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CEIE
in Pictures
CEIE
Hall of Fame
The
Annual School of Information Technology
and Engineering Awards
Gala 2005.
Two of our Faculty members, Dr. Mark H.
Houck, P.E. and Mr. C.
David Binning, P.E. were
awarded a prestigiousOutstanding
Teaching Award and Outstanding
Adjunct Faculty Award respectively.
Below are the excerpts from the Gala Awards
Program.
Outstanding
Teaching Award to Mark H. Houck, Ph.D.,
P. E.
was presented by CACI International, Inc.
Dr. Houck is Professor of CEIE and also
an affiliate faculty in the Department of
Systems Engineering and Operation Research,
and Department of Environmental Science
and Policy.
D. Houck's research and teaching interests
include water resource systems management,
planning, and engineering; environmental
systems analysis and engineering; and operations
research. His most resent work has been
in the area of water and wastewater infrastructure
security. Two current projects include evaluation
of vulnerability assessment in the water
and wastewater infrastructure sector, and
development of novel strategies for identifying
optimal counter-measures to attacks on water
infrastructure.
More about Dr. Houck
 Outstanding
Adjunct Faculty Award to C. David Binning,
P. E.
was presented by webMethods, Inc.
Dave Binning is the Director
of Planning & Engineering for Fairfax
Water, providing public water services to
1.2-milion people in Northern Virginia.
He has 40 years experience as a designer,
operator, manager and construction manager
of utility systems.
He served as the NATO Director
of Infrastructure for the 16-member nations.
During the Reagan Administration Mr. Binning
was the Engineer of the White House, responsible
for planning, construction and maintenance
of presidential support facilities across
the country.
He currently chairs the national
Drinking Water Advisory Council's Water
Security Working Group, charged with developing
national best practice standards for defining
and measuring the degree of implementation
of "active and effective" public
system security.
Mr. Binnings taught undergraduate
courses in fluid flow, hydraulics, heat
transfer, thermodynamics and utility system
design as an instructor and adjunct at the
Naval Nuclear Power School, University of
Alaska and George Mason University.
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2004
ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award.
Dr.
Tomasz Arciszewski has been selected by
the Technical Council on Computing and Information
Technology Advisory Committee as the recipient
of the 2004 Computing in Civil Engineering
Award. His award citation reads, "For
his efforts over the past five years to
improve collaboration between groups around
the world and culminating in his vision
and creation of a Global Center of Excellence
for Information Technology and Computing
in Civil Engineering."
The
awards presentation took place on Saturday
morning, October 23, 2004, in the Baltimore
Convention Center.
Visit
www.asce.org/pressroom/honors
for a list of past recipients.
Dr. Arciszewski joins a distinguished list
of colleagues.
Congratulation!
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Final
Ph.D. Defense
 On
October 15, 2004, Mr. Rafal Kicinger, a
Ph.D. student in our CEIE Department had
the final and public defense of his dissertation
on "EMERGENT ENGINEERING DESIGN: DESIGN
CREATIVITY AND OPTIMALITY INSPIRED BY NATURE."
The event was attended by Dr. Stephen Nash,
the Associate Dean for Research, in our
IT&E School, by members of his Ph.D.
Committee and by about 30 friends and other
Ph.D. students.
The project was highly interdisciplinary
reflecting the spirit of our School. Therefore,
committee members also represented various
areas of science and technology, including
Dr. Tomasz Arciszewski (CEIE Department,
IT&E), Dr. Kenneth A. De Jong (Computer
Science Department, IT&E) , Dr. John
Rehder (NASA Langley Research Center), Dr.
Timothy Sauer (Department of Mathematics,
School of Computational Sciences) and Dr.
David A. Schum (SEOR, IT&E).
Rafal gave an excellent presentation interrupted
many times by questions from a friendly
but demanding audience and flawlessly answered
questions from the Committee members.
Pictures from this event can be seen from
here.
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 George
Mason University Innovations Exhibit
Every year George Mason University organizes
Innovations exhibit that is a showcase of
learning opportunities and creative student
projects at the university.
