Teresa M. Donnellan

Student team wins first place, $60k from cyber warfare challenge

Teresa Donnellan — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:44:34 +0000

Student team wins first place, $60k from cyber warfare challenge Teresa Donnellan Fri, 11/01/2024 - 11:44

A student team from a research group in ��AV's Center for Secure Information Systems, led by Professor Kun Sun, won first place in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) Cyber Resiliency and Measurement Challenge. The students were selected to compete in person from October 22–23 at the University of Mary Washington’s Dahlgren Campus.

The team consisted of two undergraduates, Sam Best and Noah Korzak, majoring in computer science and cyber security engineering, respectively, and doctoral student Tommy Chin.

Samuel Best, Noah Korzak, and Tommy Chin at the NSWCDD Cyber Resilience and Measurement Challenge

“I thought the competition was a great opportunity to learn from,” said Best, adding, “Although the prize is a great plus, the skills I learned are far more valuable to my career.”

Sun reflected on the experience: "Over the past two months, it has been a valuable opportunity for our students to apply their knowledge from the classroom to tackle real-world cyber warfare challenges.”

“Eleven teams from colleges and universities across the nation competed in the challenge, aiming to address real-world cybersecurity problems faced by the Navy while gaining valuable knowledge and skills essential for tackling complex cyber threats in the future,” wrote Morgan Tabor of NSWCDD Corporate Communications.

“One of NSWCDD’s priorities is to develop innovative solutions that strengthen our nation’s cyber defenses and enhance system resiliency against cyber threats. By participating in this challenge, teams are helping us explore new ways to measure and improve tools that assess and improve cyber defensive capabilities,” said another NSWCDD representative.

Learn more about the Center for Secure Information Systems

Learn about Cyber Security at ��AV

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Kun Sun

Topics

Cybersecurity

cyber defense

Department of Cyber Security Engineering

computer science

Students

Military 5G gets a security boost with anti-jamming research

Teresa Donnellan — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:01:12 +0000

Military 5G gets a security boost with anti-jamming research Teresa Donnellan Mon, 10/21/2024 - 15:01

As communication networks evolve, they present both opportunities and security challenges to military technicians. Over the past year, Assistant Professor Moinul Hossain from ��AV’s Department of Cyber Security Engineering has contributed to a research initiative aimed at ensuring the safety and integrity of 5G networks used by the United States military. Sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and led by the University of Maryland (UMD), the project focused on safeguarding military communications against potential threats such as jamming attacks.

Hossain’s colleagues will present their work, a research paper titled “Phantom Guard: An MDP-Based Anti-Jamming Defense Strategy for Military 5G Networks,” at the end of this month at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Military Communications Conference (MILCOM). As Hossain will be on leave during the conference, George Mason doctoral student Mahmudul Hassan Ashik, who contributed to the project, will join ARL’s Jeffrey Twigg and Fikadu Dagefu and UMD colleagues for the presentation.

Moinul Hossain. Photo provided

"As 5G technology becomes a cornerstone of global communications, safeguarding its security within military applications is crucial,” said Ashik, who is working on a PhD in cyber security engineering. “Our research tackles these complex challenges of protecting sensitive data transmitted over 5G networks in high-risk, adversarial environments."

While commercial 5G is already widely used for communication between devices, the military’s adoption of this technology necessitates additional measures to safeguard sensitive data and ensure secure communication, even in contested environments. Hossain’s project, which began in May 2023 and concluded in August 2024, centered on addressing this critical security concern.

"5G is a major pillar of national security, alongside emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing,” Hossain explained. “Its high throughput and low latency make it ideal for various applications, including the military. However, military use of 5G requires certain modifications to meet security standards, particularly to defend against adversarial threats like jamming."

Jamming occurs when an adversary sends a disruptive signal to interfere with communication channels, making it difficult for a receiver to decode the intended message. While this threat is not normally a concern for commercial 5G users, it is a major risk in military settings, where communication must be maintained even in hostile environments.

The research team focused on developing anti-jamming strategies to ensure military communications networks could withstand such attacks. Hossain likened this issue to bad actors compromising a secure office building (say, a headquarters) by infiltrating a less-protected satellite office. In military applications, particularly those involving unmanned vehicles or robots, compromising such resource-constrained devices could result in the loss of critical information at headquarters or even control over sensitive devices.

