Tau Beta Pi (Maryland Delta Chapter) Officers

March 1, 2016

UMBC Engineers Week 2016

            DiscoverE Engineers Week was celebrated nationally from February 21-27, 2016, and Tau Beta Pi Maryland Delta officers were motivated to plan a successful campus-wide celebration. Tau Beta Pi’s main objective is to promote and recognize engineering excellence, not only for its members and chapter, but also for all engineering organizations and the rest of the UMBC community. The best way to showcase this is through Engineers Week. Here at UMBC, TBP, all the engineering organizations, and the engineering faculty have been collaborating extensively from early October through February to plan our second annual E-Week celebration.

            Throughout E-Week, engineers from all disciplines participate in a variety of events and activities, during which they may build camaraderie and a greater sense of community. Professors, alumni, professionals, and non-STEM majors are actively encouraged to participate as well. A few highlights from our celebration include: Dr. Hrabowski (President of UMBC) as the opening speaker, a fierce and friendly game of dodgeball, and Corey Fleischer (‘05 UMBC mechanical engineering alum and the winner of “The Big Brain Theory” on Discovery Channel). culminating E-Week as the closing speaker. Lastly, all of the engineering majors competed on the last day of the week to overcome a series of engineering challenges and minute-to-win-it games in the Battle of the Engineers to take home the coveted Battle of the Engineers trophy.

            Overall, Tau Beta Pi Maryland Delta and all of the UMBC engineering student organizations involved are honored to have hosted Engineers Week and greatly appreciate all of the support from the College of Engineering and Information Technology and the UMBC community. We hope that the college will continue this wonderful tradition of week-long celebrations and further assimilate Engineers Week to UMBC.

“It’s a competitive job market out there.” How many times have you heard that? I know I hear it all the time. 

It can be incredibly unnerving and discouraging to try and present yourself to employers and recruiters when you start getting overwhelmed about the people you’re competing against as well as all of the qualifications the employers are looking for. However, it’s important to remember that you’re a student, and you’ve probably had a job, internship, class project, and/or papers to work on, which means you have qualifications to talk about! Sometimes you might not realize that the work you’re doing is building up particular skills, so it’s always helpful to take a step back and recognize the work you’re doing. By evaluating your skills and practicing your elevator pitch, you can boost your confidence and feel more prepared for job and internship interviews.

This Friday, March 4th from 12 to 1pm, there’s a Transferable Skills Workshop in Commons 328. This is an excellent opportunity to help you gain these skills. Whether you’re a freshman, alumni, or graduate student, this workshop is an awesome opportunity for you to identify what you’re good at and love to do, learn how to articulate with an employer, and learn how to make contacts in a field whenever you’re ready to make them! Doing this workshop could give you the confidence you need to find an internship or full-time job in the next few months. It could even help you decide on classes, internships, attending career fairs, and making connections. 

You can also always check out the Career Center website for some help on evaluating your skills and pitching them to employers. If you’re still feeling unsure about what your skills might be, you can take one (or all) of our online assessments that will allow you to learn more about your interests, skills, and strengths, as well as what field of work you could fit into based on your results! Another great thing to do is to find out more about your major. You can do this by using the Career Insider Portal on the database Vault, LinkedIn, and your academic department website to check out some of the fields of work you might be interested in going into for your major. 

You might already know what your strengths are, but are unsure about how to organize them. Our page on creating a 30 second commercial for yourself is a great resource for organizing your transferrable skills. A 30 second commercial is a concise way to identify who you are, some of your major strengths and accomplishments, and what you could contribute to an employer or company. This can be incredibly helpful for career fairs, networking, or answering that intimidating question from employers, “Why do you want to work for us?”

Having confidence in yourself is a significant part of finding a job, so I highly recommend attending this workshop or taking additional steps to get there!

