Department and Faculty News

Computer Science

Grants and Contracts

Shan Barkataki

Shan Barkataki, “Enterprise Computing Design Clinic: Introducing COBOL into the Computer Science Curriculum at CSUN,” $140,247, WellPoint Inc., August 2012‒July 2013

Ani Nahapetian

Ani Nahapetian, “Application-Based Integrated Feedback Approach for Assisting Student Participation,” $20,000, Ethel Louise Armstrong Foundation Endowment, July 2012.

Electrical & Computer Engineering

After having served as the elected vice-chair of the Commission on Waves and Fields of the United States National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science during 2009-11, professor Sembiam Rengarajan is now serving as the URSI Commission chair for the triennium starting January 2012. Rengarajan was also appointed to the editorial board of the International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, a peer-reviewed open access journal. Please see Hindawi link.

Two research papers authored by Rengarajan (“Coupling between Waveguide-Fed Slot Arrays,” and “Excitation of a Parallel Plate Waveguide by an Array of Rectangular Waveguides”) received recognition from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the form of NASA Tech Brief Awards. They were determined to be of value to NASA’s space activity, so he then received two higher-level board awards (Space Act Awards). The certificates were presented by the director of JPL in an awards ceremony on January 11, 2012.

Rengarajan presented a paper titled “A Study of Piece-wise Planar Parabolic Reflectarrays,” at the National Radio Science Meeting held at Boulder, CO in January 2012. He also chaired a technical session on reflectarrays in the same conference.

Rengarajan’s article “Improved Design Procedure for Slot Array Antennas Using the Method of Moments Analysis” was published in Electromagnetics, vol. 32, issue 4, pp. 221-232, April 2012.

Rengarajan presented a talk titled “Design, Analysis and Application of Waveguide-Fed Slot Arrays” at the University of Texas, Dallas, on January 19; at the University of Houston on January 20; at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, on April 2; at the University of Adelaide in Australia on April 4; at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 25; and at Metropolitan University, London, England, on May 28, 2012 as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society.

He also presented lectures on “Microstrip Reflectarrays” at Radar Forum, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, in February; at the Techcon meeting sponsored by the Engineers’ Council at CSUN on April 20; at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, CA, sponsored by IEEE APS L.A. Chapter on April 24; at a special seminar in the applied math department of California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, on May 1; and at RUAG Corporation in Gothenburg, Sweden on May 25, 2012.

Grants and Contracts

Somnath Chattopadhyay

Somnath Chattopadhyay, “HSAP/URAP Supplement for SiC/GaNBased Optically Triggered MESFET for High Power Efficiency and High Radiation Resistance Solid State Switch Application for Actuator System,” $6,000, U.S. Army, July 2012, and “SiC/GaN Based Optically Trigerred MESFET for High Power Efficiency and High Radiation Resistance Solid State Switch Application for Actuator System,” $463, 879 research grant awarded from U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command DoD Research and Educational Program for HBCU/MI, December 2011.

Sharlene Katz and James Flynn

Sharlene Katz and James Flynn, “Simultaneous Channel Utilization Techniques ‒Phase-II,” $25,000, Naval Air Warfare Center, December 2011, and “Senior Design Project Using Software-Defined Radio,” $10,000, Edwards Air Force Base, July 2012.

Bruno Osorno

Bruno Osorno, “Design of a Display Panel for 700 V,” $10,000, Design Clinic sponsored by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, September 2011; “A Nationwide Consortium of Universities to Revitalize Electric Power Engineering Education by State of the Art Laboratories,” $8,333, DOE-sponsored grant led by the University of Minnesota, July 2012; and “Development of an Internship Honors Co-Op Program between PWR and CSUN,” $100,000, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, July 2012.

Sembiam Rengarajan

Sembiam Rengarajan, “Signal Integrity in Far-Field Antenna Measurements in Time Domain,” $25,000, Naval Air Warfare Weapons Divisions, November 2011.

Manufacturing Systems Engineering & Management

CECS’s master’s degree program in engineering management was ranked first in California and fourth nationally for the number of degrees awarded in 2011, based on data from ASEE.

Faculty Achievements

Behzad Bavarian

Behzad Bavarian received the 2012 Technical Achievement Award from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) International for his highly innovative work related to corrosion protection of steel rebar in concrete and his pioneering work in thin film corrosion sensors, as well as groundbreaking activities in corrosion management for advanced aircraft.

