inside - the School of Engineering - The Catholic University of America

INSIDE
In their research,
CUA professors
tackle challenges
of modern life.
cuaengineer
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA FALL 2006 ISSUE

Table of Contents
New Faculty and Staff.............................inside front cover
Dean’s Message ...............................................................1
Breaking the Bottleneck ..................................................2
Pao Appointed Director of Development
of International Programs............................................3
Innovative Construction Management Project
Presented at Bahama Conference...............................3
Making Light Work...........................................................4
Hidler Honored with Inaugural Provost Award
for Research.................................................................5
Imaging the Human Brain: New Insights into
Stroke Recovery...........................................................5
CUA Establishes Engineering Collaborative
Programs with Universities in Vietnam
and Taiwan ...................................................................6
Risk-Based Decision-Making for Environmental
Cleanups.......................................................................7
Judge, Regalia and Sun Receive 2006 Kaman
Excellence Awards.......................................................7
Faculty ..............................................................................8
Students..........................................................................12
Engineering Alumnus on Donald Trump’s
Apprentice Show........................................................13
George Mehocic Scholarship Endowment
Established.................................................................13
Mechanical Engineering Alum Jim Arentz
Moves Up at Penske...................................................13
Engineering Alumni Recognized During Dean
Nguyen’s Trip to Taiwan ............................................14
Alumnus Honored with Engineering Distinguished
Alumni Award.............................................................14
NSWC Carderock Offsite Program Counts
Its Successes .............................................................15
New Center to Conduct Interdisciplinary Remote
Imaging and Sensing Research.................................15
ABC Awards Scholarships to Two Civil Engineering
Students .....................................................................16
Ballston-MU Metrorail Opens Its Doors
to CUA Students .........................................................16
Engineering and Architecture Recruitment Fair
Draws Attention .........................................................16
CUA Chapter of Engineers Without Borders
Begins Project ............................................................17
New Master’s Degree Program Planned for NIH...........17
Seniors Build First-Ever CUA Hovercraft.......................18
Jobs and Internships Subject of Career Fair ................19
Concrete Canoe Buoys CUA ...........................................19
CUA Students Dance Through Engineer Week..............19
Network Security Experts ..............................................20
Nick Berg’s Congressional Internship...........................21
Activities of Student Chapters of IEEE and ACM ..........21
Congratulations to the Class of 2006!..............back cover
Ph.D. Dissertations and Advisers .....................back cover
New Faculty and Staff
Genevieve Harris, B.S., joins the Office of the Dean, School of Engineering
this summer as the new assistant to the dean for project management.
She replaced Emma Cox who resigned her position, to assume a new
job at a government agency. Ms. Harris received a Bachelor of Science
in business administration degree from the University of Maryland. From
2002 to 2004, she worked at Equity Residential Properties, a national
real estate investment trust. She oversaw the administration of at least
20 properties located in the Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.,
area. From 2004 to 2006, she served as the corporate office manager
at Stellar Advisors LLC, a private REIT founded and based in Rockville,
Md. While at Stellar Advisors, she participated in the acquisition and
disposition of assets, oversaw the daily operations of the portfolio and
served as a contracts administrator representing the developer in the
condominium conversion projects.
She brings to the school experience in accounting, project management
and computers. She believes in constantly searching for new ways to
improve performance and increase the efficiency of the organization
she works for. Ms. Harris was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in
the suburbs of Maryland. She enjoys reading, participating in team sports
and traveling.
Joe Vignola, Ph.D., joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering
in fall of 2006, as assistant professor of mechanical engineering. He
received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 1991 from Georgia Tech.
Since then, he has conducted research in structural acoustics and in the
dynamics of micro- and nano-structures at the Naval Research Laboratory
in Washington, D.C. Much of this research is experimental and is based
on laser Doppler vibrometry measurements of dynamic structural systems.
In recent years, one of his main areas of interest has been the dissipation
of mechanical energy in micro-structures, including studies of the effects
of surface damage and thermo-elastic phenomena as well as fluid
interactions with dynamic systems. Vignola uses the same non-destructive
approach and laser-based techniques for the analysis of structural
integrity of frescos at the U.S. Capitol. He will teach the mechanical
engineering capstone senior design course during the 2006–2007
academic year.
Farewell party for Emma Cox, former assistant to the dean for project management.

Dean’s Message
Welcome to the inaugural issue of CUA
Engineer, the new publication of the CUA
School of Engineering! CUA Engineer
replaces our former publication, Engineering
News. We introduced it to accommodate
the increased volume of news due to the
increase in productivity and activities of
our faculty, staff and students. We hope that
the new format of this publication will serve
our readers more effectively.
As I write this message, I have just completed
the first year of the second four-year
term as dean of the School of Engineering.
As in previous years, 2005–2006 has been
filled with new development and activities.
The year has been devoted to developing and expanding academic programs
and research collaboration whose highlights are as follows:
■
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In the fall semester of 2005, 47 new undergraduate students including
five transfer students joined the school. At the diploma distribution
ceremony in May 2006, the school granted 50 bachelor’s degrees, 41
master’s degrees and three doctoral degrees. The ceremony took place
at the portico of Pangborn Hall after the main CUA commencement
exercise. A complete list of graduates is given on the back cover of
this issue.
Proposal submissions for funded research substantially increased
compared to last year. Several junior faculty members won competitive,
peer-reviewed research grants from NSF, NIH and industry. Conference
papers and peer-reviewed journal papers increased significantly as
well. See the Faculty section in this issue for details.
In October 2005 at the annual homecoming luncheon, the school
granted the 2005 Engineering Distinguished Alumni Achievement
Award to Get Moy, D.Sc., who received a Bachelor of Civil Engineering
degree from CUA in 1974 and is currently at the U.S. Department of
Defense. Please see the article about the homecoming luncheon in
this issue.
ABET accreditation activities and preparation for the re-accreditation
visit to take place in October 2007 are ongoing. Engineering students,
most of them engineering juniors, took the Fundamental
Examination (FE) in October 2005. The exam results from NCEES
were very encouraging. The School Executive Committee finalized
the processes to assess the engineering programs using the FE
exam results for program improvement. Starting in the 2006–2007
academic year, the FE results will be incorporated into the school’s
outcome assessment of engineering programs.
The school welcomed Joseph Vignola, Ph.D., who joined the
Department of Mechanical Engineering in September 2006 as an
■
■
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assistant professor. After serving the school for five years as the
assistant to the dean for project management, Ms. Emma Cox
moved on to a new job as a budget analyst at a government
agency. Ms. Cox assisted me in building a strong structure for the
school and I owe her a great deal of appreciation. The school will
miss her dearly. In June 2006, we welcomed Ms. Genevieve Harris,
formerly of Stellar Advisors, a real estate development company, as
the new assistant to the dean for project management.
In July 2005, I traveled to California and Nevada to visit several
engineering alumni. In particular, I visited with Mr. George Mehocic
who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering
in 1967 and is a real estate developer in Las Vegas, Nev. Mr.
Mehocic gave a sizeable endowment to CUA to establish the
George R. Mehocic Scholarship Fund. This fund will provide
scholarships to qualified CUA undergraduate students with
preference given to students seeking a degree from the School
of Engineering.
In June 2005, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam
Education Foundation (VEF), I traveled to Hanoi and Saigon to serve
as a ratifier of the interview of the VEF fellowship applicants. During
that trip, I also signed a memorandum of understanding with Saigon
Technology University (STU) in Ho Chi Minh City. This agreement laid
a foundation for CUA’s School of Engineering to collaborate with
STU in terms of academic programs and research activities. See the
related article in this issue.
In March of 2006, I traveled to Taipei, Taiwan, and signed an
agreement to develop engineering programs and explore research
collaboration with Fu Jen Catholic University, Chung Yuan Christian
University and St. John’s University. I gave a presentation about
CUA at these universities. I also visited National Central University
and National Taiwan University. For more details about both
the Vietnam and Taiwan trips, please read the related article in
this issue.
The progress of the School of Engineering in the past academic year
was impressive. In particular, I am gratified at the substantial progress and
success we’ve had in fundraising and development. In the next academic
year, I look forward to working with all of you to capitalize on the seeds we
planted in 2005–2006. I hope you enjoy reading the inaugural issue of
CUA Engineer.
Charlie Nguyen
Dean, School of Engineering
nguyen@cua.edu
fall2006 | 1

Breaking the Bottleneck
If you’ve ever been stuck in the left lane behind a vehicle going 40 mph
in a 55 mph speed zone, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Lu
Sun feels your frustration — or at least he plans to, with the help of his
model and computer-simulation of traffic flow.
Sun hopes to get to the heart of traffic congestion by better understanding
an often-overlooked but crucial ingredient in traffic patterns: individual
driver behavior. The National Science Foundation awarded Sun a $750,000
grant to lead a collaborative study of driver behavior.
Historically, says Sun, traffic managers have taken a macroscopic
approach to monitoring traffic patterns, looking at broad indicators such as
average speed density and flow rate on highways.“In previous approaches,
the driver is more or less ignored,” Sun says. “But in reality, the vehicle
reflects the driver.” And so Sun is emphasizing human behavior and individual
thinking in his approach to studying larger traffic realities. And in doing
so, his team has narrowed driving activities down to four key behaviors that
greatly impact traffic: “lead vehicle behavior,” or the way the first car in a
pack accelerates from a stop light or on a highway; “car following behavior,”
which includes how quickly others follow the lead car and the relative
distance they keep between themselves and a lead car; “lane-changing
behavior,” or the likelihood of non-lead cars to switch from one lane to
another; and “panic behavior,” which accounts for the decision-making
process of drivers in emergency, panic situations, such as an accident.
“There is a very close connection between the macro and micro
approach to studying traffic,” Sun notes, though he offers a very important
reason for working bottom up: “If we start from the micro, we can describe
the macroscopic results; if we start from macro, we can’t describe an individual
car’s behavior.”
Not that Sun hasn’t looked at the big picture. His team used video cameras
to record traffic flow data on some of Washington’s most notoriously
packed highways, including Route 66 and Interstate 270. Sun’s hope in
integrating the four behaviors key into one model is to develop intelligent
agent-based computer simulation software that reflects the different driving
behaviors and realities that exist on many highways, and then insert various
scenarios to see how traffic changes. What happens to traffic flow if the
speed limit is reduced by 5 mph? What if the limit is increased? How does
the traffic change when a lane is closed for repair? Mimicking real life transit
scenarios, Sun says, will enable highway officials to understand the consequences
of possible readjustments, for better or worse.
But solving chronic traffic tie-ups isn’t as simple as adding another lane
to a region’s favorite throughway. A highway system, Sun notes, is just that:
a system. Making changes to one arm of a network without considering the
impact on connecting roadways may cause more aggravation than answers.
Ultimately, by integrating his research into traffic operation, Sun hopes
the model and software simulation will help transportation and highway
officials propose wise traffic management that will both reduce congestion
and increase safety. As an additional bonus, Sun notes energy consumption
would dip and air pollution caused by vehicle emissions would drop, since
constant braking increases fuel use.
Sun hopes the model, which is being calibrated with the help of graduate
students in his research group, will be up and running by 2008. In the
meantime, expect delays.
2 | cuaengineer

Pao Appointed Director of Development of International Programs
Frank Pao, Ph.D., professor of civil engineering, has been appointed director of
development of international programs, a newly established position in the School
of Engineering. CUA’s School of Engineering has recently formed relationships with
several universities in Vietnam and Taiwan, in large part thanks to Pao’s leadership.
The school hopes to explore similar partnerships with universities in China, Hong
Kong and Singapore. The reputation and respect the professor commands at Asian
universities makes Pao instrumental in that process, according to Charles Nguyen,
D.Sc., dean of CUA’s School of Engineering.
Since 2005, Pao has served as a transfer program coordinator at CUA and has
helped organize articulation programs between CUA and several universities and
colleges in the United States, bringing a number of new transfer students to
CUA. Diving into his new job head first, Pao spent this past summer traveling to
Hong Kong and Singapore to explore collaboration with selected universities.
Innovative Construction Management Project Presented
at Bahama Conference
At an international conference in May, Gunnar
Lucko, assistant professor of civil engineering,
presented an innovative student-centered
learning project offered by CUA’s School of
Engineering.
Lucko talked about CUA’s Construction
Management Consulting Project at the
conference in Freeport, Bahamas, which
drew professors from Europe and the United
States. The conference, titled “Leadership and
Management in Engineering and Construction,”
was cosponsored by the International Council
for Research and Innovation in Building
Construction and the American Society of
Civil Engineers.
The CUA project seeks to address the
challenges of construction engineering and
management education. “Construction is
a highly interdisciplinary profession whose
Attendees of the Leadership and Management in Engineering and Construction Conference
in Freeport.
body of knowledge has grown since its formal
conception several decades ago to reflect the
variety of issues that construction engineers
and construction managers deal with,” Lucko
said.
“Construction engineering and management
education need to give students the technical
and personal skills for being successful in a
practical work environment.”
The construction project is offered as part of
a two-semester sequence of undergraduate
courses in the Construction Engineering and
Management Program at the engineering
school. Working in teams of four, students act
as construction management consultants for
a client, played by a CUA instructor. Teams are
required to develop guidelines for executing
and completing their projects and to document
their results in a project execution manual.
Last year possible projects
were a new engineering
building at CUA, an
anchor store for a mall, an
upscale fitness and health
club, a country club with
support facilities, a multistory
senior citizens residence
and a 250-slip marina
to dock and service
boats. As part of their
design, students presented
line drawings of the site
layout and landscaping as
well as structure elevations
that included a combination
of actual data, such as
materials and labor costs,
Professor Frank Pao (right) posed with Dean Nguyen and SJU President Yang on
a recent trip to Taiwan.
as well as justifiable engineering assumptions,
such as forecasted rental or sales revenues.
Though not required, several student teams
visited their project locations, selected a specific
site, and took digital photos of the site that
were included in the manual. Some students
even included CAD renderings in their manuals.
Halfway through the consulting project, the
teams reviewed the project’s early stages,
including location and environmental setting;
a preliminary design contract type; organizational
structure; and feasibility, marketing
and environmental impact studies, with the
owner/instructor. They also aired their major
concerns and possible solutions.
In spring 2006, the teams finalized their project
execution manuals for 25-minute oral presentations,
which were well received.
Quintin K. Hackshaw, a 2005 School of
Architecture and Planning graduate who participated
in an earlier project and now works as an
office engineer with a major construction contracting
company, sums up the value of the
experience for CUA students, as follows:
“The project definitely helped bring together
the various aspects and smaller disciplines that
make up construction management as
a whole. Being able to see and help guide a
project from a concept to a reality proved very
exciting, but for me, the most important aspect
was the opportunity to function as part of a
team. Evaluating the team members, focusing
everyone on their individual strengths and coming
together for brainstorming sessions
is what I believe led to successful project. It
was seen then and I’ve seen it since on other
projects, both in school and in the field.”
fall2006 | 3

