Northeastern University College of Engineering

Using LaTeX for CV/Resumes: A CommLab Workshop Series
2023-05-11 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 206 Egan, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Looking to create a standout CV or resume that showcases your skills and experience in a professional way? Join the CommLab’s LaTeX workshop! Our workshop provides support in CV/resume building using LaTeX, and will give you a better and clearer understanding of different aspects of the LaTeX code. You’ll learn how to customize templates, incorporate graphics and images, and create tables and bibliographies. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with a community of like-minded individuals who are interested in LaTeX and its potential applications. Don’t miss this chance to support, learn, and grow with The CommLab! Register to join us virtually on Zoom or in person in 206 Egan. This is a reoccurring community of practice and will meet every other Thursday.

CommLab Linked In Workshop Series
2023-05-09 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 206 Egan, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Join the CommLab’s interactive LinkedIn workshop where we’ll be optimizing your profile and learning how to effectively connect with people on the platform to build a strong professional network. This workshop meets every other Tuesday on Zoom or in 206 Egan. Drop-in’s welcome!

ODSC East Data Science and AI Conference
2023-05-09 - 2023-05-11
Join COE Graduate Admissions representatives at the ODSC East Data Science and AI Conference. Learn about our graduate Engineering programs and receive an application fee waiver code for attending and asking one of our reps a question.

Building Habits for Professional Success: A CommLab Workshop Series
2023-05-04 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 206 Egan, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Join the CommLab for our Building Habits for Professional Success, where we’ll focus on building positive habits. Developing good habits can be a powerful tool for achieving success in various areas of life, whether it’s improving your career, increasing productivity, or enhancing your wellbeing. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and practical tools for creating lasting positive changes in your daily routine. Join us every other week for an engaging and informative workshop!

Intellectual Property Awareness Summit (IPAS)
2023-05-02 10:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York)
The sixth annual Intellectual Property Awareness Summit® (IPAS 2023) will be held on May 2nd in Boston, in conjunction with Northeastern University’s Center for Research Innovation (CRI).
IPAS is a gathering of IP owners, creators, educators, lawyers, organizations and investors, all with a common goal – to explore ways to make the benefits of IP rights, and the issues surrounding them, more apparent to people and society.
​In Person Registration
Virtual Registration

Co-op Student Spotlight: Data Architecture and Management and Software Engineering Systems
2023-05-02 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York)
The College of Engineering is excited to host a Co-op Student Spotlight: Data Architecture and Management and Software Engineering Systems event on May 2, 2023, at 10:00am ET. We’d love to see you there.
All qualified Graduate School of Engineering students are encouraged to participate in Northeastern’s cooperative education program. Students who complete co-ops can work in the industry for 4, 6, or 8 months during the academic program. During this webinar, participants will learn more about the co-op program from co-op faculty with a spotlight on Software Engineering Systems and Data Architecture and Management students.
Topics this event will cover include:

Participating in Co-op: Each student is supported by co-op faculty who help to make the process easy for students while they participate.
Co-op Partners and Opportunities: The College of Engineering has over 1000 co-op industry partners across the United States and around the globe.
Current Student Highlights: Current students will share their current experiences including their co-op journey, their specific opportunity, and the support they received on co-op.

Reserve your spot today and join us on May 2, 2023, at 10:00am ET.

Balaji Sundareshan's MS Thesis Defense
2023-04-28 13:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York)
“Cross-View Action Recognition using Transformers”
Committee Members:
1. Prof. Octavia Camps (Advisor)
2. Prof. Mario Sznaier
3. Prof. Huaizu Jiang
Abstract:
Cross-view action recognition (CVAR) seeks to recognize a human action when observed from a previously unseen viewpoint. This is a challenging problem since the appearance of action changes significantly with the viewpoint. Applications of CVAR include surveillance and monitoring of assisted living facilities where is not practical or feasible to collect large amounts of training data when adding a new camera. In this thesis, we propose a method to perform cross-view action recognition from 2D skeleton data using Transformers. First, we understand the interpretability of the basline network and its submodules by visualizing the saliency map. Next, we integrate Transformers at different parts of the network for both single-clip and multi-clip and understand the impact on the performance. In the end, we also discuss the necessity of pretraining sub-modules in the network and their impact on the performance.