Ileana Costea

Department chair Ileana Costea participated in several manufacturing initiative meetings in conjunction with a series of industry focus groups conducted by the office of Los Angeles mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

Hamid Gholami, a part-time engineering management faculty member since 2002, has recently become certified lead auditor for AS9100 Quality. He is also the vice president of operations at Accurate Electronics, an electronic contract manufacturer in Chatsworth, CA. Professor Gholami earned both of his master of science degrees in mechanical engineering and engineering management from CSUN.

Ahmad Sarfaraz

Recent publications by Ahmad Sarfaraz and his graduate students include “Evaluating ERP Implementation Choices on the Basis of Customization Using Fuzzy AHP” in the International Journal of Production Research, 2011-12 (with Amanda C. D’Souza) and “Using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to Evaluate Web Development Platform” in International Journal of Management Science Letter, Vol. 2., No. 1, 2011 (with Pooja Mukerjee).

Mark Rajai

Mark Rajai, director of the Ernie Scheffer Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Ileana Costea, department chair, are collaborating on projects involving the center, the department and industry. A one-day innovation conference is planned for June 21, 2013, in conjunction with the In2: Thinking Forum & Conference organized by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The center is also engaged in design clinic projects with Roberts Tool Company and the Southern California Manufacturing Group. B.J. Schramm, president and COO of Roberts Tool and chair of the department’s Industry Liaison Council, played a key role in securing these projects for the center.

Grants and Contracts

Kang Chang,”Human-Robot Interaction and Collaboration at Semantic Level,” $20,000 from I-Automation, January 2012‒June 2013.

Two MSEM professors were selected to receive 2012-13 CSUN Competition for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Awards: Alireza Kabirian (for “Expansion Planning of Road Networks via Agent-Based Optimization”) and Dale Conner (for “Pressurized Closed-Cell Metallic Foams”). Fifty-three out of 115 proposals were selected for funding campuswide, including four from ECS.

Student News

The department awarded $500 scholarships to three MSEM graduate students at the Celebrating our Students event on May 22: the Shively Family Scholarship (to Kehinde Monsur Ogun), MSE Scholarship (to Mazyar “Max” Aram) and SFV/ASQ Scholarship (to Amir Latifian).

MSE graduate student Mazyar (Max) Aram won the second-best research award during CSUN’s 16th Annual Student Research and Creative Works Symposium in April 2012. He is currently working on his master’s degree culminating experience in green manufacturing and as a research assistant at the campuswide Institute for Sustainability.

A new student organization—the Engineering Management Student Association (EMSA)—was officially approved by the Associated Students in June 2012 to promote a culture of academic excellence in the engineering management program. EMSA will serve as a bridge between students and industry to provide opportunities for professional development. Leading EMSA are students Rijul Dhruv, Anmar Hiassat, Hossein Gharibi, Amir M. Latifian, Andres Mata and Rabeeh Sahranavard; the faculty advisor is Alireza Kabirian.

Mechanical Engineering

Nhut Ho

Nhut Ho, “Influence of Cultural, Organizational and Automation Capability on Human Reliance on Automation: A Case Study of Air Force ACAT,” $219,000, AERO Institute, June 2012, and “Experimental Investigation of Human and Automation Interaction Under Time Pressure”—3 units of reassigned time from CSUN Research and Creative Activity Grant program, May 2012.

Hamid Johari

Hamid Johari, “Aerodynamic Characteristics of Cargo Ram-Air Canopies during Maneuvering,” $10,000 Continuation Award U.S. Army grant, January 2012.

Abhijit Mukherjee
Abhijit Mukherjee, ”Numerical Investigation of Flow Boiling of Nanofluids for Solar Power Applications”—$5,000 minigrant from CSUN Research and Creative Activity Grant program, May 2012.

C.T. Lin

C.T. Lin, “Discrete Glucose Sensing System—Auto Inserter,” $65,030, Design Clinic sponsored by Medtronic-Minimed, September 2011.

Bob Ryan
Bob Ryan and Hamid Johari, “Phase Change Vapor Production,” $27,000, Design Clinic sponsored by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, November 2011.

College-wide

Grants

Ali Amini, Behzad Bavarian, Nazaret Dermendjian, Hamid Johari, Gloria Melara, Karla Pelletier, Nagwa Bekir, Kristin Bruno (not pictured), David Martinez (not pictured) and S. K. Ramesh, “CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science HSI-STEM Initiative,” five year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Year 2 funding of $1,134,630, for period covering October 1, 2012–September 30, 2013 (June 2012).

Karla Pelletier, “CSUN’s LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate Program,” Continuation of $486,000 grant, NSF/CSUS, July 2012; “CSUN’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Phase IV,” $87,702 grant, NSF/CSUS, June 2012; and “CSUN’s Louis Stokes Alliance Student Scholar Program,” $4,000 grant, NSF/CSUS, June 2012.