Making Light Work
Anyone who has ever been treated for skin cancer knows the
unhappy path from detection to dermatologist to surgeon to
biopsy.
The process can be painful, the waiting-period agonizing and often —
patients hear that surgery failed to remove all the cancer. That’s because, with
current technology, doctors determine how much skin should be removed
based on visual detection of a suspicious lesion, often missing surrounding
areas where the cancer has spread. So cancer patients may appreciate the
work of Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Jessica Ramella-Roman:
the Italian-born biomedical-optics expert has designed an optics machine to
precisely reveal a growth’s outline before surgery, ensuring that doctors identify
and remove all the cancer the first time.
Biomedical optics is the study of light and tissue interaction and Ramella-
Roman and her collaborators at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology have created an instrument that uses light to detect skin cancer.
Known as The Hairball, it projects 16 different light beams that illuminate a
skin sample at 16 different orientations, capturing images of light reflected by
each incident angle with a camera for further inspection. A normal swath of
skin cells contains healthy collagen bundles, which account for skin’s
elasticity; cancer disrupts the order of those bundles. Notes Ramella-
Roman, the properties of skin are very much related to the skin structure.
The Hairball will help isolate the very top layer of skin where cancer arises
and enhance the contrast between healthy and cancerous tissue.
This fall, Ramella-Roman will get to see how The Hairball performs in
a clinical trial, when, in collaboration with dermatologists at The George
Washington University Medical Center, she will put the machine’s detection
abilities to the test on actual skin-cancer patients.
When she’s not finding a quick-detection method for cancer, Ramella-
Roman is lending her skills to other noteworthy medical causes, such as
helping prevent blindness in diabetes patients. She is collaborating with
other researchers to study Diabetic Retinopathy, a common complication
of diabetes mellitus that can lead to a loss of vision and eventual blindness.
Her team is exploring the relationship between poor oxygen flow to the retina
and the progression of vision loss. Recently, researchers at The Johns Hopkins
University found a correlation between oxygen treatments and a temporary
improvement in vision in some patients, yet there is currently no way to
measure oxygen levels directly in the entire retina non-invasively. Enter
Ramella-Roman. In collaboration with Mark Mirotznik, Ph.D., and Scott
Mathews, Ph.D. from CUA’s electrical engineering department, she has crafted
an instrument to measure oxygen in the retina, which will help doctors
determine the actual relationship between oxygen flow and vision loss, and
which could help stave off blindness for many diabetes patients.
4 | cuaengineer

Hidler Honored with
Inaugural Provost
Award for Research
Citing the need
to “recognize the
accomplishments of
the university’s faculty,
to show appreciation
to them and to give
them some reward for
doing a fantastic job,”
Provost John Convey presented seven
CUA faculty members with newly created
Provost Awards at the May 4 faculty
luncheon. Joseph Hidler, Ph.D., associate
professor of biomedical engineering,
received a Provost’s Award for Excellence
in Research and Scholarship. Two additional
School of Engineering faculty — Lu Sun,
Ph.D., associate professor of civil engineering,
nominated for excellence in research,
and John Judge, Ph.D., assistant professor
of mechanical engineering, for excellence
in teaching — were among the 31 nominees.
“All the nominees were very worthy
and in most cases it was hard to choose
the winners,” said Convey.
Hidler’s research interests include the
study of neuromuscular pathologies associated
with stroke and spinal cord injury,
and the development of robotic devices
designed to facilitate motor recovery. He
received the School of Engineering’s 2003
Charles H. Kaman Award for Excellence
in Teaching, 2005 Charles H. Kaman
Award for Excellence in Research, and
the American Spinal Injury Association’s
“best presentation” at its 2004 annual
meeting. He serves on the Scientific
Advisory Board for the Paralyzed Veterans
Association and is an associate editor of
the journal Transactions on Neural Systems
and Rehabilitation Engineering. During
2005, Hidler published four articles; four
additional articles are in progress. His work
has attracted more than $4.5 million in
support from the Whitaker Foundation, U.S.
Army, National Institutes of Health and
Department of Education’s National Institute
on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
He works in association with colleagues
at the National Rehabilitation Hospital.
Imaging the Human Brain:
New Insights into Stroke Recovery
Joseph Hidler, Ph.D., associate
professor in the Department
of Biomedical Engineering and
director of The Center for Applied
Biomechanics and Rehabilitation
Research (CABRR) at the National
Rehabilitation Hospital, has
teamed up with the National
Institutes of Health to better
understand how the brain
changes following stroke and how
new interventions
may enhance recovery. Hidler
has spearheaded the effort by
developing Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) compatible testing
devices that allow researchers to accurately
study brain activity in humans during well-controlled
behavioral tasks.
Until now, one of the major limitations with
functional MRI (fMRI) has been the lack of good
quantitative measurement tools that can be used
inside a magnetic field. Subjects are often asked
to tap their fingers or perhaps pinch a small
force sensor while their brain activity is being
monitored. The problem is that these tasks are
either not well controlled for or cannot be performed
by individuals with major functional
impairments, particularly after stroke. As a
result, correlations between these motor tasks
(e.g. moving a finger) and the area of the brain
that is responsible for the movement are often
inaccurate. Hidler decided to build custom
devices that overcome these limitations. “The
main motivation for developing these devices
was to better understand what happens in the
brain in stroke survivors following intensive therapy.
Throughout the course of an intervention,
we constantly measure an individual’s function —
walking ability, strength, endurance and more.
But we still don’t know how changes in the brain
are responsible for these improvements” he
says. “Unfortunately when we decided to add a
neuroimaging component to one of our studies
in hopes of answering this question, we found
that there were inadequate test devices currently
available.”
To address this issue, Hidler developed upper
and lower extremity test devices that allow
researchers to study brain activity during fMRI
testing in a well-controlled manner. The arm
device allows for accurate measures of forces
generated by subjects at their wrist while the
lower extremity device allows for the measurement
of forces at the ankle, knee and hip joints.
“This was definitely a challenging project since
the magnetic fields we are working in are very
strong — up to 3 Tesla or 30,000 gauss.” A
refrigerator magnet is about 5-10 gauss!
“Essentially this means that all magnetic materials
have to be replaced; otherwise the object will
become a projectile or will heat up. Needless to
say we had to be extremely cautious throughout
the development of the devices.”
Now, researchers can run fMRI tests in
patients with very little function, such as in the
very acute stages of stroke, with high precision.
One of the first studies to be done with the new
devices is to compare brain activity before and
after eight weeks of gait training. Funded by the
National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research, this NRH-led multi-center study is
comparing the effectiveness of robotic gait training
with conventional gait training. Adding the
imaging component will provide insight into how
the brain re-organizes to enhance function. “We
are finding that in some subjects, their walking
ability improves substantially, while in others we
notice only small gains. By looking at how brain
activity changes before and after training, we
may get a better idea of why this is the case. If
we can better understand the process of neural
plasticity and neural recovery, in the future we
may be able to develop more effective interventions.”
The devices are generating a buzz around the
imaging community. The arm device has already
been replicated for Georgetown University’s
Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging and
the leg module has been built for UCLA’s
Department of Neurology.
See http://cabrr.cua.edu for more information
on Hidler’s research.
fall2006 | 5

CUA Establishes Engineering Collaborative Programs
with Universities in Vietnam and Taiwan
Dean Nguyen signed MOUs with Director Ying and President Yang at St John’s University.
The CUA School of Engineering has signed memoranda of understanding
with several universities in Vietnam and Taiwan as part of an effort to expand
academic and research programs and foster collaboration between these
institutions and the CUA School of Engineering.
On June 23, 2005, in Saigon, Vietnam, Dean Charles Nguyen and Truong
Quang Mui, Ph.D., chairman of the Board of Management of the Saigon
Technology University (STU) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
for collaboration between STU and the School of Engineering. STU is a private
technical university with a current student body of approximately 6,000. The
first technology university established in the south of Vietnam, STU offers
bachelor degree programs for all engineering majors.
Under the terms of the CUA-STU agreement, STU students could transfer
to CUA after two years of study at STU. Students would participate in undergraduate
degree programs developed jointly between
the two universities. STU students having earned an
approved bachelor’s degree at STU would be eligible
to earn a master’s degree at CUA. CUA engineering
faculty will assist the STU faculty to develop an undergraduate
program that will facilitate this 2+2 transfer
program. The two schools will collaborate on potential
joint research proposals, sabbatical leave and joint
authorship of technical papers.
The agreement with STU was the product of Nguyen’s
exploration of Vietnamese universities during his several
trips to Vietnam from 2004 to 2005 as a member
of the Vietnam Education Foundation’s board of directors.
On his first trip back to his homeland after
33 years, the dean had the opportunity to meet with
officials at 15 Vietnamese universities and to learn about
their academic programs.
Dean Nguyen traveled to Taipei, Taiwan, in March
2006 to sign agreements for engineering collaboration
with three prominent universities. CUA civil engineering
professors Frank Pao and S. C. Ling accompanied
the dean on the one-week visit; the delegation
also visited National Central University to explore
possible collaboration with this university.
During their visits to Fu Jen Catholic University
(FJCU), Chung Yuan University (CYCU) and St. John’s
University (SJU), the CUA delegation met with
each university’s president, as well as deans and
engineering professors. Dean Nguyen offered
presentations about CUA, its academic programs
and partnership opportunities to each school.
He presented an Agreement of Academic
Cooperation signed by Very Reverend David M.
O’Connell, C.M., CUA’s president, to FJCU president
for his signature. This agreement renewed one that
expired and will serve as a foundation for the
development of cooperative research between the
faculties and students of the two universities.
Highlights of these proposed collaborations
include a 2+2 program, a 4+1 program, graduate
degree programs, student-exchange programs
and faculty-research collaborations, including sabbatical leaves and jointauthorship.
Approximately 70 percent of the visited universities’ faculty
members earned their advanced degrees at major U.S. universities.
As a first follow-up to these agreements, two FJCU faculty members
visited CUA in June 2006 to meet with Nader Namazi, Ph.D., chair of the CUA
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and members
of his department. Since that visit, the two departments have been working
to develop a collaboration agreement on student-exchange as well as faculty
and research collaboration.
The CUA engineering school now boasts official relationships with four
international universities, the first of many steps toward creating global
information-sharing between undergraduates, graduate students and professors
at CUA and institutions around the world.
Dean Nguyen and STU students working on a robotic project.
6 | cuaengineer

Risk-Based Decision-Making for Environmental Cleanups
Jeff Giangiuli, director of engineering management and
instructor of related courses at CUA.
To expedite cleanup of its contaminated training,
industrial and Base Realignment and Closure,
(BRAC), sites, the Department of Defense (DoD)
has instituted an array of risk-based decision principles
and management reforms that are saving
time and money.
DoD restoration efforts for active, BRAC and
excess bases began three decades ago to ensure
appropriate, cost-effective cleanup that makes
DoD property safe for human health and the
environment. The BRAC property, in particular,
had to be cleaned up quickly to support local
redevelopment and minimize potential
economic effects on the community.
While actual cleanup progress lagged in the
DoD program at its inception, recent performance
has been markedly improved due to the institutionalization
of new decision-making principles and
management reforms — namely performancebased
contracts (PBCs) and environmental services
cooperative agreements (ESCAs). PBCs are a
contracting mechanism that requires the contractor
to achieve specific remediation objectives,
for a fixed price, based on a performance work
statement. ESCAs transfer DoD property and
privatize the cleanup, giving more control to the
local re-use authorities.
From fiscal year 2002 to 2005, the implementation
of performance-based contracting with one
service — the Army — resulted in cost avoidances
of more than $215 million during the life
of the contracts. Based on the track record of
performance-based contracting so far, the U.S.
Army Environmental Center estimates that a
minimum of $45 million in costs will be eliminated
from the projected contract awards for fiscal year
2006. Because PBCs lock in the costs and completion
schedules, they ensure that the Army will
not continue to experience program cost escalation
and schedule slippages.
From fiscal year 2001 to 2005, ESCAs have
assisted one service — the Army — with transferring
thousands of acres of property and
privatizing over $100 million worth of environmental
cleanups. The use of the new cleanup
and transfer mechanisms have expedited the
completion of the BRAC mission and helped to
get thousands of difficult-to-transfer acres off
the DoD books.
The decision principles and management
reforms employed by the new thinkers within
the DoD are some of the topics that are studied
in the CUA Engineering Management Program.
These processes are discussed and dissected
to provide students with real-world examples of
how to aid decision-makers and manage the risk
of new initiatives within the courses CMGT 505
Decision Analysis and CMGT 562 Engineering
Risk Management, taught by Jeff Giangiuli,
director of the Engineering Management Program.
Judge, Regalia and Sun Receive 2006 Kaman Excellence Awards
Assistant Professor John Judge and Professor Phillip Regalia were
honored with the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching
and Associate Professor Lu Sun with the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty
Excellence in Research. This is the fourth year the awards have been given.
Mechanical engineering professor
Judge received the 2006 Kaman Award
for Faculty Excellence in Teaching for
his outstanding contributions to engineering
education. He has revamped,
improved and developed the curriculum
for core mechanical engineering courses
such as Engineering Mechanics II,
System Dynamics, and Junior Design,
as well as for advanced courses in
vibration and structural dynamics. In
each of these courses, his students
cited his tireless efforts inside and outside of the classroom, in many cases
working one-on-one with students to ensure that they understand key
concepts. Frequently illustrating concepts with practical examples and
demonstrations, Judge has been praised by students for making difficult
material interesting and understandable. Judge also was a nominee for the
2006 Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching.
Regalia, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was
selected as a co-recipient of the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty Excellence
in Teaching in the area of electrical engineering. In courses such as Signals
& Systems, Analog & Digital Signal Processing, Linear System Theory and
Information Coding and Transmission, he has integrated principles and
applications from his research in advanced communications. He reinforces
their application through student projects that use contemporary engineering
tools. His courses generate high student interest and exceptional evaluations.
Regalia is an IEEE Fellow and editor-in-chief of EURSAIP J. Wireless
Communications and Networking.
Sun, associate professor of civil engineering, received the 2006 Kaman
Award for Faculty Excellence in Research for his productivity in research.
During 2005–2006, Sun had seven peer-reviewed papers either published
or in-press while guiding four doctoral
and two master’s-level students. He
also received funding from The Catholic
University of America, National Science
Foundation, Dongre Laboratory and the
American Chemical Society for his
research in traffic flow prediction and
simulation, human driving behavior and
response, and assessment of highway
condition and maintenance strategies.
The Kaman Awards for Faculty
Excellence are funded by a generous
endowment from Charles H. Kaman (B.A.E., 1940). Awardees for research
are nominated by faculty, while teaching awardees are nominated by
students and/or faculty. Award recipients are recognized at the annual
year-end school luncheon and at the school’s diploma distribution ceremony.
In addition, each award recipient receives a plaque and a
monetary gift.
fall2006 | 7

