CEC Communications

Washington Post quotes Missy Cummings on Tesla's Autopilot

Rena Malai — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 17:11:55 +0000

Washington Post quotes Missy Cummings on Tesla's Autopilot Rena Malai Mon, 06/12/2023 - 13:11

In This Story

A Washington Post article titled '17 fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla's Autopilot' quotes Missy Cummings, director of ��AV's Autonomy and Robotics Center, on the troubling surge in Tesla crashes.

"Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,” she said in response to the figures analyzed by The Post.

One likely cause, she said, is the expanded rollout over the past year and a half of Full Self-Driving, which brings driver-assistance to city and residential streets.

“The fact that … anybody and everybody can have it. … Is it reasonable to expect that might be leading to increased accident rates? Sure, absolutely.”

She says in the article the number of fatalities compared to overall crashes was also a concern.

Read the full article here.

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In the Media

robotics and autonomous systems

Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center

CyberSlam 2023 introduces area high schoolers to cyber career opportunities

Rena Malai — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 19:44:26 +0000

CyberSlam 2023 introduces area high schoolers to cyber career opportunities Rena Malai Thu, 01/12/2023 - 14:44

Students at CyberSlam 2023 were surprised to get anonymous Air Drop alerts to their phones.

High school students fly drones during CyberSlam 2023. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Luckily it was part of a test set up by U.S. Secret Service members Michael Johns, Matt O’Neil, and Michal Condor to demonstrate that cyber-related hacks can happen anytime, anywhere. They also highlighted the illicit use of cryptocurrency.

“Hopefully, what you’ll get out of this is one, don’t accept any of those Air Drops you may have been seeing, and two, watch your social media,” said O’Neil, an expert in cyber-related crimes who leads Secret Service’s Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) and Cyber Intelligence Section (CIS).

The Secret Service members joined Homeland Security experts, high school teachers, ��AV faculty and more than 400 students from five counties and 22 high schools for the hands-on cybersecurity event held on Jan. 9.

Last year’s event was open to Loudoun County students, but with increased interest and participation, the Johnson Center at Mason’s Fairfax Campus was the ideal venue.

Students flew drones, tested their cybersecurity knowledge, and even blocked a theoretical cyber hack. They also got career advice, including guidance on keeping their social media feeds clean.

Professor and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement in the College of Engineering and Computing Liza Wilson Durant also spoke about the importance of cybersecurity.

“You’re here because of your interest in cybersecurity,” Durant said. “We hope that for the next several years, those skills you’ve been honing develop into a real expertise that’s going to have an impact on the quality of our lives and even the security of nations around the world.”

In Virginia alone there are more than 60,000 open cybersecurity jobs right now, a number Durant said will continue to grow in the coming years.

“Energy grids, autonomous vehicles, even your doorbell, your microwave, refrigerator, think about medical systems, [all of these] are things that have to be secure now and that are vulnerable,” says Durant. “This is a critical time for the work you’re going to be doing.”

Mason established a first-of-its-kind cyber security engineering department in Virginia in 2020. The College of Engineering and Computing will be a key part of Fuse at Mason Square (formerly Arlington Campus), which will house a mix of university R&D and related education programs, as well as corporate innovation labs, incubators, accelerators, and co-working facilities when it opens in 2025.

The event was put on with the assistance of members of Mason’s Systems Engineering and Operations Research department along with teachers from Briar Woods and Loudoun County high schools.

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A biofilm epic in the making

Rena Malai — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 14:09:34 +0000

A biofilm epic in the making Rena Malai Wed, 10/12/2022 - 10:09

There are a lot of ways to cut film, as many cinemas and directors can attest. But biofilms—which settle on numerous surfaces, including skin—can contain harmful bacteria and get in the way of healing wounds.

Mason researchers Jeffrey Moran, Rémi Veneziano, and Monique van Hoek, Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Assistant Professors Jeffrey Moran in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Rémi Veneziano in the Department of Bioengineering at George Mason have a shared interest in using nanotechnology for medical applications, as well as a shared history. Both worked as postdocs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it wasn’t until they started working at Mason that their paths crossed. Partnering up with Professor Monique van Hoek, a microbiologist in the School of Systems Biology at George Mason, they applied for and recently won the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) R21 Trailblazer award.

Through the award funds, the team will use their backgrounds and spend about three years developing a brand-new technology that dissolves harmful biofilms, without harsh removal methods.