A reflection from Women’s Center staff member Daniel Willey

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how disaster response and the concept of a snow day have social justice implications. This week, I am continuing the trend by looking at the disaster in Flint, Michigan. Many news outlets are examining the crisis from a “so how do we fix it” standpoint, but I want to look at this crisis through the lens of “how did we get here.” What structural imbalances led us to this point? What does this crisis say about the bigger picture? Before we get there, though, let’s look at what happened:

(cnn.com)

In 2011, former acting mayor of Flint, Michigan Mike Brown was appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder as the city’s Emergency Financial Manager. The city was $15 million in debt, and it was the EFM’s job to cut the budget as much as possible to remedy the situation. As a major cost saving measure, Flint voted to stop buying water from Detroit, which pulls water from Lake Huron, and connect to Karegnondi Water Authority as a cheaper, more direct way of getting water from Lake Huron. This plan, voted on in 2013, would not be completed until 2016 and the city switched to water from the Flint River in the interim. Tests done on Flint River back in 2011 showed that the water from the river was corrosive and would need to be treated with phosphates before it could be used as a water source. This information was sent to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in 2013 when the decision was made to switch. It was the MDEQ’s job to address the corrosiveness of the water, which would cost about $100 per day. As a cost saving measure, they didn’t.

Fast forward to April 2014. Flint switches its water source. Residents report that the water is brown, smells, and has a bad taste. It was gross, but officials insisted it was fine.

(flintwaterstudy.org)

That summer, E.coli and coliform bacteria were found in the water and residents were told to boil their water. Still gross, but officials still claimed the water was safe to drink. Residents continued to report nasty water which was now causing rashes and illness across the city. In January of 2015, Detroit offered to reconnect Flint to Detroit municipal water and wave the reconnection fee. City officials declined and again insisted the water was safe.

Meanwhile, the GM plant near Flint stopped using the water, citing issues with corrosion of metal parts. Since April 2014, this same corrosion had been eating away at the zinc coating on the inside of lead pipes, allowing lead to leach into Flint’s water supply.

You probably know the rest of the story. There was cover-up after cover-up.

Thousands upon thousands of cases of water to be distributed to Flint residents (ibtimes.com)

Kids showing signs of lead poisoning were tested. The water was tested. The city switched back to Detroit’s municipal water, but it was too late. The lead was exposed and continues to leach into the water today. Flint is currently in a state of emergency, with all of its residents using bottled water to do everything from cooking to bathing to brushing teeth.

There’s a lot of stuff going on here. This timeline (and this one) and these few articles can help you get up-to-date on the facts and the finger-pointing. But, I want to focus on the residents of Flint and ask the question, How on earth did this happen?

Flint, like many parts of Michigan, was hit hard by the collapse of the automotive industry in 2009. Today, 40% of its residents are below the poverty line and 57% are black. Most are blue collar workers and the median value of owner-occupied homes is just $41,700. So, one has to wonder: Would this have happened in a white suburb? Would it have taken over a year for officials to respond? Historically, the answer is no.

It’s important to understand that the Flint disaster isn’t just the result of negligence. City officials made a conscious decision to pump corrosive, notoriously contaminated water into the homes of its residents. They also made a conscious decision to not properly treat the water. Once things got really bad, city officials did everything they could to cover it up. Flint residents are calling for answers and solutions, all while trying to survive on one case of bottled water per day.

Protesters in Detroit, Michigan during the height of the water shutoffs (thedailybeast.com)

Access to clean water is a human right. We literally cannot live without it. But, time and again poor people and people of color are denied this human right in the US. Just this last summer, water was shut off for 3,000 households in Detroit because of past-due accounts. Thousands more are at risk for losing their water– in fact, 40% of Detroit, 120,000 accounts and about 300,000 people, have outstanding water bills at an average of $755 per household. Detroit Water Brigade is one of many non-profits working to stop the shutoffs and implement a water affordability program.