As the military continues to integrate emerging technologies like 5G into its operations, safeguarding these networks from adversarial threats becomes increasingly important. The collaboration between George Mason, UMD, and ARL demonstrates the critical role academic research plays in fortifying national security.

At MILCOM, the team’s work will be shared with a wider audience of defense and communication experts, contributing to the ongoing efforts to secure military networks in a connected world.

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Moinul Hossain

Join the Mason Nation

Topics

Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Department of Cyber Security Engineering faculty

5G/6G Wireless Communications

PhD student knows how to (neural) network

Teresa Donnellan — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:54:28 +0000

PhD student knows how to (neural) network Teresa Donnellan Tue, 10/15/2024 - 14:54

Electrical and computer engineering PhD student Shay Snyder is not only “a very capable student,” as his ��AV advisor Maryam Parsa said, but he is also a tenacious networker. Passionate for his subject and tireless in his pursuit of research opportunities, Snyder joined George Mason's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and assisted in securing at least two years of funding for a project in Parsa’s lab.

Parsa’s research focuses on neuromorphic, or "brain-inspired," computing across various levels of the computing stack. The question is "how can neuroscience and biology help us redesign computers to be more capable, energy-efficient, and robust?" said Parsa, who is an assistant professor in ECE.

Although Snyder began his PhD in January 2023, he had been part of the Mason Nation for the prior year, working as an undergraduate research assistant for Parsa as he finished up a bachelor’s degree at East Tennessee State University.

Snyder was an effective networker even as a teenager. He attended a two-week summer camp at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a junior in high school and was eager to return.

Shay Snyder. Photo provided by Maryam Parsa.

“I found out that they have an internship program for high schoolers, so my entire senior year of high school, I emailed and emailed, saying like, ‘Hey, I like this about your work, and I want to work with you," Snyder said.

He recalled, “I sent so many emails, I got two e-mail accounts blocked because they thought I was spamming them, but luckily I heard back … so a week after I graduated from high school, I got to go to work at Oak Ridge for a summer, and that kind of started everything.”

He added, “It was a miracle.”

The internship was an eye-opening experience for Snyder. “Where I grew up in East Tennessee was much more remote," he said. "There are not a lot of technology jobs, and coming from my high school, I think over 50% of the kids were below the poverty line. So getting to see that was a whole new world for me, and I was determined that I wanted to continue doing work like they do at Oak Ridge.”

After that initial internship, Snyder continued reaching out to scientists he had met or learned about at Oak Ridge. He attended Lunch and Learn events for undergraduate students, at one of which he met Catherine Schuman, who introduced Snyder to the concept of neuromorphic computing.

“I was super inspired,” he said. He followed up with Schuman and was offered a yearlong position at Oak Ridge doing autonomous vehicle research for General Motors. He took his undergraduate classes part-time and worked remotely to leverage this opportunity.

Snyder first encountered Parsa when she gave a presentation at the International Conference on Neuromorphic Systems. She was then a post-doc also working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with Schuman. Snyder contacted her, and the two stayed in touch. After joining George Mason, Parsa hired Snyder remotely as an undergraduate research assistant while he finished his undergraduate degree. Meanwhile, Snyder also started a part-time internship at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.)

“[Snyder] was still an undergraduate, and he worked on an area that was completely different from his background,” said Parsa. “The project was on neuromorphic computing, but it involved learning multiple new areas including Bayesian learning and Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINN). He quickly learned the necessary background and developed Lava Bayesian Optimization that later merged with the Intel’s neuromorphic optimization framework, Lava-Optimization.”

The work has been published in multiple conference papers at the International Conference on Neuromorphic Computing Systems (ICONS), the Great Lakes Symposium on Very Large Scale Integration (GLSVLSI), and the International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), and Snyder’s contribution is publicly available in Intel’s open-source Lava framework.

Two years ago, after Parsa circulated a call for proposals from the Army Ground Vehicle Research Center with her lab, Snyder approached her with an idea involving hyperdimensional computing. She encouraged him to write a draft. The two refined the idea and submitted a white paper on the topic. They were then invited to submit a full proposal, which was accepted for funding. So, the same semester that Snyder joined Parsa’s lab as a PhD student, the lab also began to receive funding for a project based on Snyder’s idea.

Maryam Parsa and lab members. Photo provided by Maryam Parsa.