“You can think of a biofilm as a ‘city for microbes.’ Biofilms are functional communities of microorganisms, such as bacteria, encased in a slime-like matrix,” says Moran. “Bacterial biofilms often grow on catheters, IVs, open wounds, burn injuries, and more, and they play a major role in many hospital infections. We’re going to develop a safe and effective method to remove topical biofilms that doesn’t get in the way of the body’s natural healing process.”

Some biofilms are relatively benign, and many folks have them on the surfaces of their teeth. But harmful biofilms can develop throughout the body for many reasons, like on the skin surface as a result of trauma, and cause potentially fatal infections.

Moran’s primary research focus is on “nanoswimmers"—tiny particles that propel themselves in liquids or biological media. Many researchers are developing them to use in the body, to deliver therapeutic payloads (like antibiotics) to hard-to-reach locations.

“One major challenge with bacterial biofilms is how to make them disassemble," says van Hoek. “There are three major parts to a biofilm—DNA, protein, and complex sugars. Destroying any one of these three things often leads to biofilm collapse. My idea was to use a sugar cleaving enzyme to attack the sugars in the biofilm, and to attach this enzyme to the front of the nanoswimmers so that they can drill deep into the biofilm.”

“What we’re trying to do is develop self-propelled particles that penetrate deep into the thick matrix of the biofilm, dissolving it and also serving as a carrier to deliver antibiotics at the same time,” says Veneziano.

To manufacture the self-propelled particles, the team is relying on Veneziano’s specialty: DNA origami, which is a method that involves precisely assembling DNA molecules into tiny two- and three-dimensional shapes.

“With DNA origami, you have the ability to produce tailor-made particles with phenomenal control over the size, shape, and the cargo they carry," says Veneziano. "DNA origami’s versatility will enable the particles to be decorated with various cargoes, such as antibiotics or enzymes that dissolve the biofilm matrix, leaving the bacteria vulnerable to conventional antibiotic treatments.”

Although using enzymes to dissolve the biofilms isn’t new, attaching them onto DNA origami nanoparticles is, which is the trailblazing path Veneziano, van Hoek and Moran will follow.

“It all started with a ‘what if we tried this?’ type of conversation. We bounced ideas off each other, talking about ways we might make DNA nanoparticles swim, and how that capability might be useful in certain medical situations. That back-and-forth eventually led to this award,” says Moran. “We’re excited to get started.”

The R21 Trailblazer Award is an opportunity for new and early-stage investigators to pursue research programs of high interest to the NIBIB at the interface of the life sciences with engineering and the physical sciences. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk/high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven.

In This Story

Remi Veneziano

Jeffrey Moran

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Mason hosts workshop for researchers addressing global warming from aircraft clouds

Tama Moni — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:13:49 +0000

Mason hosts workshop for researchers addressing global warming from aircraft clouds Tama Moni Fri, 09/23/2022 - 16:13

In This Story

Lance Sherry

John Shortle

More than 220 researchers from three continents participated in a virtual workshop hosted by ��AV and NASA Langley Research Center on Wednesday September 7, 2022.

The workshop was the first time that airlines, air traffic controllers, climate scientists, aircraft and jet engine engineers, and policymakers gathered to share the science and understand the practical operational constraints for contrail mitigation. ��AV was the natural host of the meeting given its previous work and its reputation in the field.

The workshop aimed to foster information exchange and discuss opportunities to address the global warming from clouds generated by aircraft. Lance Sherry, associate professor of system engineering, leads an inter-disciplinary team of researchers and students at George Mason who conduct pioneering research in this area.

“Contrails are the thin white clouds you see trailing behind aircraft,” explains Mason PhD student Amy Tal Rose. “Water and soot emitted from jet engines form ice crystals at high altitudes that lead to the formation of high clouds. These ice-clouds are like a blanket that traps ‘thermal radiation’ emitted by the Earth and leads to global heating.”

“The thing that surprised me most about the global heating effect of contrails,” says Brian Romero Lopez a system engineering student working on the research team, “is that contrails account for two percent of the total human made global heating. Green-house gases account for 98 percent of global warming, and contrails make up the remaining two percent. No one talks about this.”

“Mitigating the effects of contrails is considered a Wicked Problem,” explained co-host of the workshop, Chief Technologist for Future Airspace Operations at NASA Andy Lacher. “There are multiple stakeholders with complex interactions that require delicate tradeoffs. The science and practical operational constraints must be fully understood before any mitigation steps can be taken.”