During the Innovations 2004 event, Rafal
Kicinger, one of the Ph.D. candidates
in our Department, presented his novel system
called “Emergent Designer.”
It is an integrated research and design
support tool that uses various models of
complex adaptive systems, including cellular
automata, and evolutionary algorithms, to
represent engineering systems and design
processes. The project won the “Best
Use of Technology” award sponsored
by the Division of Instructional and Technology
Support Services. Congratulation Rafal!
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2004 IT&E
Spring Awards Banquet.
This
year the Outstanding Graduate Award
goes to Rafal Kicinger.Rafal is currently
an Information Technology Ph.D. student
working in the area of nature inspired
approaches to inventive design. He
is an outstanding student with a
3.97 GPA in his doctoral studies.Rafal's
interdisciplinary and pioneer research
is the best reflection of the philosophy
of the School of IT&E, which
seeks fundamental scientific advancements
through the synesthesia of engineering,
mathematics, and computer science
in the spirit of Leonardo da
Vinci.The Outstanding Graduate
Award was presented by SRA International,
Inc.Congratulation, Rafal!
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IT
894 Student Project Presentation and
Award Ceremony, December 2006
 In
the Fall of 2006, our CEIE Department
offered a unique course IT 894 “Design
and Inventive Engineering.” Dr.
Tomasz Arciszewski taught the course. It
was about the scientific foundation of
engineering design and about engineering
creativity, understood as inventive designing,
that means designing focused on the development
of unknown yet feasible and potentially
patentable designs.
The course
attracted eight graduate students, including
seven Ph.D. students, from the CS, CEIE,
IS, and SEOR Departments.
In addition
to regular lectures by the instructor,
the students had a rare opportunity to
listen to invited speakers. The guest
speakers were internationally known design
scholars, like Professor John Gero of
the University of Sydney in Australia,
and practicing inventors, like Dr. Frank
Berte of Tetra Engineering Group, Inc.
in Boston, MA, and Dr. Kalu Uduma of
DaimlerChrysler’s Technology Center
in Auburn Hills, MI. .... Read more.
Read
more about this
fascinating teaching/learning experience
and the follow-up project.
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Senior Design Project Presentations.
Every year in a Spring Semester our senior students work hard under the Faculty guidance to prepare and present a elaborate design project. In order to do it correctly they must refresh their knowledge in many areas of civil engineering expertise.
Faculty and students take the project seriously. The audience composed of local business representatives, potential employers, substantially grew over the past three years. Students get their recognition among piers and professionals.
Every year we present a new album from this events.
2005 |
2006 |
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2004 |
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ASCE 2006 Awards
and Scholarships Banquet.
Ms. Sogol
Baniahmad received the outstanding senior
award. Mr. Kalen Bauman (sophomore)
received the Williams memorial
scholarship in the amount of $1,000.
Mr Jesse Coleman (sophomore) received
the largest scholarship granted by
NCS, the Hathaway memorial scholarship
in the amount of $2,500. Mr. Grid Gremi,
Mr. Firaas Hakim, and Ms. Romy Espinoza
were also in attendance and were recognized
on the occasion of their completion
of the baccalaureate degree.
More pictures from here.
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ASCE
2004 Awards and Scholarships Banquet.
This
year our outstanding student, Robert Mehler,
and students who received memorial scholarships,
Lindsay Dyan Held and Israel Edgar Arteaga,
represented all our graduates:Gerald R.
Burke, Alvaro De la Vega, Erin N. Druyun,
Sebastian Sandoval, Melany R. Alliston,
John A. Cardenas, Clay R. Frook, Gary L.
Gardner, Jr, John Stuart Groupe V, Vu M
Nguyen, Dominic L. Powers, Lisa J. Thomas,
Azmi T. Moushtaha, Lloyd A. Ntuk, Felipe
A. Prieto and Jonathan C. Weber. Congratulation
to all.