Since Spring 2023, Snyder has become a full PhD student at George Mason and remains an important part of Parsa’s lab. Snyder has taken lead on multiple projects, academic, industry and government collaborations, and published multiple papers. He has also been mentoring not only high school interns and undergraduate students in Parsa’s lab, but also other PhD students. Since Snyder joined Parsa’s lab, he has been the first author of five published conference papers in top artificial intelligence and neuromorphic venues and coauthor in one published journal paper and six published conference papers.

Parsa deeply appreciates having Snyder in her lab, not only for his technical and professional skills but also for the positive energy he brings to the team. She highlights how Snyder's can-do attitude, curiosity, and collaborative nature have been instrumental to the success of numerous projects. His peers frequently rely on him, valuing his contributions and leadership in driving projects forward. Parsa regards working with Snyder as a true pleasure, given the impact he has made inside and outside in the lab.

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In This Story

Maryam Parsa

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Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition

Teresa Donnellan — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:11:08 +0000

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition Teresa Donnellan Fri, 10/11/2024 - 13:11

In This Story

Liza Wilson Durant

Andre Marshall, PhD

On October 9, 2024, the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative’s Northern Virginia Node accelerator program (CCI+A) culminated in a final pitch competition in front of a panel of cybersecurity industry experts and entrepreneurs at Mason Square. Program participants, cybersecurity engineering academics from throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, spent the past few months bringing their ideas for businesses to life.

The program helped participants connect with mentors, identify funding and how to obtain it, investigate their target customer, further develop their minimum viable product and hone their elevator pitch. CCI Northern Virginia Node Director Liza Wilson Durant, who welcomed event attendees, encouraged participants to change their perspective from faculty member explaining the technical basis for their idea, to end user who is trying to understand the problem it will solve.

CCI+A 2024 participants and advisors. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Each of the eight 2024 faculty teams presented a pitch and received insights on the industry and investment landscapes from the esteemed judging panel. The panel included Jennifer Addie, chief operating officer of Mach37 Cyber Accelerator and VentureScope; Maria Swainson, a managing vice president at Gartner and a member of Citrine Angels, an investment group; Maurice Boissiere, chief customer officer at DataTribe; and, Alicia Lynch, chief information security officer at TD Synnex. Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason and venture partner with Paladin Capital Group moderated the panel.

Faculty team products included everything from hardware to protect a person’s identity to encryption software. CyberGuard AI, led by Old Dominion University’s Peter Foytick; PrivacyGuard, led by Old Dominion’s Rui Ning; CyberSeQurity, led by ��AV's Weiwen Jiang; EngineeRD Solutions, led by George Mason’s Brian Ngac; MedChai, led by William & Mary’s Ran Yang; Continuous and Lightweight Authentication for Wearable and Portable Systems (CLAWS), led by George Mason’s Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao; RADAR - Real-time Anomaly Detection with Edge AI Hardware, led by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jayasimha Atulasimhal; and, Machine Learning Operations Executed in an Encrypted Environment (MOXIE), led by Old Dominion scientists all presented pitches.

Robert Podswadt pitches MOXIE to a panel of cybersecurity industry expert. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Robert Podswadt, the development lead for MOXIE, made the winning pitch. His teammates include John Matter and Daniel Takabi. The panel praised Podswadt’s clarity, particularly his use of simple graphics to explain MOXIE, a proposed homomorphic computing encryption service.

“We’re leveraging our vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we’re leveraging our deep pool of cybersecurity talent here in Northern Virginia,” said Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact at ��AV Andre Marshall, who spoke at the event. He added that CCI was “a visionary initiative by the state of Virginia” whereby more than 40 academic units are working together to foster cybersecurity research and workforce development in Virginia.

Topics

Cybersecurity

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)

entrepreneurship

Campus News

Mason Square

CEC high impact stories

New scalable computing technique will make analyzing Big Data easier

Teresa Donnellan — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 20:23:22 +0000

New scalable computing technique will make analyzing Big Data easier Teresa Donnellan Tue, 09/17/2024 - 16:23

In This Story

Lily Wang

With the advancement of data collection techniques, there has been an exponential increase in the availability and complexity of datasets, particularly spatiotemporal data; finding the computing power to analyze such Big Data, however, has remained a challenge for many researchers in various fields. Through a collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation, ��AV statistics professor Lily Wang hopes to change that.

Professor Lily Wang, Department of Statistics, College of Engineering and Computing. Photo by Creative Services

Wang and the Chair of the Department of Statistics at The George Washington University, Huixia Judy Wang, are developing a form of scalable, distributed computing that could lessen the power demand on any single computer by distributing the analysis across a network of computers.

