2019 AAAS Engineering Section Business Meeting

Friday February 15, 2019

Washington, DC; Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Room: Johnson

MINUTES

1. Introductions: In the absence of Deb Niemeier, Section Chair, Sarah Rajala our Chair-Elect called the meeting to order at 9:45 AM after around 15 minutes of networking with coffee and snacks being served. She indicated that Dr. Deb Niemeier, our section chair could not attend the meeting due to a family emergency and that she is chairing the meeting this year in her place. She then asked those who are present to introduce themselves. The attendance list is included in Appendix A.

2. Approval of Minutes: Dr. Simaan, Section Secretary asked for comments and suggested corrections to the draft minutes of the Section Business Meeting held on February 17, 2018 at the Austin, TX meeting. He mentioned that the draft minutes were posted on the Section website http://www.eecs.ucf.edu/aaas-m shortly after the 2018 meeting. Copies of the draft minutes were also distributed at the meeting. There were no comments made or changes suggested. A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes. The motion passed unanimously.

3. Section Chair Remarks: Chair-elect Sarah Rajala shared an update from the General Meeting of the Section Officers. She noted that 416 new Fellows were selected in 2018 with 31 from Section M. 188 of the new Fellows were nominated through the Steering Groups, 220 of the nominees came through the 3-Fellow process and 8 were COE nominations. Several changes were made to the Fellow process in 2017 and 2018 including the establishment of a four-year pilot program to allow Section Steering Groups to put forward one nomination per year that waives the four-year membership requirement; encouraging diverse nominations with fair representation of women, minorities and persons with disabilities; and affirming that all Fellows are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity; and a revocation policy. She noted that AAAS continues to develop the new collaborative Member Community tool.

4. Announcements: Dr. Rajala announced the results of the 2019-20 AAAS elections for Section M. Nicholas Abbott (Cornell University) was elected Chair-Elect; Anne Skaja Robinson (Carnegie Mellon University) was elected Member-at-Large; Johney Green Jr. (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and Gail G. Mattson (Brookhaven National Laboratory) were elected as members of the Section Electorate Nominating Committee. The term for all those who were elected starts on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.

Dr. Rajala thanked all the officers whose terms will end at the last day of this Annual Meeting: Linda Katehi as Retiring Chair, Lance Collins as Member -at-Large, and Nancy Jackson and Robert M. Kelly as Members of the Electorate Nominating Committee. On February 19, 2019, Dr. Niemeier will become the Retiring Chair and in that capacity she will serve on the AAAS Council and will also be a member of the Electorate Nominating Committee.

Dr. Rajala also announced that this year 31 members of our section were elected Fellows of AAAS. A list of names and citations of the newly elected Fellows was distributed at the meeting and is attached as Appendix B. The Newly elected Fellows were invited to attend our business meeting and 8 of the 31 were able to attend. Dr. Rajala welcomed them, and thanked them for attending the meeting. She also asked each of them to say a few words about their research that lead to their election as AAAS Fellows.

5. Fellow Nomination Process: Dr. Rajala asked Dr. Simaan, Section Secretary, to review the AAAS Fellow nomination process. Dr. Simaan mentioned the new rule that was implemented beginning four years ago, which mandates that a nominee for Fellow must have been a AAAS member in good standing for the four consecutive years prior to the time of nomination. This means that for the upcoming election, a member must have been a continuous member in good standing since December 31, 2015. He also mentioned that each section is allowed one exception to this rule in that it can nominate only one outstanding member who has not met the 4-year rule.

Dr. Simaan then described the Fellow nomination process. There are three ways a AAAS member can be nominated:

1) By a member of the Steering Group (method 1),

2) By a group of three Fellows (method 2), and

3) By the AAAS Chief Executive Officer (method 3).

