A monthly review of news coverage on the MSU College of Engineering
Setting an iPhone on a table to recharge in a public place - like an airport or coffee shop - may lead to a SurfingAttack.
Setting an iPhone on a table to recharge in a public place - like an airport or coffee shop - may lead to a SurfingAttack.

Research led by MSU is showing ways that hackers can use ultrasonic waves to secretly control voice assistant devices. Called "SurfingAttack," the attack leverages the unique properties of acoustic transmission in solid materials — such as tables — to "enable multiple rounds of interactions between the voice-controlled device and the attacker." Research is led by Qiben Yan, of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, with collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"Down in the metropolitan areas, I think we could honestly say some of the roads are terrible," says Larry Galehouse, director of the National Center for Pavement Preservation, a research organization affiliated with MSU. "And they would be among some of the worst in the country."

NASCAR driver Ryan Newman survived his crash on Daytona raceway, in part, because of the HANS invention created by the late mechanical engineering faculty member Robert Hubbard. "Anytime that any type of research that we do can be implemented in practice and have a large impact on safety and human life — that goes right to our core mission of what we are supposed to be doing," said James Klausner, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Tamara Reid Bush, also of mechanical engineering, is also being quoted.

University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Anil K. Jain and Computer Science and Engineering Professor Arun Ross were two of the featured speakers when the Identity and Biometric Applications Unit of Israel's National Cyber Directorate hosted a three-day "Winter School" on biometric identification, voice and face recognition in Israel.

Bryan Smith, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is working on a potential treatment for coronary artery disease — a sub-microscopic scouring process he likens to "taking out the garbage."

Mi Zhang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Ming Yan, assistant professor of computational mathematics, science and engineering, were awarded the Facebook Faculty Research Award on Systems for Machine Learning. They are one of the 10 winners out of 167 applications from 100+ universities in 26 countries. Mi and Ming have been invited to the Facebook Research AI Systems Faculty Summit in Fall 2020.

An artificial intelligence-focused research team from MSU was recognized as fourth in the world and first in the United States and Canada at the recent Google MicroNet Challenge in Vancouver, Canada. The team is led by Mi Zhang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was recognized for its contributions to the challenge's CIFAR-100 Track at the conference on neural information processing, or NeurIPS'19, Dec. 8-14.

University Distinguished Professor Ramani Narayan, of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at MSU, said … "unless people understand - it is wrong, misleading and deceptive to use "biodegradable' in an unqualified way."

A 'Michigan-only' career fair celebrated 2020 Engineers Week.
A 'Michigan-only' career fair celebrated 2020 Engineers Week.

A first-time event at MSU puts a special focus on hiring opportunities at Michigan companies during this year's celebration of National Engineers Week, Feb. 16-23. "Engineered in the Mitten" is the first Michigan-only job fair hosted at the MSU College of Engineering, said Kyle Liechty, co-op and intern coordinator for the college. The career expo is for engineering students on Monday, Feb. 17, from 1-4 p.m. in the Engineering Building.

The 2020 Michigan VEX Robotics State Championship was the largest ever hosted at Michigan State University when 80 teams arrived at Jenison Field House on Sunday, Feb. 23. Drew Kim, assistant to the dean for recruitment, scholarship and K-12 outreach in MSU Engineering, said this year's total of 80 high school teams is up from 72 last year.

MSU is offering its first coding boot camp in partnership with Trilogy Education. Geared toward adult learners and working professionals in the region, the MSU Coding Boot Camp will teach the front-end and back-end skills necessary to become a proficient full stack developer. The 24-week, part-time program begins June 1, 2020.

The iPRoBe Lab and Department of Computer Science and Engineering shared in the honors when MSU's DeepTalk: A Conversational Agent for Broadcasters won a grant and recognition from the National Association of Broadcasters. DeepTalk will help broadcasters better serve their communities through AI.

Current students

MSU Formula Racing Team, a student group for more than 30 years, builds a race car from scratch each year with one goal: to win at Michigan International Speedway each May.

Good luck to Seth Killian, a computer science senior whose digital startup qualified for the annual Student Startup Madness tournament at SXSW on March 16.

Incoming students

Future mechanical engineer Jacob Dumais will attend MSU as a STARR Scholar. The scholarship pays all regular cost for eight semesters at MSU, including tuition, fees, books, room, board and incidental expenses.
Iron Mountain Daily News

Tyler Pritchett has committed to MSU to run cross country and track. He is interested in studying engineering and will join his older brothers, JC and Tommy, who are both studying applied engineering sciences.
Midland Daily News

MSU Pride Points