November 8, 2021

Researchers in the lab of Qiang Lin, professor of electrical and computer engineering, have generated record ‘ultrabroadband’ bandwidth of entangled photons using this thin-film nanophotonic device. (Illustration by Usman Javid and Michael Osadciw)

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Qiang Lin, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and PhD students in his lab have taken advantage of quantum entanglement to generate an incredibly large bandwidth using a thin-film nanophotonic device they’ve created. The breakthrough, described in Physical Review Letters, could lead to:

• Enhanced sensitivity and resolution for experiments in metrology and sensing, including spectroscopy, nonlinear microscopy, and quantum optical coherence tomography.
• Higher dimensional encoding of information in quantum networks for information processing and communications.

“This work represents a major leap forward in producing ultrabroadband quantum entanglement on a nanophotonic chip,” Qiang says. “And it demonstrates the power of nanotechnology for developing future quantum devices for communication, computing, and sensing.” Hats off to Qiang, lead author Usman Javid, and co-authors Jingwei Ling, Mingxiao Li, and Yang He of electrical and computer engineering, and Jeremy Staffa of optics. Read more.

UX CERTIFICATE FOR STUDENTS

User experience (UX) design is the process digital design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users through understanding behaviors, needs, and attitudes. I am delighted that our undergraduates can earn a UX Certificate, starting next semester, that will give them a comprehensive set of skills and insights to enter this field.

The certificate unites computer science, engineering, psychology, statistics, and art and design to focus on user experience and culturally relevant solutions to problems. Because the certificate requires the completion of seven courses and a capstone project, students should apply by spring of their junior year. Interested students can contact Digital Media Studies Director Stephanie Ashenfelder or Digital Media Studies Academic Advisor Caitlin Owens to talk about courses and how the certificate can fit with their interests.

I also encourage students to join us for a virtual UX Alumni Panel discussion from 4-5 p.m. this Friday, Nov. 12, to learn more about this exciting field. Moderated by Fiona Au ’23, a computer science major and CETL tutor, the panel will include:

• Brad Orego ’11, head of user research at Auth0.
• Som Liengtiraphan ’17, product designer at Salesforce.
• Mojin Yu ’19, UX designer at Microsoft.

You can register at Handshake or Zoom.

Special thanks to Brad for spearheading the creation of this certificate program, and to these other members of an interdisciplinary work group, coordinated by the Greene Career Center, who have contributed so much to developing this certificate, and will serve as reviewers for capstone projects: Stephanie Ashenfelder, director of digital media studies; Paul Funkenbusch, Hajim School associate dean; Ted Pawlicki, associate professor of computer science; Alan Czaplicki, associate dean of the College; Julia Maddox, director of iZone, and Joe Testani, assistant dean and executive director of the Greene Career Center.

GIDS SEED GRANTS

All five Goergen Institute for Data Science (GIDS) seed funding awards for 2021 go to collaborative projects that involve Hajim School researchers. The goal is to support projects that could eventually attract major external funding, with a particular focus on work aligned with data science research priorities. I am pleased to list them here, because they demonstrate how much of the work we do in the Hajim School is closely aligned with a high-priority area of research at our University. The collaborations extend from the Medical Center to the Eastman School of Music. And they are truly exciting projects!