“The time to act is now!” said Ulrich Schumann, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the German Aerospace Center at the workshop. A sentiment echoed by other participants in attendance.

“Wicked Problems are the bailiwick of System Engineering,” adds System Engineering Department Chair John Shortle. “The complex climate related opportunities cannot be solved by politicians or economists alone. It requires system engineers to fully understand the science and the needs of all the stakeholders involved. Sherry and the team have been applying the latest sophisticated System Engineering methods and techniques to these climate opportunities.”

Sherry and Lacher are optimistic that the workshop will be the first of a series of workshops that will lead to a roadmap of evidence-based activities to take this opportunity to contribute to reduce global warming.

“The time to act is now!” said Ulrich Schumann, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the German Aerospace Center at the workshop. A sentiment echoed by others who attended the conference.

For more information on System Engineering and climate adaptation research contact John Shortle, chair of the Systems Engineering & Operations Research Department.

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Developing a techno-ethical mindset

Rena Malai — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 14:35:12 +0000

Developing a techno-ethical mindset Rena Malai Wed, 08/24/2022 - 10:35

In This Story

Aditya Johri

Alexander Monea

Huzefa Rangwala

When it comes to technology, ethics can be complicated. With the rapid pace and evolution of digital technology, it can be tricky to understand how ethics plays a role, let alone stay on top of challenges, protocol, and procedures.

That’s why Ashish Hingle, PhD student and graduate researcher at George Mason, is helping students navigate the ethics terrain. Through an NSF grant titled Situated Algorithmic Thinking: Preparing the Future Computing Workforce for Ethical Decision-Making through Interactive Case Studies, Hingle will work alongside School of Computing’s Aditya Johri and Huzefa Rangwala, and Alexander Monea in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Their work will help technology-focused students think through ethical dilemmas, and provide the tools to imagine how ethics plays a role at school and work.

“To develop an ethical mindset, it is critical that students in IT, computing, and engineering learn to examine a problem, design, or a possible solution from different viewpoints and perspectives,” says Johri. “They should be able to take a morally sound and humanistic appraisal of the impact they have in the world through the technology they design, build, and deploy.”

Through role-play, case studies, and other activities Hingle hopes students will be engaged in technology ethics in a more creative and hands- on way.

“We want students to develop situational learning skills, and make the learning process more engaging, rather than encouraging the notion that technology ethics is closely associated with catastrophic or inequality driven events,” says Hingle. “Our job is to help students feel ready and to think of their own course of action to any ethical challenge they face with the technology they use or create.”

According to Hingle, sometimes the immediate solution is to solve ethical issues within technology, by applying more technology. This reliance on technology was a central theme of the Summer Institute of Technology Ethics at Santa Clara University, a research residency program where Hingle was selected as a research scholar. He says by giving students the tools to imagine their own course of action, it could be a more productive solution.

“We want ethics learning in technology to be more of an inclusive, fair, and transparent conversation, rather than students getting a history lesson of what went wrong in the past,” says Hingle. “Our students have been very receptive to exploring what technology ethics looks like in 2022, and are especially engaged when they realize how ubiquitous and pervasive technology can be. We want to continue to find ways to make technology ethics more approachable and adaptable.”

He says while digital technology is a relatively new concept, technology ethics have been discussed for decades. In our current landscape, they are often an afterthought. But by starting students on the path to an ethical mindset as it applies to technology, it could help prevent issues before they start.

“I’m excited about the work we do,” says Hingle. “When it comes to technology ethics, it makes sense for people to be at the center of our choices, not the tech.”

This work is partly supported by U.S. NSF Award #1937950. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies.

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Gurdip Singh named Divisional Dean for the College of Engineering and Computing’s School of Computing

Martha Bushong — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 12:32:37 +0000

Gurdip Singh named Divisional Dean for the College of Engineering and Computing’s School of Computing Martha Bushong Wed, 07/27/2022 - 08:32

Gurdip Singh. Photo provided

We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Gurdip Singh as the divisional dean of the School of Computing and as a professor in the College of Engineering and Computing. The School of Computing, together with the Volgenau School of Engineering, comprise Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing.

