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Deans Weekly Significant Activities Report
11 May 2016
The Dean’s Weekly Significant Activities Report is an internal report on all activities conducted within the
Departments, Centers & Staff. The Report is provided to the Dean for situation awareness, throughout the
organization for shared situation awareness, and to select external organizations for outreach and
communication. Portions of the Dean’s Weekly Significant Activities Report are further staffed in a report to the
Superintendent. POC for the report is MS Lesley Beckstrom at 938-5105.
Picture of the Week
Dr. Paula Fekete set up three telescopes on the roof of
Bartlett Hall and invited USMA staff, faculty, and students to
come up and use them to witness firsthand Mercury’s
transit across the sun.
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Department Of Law
US District Court Judge Richard Sullivan visited with cadets in the Advanced
Constitutional Law seminar taught by Department of Law Professor and Constitutional
Law Chair, Tony DiSarro.
Judge Sullivan was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in
2007. Prior to that, he served as a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in
Manhattan, where he was Chief of the International Narcotics Trafficking Unit and
Director of the New York/New Jersey Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
Judge Sullivan spoke with the cadets about non-capital sentencing and the 8th
Amendment. He discussed his experiences as a judge with congressionally-mandated
minimum sentences and explored with the cadets whether present incarceration rates
and terms in the United States are excessive and counter-productive or an integral
component of reducing crime and protecting citizens.
Cadets in the Advanced Constitutional Law Course with federal district judge Richard
Sullivan.
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US District Court Judge Joseph Bianco visited with cadets in the LW 403 Constitutional
& Military Law course taught by Professor and Constitutional Law Chair, Tony DiSarro.
Judge Bianco was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in
2006. Prior to that, he supervised the Counterterrorism Section of the Department of
Justice in Washington D.C., and headed the Terrorism Unit of the US Attorney's Office
in Manhattan.
Judge Bianco spoke with the cadets about prosecuting terrorism in the federal courts.
He discussed his experiences as lead prosecutor in the case against lawyer, Lynne
Stewart, who defended Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as “the blind shiek” and who was
convicted for conspiring to bomb various civilian targets in the New York metropolitan
area. Judge Bianco described how a judge allowed him to place a hidden video
recording device to record conversations she had with Abdul-Rahman to convict her for
conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. The evidence showed that Stewart
was passing messages between Rahman and his supporters, including Rahman's
blessing for a resumption of terrorist operations in Egypt when there had been a
ceasefire.
Cadets in Professor DiSarro’s Constitutional & Military Law Course with federal district judge
Joseph Bianco.
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Combating Terrorism Center
On 5 May, the Combating Terrorism Center briefed the U.S. State Department’s
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs Richard Stengel. The CTC’s
leadership provided Mr. Stengel with an overview of the Center’s projects related to
Islamic State media operations and its own counter-messaging efforts. The leadership
also discussed how those projects may be of interest to the State Department and its
ongoing efforts in these same areas.
Under Secretary Richard Stengel is briefed by CTC Director LTC Bryan Price.
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Under Secretary Richard Stengel during his first visit to the Combating Terrorism Center
Department of Chemistry and Life Science
Faculty supporting the Department of Defense’s 2016 Junior Science and
Humanities Symposium.
COL John Burpo, Sc.D. and Dr. Ken Wickiser served as national
judges for the 2016 Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in
Dayton, OH, from 28-30 April. High school students from across
the US competed for scholarships and awards based on their
science and engineering projects ranging from the design of novel
robots to developing the next generation of malaria vaccine.
COL Burpo and Dr. Wickiser also represented West Point in
the DOD STEM Experience where they informed students and
project mentors about cadet-driven research and how it fits in
to the larger Army research portfolio. COL Burpo served as a
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plenary speaker for the event where he discussed his career as an Army officer and the
evolution of his academic interests from his days as a cadet through graduate school to
his current assignment as a PUSMA in the CLS department. The students enjoyed
discussing potential careers in defense-related research and they came away with a
better appreciation for how West Point fits into the Army and how basic science and
engineering can better serve the warfighter.
Military Chemistry 2016
Cadets in CH101 learn about additive manufacturing (3D printing) and how this new technology can help
soldiers in diverse ways, from making a unmanned ground vehicle tread to producing a wrench on the
International Space Station to potentially making replacement body organs that will be accepted by the
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patient’s body. Mr. Ralph Tillinghast from Picatinny Arsenal, explained how the technology works, along with
other innovations.
