Northeastern University College of Engineering

The Quantum Age: From Bell Pairs to Quantum Computers
2022-12-08 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 168 SN, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Nobel Physics Colloquium 12.8 @4pm
Every year, the Physics Department celebrates the Nobel Prize in Physics by inviting a renowned expert in the field of the awardees to introduce the ideas and advances that lead to their nomination. This year, we are fortunate to host Prof. Vladan Vuletić, from MIT, and expert in quantum optics and emergent quantum technologies such as quantum computers.
Speaker: Prof. Vladan Vuletić, MIT
Title: The Quantum Age: From Bell Pairs to Quantum Computers
Abstract: Quantum mechanics has not one but two mysteries: the double-slit experiment and quantum correlations (entanglement) between two or more particles. Criticized by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, entanglement is now seen as an essential part of the physical world, in part thanks to the recipients of the 2022 Nobel Prize. The Bell inequalities, introduced in 1964 to experimentally distinguish local hidden variable theories from quantum physics, have been confirmed to agree with quantum mechanics in the Nobel-Prize winning and many other experiments.
Building on entangled Bell pairs, the last few years have seen a remarkable development in our ability to control many neutral atoms individually, and induce controlled interactions between them on demand. This progress ushers in a new era where one can create highly entangled states of many particles, break certain limits for quantum sensors, or study quantum phase transitions. I will present results on quantum sensing enhanced by entanglement, and on quantum simulation with atomic arrays containing more than 250 atoms. Finally, I will discuss prospects for near- and medium-term neutral-atom quantum computers with full quantum error correction.
Bio: Professor V. Vuletić earned the Physics Diploma with highest honors from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and in 1997, a Ph.D. in Physics (summa cum laude) from the same institution. While a postdoctoral researcher with the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, Professor Vuletić accepted a Lynen Fellowship at Stanford University in 1997. In 2000, he was appointed an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Stanford and in June 2003 accepted an Assistant Professorship in Physics at MIT. He was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2004. He was promoted to Full Professor in July 2011.
Research Interests include laser cooling and trapping, quantum physics, quantum entanglement, quantum optics, quantum information processing. The idea of the research of the Vuletić group is to develop new methods to manipulate many-body states in a regime where the quantum mechanical aspects dominate their behavior and their properties. On the one hand, this should lead to new tools that allow one to probe physical laws and to measure fundamental constants with increasing precision. On the other hand, the progress of experimental methods also drives the advances in our understanding of the ever mysterious, beautiful, accurate, yet deeply dissatisfying structure of quantum mechanics. This interplay between theoretical concepts and experimental realizations promises to be very fertile in fields such as quantum control, quantum feedback and its limits, many-particle quantum systems, and many-particle entanglement (quantum computing). We use various methods, but most include laser-cooled atoms (to be able to keep atoms localized, and attain long coherence time) and laser-light interaction to manipulate the atoms, the photons, or both, at the quantum level. Using internal states of atoms in combination with laser light, which has essentially zero entropy, allows us to reduce thermal noise without having to cool the atoms to very low (sub-microkelvin) temperatures.
Prof. Vuletić was awarded by Lester Wolfe Career Development Chair in 2003, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2003-2004, and APS Fellowship “for pioneering advances across AMO physics, including quantum information and precision measurement with atomic ensembles, cavity QED, atomic collisions and Casimir forces for atom condensates near surfaces” in 2012. He is one of the founders of QuEra Computing, a Boston-based company developing quantum computers based on neutral Rydberg atoms.
168 Snell Engineering Center or Zoom

Summer 1, 2023 Panama DOC: International Applications of Fluid Mechanics – Info Session
2022-12-08 18:00 - 19:00 | MA
If you are interested in learning fluid mechanics through relevant examples in an international setting in a Dialogue Of Civilization (DOC) program this summer in Panama, please join the Zoom Info Session on Thursday, December 8th at 6:00 pm. By participating in this program, you will gain an international perspective on the real-life applications of fluid mechanics, while learning about the culture and history of this burgeoning and diverse Latin America country. This program will take place in Summer 1, 2023 and will include travel to 3 relevant engineering projects (including the Panama Canal) in different locations in Panama. Two courses are offered under this program:

ME 3480 – International Applications of Fluid Mechanics (4SH; equivalent to ME 3475, ME degree core course requirement)
Studies fundamental principles in fluid mechanics in an international setting. Students have an opportunity to travel to a foreign locale to develop theoretical understanding while experiencing the issues that affect applications of fluids engineering in a culture and environment different from their own. Topics include hydrostatics (pressure distribution, forces on submerged surfaces, and buoyancy); Newton’s law of viscosity; dimensional analysis; integral forms of basic laws (conservation of mass, momentum, and energy); pipe flow analysis; differential formulation of basic laws including Navier-Stokes equations; and the concept of boundary layer and drag coefficient.

