Abstract: Introduce the graduate seminar series and welcome students.
Speaker Bio: Biography: Sarika Khushalani Solanki received B.E. and M.E. degrees from India in 1998 and 2000 respectively. She received Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University, USA in 2006. She is currently an Associate Professor in Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, since August 2009. Prior to that, she worked for Open Systems International Inc, Minneapolis, MN as a Senior Engineer for three years. She has served as reviewer in National Science Foundation and Department of Energy and is past president of IEEE Distribution Systems Analysis Subcommittee and IEEE Career Promotion and Workforce Development Subcommittee and is editor of Transactions in Smart Grid. She is a recipient of Honda Fellowship award and NSF Career Award. Her research interests are Smart Grid, Power Distribution System, computer applications in power system analysis and power system control.
Speaker: Roger U. Fujii
Date: Thursday, August 24, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: AER 120 and Zoom-https://wvu.zoom.us/j/9188836315.
Abstract:The seminar is about the basic principles and philosophy of how to certify critical systems development as codified in IEEE Std 1012, Standard for System, Software, and Hardware Verification and Validation. The standard is applied by many countries and developmental groups to certify the correctness and safety of critical systems such as NASA manned space flight systems, nuclear power plant instrumentation and control systems, life sustaining medical devices (radiation therapy), nuclear weapon software systems, rail transportation systems as well as by program management to control of large software development projects. The seminar will discuss how rigorous engineering and software principles are applied to produce the objective body of evidence whether the system/software is correct and safely implements all requirements.
Bio: Roger Fujii is an IEEE Fellow. He is President of Fujii Systems providing executive engineering services for the development of large systems. He certified the critical software for the United States strategic nuclear weapon systems (flight/navigation, targeting and trajectory logic, command and control, and communication systems) for Minuteman, Peacekeeper, and Ground/Sea-Launched Cruise Missile systems. The verification and validation methodology used for the nuclear systems is basis for the codification of VandV concepts in IEEE Std 1012. Fujii is a 30-year volunteer with IEEE. He currently is a candidate for IEEE President-Elect 2024. He served on the IEEE Board of Directors, Computer Society President, and IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities. He was Vice President (retired) of the Network Communications Division ($1.086B revenue) of Northrop Grumman
Speaker: Martin Dunlap
Date: August 28th, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Place: AER 135
Abstract: He will introduce the services and resources available through the WVU Libraries. These library resources may be critical to your graduate research.
Speaker Bio: He joined WVU in 1998 and has spent 10+ years working in the swamps of Florida as an environmental consultant. Since then he has worked in libraries first in Cleveland, Ohio and then here at WVU in various capacities. He recently got promoted to be the Engineering Librarian at WVU.
Speaker: WVU IT
Date: NA
Time: NA
Place: At your desk
Abstract: There is an online plagiarism tutorial at https://wvu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6W3rGjsAaEenYgd
Here are the steps:
View videos.
Take a self-test.
Repeat steps for each module.
Take the Plagiarism Avoidance Test.
How do you progress through this tutorial?
View videos or read material in a module. Take a self-test after reading and viewing materials in a module. This self-test is for practice and taking it will open the next module. Repeat steps for each module, five modules in all. After viewing / reading the material in each module and taking the self-tests, take the Plagiarism Avoidance Test.
Speaker: Dr. Kumar Vijay Mishra
Date: Monday, September 18, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: AER 135 and Zoom-https://wvu.zoom.us/j/9188836315
Abstract: : Recent interest in integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) has led to the design of novel signal processing techniques to recover information from an overlaid radar-communications signal. In this talk, we focus on the recent signal processing strategies and challenges associated with the development of sensing and communication systems that coexist with the vehicles and road infrastructure deployed in a given area. We consider a broad definition of coexistence, which covers joint communication and sensing, collaborative communication and sensing, and also interference. We consider an aspect of the coexistence paradigm where the two systems support each other beyond interference mitigation such as sensor-aided communications and communications-aided sensing. This opens up the avenue for the development of multivehicle sensor fusion strategies. We describe recent works that define topologies for combining radar and communication functionalities into the same equipment, drawing on the spectrum scarcity and possible gains from the reuse of resources. At higher frequencies, the complexity of the ISAC transceiver architectures requires the use of deep learning models for processing the received signals. In particular, we focus on the joint design of a waveform to mitigate interference, including communications-centric waveforms (OFDMA and 802.11ad), radar-centric waveforms (PMCW), or unified waveforms achieving optimal trade-offs between the two systems.