Pictured
from the left are:
- Lindsay
Dyan Held, scholarship awardee
- Israel
Edgar Arteaga, scholarship awardee
- Patricia
D. Galloway, PE, President, ASCE
- Robert
Mehler, GMU outstanding student
- Aimee
Flannery, Ph.D., P.E. -Faculty Advisor
- Tomasz
Arciszewski, Ph.D. - Department Chairman
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ASCE
2003 Awards Banquet.
Not all of the 15 graduating
seniors were present on the ASCE
2003 Awards Banquet. Comparing
with Catholic University of America (10),
University of the District of Columbia (3),
Howard University (12) ans George Washington
University (5), George Mason University
graduated 15 students from CEIE.Congratulation
to all:
Mashour A. Al-Harithy, Mohammed Bagbi, David
J. Branz, Gerald R. Burke, Jack L. Delaney,
Erin N. Druyun, Thomas C. Ellastad, David
F. Ey, Ryan K. Foroughi, Angela N. Martin,
Sebastian Sandoval, Michael A. Shivik, Julio
E. Trinidad, Matthew E. Yakim, and the outstanding
student, William F. Johnson.
Pictured
with the Faculty Advisor Dr. Aimee Flannery
are the ASCE officers for 2002-2003: Erin
Druyun (president), Angela Martin (vice-president),
Wiliam Johnson (treasurer) and Lisa Thomas
(secretary)
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2003
ASCE Graduating Outstanding Seniors
William
F. Johnson
William
received ASCE-NCS memorial scholarships
in 2001 (Hummel) and 2002 (NCS).
He is a member of Tau Beta Epsilon,
the engineering honor society and
will be attending George Mason next
year as a graduate student in the
civil engineering department concentrating
in transportation systems.
Congratulation William!
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John
Cardenas wins Harold Williams Memorial Scholarship,
established by Dewberry & Davis and
friends.
For
the past two summers John has been an intern
with Dewberry & Davis LLC. During the
summer of 2001, he was employed at their
Manassas office and in the summer of 2002
at the Dewberry Companies’ Headquarters
in Fairfax, Virginia. He performed some
tasks in the arena of land development engineering.
He also participates in community service
activities with Alpha Lambda Delta Honor
Society.
After
receiving his B.S. in Civil and Infrastructure
Engineering and business minor at George
Mason University in May of 2004, he plans
to continue his education with graduate
work in water resources, transportation
engineering, or another concentration that
may spur his interest as hecontinues his
studies. His second goal upon graduation
is to become a licensed professional engineer
in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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2003
ASCE Meritorious Service Awards
Greg
Prelewicz, P.E. is our graduate student,
working as a project engineer with Parsons
Corporation in Fairfax. He primarily works
on water resources, environmental
and construction related projects.
Greg
has been recognized for his dedication and
service to the National Capital Section
over the years. He has served in various
leadership roles in the Younger Member Forum
including president, as chair of the Education
Committee. Greg has coordinated volunteer
efforts including Habitat for Humanity,
planned numerous technical and non-technical
meetings, organized YMF volunteers for the
annual awards banquet and seamlessly taken
over as the newsletter editor for NCS.
Greg's
efforts have strengthened the National Capital
Section to the benefit of us all. He can
be inspiration to all CEIE students.
Greg
Prelewicz is pictured with Dr. T. Arciszewski
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Giants
in the CEIE Department
On
November 19, 2002, four CEIE
students were among nine students inducted
to the Tau Beta Epsilon Engineering
Honor Society.
Only the best, brightest hardest working
and most talented students are members
of this society. They are expected
to be leaders and change the future
of engineering. We are proud of our
new members
John
A. Cardenas
Ryan K. Foroughi
William F. Johnson
Angela N. Martin
Congratulation!
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How
We Made History
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Civil Engineering
Institute Annual Meeting
January 30, 2006
George Mason’s Civil Engineering Institute
(CEI) was hosting its annual awards luncheon
and meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 31, in the Johnson
Center Dewberry Hall on the Fairfax Campus.
Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander and chief
of engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
was the keynote speaker.
Lt. Gen. Strock will also be awarded CEI’s
Engineering Excellence and Leadership Award.
A native of Georgia, Strock grew up in an
Army family. He enlisted in the Army and
received his commission as an infantry second
lieutenant following graduation from Officer
Candidate School in 1972. He holds a bachelor
of science degree in civil engineering from
VMI and a master’s degree in civil
engineering from Mississippi State University.
He is a registered professional engineer.
The Civil Engineering Institute is a nonprofit
corporation that assists the civil engineering
program of George Mason University. It provides
scholarships, summer paid internships, course
support and advice on engineering practice
with support from local industry, community
institutions and agencies.
 
The photo album from this event is available
from here.
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Volgenau
School of IT&E's
20th Anniversary Celebration, October 2005
In
2006 CEIE Department will cellebrate the
15th anniversary!
 Our
department had the best and largest exhibition
presenting our research and professional
leadership.
Hundreds of guests visited our
display, learning about our projects in the
areas of infrastructure security and transportation
engineering.
The exhibition was designed
and prepared by Romy Espinoza, Paul Gebski,
Zbig Skolicki and Dr. Rafal Kicinger.
See other pictures from the anniversary
celebration.
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Celebration
of 150 year Anniversary for ASCE
On
November 2, 2002 CEIE hosted a Welcome Session
for participants of the Washington DC, 2002 Civil
Engineering Conference & Exhibition.
The
event was opened by the University Provost, Dr.
Peter N. Stearns. Next, University Professor
Andrew P. Sage, Dean Emeritus of the School of
Information Technology and Engineering, gave a
talk (downloadable
from here) on Information Technology and Civil
Engineering in the 21st Century.
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Dinner
with live chamber music was followed by a dance
performance, and six parallel demonstrations.
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How
We Work, Learn, Travel and Play
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Student's Trip
to Panama: Exploring Engineering at the Crossroads
of the World
In January 2006, the George Mason
University Chapter of the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) traveled
to the Republic of Panama to
tour the Panama Canal and related engineering
and educational interests at “the crossroads
of the world.”
Ten
civil, environmental, and infrastructure
engineering (CEIE) students and Dr. Michael
Casey, the ASCE faculty advisor,
made the trip which was sponsored by GMU’s
Civil Engineering Institute
(CEI). CEI is a nonprofit corporation registered
in the State of Virginia
since 1989 whose charter is to assist with
the Civil Engineering program of
George Mason University by providing scholarships,
summer paid internships,
course support and advice on engineering
practice, curriculum development, and support
for
civil engineering student organizations.
Panama
Trip Newsletter is available for downloading.
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 Students'
Trip To Hong Kong
In January 2005 six ASCE students from our department
travelled to Hong Kong to familiarise with Hong
Kong architecture, culture and the University
of Hong Kong.
They will remember this trip as the highlights
of their student years in George Mason University.
They want to share
their PowerPoint presentation, pictures and reflections
from the trip.
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Luncheon
Honoring CEIE Graduate of 2005-2006 was held
on May 18, 2006,
followed by the IT&E Convocation.
Message for all graduates and
all other students:
The Album with pictures from
the ceremony is available from here.
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Luncheon
Honoring CEIE Graduate of 2003-2004 was held on
May 13, 2004,
followed by the IT&E Convocation.
Friends
of the Civil & Infrastructure
Engineering Institute presented a Luncheon
Honoring CEIE Graduates
of 2003-2004.
Keynote Speaker - Mr. Thomas F. Farley - District
Administrator, Virginia Department of Transportation
Honored
Bachelor of Science Graduates:
- Melany
R. Alliston - Academic Achievement Award
- John
A. Cardenas - Outstanding Undergraduate Student
Award
- Clayton
R. Frook - Faculty Appreciation Award
Honored
Master of Science Graduates
- Ipek
Aktuglu - Outstanding Graduate Student award
- Rafal
P. Kicinger, Ph.D. - Outstanding Graduate
Award
 President
Alan G. Merten, attended the luncheon and
in the evening he opened the Convocation ceremony
for all graduates from School of Information
Technology and Engineering.