On May 5 and 6, 2016, the Department of Chemistry and Life Science held the 2016
Military Applications of Chemistry (MILCHEM) event for all cadets enrolled in CH101,
along with guests from other courses. The event brought seven scientists from Picatinny
Arsenal and one scientist from the Army Research Laboratory to West Point, along with
the 2nd Civil Support Team (CST) of Scotia, NY. Cadets learned about modelling and
mitigating blast effects on military vehicles, innovation in explosives and artillery, virtual
reality training, and learned about CST capabilities that can find and identify nuclear,
biological, and chemical threats. The event was the culminating lesson for CH101 and a
chance for cadets to interact face to face with scientists who apply chemistry to improving
the Army and world.
CH102 Cadets Present Research for AY16-2
Photo Left: CDT Foster describes part of the work she did with CDT Penta and CDT O'Dowd to MAJ Greb.
Photo Right: CDT Ayers and CDT Obiomon present the work they did with CDT Callas, CDT Wenik, and
Dr. Mentis (not pictured) to Dr. Kowalski.
On 5 and 6 May cadets in CH102 presented their research on the amounts of sugars in
nine leaves eaten by gorillas or red-tail monkeys in Africa. Cadets developed the skills
to analyze the sugar content in leaves, and then explored the most effective ways to
remove sugar from the leaves. The cadets' work generated a database for Dr. Dawn
Riegner and her collaborator, Dr. Jessica Rothman at CUNY, showing how much glucose
and fructose was present in each type of leaf. Many thanks to the coaches, TACs,
sponsors, DACs, faculty, staff, cadets, and others who came to see the posters and hear
cadets present their work.
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Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering
1. ME491 Engineering Design Projects: On 3 May 2016, cadets from ME491
Mechanical Powerplants presented their final Engineering Design Projects. The cadet
groups worked to analyze, design, and 3D print a functional engine component for a
quarter-scale V8 model. One section equipped the engine with a supercharger and the
other outfitted it with a twin-turbocharger. The work was followed by Mr. Bob
Henderson, Editor at the Haynes Publishing Group. Haynes produces automotive
technical literature and is the manufacturer of the engine model used in this design
project. Special thanks to Mr. Rod Wilson and Mr. Frank Blackmon from D/C&ME for
their expertise, guidance, and support with the additive manufacturing production of the
intake, exhaust, and forced induction components. The POC is LTC Joshua Keena at
joshua.keena@usma.edu.
Supercharged model engine variant (left) and ME491 Section A1 with their supercharged model
engine variant mounted in a quarter-scale chassis (right).
Twin-turbocharged model engine variant (left) and ME491 Section C2 with their turbocharged
model engine variant mounted in a quarter-scale chassis (right).
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2. C&ME Run to Remember Honors Fallen Heroes. On 10 May 2016 the semi-annual
C&ME Run to Remember to honor fallen graduates from the civil and mechanical engineering
programs took place. Forty-four faculty, staff, cadets, and family members ran to the West Point
cemetery where the group read the names of the 17 fallen heroes and visited the gravesites of the
four fallen graduates buried in the West Point cemetery. POC is COL Daisie Boettner,
daisie.boettner@usma.edu.
Group
Photo at Gravesite of 1LT Nick Dewhirst
Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
MIT – Lincoln Laboratory Research
Cadets in the XE492, Disruptive Innovation, course traveled to Boston 20-21 April to
visit MIT and MIT-Lincoln Labs in support of their individual research projects. They met
with Prof. Seth Lloyd, a world-renowned expert in quantum computing as well as
researchers in meta-materials, mircro-fluidic thrusters for cubesats, software
containerization, microelectronics, aerial imaging, 3D LIDAR imaging, and
entrepreneurs creating new business models for air travel. This trip was made possible
by the Harry and Diane Van Trees Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Endowment.
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CDT John Dimmer ‘17, COL Lisa Shay, Prof. Seth Lloyd, CDT Michael Chiu ‘16 and CDT David Brownfield
’17 in Prof. Lloyd’s office at MIT.
Guest Lecture – Mr. Alex Stamos, CSO of Facebook
Mr. Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer for Facebook, spoke to cadets in EECS courses
about the security challenges faced by Facebook in an age of increased hacking
attempts as well as the social and ethical impacts of their security efforts. Of particular
note was his discussion of the needs for technology companies to balance legal
requirements to follow the laws of their host countries with the need to protect their
user's privacy and how that is done at Facebook.