FACULTY
Presentations
and P u b l i c a t i o n s
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Ahmed, F., and Moskowitz, I.S. “Composite Signaturebased
Watermarking for Fingerprint Authentication.”
ACM Multimedia and Security, August 2005, pp.
137–142.
Ahmed, F., and Moskowitz, I.S. “Phase-signature
based watermarking for multimedia authentication:
analysis and design.” Multimedia Systems and
Applications VIII, vol. 6015, October 2005, pp.
97–107.
Ahmed, F. “Digital Watermarking as a Forensic Tool.”
NetSec 2005, Computer Security Institute, AZ,
2005.
Ahmed, F., and Moskowitz, I.S. “A Semi-reversible
Watermark for Medical Image Authentication.” 1st
Interdisciplinary Conference on Distributed Diagnosis
and Home Healthcare, Arlington, VA, April 2006,
pp. 59–62.
■ Osicka, T., Freedman, M.T., and Ahmed, F.
“Characterization of pulmonary nodules features
on computer tomography (CT) scans using wavelet
coefficients and heat maps.” Medical Imaging 2006:
Image Processing, vol. 6144, 2006, pp. 1946–1956.
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Brown, J.S., Kim, Y., and Domanski, P.A. “Evaluation
of carbon dioxide as R22 substitute for residential airconditioning.”
Technika Chtodnicza I Klimatyzacyjna,
Nos. 3 and 4, 2005. (In Polish; previously published
in ASHRAE in 2002.)
Brown, J.S. “A New Micro-Channel Heat Exchanger
Model.” IIR-Vicenza Conference, September 2005.
Mathew, R., Younis, M., and Elsharkawy, S.M.
“Energy-Efficient Bootstrapping for Wireless Sensor
Networks.” Springer: Innovations in Systems and
Software Engineering, vol. 2, September 2005, pp.
205–220.
Younis, M., Munshi, P., Gupta, G., and Elsharkawy,
S.M. “On Efficient Clustering of Wireless Sensor
Networks.” Second IEEE Workshop on Dependability
and Security in Sensor Networks and Systems,
Columbia, MD, April 2006.
Giangiuli, J. “The Use of Environmental Services
Cooperative Agreements to manage the risks
associated with redeveloping contaminated federal
property.” Association of Defense Communities
Winter Conference, San Diego, CA, March 2006.
Hidler, J.M., Hodics, T., Xu, B., Dobkin, B., and Cohen,
L. “MR compatible force sensing system for real-time
monitoring of wrist movements during fMRI testing.”
J. Neuroscience Methods.
■ Hidler, J.M., Nichols, D., Pelliccio, M., and Brady, K.
“Advances in the understanding and treatment of
stroke impairment using robotic devices.” Top Stroke
Rehabil, vol. 12, no. 2, 2005, pp. 21–33.
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Hidler, J.M., and Wall, A.E. “Changes in muscle activation
patterns during robotic-assisted walking.” Clinical
Biomechanics, vol. 20, no. 2, 2005, pp. 184–193.
Ricamato, A.L., and Hidler, J.M. “Quantification of
dynamic properties of EMG patterns during gait.”
Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, vol.
15, no. 4, 2005, pp. 387–395.
Hidler, J.M. “What’s next for locomotor-based
studies.” Journal of Rehabilitation Research &
Development, vol. 42, no. 1, January/February
2005, pp. xi–xiv.
■ Hidler, J., Mbwana, J., Hodics, T., and Zeffiro, T.
“MR compatible force sensing system for real-time
monitoring of wrist movements during fMRI testing.”
International Congress on Rehabilitation
Robotics, Chicago, IL, July 2005.
8 | cuaengineer
■ Neckel, N., Nichols, D., Pelliccio, M., and Hidler, J.
“Lower Limb Joint Torque Patterns of Chronic
Stroke Subjects in a Standing Position.” Society
for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, 2005.
■
Sinopoli, M., Brady, K., and Hidler, J. “Investigation
of dynamic stability in hemiparetic chronic stroke
subjects.” Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting,
2005.
■ Black, I., Nichols, D., Pelliccio, M., and Hidler, J.
“The effects of speed and muscle pre-activation on
spastic reflex responses in chronic stroke survivors.”
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, 2005.
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Hidler, J. “Quantitative assessment tools for optimizing
gait training in individuals with gait impairments.”
Christopher Reeve Foundation Conference, Boston,
MA, September 2005.
Hidler, J. “Rehabilitation Robotics: Contemporary
Issues Surrounding 21st Century Neurorehabilitation.”
Pinnacle Health Neurology & Rehabilitation
Conference, Harrisburg, PA, April 2006.
Hidler, J. “Assessment of Walking Ability after Spinal
Cord Injury: Tools from Robotics and Engineering.”
Miami Project to Cure Paralysis Seminar Series,
Miami, FL, March 2006.
Hidler, J. “Robotic Assessment of Walking Ability
in Individuals with SCI.” Italian Neurorehabilitation
Conference on Treadmill Training, Parma, Italy,
January 2006.
Hidler, J. “Advances in the understanding and
treatment of lower limb motor impairments following
stroke.” Penn State, State College, PA, 2005.
Hidler, J. “Robotic devices in the neurorehabilitation
of stroke and spinal cord injury.” Penn State Colloquia
Seminar Series, Penn State, State College, PA, 2005.
Hidler, J. “The contribution of weakness, coordination,
and spasticity to motor impairments in hemiparetic
stroke.” Marquette University, 2005.
Hidler, J. “Introduction: An overview of robotic
technologies.” American Congress on Rehabilitation
Medicine, Chicago, IL, 2005.
Hidler, J. “Robotic-assisted arm therapy in hemiparetic
stroke.” American Congress on Rehabilitation
Medicine, Chicago, IL, 2005.
Judge, J.A., Vignola, J.F., Houston, B.H., Photiadis,
D.M., and Marcus, M.H. “Vibration Localization in
Near-Periodic Coupled Two-Dimensional Resonator
Arrays.” ASME 2005 International Design Engineering
Technical Conferences & Computers and Information
in Engineering Conference, Long Beach, CA, 2005.
Judge, J.A., Houston, B.H., Photiadis, D.M., and
Herdic P.C. “Effects of Disorder in One and Two
Dimensional Micromechanical Resonator Arrays for
Filtering.” Journal of Sound and Vibration, vol. 290,
March 2006, pp. 1119–1140.
Vignola, J.F., Judge, J.A., Jarzynski, J., Zalalutdinov,
M., Houston, B.H., and Baldwin, J.W. “Effect of
viscous loss on mechanical resonators designed
for mass detection.” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 88,
041921, February 2006.
Kelly, W.E., Bickart, T.A., and Forselius, R. “Standards
Education: An Industry, Government, University
Partnership.” ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference, New
York College of Technology, Brooklyn, NY, April.
Kelly, W.E. “Social Responsibility and Engineering
for Sustainable Development.” Role of Engineering at
Catholic Universities, University of Dayton, September
22–24, 2005.
Kelly, W.E. “Engineering for Sustainable Development
and the Common Good.” Catholic Higher Education
“Professions in the Common Good,” winter 2005,
vol. 23, no.1.
■ Kelly, W.E. “Regulations and Standards are Linked.”
U.S. Business Forum on Emerging Chemical Issues,
American Chemical Council, Arlington, VA, March 15,
2006.
■ Kelly, W.E. “Standards and Certification.” NCEES
Executive Committee, Monterey, CA, February 26,
2006.
■ Kelly, W.E. “Sustainable Infrastructure Systems.”
Engineering Science Education Conference, University
of Toronto, February 10, 2006.
■ Kelly, W.E. EU US Standards Comments, January 16,
2006.
■ Kelly, W.E. “Social Responsibility and Engineering
for Sustainable Development: A Challenge for
Academe!” Engineers Forum for Sustainability,
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2006.
■ Kilic, O., and Dahlstrom, R. “Rotman Lens Beam
Formers for Army Multifunction RF Antenna
Applications.” 2005 IEEE AP-S Int. Symposium,
Washington, DC.
■ Kilic, O., Mirotznik, M.S., and Durbano, J.P.
“Application of FPGA Based FDTD Simulators to
Rotman Lenses.” 22nd ACES Conference, Miami,
FL, March 2006.
■ Chabbra, S., Zaghloul, A., Kilic, O. “Co-channel
Interference in Satellite Based Celular Communication
Systems.” XXVIIIth URSI General Assembly, New
Delhi, India, October 2005.
■ Kilic, O., Zaghloul, A. “Enhanced Antenna Pattern
Measurements for Satellite Systems,” Jour. IEEE
Instrumentation and Measurements, April 2006.
■ Zaghloul, A., Kilic, O., Kohls, E. “System Aspects
and Transmission Impairments of Active Phased
Arrays for Satellite Communications,” accepted
■
Trans. IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems.
Kilic, O. “Broadband Multi-Beam Steerable Antennas
for Military Systems.” IDGA Military Antennas
Conference, September 2005, Arlington, VA.
■ Lade, P.V. “Shear Banding in 3D Tests on Sand —
Experimental Results, Calculation Procedures, and
Predictions,” PLASTICITY ‘05: The 11th Symposium
on Plasticity and its Current Applications: Dislocations,
Plasticity, Damage and Metal Forming: Material
Response and Multiscale Modeling, Kauai, HI,
January 4–8, 2005, pp. 583–585.
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Lade, P.V. “Overview of Constitutive Models for Soils.”
ASCE Geotechnical Special Publication No. 128,
Soil Constitutive Models: Evaluation, Selection, and
Calibration, January 2005, pp. 1–34.
Lade, P.V. “Single Hardening Model for Soils:
Parameter Determination and Typical Values.” ASCE
Geotechnical Special Publication No. 128, Soil
Constitutive Models: Evaluation, Selection, and
Calibration, January 2005, pp. 290–309.
Lade, P.V., and Bopp, P.A. “Relative Density Effects
on Drained Sand Behavior at High Pressures.” Soils
and Foundations, vol. 45, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1–13.
Bopp, P.A., and Lade, P.V. “Relative Density Effects
on Undrained Sand Behavior at High Pressures.” Soils
and Foundations, vol. 45, no. 1, 2005, pp. 15–26.
Lade, P.V. “Calibration of the Single Hardening
Constitutive Model for Clays.” 11th International
Conference of the International Association of
Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics,
Turin, Italy, June 19–24, 2005.
Lade, P.V., Yamamuro, J.A., and Bopp, P.A. “Drained
and Undrained Strengths of Sand in Axisymmetric
Tests at High Pressures.” The Second Japan-U.S.
Workshop on Testing, Modeling and Simulation in
Geomechanics, Kyoto, September 8–10, 2005.