Water shutoffs in Detroit and contaminated water in Flint have two important things in common: high rates of poverty and high proportions of black residents. It is no coincidence that both of these human rights violations occurred in areas of high rates of poverty and majority black population. When you consistently demonize, criminalize, and disinvest in poor or black people and black communities, a clear message is sent both to civilian constituents and city officials: these people aren’t worth our time and money and they don’t care anyway. That’s what Flint city and Michigan state officials conveyed to Flint residents and, eventually, the entire country.

Lee Ann Walters shows MotherJones.com the water from her tap

The thing is, the people of Flint do care. Lee Ann Walters is the mother of four who blew the whistle on the whole issue. It was because of her and a report from the EPA that was leaked to her that the national media began to pay attention to the issue. She organized residents for town hall meetings with city officials on numerous occasions, only to be met with dismissals and the same story about how the water was safe. In this viral video, she explains another issue with the water: she’s still being billed for it. If you can’t pay for your water, they shut it off. If you have no water, Child Protective Services get called in to remove your children from an “unfit” and “unsanitary” home. After 90 days of not paying the water bill, they cap your sewer which can lead to having your house condemned. There’s already a stigma on poor families and single parent households, especially single mothers. We call them unfit, or suggest they don’t care about their children. They are assumed to be less educated and less concerned about health issues, and now the stigma has played into how this whole thing went down: not only have classist and sexist assumptions allowed officials to dismiss local concerns for months, but they can also cause families to be uprooted or become homeless. This is what makes this issue not only a human rights issue but a social justice and feminist issue. 

Protesters in Flint, Michigan (rollingstone.com)

The residents of Flint deserve justice. Sure, officials need to be held accountable for their actions but what Flint needs right now is water. Flint needs investment. Flint needs new pipes and more jobs and better access to healthcare and government assistance programs. Flint needs schools and teachers equipped to meet the needs of the hundreds of children who have been affected by lead poisoning. Activist Michael Moore has written an open letter expressing his anger and calling for accountability and revolution. Whether or not you agree with him, it’s clear that this is a social justice issue. And, if we claim intersectional feminism as a value and practice, this is an issue feminists need to rally around as well.  

Understanding how structures of poverty, racism, and sexism set this problem up (and inform what happens next) can help activists, policy makers, and leaders keep this kind of thing from ever happening again. It can also help us answer these questions: Why didn’t it become an issue sooner? Who matters — and who doesn’t? Where else in this country are people in crisis without a voice? What will it take to get us to notice? Will we be too late?

If you want to do more to help flint, check out the Flint Water Response Team website or this article listing different areas in need of donations. The Flint water crisis didn’t become widely known and publicized until fairly recently and the EPA is still not happy with how the recovery is going. Spreading the word, sending water, and putting pressure on officials is crucial in the short term, but Flint has a long, long expensive road ahead.

Automated Privacy Policy Compliance

Dr. Omar Chowdhury, Purdue University

11:30am Monday, 7 March 2016, ITE325b, UMBC

Privacy regulations often govern data sharing and data use practices of organizations that collect personally identifiable information from their clients. For instance, in the US, healthcare organizations must comply with the federally mandated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Monetary penalties for non-compliance are high. The current practice of manual auditing for privacy violation is error-prone, cumbersome, and it does not scale well. It is thus crucial for the research community to develop automated tools and techniques to aid organizations in checking privacy policy compliance.

Within this context, I will first present encryption schemes that enable an organization to outsource the storage of audit logs and the computation of compliance checking to an untrusted cloud without completely giving up on privacy. Next, I will present an efficient compliance checker called précis, which leverages techniques from runtime verification and logic programming. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of some remaining obstacles to practical deployment.

Omar Chowdhury is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. Before joining Purdue, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Cylab at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interest broadly lies in investigating practically relevant problems of Computer Security and Privacy. His current research focuses on leveraging formal verification and program analysis techniques to check compliance of a system implementation, against well-defined policies and properties. He won the best paper award at the ACM SACMAT’2012. He has also served as a program committee member of ACM SACMAT and ACM CCS.

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Efficient Energy Delivery for Low Power IoT Devices

Khondker Zakir Ahmed, Georgia Institute of Technology

11:00-12:00 Friday, 4 March 2016, ITE325b

Low power IoT Devices are growing in numbers and by 2020 there will be more than 25 Billion of those in areas such as wearables, smart homes, remote surveillance, transportation and industrial systems, including many others. Many IoT electronics either will operate from stand-alone energy supply (e.g., battery) or be self-powered by harvesting from ambient energy sources or have both options. Harvesting sustainable energy from ambient environment plays significant role in extending the operation lifetime of these devices and hence, lower the maintenance cost of the system, which in turn help make them integral to simpler systems. Both for battery-powered and harvesting capable systems, efficient power delivery unit remains an essential component for maximizing energy efficiency.

In this talk, I will discuss some of the most pressing challenges of energy delivery for low power electronics considering both energy harvesting as well as battery-powered conditions. Design techniques for very high conversion ratio, bias current reduction with autonomous bias gating, battery-less cold start, component and power stage multiplexing for reconfigurable and multi-domain regulators will be discussed. I will also present a highly integrated autonomous imaging system featuring a dual-purpose CMOS image sensor that is capable of both imaging and harvesting. This talk will focus only on the energy harvesting and power delivery aspect of this imaging system; presenting ‘a single inductor, single input, four output’power delivery unit with maximum power point tracking and prioritized output voltages. I will also present some silicon results from prototype chips developed in 130nm CMOS.

I will conclude the talk by discussing my vision of research on how low power analog electronics will play significant roles in realizing tomorrow’s ultra-low power, yet highly complex and smart electronic systems.

Khondker Zakir Ahmed is a PhD candidate in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, where he works with the supervision of Professor Saibal Mukhopadhyay. He has received his MS in ECE from Georgia Tech in 2015 and BSc in EEE from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2004. His primary research focus is power delivery circuit and systems design, specifically focused on low power electronics. His research accomplishments include innovative bias current reduction mechanism (Best in Session award, SRC TECHCON 2014), On-chip controller design for TEG/TEC for joint energy harvesting and hot-spot cooling (Best paper award, ISLPED 2014) and high conversion ratio hybrid down-converting regulator (Best in Session award, SRC TECHCON 2015). Khondker enjoys teaching; he has been a guest lecturer in several courses at Georgia Tech, and was a lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at East West University in Dhaka, Bangladesh for over a year before coming to Georgia Tech. Earlier, Khondker has worked as Analog IC Designer from 2005 to 2010 developing commercial power management ICs. He was a graduate intern at Intel Labs in the summers of 2013 and 2014, where he worked on adaptive voltage regulation for guardband reduction and cross-coupled voltage regulators with dynamic load sharing for microprocessors.

CSEE professor Penny Rheingans has been elected to the Computing Research Association (CRA) Board of Directors. She will serve a three year term.

Dr. Rheingans is a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and Director of the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT). As CWIT Director, she oversees a scholarship program for undergraduates committed to increasing gender diversity in the technology fields and develops programs to increase the interest and retention of women in technology programs.  She received a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an AB in Computer Science from Harvard University. Her current research interests include the visualization of predictive models, visualization of data with associated uncertainty, volume rendering, information visualization, perceptual and illustration issues in visualization, non-photorealistic rendering, dynamic and interactive representations and interfaces, and the experimental validation of visualization techniques.

The CRA was founded in 1972 as an association of more than 220 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies. Its mission is to enhance innovation by joining with industry, government and academia to strengthen research and advanced education in computing. CRA executes this mission by leading the computing research community, informing policymakers and the public, and facilitating the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.

CRA’s Board of Directors is a distinguished group of leaders in computing research drawn from academia and industry. Its members serve on CRA’s standing committees and lead the organization’s responses as new issues affecting computing research arise and evolve.