• Designing Effective Intervention to Promote Green Products in Online Shopping Platforms: Ehsan Hoque, computer science, principal investigator. Karen Berger, earth and environmental sciences, co-PI. Award amount: $19,831.
  The project centers on designing an intervention study to analyze the effect of providing sustainability information and product eco-friendliness ratings on e-commerce websites; it explores whether including such information will encourage consumers to buy more eco-friendly products and product alternatives.
• Artificial Intelligence for Effective Communication on Health Effects of Electronic Cigarettes through Instagram:  Dongmei Li, clinical and translational research, public health sciences, obstetrics and gynecology, PI. Chenliang Xu, computer science, co-PI. Award amount: $20,000.
  The project will develop a statistical model to predict likes on Instagram for images related to educating and warning the public about the risks of vaping. The statistical model will explore both post-level features (number of hashtags, image features, caption features extracted by deep learning methods) and user-level features (user’s number of followers, number of posts) to determine which features are most successful at promoting vaping awareness.
• Automatic Rendering of Augmented Effects in Immersive Concert: Zhiyao Duan, electrical and computer engineering and computer science, PI. Matthew Brown, Eastman School of Music, and Raffaella Borasi, Warner School of Education, co-PIs. Award amount: $18,854.
  The project will develop a proof-of-concept system that can automatically coordinate live music performances with multimedia content, such as visual effects. The system will synchronize annotations in the musical score with a music recognition system; it will be built on preliminary music score-following algorithm work, QLab software, and the Eastman School of Music’s TableTopOpera system.
• Interactive Climate Network Exploration over Real-Time Data:  Fatemeh Nargesian, computer science, PI. Gourab Ghoshal, physics and astronomy, mathematics, and computer science, co-PI. Award amount: $20,000.
  The project will develop a software solution to process, analyze, and visualize global climate data that varies across time and space, using network-science tools.
• Physics-Aware Learning-Based Ultrasound Tumor Ablation Monitoring: Ajay Anand, data science, PI. Mujdat Cetin, data science and electrical and computer engineering, and Diane Dalecki, biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, co-PIs. Award amount: $20,000.
  The project aims to reconstruct the 3-D temperature distribution in an ultrasound using sparse thermometry data from the periphery of the heating zone, and the underlying heat transfer process. The applications are in tumor ablation for the treatment of cancers in organs such as liver, kidney, and prostate. In such treatments, heat energy is applied using Radio-frequency or High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). The temperature rapidly rises and coagulates the tissue to treat the tumors.

CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .

Jiebo Luo, professor of computer science, who has received the 2021 Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Multimedia (SIGMM). The award is given in recognition of his outstanding, pioneering and continued research contributions in the areas of multimedia content analysis and social media analytics, and for outstanding and continued service to the multimedia community. Jiebo is one of the most influential scholars in the general field of multimedia, and particularly in social media mining, ranked 2nd according to Google Scholar. “Professor Luo’s remarkable impact is evidenced by the breadth and depth of his scholarly productions (500+ publications, 4 books, 33,000+ citations, h-index 101, and 95 US issued patents) and 8 best paper awards,” SIGMM notes. Well done, Jiebo!

Congratulations as well to Andrew White, associate professor of chemical engineering, who is part of the River Campus Library’s new cohort of “zero cost heroes”–instructors and faculty who have chosen to select or create course materials that are free for their students. Andrew is the first recipient of the River Campus Libraries Open Education Resource (OER) Grant, which will enable him to continue working on his open textbook, Deep Learning for Molecules and Materials.

While there are already many resources about deep learning, most of them exist behind a paywall, Andrew explains, and there are none that focus specifically on chemistry and materials science. The project is also unique in that it is a living textbook. That means the text can be consistently updated to keep up with the rapid growth of deep learning technology.

The textbook is accessible to all learners. By engaging several of his PhD students in the project, Andrew is not only creating an OER, he’s engaging his students in open pedagogy, which makes them creators as well as consumers of information. You can take a look at the textbook in its current iteration and keep up with Andrew by following him on Twitter: @andrewwhite01.

LEARN ABOUT OUR MAJORS

Students, still undecided about which Hajim School major is best for you? Faculty from each of our majors have been giving presentations as part of our Full Spectrum series to help you decide. We wrap up the series this week with these presentations:

Creating your own Engineering with Alvin Lomibao, assistant dean of undergraduate studies, from 1-2 p.m. this Wednesday, November 10. Zoom link: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/93651869203

Electrical and Computer Engineering with Thomas Howard, assistant professor, from 1-2 p.m. this Friday, November 12.^. Zoom link: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/94958908371

Data Science with Ajay Anand, associate professor and deputy director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science, from 2-3 p.m. this Friday, November 12. Zoom link: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/99003182655

Thanks again to all our presenters and to Nick Valentino for organizing the series. If you missed any of the previous sessions, they are archived here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ur_engineeringandcs/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HajimSchool/videos/?ref=page_internal
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGRmyh3wC_EXEElos32JDNA

FOR FIRST GEN STUDENTS

SCHOLARSHIP REMINDER

Students interested in applying for any of the multiple scholarships administered through the Rochester Engineering Society have until Dec. 11 to submit applications, including cover letter, transcript and letters of recommendation. The $1,500 scholarships are awarded annually to recognize outstanding engineering, engineering technology, science, or technology students. Learn more here.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman