Here
is a list of news stories about VSE that have been posted at http://volgenau.gmu.edu/, or that have
appeared in other venues in the last week.
Beyond
Mason:
A
Virginia hacker catches the attention of federal law
enforcement[from
the Washington
Post:the U.S.
Government may be
recruiting Muneeb Akhter, who has an M.S. in Computer
Engineering from Mason;
an earlier story about Mr. Akhter appeared in my notices for
07/28/14]
The
Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence (CTFE) is currently
accepting
nominations for the 2015 George Mason University Teaching
Excellence Awards.
Teaching
Excellence Awards are open to all faculty members across the
institution with
at least 3 years of Mason teaching experience. Two of our Teaching
Excellence
Awards are specifically targeted around excellence in Teaching
with Technology
and teaching General Education courses.
The
deadline for nominations is Tuesday, October 14th. Please send 2-3
paragraphs
explaining why you believe your nominee should be considered for a
teaching
award to [log in to unmask].
For
additional information about the Teaching Excellence Awards and
the nomination
process, visit the CTFE website at http://ctfe.gmu.edu/.
Discipline
Based Education Research
Seminar (9/30, 11am)
Ioulia
Rytikova and Mihai Boicu of our Applied Information Technology
Department will
be presenting a seminar for the Discipline Based Education
Research group:
Personalized
learning in ALT
laboratories
Tues.,
Sept. 30, 11 AM Exploratory Hall 3301
Abstract
When
active learning is used in the classroom, typical lecture methods
of
instruction are replaced with a new approach where students work
collaboratively during class time and focus primarily on
understanding and
applying the material using cutting-edge classroom technology.
Innovative
Active Learning Technology (ALT) classrooms are specifically
designed to
support interactive, collaborative and a technology-enhanced
learning
environment. Taking a class in any ALT room helps students to
become active
participants in the learning process. It supports them in building
competencies
(problem-solving, critical thinking, communication) as well as
content
knowledge in a fun and creative environment.
Students
have an innovative learning experience by immersing in a synergic
integration
of various learning methods, including experiential learning,
personalized
learning, competency-based assessment, team-based learning, and
dynamic team
assignment, all guided by dynamic learning data analytics in a
partially
flipped classroom. This becomes a great opportunity for the
students to learn
academically challenging courses in a new, innovative way.
PROV
601: Planning Your Graduate School
Experience
PROV
601: “Thriving in Your Graduate Program: Fostering Graduate
Student Success” is
a 1 credit hour seminar for beginning (1st- and 2nd-year) doctoral
and Master’s
degree students that is offered during the spring semesters.It is paid for by the Office
of the Provost
and the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence.
PROV
601 has been designed for students to explore the opportunities
and challenges
of graduate school with an eye toward facilitating their success
as graduate
students at Mason and in their career. The seven seminar sessions
encourage
students to begin thinking about where they want to be after
completing their
degree program, and how to position themselves to get there by
improving the
visibility and impact of their research in scholarly and
professional
communities.
Admission
is competitive.The
application, as well
as further information, can be obtained at the URL below.
NSF
Forum (10/3):Undergraduate
STEM Education Program (IUSE)
The
NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) is collaborating
with the Virtual
Faculty Collaborative (VFC), a partnership between AAAS, Louisiana
State
University, and Higher Education Services, to discuss the newly
released
Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program.
The
IUSE Engineering Forum will be held on Friday, October 3, 2014
from 2:00-4:00pm
(Eastern Time).
This
webinar targets engineering faculty and staff considering
submitting proposals
to the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) program.During this session, NSF
Program Officers
will address items related to the IUSE program. The session will
also include
several opportunities for asking questions. A recorded version of
the webinar
will be posted at a later date.