For Fellow nominations by members of the Steering Group (method 1), he mentioned that this method is subject to a quota of no more than 0.4% of the section primary membership. Our primary membership this year is 5,609 which results in our quota being 22 for this year. Information on the nomination process by a group of three Fellows (method 2) and a copy of the on line nomination form can be found on the AAAS website (http://www.aaas.org/fellows) A link to that website can also be found on our section Website (http://www.eecs.ucf.edu/aaas-m). Dr. Simaan mentioned that the deadline for Fellow nominations by a group of three Fellows is April 24, 2019, and that there is quota for those elected through nominations by this method equal to the Steering Group Quota (22 for this year). He concluded by saying that in both methods, a successful candidate must meet the quota and receive no less than five “Yes” votes and no more than two “No” votes from the Steering Group.

6. Update on AAAS Council Issues of Interest to Section M: Drs. Basu, Katehi and Robertson, our section representatives on council provided a report on issues that council is considering that are of interest to our section. The first issue mentioned relates to the Statistics section’s request to change its name to Statistics and Data Science. There was considerable discussion that focused largely on the view that Data Science is a discipline that is interdisciplinary and overlaps with many other AAAS sections including our Engineering Section. It was mentioned that this request was on the Council’s agenda for discussion at it Sunday morning meeting. The second issue was a report on a special council meeting held in Washington on October 31 to discuss and vote on the new fellow revocation policy. It was mentioned that such a policy was approved at the special meeting and has already been implemented beginning October 15, 2018.

7. Planning for the 2020 Annual Meeting: The 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting will be held in Seattle, WA, February 13-16, 2020. The meeting theme is “Envisioning Tomorrow’s Earth”. The deadline for the 2020 session proposal submissions is Thursday April 18, 2019 at 11:59pm PT. Dr. Simaan mentioned that those who are interested in submitting proposals should check the proposal submission website: https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2020/symp90/cfp.cgi for instructions about the submission procedure and proposal requirements. He added that AAAS asked our section to brainstorm at our business meeting and arrive at three hot topics to be uploaded to a collaborative website and shared with other sections for possible collaboration. Dr. Rajala asked for ideas and suggestions. A discussion followed with everyone present contributing ideas. There were a total of 9 ideas presented and discussed. A summary of these ideas is given below, each including a title, names(s) of organizer(s), a summary and potential speakers:

7.1 Title; Smart Communities

Organizer:

Gregory V. Lowry (glowry@andrew.cmu.edu), Carnegie Mellon University

Summary:

As the human population continues to grow, achieving sustainable growth becomes increasingly challenging. To create equitable economic development, to make our communities sustainable, and to ensure a high quality of life for their inhabitants we will need to develop “Smart Communities”. Doing so will require a deep integration of engineering, information and data sciences, social sciences and agriculture sciences that does not currently exist. The purpose of this symposium is to initiate the dialogue between these different research communities and stakeholders to create interconnected infrastructure systems that can reliably deliver the essentials of life to its inhabitants; water, food, energy, shelter, and transportation, while maximizing resource utilization efficiency, ensuring inclusivity, and minimizing environmental footprints.

We envision this symposium being of interest to members from Sections M (Engineering), O (agriculture, food, and renewable resources), P (Industrial Science & Technology), T (Informatics, Computing, and Communication), K (Social, Economic, and Political Sciences), and X (Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering).

Potential Speakers: TBD

7.2 Title: Envisioning the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Enabled Healthcare of the Future

Organizers:

Gilda Barabino,

Soundar Kumara, (skumara@psu.edu), Penn State

Summary:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are gaining increased importance both in academia and industry. Recent executive order by the president has made this field a national necessity. Currently several applications based on AI and ML are being developed in healthcare. It is important to address robustness, reliability and societal implications of such applications. This symposium will address these specific issues. In specific it will examine what will be the future of healthcare supported by AI and ML.

Potential Speakers:

(Possible – some to be contacted to confirm three speakers; additional to be added)

1) Professor Curtis Lowery, MD; University of Arkansas Medical School, Little Rock, Arkansas: Chief Digital Innovation Officer and Head of OBGYN at UAMS.