■ Lade, P.V., Yamamuro, J.A., and Bopp, P.A. “Relative
Density Effects on Drained and Undrained Strengths
of Sand at High Pressures.” 16th International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, September 12–16, 2005, Osaka, Japan,
CD-ROM.
■ Lade, P.V. “Discussion of Issue 2: Research on
Complex Constitutive Laws for Soil Behavior.”
Practioner/Academic Forum at the 16th International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, Osaka, Japan, September 12–16, 2005.
■ Lade, P.V. “Laboratory Testing.” 16th International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, Osaka, Japan, September 12–16, 2005.
■ Lade, P.V., and Abelev, A.V. “Characterization of
Cross-Anisotropic Soil Deposits from Isotropic
Compression Tests.” Soils and Foundations, vol. 45,
November 5, 2005, pp. 89–102.
■ Lade, P.V. “Assessment of Test Data for Selection
of 3-D Failure Criterion for Sand.” International
Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in
Geomechanics, vol. 30, November 4, 2006, pp.
307–333.
■ Lucko, G., Anderson-Cook, C.M., and Vorster, M.C.
“Statistical Considerations for Predicting Residual
Value of Heavy Equipment.” Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, July 2006.
■ Lucko, G. “An Activity and Arrow Arranging Algorithm
for Clarity in Schedule Network Diagrams.” 2006
International Conference on Computing in Civil
Engineering of ASCE, Montréal, Québec, Canada,
June 14–16, 2006.
■ Lucko, G. “Student-Centered Learning Environment
During Undergraduate Education in Construction
Engineering and Management — Developing a
Construction Consulting Project.”ASCE and CIB 2nd
Specialty Conference on Leadership and
Management in Construction and Engineering, Grand
Bahama Island, The Commonwealth of the Bahamas,
May 4–6, 2006.
■ Lucko, G. “A Reconciliation between Two Competing
Methods of CPM Calculations.” 3rd Project
Management Institute College of Scheduling Annual
Conference, Orlando, FL, April 23–26, 2006.
■ Lucko, G. “Reviving a Mechanistic View of CPM
Scheduling in the Age of Information Technology.”
2005 Winter Simulation Conference, Orlando, FL,
December 4–7, 2005, pp. 1533–1540.
■ Lucko, G. “Determining Future Value — An
Alternative Methodology.” Monitor Daily — A
Publication dedicated to the Equipment Leasing
Industry, vol. 32, no. 8, 2005, pp. 64–65.
■ Lum, P.S., Burgar C.G., Van der Loos, M., Shor, P.C.,
Majmundar, M., and Yap, R. “The MIME robotic system
for upper-limb neuro-rehabilitation: results from
a clinical trial with subacute stroke subjects.”
Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development.
■ Kahn, L.E., Lum, P.S., Rymer, W.Z., and
Reinkensmeyer, D.J. “Robot-assisted movement
training for the stroke-impaired arm: does it matter
what the robot does?” Journal of NeuroEngineering
and Rehabilitation Research and Development, June
2006.
■ Lum, P.S., Uswatte, G., Taub, E., Hardin, P., and Mark,
V.W. “A tele-rehabilitation approach to delivery of
Constraint-Induced Movement therapy.” Journal of
Rehabilitation Research and Development, May/June,
2006.
■ Taub, E., Lum, P.S., Hardin, P., Mark, V.W., and
Uswatte, G. “AutoCITE: automated delivery of CI therapy
with reduced effort by therapists.” Stroke, vol.
36, no. 6, June 2005, pp. 1301–1304.
■ Kim, C.M., Kothari, D.H., Lum, P.S., and Patten, C.
“Reliability of Dynamic Muscle Performance in the
Hemiparetic Upper-Limb.” Journal of Neurological
Physical Therapy, vol. 29, no. 1, 2005, pp. 9–17.
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Piqué, S.A. Mathews, et al. “Embedding electronic
and micropower components using laser directwrite.”
International Conference on Lasers,
Applications, and Technologies St. Petersburg,
Russia, 2005.
Piquè, Mathews, S.A., et al. “Laser Forward Transfer
of Semiconductor Devices.” The 6th International
Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication,
Williamsburg, VA, April 2005.
Plemmons, R., Behrman, G., Mathews, S., Mirotznik,
M., et al. “Preliminary Studies of Lenslet Array
Imaging for Iris Recognition Biometrics.” Optics
in the Southeast: SPIE Conference, Atlanta, GA,
October 2005.
Smith, J.R., and Mirotznik, M.S. “The Moments via
Integral Transform Method for the 2-D Dielectric
Impedance Integral.” IEEE Trans. on Antennas and
Propagation, vol. 52, no. 12, January 2005, pp.
3288–3294.
Xiang, G., Mirotznik, M.S., and Prather D.W.
“Electromagnetic Simulations of Metallic Materials
Using Mapped Fourier PSTD Algorithm.” Microwave
and Optical Tech. Lett., vol. 44, no. 6, March 2005,
pp. 569–575.
■ Xiang, G., Mirotznik, M.S., and Prather, D.W. “3D
Simulations of Electrically Large Thin Plates Using the
Hybrid PSTD-FDTD Algorithm.” Microwave and Optical
Tech. Lett., vol. 45, no. 6, June 2005, pp. 502–507.
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Smith, J.R., and Mirotznik, M.S. “The Forward
Scattering Surface Interaction Region.” IEEE Antennas
and Propagation Society Conference, Baltimore, MD,
June 2005.
Smith, J.R., and Mirotznik, M.S. “High Frequency
Forward Scattering Models with Shadowing
Correction.” IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
Conference, Baltimore, MD, June 2005.
Smith, J.R., and Mirotznik, M.S. “Moments via
Integral Transform Method for 2-D Curvilinear
Elements.” IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
Conference, Baltimore, MD, June 2005.
■ Namazi, N.M., Burris, R., Conner, C., and Gilbreath, G.
“Synchronization and Detection of Binary Data in
Free-Space Optical Communication Systems using
Haar Wavelet Transformation.” Optical Engineering,
vol. 45, no. 1, January 2006.
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El-Mahdy, A.E., and Namazi, N.M. “Turbo equalization
of time varying multipath channel under class-A
impulsive noise.” Communications, 2006.
Namazi, N.M., Burris, R., and Gilbreath, G. “Analytical
Approach to Calculation of Probability of Bit Error and
Optimum Thresholds in Free-Space Optical
Communication.” SPIE, San Diego, CA, July 2005.
Nguyen, C.C. “A Handbook-based Approach to
Accreditation.” Best Assessment Processes
Symposium VIII, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,
Terre Haute, IN, February 27–28, 2006.
Nguyen, C.C. “An Asian American Way to the Top in
Academia.” Sixth Technical International Conference of
the Vietnamese Association for Computing,
Engineering Technology and Science, Milpitas, CA,
June 4, 2005.
Nguyen, C.C. “Impact of Education on the Future of
the Vietnamese American Community.” 2005 National
Convention of the Vietnamese American Medical
Association, VA, September 2005.
Pao, H.P., and Serebryany, A.N. “Studies of intense
internal gravity waves: field measurements and
numerical modeling.” Advances in Engineering
Mechanics Reflections and Outlooks, NJ, 2005, pp.
286–296.
■ Pao, H.P. “Numerical studies of intense nonlinear
internal waves on a shelf.” Workshop in the
Applications of Numerical Models to the Ocean
around Taiwan, Taipei, Taiwan, 2006, pp. 20–30.
■ Pao, H.P. “Numerical computation of nonlinear
internal waves.” Annual Ocean Science Meeting,
NSC, Tainan, Taiwan, 2006.
■ Pao, H.P. “A precision water-level and sedimentload
monitoring system.” Institute of Oceanography,
National Taiwan University, March 2006.
■ Pao, H.P. “Intense nonlinear internal waves in
oceans.” School of Engineering, National Taiwan
Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan, March 2006.
■ Pao, H.P. “Studies of nonlinear internal waves.”
Department of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering,
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan,
March 2006.
■ Pao, H.P. “Laboratory and numerical studies of
internal solitons in coastal water.” Department of
Environmental Ocean Engineering, National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2006.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C., Prahl, S.A., and Jacques,
S.L. “Three Monte Carlo programs of polarized light
transport into scattering media: part I.” Optics
Express, vol. 13, 2005, pp. 4420–4438.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C., Prahl, S.A., and Jacques,
S.L. “Three Monte Carlo programs of polarized light
transport into scattering media: part II.” Optics
Express, vol. 13, 2005, pp.10392–10405.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C., Duncan, D. “A new approach
to Mueller matrix reconstruction of skin cancer
lesions using a dual rotating retarder polarimeter.”
SPIE, 2006.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C., and Duncan, D. “A new
approach to Mueller matrix reconstruction of skin
cancer lesions using a dual rotating retarder polarimeter.”
SPIE’s Photonics West, San Jose, CA, 2006.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C., Boulbry, B., and Germer, T.A.
“A novel hemispherical spectro-polarimetric scattering
instrument for skin lesions imaging.” SPIE’s
Photonics West, San Jose, CA, 2006.
■ Ramella-Roman, J.C. “Out of plane polarimetry for
skin lesion imaging.” George Washington University,
Washington, DC, 2005.
■ Regalia, P.A., and Huang, D.Y. “Eigenstructure algorithms
for multirate adaptive lossless FIR filters.”
IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 54, no. 4, April
2006, pp. 1386–1398.
■ Walsh, J.M., and Regalia, P.A. “Iterative constrained
maximum likelihood estimation via expectation
propagation.” International Conference Acoustics,
Speech and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France,
May 2006.
■ Regalia, P.A. “Théorie et Algorithmes.” Filtrage
adaptatif RII, Paris, Hermes Lavoisier, 2006.
■ Regalia, P.A. International Symposium Turbo Codes
and Related Topics, Munich, Germany, April 4–7, 2006.
■ Regalia, P.A. International Conference Acoustics,
Speech and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France,
May 14–19, 2006.
■ Sun, L., and Hudson, W.R. “Probabilistic approaches
for pavement fatigue cracking prediction based on
cumulative damage using Miner’s law.” Journal of
Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, vol. 131, no. 5, 2005,
pp. 546–549.
■ Sun, L., Luo, F., and Chen, T.H. “Transient response
of a beam on viscoelastic foundation under impact
loads during nondestructive testing.” Journal of
Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration,
vol. 4, no. 2, 2005.
■ Sun, L., and Zhou, J. “Development of multiregime
speed-density relationships by cluster analysis.”
Transportation Research Record, no. 1934, 2005,
pp. 64–71.
fall2006 | 9