Luncheon
and Convocation 2004 Album
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International Week 2005
Our graduate students from Poland
and Pakistan presented many books, posters,
videos and art from their native countries.
 
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International
Week 2004: A Cascade of Cultural Expressions.
Our
Polish students organized a Polish Table as a
part of International Bazaar.
Colorful
regional Polish costumes magnetized visitors.
They asked many questions about Poland and Polish
culture, tasted Polish sweets, and browsed through
many albums and booklets for tourists.
Our
graduate students Pawel Grebski, Zbigniew Skolicki,
Rafal and Iwona Kicinger made professor Arciszewski
proud of their common Polish roots.
 
 
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Students
from CEIE visitFairfax
County Wastewater Treatment Facility
Members of the Wastewater Engineering Management
class (CEIE442/552) visited the Noman M. Cole,
Jr. Pollution Control Plant at Lorton, Virginia
on March 24, 2004 as part of their semester studies
of wastewater treatment.
Ms.
Laurel Shultzaberger, a recent
graduate of our environmental engineering masters
program hosted the group from GMU.
Read
about this visit.
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End
of Year Party, December 2006
 This
year End of Year Party, formerly
called "Christmas Party," was celebrated
by Faculty, Students and Guests at the Thai
Restaurant "Cee" in Fairfax.
Lived
music, pleasant conversations and good food
made this event memorable. See
more pictures. |
Christmas
Party 2003
Prof.
Arciszewski welcomes CEIE faculty and students
to the traditional departmental Christmas Party
Diner.
See
pictures from this event.
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Picnic
for ASCE Members, Seniors and CEIE Faculty
at Dr. Mohan Venigalla's house, Saturday, May
3, 2003
Eating,
playing, talking, enjoying each others company
on one special Spring day, when it did not rain!
see
pictures
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Dr.
Tomasz Arciszewski, visited in February of 2003
for one week
Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.
Besides
his talk on Novelty and Evolutionary Design and
demonstration of two experimental evolutionary
design systems developed at GMU, he enjoyed the
amazing traditional architecture at Sendai. |
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Alternative
Spring Break 2003 for ASCE Students
The
following students traveled to New York to get
aquatinted with new and old famous structures
of NY. Pictured are from the bottom left:: Erin
Druyun, Lisa Thomas, Clay Ellestad, Feng Bi
Wu, Baharak Mohammadzadeh Stephanie Doblosky,
Carlos Fernandez, Suzie Lancaster Olisa Akpati,
Rob Mehler.
Looking through glass on left: Israel Arteaga.
Not Pictured: William Johnson, Lindsay Held.
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The
Inaugural Centre Seminar on ‘Innovations
in Infrastructure and Construction Industry Development’
at the University of Hong Kong.
March 12, 2003
Professor
Arciszewski delivered a keynote address on ''Information
Technology in Civil Engineering in the XXI Century''.
Pictures
from Hong Kong can be of interest to all civil
engineers. |
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Our
Recent Seminar Speakers and Visitors.
(unfortunately
we don't have pictures from all seminars and visits)
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Seminars:
Infrastructure Security: Bridge Monitoring and
Protection
Professor
Andrzej Nowak
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Monday,
March 15, 4:30PM
Johnson Center G
Highway
Infrastructure Security: A National Perspective.
Dr.
Steven Chase
Technical Director for Bridges, Federal Highway
Administration
February
20, 2004,
The
seminar talk is available
on line.
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A
Short Working Visit From England
On
January 19 and 20 2004, Professor Ian Parmee visited
our Department.
He is the Director of the Advanced Computation
in Design and Decision-making Laboratory at the
University of the West of England in Bristol,
England, and the leading English researcher in
the area of evolutionary designing. Professor
Parmee’s visit was directly related to our
ongoing cooperation focused on the use of various
novel multi-population evolutionary computation
mechanisms in conceptual design. Professor Parmee
gave a talk and had many discussions with students
and faculty in our Department.