Singh will officially join ��AV on August 1, 2022, but will then be assigned to the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) to complete his work there as Director, Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) in the Computer and Information Science Engineering (CISE) Directorate. He will join Mason full-time in January 2023.

As division director, he oversees 27 program officers, 12 administrative staff, and a budget of $240 million. Sanjeev Setia, who has been leading the School of Computing as interim divisional dean, will continue on as acting divisional dean until that time.

Singh earned his MS and PhD in computer science from SUNY, Stony Brook, in 1989 and 1991 respectively, and his B.Tech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 1986. Singh is an accomplished researcher and educator whose experience aligns well with our plans for the growth and development of academic and multidisciplinary research programs in our School of Computing, completion of the Fuse Building at Mason Square, broadening participation in the Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP), and advancing inclusive excellence throughout the school.

Prior to his work at NSF, Singh was associate dean for research and graduate programs of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University. He also served as a program director in the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the CISE Directorate at NSF from July 2014 to August 2016. From 2009 to 2014, he was the head of the Computer Science Department at Kansas State University, and graduate program director from 2006 to 2009. His service to engineering education includes a stint on the Board of Directors of the ASEE Engineering Research Council from 2018 to 2020.

Singh has served on numerous program committees, advisory boards, panels, workshops, and other engagements as invited speaker at both domestic and international venues. He is a strong advocate of multidisciplinary teaching and research and building academic-industry partnerships. He was instrumental in starting several multidisciplinary programs and academic-industry partnerships at NSF. He has also been involved in significant curriculum development, K-12 outreach, and diversity initiatives.

His research and teaching interests include real-time embedded systems, sensor networks, network protocols, and distributed computing. His research has been funded by NSF, ARO, National Institutes of Health, DARPA and several industrial organizations. He received the NSF Research Initiation Award in 1992 and the NSF CAREER Award in 1995.

Please join us in welcoming Professor Gurdip Singh to the College of Engineering and Computing and ��AV.

The role of Divisional Dean is a great opportunity to leverage the Mason computing landscape and regional ecosystem to position the School of Computing as a leader in innovative research and education programs.

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College of Engineering and Computing

School of Computing

Campus News

Remembering Andrew Loerch

Rena Malai — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 14:23:51 +0000

Remembering Andrew Loerch Rena Malai Tue, 06/21/2022 - 10:23

Andrew (Andy) Loerch, long-time faculty member and associate chair of the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, passed away June 16 after an unexpected and brief battle with cancer. Loerch had just retired on May 24, 2022 after 22 years of service to ��AV.

“Andy was an outstanding teacher, a trusted mentor to numerous students, a researcher who brought in millions of dollars in funding, and an esteemed leader in the Military Operations Society,” says Ariela Sofer, interim divisional dean for engineering at the Volgenau School of Engineering. “Above all, I am indebted to him for his fourteen years of dedication and support service as my associate chair. He always took on departmental obligations, whether they involved big-picture matters or minute details, whether they were carefully planned activities or urgent crises. I am eternally grateful for his dedication, hard work, sage advice, and sense of humor.” 

Loerch was a 26-year veteran of the United States Army and rose to the rank of Colonel. He earned his PhD from Cornell University and was a graduate of Naval Postgraduate School and Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Looking back at career highlights at Mason he once said, “Part of my job was the care and feeding of our military students. I advised every single one of them and many of them have gone on to be leaders in the defense analysis field.” In addition, he was proud of some of the department’s funded work, citing an important study on how the presence of women in military units impacts the units’ effectiveness.  

Among other duties, Loerch served as a faculty marshal at the college degree celebrations and university commencement. For the past eleven years, the College of Engineering and Computing depended on his leadership to organize and coordinate faculty volunteers, a job he once described as neither trivial nor simple. His detailed charts, notes, and guidance will be a permanent reminder of this service to the community.

Loerch played with the Northern Virginia Senior Softball league; was principal bassoonist of the Manassas Symphony Orchestra since 2000 as well as a board member; he enjoyed riding his bike with the Old Cranks Cycling Club out of Vint Hill, Va. as well as taking cycling trips throughout the country. He was the ultimate New York Yankees fan.

“I am personally thankful for Andy’s invaluable support as associate chair,” says John Shortle, department chair of Systems Engineering and Operations Research. “He brought so much to the department. We will all miss his stories, sense of humor, and friendship.”

Burial will take place at Arlington National Cemetery at a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to the Manassas Symphony Orchestra.