ME 4699 – Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering: Fluid Mechanics Engineering Analysis within the Socio-Cultural, Political and Economic History of Panama (4SH)
This course is designed for college undergraduate students who are interested in addressing and analyzing fluid mechanics related engineering problems and solutions in the context of the traditions, cultures, and socioeconomic and political history of Panama, seeking to obtain a solid grasp on the historical developments of the country and their effects on contemporary fluid mechanics engineering projects and issues.

The courses and program will be taught and run by Prof. Carlos Hidrovo Chavez.
Please visit the program website for more information.

Bin Sun's PhD Dissertation Defense
2022-12-09 11:00 - 13:00 | MA
“Factorization guided Lightweight Neural Networks for Visual Analysis”
Committee:
Prof. Yun Fu (Advisor)
Prof. Ming Shao
Prof. Lili Su
Abstract:
Deep learning has become popular in recent years primarily due to powerful computing devices such as GPUs. However, many applications such as face alignment, image classification, and gesture recognition need to be deployed to multimedia devices, smartphones, or embedded systems with limited resources. Thus, there is an urgent need for high-performance but memory-efficient deep learning models. For this, we design several lightweight deep learning models for different tasks with factorization strategies.
Specifically, we constructed a lightweight face alignment model by proposing a factorization-based deep convolution module named Depthwise Separable Block (DSB) and a light but practical module based on the spatial configuration of the faces. Experiments on four popular datasets verify that Block Mobilenet has better overall performance with less than 1MB storage size.
Besides the face analysis application, we also explored a general, lightweight deep learning module for image classification with low-rank pointwise residual (LRPR) convolution, called LRPRNet. Essentially, LRPR aims at using a low-rank approximation to factorize the pointwise convolution while keeping depthwise convolutions as the residual module to rectify the LRPR module. Moreover, our LRPR is quite general and can be directly applied to many existing network architectures.
Due to the success of the factorization strategy on image-based data, we extended factorization on time sequence data for Sign Language Recognition (SLR). We achieved the first rank in the challenge of SLR with the help of our proposed novel Separable Spatial-Temporal Convolution Network (SSTCN), which divides a 3D convolution on joint features into several stages , which help the SSTCN achieve higher accuracy with fewer parameters.
We also tried to factorize the features for single image super resolution (SISR). Factorization on features will reduce the feature size in order to reduce the computation costs. However, the reduction of the spatial size is counter-intuitive for the super resolution task. With our exploration, we demonstrated a network named Hybrid Pixel-Unshuffled Network (HPUN), which factorized the features to achieve the lightweight purpose while keeping high performance. Specifically, we utilized pixel-unshuffle operation to factorize the input features. After the factorization, we improved the performance by the grouped convolution, max-pooling, and self-residual. The experiments on popular benchmarks showed that the factorization strategy could achieve SOTA performance on SISR.

Alexey Tazin's PhD Dissertation Defense
2022-12-09 12:00 - 13:30 | MA
“Composition of UML Class Diagrams Using Category Theory and External Constraints”
Abstract:
In large software development projects there is always a need for refactoring and optimization of the design. Usually software designs are represented using UML diagrams (e.g class diagrams). A software engineering team may create multiple versions of class diagrams satisfying some external constraints. In some cases, subdiagrams of the developed diagrams can be selected and combined into one diagram. It is difficult to perform this task manually since manual process is very time consuming, is prone to human errors, and is not manageable for large projects. In this dissertation we present an algorithmic support for automating the generation of composed diagrams, where the composed diagram satisfies a given collection of external constraints and is optimal with respect to a given objective function. The composition of diagrams is based on the colimit operation from category theory. The developed approach was verified experimentally by generating random external constraints (expressed in SPARQL and OWL), generating random class diagrams using these external constraints, generating composed diagrams that satisfy these external constraints, and computing class diagram metrics for each composed diagram.
Committee:
Prof. Mieczyslaw Kokar (Advisor)
Prof. David Kaeli
Dr. Jeff Smith