2) Dr. Ram Sriram, Division Chief, Software Systems and Engineering, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD: Heads NIST’s efforts on Healthcare analytics research and standards efforts - Confirmed

3) Professor Vijay Chandru, Co-Founder and Director, Strand Life Science, Bangalore, India: Founded genomics based start-up strand which currently employs 1000 people and has a through understanding of healthcare in India - Confirmed

Disciplinary Sections: Engineering, Medical Sciences, Industrial Science and Technology, Information, Computing and Communication.

7.3 Title: Growing an Inclusive Entrepreneurial Environment

Organizers:

Karen JL Burg (kburg@uga.edu) University of Georgia

Juan Gilbert

Cato Laurencin

in conjunction with

Michael Feder, the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassadors Program,

Tanaga Boozer, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) 

Summary:

The session will highlight best (and worst) practices in nurturing leading edge technological advances while growing inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems.  Discussion will include lessons learned from the USPTO, engineering and science academic leaders/faculty inventors with respect to balancing academic expectations with intellectual property capture and strategy, as well as lessons learned with respect to embedding entrepreneurship in the engineering and science curriculum.  Approaches to designing and populating inclusive maker spaces will be highlighted.  Finally, strategies and advantages to growing diverse, technology focused, entrepreneurial communities will be addressed using examples from biomedical engineering, computer engineering, and medical sciences.

Potential speakers:

Include a AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador with academic translation focus, a USPTO-designated speaker from the Office of Outreach & Education (or USPTO  OOE academic inventor designee), an engineering/science leader from an Association of Public Land-grant Universities Innovation and Economic Prosperity University, an engineering student entrepreneur from the AAAS meeting area (ex., University of Washington).

7.4 Title: Intelligent Farmland

Organizers

Ratnesh Kumar, (rkumar@iastate.edu) Iowa State University Kumar

M. Saif Islam, Univ. of California, Davis

Summary:

The session will bring together scientists, engineers, industry, and government leaders to address bringing intelligence to farmland through innovations in sensing, data modeling, intelligent decisions, implementations, and policy-making. We plan to have PhD student participants doing posters for AAAS, to be shared with the proposed session. We will solicit funding support for student participation.

Potential Speakers:

1) James Jones, Member National Academy, Program Director NSF

2) Someone from World Food Prize Administration

3) Someone from an Ag Industry (John Deere, DuPont Pioneer)

4) Someone from Microsoft (local to Seattle) on Digital Agriculture

5) Nibir K. Dhar, U.S. Army Night Vision & Electronic Sensors Directorate (United States),

6) Ramgopal Rao, Director IIT Delhi

7.5 Title: Societal Impact of Digital Transformation of Societies

Organizers:

Dr. Jeffrey M. Alexander, Innovation policy, Research Triangle Institute

Dr. Eswaran Subrahmanian, (es3e@andrew.cmu.edu) Carnegie Mellon University

Summary:

Smart City, Industry 4.0 and automation in service  industries and other walks of life -- while being transformative -- will have consequences in the quality of life of billions of people around the world.  With large youth populations in countries like India and others in Asia, South America and Africa, extensive automation worldwide could potentially lead to unforeseen social consequence and scale, starting with wide scale unemployment, migration and inequality.  There have several debates about the role of automation in society by various constituents, but generally those who see this as the next revolution in delivering big progress. Others see this as a possible disruption of society and the economy.  Proposed solutions, such as implementing a universal basic income, seek to address these challenges but possibly without a complete understanding of the fundamental problems to address. The goal of this symposium is to bring participants from Europe, Asia and South America to present on the actual and potential impact of these technologies on their societies and to explore the role research in engineering, science, and policy engagement should play in averting the negative consequences of this dramatic  social change while delivering the benefits of these technology to the global populations at large.  This topic of this symposium is in line with the call by the President of AAAS in her opening address at AAAS 2019 conference to understand the societal impact of technologies and its effect on the practice  of research in science technology with the quote from Albert Schweitzer; "I am looking at the future with concern, but with good hope.”