A celebration of life viewing was held on Saturday, June 18, 2022. Link to the service information: https://www.piercefh.com/obituaries/Andrew-Loerch/#!/Obituary

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Systems Engineering and Operations Research

Systems Engineering and Operations Research Faculty

College of Engineering and Computing names senior director of advancement

Tama Moni — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 13:38:50 +0000

College of Engineering and Computing names senior director of advancement Tama Moni Fri, 06/10/2022 - 09:38

Bonnie Crews

Bonnie Crews joins ��AV as the Senior Director of Advancement for the College of Engineering and Computing. Crews has more than 20 years of experience in advancement. Most recently, she was the Sr. Director of Development at the University of Dayton. At Dayton she covered the Northeast region for major gifts and was the Advancement liaison for the dean of the School of Business Administration.

Crews earned her bachelor’s degree from The College of William and Mary majoring in government and completed certification in leadership development at the University of Dayton. Prior to Dayton, she was at Fairfield University as the director of a parent program. She developed the young alumni program, created the Parents Leadership Council, and worked with alumni reunion committees. She was the director of development for the libraries at the University Houston and launched a capital campaign to expand and renovate the main research library on the campus. Her first position in higher education advancement was in annual giving at American University in Washington, D.C.

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New Hires

CEC - Advancement

Leadership

SEOR seniors create conditioned-based maintenance system for U.S. Navy

Tama Moni — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 19:30:19 +0000

SEOR seniors create conditioned-based maintenance system for U.S. Navy Tama Moni Fri, 06/03/2022 - 15:30

The System Engineering Capstone team and Mason President Gregory Washington display a $2,000 check at the GMU 2022 Accelerate Venture Capital Competition October 18, 2021. The team developed a digital twin of a jet engine used to reduce maintenance costs and increase fleet availability.

Movies like Top Gun never quite reveal a look behind the scenes at the Navy's scheduled maintenance methods for jet engine parts. Nevertheless, an enterprising team of System Engineering students decided it might be worth investigating to see if they could uncover how to decrease costs and improve efficiencies. Their project was sponsored by System Engineering Professor K.C. Chang as part of a research contract with the U.S. Navy.

Traditional scheduled maintenance methods require jet engine parts to be replaced on a pre-defined schedule. To ensure safety, many parts are replaced early, resulting in unnecessary maintenance costs and fleet downtime. New advances in technology have enabled manufacturers to add sensors to jet engines. With the sensors in place, the jet engine parts can be carefully monitored and replaced only when necessary.

”The concept is simple,” says Reed Lawrence (SE, BS ’22), “but the implementation of a condition-based maintenance system is really complicated.”

“First we had to build a digital-twin of the jet engine,” explained Wyatt Mingus (SE, BS ’22). “The digital-twin is a simulation of the real system that can be used to predict the degradation of component performance in the simulation before it occurs in the actual jet engine.”

It works like this. Sensor data from the jet engine operating in the field is fed to the simulation. The simulation predicts performance of each part forward in time. When the part’s performance degrades beyond a threshold, the part must be replaced.

“We tested the digital-twin using a NASA simulation of jet engines,” says Abdulrahman Albawardi (SE, BS ’22).

“For a planning horizon of seven days, a fleet size of five aircraft, and 10 maintenance technicians, we estimated a reduction in maintenance costs of 45 percent and an increase in fleet availability of 17 percent,” says Lawrence.

Chang says, “This was a very complex project. The students had to deal with massive amounts of data and a sophisticated digital-twin simulation. Their discipline and attention to detail was critical to success.”

“When we started, all we had was lines and lines of code,” says Lawrence. “Professor Chang was so supportive he gave us the freedom and the time to explore the problem thoroughly and come up with our own solution. We’re hoping that our project lives on in the department and eventually can be used in industry or elsewhere.”

“The student’s perseverance and creativity was remarkable,” says System Engineering Capstone course instructor Associate Professor Lance Sherry. “The team had to overcome some challenging technical problems to achieve a workable system. The System Engineering process was vital in providing a structure to separate the issues and tackle them in a logical order.”

The project won several awards. The team took second place in the 2022 Accelerate Venture Capital Competition in October 2021. They also won first place in the Military and Government Track at the Fifth Annual Andrew P. Sage System Design Conference in April 2022.