Daniel Uvaydov's PhD Proposal Review
2022-12-15 09:00 - 11:00 | 432 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Real-Time Spectrum Sensing for Inference and Control”

Abstract:
Spectrum sensing can enable the next generation of wireless applications ranging from opportunistic spectrum access to cognitive radio networks. The key unaddressed challenges of spectrum sensing are that (i) it has to be performed with extremely low latency over varying bandwidths and must guarantee strict real-time processing constraints; (ii) its underlying algorithms need to be extremely accurate, and flexible enough to work with different wireless bands and protocols to find application in real-world settings. We address these challenges in multiple wireless applications by utilizing Deep Learning techniques as the main vehicle of spectrum sensing for both inference and control. By leveraging mechanisms such as data augmentation, channel attention, voting, and segmentation we are able to push beyond the capabilities of existing Deep Learning techniques and create generalizable spectrum sensing algorithms. Furthermore we deploy different spectrum sensing solutions in real testbeds for over the air evaluations and applicable proof-of-concepts.

Committee:

Prof. Tommaso Melodia (Advisor)
Prof. Francesco Restuccia
Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury

COE FacDev Friday: Award Compliance 101
2022-12-16 13:00 - 14:00 | MA

Ali Al Qaraghuli's PhD Proposal Review
2022-12-16 14:00 - 15:00 | 432 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Terahertz Communication for Space Systems”
Abstract:
With the ultimate vision of ubiquitous egalitarian worldwide coverage driven by the rapid proliferation of high-speed satellite networks, private companies are launching satellites into orbit at unprecedented rates. The main goal of such networks enabled by dense constellations in space is to build a more robust telecommunications infrastructure and provide worldwide internet access to users on Earth. Similarly, small satellites are included in the vision of non-terrestrial networks (NTN) for 6G networks which promise for more connectivity on Earth. The significant projected traffic in the orbital uplink, downlink, and crosslink communication will demand more spectrum to suit more users and satisfy the need for higher data rates. Similarly, the push towards using smaller satellites in the form of CubeSats will require the hardware to be more compact than ever. This introduces the terahertz band (0.1-10THz) as a candidate technology to satisfy both large bandwidth and device compactness requirements due to the smaller wavelength of terahertz signals. These two advantages, however, come at the cost of high propagation losses and impose the use of very high-gain directional antennas, leading to limitations in constellation network design. This proposal evaluates terahertz communication in space in contrast to competitor technologies such as microwaves and free-space optical communication, and establishes the feasibility of terahertz networks in space. Next, the areas of research and innovation required to realize terahertz space communication systems are identified and explored. Finally, advancements in those areas are presented, and the next steps are identified to transform terahertz space communication systems into reality.

Committee:
Prof. Josep Jornet (advisor)
Prof. Tommaso Melodia
Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury

Library Webinar: Python and Text Analysis for Absolute Beginners
2023-01-05 13:00 - 15:00 | MA
Pondering Python? Tantalized by text analysis? Wondering how Jupyter notebooks work? Read on!
In this hands-on session, attendees will learn some basic Python while working in Jupyter notebooks, an interactive web tool for running and writing about code. Next, we’ll use Python and Jupyter to run a simple text analysis on a custom dataset built with Constellate, a text mining platform for building and analyzing textual datasets from sources such as JSTOR, Portico, Chronicling America, and Reveal Digital. We will close by discussing opportunities to further expand attendees’ coding and text analysis skills after the session.
No prior experience with Python, JSTOR, or Jupyter is necessary, and no programming skills are needed or assumed for this session.
Register at the Northeastern University Library events calendar.
Please note:

This session will not be recorded. If you’re interested in learning the material but don’t plan to attend, please don’t register for the session as seats are limited. We welcome you to access and work through our workshop materials available via this link.

This event is co-sponsored by the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks (CSSH) and Research Data Services (Northeastern University Library). Please contact Jen Ferguson with any questions.