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn More About Graduate Co-operative Education - Disciplinary Engineering Programs
2023-04-28 12:00 - 12:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about co-op opportunities available in our Graduate Disciplinary Engineering Programs.
Register

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn More About Our Graduate Multidisciplinary Engineering Programs
2023-04-28 11:00 - 11:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about our Graduate Multidisciplinary Engineering Programs including: Data Architecture &n Management, Information Systems, Information Systems – Bridge, and Software Engineering Systems.
Register

GSE Wonder Wonder Week Series: Learn More About Graduate Co-op for Multidisciplinary Engineering Programs
2023-04-28 10:00 - 10:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about co-op experiences available to those who enroll in our Graduate Multidisciplinary Engineering Programs!
Register

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about Chemical Engineering Graduate Programs
2023-04-28 08:30 - 09:30 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the Graduate Programs offered by the Department of Chemical Engineering.
Register

The Student World Postgrad Virtual Fair - Europe
2023-04-27 10:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
Chat with a COE Admissions Representative to learn more about our graduate engineering programs. Register and attend for a chance to win a scholarship through The Student World! An application fee waiver code will be available for attendees who connect with our rep!

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn More about MS in Telecommunication Networks and MS in Cyber-Physical Systems
2023-04-27 09:00 - 09:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the MS in Telecommunication Networks and the MS in Cyber-Physical Systems.
Register

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about Civil & Environmental Engineering Graduate Programs
2023-04-27 08:00 - 08:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the Graduate Programs offered by our department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Department.
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The Student World Postgraduate Virtual Fair - Latin America
2023-04-26 16:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Chat with a COE Admissions Representative to learn more about our graduate engineering programs. This event is free to register. An application fee waiver code will be available for attendees who connect with our rep!

Rui Huang's MS Thesis Defense
2023-04-26 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
“Sputter Deposition and Characterization of Highly Textured BixTe1-x Thin Films”
Committee Members:
Prof. Nian-Xiang Sun (Advisor)
Prof. Marvin Onabajo
Prof. Yongmin Liu
Abstract:
The discovery of topological insulators (TIs) provides a direction for scientists to understand the Quantum Spin Hall Effect (QSHE) and Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOP) in condensed matter physics. After a decade, people found that after the introduction of magnetism into TI, the Time Reversal Symmetry (TSR) is broken, producing Magnetic Topological Insulators (MTI). Meanwhile, with the deposition of TI on the Magnetic Insulator (MI), the Spin-Orbit Torque was found in TI/MI structures. Introducing dopants into TI is another method to produce MTI. Mn-doped, Cr-doped, and Ni-doped TI thin films have been explored recently. Thus, the 3D TI, Bi2Te3, and MTI, Ni: Bi2Te3, thin film-based materials have been applied to some energy-efficient spintronic devices. However, according to the Bi-Te phase diagram, Bi2Te3 is one of the Bi-Te family. The narrow range of the Bi2Te3 phase is a challenge for people to deposit the correct phase on the InP (111) wafer due to the potential effect of defects. In this Master thesis, the textured BixTe1-x and Ni-doped BixTe1-x thin films are deposited on the InP (111) substrate through the RF Magnon Sputtering Tool with a Te capping layer under different deposition powers, temperatures, and post-annealing time. After the X-ray diffraction measurement on three samples with various conditions, the textured Bi8Te7, Bi8Te9, and Ni: Bi8Te7 thin films are concluded based on the comparison between the theoretical XRD results with the experimental ones.

CareerEco Engineering Grad School Virtual Fair
2023-04-26 11:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York)
Join us virtually to learn about Northeastern’s graduate Engineering programs. Admissions representatives will be available to answer your questions and provide application fee waivers! Register at the link below.