“In the past, we knew there were insights hidden in the data, but due to computing limitations, we couldn’t access them,” said Lily Wang. “Now, with scalable quantile learning techniques, we can gain a deeper understanding of the entire data distribution and extract insights into variability, outliers, and tail behavior, which are critical for more informed decision-making.”

Spatial and temporal data are increasingly being used in such research areas as climate study and health care, among others, noted Lily Wang.

“This data richness presents a lot of opportunities for getting deep insights into dynamic patterns over time and space; but it also brings many, many challenges,” said Wang. Large datasets often exhibit heterogeneous and dynamic patterns, requiring new approaches to capture meaningful relationships.

This project uses two large datasets: the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network database from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the outdoor air quality data repository from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Both datasets have been challenging to analyze in the past due to their size and complexity,” explained Wang. “But through scalable and distributed learning techniques, we’re now able to handle large-scale heterogeneous data across the entire United States.”

One of the project's major innovations is the use of distributed computing to divide the data into smaller, manageable regions. Each region is analyzed separately, and the results are efficiently aggregated to form a comprehensive understanding of the entire dataset.

“You can think of it like dividing the U.S. into small regions, analyzing each one separately, and then combining the results to create a comprehensive national analysis,” Wang said. “This method allows us to analyze millions of data points simultaneously without the need for supercomputers.”

Beyond its goals for technical advancements, the project also emphasizes training the next generation of data scientists. Graduate students at George Mason and The George Washington will gain hands-on experience working with real-world data, helping to develop new computational methods.

The project began on September 1, 2024, and is expected to last three years. It has already garnered attention, including recognition from the office of Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA).

The potential applications of this research are far-reaching, from improving air quality predictions to understanding public health trends and beyond. Wang explained, "This work empowers researchers and policymakers to leverage vast amounts of data to address rising societal issues more effectively.”

Topics

Department of Statistics

Statistics Faculty

Computational statistics

Big Data

big data analytics

Research Interests: Nonstationary Time Series Analysis; Spectral Analysis; Nonparametric Statistics; Big Data; Bayesian Data Analysis; Applications in Medicine

Research

Information technology students stepped up to secure Virginia’s elections

Teresa Donnellan — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:19:47 +0000

Information technology students stepped up to secure Virginia’s elections Teresa Donnellan Wed, 08/28/2024 - 10:19

Secure elections are the cornerstone of democracy, and the Virginia Cyber Navigator Internship Program (VA-CNIP) has equipped students with the skills to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of election infrastructures. As an intern last summer, information technology (IT) major Duong Thuy Nguyen helped secure a rural county's technology for the upcoming presidential election alongside two other George Mason students, Maha Khan and Sophie Bates.

Sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and run by the University of Virginia (UVA) and five other Virginia universities including George Mason, VA-CNIP was developed to address the need for improved election security in localities that may not have the resources to implement necessary cybersecurity measures.

Nguyen, who is pursuing a dual concentration in database technology and programming and cyber security, traveled to Campbell County for a few days each week over the summer to support the county’s dedicated and hard-working IT staff in complying with the Locality Election Security Standards (LESS) required by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The LESS requirements are designed to ensure that all localities, regardless of size, have baseline cybersecurity measures in place, with further goals to achieve "preferred" or "premium" levels of security. The program thus not only prepared students for future careers but also left a lasting impact on the local governments they serve.

From left to right, Albanese, Hicks, and Nguyen with two other VA-CNIP interns. Photo provided.

George Mason Associate Professor Max Albanese helped lead VA-CNIP, designing a course in election security that was a prerequisite for all interns. In addition to the course, a two-day boot camp at UVA provided interns with training, including hands-on activities and talks from high profile industry experts and election officials. This year United States Election Assistance Commissioner Thomas Hicks spoke at the boot camp.

“Especially this year, the focus was on trying to send interns to localities that were in most need of upgrading their security posture,” said Albanese, “and that means the more rural or less technologically advanced counties.”

Each week, students worked remotely for part of their assignments but also traveled to their assigned localities for on-site work. Due to the often-rural nature of the counties involved, VA-CNIP provided a $3,000 travel allowance to each intern in addition to their $9,000 stipend. This allowed students to travel long distances and, when necessary, stay overnight in nearby towns to avoid lengthy commutes. The George Mason interns this year traveled about four hours one way to reach Campbell County.

