & Trademark librarian since 2003. In this capacity she assists inventors throughout the state of West Virginia. Previously she worked as the head of the Physical Sciences Library and as an associate in the Government Documents department.  She holds an MLIS from the University of South Caroline, an MA from the University of Michigan and a BA from Calvin College.

 

Computational science and engineering resources for West Virginia University researchers

 

Speaker:                Nathan Gregg and Dr. Don McLaughlin

Date:                      Monday, September 25th, 2017

Time:                      5:00 PM - 6:00 PM             

Place:                     G102 Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

 

Abstract: This presentation will cover two closely related topics.  The first of these will describe the computational resources managed by WVUs Information Technology Services to support computational science and engineering research at the University. Specific topics that will be discussed will include the Universitys high performance computing systems and how they are accessed and used by WVU researchers.  The session will also describe the research computing programs high performance parallel storage system as well as the dedicated campus science DMZ network known as REX.  There will also be a review of new storage service options that will be available to the WVU Research Community. The second part of this session will focus on computational science and engineering resources and services available through XSEDE.  XSEDE is a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation to provide world class computational resources to researchers in academia.  This portion of the seminar will describe the resources available through XSEDE and how WVU researchers can take advantage of them.

Speaker Bio:

 

Nathan Gregg Nathan Gregg is the Manager of ITS' Research Computing Department.  He has been working for WVU since 2013 and he is responsible for the daily operations of WVU's Research Computing Systems.  Research Computing maintains WVU's two centrally shared high-performance computing systems Mountaineer and Spruce Knob.  Along with Don, Nathan is also an XSEDE Campus Champion.

 

Don McLaughlin Don McLaughlin is a part-time instructor in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.  He spent several years working in the WVU Research Office where he managed high performance computing resources offered by the University.  He also has served as an XSEDE Campus Champion since 2013.  Don retired from WVU in 2015 but continues to teach an occasional course in the Lane Department.  He also continues in his role as an XSEDE Campus Champion.

 

On System-Level Analysis & Design of Cellular Networks:

The Magic of Stochastic Geometry

Speaker:                Dr. Marco Di Renzo

Date:                      Friday, October 20, 2017

Time:                      11:00 AM -12:00 Noon    

Place:                     AER135 Advanced Engineering Research Building (AERB)

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

Abstract:  This talk is aimed to provide a comprehensive crash course on the critical and essential importance of spatial models for an accurate system-level analysis and optimization of emerging 5G ultra-dense and heterogeneous cellular networks. Due to the increased heterogeneity and deployment density, new flexible and scalable approaches for modeling, simulating, analyzing and optimizing cellular networks are needed. Recently, a new approach has been proposed: it is based on the theory of point processes and it leverages tools from stochastic geometry for tractable system-level modeling, performance evaluation and optimization. The potential of stochastic geometry for modeling and analyzing cellular networks will be investigated for application to several emerging case studies, including massive MIMO, mmWave communication, and wireless power transfer. In addition, the accuracy of this emerging abstraction for modeling cellular networks will be experimentally validated by using base station locations and building footprints from two publicly available databases in the United Kingdom (OFCOM and Ordnance Survey). This topic is highly relevant to graduate students and researchers from academia and industry, who are highly interested in understanding the potential of a variety of candidate communication technologies for 5G networks.

 

Speaker Bio:


Marco Di Renzo received the "Laurea" and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Information Engineering from the University of L’Aquila, Italy, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. In October 2013, he received the Doctor of Science
degree from the University Paris-Sud, France. Since 2010, he has been a "Charge de Recherche Titulaire" CNRS (CNRS Associate Professor) in the Laboratory of Signals and Systems of Paris-Saclay University - CNRS, CentraleSupelec, Univ Paris Sud, France. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, a Visiting Professor at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, and a co-founder of the university spin-off
company WEST Aquila s.r.l., Italy. He serves as the Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, and as an Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS and IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and IEEE Communications Society. He is a recipient of several awards, and a frequent tutorial and invited speaker at IEEE conferences.

 

 

 

 

 

Engineering Role before and after the Space Shuttle

 Challenger Disaster

Speaker:              Suresh B. Kulkarni, Ph.D

Date:                      Monday, November 6, 2017

Time:                      5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Place:                     G102 Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

Abstract:  Dr. Kulkarni will share events of the night before and the day of the 1986 Challenger launch most likely not known publicly as well as the environment that existed in the organization pre-Challenger and how it changed after the incident. He will discuss the steps which were taken to assure flight safety and some of the ethical challenges faced by him and his team.

Speaker Bio:


Born in Hyderabad, India, he came the USA in 1967 to get a Ph.D in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Denver. After getting his degree in 1970, he returned to India, but could not find suitable employment. He returned to the USA and joined Thiokol Corporation (now Orbital-ATK) in Promontory, Utah in 1972 as an entry level junior engineer. He retired from there in 2003 as the Vice President of Systems Engineering over all of ATK’s strategic and tactical programs.