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EECS Faculty Attend 2016 CCSCNE Conference
LTC Tanya Estes of EECS presented at the 2016 Consortium for Computing Sciences
in Colleges, Northeastern Region (CCSCNE) conference, held 28-30 April 2016 at
Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. The conference is held every spring and brings
together leaders in computing academia to discuss undergraduate computing curricula,
sharing pedagogical approaches in the discipline. At the conference, LTC Tanya Estes
served as a poster judge, and also presented a paper co-authored by Dr. Ed Sobiesk of
the ACI and Dr. Linda Mallory of IID:
Estes, Tanya, Linda Mallory, and Edward Sobiesk. "The value of a one semester
exposure to the institutional review board process." Journal of Computing Sciences
in Colleges 31.6 (2016): 63-69.
POC: LTC Tanya Estes x3429.
EECS, C&ME, and 2nd AVN Lead West Point Flying Team to victory over Navy and
Coast Guard
The West Point Flying Team, led by Cadet in Charge Will Watson and Assistant Cadet
in Charge Brian O’Connor earned a victory over Navy and Coast Guard at the 3rd
annual Service Academy Flying Competition Spring Classic. We hosted the event
again this year at Orange and Dutchess County airports, 22-24 April 2016. Officers in
Charge LTC Tanya Estes (EECS), LTC Rich Melnyk (C&ME) and CW2 Mark Vester (2nd
AVN) helped train and mentor the team in the months leading up to this culminating
event of our competition season. Between the three academies, over 55 cadets and
midshipmen participated in three written, two ground and four flying events. In this large
field, USMA had three place in the top ten of all pilots, shown in the results below:
Top Pilot:
William Watson
1st Place
Kurt Klinkmueller
2nd Place
Alaina Kappner
5th Place
United States Military Academy
211 points
United States Naval Academy
193 points
United States Coast Guard Academy
92 points
Overall School Scores:
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West Point Flying Team with the First Place Trophy on Supe’s Boat during
celebration banquet, Sunday 24 April 16.
Computer Science cadets win awards at premier hackathon “LA Hacks”
Throughout AY16, six computer science cadets honed their programming skills through
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Capstone project work to develop a competitive entry at LA Hacks. LA Hacks is the
premier hackathon held annually on the West coast at University of California at Los
Angeles (UCLA), which occurred this year from 29 April – 1 May. Our team consisted of
Cl ‘16 CDTs Jack Graham, Dan Park, Jinny Yan, Luke Williams, Morgan Rabalais, and
Joe Suh, with LTC Christa Chewar as the faculty advisor. To best prepare, the cadets
practiced programming for virtual reality, network communication, robotic control, and
3D user interaction support. The team greatly benefited from opportunities to brief their
ongoing efforts to both LTC Caslen and BG Trainor during their visits to EECS.
Hackathons may sound like the terrain of our competitive cyber teams or something
similar to the Cyber Defense Exercise, but they are actually quite different, with
generally very little security emphasis at all. Hackathons are competitions hosted by
corporate sponsors that challenge students to rapidly develop (or “hack out”) innovative
new software/hardware solutions to solve specific social problems. Competitors
organized in four person teams are given the problems at the beginning of the
competition and have 36 hours to develop a prototype.
Approximately 1200 students (300 teams) attended this year’s LA Hacks, so the
competition was fierce. Our cadets worked relentlessly throughout the competition
period, sleeping very little as they refined their designs and quickly mastered new skills
to realize their creative visions. After the initial round of judging, the product developed
by CDTs Dan Park and Jack Graham was selected as an overall Top 10 award, and
subsequently finished as Top 3 project in one of the competition categories—earning
$1000 and two Apple TVs as prizes.
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Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering
Completed Events
Cub Scout Outreach: On 29 April, PaNE, along with D/Math, hosted about 40 Cub
Scouts and their families for a STEM night event. Scouts were introduced to really cool
principles, saw many exciting demonstrations, took part in some awesome experiments,
and were treated to PaNE’s delicious liquid nitrogen ice cream. Volunteer presenters
were LTC Chad Schools, MAJ Will Koch, MAJ Alex Katauskas, MAJ Seth Cottrell, and
CPT Drew Gillick, with CDTs Abigail Daniel and Kaleigh Warfield staffing the
observatory. Video of MAJ Cottrell’s vacuum bazooka is posted to our Facebook page.