Nguyen in Campbell County. Photo provided.

Nguyen noted how rewarding it was to work in-person with the local IT department. Her tasks included developing security policies, conducting research on cybersecurity tools, and even designing tabletop exercises to prepare local officials for possible cyber incidents on election day. Nguyen raved about her internship, which was her first. Even though she had to travel a lot, she said, she would not change her experience.

“They were all very welcoming, and they gave us all the support that we needed,” she said.

VA-CNIP exemplifies the power of academia, government, and students working together to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time—ensuring the security and integrity of democratic processes. While funding for VA-CNIP ends this year, there are ongoing discussions about sustaining the program going forward.

In This Story

Massimiliano Albanese

Explore career options at University Career Services

Topics

information technology

Information Sciences and Technology Department

information sciences and technology

CEC high impact stories

High schoolers explore renewable energy engineering at Mason Square summer camp

Teresa Donnellan — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 16:39:36 +0000

High schoolers explore renewable energy engineering at Mason Square summer camp Teresa Donnellan Mon, 08/26/2024 - 12:39

Fourteen local high school students from six school districts spent a week in August delving into renewable energy engineering at ��AV’s Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp, held at Mason Square. Liling Huang, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and Dominion Energy Faculty Fellow, led the camp sponsored by Amazon Web Services (AWS) from August 5 to 9.

Students learn about solar panels during the Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp. Photo courtesy of the Power Grid Lab.

Throughout the week, students engaged in activities designed to spark their interest in environmental stewardship and engineering excellence. The camp offered a mix of interactive sessions, hands-on labs, and group projects, all aimed at providing a foundational understanding of renewable energy engineering. Industry professionals from organizations such as Dominion Energy and the Solar Hands-On Instructional Network of Excellence (SHINE) contributed their expertise, giving students real-world insights into the energy sector.

The camp culminated in a two-part event on the final day. First, a panel of renewable energy professionals shared their experiences and advice with the campers. Panelists represented a broad spectrum of the industry, including AES Corporation, AWS, Dominion Energy, Hispanics in Energy, MPR Associates, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC), and SHINE.

Students work on model town during the Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp. Photo courtesy of the Power Grid Lab.

"You all are choosing a field that's very exciting, and there's really an opportunity for you to have huge impact, whether it's here or abroad," said George Mason’s Liza Wilson Durant, Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement, addressing the campers as she introduced the panelists.

The panelists discussed the future energy landscape, the integration of renewable resources with traditional power grids, and the various career paths available in the power and energy sector. They also highlighted the importance of continuous learning and flexibility.

SHINE Executive Director David Peterson summed up his advice with a lyric by the Avett Brothers: “Decide what to be, and go be it.” He emphasized the importance of committing to a path without being overly concerned with immediate decisions. Nicholas Lee-Romagnolo, program lead of workforce and economic development at AWS, agreed, explaining that careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders: There are many different paths upward.

Industry panel closing GMU Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp. Photo courtesy of the Power Grid Lab.

Lee-Romagnolo also advised the campers to pay attention to the culture of their environment throughout their academic and professional careers.

“It's very difficult to change the culture that you go into. Often you as an individual change and become more like that culture, so be aware of and thoughtful about those groups that you enter into,” he explained, adding, “None of us learns or works individually, and the team that you choose will matter every single time.”

Following the panel, the students presented their main project—a model town powered entirely by renewable, clean energy. The model featured working offshore wind turbines and small solar panels that powered a lamp and fans inside the town's model houses and data centers. The students took on various roles in planning the town, addressing engineering, financial, regulatory, and social challenges. The model town was designed as a coastal Virginia community, with considerations for local population dynamics and environmental sustainability.

The campers expressed pride in their work, noting how much they had learned during the week. When asked who was planning to study energy engineering in the future, twelve of the fourteen students raised their hands.

CEC Dean Ken Ball with staff and campers of Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp. Photo by Bonnie Crews.

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In This Story

Liling Huang

Liza Wilson Durant

Topics

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Early Identification Program, family support led Honors College freshman to engineering

Teresa Donnellan — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 17:39:47 +0000

Early Identification Program, family support led Honors College freshman to engineering Teresa Donnellan Tue, 08/20/2024 - 13:39

STEM has long been a field of interest for incoming ��AV freshman Dmitry Oleynik, in part due to his family background. His grandfather, an engineer from Russia, played a pivotal role in nurturing his interest in mathematics and engineering from a young age.

