EyeVerify, a Kansas City startup based on technology developed by UMKC School of Computing and Engineering Associate Professor Reza Derakhshani, Ph.D., continues to gain accolades.
Most recently, the eyeprint verification company has been selected as one of eight finalists in the national entrepreneurship competition, ‘Get in the Ring’, hosted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. See the UMKC Today article for more information.
Alberto Kang, Civil Engineering student at UMKC’s School of Computing and Engineering, was announced as a winner of a $5000 scholarship from REMSA.
Kang, an active student at SCE, currently serves as the Vice President of both Chi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi, and is also a member of the MSPE Student Chapter. In addition, Kang works 32 hours each week at Herzog Contracting, a general contractor and REMSA member company specializing in railroad construction.
Dr. John Kevern, SCE Assistant Professor and Dr. Jerry Richardson, SCE Associate Professor, both in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department, recently had a new research project funded. Their proposal on the hydraulic design of permeable interlocking concrete pavers will be funded by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI).
The annual School of Computing and Engineering Fall Picnic was a great success this year. From beautiful weather to great food, students were able to have fun, interact, and relax. The SCE Student Council organizes the picnic each year, and volunteers from SCE student teams and organizations helped with set-up, tear-down, and ensured that everyone had a great time. Thank you to all the student volunteers that helped to put on the show and the food.
Dr. Sejun Song, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Electrical Engineering department at UMKC, was recently announced as a winner of the 2013-2014 Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Scholars Award. SCE welcomed Dr. Song onto the teaching and research faculty in August 2013 and commends him on this great achievement.
Will traffic lights exist? Will cars still have human drivers? These are some of the questions that Dr. Vijay Kumar will be addressing at the Centurion Monthly Task Force Meeting on Oct. 8. According to Dr. Kumar, “The idea of a driverless car is very exciting and such cars may come in about 15 to 20 years. More interesting is to provide a driverless option while keeping intact the fun of driving. Our love of cars does not want to lose the fun of driving. One of the main objectives is to improve traffic flow inside the city and do away with traffic lights to prepare the platform for driverless cars.” One of his current research projects uses sensors to automate traffic at intersections.
Dr. Kumar, Professor in the Computer Science Electrical Engineering Department at UMKC, proposed a new approach to sensor technology at an Air Force workshop in St. Louis. While at the workshop, the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, N.Y. took great interest and funded Dr. Kumar’s research project. Since then, he and his graduate assistant, Amol Khedkar, have explored the deployment of this technology. Their research is based around what he refers to as the “Self-Synchronization of Mobile Objects.” Kumar’s technology would communicate with surrounding vehicles and instruct the vehicles when to stop and when to go, without the interference of human drivers. For this technology to be effective, all the cars on the road must be equipped with this system. Kumar also suggests integration of an override system so that it can be switched off. Further advancement of the technology could begin regulating the speed of vehicles on the road, avoiding collision and eliminating wait time. Dr. Kumar and Khedkar’s research was recently featured in the U-News article, “Say ‘goodbye’ to traffic lights with driverless cars.”
The Centurions October Task Force meeting will focus on what Kansas City will look like in 20 years. The meeting will cover several different areas, including economic, demographic, environment and architecture planning, biotechnology, and Dr. Kumar’s presentation on driverless cars. The task force will explore critical measures and initiatives needed to continue growth and development in Kansas City.
Photo Courtesy Visionstyler Press – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike License.
An interdisciplinary group of researchers, Dr. ZhiQiang Chen (Civil Engineering), Dr. Yugyung Lee (Computer Science), and their graduate students, Jianfei (Max) Chen (Electrical Engineering) and Feichen Shen (Computer Science), at the UMKC School of Computing and Engineering have developed a new approach for reporting damaged infrastructure: a smartphone-based application geared towards real-time damage quantification and collaborative decision making. According to the ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, the GPA for the infrastructure’s condition and performance is currently rated at a D+. In addition, the monetary investment needed to repair the infrastructure to maintain a functional state (that is, to get a grade of B) is $3.6 trillion by the year 2020. Such a tremendous investment demands a critical need – innovative and rapid technologies for civil infrastructure condition assessment. Different from a Google Street View application, the app seamlessly integrates mobile imaging, interactive analytics, and cloud computing, all processed in the real time.
UMKC Civil Engineering student Levon Saiyan was recently awarded a $1,500 scholarship by the ICRI Great Plains Chapter after a competitive evaluation of other applicants.
Levon is an active member of the School of Computing and Engineering, serving as UMKC’s Chapter President of EWB (Engineers Without Borders). This year, EWB is working to build a bridge in Vallecito, Panama.
The International Concrete Repair Institute – Great Plains Chapter encompasses Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Western Iowa, and was founded to improve the quality of repair, restoration, and protection of concrete. This year, three scholarships were awarded to deserving students within the region.