“The quality of the students’ simulation and understanding of the value of a digital twin for a jet engine is impressive,” says Michael J. Szostak, vice president, Aviation Programs at SAIC. “Sustainment costs for military aircraft engines can be very high and Condition-Based Maintenance is the future to bringing those costs down. High-end modeling and simulation--like what is being done at GMU--is key to those cost savings.”

To learn more about system engineering, digital twin, robotics, and data analytics, or to donate or sponsor a research project, contact System Engineering Department Chair John Shortle at jshortle@gmu.edu.

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systems engineering

Senior Capstone Project

How System Engineering students plan to disrupt air travel with a blimp

Tama Moni — Wed, 18 May 2022 17:42:07 +0000

How System Engineering students plan to disrupt air travel with a blimp Tama Moni Wed, 05/18/2022 - 13:42

In This Story

John Shortle

The air transportation industry is entering a period of disruptive innovation. New composite materials, powerful lighter-weight batteries, and AI are enabling new classes of air vehicle designs.

Hybrid Air Vehicles (Bedford, England) and Mason Systems Engineering students are leading the charge.

“Hybrid Air Vehicles have developed a next-generation blimp using the latest technology,” explains Habiba Salada Systems Engineering major. “The helium in the blimp creates buoyancy that provides the lift force for the aircraft. The use of helium, an inert gas, eliminates the risk of fire such as what happened with the Hindenburg which used hydrogen.”

Hybrid Air Vehicles sponsored a Systems Engineering Capstone team to develop a tool to assess the best seat and payload configuration for their vehicle for routes in the U.S. market.

“The tool models passenger demand and the prices passengers are willing to pay on a specific route, and then compares the revenue to the cost,” says Adam Abu-Jamous Systems Engineering Capstone team lead. “The profit for each route can be estimated for different levels of passenger demand and different vehicle seat and payload configurations.”

The revenue-cost model used by the student team was originally developed by PhD students and faculty in the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR) at ��AV.

“The Hybrid Air Vehicle is best suited to short trips of less than 250 miles such as Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or New York City,” says System Engineering student Yoseph Attai. “The vehicles do not need an airport. For example, it can lift off and land from water such as National Harbor here in D.C. This eliminates the hassle of an airport. It is much quieter than a jet, and does not emit CO₂.”

System Engineering student Basma Elqadri designed and tested the tool user interface. “The revenue-cost model is quite complicated, so we had to get really creative with the visualization for the user interface. We designed and conducted usability testing on several alternatives before we got it right.”

“Most people take the user interfaces for granted,” says Habiba Salada. “We learned the hard way just how difficult and complicated human-machine interaction can be.”

“We are thrilled with the results of the project,” says Walt Kreitler, Hybrid Air Vehicles representative in the U.S. “Hybrid Air Vehicles have taken delivery of the tool the students developed and plan to use it in design and for business development.”

This System Engineering Capstone team won first place in – the Decision Analysis Track at the 2022 General Donald R. Keith Memorial Capstone Conference held in person at the United States Military Academy on April 28, 2022 “It was a great honor to compete at the conference against some of the best Systems Engineering programs in the country,” says Adam Abu-Jamous. “I would like to thank the SE Department faculty for their support and encouragement over the years.”

“Clearly, the System Engineering students graduating from the ��AV program are well prepared to be an asset to the workforce,” says Systems Engineering and Operations Research Department Chair John Shortle. To learn more about System Engineering, robotics, and data analytics contact Systems Engineering Department Chair John Shortle (jshortle@gmu.edu).

System Engineering Capstone student Adam Abu-Jamous and System Engineering Department Chair John Shortle.

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systems engineering

Senior Capstone Project

user interface

air travel

CEC Communications

Washington Post quotes Missy Cummings on Tesla's Autopilot

In This Story

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CyberSlam 2023 introduces area high schoolers to cyber career opportunities

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A biofilm epic in the making

In This Story

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Mechanical Engineering at Mason

Bioengineering at Mason

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Mason hosts workshop for researchers addressing global warming from aircraft clouds

In This Story

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Developing a techno-ethical mindset

In This Story

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Gurdip Singh named Divisional Dean for the College of Engineering and Computing’s School of Computing

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Remembering Andrew Loerch

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College of Engineering and Computing names senior director of advancement

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SEOR seniors create conditioned-based maintenance system for U.S. Navy

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How System Engineering students plan to disrupt air travel with a blimp

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