■ Sun, L., Cai, X., and Yang, J. “Genetic algorithm based
optimal vehicle suspension design.” Journal of Sound
and Vibration, 2006.
■ Sun, L., and Greenberg, B.S. “Optimization-based
priority synthesis from pairwise comparisons in
multicriteria group decision-making.” Journal of
Optimization Theory and Application, vol. 130, no. 2,
2006.
■ Sun, L. “Analytical dynamic displacement response
of rigid pavements to moving concentrated and line
loads.” International Journal of Solids and Structures,
2006.
■ Sun, L., Kenis, W., and Wang, W. “Stochastic spatial
excitation induced by a distributed contact with
homogenous Gaussian random fields.” Journal of
Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, vol. 132, no. 7, 2006.
■ Sun, L., and Zhou, J. “Development of multi-regime
speed-density relation by cluster analysis.” 16th
International Transportation and Traffic Symposium,
University of Maryland, June 20–24, 2005.
■ Sun, L. “Dynamic analysis of rigid pavements on
a viscoelastic foundation to a moving load.” 3rd
International Conference on Earthquake Engineering,
New Frontier and Research Transformation, Nanjing
University of Technology, Nanjing, China, October
19–21, 2004, pp. 157–161.
■ Sun, L. “Infrastructure Asset Management: History,
Present and Future Perspective.” Southeast University
(Nanjing, China) and various research institutions
and provincial Departments of Transportation, 2005.
■ Sun, L. “Traffic Flow Theory and Applications to
Intelligent Transportation Systems.” Southeast
University (Nanjing, China) and various research
institutions and provincial Departments of
Transportation, 2005.
■ Sun, L. “Dynamics of plate generated by moving
harmonic loads.” Journal of Applied Mechanics,
ASME, vol. 72, no. 5, 2005, pp. 772–777.
■ Buckley, K.M., Tran, B.Q., Adelson, L.K., Agazio,
J.G., and Halstead, L. “Use of digital images in
evaluating homecare nurses’ knowledge of wound
assessment.” J. WOCN, September/October 2005.
■ Gardner-Bonneau, D., and Tran, B.Q. “Workshop
Report: Interfaces for Home Healthcare Devices.”
Accessibility and Usability Considerations for Medical
Instrumentation, CRC Press.
■ Buckley, K.M., Tran, B.Q., Adelson, L.K., Agazio, J.G.,
and Halstead, L. “Evaluating home care nurses’
knowledge of wound assessment using digital
images.” WOCN Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV,
June 2005.
■ Tran, B.Q., Buckley, K.M., and Bertera, E. “The
Clinical eStorefront: Community model of health
care for seniors at Edgewood Terrace.” Gerontological
Society America, Orlando, FL, November 2005.
■ Bertera, E., and Tran, B.Q. “Knowledge And
Attitudes About Technology Among Minority Older
Adults.” International Conference on Aging and
Disability & Independence, St. Petersburg, FL,
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February 2006.
Bertera, E., and Tran, B.Q. “Successful aging:
assessment of knowledge, attitudes, and practices
about technology and computers in low-income
older adults.” American Society on Aging Conference,
Anaheim, CA, March 2006.
Tran, B.Q. “Smart homes for monitoring health
and independence.” Design of Medical Devices
Conference, Minneapolis, MN, April 2006.
■ Bishop, S., Tsopelas, P., Chen, T., and Judge, J.
“Dynamic analysis of mass loaded highway
guardrails.” Annual SPIE Defense and Security
Symposium, Orlando, FL, April 2006.
■ Bishop, S., Tsopelas, P., Chen, T., and Judge, J.
“Contact-probe based excitation method for mine
detection: application on a VS1.6 Italian landmine.”
Annual SPIE Defense and Security Symposium,
Orlando, FL, April 2006.
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Ucak, A., and Tsopelas, P. “Evaluation of Strength
and ductility of thin walled corrugated steel
columns.” North American Steel Construction
Conference, April 6–9, 2005, Montreal, Canada.
Ucak A., and Tsopelas P. “Effect of Soil Structure
Interaction in Seismic Isolated Bridges.” XXIII
Southeastern Conference on Theoretical and
Applied Mechanics, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, May
21–23, 2006.
Han, S-J, Tsopelas, P., and Baz, A. “Active/Passive
Seismic Control of Structures.” Journal of
Earthquake Engineering, vol. 10, no. 3, 2006,
pp. 1–18.
Tsopelas, P., Roussis, P., Constantinou, M.C.,
Buchanan, R., and Reinhorn, A.M. “3D-BASIS-ME-MB:
Computer Program for Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis
of Seismically Isolated Structures.” Technical Report
MCEER005-0009, Multidisciplinary Center for
Earthquake Engineering Research, Buffalo, NY, 2005.
Wang, Z., and Ma, H. “Advanced continuous wavelet
transform algorithm for digital interferogram analysis
and processing.” Optical Engineering, vol. 4, no.
045601, April 2006.
Wang, Z., and Bi, H. “Practical fringe projection
profilometry with a LCD projector.” Photomechanics
2006, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 2006.
Wang, Z., and Xing, Y. “Advanced experimental
techniques for whole-field nano-mechanics
measurement.” SEM Annual Congress and Exposition
on Experimental and Applied Mechanics, St. Louis,
MO, 2006.
Whang, Y.C., Wang, Y.M., Sheeley, N.R., Jr., and
Burlaga, L.F. “The global structure of the outof-ecliptic
solar wind.” Journal of Geophysical
Research, vol. 110, no. A03103, 2005,
doi:10.1029/2004JA010875.
Whang, Y.C. “Theory and observation of double
discontinuities.” Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics,
vol. 11, 2004, pp. 259–266.
Whang, Y.C., Burlaga, L.F., Wang, Y.M., and Sheeley,
Jr., N.R. “The termination shock near 35º latitude.”
Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 31, no. L03805,
2004, doi:10.1029/2003GL018679.
Whang, Y.C., Burlaga, L.F., Wang, Y.M., and Sheeley,
Jr., N.R. “Solar wind speed and temperature outside
10 AU and the termination shock.” Astrophysical
Journal, vol. 589, 2003, pp. 635–643.
Wang, Y.J., Lee, J.J., Lloyd, I.K., Wilson, Jr., O.C.,
Rosenblum, M., and Thompson, V. “High Elastic
Modulus Dental Nanocomposites.” 2005 Annual
Meeting of the International Association for Dental
Research, Baltimore, MD, March 9–12, 2005.
Wang, Y.J., Lee, J.J., Lloyd, I.K., Wilson, Jr., O.C.,
Rosenblum, M., and Thompson, V. “Processing of
Dental Composites with a High Modulus Using
Nanosized Aluminum Oxide.” 107th Annual Meeting
of the American Ceramic Society, Baltimore, MD,
April 10–13, 2005.
Lee, J.J., Wang, Y.J., Lloyd, I.K., Wilson, Jr., O.C.,
Rosenblum, M., and Thompson, V. “Crack Propagation
at Join Interfaces in Laminar Dental Sandwiches.”
Society for Biomaterials: 30th Annual Biomaterials
Conference, Memphis, TN, April 27–30, 2005.
Gyer, Jr., L.S., Kulkarni, P., Bruck, H.A., Gupta, S.K.,
and Wilson, Jr., O.C. “Porous Gelcast Ceramics for
Bone Repair Implants.” 2005 Annual Meeting of the
Society for Experimental Mechanics, Portland, OR,
June 7–9, 2005.
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Wang, Y.J., Lee, J.J., Lloyd, I.K., Wilson, Jr., O.C.,
Rosenblum, M., and Thompson, V. “High Modulus
Nanocomposites.” Materials Science and Technology
2005, Pittsburgh, PA, September 25–28, 2005.
Klimach, U., Zhao, H., Chen, Q., Zou, Y., Wang, Y., and
Xuan, J. “Improved Diagnostics Using Polarization
Imaging and Artificial Neural Networks.” SPIE Medical
Imaging’06, vol. 6142, San Diego, CA, 2006, pp.
1345–1354.
■ Xuan, J., Hoffman, E., Clarke, R., and Wang, Y.
“Normalization of Microarray Data by Iterative
Nonlinear Regression.” IEEE 5th Symposium on
Bioinformatics and Bioengineering, Minneapolis, MN,
2005, pp. 267–270.
■ Xuan, J., Wang, Y., Zheng, Q., and Adali, T.
“Discontinuity-Embedded Deformable Models for
Surface Reconstruction from Range Images.” IEEE
Signal Processing Letters, vol. 12, no. 12, 2005, pp.
805–808.
■
Wang, Z., Wang, Y., Xuan, J., Dong, Y., Bakay, M.,
Khan, J., Clarke, R., and Hoffman, E. “Diagnostic
Classification Using Genomic Data and Optimized
Multilayer Perceptrons.” Bioinformatics, vol. 26, no.
6, 2006, pp. 755–761.
■ Ressom, H.W., Xuan, J., Wang, Y., and Clarke, R.
“Machine Learning Methods for Microarray Data
Classification.” Trans. Integrated Biomed. Informatics
& Enabling Tech. Symposium, 2005.
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Wang, Y., Xuan, J., Srikanchana, R., and Choyke, P.L.
“Modeling and Reconstruction of Mixed Functional
and Molecular Patterns.” International Journal of
Biomedical Imaging, 2006, pp. 1–9.
Bakay, M., Wang, Z., Melcon, G., Schiltz, L., Xuan,
J., and Hoffman, E. “Nuclear Envelope Dystrophies
Show a Transcriptional Fingerprint Suggesting
Disruption of Rb-MyoD Pathways in Muscle
Regeneration.” Brain, vol. 129, no. 4, 2006, pp.
996–1013.
Xuan, J., Wang, Y., Freedman, M., Adali, T., and
Shields, P. “Non-Rigid Medical Image Registration
by Finite Element Deformable Sheet-Curve
Models.” International J. Biomed. Imaging, 2006.
Activities
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Ahmed, F., Ph.D., electrical engineering and computer
science, served as the associate editor of the
EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and
Networking. He served as the program committee
member of the Multimedia Systems and Applications
IX Conference at the SPIE International Symposium
on Optics East, Boston, MA, 2006. He served as the
program committee member of ACM International
Conference on Communication and Information
Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2004. He attended
Microsoft Academic Days on Trustworthy Computing,
Seattle, WA, April 2006, IEEE International
Conference on Accoustics, Speech, and Signal
Processing, Philadelphia, PA, 2005, Fifth ACM
Workshop on Digital Rights Management,
November 2005, Washington, DC.
Kelly, W.E., Ph.D., civil engineering, served as chair
of the Personal Certification Accreditation Committee
of the American National Standards Institute, 2005.
He served as chair of the Education Committee of
the American National Standards Institute, 2005. He
served on the Executive Committee of the Board of
Directors of the American National Standards Institute,
fall 2005. He served on the National Advisory Board
for the ABET EC 2000 Study, 2005. He served
on the Evaluation Team for the ABET Participation
Project, 2005.
Kilic, O., Ph.D., electrical engineering and computer
science, with the support of the dean of engineering,
founded the Interdisciplinary Remote Imaging and
Sensing Research Center at CUA, 2006. She served
as the technical program chair for 2005 IEEE AP-S
Int. Symposium. She was elected as the vice chair
for International Union of Radio Science Commission
A (Electromagnetic Metrology). She was elected as a
full member for International Union of Radio Science
Commission B (Fields and Waves). She is serving as
a member of International Advisory Committee for
2007 URSI Electromagnetic Theory Symposium.
She served as a member of IEEE AP-S 2006 Special
Session Committee and Poster Session Committee.
She organized a special session on Hybrid Numerical
Techniques in EM for Modeling Electrically Large
Structures at 2006 ACES conference and in 2005
IEEE AP-S Int. Symposium on Rotman Lenses. She
has served as a reviewer for IEEE AP-S Symposium
since 2000. She received a ASEE ONR Summer
Faculty Research Program grant, 2006. She presented
invited papers at IDGA Military Antennas
Symposium, IEEE AP-S Int. Symposium and ACES
Conferences. She served as a member of the
review panel for ASEE AFRL Summer Faculty
Program for 2006.
Lade, P., Ph.D., civil engineering, co-organizer, cochair
and co-editor of Proceedings (with Professor
T. Nakai, Japan) of The Second Japan-U.S. Workshop
on Testing, Modeling and Simulation in Geomechanics,
held in Kyoto, September 8–10, 2005. He was the
chair of Technical Session 1a: Laboratory Testing
(1): Fundamental Properties, at the 16th International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, September 12–16, 2005,
Osaka, Japan.
Lucko, G., Ph.D., civil engineering, served as
reviewer for the Journal of Construction Engineering
and Management during the academic year 2005–06.
He represented the Department of Civil Engineering
at the Careers in Construction Expo at the National
Building Museum, organized by the Associated
Builders and Contractors in Washington, DC, April
2006. He served as review panel member for the
Directorate of Engineering of the National Science
Foundation in Arlington, VA, 2005. He served as
mentor for the Career Directions for Students
in Architecture, Construction, and Engineering
program in Washington, DC, during the academic
year 2005–06.
Lum, P., Ph.D., biomedical engineering, served on
the Department of Veterans Affairs Merit Review
Panel, March 1–2, 2006. He served on the review
panel for the National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research Switzer Research
Fellowship Program, March 27–29, 2006. He attended
the Upper Extremity Translational Research
Conference, Gainesville, FL, January 6–7, 2006.
Nguyen, C.C., D.Sc., dean, visited Saigon Technology
University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on June 12,
2005, and signed a memorandum of understanding
with Dr. Truong Quang Mui, chairman of the STU
Board of Management. This MOU opens up opportunities
for CUA and STU for cooperative academic
programs and research collaboration. The dean, as
a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam
Education Foundation, was an observer of the interviews
of Vietnamese student applicants conducted
by researchers and educators enlisted by the National
Academy of Science, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi,
Vietnam, June 6–11, 2005. He attended the 2006
National Academy of Engineering Awards Dinner
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and Presentation Ceremony, February 21, 2006,
Union Station, Washington, DC. The dean delivered
a talk at the plenary session of the Sixth
Technical International Conference of the
Vietnamese Association for Computing, Engineering
Technology and Science, Milpitas, CA, June 4,
2005. He was the invited speaker at the banquet of
the Sixth Technical International Conference of the
Vietnamese Association for Computing, Engineering
Technology and Science, Milpitas, CA, June 4,
2005, and was the keynote speaker at the Fifth
Annual Academic Excellence Program organized by
the Dallas Chapter of the Vietnamese Culture and
Science Association on July 24, 2005, Richardson,
Texas. Nguyen was the keynote speaker at the
Ninth Annual Vietnamese American Youth
Excellence Recognition Program sponsored by the
Houston Chapter of the Vietnamese Culture and
Science Association on August 7, 2005, Houston,
Texas. Dean attended the ABET Commission
Summit 2005, San Diego, CA, October 26, 2005
and delivered a paper at the Best Assessment
Processes Symposium VIII, Rose-Hulman Institute
of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, February 27–28,
2006. He visited George Mehocic, an alumnus of
the CUA School of Engineering and a real estate
developer, July 2005, Las Vegas, NV. He traveled to
Taipei, Taiwan, with Professors Pao and Ling,
March 11–18, 2006, and visited five Taiwanese
universities. He signed MOU for academic exchange
programs and research collaboration with the schools
of engineering of three Catholic and Christian
Taiwanese universities. The dean was interviewed
by Radio Free Asia regarding an educational issue
in California, May 2006, and he was interviewed by
the Vietnam American Television, Fairfax, VA about
his life as an educator and presidential appointee,
May 2005.
Ramella-Roman, J.C., Ph.D., biomedical engineering,
chaired a session of Optical Interactions with
tissue and cells XVII, Session of Optical Properties
II, at the SPIE International Symposium, San Jose,
CA, 2006.
Sun, L., Ph.D., civil engineering, paper reviewer for
Journal of Transportation Engineering, ASCE, for
Transportation Research Record, TRB, for Journal
of Applied Mechanics, ASME, and for Journal of
Engineering Mechanics, ASCE. He was the proposal
reviewer for the National Science Foundation and
for the Midwest Regional University Transportation
Center.
Tran, B.Q., Ph.D., biomedical engineering, co-chaired
the “Interfaces for Home Healthcare Devices” session
at the Workshop on Accessible Interfaces for Medical
Instrumentation held at the FDA in Rockville, MD,
October 2005. He organized a symposium at the
Gerontological Society of America Annual Meeting
in Orlando, FL, entitled “Community-based
Delivery of Health Care Services through
Advanced Technologies” held in November 2005.
He served on the conference organizing committee
for the Distributed Diagnosis & Home Healthcare
Conference held in Crystal City, VA, April 2006. He
served on the National Institutes of Health
Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Sciences grant
review panel, 2006. He served as associate editor
for the IEEE Transactions on Information Technology
in Biomedicine, 2006.
Wang, Z., Ph.D., mechanical engineering, attended
the Society of Experimental Mechanics Annual
Congress and Exposition on Experimental and
Applied Mechanics and served as chair of Electronic
Packaging technical session in Portland, OR,
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fall2006 | 11

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June 2005. He was appointed secretary of the
Electronic Packaging Committee of SEM, June 2005.
He attended ASME Essential Teaching Seminar in
Baltimore, MD, June 2005.
Xuan, J., Ph.D., electrical engineering and computer
science, member of Editorial Board, BioMedical
Engineering OnLine, 2005–present. He served on
the ad hoc Study Section, “Development of Novel
Technologies for in-vivo Imaging” (ZCA1-SRRB-9
(J2) (R)), National Institutes of Health, 2002–present.
Grants
■ Ahmed, F., (Principal Investigator), “Phase-Signature
Based Watermark for Secure Multimedia,” Naval
Research Laboratory, 2004–05, $63,381.
■ Ahmed, F., (Principal Investigator), “Data Analysis
for CAD Systems,” Riverian Medical group, 2005–06,
$37,659.
■ Brown, J.S., (Principal Investigator), Identification and
Evaluation of Working Fluids for High Temperature
Heat Applications (Including Replacements for R-114),
ASHRAE, April 1, 2006–March 31, 2007, $75,000.
■ Brown, J.S., (Principal Investigator), Transcritical
and Subcritical CYCLE-11 Simulation Model, National
Institute of Standards and Technology, October 1,
2004–July 31, 2005, $14,139.
■ Brown, J.S., (Principal Investigator), Design,
Manufacture, and Testing of a Micro-Scale EHD
Conduction Pump, NASA, October 1, 2005–
September 1, 2006, $24,997.
■ Brown, J.S., (Principal Coordinator), Research
on Intelligence in Manufacturing and Standards,
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
April 1, 2003–March 31, 2006, $706,613.
■ Brown, J.S., (Principal Coordinator), Research on
Automated Planning and Programming for Intelligent
Systems, National Institute of Standards and
Technology, April 1, 2006–March 31, 2007, $260,197.
■ Hidler, J., (Principal Investigator), “Development of
smart rail system for over-ground gait training,”
U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command,
January 1, 2006–December 31, 2006, $138,613.
■ Hidler, J., (Co-Principal Investigator), “National
Capital Area Rehabilitation Research Network
(NCARRN),” September 16, 2005–June 30, 2010,
$3,715,503.
■ Hidler, J., (Principal Investigator), “Smart overground
body weight support system,” National
Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research,
November 1, 2005–October 31, 2008, $448,483.
■ Hidler, J., (Sub-Contract Principal Investigator) and
Rymer, W.Z., (Principal Investigator),”Gait restoration
in hemiparetic stroke patients using goal-directed,
robotic-assisted treadmill training,” National
Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research,
November 1, 2002–October 31, 2007, $503,384.
■ Hidler, J., (Principal Investigator), “Quantification of
static and dynamic muscle synergy patterns in the
paretic leg of stroke patients,” Whitaker Foundation,
September 1, 2003–August 31, 2006, $219,083.
■ Lade, P.V., (Principal Investigator),”Experimental
Investigation of Stress Rotation Effects in Soils,” Small
Grant for Exploratory Research, National Science
Foundation, March 1, 2004–February 28, 2005.
(No-cost time extension until February 28, 2007
approved), $68,023.
■ Lade, P.V., (Principal Investigator), “Instability of
Geological Materials Under Three-Dimensional
Stress Conditions,” American Chemical Society (The
Petroleum Research Fund). May 1, 2004–April 30,
2006, $80,000.
■ Lucko, G., (Co-Principal Investigator), Tsopelas, P.,
(Co-Principal Investigator), “Teaching Structural
12 | cuaengineer
Design, Construction Practices, and Sustainable
Technologies for Mitigation of Natural Disaster
Damages in Coastal and Fault Areas of Developing
Regions,” National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators
Alliance, July 31, 2006–July 30, 2009, $42,450.
■ Lum, P., (Co-Principal Investigator), Rehabilitation
Research and Development, Department of Veterans
Affairs, June 2005–May 2008, Merit Review proposal
“Mechanisms of Upper Extremity Recovery
in Post-stroke Hemiparesis,” $1,000,000, Direct
costs co-investigator, 10% effort.
■ Lum, P., (Sub-Contract Principal Investigator) NIH
R01 Award “Home-based automated therapy of
arm function after stroke via tele-rehabilitation”
Principal Investigator: Uswatte (UAB) Direct costs:
$750,000, Total subcontract funding: $394,920.
■ Matthews, S.A., (Principal Investigator), “Design and
Construction of a Camera for Testing the TOMBO
Imaging Concept,” EM Photonics, Inc, July 2005,
$25,000.
■ Matthews, S.A., (Principal Investigator), “A Practical
Enhanced-Resolution Integrated Optical-Digital
Imaging Camera (PERIODIC),” Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, October 2005, $79,000.
■ Matthews, S.A., (Co-Principal Investigator) and
Brown, J.S., “Design, Manufacture, and Testing of
a Micro-Scale EHD Conduction Pump,” NASA/GSFC,
September 2005, $25,000.
■ Mirotznik, M.S., (Principal Investigator), “A Practical
Enhanced-Resolution Integrated Optical-Digital
Imaging Camera (PERIODIC) System,” Advanced
Research and Development Agency, 2005, $196,000.
■
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■
Mirotznik, M.S., (Principal Investigator), “Spectral
Shaping of Materials by Statistically Dithering
Frequency Selective Surfaces,” Office of Naval
Research, 2005, $154,800.
Mirotznik, M.S., (Principal Investigator), “Anatomically
Accurate Modeling of Corneal Heating Due to Intense
Millimeter Wave Radiation Exposure,” DARPA,
$120,000.
Ramella-Roman J.C., (Principal Investigator),
“Characterization of skin optical response for
human signatures,” Johns Hopkins University
APL, December 2005– September 2006, $25,000.
Sun, L., (Principal Investigator), Characterizing
Uncertainty Distribution of Ground Surface Responses
Caused by an Impulse Excitation, American Chemical
Society Petroleum Research Foundation, September
2006–August 2008, $35,000.
Sun, L., (Principal Investigator), Mahmassani, H.,
(Co-Principal Investigator), and Sebechts, M.,
(Co-Principal Investigator), Modeling Human Driving
Behavior and Response with Applications to
Intelligent Agent Based Traffic Flow Simulation,
National Science Foundation, January 2006–
December 2008, $750,000.
■ Sun, L., (Principal Investigator), Research for
Undergraduate Students, National Science
Foundation, July 2005–July 2006, $12,800.
■ Sun, L., (Principal Investigator), Validation of
Renewal Processes Based Traffic Flow Prediction,
The Catholic University of America, November
2005– May 2006, $5,000.
■ Sun, L., (Principal Investigator), Web-Based
Intelligent Routing Information Systems in Dynamic
and Stochastic Transportation Networks, Dongre
Laboratory, August 2004–September 2006, $40,800.
■ Tran, B.Q., (Co-Principal Investigator), “Communitybased
Clinical eStorefront & In-Home Biomedical
Access @ Edgewood Terrace,” Department of
Commerce-TOP/NTIA, October 2004–September
2007, $679,282.
■ Tsopelas, P., (Co-Principal Investigator), and Chen,
(Co-Principal Investigator), “In-Situ Measurement
of the Dynamic Response and Dynamic Structural
Analysis of a generic Mounting System for Ground
Penetrating Radar Mine Detection Sensors.” EOIR
Inc. and U.S. Army Night Vision Lab, $11,000.
■ Tsopelas, P., (Co-Principal Investigator), and Lucko,
G., (Co-Principal Investigator), “Teaching Structural
Design, Construction Practices, and Sustainable
Technologies for Mitigation of Natural Disaster
Damages in Coastal and Fault Areas of Developing
Regions,” National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators
Alliance, $42,450.
■ Wang, Z., (Principal Investigator), “Development of
vapor pressure modeling scheme for PEMs subjected
to Pb-free solder reflow temperature,” USM
Foundation, December 2005– August 2006,
$43,000.
■ Wilson, Jr., O.C., and Tran, B., (Principal Investigator),
“Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant to Increase the
Number of Historically Under-Represented Minorities
in the Ph.D. Pipeline in Biomedical Engineering at
The Catholic University of America.” Sloan
Foundation, August 2005–July 2015, $28,500 for
each Sloan Scholar that is recruited into our program
and $2,000 as an award to the Biomedical
Engineering Department for use in recruiting Sloan
Scholars.
■ Xuan, J., (Principal Investigator), “Comprehensive
Computational Analysis of Gene Expression Data,”
National Institutes of Health, September 1, 2004–
August 31, 2008, $302,379.
■ Xuan, J., (Co-Principal Investigator), “Endocrine
Therapy of Breast Cancer,” Department of Defense,
May 17, 2004–May 16, 2008, $585,788.
■ Xuan, J., (Co-Principal Investigator), “Improved
Diagnostics of the Muscular Dystrophies,” National
Institutes of Health, April 1, 2005–March 31, 2010,
$609,462.
■ Xuan, J., (Principal Investigator), “Polarization