Dmitry Oleynik. Photo provided.

“My grandfather taught me, my mom, and most of my family… He would start off pretty early, especially with the multiplication tables. He would want me to nail those down,” Oleynik recalled. This early exposure to math, coupled with his success in high school math classes, has driven him to pursue engineering at George Mason.

Oleynik carried his grandfather’s zeal for early preparation into his participation in George Mason's Early Identification Program (EIP). Since the eighth grade, Oleynik has attended EIP events, developing a familiarity with the university. The program, designed to prepare students for the rigors of college, provided Oleynik with a head start in various subjects, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

“[EIP] prepared me for college pretty well, and that was part of the reason why I chose Mason,” said Oleynik, who is a member of the Honors College.

Oleynik’s EIP experience was not only about academics but also about building confidence with George Mason. Having spent summers at the Fairfax Campus, he feels a sense of comfort and connection to the university, which was a factor in his decision to stay close to home for college. His familiarity with the university's layout and resources, such as the Mason Innovation Exchange (the MIX) makerspace in Horizon Hall, adds to his excitement about starting his undergraduate experience.

While Oleynik is currently undecided about his major, he has an initial inclination toward mechanical engineering and has registered for related classes. The versatile nature of the field appeals to him, he said, as it could lead to opportunities in various industries, from automotive to robotics. He has a pragmatic approach to education, aiming for a degree that offers both personal interest and professional flexibility.

“I feel like mechanics are needed everywhere, so that’s a good degree for me to get,” he said.

Oleynik’s journey at George Mason is just beginning, but his foundation in STEM, nurtured by his family and the EIP, has set him on a promising path. He is well equipped to make the most of his time when he starts this fall.

Learn more about the EIP Program roadmap

Topics

mechanical engineering

Early Identification Program (EIP)

Honors College

Students

Space experiment could teach us how aerosols move in the atmosphere

Teresa Donnellan — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 19:45:22 +0000

Space experiment could teach us how aerosols move in the atmosphere Teresa Donnellan Mon, 08/05/2024 - 15:45

As a child, Jeffrey Moran was fascinated by outer space. Now, he is designing an experiment to be carried out on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025.

"I was obsessed with space as a kid,” said the mechanical engineering assistant professor. “The house I grew up in is still filled with drawings of Space Shuttles. Airplanes and spacecraft were a major reason I chose engineering when I got to college."

Jeffrey Moran. Photo by Office of University Branding

When the National Science Foundation issued a call for proposals to conduct research projects on the ISS to benefit life on earth, Moran jumped at the chance and wrote a proposal that was successfully funded. His grant-winning experiment will examine the extent to which aerosols (small particles suspended in air) move through air in response to a temperature difference (meaning the air on one side is hotter than on the other). This phenomenon—migration of particles in response to temperature gradients—is known as thermophoresis.

“It all started with a brainstorming session I had with a collaborator,” said Moran, describing the conversation he had with Purdue University colleague David Warsinger, who is a co-investigator on the NSF-funded project. “In contrast to most of my projects, which consider particles that move through liquids, we considered a simple question: what mechanisms could we use propel small particles through air?”

“My lab focuses on developing self-propelled particles for applications like water treatment or drug delivery," said Moran. "It’s a new and exciting field, but it’s so far been restricted entirely to water environments. No one has tried to develop a swimmer that moves in air. That ties into climate change, because aerosols are everywhere in the atmosphere—both because of human activity, like burning fossil fuels, and because of natural events like volcanic eruptions—and we don’t have a solid understanding of the net effect aerosols will have on the climate.”

Thermophoresis occurs in both liquids and gases, but it’s difficult to study in gases on earth because of the influence of gravity. Another challenge with studying particle migration in temperature gradients on earth is that the heated air tends to rise (for the same reason that hot air balloons rise), making it difficult to know exactly why the particles are moving. Doing the experiment in space allows scientists to run their tests with a minimal influence of gravity, to purely examine the effect of temperature on aerosols without creating air currents, which inevitably form when one tries to create a temperature difference in air because hot air tends to rise (which is the reason hot air balloons rise).

“We’re going to send various aerosol samples into space, each in a specially designed cuvette, for the astronauts to test,” Moran explained. “There’s a microscope on the ISS, and the astronauts will place our cuvettes into an apparatus we’ve designed that applies heat and cold to opposite walls of the cuvette. The astronauts will then use the microscope to determine how fast the particles move towards hot or towards cold. We expect that aerosols made from different materials will respond differently to the temperature gradient, but nobody knows how. That’s what’s exciting about this experiment – no one has made these types of measurements before.”

