May 29, 2018
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
We have some exciting research to report.
The lab of Ehsan Hoque, assistant professor of computer science and the Asaro-Biggar (’92) Family Fellow in Data Science, is breaking new ground in detecting deception based on facial and verbal cues with important applications for airport security. “Basically, our system is like Skype on steroids,” says Tay Sen, a PhD student in the lab, who is lead author of two papers in IEEE Automated Face and Gesture Recognition and the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquituous Technologies. They describe an online crowdsourcing framework the lab has developed to create the largest publicly available deception dataset so far – and to explain why some smiles are more deceitful than others. This could be a great tool to help minimize instances of racial and ethnic profiling during passenger screening. Read more here.
Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering, and lead author Aaron Bauer, a PhD student in her lab, recently published a paper in Nature Communications setting out a step-by-step method that eliminates much of the guesswork in using freeform optics. This will help accelerate the adoption of freeform optics in industry, resulting in optical devices that are lighter, more compact, and more effective than ever before. Eric Schiesser, also a PhD student in the Rolland lab, contributed to the paper. Read more here.
Chunlei Guo, professor of optics, has received a $462,900 grant from the Army Research Office for “Enhancing Laser Capacity for Studying Functional Surface Structures on Metals,” which will enable him to purchase a large laser and other equipment. Chunlei is one of 175 researchers at 91 institutions to receive funding through the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program.
We have a strong representation, especially from chemical engineering, in the latest round of University Research Awards — the seed grants given annually to promising, high-risk projects. Among the 15 projects funded for 2018-19 are:
- Particle Assembly of Mesomorphic Ceramics (Advanced Materials for Powerful Lasers Initiative): Mitchell Anthamatten, Shaw Chen, and Matthew Yates, professors of chemical engineering, and Thomas Brown, professor of optics.
- Robust Optical Devices Comprising Glassy Liquid Crystals with Photoalignment Polymer Films (Advanced Materials for Powerful Lasers Initiative): Shaw Chen, professor, and Alexander Shestopalov, associate professor, both of chemical engineering, and Tanya Kosc, scientist, Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
- Quantum Optomechanical Networks, John Nichol, assistant professor of physics, and William Renninger, assistant professor of optics.
- Bifunctional tandem-catalysts for CO2 conversion to plastics, chemicals and fuels: Marc Porosoff, assistant professor of chemical engineering.
- Brain Elastography with Optical Coherence Tomography: Kevin Parker, the William F. May Professor of Engineering; Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering, and Maiken Nedergaard, professor of neurosurgery.
- Computer Vision Enabled Quantitative Analytics for Ultra-Widefield Fluorescein Angiography: Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor, Flaum Eye Institute; Radha Ramachandran, assistant professor of emergency medicine, and Gaurav Sharma, professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Junior faculty members have until Thursday to sign up for an AS&E Young Investigator Workshop, to be held from noon to 2 p.m., June 7, in Douglass 403. The session will provide an overview, resources, and tips for successful proposal development and submission to multiple funding sources, including the most prestigious programs for junior faculty. It also will feature a panel of University faculty who recently were awarded young investigator/early career awards, and also those who review for young investigator programs. RSVP to antonia.heininger@rochester.edu.
Photographer Keith Walters captured some wonderful images from our recent Diploma Ceremony. You can see them here.
In addition, Thomas Brown, professor of optics, passed along an interesting story from commencement. Taylor Page, who received her MS (optics) diploma on Saturday, ran from River Campus to the start of the Lilac 5K on Sunday morning. She placed fourth in the women’s category, then ran back to River campus in time for the Sunday morning ceremonies to see her brother Matthew (BS optics) graduate. Taylor is headed to a job at the Naval Research Labs — and with that kind of energy and time management skills, I am sure she’s going to do just fine!
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