Engineering Alumnus on Donald Trump’s Apprentice Show
For Tarek Saab, B.E.E., 2001, getting fired may
be the best thing that ever happened to him. The
electrical engineer appeared on the most recent
season of NBC’s “The Apprentice.” Now in its
fifth season, Donald Trump made “You’re fired!”
a household phrase, inviting the best and brightest
of the business world to vie for a coveted spot
in his company.
Saab earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering
from CUA in 2001. At the time he joined the show’s
cast of contestants, Saab worked for Texas
Instruments Inc. as a global product-marketing
manager, traveling to Asia, Europe and across
the United States to execute multi-million dollar
deals for his company.
“Tarek was a unique engineering student
because of his excellent entrepreneurial skills
and verbal communication,” said Dean Charles
Nguyen, who taught Saab at CUA. Those skills
helped Saab evade The Donald’s wrath for nine
episodes: he was fired in week 10, although the
engineer was invited back for the final episode
to assist the contest’s ultimate winner.
Saab may not have scored a job with Trump
Enterprises, but his future appears far from bleak:
He is the CEO of Lionheart Apparel and his book,
“Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work and Manhood
in Your Twenties” (Spence Publishing), will confront
bookshelves this spring.
George Mehocic Scholarship
Endowment Established
A CUA engineering alum is helping to promote
tomorrow’s engineers, one student at a time.
In October 2005, CUA announced the George R.
Mehocic Scholarship Fund. Mehocic’s legacy will
hopefully inspire future engineers to model his
own CUA experience: the chemical engineering
student and football player graduated magna cum
laude in 1967 and has since forged a successful
path as a prominent businessman and member
of the Las Vegas community. This fund, created
by Mehocic, will provide scholarships to qualified
CUA undergraduate students with preference given
to students seeking a degree from the School of
Engineering. Every year, for as long as CUA exists,
Mehocic’s endowment will provide one needy
young man or woman with tuition to attend
the university.
For Mehocic, the decision to make a lasting
contribution to CUA was an easy one; he says he
credits the CUA School of Engineering with giving
him the skills and knowledge to be successful in
the workplace. Mehocic acknowledges that without
a full scholarship to CUA, those tools might have
been out of reach. “Without an archdiocesan
scholarship that I received from CUA, it would have
been impossible for me to pursue an undergraduate
degree. I would like to give the same
opportunity to undergraduate students who are
in the same situation as I was,” Mehocic says.
And Mehocic certainly has seized every
opportunity. After serving in many industry and
government positions, he is currently the founder
and president of Castle Property, one of the largest
real estate development companies in Vegas. He
serves as treasurer of the Las Vegas Philharmonic
and also sits on the boards of the Southern Nevada
Homebuilders Association and for Keystone Inc.
“The School of Engineering is very proud of
Mr. Mehocic for his accomplishments and his
generosity. I hope that this newly established
scholarship will benefit many engineering students
who are in need of financial assistance,” said
Dean Nguyen in response to the good news. The
dean visited the alum at his office in Las Vegas
in July 2005 to discuss the various ways of
fulfilling Mehocic’s desire to give back to CUA;
Nguyen hopes to visit engineering alumni around
the country on a yearly basis.
Mechanical
Engineering Alum
Jim Arentz Moves
Up at Penske
Jim Arentz, B.M.E. 1996, has been
promoted to technical director by Penske
Racing Shocks. Arentz will have the primary
responsibility for all product design and
engineering of the standard Penske and
Custom Axis product lines as well as
special projects that include F-1 and military
business. He will also oversee product
customer service inquiries, new product
development, research and development,
and quality control. In addition Arentz will
serve as the technical liaison between
all racing sanctioning bodies and Penske
Racing Shocks/Custom Axis Shocks.
Arentz joined Penske Racing Shocks in
1996 as a design engineer. Penske Racing
Shocks serves the professional racing
community, counting among its clients
F1, NASCAR, motorcycles, sports car,
ShortTrack, ATV, snowmobiles and drag
racing. Arentz has extensive experience in
new product design used in F1, NASCAR,
MotoGP, IRL, CART, sports car, manned
and unmanned military land, sea and air
vehicles, high-performance OEM, snowmobiles,
power sports and short track.
He also spent 1998–1999 traveling with
the Marlboro Team Penske Racing test
and race team as a shock engineer to
Andre Ribeiro and Al Unser Jr.
fall2006 | 13

Engineering Alumni Recognized During Dean Nguyen’s Trip to Taiwan
Recently, two CUA engineering alums were
recognized for their outstanding achievements
in engineering. Dean Charles Nguyen presented
awards to General Ko-Kung Chu and Col.
Shih-Ting Wang, who both earned Master
Dean Nguyen with General Chu and Professor Wang.
of Science in Atmospheric Science degrees
from CUA, at a dinner at the National Taiwan
University during a February trip to Taiwan.
Chu, who graduated in 1975, served as a
major general and commander of the Taiwanese
Air Force Weather Wing from 1976
to 1980. From 1975 to 1976 he was
vice commander of the above unit
in the rank of colonel. From 1981
to 1985 he served as an associate
professor and from 1985 to 1992
as a professor in the Department
of Meteorology of the Chinese Culture
University, serving as the department
chair for several years. Chu also
studied at the Academy of Chinese
Air Force and the U.S. Air Force,
Texas A&M University and Industrial
College of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Wang graduated with his master’s
degree in 1973. He served as the director of
Weather Center of Chinese Air Force Weather
Wing as a colonel until 1977. He went on to
serve as director for the Center for Research
and Development and from 1996 to 2005
as adviser to the Central Weather Bureau
in Taiwan. He served as an adjunct professor
at National Taiwan University, National Taiwan
Ocean University and Chinese Culture
University from 1976 to 1996. Wang published
more than 100 technical papers and a book
on Taiwan’s typhoon and has received many
honors and awards.
Friends and family of the alumni attended the
event, at which time Dean Nguyen presented
Chu and Wang with plaques signifying the CUA
School of Engineering’s acknowledgement and
pride in their achievements as alumni. In the
future, the School of Engineering hopes to honor
other notable alumni now living abroad.
Alumnus Honored with Engineering Distinguished
Alumni Award
Get Moy B.C.E. 1974, was awarded the 2005
Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award at the
October 2005 homecoming luncheon. Moy is
the director of installations requirements and
management for the U.S. Department of Defense,
overseeing installations worldwide. He is responsible
for supporting military readiness and quality
of life, sizing domestic and overseas base
structures appropriately, and improving installation
management, while ensuring that energy and
environmental mandates are met. Moy is also the
functional adviser for DoD’s Facilities Engineering
Career Field.
From 1995 to 2001, Moy served as the chief
engineer for the Naval Facilities Engineering
Command; he was the final technical authority for
the Navy on shore facilities. In addition, Moy provided
direction, management and leadership in
the shaping of the Navy ashore facilities infrastructure
as director of planning/base development.
From 1989 to 1995, Moy was employed by
the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There he
was director of engineering and construction for
the deputy assistant secretary of defense (installations).
Subsequently, he became assistant
deputy under secretary of defense, pollution prevention,
in the Office of Environmental Security.
While on the Office of Secretary of Defense staff,
Moy led the Tiger Team effort that resulted in
14 | cuaengineer
housing public private venture legislation.
Prior to 1989, Moy worked as a civil engineer
in the Naval Facilities Engineering
Command, ending his Navy tour as director,
design policy, and branch manager in
the Navy Military Construction Division. He
also worked as a general engineer in various
capacities for the Marine Corps’
deputy chief of staff for installations and
logistics.
Moy is a fellow in the American Society
of Civil Engineers and a member of the
United States Naval Institute and the Tau
Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. A registered
professional engineer in the
Commonwealth of Virginia, he received his
bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from
the CUA School of Engineering in 1974,
and master’s and Doctor of Science
degrees in engineering administration
from The George Washington University in
1976 and 1989, respectively. He graduated
from the Naval War College in 1976.
The Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award,
established in 2004, is given annually to outstanding
engineering alumni to recognize their achievements
in and contributions to their fields.
The luncheon was attended by about 90 alumni,
faculty, staff, students and CUA administrators.
Get Moy, D.Sc., and Dean Nguyen at the homecoming luncheon.
After brief remarks by George Garvey, CUA vice
provost and dean of graduate studies, Dean
Charles Nguyen presented Moy with the award. In
his acceptance speech, Moy summarized his
experiences at CUA and discussed how skills and
knowledge he gained at Catholic University have
contributed to his accomplishments throughout
his career.

NSWC Carderock Offsite Program Counts Its Successes
With nine graduates and 10 students on their
way to graduation within two to three years,
the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science (EE&CS) is pleased to report
on the success of an off-site graduate program
at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC),
Carderock Division. Founded by Associate
Professor Mark Mirotznik in 2002, the program
offers a series of graduate-level courses leading
to a master’s degree in electrical engineering. All
courses required for the program — typically
three to four per year — are offered at NSWC’s
West Bethesda location, formerly known as the
David Taylor Model Basin, and taught primarily
by full-time CUA faculty. To ensure that program
offerings are timely and relevant to the Navy,
course subjects are selected in consultation with
NSWC management. This strategy of offering
convenient and well-targeted graduate courses
has been well received by the NSWC employees
and management. Heather Halberg, a soon-to-be
graduate of the program, says, “It is so convenient
to just take a short, two-minute walk to my
classes and not have to deal with the rush hour
D.C. traffic. It is also great to have real full-time
instructors come to where I work to teach the
courses. This is much better than the online or
video-based alternatives.”
A pleasant side effect of the master’s level
program has been the number of graduates who
are now pursuing Ph.D.’s at CUA as a result of
this offsite program — currently five. Its success
buoys the hope that the NSWC program will serve
as a model for future off-site graduate programs
at both government and non-government sites
in the area.
New Center to Conduct Interdisciplinary Remote Imaging
and Sensing Research
Ozlem Kilic, Ph.D., IRIS director
Don’t let the name fool you. Its acronym is IRIS,
but its mission has nothing to do with flowers.
IRIS is the Interdisciplinary Remote Imaging and
Sensing Research Center, which was founded
in January 2006 by the School of Engineering to
promote research on new remote imaging and
sensing technology, applications and teaching.
The center is based on a proposal submitted
to Dean Charles Nguyen by Ozlem Kilic, assistant
professor of electrical engineering and computer
science, and several other CUA faculty members.
Other IRIS members include Fred Bruhweiler,
professor of physics; Poul Lade, professor of civil
engineering; Mark Mirotznik, associate professor of
electrical engineering and computer science; Nader
Namazi, professor of electrical engineering and
computer science; Frank (Hsien Ping) Pao, professor
of civil engineering; and Phillip Regalia, professor of
electrical engineering and computer science.
Since its establishment, the research center
has collaborated with other U.S. and international
institutions on two proposals to the National
Science Foundation.
The multidisciplinary nature of the center allows
it to provide research on a variety of issues:
disaster management, pollution and contamination
detection and monitoring, land use monitoring and
planning, spatial/statistical analysis and modeling,
and water resource monitoring. The center also
will address high-demand military applications
such as target identification, clutter reduction, mine
detection and through-wall sensing.
The current and future activities of the center
include:
■ Joint applications for research funding by
center members with diverse interests.
■ Establishing partnerships with government
laboratories and industry on research,
development and teaching activities.
■ Attracting scientists as guest lecturers or
visiting faculty.
■ Organizing workshops in the United
States and internationally.
■ Enabling internships for students at government
or private-industry laboratories;
■ Creating and maintaining a Web site to
promote ongoing research activities.
IRIS intends to:
■ Attract visitors, scholars and prospective
students.
■ Draw on CUA’s proximity to federal
agencies such as NASA, the Department
of Agriculture, the National Science
Foundation and the Department of
Defense, which would have a keen interest
in the center’s research areas.
■ Facilitate collaboration with other local
research institutions and universities.
The center is actively seeking research funding
and collaborative partnerships to establish itself
as a self-sufficient entity.
For additional information about the center,
contact Ozlem Kilic by e-mail at kilic@cua.edu
or by phone at 202-319-5261.
fall2006 | 15