Summer 1, 2023 Panama DOC: International Applications of Fluid Mechanics – Info Session
2023-01-10 18:00 - 19:00 | MA
If you are interested in learning fluid mechanics through relevant examples in an international setting in a Dialogue Of Civilization (DOC) program this summer in Panama, please join the Zoom Info Session on Tuesday, January 10th at 6:00 pm. By participating in this program, you will gain an international perspective on the real-life applications of fluid mechanics, while learning about the culture and history of this burgeoning and diverse Latin America country. This program will take place in Summer 1, 2023 and will include travel to 3 relevant engineering projects (including the Panama Canal) in different locations in Panama. Two courses are offered under this program:

ME 3480 – International Applications of Fluid Mechanics (4SH; equivalent to ME 3475, ME degree core course requirement)
Studies fundamental principles in fluid mechanics in an international setting. Students have an opportunity to travel to a foreign locale to develop theoretical understanding while experiencing the issues that affect applications of fluids engineering in a culture and environment different from their own. Topics include hydrostatics (pressure distribution, forces on submerged surfaces, and buoyancy); Newton’s law of viscosity; dimensional analysis; integral forms of basic laws (conservation of mass, momentum, and energy); pipe flow analysis; differential formulation of basic laws including Navier-Stokes equations; and the concept of boundary layer and drag coefficient.

ME 4699 – Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering: Fluid Mechanics Engineering Analysis within the Socio-Cultural, Political and Economic History of Panama (4SH)
This course is designed for college undergraduate students who are interested in addressing and analyzing fluid mechanics related engineering problems and solutions in the context of the traditions, cultures, and socioeconomic and political history of Panama, seeking to obtain a solid grasp on the historical developments of the country and their effects on contemporary fluid mechanics engineering projects and issues.

The courses and program will be taught and run by Prof. Carlos Hidrovo Chavez.
Please visit the program website for more information.

Yukui Luo's PhD Proposal Review
2023-01-11 10:00 - 12:00 | MA
“Securing FPGA as a Shared Cloud-Computing Resource: Threats and Mitigations”
Abstract:
With the widespread adoption of cloud computing, the demand for programmable hardware acceleration devices, such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA), has increased. To further improve the performance of FPGA-enabled cloud computing, one promising technology is to virtualize the hardware resources of an FPGA device, which allows multiple users to share the same FPGA. This solution can provide on-demand instances at the FPGA resource and time levels, significantly improving the utilization and energy efficiency of the FPGA devices. However, due to the hardware reconfigurability of FPGA, current virtualization methods for multi-tenant GPU and TPU instances are incompatible with multi-tenant FPGA virtualization.We define the threat model for multi-tenant FPGA and discuss the security issues related to Confidentiality, Data Integrity, and Availability. Based on an analysis of potential attacks, we present our latest research results and propose two future research directions for mitigations: (1) a multi-tenant FPGA plug-to-play obfuscation module and (2) a hardware-software co-designed multi-tenant FPGA virtualization system, which includes a hypervisor and a smart multi-tenant FPGA platform.

Committee:

Prof. Xiaolin Xu (Advisor)
Prof. Yunsi Fei
Prof. Xue Lin

NSF TIP Presentation
2023-01-12 13:30 - 15:00 | ISEC Auditorium, 805 Columbus Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
You are invited to a special presentation by Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, Assistant Director of the newly-formed Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) within the U.S. National Science Foundation, focused on the TIP vision and upcoming opportunities with the new directorate. The presentation (with plenty of time for Q&A) is set to take place on Thursday, January 12th from 1.30-3PM at Northeastern’s Boston Campus, in the Auditorium of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (ISEC), 805 Columbus Ave.
Following the session, the community will have an opportunity to sign up for office hours with Dr. Becky Shearman, Program Director for TIP.
Visit tip2023.sites.northeastern.edu to RSVP for the presentation and sign up for the office hour slots.
****Please share this invitation broadly with other interested parties (this event is open to the entire Boston area) and encourage them to a) RSVP for the presentation and b) sign up for one of the office hour slots with our TIP visitors. Now that TIP is an official entity at NSF and has a direct budget, there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss specific programs or ideas with them directly.