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about WiOT and Wireless & Network Engineering
2023-04-26 10:00 - 10:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about WiOT and Wireless & Network Engineering.
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GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about Bioengineering Graduate Programs
2023-04-26 09:00 - 09:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the Graduate Programs offered by the Bioengineering Department.
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Rashida Nayeem's PhD Dissertation Defense
2023-04-25 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | 206 Egan, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Human control of objects with nonlinear internal dynamics: Predictability as primary objective”
Location:
Egan Research Ctr 206
Committee Members:
Prof. Dagmar Sternad (Advisor)
Prof. Eduardo Sontag
Prof. Mario Sznaier
Dr. David Lin (Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School)
Abstract:
Humans physically interact with complex objects in numerous daily activities. An example is picking up a cup of coffee where interaction forces arise between the hand and the sloshing liquid. For successful actions, error corrections based on real-time sensed information are insufficient, hence humans need to predict and preempt the evolving dynamics. Our previous work on the transport of a “cup of coffee” showed that humans seek to make the interaction dynamics simple, i.e., predictable. Extending from previous work, this thesis used a virtual paradigm where the “cup of coffee” was simplified to a cup with a ball sliding inside, retaining the challenges of “a cup filled with coffee”: underactuation and nonlinearity. A series of experiments examined human strategies in different contexts to demonstrate that predictability is a control priority. The first experimental and modeling study examined how subjects explored and prepared the 2D cup-and-ball system prior to continuous interaction. Results showed that subjects converged to a small set of initial conditions that shortened initial transients, enabling subjects to reach a more predictable steady state faster. Two follow-up studies examined the role of visual and haptic information and revealed that despite suboptimal exploration of the solution space, subjects increased predictability of hand object interactions. System identification showed that visual information enabled subjects to simplify input-output behavior via appropriate object preparation. When deprived of haptic information subjects still achieved increased predictability but sacrificed orbital stability. A final study extended this basic paradigm to a clinical application to investigate if these insights could help in assessment of motor impairment after stroke in this functionally relevant ‘self-feeding’ task. To facilitate testing in a clinic, a real-life 3D device was custom-developed where individuals after stroke moved a cup with a rolling ball inside on a table. Our theory-based predictability metric proved highly sensitive to quantify the degree of motor impairment after stroke. Taken together, this thesis elucidated principles of human motor control in a complex interactive task. The insights have significant applications in clinical testing and may also inform robot manipulation of this understudied movement challenge.

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn More About Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Graduate Programs
2023-04-25 09:00 - 09:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the Graduate Programs offered in the department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering department.
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GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about MS in Robotics
2023-04-25 08:00 - 08:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the MS in Robotics.
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Cunzheng Dong's PhD Proposal Review
2023-04-24 11:00 - 12:30 (America/New_York)
“Acoustically Actuated Magnetoelectric Antennas for VLF Communication and Magnetic Sensing”
Committee Members:
Prof. Nian Sun (Advisor)
Prof. Yongmin Liu
Prof. Hossein Mosallaei
Abstract:
Since the discovery of strong magnetoelectric (ME) coupling in two-phase ME laminate composites, strain-mediated ME heterostructures have attracted a great deal of attention from academic and industrial research groups for their potential usage in magnetic sensors, voltage tunable inductors, magnetic tunable filters, and miniaturized mechanical antennas, etc. Acoustically actuated ME antennas have recently been demonstrated as a promising solution for very low frequency (VLF) communications and magnetic fields detection, for their 2-3 orders of reduced dimensions, outstanding sensitivity at resonance, and robust immunity to electrical interferences than conventional electric antennas. Their performance and noise analysis are deeply investigated and discussed in this proposal review.
Firstly, A portable VLF communication system using one pair of ME antennas operating at their electromechanical resonance (EMR) is presented. The measured near-field radiation pattern reveals ME antennas are equivalent to magnetic dipole antennas. The magnetic field radiated by the ME transmitter has been predicted along with distance from near-field to far-field. The measured magnetic field distribution coincided well with the prediction, and the maximum communication distance of 120 m has been achieved by single antenna unit. Antenna arrays are widely used as an effective approach to enhance radiation field intensity. By tunning all the driving signal for each antenna unit at the same frequency and in phase, the total radiation field strength has been linearly enhanced by one order with 12 antenna arrays. Furthermore, nonlinear antenna modulation (NAM) has also been successfully demonstrated on the ME antennas.
Secondly, a Metglas/Quartz based ME resonator as magnetic sensor for reception of VLF magnetic signals is presented. Metglas is a highly permeable magnetostrictive material which can effectively concentrate the magnetic fields. Moreover, the high magnetostriction and low coercivity of Metglas can generate a distinct strain change in response to subtle magnetic fields. Piezoelectric single crystal Quartz is often used as electronic oscillators due to their extremely high Q factor with low noise and high stability. The combined properties of these two materials provide ME sensors an extremely high sensitivity and low magnetic noise of less than 10 fT at the EMR frequency. The VLF signal reception capability of the proposed ME sensor was also compared with a conventional VLF loop antenna and the PZT-5A based ME sensor.
Lastly, a compact and sensitive system was developed to characterize the magnetomechanical properties, such as the saturation magnetostriction, piezomagnetic coefficient, delta-E effect and magnetomechanical coupling factor of magnetic thin films. These magnetomechanical properties are critical in determining the performance of ME antennas. For saturation magnetostriction and piezomagnetic coefficient measurement, a high precision optical probe was harnessed to measure the deflection of the magnetic thin film/Si cantilever due to strain change induced by domain rotation. The same cantilever samples were used for delta-E effect and magnetomechanical coupling factor characterization, the DC bias magnetic field induced cantilever resonance frequency shift was used for calculating the change of elastic modulus.

GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn about our MS Product Development
2023-04-24 11:00 - 11:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the MS in Product Development.
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GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn more about Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Programs
2023-04-24 10:00 - 10:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about the graduate programs offered in our Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Northeastern.
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GSE Wonder Week Series: Learn About MS in Pharmaceutical Engineering
2023-04-24 09:00 - 09:45 (America/New_York)
Join us to learn more about Northeastern Graduate School of Engineering’s MS in Pharmaceutical Engineering.
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Northeastern in Seattle: Build Your Tech Talent
2023-04-22 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Whether you’re entirely new to computer science or have dabbled in coding, you can advance your career with Northeastern University in Seattle’s monthly Build Your Tech Talent workshops. These free events give anyone looking to develop coding skills the chance to learn from industry experts.
Our April workshop includes:
Quantum Computing with Oscar Veliz (on campus)

Date: Saturday, April 22, 2023
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT
Register

Late Night Breakfast
2023-04-20 20:00 - 2023-04-21 00:00 (America/New_York)
Hey Students: It’s the last stretch of the semester! The university invites you to take a break and refuel for finals at a late-night breakfast event hosted by university and college leadership and staff. Enjoy good food sourced from local farms and small businesses while hanging out with your friends on Thursday, April 20!
There are three locations:

39 Dalton (8:00-10:00pm): Donut Wall, Pastries, Coffee, and Tea
International Village (9:00-11:00pm): Donut Wall, Pastries, Coffee, and Tea
Stetson East (10:00pm-midnight): Full Breakfast Menu, including:

Fill-your-own “Fish Shaped” Waffles
Overnight Oats with Toppings
Breakfast Pizza and Calzones
Fried Chicken and Waffles
Bacon, Sausage, and Tots
Pancakes and French Toast
Eggs and Omelets to order
Donut Wall, Specialty Muffins, and Pastries

All locations will have a build-your-own STUDY CARE PACKAGE station. All students are welcome—just bring your NUID, no swipe needed. Hope to see you there!

23' Wonder Week Series: Oakland, CA Campus Spotlight
2023-04-20 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York)
Interested to learn more about Northeastern University Oakland Campus? Then we welcome you to sign up for a virtual campus spotlight! Lead by our Oakland team. They’ll discuss key locations on and around campus, student life, and resources available to you.
Register

Chenghao Wang's MS Thesis Defense
2023-04-20 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 532 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
“Legged Walking on Inclined Surfaces”
Committee Members:
Prof. Alireza Ramezani(Advisor)
Prof. Miriam Leeser
Prof. Bahram Shafai
Abstract:
The main contributions of this MS Thesis are centered around taking steps towards successful multi-modal demonstrations using Northeastern’s legged-aerial robot, Husky Carbon. This work discusses the challenges involved in achieving multi-modal locomotion such as trotting-hovering and thruster-assisted incline walking and reports progress made towards overcoming these challenges. Animals like birds use a combination of legged and aerial mobility, as seen in Chukars’s wing-assisted incline running (WAIR), to achieve multi-modal locomotion. Chukars use forces generated by their flapping wings to manipulate ground contact forces and traverse steep slopes and overhangs. Husky’s design takes inspiration from birds such as Chukars. This MS thesis presentation outlines the mechanical and electrical details of Husky’s legged and aerial units. The thesis presents simulated incline walking using a high-fidelity model of the Husky Carbon over steep slopes of up to 45 degrees.