 In
April 2004, as a continuation of our cooperation,
Mr. Rafal Kicinger, a Ph.D. candidate in our Department,
will be attending the Sixth International Conference
on Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture
(ACDM 2004), organized by Professor Parmee. He
will present a paper on “Morphogenic evolutionary
design: cellular automata representations in topological
structural design,” continuing in this way
our intercontinental dialog.
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by Professor Tim Ross, currently
Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal,
Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems.
Professor Ross and his audience:
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Pictured
are from left to right are: Dr. Kalu Uduma, from
Chrysler Corporation, Professor Obayashi from
Tokoku University in Japan and Dr.
Frank J. Berte from Tetra Engineering Group,
Inc and Prof. T. Arciszewski. The picture is commemorating
two seminars: on inventions by Berte and
Uduma and on xxx by Obayashi.
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Our
past visitors who contributed to the teaching
and reaseach efforts at the CEIE Department. |
Torben
Pullman
 I
came to CEIE in February this year from Darmstadt,
Germany, as a short term scholar for three months.
In September 2002 the annual workshop of the European
Group of Intelligent Computing in Engineering
(EG-ICE) took place in Germany. Fortunately Prof.
Tomasz Arciszewski and Rafal Kicinger took part
in this workshop, where we met. We considered
starting research cooperation in the field of
genetic Optimization and Evolutionary Strategies.
So my actual visit to GMU can be comprehended
as the initial visit for hopefully ongoing long
term research cooperation between Darmstadt and
Fairfax.
I
finished my German Diploma, which officially is
equivalent to a Masters, in October 2002 at the
University of Technology in Darmstadt. Since November
2002 I have been working there at the department
for concrete materials, a main part of the civil
engineering department. I am doing research in
the field of information technology, even if this
is not originally a domain of concrete materials.
My supervisor Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Schnellenbach-Held,
did extensive research on expert systems and fuzzy-logic,
so besides the classic research on concrete we
also started working on several projects in information
technology. I am also going to work on my PhD
in this domain.
My
activities at Mason mainly focused on a mutual
research project dealing with genetic optimization
of concrete tall building designs, which represents
an interesting contrast to the traditional optimization
of steel structures. I really benefit a lot from
the experience of the people with whom I interacted
and from the versatile opportunities this wonderful
university has to offer. I also attended interesting
classes where I could , not only for the actual
project, but also for my further work back home.
Since
I heard bad stories about finding suitable accommodation
in this area, I am really grateful that Tomasz
found a very kind host family for me close to
the Fairfax campus. Thanks again to him for this
great job! When I arrived at Mason, I was really
impressed. Although I’ve seen a lot of universities
in Europe, the large-scale campus here is different.
No wonder that I nearly got lost on my first way
to the Office for international programs and services.
The public facilities here are more in a form
I would appreciate to have them in Darmstadt.
Especially the Aquatic Center is a perfect unification
of opportunities to work out and relax, quite
a good change to the busy university life.
Reading
the schedule of classes I realized that George
Mason offers an enormous amount of different courses
of study. In my country the universities are normally
more specialized in certain branches. Heidelberg
for instance is famous for the courses in medicine,
Augsburg is the better choice for studying law,
and Mainz is very good in languages and humanities.
Measured on the staff and buildings my University
in Germany is about the same size like George
Mason, but highly focused in technical courses
and engineering. Founded in the 19th century,
it started with some buildings inside the city,
and grew until there was no more space around.
Then a second campus, some miles away at the city-limits,
started its service in the 1970’s.
The
Department of Civil Engineering in Darmstadt is
divided into nine sub-departments: mechanics,
concrete materials, steel materials, geotechnics,
calculation and organization, informatics in civil
engineering, transportation, waterbuilding and
infrastructure design. Each sub-department has
in average two Professors and about 20 assistants.
