Diversity Events and Activities 2006
 
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2006

  • HBCU-UP Conference – On Friday, February 10, 2006, the National Science Foundation in conjunction with Bowie State University hosted a research conference for undergraduate students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's). The CISST ERC was represented by two members of the Diversity Committee, Cyndi Ramey, Director of Education and Nd Ekekwe, ERC Graduate student. Potential graduate students visited the table where they received information about the WSE graduate programs as well as the ERC research being conducted. An interactive educational demonstration, designed by CISST lab manager Pauline Pelletier, on CISST research was displayed.

  • On February 23rd, Carol Reiley and Pauline Pelletier participated in “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” at Garrison Forest School. This was an effort during National Engineers week to create awareness for female high school students to become interested in engineering. Carol gave an introduction to what engineering is, and talked about why she chose to be an engineer, and about her research. Pauline then led robotic demonstrations and talked about the Engineering Research Center.

  • On Friday, March 3, 2006 the ERC Diversity Committee hosted its third annual ERC Visit Day for potential graduate students. Ten visiting students toured the Minimally Invasive Surgical Training Center and a Biomedical Engineering lab at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution as well as the Homewood campus for lab tours in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering (Mechanical Engineering had an early, separate visit day). The students met personally with faculty and enjoyed an informative group dinner with current ERC students.

  • On March 9th, 2006, Prof. Etienne-Cummings participated in Career Day activities at the Baltimore Polytechnic High School. Baltimore Poly is the top public high school in the state of Maryland and is one of largest feeder school to top technical universities such as MIT. The students are 80% African American. The Career Day is intended to expose all students to a variety of careers, in all business and governmental sectors. Prof. Etienne-Cummings represented the Robotics, the ERC CISST and the ECE Department. He spoke about careers in robotics, in both industry and academia. A total of 40 students attended two presentations that he gave on general aspects of robotics, the ERC and his research.

    • Community
    • On Wednesday, February 22, 2006, The Office of Organizational Development and Diversity presented a seminar to the ERC hosted by the Diversity Committee. The seminar was entitled “Stress and Resilience” and the presentation was designed for students, staff, and faculty. Interactive sessions on stress and resiliency were used to show the differences in the group, but also to recognize that everyone has these areas in their lives.

    • On April 1st, the Computer Integrated Surgery Student Research Society (CISSRS) organized the first annual Robotic System Challenge. This was an outreach event for 60 Maryland students grades 7-12 to compete using Parallax BOE-bots and LEGO Mindstorm kits for awards in four categories. The categories were: (1) Petite Slalom – See how well your boebot could track a specified path, (2) Mystery Course - Navigating through an unknown maze (3) Search & Destroy - Robotic Brain Tumor Surgery - detecting a “brain tumor”, and (4) Unleashing the Mad Scientist - creating an innovative, unique task. Special thanks to CISSRS Education and Outreach coordinator, Sunipa Saha and CISST /ERC Director of Education, Cyndi Ramey for organizing and managing the event. The CISSRS Officers involved in the planning leading up to and on the day of the event were: Carol Reiley, Henry Lin, Jen Hoi, Tiffany Chen, Kerry Xie, and Dhondup Pembra . Several ERC students that we also want to recognize that spent the day as judges and volunteers are: Bob Webster, Ameet Jain, Zach Pezzamanti, Nd Ekekwe, Nim Marayong, Pauline Pelletier, Hassan Rivaz, and Clyde Clark.

      Local University representatives were also in attendance to answer any questions that the participants, teachers or parents may have had about the engineering programs at each institution. A local industry representative was also present from General Dynamics Robotics Systems located in Westminster, MD. Many of the ERC Industry Affiliates donated trade show give-a-ways that each participant received, such as polo shirts, water bottles, hats and frisbees.

    • On Saturday, May 6th, 2006, several ERC students, staff and faculty participated in a great event. The Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) at UMBC hosted their fourth annual Computer Mania Day where over 800 middle school girls and their parents participated in this half day event. The program is designed to provide a broad based introduction to the ways in which different careers make use of information technology.

      Representing the ERC were:
      • Dr. Peter Kazanzides- VIP
      • Ms. Cyndi Ramey- recruiting, ERC sponsor table
      • Ms. Carol Reiley- mentor, break-out session leader
      • Ms. Nim Marayong- mentor, break-out session leader
      • Ms. Pauline Pelletier- mentor, break-out session leader
      • Ms. Gouthami Chintalapani- mentor, break-out session leader
      • Ms. Nicole Howie- mentor, break-out session leader
      • Ms. Sharmi Sheshamani- mentor, break-out session leader

      The women graduate students listed above did an outstanding job representing the ERC through their demonstrations and presentations. The impact they had as mentors on so many young women in MD was enormous.

    Achievement
    • Dr. Nitish Thakor was appointed Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering, beginning January 1, 2006, for a three to six year term. He has served on the journal’s editorial board for more than ten years.

    • Emad Boctor won the best poster award for presenting "Ultrasound Self-calibration" in Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Display conference at SPIE Medical Imaging.

    • Dr. Ralph Etienne-Cummings was selected by the Johns Hopkins Institutions Diversity Leadership Council to receive a 2006 Diversity Recognition Award. President Brody will present the award at a ceremony on May 2nd.

    • Dr. Gabor Fichtinger was awarded the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising this year. The award, which is an inscribed medallion and a $2, 000 cash award, will be presented to Dr. Fichtinger at the Whiting School of Engineering Convocation Awards Ceremony.

    • Dr. Ralph Etienne-Cummings has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar grantee by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Therefore, in the fall of 2006, Dr. Etienne-Cummings will take a sabbatical from his current position to study “Curriculum in Electronic Systems Design and Research on Biomorphic Ultrasonic Imaging and Mapping Systems” at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa.

    • Dr. Allison Okamura, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded tenure.

    • Henry Lin, graduate student, was awarded the Link Foundation Fellowship.

    • Sharmi Seshamani, graduate student, received the Anita Borg Scholarship from Google.

    • Graduate student and CISSRS President, Carol Reiley, won the 2006 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Society of Women Engineers Baltimore-Washington Graduate Scholarship.

    Robotic System Challenge 2006
    Friday Student Seminars
    CISST ERC students from JHU, CMU and MIT organized and lead discussions at the ERC Student Leadership Council Retreat in November 2005.
    Computer Mania Day 2006.