Appointed as the Vice President of Engineering in 1989 over 550 engineers to oversee the design, fabrication, testing and launch of the solid rocket motors, which propelled the shuttle into space, he had the ultimate authority to give the final “GO” for the ignition of the solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. His efforts helped launch 55 space shuttle flights without a failure over a period of nine years, from 1989 to 1997.

Among the many astronauts he has worked with during his professional career were John W. Young who walked on the moon and Robert Crippen, the Mission Commander and Pilot respectively of STS-1 (Orbiter Columbia), the first orbital flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program, as well as Dr. Story Musgrave who repaired the Hubble Telescope twice.

Some notable Shuttle missions that Suresh was involved in include: Magellan Spacecraft to Venus (May 1989); Galileo Spacecraft to Jupiter (October 1989); Hubble Space Telescope (April 1990); and the Shuttle-Mir (the Russian Space Station) docking (July 1995). In 1999, he served on President Bill Clinton’s Presidential Commission known as the Space Launch Broad Area Review (BAR) to investigate commercial flight failures and recommend corrective actions.

Suresh and his wife, Diane, reside in Perry City, Utah and have two married daughters and two grandchildren. He spends his time doing volunteer work in the local community as well as gardening. He has received accolades as the “Citizen of the Year” in 2009 from the mayor of Perry City, and “Trustee of the Year” in 2010 from the Utah Hospital and Health Systems Association.


Crowd Research: Labels, Workflows, and Crowd-Powered Systems

 

 

Speaker:               Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang

Date:                      November 13, 2017

Time:                     5:00 PM – 6:00 PM           

Place:                    G102, ESB

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

Abstract:

Amazon Mechanical Turk, one of the largest crowdsourcing marketplace, was launched to the public in 2005. Since then, researchers have developed a tremendous amount of work around this platform. In this talk, we will walk through three types of crowdsourcing projects via the lens of building future computer systems, including (i) labeling datasets and providing human feedback for computer systems, (ii) developing workflows for workers to accomplish complex tasks, and (iii) creating real-time interactive systems using human-in-the-loop architectures.

 

Speaker Bio:

Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang is a Yahoo Fellow PhD candidate at Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU.) His research focuses on real-time crowdsourcing and conversational agents, under the broader umbrella of fast-paced human-in-the-loop architectures. As a part of his PhD work with Prof. Jeffrey P. Bigham, Kenneth deployed Chorus (http://talkingtothecrowd.org/), a first chatbot that is powered by real-time crowdsourcing; he also developed the Visual Storytelling Dataset (VIST) as a summer intern at Microsoft Research in 2015. Prior to his PhD, Kenneth worked on natural language processing for many years during his studies at CMU and National Taiwan University, where he obtained a double degree in computer science and Chinese literature.


Life as a Project Manager in the Tech Industry: What does a Project Manager look for in an engineer when hiring?

 

Speaker:               Dale G. Dzielski

Date:                      November 27, 2017

Time:                     5:00 PM – 6:00 PM           

Place:                    G102, ESB

                                West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 

 

 

Abstract

The talk will present a look inside of the operations of a tech firm from the project manager's perspective.  He will address stages of a project from concept to completion.  He will focus on what makes one candidate more appealing than another when hiring to fill a position in a project.  He will also discuss what happens to the team when a project comes to completion.

 

Speaker Bio

Dale G. Dzielski is a results oriented Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Management Accountant (CMA) with 25+ years of extensive experience supporting complex, deadline-driven operations with IT professionals across various industries including Private, Federal and State Government sectors. His reputation to effectively communicate and build relationships with clients and customers at all levels of the organization has earned him a 99.7% satisfaction rating from customers. His industry experience as a project manager and program manager focused on developing and maintaining quality IT processes that reduce redundancy, improve accuracy and efficiency, and achieve organizational objectives. He is repeatedly recognized for successfully coaching, mentoring, and training of peers and subordinates.  He earned a BS in Business Administration with a double minor in Economics and Electronic Data Processing from Fairmont State and an MBA from Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. With over 20 years teaching in higher education, Mr. Dzielski is currently the Graduate Program Coordinator for the WVU Online Software Engineering Programs, leading the program of over 60 graduate students across 17 States into nationally ranked status as 10th in 2017 Online Graduate Computer & Information Technology Programs by US News & World Report.  He received the 2017 Lane Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Outstanding Advisor award. He was the program manager in 2014 for the Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) program and is now the Technology-to-Market Lead on the WVU DoE ARPA-E GENSETS Program Research Project; developing the next disruptive technology in the energy sector for military, residential, and commercial applications.