Potential speakers:

1) Dr. Temina Madon, UC Berkeley

2) Mr. Klaus Tilmes, World Bank Group

3) Ms. Bulbul Gupta, Upaya Social Ventures

4) Dr. Eric Johnson, RTI International

5) Roland W. Scholz, ETH Zürich

6) Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Strasse, Austria,

7.6 Title: 5G Enabled Society – Global Connectivity for Tomorrow Available Today

Organizers

Björn Johansson, (bjorn.johansson@chalmers.se) Chalmers University of Technology

Anice Anderson

Summary:

The next generation of wireless 5G communications technology allows more types of devices to send information faster, more reliably and will use less energy than previous wireless communications. This technology is transforming the way that data can be streamed, providing autonomous vehicles with real time control, video-surveillance with HD or even 4K resolution, multi users of social media with low latency, high bandwidth and less energy consumption. The widespread use of 5G technologies are expected to produce $3.5 trillion in output and 22 million jobs globally by 2035. Technological transformation requires change, and despite the potential, how and why will this technology replace previous generations? Which application areas will benefit the most and how can 5G technology innovations enable a better society in general? Prominent speakers from industry, NIST's Alliance for 5G Networks (65 organizations from industry, academia, and governments), connectivity/system provider, and communication technology companies will describe their respective roles on the diffusion of 5G into today's society.

Industry, government and academia around the globe are gearing up for the challenge and implementation of 5G. This 90-minute symposium will provide state of the art visual presentations on opportunities and challenges ahead concerning societal benefits stemming from the 5G technology innovation development across the globe, in particular presentations from Sweden (Ericsson), U.S. (NIST) and Industrial implementation on a global scale (Chalmers).

Potential Speakers:

1) Erin Ekudden, Ericsson ,CTO and SVP Technology

2) Dr. Kate Remley, National Institute of Standards and Technology

3) Prof. Johan Stahre, Chalmers University of Technology

7.7 Title: Envisioning the Future of Jobs in the Manufacturing Ecosystem after the Resurgence of AI and Machine Learning

Organizers:  

KC Morris (NIST), (kc_morris@verizon.net)

Bjorn Johansson (bjorn.johansson@chalmers.se) Chalmers University of Technology

Summary:
Smart manufacturing uses the technological advances like AI, machine learning, the industrial internet, and automation and robotics to dramatically increase an organizations outputs and collectively contribute to world-wide increases in manufacturing goods.  In the US today, our manufacturing production has increased xx% over the last 10 years while employing roughly the same number of people.  These changes result in the strengthening of the manufacturing ecosystem where more jobs will emerge.

For decades AI and ML have been applied to manufacturing with islands of success but today, the islands are connecting to form land masses with only lakes and rivers between them.  Smart manufacturing can help to setting and following through on strategic goals, operating and maintaining manufacturing systems, and interacting with customers and suppliers.  What distinguishes real intelligence from the artificial is what remains after this automation.  As humans are being unburdened from the mundane in the manufacturing ecosystems of tomorrow, their roles are reinvented.   In this session we describe how manufacturing is smarter now and envision the new roles for humans.

Potential Speakers:

1) Soundar Kumara, Penn State. AI for goal setting

2) Anders Skoogh, from Sweden Smart machines, smart overlords 

3) Melinda Hodkiewicz (Australia)

4) Ming Lin, UMD (clothes design project)

7.8 Title: Engineers & Scientists Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Organizers:

Both Bjorn Johannsson, (bjorn.johansson@chalmers.se) Chalmers University of Technology

Nicholas Abbott, Cornell Engineering

Gail G. Mattson, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Summary:

Will present a series of talks that highlight recent engineering and scientific efforts worldwide that demonstrate progress towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals associated with clean water & sanitation, affordable & clean energy, sustainable cities, and climate action.