Bio: Kumar Vijay Mishra (S’08-M’15-SM’18) obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and M.S. in mathematics from The University of Iowa in 2015, and M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2012, while working on NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission Ground Validation (GPM-GV) weather radars. He received his B. Tech. summa cum laude (Gold Medal, Honors) in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (NITH), India in 2003. He is currently Senior Fellow at the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi; Technical Adviser to Singapore-based automotive radar start-up Hertzwell and Boston-based imaging radar startup Aura Intelligent Systems; and honorary Research Fellow at SnT - Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg. Previously, he had research appointments at Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bengaluru; IIHR - Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA; Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA; Qualcomm, San Jose; and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
Dr. Mishra is the Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society (2023-2024), IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) (2023-2024), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2023-2024), and IEEE Future Networks Initiative (2022). Dr. Mishra has received numerous best paper awards, fellowships, and other accolades. Dr. Mishra is Chair (2023-present) of the Synthetic Apertures Technical Working Group of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) and Vice-Chair (2021-present) of the IEEE Synthetic Aperture Standards Committee, which is the first SPS standards committee. He is the Vice Chair (2021-2023) and Chair-designate (2023-2026) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Commission C. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and he has been a lead/guest editor of several IEEE special issues. His research interests include radar systems, signal processing, remote sensing, and electromagnetics.
Speaker: Jeffery Dagle
Date: Monday, October 2, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Zoom-https://wvu.zoom.us/j/9188836315
Abstract: The interconnected North American power system that underpins our modern society has been recognized as the top engineering achievement of the 20th century. Access to affordable and reliable electricity enables many of the things that we take for granted today, and has enabled unparalleled economic growth and significantly enhanced our quality of life. And while this vast power system remains affordable and reliable now and into the foreseeable future, there nevertheless remains potential hazards that threaten the resilience of this critical infrastructure. This presentation will discuss prior blackouts and lessons learned gleaned by engineers, delve into resilience concepts, and summarize steps being undertaken to understand and enhance power system resilience in the future. In 2017 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released the report “Enhancing the Resilience of the Nation's Electricity System.” As a member of the study committee, Mr. Dagle will discuss the findings and recommendations from this report, focusing on the technology deployment opportunities associated with enhancing the resilience of the Nation’s power system. He will also discuss ongoing relevant research programs being conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Bio: Jeff Dagle has worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland Washington, operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), since 1989. During that time has had led numerous projects in the areas of transmission reliability and security. Recent project highlights include leading the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) and serving on the leadership team of the DOE Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, leading the multi-laboratory system operations and control technical area. In 2018 Mr. Dagle was named co-director of the Advanced Grid Institute, a joint institute with Washington State University Other career accomplishments include leading the data requests and management task for the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force investigation of the August 14, 2003 blackout, supporting the DOE Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration Division with on-site assessments in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, leading the team providing cyber security reviews for the DOE Smart Grid Investment Grants and Smart Grid Demonstration Protections associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and serving as a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) study group that was formed in 2010 to establish critical infrastructure resilience goals. In 2014 Mr. Dagle was invited to serve on a National Academies of Science and Engineering committee to provide recommendations for the analytical research foundations for the next generation electric grid. In 2016 he was invited to serve on another National Academy committee focused on enhancing the resilience of the Nation’s electric power transmission and distribution system. And in 2019 he was invited to serve on a third National Academy committee relating to electric grid modernization. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). He received the 2001 Tri-City Engineer of the Year award by the Washington Society of Professional Engineers, a Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award in 2007, and two R and D 100 Awards: in 2008 for the Grid Friendly™ Appliance Controller technology, and in 2018 for the Dynamic Contingency Analysis Tool. He holds several patents. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University in 1989 and 1994, respectively, and is a registered professional engineer in the State of Washington.
Speaker: Prashnna Gyawali
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: AER 120 or https://wvu.zoom.us/j/95076183013?pwd=dk01Y1dHRXlWQUg0RUQ5SDQ2Q2FnQT09
Abstract: Over the last decade, there has been phenomenal success in AI algorithms, driven mainly by supervised deep learning, across various domains, including computer vision and NLP. However, similar performance in health and medicine remains challenging due to current models’ ineptness to generalize across unseen data (e.g., new patient cohort). First, unlike other domains, it’s expensive to curate training datasets with well-annotated labels for the healthcare domain. Second, depending upon data modalities, different data attributes such as patient’s age, sex, race, and anatomical variations often confound with the predictive task, exhibiting disparities in performance across various patient subgroups. Furthermore, adopting AI models in a real-world clinical setting would require robust explanation and interpretation. In this talk, I will present work on these critical aspects of healthcare AI. First, I will present my work on learning unbiased deep learning models by disentangling (or separating) representations. Second, I will discuss the importance of interpretability in healthcare and the challenges current deep learning models face. I will then present my recent work to address some of the difficulties around interpretability. Finally, I will envision future opportunities such as foundation models and federated multimodal learning.