ABC Awards Scholarships to Two Civil Engineering Students
At the May monthly dinner of Associated Builders and Contractors of
Washington, civil engineering students Tim Garland and Chris Logsdon
accepted scholarship awards of $1,000 each.
“All engineering students affiliated with ABC have the opportunity to
apply for one of the organization’s generous scholarships,” says Logsdon.
“We felt privileged to attend the May monthly dinner to accept our awards.”
Criteria include membership in a student chapter of ABC, enrollment in
an undergraduate construction-related program, and achievement of
a 3.0 GPA in their major. Gunnar Lucko, assistant professor of civil
engineering and director of the construction engineering and management
program, wrote letters of recommendation for the two.
ABC represents more than 430 general contractors, subcontractors,
suppliers and industry professionals in and around DC. Once a month the
association holds a dinner at which it highlights industry achievements
and projects, hosts special speakers and gives industry professionals the
opportunity to network. ABC welcomes students at these dinners and even
arranges with companies to sponsor students at the event. The dinners
afford students
at CUA and other
area universities
opportunities to
meet construction
industry representatives
and to do
some networking
of their own. It is
also an excellent chance for students to follow current construction
topics and projects, which gives them an idea of what is going on in
the industry.
At May’s dinner, says Logsdon, “We were also treated to an eyeopening,
exciting presentation on the new Washington Harbor. But most
important, the event introduced us to the wide range of companies that
make up the industry and was a great opportunity to meet some very
interesting construction professionals.”
Ballston-MU Metrorail Opens Its Doors
to CUA Students
The Clark Design/Build project team currently
working on the Metrorail improvements at the
Ballston-MU (Marymount University) station in
Arlington, Va., recently arranged a site tour for
CUA’s construction management students.
Organized by Clark’s Kristie Phillips, Catholic
University’s Assistant Professor of Civil
Engineering Gunnar Lucko, Ph.D., and recent
Catholic graduate Quintin Hackshaw, the tour
gave students a firsthand view of the efforts
involved in an actual construction project.
Those efforts include placing more than 900
cubic yards of architectural concrete and tying-in
three new elevators and passageways to the
Students of Professor Lucko’s CE 302 course at Ballston metro station construction site.
existing station. Students got an up-close view of
the cycles involved in the placement of concrete
and came away with a better appreciation for the
steps, considerations and difficulties associated
with such projects. Project Manager Brian Crecco,
Quality Control Manager Fayyaz Ahmed, Safety
Coordinator Gary Wrobleski, Carpenter Foreman
Mark Ralls and Office Engineer Quintin Hackshaw
gave overviews of the project from their respective
positions, stressing Clark’s ongoing commitment
not only to performance, but to quality and safety
as well.
The students, who are primarily juniors in
CUA’s Construction Management Program, may
become future leaders
in the growing construction
industry in this
area. The experience
and knowledge that they
gain now will help them
become better construction
professionals. CUA’s
Construction Management
Program, which
includes undergraduate
and graduate degrees,
and architecture and
engineering students, is
committed to helping
students gain knowledge
and experience
through site visits such
as this one.
Engineering
and Architecture
Recruitment Fair
Draws Attention
High school students in the Washington, D.C.,
area learned about career and academic opportunities
from two Catholic University schools —
engineering and architecture and planning — at
a recruitment fair in April.
Approximately 2,000 students, their families
and guidance counselors attended the annual
Construction Expo hosted by the Associated
Builders and Contractors in the grand atrium
of the National Building Museum in downtown
Washington. At the expo, students talked with
representatives of construction firms and other
D.C.-area colleges and universities.
Based in Arlington, Va., Associated Builders and
Contractors is a national association representing
23,000 construction and construction-related
firms across the United States.
“Recruiting bright young minds for careers
in the construction industry is one of the most
important ways of building a strong future,”
said Gunnar Lucko, assistant professor of civil
engineering, who shared information about CUA’s
undergraduate engineering programs with students
at the expo.
“The Construction Expo exemplified the strong
commitment of industry and academia alike to
reach this goal.”
16 | cuaengineer

CUA Chapter of Engineers Without Borders Begins Project
Partnering with the new EWB chapter at George
Washington University, CUA’s chapter of Engineers
without Borders is renovating a community center
and neighboring park in Anacostia. The project
allows students to get hands-on building experience
and develop useful skills. The group receives
mentoring and support from the Washington, D.C.,
professional chapter of EWB, a diverse collection
of professionals who volunteer their time to assist
student chapters as well as tackle development
projects of their own. The CUA chapter’s faculty
adviser, mechanical engineering assistant professor
John Judge, reports that the students
have been researching potential projects in
Third World countries and plan to choose a project
and begin fundraising as soon as their chapter
agreement is ratified by EWB-USA.
Engineers Without Borders membership includes
all engineering majors but is also open to nonengineers.
EWB partners with disadvantaged
communities to improve their quality of life with
environmentally and
economically sustainable
engineering projects. The
CUA chapter is part of a
rapidly growing national
parent organization, EWB-
USA, founded in 2000 by
University of Colorado
professor Bernard Amadei
to give engineering students
and professionals
the opportunity to address
issues such as inadequate
access to clean
water, sanitation and
electricity in Third World
communities.
For more information on supporting EWB-CUA,
contact Judge at judge@cua.edu or chapter
president Timothy Garland at 31garland@cua.edu.
For more information about other ways to get
Engineers Without Borders in San Paolo, Belize.
involved, visit the D.C. professional chapter’s
Web site at www.ewb-dc.org or the national
organization’s Web site at www.ewb-usa.org.
New Master’s Degree Program Planned for NIH
The Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science initiated a program leading to
a Master of Science in Information Security degree
program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
in the spring semester of 2006.
With the exponential growth of digitization of
information, the economy is heavily dependent
on the secure storage and distribution of information.
The study of information security, or IS, has
Farid Ahmed, Ph.D., academic adviser for the NIH program.
therefore become more important than ever. This
program provides students with both theoretical
underpinnings and in-depth, real-world practitioner
expertise in information security to give them
highly competitive competencies and skills.
Students will learn how to ensure the reliability
and security of in-storage and in-transit
information and data, through the computer
and communication networks, critical infrastructures,
and Internet applications.
Graduates holding an MSIS degree from CUA
are expected to be professionals capable of
understanding and applying IS technology, understanding
the broader issues of social context, and
reacting to emerging and emergency security
threats. The expectations are that graduates
would:
■
■
■
■
■
■
Understand and evaluate state-of-the-art
and emerging IS technology including
cryptography, steganography, watermarking,
biometrics and security protocols.
Analyze and model the vulnerabilities and
security threats of computer and communication
networks, information systems
and database systems.
Understand and apply security solutions
and practices to computer systems, networks,
database systems and to the
process of software development.
Design, program and critically analyze
trusted information systems, including
detailed vulnerability assessment, intrusion
detection, testing and forensic analysis.
Understand the legal and ethical issues
of national cyber-security laws, IS policies,
standards and their compliances.
Know the necessary background information
and technology to work as a
certified information systems security
professional.
fall2006 | 17

Seniors Build First-Ever CUA Hovercraft
For mechanical engineering students, the senior
design project is the most highly anticipated part
of the undergraduate curriculum. In the course
of this yearlong project, students employ all the
theories and lessons learned in the classroom
and all the late night hours of studying in the
design and construction of a major studentchosen
project.
As wide-eyed high school seniors touring
Pangborn Hall, we gazed in awe at past senior
design projects — the Mini-Baja, remote-controlled
airplanes, battle-bots and human-powered vehicles
— amazed at what we would be able to do after
three years of study. When the time finally came
for the class of 2006 to choose our project,
we decided to take an entirely new approach
and attempt something that had never been
done before at CUA: we would design and build
a working hovercraft.
At the outset, most of us had no idea how
hovercraft worked. We found that hovercraft
combine aspects of a car, a boat and an airplane,
and that they don’t fly; they hover on a cushion
of air. The best example of this is an air-hockey
puck. Instead of the table blowing air upward
to get the puck to float, however, the hovercraft
blows air downward to achieve the same effect.
Hovercraft are very versatile vehicles. They can
navigate over grass, asphalt, water, sand, mud,
ice and snow, making the transition quickly. They
can also move easily between surfaces, smoothly
sliding from the shore into the water. This capability
makes hovercraft excellent vehicles for
rescue operations, saving precious time because
hovercraft do not need to be off-loaded from a
trailer like a boat, but can be driven from a
garage, right down a street, and into the water.
They are also useful for going in shallow water or
environmentally sensitive areas such as swamps
where boats are unable to navigate safely.
We split our team of 10 seniors into three
groups: structure, lift, and propulsion and control.
Since none of us had any practical experience
with hovercraft, we purchased a hovercraft kit
and built it during the summer of 2005, gaining
experience with the materials and processes
involved in constructing a craft, and giving us
a working vehicle to perform tests on and
practice driving. Hovercraft are notoriously
difficult to control; because they have no contact
with the ground, the slightest wind sends them
off course (again, think of how easy it is to get
an air-hockey puck moving).
With the lessons learned from the kit, we
moved on to our own original design. We decided
that our hovercraft would need more power than
the hovercraft from the kit, so we purchased
a 45 hp ultra-light aircraft engine. We also opted
for a better propeller, upgrading from a 36” wood
prop to a 58” carbon-fiber one. The lift system
also needed a boost for our craft. We used twin
centrifugal fans, similar to the fans that blow air
through the ducts of a heating system in a house,
to blow air into the skirt and lift the craft. Biweekly
design review meetings with our professors
kept us on track.
As we went about cutting Styrofoam for the
hull, welding the frame, testing the engines,
assembling the thrust duct, getting epoxy all over
the floor, sewing the skirt, making CAD drawings,
and shaping the rudders people stopped asking
“What in the world are you building over there?”
and started asking “So when can I go for a ride
on your hovercraft?” As the semester drew to a
close, the hovercraft continued to come together
piece by piece, consuming more and more of our
time. Finally, after long hours in the machine shop
and several sleepless nights, our hovercraft was
ready for her maiden voyage.
The site of our first demonstration was a horse
farm in Maryland, about an hour’s drive from
campus with plenty of wide-open fields, some
hills, several obstacles and a large pond. Was
our hovercraft up to the challenge?
The hovercraft came to life and sped away,
Patrick O’Malley
Pictured left to right: Adam Spisak, Laura O’Donnell, Ericka Dietrich, Pat O’Malley, Adam Wise, Kerri Allen, Pat Kennedy,
John Maley, Melissa Schneider (in driver’s seat) and Dan McDonald.
with cheers from the entire design team. After
a few test runs around the field we decided it
was time to take to the water. I was the first one
to test it over the pond and, as I was putting
on my life jacket, I knew all the calculations said
that I should glide out over the water with no
problem. Despite all the work we had put into
the project, the prospect of the hovercraft going
straight to the bottom of the pond still nagged
our anxious minds.
We started the hovercraft up on the shore and
eased it into the water. I could hear the shouts and
cheers of my classmates, even over the roaring
engine directly behind me. The thrill of driving
that hovercraft, the one that my classmates and I
designed and built from the bottom up, is one
that will be tough to beat.
I have always heard that most of what you
learn in college doesn’t come from the classroom.
As I go into the “real world,” the lessons I
learned on the hovercraft and the friendships
that I made while working on it will stay with me
more than any test, paper or homework assignment
ever could. Maybe it is just that the little
kid playing with Legos is still very much alive
inside me, but I couldn’t have imagined a better
way to close out my undergraduate career than
gliding across the water in a crazy flying
machine I built with a great group of friends.
18 | cuaengineer