Potential Speakers: TBD

7.9 Title: Cybersecurity and Resiliency of Cyber Physical Human Systems

Organizers:

Sudarsan Rachuri, DOE (Sudarsan.Rachuri@ee.doe.gov)

Igor Linkov, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center,

Summary:

Cybersecurity is a fundamental aspect of building a trustworthy and equitable networked cyber physical human systems. These system range from modern electric grids, smart manufacturing, price effective healthcare, next generation smart and intelligent transportation systems, and more importantly education and workforce development. It is imperative that we develop the foundational aspects of cybersecurity to enable internet of things, internet of industrial things to build smart and inclusive smart resilient societies. This symposium will address the broad issues and specifically scope it to cybersecurity for industrial manufacturing and energy systems, and healthcare. It will also address the application of AI and cognitive computing for cybersecurity.

Potential Speakers: TBD

8. Adjournment: Dr. Rajala asked the attendees if there is any new business. In the absence of new business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:40AM. Lunch was served.

Submitted by:

Marwan A. Simaan

Secretary, Engineering Section (M)

February 21, 2019

Appendix A

List of Attendees

1) Sarah Rajala, Chair Elect

2) Marwan Simaan, Section Secretary

3) Linda Katehi, Retiring Chair

4) Nicholas Abbott, Elected Chair-Elect

5) Nadine Aubry, Member-at-Large

6) Ilona Kretzschmar, Member-at-Large

7) Sankar Basu, Council Delegate

8) Ian Robertson, Council Delegate

9) Shekhar Bhansali, Newly Elected Fellow

10) Karen J.L. Burg, Newly Elected Fellow

11) Keith William Hipel, Newly Elected Fellow

12) M. Saif Islam, Newly Elected Fellow

13) Ratnesh Kumar, Newly Elected Fellow

14) Satish Kumar, Newly Elected Fellow

15) Gregory V. Lowry, Newly Elected Fellow

16) Dimitrios Maroudas, Newly Elected Fellow

17) Gilda Barabino

18) Rory Cooper

19) Robert Hershey

20) Sheldon Jacobson

21) Bjorn Johansson

22) Soundar Kumara

23) Daren Mallot

24) Gail Mattson

25) K. C. Morris

26) Sundarsan Rachuri

27) Vijay Srinivassan

28) Ram D. Sriram

29) Eswaran Subrahmanian

30) Priscilla Tatman

31) Kalliat T. Valsaraj

32) Ali Zbib

Appendix B

Fellows affiliated with Section M (Engineering) Elected in 2018

Narayana R. Aluru, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: For outstanding contributions to computational, physical, and engineering aspects of nanofluidics and micro/nanoelectromechanical systems including the development of novel multiphysics and multiscale methods.

Guillermo A. Ameer, Northwestern University: For distinguished contributions to the fields of biomaterials science, tissue engineering, and regenerative engineering, particularly for pioneering the development and applications of citrate-based biomaterials.

Craig H. Benson, University of Virginia: For seminal contributions to the mechanisms controlling engineered environmental barriers for containment of non-hazardous, hazardous, and radioactive wastes.

Shekhar Bhansali, Florida International University: For significant contributions to microfluidics, to the point of care sensors and wearable sensors, and to the enhancement of underrepresented minority students.

Karen J.L. Burg, University of Georgia: For pioneering contributions in biofabrication development, commercial translation of predictive diagnostics tissue test systems, and exemplary service to the scientific community.

Jian Cao, Northwestern University: For fundamental contributions to our understanding of failure mechanisms in forming processes and for process innovation to advance flexible manufacturing processes.

Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Duke University: For distinguished contributions to the design of microfluidic biochips and design-for-test of system-on-chip integrated circuits, and for extraordinary technical leadership and mentoring of graduate students.

Long-Qing Chen, Penn State: For distinguished contributions to the development of the phase-field method and its applications to understanding, predicting and designing materials microstructures and properties.

Chau-Chyun Chen, Texas Tech University: For ground-breaking contributions to the development of molecular thermodynamic models for phase behavior in complex chemical systems and the practice of process modeling and simulation.

Chang-Beom Eom, University of Wisconsin-Madison: For pioneering contributions to the heteroepitaxy of complex oxide films, including the development of 90° off-axis sputtering, conducting oxides and strain-engineering to enable oxide electronics.