“For the last part of the project, we’re going to see whether some particles with asymmetric properties might generate the propulsive temperature difference on their own,” Moran continued. “These particles will have half of their surface coated in a metal. The other side is an insulating material,” Moran explained. “When we shine a light on them, the metal side efficiently absorbs the light and heats up relative to the insulating side. The hot hemisphere heats the air near it, and that creates a temperature difference in the surrounding air. This could help us understand whether odd-shaped aerosols in the atmosphere move on their own, without the need for a temperature difference.”

Before the experiment can be carried out, Moran and his team need to determine the experiment’s parameters as well as the materials required.

“This is very much a work in progress,” said Moran. “We're figuring out exactly which particles we want to send to the space station [based on] which materials matter the most to climate scientists [and] what the biggest question marks are.”

He mentioned, among other examples, the possibility of experimenting with carbon soot.

“Carbon soot is produced by burning fossil fuels, and it’s known to be harmful to the environment because it absorbs sunlight efficiently,” he said. “Another source of carbon soot, increasingly common in this era, is from rocket launches.”
“It’s pretty well established that carbon soot overall intensifies warming,” he said. “It's black, so it tends to absorb sunlight efficiently. This leads to a net warming effect on the atmosphere, but it's not clear how much it moves in thermophoresis (how much it moves in temperature differences).”

Moran looks forward to working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to refine the plan. An early step in this project will be for Moran and his team to travel to Texas to examine a replica of the equipment available to scientists on the International Space Station.

The College of Engineering and Computing will cover Moran’s progress as the project moves forward.

In This Story

Jeffrey Moran

Learn more about George Mason's College of Engineering and Computing

Topics

mechanical engineering

College of Engineering and Computing

Local high schoolers discover bioengineering at George Mason’s BioE Buzz Summer Camp

Teresa Donnellan — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:18:20 +0000

Local high schoolers discover bioengineering at George Mason’s BioE Buzz Summer Camp Teresa Donnellan Mon, 07/08/2024 - 11:18

A group of local rising high school juniors and seniors attended the BioE Buzz Summer Camp at ��AV in June. Organized by the Department of Bioengineering’s Internship Coordinator and Adjunct Professor Carolyn Wilson, the four-day camp introduced campers to the discipline’s applications in solving medical problems.

Research Assistant Professor David Lemonnier works with a student. Photo by Eduardo Macedo/Office of University Branding

Throughout the week, campers met graduate and undergraduate students and faculty, received tours of George Mason's state-of-the-art research facilities and the Fairfax Campus, and participated in lab activities led by faculty on such topics as molecular biology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, ultrasound technology, and community-engaged design.

Hands-on experiences allowed students to apply their knowledge and develop their interests in practical settings.

One activity, led by Associate Professor Remi Veneziano and doctoral student Dylan Scarton, introduced the campers to DNA origami through a lab that involved gel electrophoresis.

Doctoral student Zahra Taghizadeh led an activity about muscle movement. Photo by Eduardo Macedo/Office of University Branding

In addition, the students learned some basics about sterile technique and gained hands-on experience in cell culture during an activity led by doctoral student Bryce Dunn.

Another activity, led by postdoctoral researcher J. Jesus Hernandez-Perez, involved using computer simulation of neuromuscular junctions.

Shirin Movaghgharnezhad, an assistant research professor, led an activity where students could activate and record muscle movement on each other.

Doctoral student Erica King led an activity that involved using ultrasound and force plate technology to visualize muscles in the body.

Master's student Gavin Smiga leads virtual reality activity. Photo by Eduardo Macedo/Office of University Branding

Research Assistant Professor Samuel Acuna and Professor Siddhartha Sikdar led another activity in the Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions (CASBBI). In addition to introducing the students to methods that measure brain rhythms, the pair demonstrated and had the students interact with a former undergraduate team’s senior design project, a virtual reality system for physical therapy.

By participating in the BioE-Buzz Summer Camp at George Mason, campers not only improved their understanding of bioengineering and their familiarity with George Mason but also developed critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

An exceptional opportunity for high school juniors and seniors to immerse themselves in the world of bioengineering, the BioE Buzz Summer Camp is planned to recur in summer 2025.

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Department of Bioengineering

Teresa M. Donnellan

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