COE Global Co-op Information Session
2023-01-12 17:30 - 18:30 | MA
Join the College of Engineering Global Co-op team in learning about global co-op opportunities for Summer II/ Fall 2023. Topics discussed will include:

Search techniques and global positions in your field
What to consider when interested in a global co-op
Information on logistics, including health and safety
Tips and resources for self-developing global positions
Student perspective from previous global co-op participants

Location: Shillman 305
Attendance to one of these sessions is required if you plan to do a global co-op in Summer II/ Fall 2023. Please reach out to Sally Conant, Global Co-op Coordinator, s.conant@northeastern.edu or Kristina Kutsukos, Global Co-op Coordinator, k.kutsukos@northeastern.edu for additional information.

COE FacDev Friday: Award Compliance 101
2023-01-13 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
Concur got you frustrated? Is that charge allowable? Attend the Compliance seminar hosted by the COE Post Award team to learn all about research compliance and your portfolio. Nothing says research without compliance!
RSVP

Alpha Kappa Psi Spring 2023 Rush
2023-01-14 - 2023-01-22 | MA
Open to all Majors! Come rush the oldest and largest co-ed professional business fraternity. Our next event is an Info Session and Resume Workshop on Monday, January 16th 8-10pm at 104 West Village G. Check out our Instagram @akpsi_neu for more details!

Leadership Development Workshop
2023-01-15 18:00 - 20:00 | 431 Stearns, 431 Stearns Center, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Earn The Gordon Undergraduate Leadership Development Workshop Certificate
This engineering leadership workshop is designed for Northeastern University undergraduate engineering students during their second co-op experience. Workshop sessions are hosted during the spring and summer semesters and are designed to be completed in parallel with co-op.
The program includes a series of engineering leadership development activities focused on expanding leadership skills, engaging in more meaningful interactions with their supervisors, and taking active roles in shaping their overall co-op experiences.
The primary objective of the workshop is to enhance the value of Northeastern’s world-renowned cooperative education (co-op) program for Northeastern undergraduate engineering students. The workshop offers a supplementary curriculum that makes engineering leadership advancement a focus of the co-op experience.
Register

COE Global Co-op Information Session!
2023-01-18 17:30 - 18:30 | 108 SN
Join the College of Engineering Global Co-op team in learning about global co-op opportunities for Summer II/ Fall 2023. Topics discussed will include:

Search techniques and global positions in your field
What to consider when interested in a global co-op
Information on logistics, including health and safety
Tips and resources for self-developing global positions
Student perspective from previous global co-op participants

Location: Snell Engineering 108
Attendance to one of these sessions is required if you plan to do a global co-op in Summer II/ Fall 2023. Please reach out to Sally Conant, Global Co-op Coordinator, s.conant@northeastern.edu or Kristina Kutsukos, Global Co-op Coordinator, k.kutsukos@northeastern.edu for additional information.

Engineering Leadership Professional Development Co-op Workshop
2023-01-18 18:00 - 20:00 | 431 Stearns, 431 Stearns Center, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Earn The Gordon Undergraduate Leadership Development Workshop Certificate
This engineering leadership workshop is designed for Northeastern University undergraduate engineering students during their second co-op experience. This workshop begins January 18th and is designed to be completed in parallel with your co-op.
The program includes a series of engineering leadership development activities focused on expanding leadership skills, engaging in more meaningful interactions with their supervisors, and taking active roles in shaping their overall co-op experiences.
This is a 0-credit hour class that includes two evening sessions, mentoring, and four self-directed modules. Workshop participants will significantly improve their co-op experience and maximize their professional development.
Upon completion, students give a final presentation and earn The Gordon Undergraduate Leadership Development Workshop Certificate. This certificate shows as an achievement student’s transcript.
Students may register for the workshop via the Northeastern Studenthub. To register for this workshop, students should select search for ENLR 3121, CRN 34906. This course is zero credit hours and is being offered for free. Space is limited, register now to reserve your seat.
If you have questions regarding the registration process, please contact Ben Rutledge, Recruitment Specialist, at b.rutledge@northeastern.edu

CommLab Writing Group
2023-01-19 09:30 - 11:30 | MA
Join us weekly in the Curry Student Center, room 435.
Setting and sticking to a consistent writing schedule is key to improving skills and accomplishing your writing tasks (don’t just take our word for it ?).
Join the CommLab writing group to share best practices, get feedback from your peers, and work on any writing project (dissertation, thesis, manuscript, fellowship, poster, presentation, or other forms of technical communications). We will meet weekly for 2 hours, you do not have to attend all the sessions or the full 2 hours to participate. Each session will begin with a tip on best practices and goals for the session (5 minutes) followed by quiet writing time (115 minutes).