Funding
Opportunity:DOD
Multidisciplinary University Research
Initiative (MURI)
On
September 22, the Department of Defense (DOD) released the broad
agency
announcement (BAA) for the fiscal year (FY) 2015 Multidisciplinary
University
Research Initiative (MURI) as part of the larger University
Research Initiative
(URI) aimed at institutions of higher education.
Through
the MURI program, DOD seeks to fund basic research bringing
together more than
one scientific discipline focused on enhancing fundamental
knowledge across fields
related to national security.DOD
seeks
to leverage its investment in basic research and notes that MURI
research will
have defense as well as commercial applications further
downstream.As in years
past, DOD funds MURI research
across a wide range of disciplines that vary by branch needs.This year’s topics include:
Army
Research Office (ARO)
Emulating
the Principles of Impulsive Biological Force Generation
Exploiting
nitrogen vacancy diamonds for manipulation of biological
transduction
Noncommutativity
in Interdependent Multimodal Data Analysis
Multi-scale
Response for Adaptive Chemical and Material Systems
New
Regimes in Quantum Optics
Fractional
Order Methods for Sharp Interface Flows
2-Dimensional
Organic Polymers
Network
Science of Teams
Air
Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Exploiting
Biological Electromechanics: Using Electromagnetic Energy to
Control Biological
Systems
Semantics
and Structures for Higher-level Quantum Programming Languages
Strong
Field Laser Matter Interactions at Mid-Infrared Wavelength
Office
of Naval Research (ONR)
Visual
Commonsense for Scene Understanding
Characterization
and Prediction of Remotely Sensed Mesoscale Aerosols in
Coastal and Maritime
Atmospheric
Boundary Layers for Electro-optical Propagation
Role
of the Host Microbiome on Behavior/Resilience in Response to
Stressors
Metalloid
Cluster Networks
Computational
and Experimental Methods towards Understanding the Chemistry
and Physics of
Materials
over 2000°C
Quantum
Optomechanics
DOD
encourages faculty to engage with program managers assigned to
each topic area
through the white paper process to assess the feasibility of
proposed
topics.
Due
Dates: Proposals are due by 4:00 PM (EST) on February 23, 2015.White papers are due November
24.
Total
Funding and Award Size:DOD
expects $145
million dollars to be made available, pending congressional
appropriations.Individual
awards will
range from $1 million to $2.5 million annually for up to five
years, but MURI
awards typically fall between $1.25 million and $1.5 million
annually.
Sam
Malek Receives Funding from Dept. of
Homeland Security
Sam
Malek of the Computer Science Department received $500K from the
Department of
Homeland Security for his project, “Tools for Automated Detection
and
Assessment of Security Vulnerabilities in Mobile Applications.”
Shanjiang
Zhu Receives Funding from
Virginia Tech and Virginia Ctr. for Transportation Innovation
& Research
Shanjiang
Zhu of the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil,
Environmental and
Infrastructure Engineering received $20K from Virginia Tech and
the Virginia
Center for Transportation Innovation and Research for his project,
“Transportation
System Impact of the Opening of Phase 1 of the Silver Line.”
Parag
Chitnis Receives Funding from U.S.
Dept. of Health & Human Services
Parag
Chitnis of the Bioengineering Department received $223K from the
U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services for his project, “An
All-Optical
Photoacoustic Imaging System for the Eye.”
Max
Albanese and Mihai Boicu Receive Funding from National
Collegiate Inventors and
Innovators Alliance
Max
Albanese and Mihai Boicu of the Applied Information Technology
Department
received $23K from National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators
Alliance for
their project, “Extra-Curricular Activities to support Educational
Programs in
Information Technology Entrepreneurship.”
--
===============================================================
Stephen G. Nash
Senior Associate Dean
Volgenau School of Engineering
George Mason University
Nguyen Engineering Building, Room 2500
Mailstop 5C8
Fairfax, VA 22030
[log in to unmask]
Phone: (703) 993-1505
Fax: (703) 993-1633
http://volgenau.gmu.edu/web/volgenau/senior-associate-dean