Nunan Research Day: Cyber, Wireless and Big Data

On April 6, the College of Engineering and Computer Science celebrated Nunan Research & Lecture Day. The day featured a record number of research posters being presented by graduate student candidates from each of the college’s four departments. “The significant increase in the number of posters, from about 30 in 2008 to 130 in 2015, clearly points to the extensive growth in our Ph.D. programs within the college and is a testimony to our outstanding faculty, the numbers of which have expanded by more than 30 new faculty hires in this time period,” says Mark Glauser, associate dean for Research and Graduate Programs.

Student Prabesh Rupakheti presents his poster to Chancellor Kent Syverud, right, and Interim Dean Mohan.

The theme of this year’s Nunan Day was “Cyber, Wireless and Big Data.” A number of faculty working in these research areas presented short talks about the importance and impact of this theme. This year, the college partnered with the Center for Advanced Technology in Computer Applications and Software Engineering (CASE) to present this event.

Additionally, the event featured a talk by H. Vincent Poor, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. His talk was entitled, “Fundamental Limits on Information Security and Privacy.”

Nunan Research Day was established in 2006 with a generous gift from the estate of alumnus James D. Nunan and his wife, Marge.

The college presented a number of best poster awards to graduate students. The winners are:

Overall Winner
Leading Edge Embedded Fan Airfoil Concept—New Powered High Lift Technology
Nhan Phan, fourth year Ph.D.
Advisor: Thong Dang
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
Computational Rheology of Surfactant Micelle and Micelle- Nanoparticle Solutions: A Molecular Dynamics Study
Abhinanden Sambasivam, Ph.D.
Subas Dhakal
Advisor: Radhakrishna Sureshkumar

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Sustainable and Innovative Design Methods for Geotextile Tube Dewatering
Mahmoud Khachan, Ph.D. Candidate
Shobha Bhatia and Zeru Kiffle
Advisor: Shobha Bhatia

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Guided-Wave Nanophotonic Devices based on Networked Plasmonic Waveguides
Ashish S Chanana, 2nd Year Masters
Matthew Davis, Amit Agrawal, Jay Kyoon Lee
Advisor: Jay Kyoon Lee

Secure Distributed Inference in the Presence of Eavesdroppers
Sid Nadendla, Sixth year Ph.D.
Advisor: Pramod K. Varshney

Define-Use Vulnerabilities in Android
Yousra Aafer, Fourth year Ph.D.
Xiao Zhang, Zhongwen Zhang, Nan Zhang
Advisor: Wenliang Du

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Design & Characterization of Low Friction Zwitterionic Hydrogel for use as Articular Cartilage Replacement
Allen Osaheni, 2nd year Ph.D.
Patrick T. Mather, Rebecca A. Bader
Advisor: Michelle M. Blum

Laser Ignition Studies of Methane and Biogas
Nathan Peters, 2nd year Ph.D.
Henry Morrow
Advisor: Benjamin Akih-Kumgeh

Practical Application Winner
Understanding and Mitigating Security Hazards in Android Applications Uninstallation
Xiao Zhang, 5th Year Ph.D.
Zhenshen Qiu, Kailiang Ying, Yousra Aafer
Advisor: Wenliang Du