Adaptable Communication for Leading, Teaching and Mentoring
2023-01-19 16:30 - 17:30 | Curry Student Center, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Location: Curry Student Center 435

Who is your audience, what do you want to say, and what do they want to hear? Many graduate students serve in roles of leadership, teaching and mentoring. This free workshop will give graduate students the tools they need to be an effective leader, teacher and mentor. We will practice using these tools by role playing common challenging situations designed to improve your adaptable communication skills.

RSVP

COE FacDev Friday: Establishing and Managing Your Team (Lab Group or Other)
2023-01-20 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
Building a vibrant, inclusive team (lab group or other) is not easy. Please join this panel conversation with COE faculty, led by CHE Professor Rebecca Carrier, to hear best practices and your colleagues’ experiences.
RSVP

January Webinar Week
2023-01-24 08:00 - 2023-01-26 17:00 | MA
Join Enrollment Management for their monthly webinar series for prospective students. Topics will include domestic and international application and enrollment success sessions. These sessions will be run by Northeastern’s team of Enrollment Coaches and Northeastern’s global team.
These sessions are open to students interested in any Northeastern University graduate program.
Register for the series to receive the schedule of events.

COE Global Co-op Information Session!
2023-01-24 18:00 - 19:00 | MA
Join the College of Engineering Global Co-op team in learning about global co-op opportunities for Summer II/ Fall 2023. Topics discussed will include:

Search techniques and global positions in your field
What to consider when interested in a global co-op
Information on logistics, including health and safety
Tips and resources for self-developing global positions
Student perspective from previous global co-op participants

Location: Virtual
Attendance to one of these sessions is required if you plan to do a global co-op in Summer II/ Fall 2023. Please reach out to Sally Conant, Global Co-op Coordinator, s.conant@northeastern.edu or Kristina Kutsukos, Global Co-op Coordinator, k.kutsukos@northeastern.edu for additional information.
COE Global Co-op Information Session!
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 920 5193 0716
One tap mobile
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Gordon Institute Virtual Information Session
2023-01-26 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Learn how you can earn a Graduate Certificate in Engineering Leadership as a stand-alone certificate or in combination with one of twenty Master of Science degrees offered through Northeastern’s College of Engineering, College of Science, or Khoury College of Computer Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering recognized The Gordon Institute of Engineering Leadership (GIEL) for its innovative curriculum that combines technical education, leadership capabilities, and the “Challenge Project”: an opportunity for students to receive master’s level credit while working in industry.
By aligning technical proficiency with leadership capabilities, GIEL accelerates the development of high-potential engineers and prepares them to lead complex projects early in their careers. Upon completing the program, more than 88% of the 2021 class reported increased leadership responsibility, while more than 50% of the 2021 class reported being promoted within one year of graduation.
Our Director of Admissions will answer your application questions for Fall 2023.
You will have the opportunity to hear from Alumni on how The Gordon Institute propelled their engineering careers. Program professors will also be present to answer curriculum questions.

Northeastern's National Academy of Inventors Chapter Inaugural Event
2023-01-26 17:00 - 19:00 | 024 East Village, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Embracing our century-long leadership in experiential education, translational research, and global presence, Northeastern’s chapter of the National Academy of Inventors serves to empower inventorship and entrepreneurship across the innovation ecosystem by recognizing, inspiring, educating, and connecting, members of the academic and industrial communities.
Join us as we launch Northeastern’s NAI chapter to celebrate our community’s ingenuity and learn more about membership and participation!