Bio: Prashnna K Gyawali is an Assistant Professor in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at West Virginia University. Previously, he was at the School of Medicine at Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar. He did his Ph.D. in Computing and Information Sciences from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). His research lies at the intersection of machine learning and healthcare. He is interested in developing robust and fair AI models for real-world problems in health and medicine – primarily to improve models’ generalizability to diverse patient groups. During his Ph.D., he interned at Google Health and Verisk Analytics. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed research articles, including at premier conferences such as ICLR, ICDM, MICCAI, and IPMI, and in impactful journals like Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering, and Computers in Biology and Medicine.
Speaker: Noel Schulz
Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Time: 4:00 PM
Place: AER 135 and by Zoom-https://wvu.zoom.us/j/9188836315
Abstract: Over the last six years, researchers from India and the US have worked together to advance concepts related to advanced distribution systems and microgrids including storage and renewable energy. Funded by the US Department of Energy and the India Department of Science and Technology, the project, U.S India CollAborative for Smart DiStribution System wIth STorage (UI-ASSIST), combined efforts from 31 organizations across the electric grid ecosystem including utilities, universities, national laboratories, consultants, and software companies. The project included activities from research and development to field demonstrations. This talk will provide highlights of the UI-ASSIST accomplishments for smart grid systems including models of advanced distribution systems, microgrids, storage and renewable energy resources; simulations that integrate controls, communications and cybersecurity aspects of the electric power grid; tools that provide planning and operational support for forecasting, reliability and resiliency; experiments for real-time evaluation in laboratory test beds; and implementations in field demonstrations. Additionally, insights into how these technological advances relate to workforce, existing policies and technical standards, and their impact on society will be discussed.
Bio: Noel Schulz (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. degrees in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 1988 and 1990 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, in 1995. She is currently the Edmund O. Schweitzer III Chair of power apparatus and systems with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA. Since February 2020, she has been the Chief Scientist with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA (PNNL), is in joint appointment as part of the PNNL/WSU Advanced Grid Institute (AGI). In July 2021, she became the Co-Director of AGI. She was active for more than 27 years in teaching, research and service with six U.S. universities. Her research interests include computer applications in power system planning and operations including AI techniques. She is active in the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) and was the IEEE PES President in 2012 and 2013. She was the recipient of the IEEE/PES Walter Fee Outstanding Young Power Engineer Award and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She is a Fellow of ASEE
Speaker: John Howard
Date: Monday, November 6, 2023
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Zoom-https://wvu.zoom.us/j/9188836315
Abstract: With the increasing use of automated face recognition (AFR) technologies, it is important to consider whether these systems not only perform accurately, but also equitability or without “bias”. Despite rising public, media, and scientific attention to this issue, the topic of bias in AFR is often misunderstood. This talk will explore how we currently assess performance differentials in AFR and how those definitions might have been impacted by our own human cognition on how face recognition should work. We’ll also discuss how current definitions of bias in AFR might not be suitable for predicting performance differentials in some operational concepts. Finally, we’ll show how, if we adjust our definition of what a “biased” AFR algorithm looks like, we may be able to create algorithms that operate in unintuitive but novels ways that ultimately optimize the performance of a human+algorithm teams undertaking identity tasks. This talk will be based on our lab’s recent publications in ICPR, TBIOM, BTAS, and PLoS
Bio: Dr. John Howard is a computer scientist specializing in biometrics research and the test and evaluation of artificial intelligence systems. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Southern Methodist University where his dissertation focused on understanding group-based performance variation in biometric recognition algorithms. He was advised by former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Dr. Delores Etter. Dr. Howard has served as the principal investigator on numerous research and development efforts across industry and government. He has published over two dozen scientific papers and his work appears regularly in print media outlets, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as in congressional testimony. He is currently the Chief Data Scientist at the Maryland Test Facility, a government funded research lab focused on AI application testing. He also serves as the editor of ISO-19795-10, an international standard on fairness in biometric systems, a research fellow at SMU’s ATandT Center, and a member of the IEEE Biometric Council Subcommittee on Societal Impact and Social Good. He also consults as an expert witness on various legal cases related to biometric information privacy laws in the U.S.