Jobs and Internships Subject of Career Fair
On Feb. 2, shortly after Punxsutawney Phil
declared there would be six more weeks
of winter, CUA’s engineering students met
representatives from 34 companies and
government agencies to discuss summer
internships and full-time jobs. In its fourth year,
the Office of Career Services’ Engineering
Internship and Job Fair continues to bring on
campus a wealth of employers eager to meet
with and hire CUA students. Organizations
such as Whiting-Turner, Lockheed-Martin,
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
Clark Construction, Imaging Science and
Information Systems, United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Emka Technologies, and
the National Institute of Standards and
Technology spoke with interested and eager
students, ranging from freshmen through
graduate students, about their opportunities.
As a result, a number of students obtained
follow-up interviews and offers. The representatives
also expressed delight with the
quality of the students and their education,
and all declared the desire to return next
year and to post positions for our students
as they arise.
CUA Students
Dance Through
Engineer Week
Concrete Canoe Buoys CUA
Each year up to 250 engineering schools from
around the country participate in the Concrete
Canoe Competition. There is no deception in
the name of the competition: these teams of
engineering students build full-sized canoes out
of concrete. You might ask: Do they actually float?
They do! The vessels, which weigh several hundred
pounds, are nearly impossible to sink as they are
made of buoyant concrete, designed, analyzed,
tested and constructed in a yearlong process.
The competition culminates in a three-day event
in which the teams must present their research
and race their canoes in a series of co-ed sprints
and slalom races.
While the thrill of the races and the pride of
success are motivating factors, the competition
is more than a race or a construction challenge.
In the process, team members learn the methods
of design, testing and analysis that go into a real
engineering project, as well as the teamwork
necessary for success.
Timothy Garland
CUA has had a history of success in the
concrete canoe competition, making it to the
National Level several times. When leadership
of the team was transferred entirely to students
three years ago, the team was less successful.
However CUA has gradually moved back up in
the ranks. In 2005–2006 CUA placed a close
second overall at the regional competition, and
won second place overall in the races and first
place for their presentation.
With a tantalizing taste of near-victory, this
year’s team is geared to win first place. The team
has undergone some changes in structure and
motivation, changes that hopefully will drive CUA
toward victory. This year’s team will take advantage
of its team members from many engineering
disciplines and conduct research into technologies
such as shape memory alloys and the
ergonomic design of the canoe. Those tasks and
team members’ positive attitudes and outlook
propel us to another even more successful year.
Pictured left to right: John Long, Rachel Marz, Erica Gonzalez and Kelly McDonald from the CUA Concrete Canoe Team.
From spaghetti and marshmallows to kickball on
the green and ballroom at Maggianos, the CUA
School of Engineering celebrated National Engineering
Week in style from Feb. 14 to 18, 2006.
Founded by the National Society of Professional
Engineers in 1951, the annual event honors first
U.S. president George Washington, who was also
an engineer and a land surveyor, while raising
awareness of engineering as a profession. Each
day of Engineering Week features activities hosted
by engineering association chapters such as SWE,
BMES, IEEE, NSBE, ASME, ASCE and Tau Beta Pi, in
partnership with engineering students.
ASCE sponsored the first event of the week, Tall
and Sturdy Building, in which participants competed
to construct the tallest building out of spaghetti
and marshmallows. On Feb., 15 participants thrilled
to the graphic display of the rhythm of their heartbeats,
thanks to the BMES-sponsored ECG display
event. On Feb. 16, attendees brought their cell
phones and Ipods to the Tesla Coil and Robotics
Display for laser engraving, sponsored by the IEEE.
Also on the 16th, the Battle for Pangborn
Engineering Kickball Game was played on the CUA
Mall, outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception.
Engineering Week concluded on Feb. 18 with the
4th Annual Engineering Ball held at Maggiano’s
Italian Restaurant in Friendship Heights, Md. SWE
officers Shannon O’Brien, B.B.E. 2006, and Daniela
Monterrubio, B.B.E. 2006, organized the event,
attended by approximately 100 students, alumni,
family members, faculty and staff of CUA. Dean
Nguyen thanked the students and their sponsors
for their participation and announced that biomedical
engineering was the winner. The names of the
winners of the Engineering Week have been
engraved on a plaque displayed in the foyer of
Pangborn Hall.
fall2006 | 19

Network Security Experts
Since the advent of the digital age, computer
security — especially network security — has
been an ever-expanding topic. Many people believe
that a simple off-the-shelf router will protect
them from the perils of the Internet, or that a
password that is their pet’s name concatenated
with their favorite number will keep prying eyes
away from their data. The fact of the matter is that
a Windows XP computer without proper security
patches that is connected to the Internet can be
compromised and begin performing activities
most users would never contemplate doing
themselves in about the same amount of time it
takes to brew a pot of coffee.
Wireless networks are a focal point of many
attackers. Many home users and even corporations
do not adhere to strict security standards.
Wired Equivalent Privacy (also known as WEP)
is an attempt at encrypting packets as they sail
through potentially dangerous mediums. Pirates
of the air waves need only collect enough traffic
to determine which WEP key was used to encrypt
the packets being transmitted. Then they have
free range over that portion of the network. Most
encrypting fails when the key is never alternated.
Two of Catholic’s senior computer science
students, Alan Andress and Erik Saulkalns, aim
to design a laboratory network that allows CS
students and faculty secure access to their
research projects and data. Alan Andress says,
“We are trying to model our network along the
defense in depth strategy: attacks can occur at
any time and from any point outside and even
inside an organization. Your defense can’t lie
upon one straight line; it must be staggered and
difficult for unwanted advances to reach interior
critical resources.
However,” he says, “the biggest problem is
in trying to keep the system simple. A network
administrator’s users can
be the largest problems
at times when they decide
they shouldn’t have to jump
through hoops just to access
their data.”
How do network administrators
keep it simple yet
still keep out the bad guys?
Multiple forms of authentication
can be one way.
Encryption certificates, smart
cards, biometrics and strict
rule sets, are just a few
ways to ensure security.
To create this environment,
CUA’s CS department is using
its new custom-built server
to run virtualization software.
Saulkalns comments, “By
means of virtual servers, we
can simulate a much larger
network and build containment
areas with multiple
layers of protection.” The
goal is to create a perimeter
that is secure and only pass
through authenticated traffic.
The virtual server framework
allows a single computer to
essentially become multiple
independent operating systems
that can all communicate
via individual IP addresses.
“Along the perimeter we allow wireless
access, which adheres to current 802.11i security
standards. One of the virtual slices is running
a free radius server along with openSSL to handle
user authentication and packet encryption;
part of the 802.11i standard
is implemented using
Wi-Fi Protected Access 2
(WPA2),” say the students.
All access points pass their
authentication information
back to the free radius
server for TLS- based
authentication. The user
must present a proper certificate
or access will be
refused. Users at this point
are now only inside the
perimeter, still without
access to internal missioncritical
applications. The
network segmentation is achieved by using
virtual LANs, also known as sub netting.
Users within the building, using approved
devices, do not have to jump through the
perimeter, as they are considered to be “trusted”
or internal; however they still must pass through
typical network authentication. At this time that
consists only of a username and password.
Eventually, however, biometrics should be incorporated.
The remote users, either outside the
building or connecting via wireless, must use a
VPN tunnel to be allowed access to the internal
section, at which point basic authentication is
also performed.
This laboratory environment has been built to
enhance not only out-of-classroom learning but
also to add a layer of protection to university
research projects. “Threats are constantly changing
and the network must be prepared to defend
or at least delay an attack,” says Andress and
Saulkalns.
20 | cuaengineer

Nick Berg’s Congressional Internship
As I became a senior at Morris Catholic High
School in Denville, N.J., my interest in government
and politics began to develop. I took time to
watch the news and read the newspaper. I often
read about Congress and different bills that were
being proposed or debated. Knowing I was coming
to CUA the following fall, I wondered what it
would be like to live in the same city
as the federal government. I thought I would
have opportunities to listen to some famous
people speak, see some interesting buildings,
and be in the heart of American politics. What
I have experienced, though, has been beyond
my expectations.
For the past 10 years, my congressman from
the 11th District of New Jersey has been Rodney
Frelinghuysen. Growing up, I heard his name but
did not know anything else about him. I have
become much more familiar with him, his job
and what he has done for my community over
the past few years. Out of my own general interest,
I decided to make an appointment to meet
the congressman in his office on Capitol Hill. Due
to an e-mail requesting a visit, I was put on his
schedule for an afternoon meeting. When I got
there, however, all the members were called to
vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.
I did not get to meet him; however, I did get to
spend 20 minutes in his office talking to one of
his full-time staff members. He explained some of
the basic workings of Congress and described
Congressman Frelinghuysen. As we were wrapping
up our informal meeting, the staffer asked
if I would be interested in working as an intern.
I did not hesitate in answering, and e-mailed
him a copy of my résumé soon after. A month
later, my cell phone rang. It was the staffer I had
previously met. He asked if I was still interested in
the internship and wanted me to start when I
returned from winter
break.
The coordination of
my class schedule and
the internship schedule
worked out perfectly. I
took the Metro to Union
Station after calculus
class, and I worked
from 2:30 to 5, three
days a week. As an
intern in the office, I
met Congressman
Frelinghuysen and even
sat in on a few meetings.
The congressman
encouraged me to attend
meetings and hearings
so that I would get a
better understanding
of the political system.
This included listening
to debates on the House
floor and attending hearings
with different committees
and meetings
held in our office. The
job consisted of a variety
of responsibilities.
Some tasks might
seem mundane, but they actually are pretty
important. The largest task I had was inputting
the addresses of everyone who sent the
Congressman a letter about any issue into
a system so that a return letter could be sent to
each correspondent. I also assisted in making
binders containing memos, reports and figures
that the congressman used whenever he went to
meetings, debates or hearings. One of my
Nick Berg
favorite parts of the job, though, was giving tours
of the Capitol. I enjoyed learning about the history
of the building, the architecture, the personalities,
the artwork and the famous events, and
then giving other people the same satisfaction.
This Congressional internship was an unpaid
experience, but one that was worth much more
than a simple paycheck.
Activities of Student Chapters of IEEE and ACM
The Catholic University of America’s Student Chapter branch of Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) worked hard last year, the efforts
paid off with success at every turn, from holding multiple guest lectures
including that of the chair of the Washington section of IEEE, Ronald Ticker,
to laser printing on Ipods at Engineering Week.
In fact, the main IEEE activity for the year was preparing for the
IEEE/ACM event during Engineering Week (see related story, pg. 19).
The chapter also got a firsthand look at the Naval Research Laboratory
with a tour led by NRL scientist Dr. Lawrena Schuette. Students met Dr.
Richard Colton, director of the Institute for NanoScience, and Dr. Andrew
McGill, senior scientist for Chemical Detection Technology.
Newly elected officers for the 2006–2007 school year are President
Neil Smith, Vice President James Vezeris, Treasurer Dan Brosius and
Secretary Fikru Gennene.
Meanwhile the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), student
chapter organized a campus-wide programming competition on Oct. 15,
2005. Computer science students Stephen Matta, EriK Saulkalns, and
Mike Son emerged as winners, then formed the ‘CUA Cardinals’ for the
ACM Regional competition. In the regionals, held at Marymount
University on Nov. 12, 2005, ‘CUA Cardinals’ placed in the top third,
among 160 teams in the ACM Mid-Atlantic region.
fall2006 | 21

CUA Engineering: Cutting-edge Research Driving Superb Education
School of
Engineering
Charles C. Nguyen, Dean
202-319-5160
Jeffrey Giangiuli, Director
Engineering
Managment Program
202-319-5191
Binh Q. Tran, Chair
Department of
Biomedical Engineering
202-319-5181
Poul Lade, Chair
Department of
Civil Engineering
202-319-5163
Nader Namazi, Chair
Department of
Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science
202-319-5193
J. Steven Brown, Chair
Department of
Mechanical Engineering
202-319-5170
Doctor of Philosophy
Sister Damien Savino, F.S.E.
Vincent Cassella, B.S.E.E., M.S.E.
Michael Abbas Fatemi, B.S.E., M.S.E.E.,
M.S.C.S.
Master of Biomedical Engineering
Erin Elizabeth Blair, B.B.E.
Habteab Ghebreyesus Deres, B.S., M.S.
Robert Stutz, B.B.E.
Emmanuel Wilson, B.Engr.
Master of Civil Engineering
Juan Oscar Torres, B.S.
Master of Electrical Engineering
Christopher Delane Fountain, B.S.
Mohammad Wasim Reza, B.S.
Joseph Mary Tama, B.A., M.S., Ph.D.
Master of Mechanical Engineering
Brian Moyer, B.M.E.
Tracy L. Rausch, B.S.
Beth Wirick, B.S.
Master of Science in Computer Science
Kevin Clark Battle, B.S.C.S.
Sarah Henry Brown, B.S., B.S.C.S.
Uwe Michael Klimach, B.S.
Master of Science in Engineering
Mohamed Khaled Alfudhala, B.A.
Huriyet Anaz, B.S.
rik Eduard Anderson, B.S.
EAbdulla Khalii Buhejji, B.A.
Jerry Wayne Carter Jr., B.S.
Danielle S. Christian, B.S.
Clark Alan Durant, B.S.
Saeed Fatemi, B.S.
Keith Fava, B.S.
Lamine Mohamed Hachani, B.E.E.
Congratulations to the Class of 2006!
Simonas Janusis, B.M.E.
Guru Kalpathy, M.C.A.
Nishadi A. Karunarathne, B.C.E.
Scott E. Kozink, B.S.
Omar Martinez, B.C.E.
Crystal Verice McGill, B.S.
Anthony Rudolphi
Salem M. Samim, B.S.C.
John Richard Sasse, B.S.
Rafael Fernando Sierra Quesada, Indust. Engr.
David Matthew Simprini, B.A.
Dwight Edward Smith Jr., B.S.
Joshua B. Stubblefield, B.S.C.
Yuanyuan Wang, B.S.
Glenn Kenta Washington, B.S.
Rodolfo J. Whittembury, B.S.E.E.
Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering
Hakan Emre Bardakci
Erin Elizabeth Blair
Matthew Timothy Carnavos
Lindsay Ann DiRomualdo
Stephanie A. Kennedy
Brian Michael Meyer
Daniela De Pavia Monterrubio
Janine Asiddao Nierva
Shannon Elizabeth O’Brien
Gloryvee Rivera
Thomas Steven Seacrist
Robert Stutz
Bachelor of Civil Engineering
Kyle Carson
Richard M. Craine
Sara Delmonico
Michael S. Guarino
Stephen James Gyurisin
Peter Kelley
Benjamin George Mullen
Ph.D. Dissertations and Advisers
Kevin T. Pilong
Stephen D. Raab
Ron Rupert Ramirez
Mark Andrew Rolfs
Bryan Andrew Seifarth
Ben Francis Senger
Christopher Smith
Bachelor of Electrical Engineering
Neilanjan Dutta
Joseph A. Nguyen
Phyoe Zaw Oo
Christopher Aaron Smith
Gregory J. Thibault
Steven Ross Turner
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering
Kerri L. Allen
Nicholas Ryan Bublavi
Roberto Hernandez III
Patrick T. Kennedy
John Richard Maley
Daniel H. McDonald
Laura E. O’Donnell
Patrick Francis O’Malley
Melissa D. Schneider
Adam R. Spisak
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Alan J. Andress
Stephen John Matta
Russell M. Meyer
Marie Karine Bhindhya Selvanadin
Mike G. Son
Bachelor of Civil Engineering and
Architecture
Brian A. Carlson
Charles F. Cerria Jr.
Megan Lisa Zupan
Sister Damien Savino, F.S.E., Dissertation: Urban River Restoration: The Confluence Between Restoration of People and Restoration of Place
in Light of Holling’s Dynamic of Creative Destruction and Bonaventure’s Theology of Human Meditation. William Kelly, Ph.D., P.E., professor
of civil engineering.
Vincent Cassella, B.S.E.E., M.S.E., Dissertation: A Clustering and Principal Component Approach to Exemplar Based Machine Learning for
Classification Identification. Nader Namazi, Ph.D., professor, chair of electrical engineering and computer science.
Michael Abbas Fatemi, B.S.E., M.S.E.E., M.S.C.S., Dissertation: An Expectation Maximization Approach Multiple Model Filtering With Application
To Tracking And Scheduling. Nader Namazi, Ph.D., professor, chair of electrical engineering and computer science.
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
School of Engineering
Washington, DC 20064
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