Sa'ed Almahmoud - Staying Hopeful Through Addiction (ALLIED)
2023-01-27 15:30 - 16:30 | 232 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Northeastern University’s ALLIED talk series (Allies for Leading, Learning, Inclusion, and Education of Disabilities) Talk Series

ATTENDANCE: We will regularly have food and beverages available at each event. We encourage you to bring a friend (or two!) as these events will be fun, engaging, and informative.
CALENDAR: Download our event calendar for this year to add to your Gmail, Outlook, or Calendar app (instructions here). Alternatively, access the live calendar using this link.
VOLUNTEERING: If you’d like to volunteer to help organize ALLIED events this year, please let us know by responding to this email. This is a great opportunity to work on exciting projects with an engaging and diverse group of people, alongside bonus goodies and food!
ACCOMMODATIONS: All ALLIED events are hosted in a hybrid format and have an ASL interpreter and closed captioning. If you have any questions regarding accessibility, please respond to this email.

Sai Geetha Seri's PhD Proposal Review
2023-01-30 09:00 - 10:00 | MA
“Advancing Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing for Detection of Fish Sounds, Seismo-Acoustic Airgun Signals, and Marine Mammal Vocalizations including Instrumentation Enhancements”
Committee:
Prof Purnima Ratilal Makris (Advisor)
Prof Josep M Jornet
Dr Nils Olav Handegard
Abstract:
Underwater passive acoustic monitoring is important for understanding the marine environment, since many ocean entities produce sound that can travel long ranges especially at low frequencies. For instance, sound plays a vital role in the communication, navigation, and behavior of many marine biological organisms. Human activities in the ocean, such as shipping, offshore piling, and energy prospecting, generate a wide range and levels of sound. Natural environmental processes, such as the passage of a hurricane and offshore seismicity are sources of underwater sound. In this thesis, the instantaneous wide-area Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (POAWRS) technology implemented with a coherent hydrophone array is developed further and enhanced in a number of ways. First, the automatic detection and analysis of man-made seismo-acoustic airgun signals employed in offshore geophysical and energy exploration surveys is investigated. Next, the POAWRS technique is applied successfully for the first time toward the analysis and identification of sounds from some oceanic fish species in the wild using an eight-element prototype hydrophone array. Probability of Detection (PoD) regions are quantified separately for both the seismo-acoustic signals and fish sounds to provide an understanding of the horizontal spatial propagation extent of the acoustic signals from these sources. Finally, we demonstrate significant enhancements in monitoring marine mammal sounds to include real-time capability and over a wider frequency range via a new in-house developed and fabricated 160-element coherent hydrophone array system. Here, data from three distinct receiver array systems are analyzed, presenting a technological evolution in the sensor systems utilized to implement and advance the POAWRS approach for ocean sensing. Development and integration of data acquisition approaches for both acoustic and non-acoustic sensors contained in the in-house developed array are discussed, including design challenges and solutions.

Amani Al-shawabka's PhD Proposal Review
2023-01-31 13:00 - 14:00 | 432 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Channel-and-Adversary-Resilient Radio Fingerprinting through Data-Driven Approaches at Scale”

Abstract:
Radio fingerprinting authenticates wireless devices by leveraging tiny hardware-level imperfections inevitably present in the radio circuitry. This way, devices can be directly identified at the physical layer– thus avoiding energy-expensive upper-layer cryptography that resource-limited embedded devices may not be able to afford. Recent advances have proven that employing deep learning algorithms can achieve fingerprinting accuracy levels that were impossible to achieve by traditional low-dimensional algorithms. Still, the wireless research community lacks an exhaustive understanding of the challenges associated with developing robust, reliable, and channel-resilient radio fingerprinting through deep-learning approaches for practical applications. Key challenges are the non-stationarity of the wireless channel, and the dynamic effects introduced by the operational environment, which significantly limit fingerprinting applications by obscuring the hardware impairments associated with the transmitted waveform.
In this thesis, we (i) develop a full-fledged, systematic investigation to quantify the impact of the wireless channel by providing a first-of-its-kind evaluation on deep-learning-based fingerprinting algorithms, examining the worst-case scenario (employing devices with identical radio circuitry) and at scale; (ii) develop large-scale open datasets for radio fingerprinting collected in diverse, rich, channel conditions and environments, and using different technologies, including WiFi and LoRa; (iii) identify conditions where hardware impairments are still detectable; and (iv) design, implement, and benchmark new data-driven algorithms to counter the degradation introduced by the wireless channel. Notably, we propose a generalized, real-time channel- and adversary-resilient data-driven approach to authenticate wireless devices at scale in practical scenarios. To the best of our knowledge, our work for the first time improves the fingerprinting accuracy of the worst-case scenario with up to 4x and 6.3x for WiFi and LoRa technologies, respectively.