Ali Erdemir, Argonne National Laboratory: For distinguished contributions to the fields of materials science, surface engineering, and tribology and other related disciplines including friction, wear, and lubrication.

Venkat Ganesan, University of Texas at Austin: For seminal contributions to innovative computer simulation methods for addressing equilibrium and dynamical properties of multicomponent polymeric materials, block copolymers, polymer blends and polymer nanocomposites.

Keith William Hipel, Univ. of Waterloo (Canada): For interdisciplinary developments in conflict resolution, time series modeling, multiple criteria decision analysis, and related decision-making methodologies for addressing complex system of systems engineering problems.

M. Saif Islam, University of California, Davis: For research and development of nanostructure based sensors and detectors, particularly highly sensitive ultrafast photodetectors enabled by photon-trapping micro-nanostructures for data and telecommunication.

Pramod P. Khargonekar, University of California, Irvine: For contributions to systems and control theory, applications to manufacturing and energy, and leadership in engineering research, education and innovation.

Joseph A. King, U.S. Department of Energy: For valuable contributions to major advances in materials and technological businesses, and commitment to providing extended societal benefits such as greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.

Ratnesh Kumar, Iowa State University: For distinguished contributions to discrete-event and cyber physical systems, embedded software, and agri-, bio- and environment sensors, and energy harvesting.

Satish Kumar, Georgia Institute of Technology: For distinguished contributions to the field of fibers, nanocomposites, and carbon materials, for their synthesis, functionalities, and properties, and for tailoring the interphase in nanocomposites.

Jinsong Leng, Harbin Institute of Technology (China): For distinguished contributions to the field of smart composites and structures, particularly for contributions to the development and engineering applications of novel shape memory polymers.

John H. Lienhard V, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: For distinguished contributions to thermal science & engineering, particularly for developing energy efficient desalination technologies, influential textbooks, & jet impingement cooling at high heat flux.

Jingyu Lin, Texas Tech University: For seminal contributions to the fundamental understanding of the electronic and optical properties of the group ill-nitride semiconductors and significant impact on the use of these materials for nanophotonic devices.

Gregory V. Lowry, Carnegie Mellon University: For distinguished contributions to safe and sustainable use of nanomaterials, remediation methods for contaminated sediments and brines, and mitigation of fossil fuel use impacts.

Dimitrios Maroudas, University of Massachusetts Amherst: For innovative work on multiscale modeling of complex systems with emphasis on establishing processing-structure-properties-function relations in bulk, thin-film, and nanostructured materials.

Louis A. Martin-Vega, NC State University: For outstanding contributions to industrial and systems engineering, manufacturing, industrial innovation and engineering education, and for unconditional support for the advancement of Hispanic professionals.

Amit Misra, University of Michigan: For seminal contributions to the nanomechanics and radiation effects in nanolayered composite materials, mentoring of early career scientists, and leadership in academia and professional societies.

Aydogan Ozcan, University of California, Los Angeles: For distinguished contributions to photonics research and technology development on computational imaging, sensing and diagnostics systems, impacting telemedicine and global health applications.

Matteo Pasquali, Rice University: For distinguished contributions to the field of soft matter, particularly for understanding carbon nanotube and graphene single molecules and liquid crystals and synthesizing macroscopic conductors.

Athina P. Petropulu, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey: For distinguished contributions to the field of signal processing with applications to wireless communications and networking, physical layer security and radar signal processing.

Kristala L. Jones Prather, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: For distinguished contributions to the design and assembly of recombinant microorganisms for the production of small molecules using synthetic biology.

K.T. Ramesh, Johns Hopkins University: For distinguished contributions to the fields of behavior of materials under extreme conditions, dynamic fragmentation of brittle solids, impact in planetary science, and impact biomechanics.

Liangfang Zhang, University of California, San Diego: For distinguished contributions to the field of bioengineering, particularly for creating and advancing biomimetic nanomaterials for drug delivery, detoxification and vaccination to improve human health.