Some departments also own large experimental halls.
The department of waterbuildings for example has
got a very large artificial section of a river
for dynamic experiments, where we are able to
create waves and streams to determine the behavior
of water-buildings, in addition to numerical simulations.
The Departments for Steel and Concrete have experimental
facilities for designing component parts and for
running load tests on real steel or concrete beams.
The department of concrete materials is the largest
department there, with four professors and all
together more than 50 full time staff members.
Concluding,
I must say I had a wonderful time here at Mason.
I got to know many nice people, and I also got
many new impressions to recall (?). I also have
much to look ahead for, since continuous interaction
with the Department of CEIE will proceed. I hope
that also many visitors from here will join us
in Germany. Anyway I am sure this will not have
been my last visit to the Washington DC area,
and I will surely not miss the chance at least
to stop by George Mason next time I’ll be
here.
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Emeka
Oguejiofor, P.Eng., Visiting Professor |
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Reflections
on my Visit to George Mason University
It
is amazing that my visit to George Mason University
(GMU) is already over. It seems like only yesterday
that I arrived in Fairfax. Time does really go
by so quickly! I am glad that I chose to come
to GMU for a variety of reasons. On a professional
level, the Department of Civil, Environmental
and Infrastructure Engineering (CEIE) at GMU is
in the fore-front in the area of integrating information
technology into traditional civil engineering
program curriculum. As part of the School of Information
Technology and Engineering, the department is
uniquely situated to take advantage of opportunities
to collaborate with faculty in the other programs
within the school, such as Computer Science, Electrical
and Computer Engineering, Information and Software
Engineering, etc. The main research project that
I participated in involved the development of
a novel tool for building intelligent tutoring
systems. This project involved doctoral students
and faculty from both Computer Science and CEIE
departments, as well as researchers from the Old
Dominion University, Hampton and personnel from
NASA. This research was presented at the 2nd International
Conference on Innovation in Architecture, Engineering
and Construction at Loughborough, England (see
picture below).
Also,
I will not forget those unique courses that I
took at George Mason University, starting with
the Introduction to Design and Inventive Engineering
where, along with the discussion of various methodologies,
the role of beauty in the design process was explored
in the context of Leonardo Da Vinci. The very
timely course, Civil Infrastructure and Security
Engineering and the associated work that the CEIE
faculty is involved in as part of The Infrastructure
Security Partnership (TISP) initiative was another
highlight for me. Yet another course that is worthy
of mention because of its uniqueness is the course
titled Process of Discovery and its Enhancement.
The
opportunity to teach a course each in the Fall
and Winter semesters allowed me to interact with
undergraduate students at GMU. Although a significant
number of these students were mature students
and/or held part/full time employments, the fact
that these students had some practical experience
was beneficial. On the other hand, some of the
students, especially those that work full time,
appear not to have sufficient time to devote to
their academic work. A student that opts to maintain
full time employment status should be required
to take a fewer number of courses.
I
cannot end this without extending my thanks to
all those that made my stay at Fairfax very enjoyable.
The first on this list is Chief (Prof) Tomasz
Arciszewski and his family for being always there
and opening their home to me. When I had a nasty
experience with a landlady shortly on my arrival,
I stayed with the Arciszewskis until I found another
place to move into. On Thanksgiving Day, I was
treated to a combination of Polish and Nigerian
cuisines. It was indeed very comforting to know
that I had a home away from home. I will miss
the lunch breaks with Dr. Mohan Venigalla and
our discussion during the time that we spent together.
I thank the other CEIE faculty, Drs. Bronzini,
deMonsabert, Flannery and Houck, for welcoming
me and making me feel like part of the department.
I will miss the lively conversations with Mico
Miller and thank him for all his assistance throughout
my stay. I will cherish the friendships that I
have established with graduate students Rafal,
Zbyszek, Elena, Anjumand, Asma and Harshit. I
was very moved by all the farewell/send-off parties
that were organized. I thank you all for making
my stay at GMU such a wonderful experience.
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