Committee:
Prof. Tommaso Melodia (Advisor)
Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury
Prof. Francesco Restuccia

Call for Abstracts! AEESP 2023
2023-02-01 08:00 - 2023-02-15 17:00 | MA
We are thrilled to share the news that Northeastern will be hosting the 2023 Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Conference, the preeminent professional gathering on all things environmental that is hosted biannually at a US university.We will be welcoming 700-800 of our colleagues to campus this June for a 4-day event that will target topics under the theme “Responding Together to Global Challenges”. This theme is well aligned with the research we do here at Northeastern, and we would love to see big representation from our student community!
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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Due February 15, 2023
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Abstracts for oral/poster presentation on any topic of interest to the community will be considered, with conference sessions organized around major global challenges, including:

A changing climate
Current and emerging threats to environmental quality and human health
New education and workforce demands
Aging infrastructure and risks to lifeline systems
Marginalization of communities
Emerging topics (to be added based on submissions received)

For more information on the conference and abstract submission please see the attached flyer and the conference website: https://aeesp2023.sites.northeastern.edu/
And you can send questions to anyone on the Planning Committee – or drop by to chat!
2023 AEESP Conference Planning Committee

Matt Eckelman, Science Committee Chair
m.eckelman@northeastern.edu
Phil Larese-Casanova, Conference Chair
P.LareseCasanova@northeastern.edu
Amy Mueller, Conference co-Chair
a.mueller@northeastern.edu

NSF ENG Presentation
2023-02-01 10:30 - 11:30 | Curry Student Center, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Please attend this presentation by Dr. Don Millard, Deputy Assistant Director of the Engineering Directorate (ENG) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) on upcoming opportunities to work with NSF ENG.
When: Wednesday, February 1, 2023, from 10:30-11:30am (in-person only) [Note: We will try to record but cannot stream the presentation.]
Where: McLeod Suites (3rd floor), Curry Student Center
Light refreshments will be served.
***This event is open to all; please share in your networks.***

Amani Al-shawabka's PhD Proposal Review
2023-02-02 10:30 - 11:30 | 432 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Channel-and-Adversary-Resilient Radio Fingerprinting through Data-Driven Approaches at Scale”
Committee:
Prof. Tommaso Melodia (Advisor)
Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury
Prof. Francesco Restuccia
Abstract:
Radio fingerprinting authenticates wireless devices by leveraging tiny hardware-level imperfections inevitably present in the radio circuitry. This way, devices can be directly identified at the physical layer– thus avoiding energy-expensive upper-layer cryptography that resource-limited embedded devices may not be able to afford. Recent advances have proven that employing deep learning algorithms can achieve fingerprinting accuracy levels that were impossible to achieve by traditional low-dimensional algorithms. Still, the wireless research community lacks an exhaustive understanding of the challenges associated with developing robust, reliable, and channel-resilient radio fingerprinting through deep-learning approaches for practical applications. Key challenges are the non-stationarity of the wireless channel, and the dynamic effects introduced by the operational environment, which significantly limit fingerprinting applications by obscuring the hardware impairments associated with the transmitted waveform.
In this thesis, we (i) develop a full-fledged, systematic investigation to quantify the impact of the wireless channel by providing a first-of-its-kind evaluation on deep-learning-based fingerprinting algorithms, examining the worst-case scenario (employing devices with identical radio circuitry) and at scale; (ii) develop large-scale open datasets for radio fingerprinting collected in diverse, rich, channel conditions and environments, and using different technologies, including WiFi and LoRa; (iii) identify conditions where hardware impairments are still detectable; and (iv) design, implement, and benchmark new data-driven algorithms to counter the degradation introduced by the wireless channel. Notably, we propose a generalized, real-time channel- and adversary-resilient data-driven approach to authenticate wireless devices at scale in practical scenarios. To the best of our knowledge, our work for the first time improves the fingerprinting accuracy of the worst-case scenario with up to 4x and 6.3x for WiFi and LoRa technologies, respectively.