MAJ Katauskas wows Cub Scouts with a Van de Graaff generator
MAJ Koch explains how a 3-D printer works
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LTC Schools (right) and CPT Gillick serve up ice cream made using liquid nitrogen
Departing Awards Ceremony: On 4 May, the Department of Physics and Nuclear
Engineering honored three departing faculty at an award ceremony: LTC Lou Florence,
CPT Tony Bonnes, and CPT Julian Holder.
LTC Florence
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CPT Bonnes and Family
CPT Holder and Family
Physics Major Field Test: On 6 May, Cadets enrolled in PH481 and Firstie physics
majors took the Physics Major Field Test as part of the required annual program
assessment.
Astronomical Event: On 9 May, Dr. Paula Fekete set up three telescopes on the roof
of Bartlett Hall and invited USMA staff, faculty, and students to come up and use them
to witness firsthand Mercury’s transit across the sun.
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Dr. Fekete lines up a telescope
Staff and Faculty line up for a turn
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Mercury can be seen in the upper left
Current Events
PaNE Relocation: Renovation of basement, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor classrooms has been
completed and staff and faculty have begun transitioning into their new permanent
teaching spaces. Renovation of 4th floor offices isn’t expected to be completed until
June.
Future Events
Department Academic Award Ceremony: On 19 May, The Department of Physics
and Nuclear Engineering will host an academic award ceremony to present the LTG
Leslie R. Groves Memorial Award to the Cadet with the highest average in Nuclear
Engineering.
AIADs: PaNE is preparing to send more than 70 Cadets on AIADs this summer, 22 of
whom are plebes, to 21 locations, three of which are foreign.
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Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering
Earth Day Open House: Dirt Man was invited to present an engaging lecture on
sustainability during the Earth Day Open House presented by the 101 Kids and
Highlands Community Garden Group at the Center in Highland Falls on April 23,
2016. At this annual event, featuring various exhibits by individual community
gardeners and youth groups from the Town of Highlands, Dirt Man interacted with
community members and sought to emphasize the importance of sustainable living
and met with kids and their parents for a Q&A afterwards. The POC is CPT Nick
Cosmas at nicholas.cosmas@usma.edu. Alternatively, Dirtman can be found on the
7th Floor of Washington Hall or spontaneously rallying cadets enrolled in EV203.
Dirtman (left) poses with Old Prospector, a highly regarded gardener and pioneer in
composting in the Highland Falls Community.
Faculty Research – NYC Outreach: Dr. Michael Butkus and LTC Jeff Starke
served as Thesis Advisors during CPT Luke Plante’s Master’s Defense at Columbia
University on 6 May 2016. CPT Plante has been studying under Dr. Kartik
Chandran – a pioneer in the novel application of ANAMMOX bacteria – and will join
the faculty this summer. CPT Plante’s thesis “The Feasibility of Using Heterotrophic
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Denitrifiers and ANAMMOX to Remove Ammonium Nitrate Solution (ANSol) from
Army Ammunition Plant Wastes” directly supports an ongoing research project for
Program Directorate – Joint Services (PD-JS) and the Holston Army Ammunition
Plant (HAAP). The research collaboration with Columbia University has been an
ongoing research grant with the Center for Innovation and Engineering (CIE) for the
past two years. This past year, CDTs Andrew Meyers and Raoul Valencia’s yearlong independent study directly supported CPT Plante’s research. CPT Plante will
present his research this summer at the Water Environment Federation (WEF)
national conference. The POC is LTC Jeffrey Starke at Jeffrey.Starke@usma.edu.
CPT Luke Plante (’06) poses with Cadets Andrew Meyers (’16) and Raoul Valencia
(’16) in front on the Scholar’s Lion statue on Columbia University’s campus. Also
present are Dr. Michael Butkus, LTC Jeff Starke, and Dr. Kartik Chandran (far right).
Keepers of the Peace Powwow: On 1 May 2016, cadets of the Native American
Heritage Forum (NAHF) organized and hosted the 6th annual Keepers of the Peace
powwow held at Gillis Field House. The master of ceremonies for the powwow was
the Redhawk Native American Arts Council. The powwow included the singing of
the National Anthem by Cadet Katelin Guettlein, a birds of prey expert who
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presented two shows that described how owls, hawks, and eagles hunt and capture
prey, and traditional Native American singing, and dancing. The Native American
vendors sold beadwork and other handmade articles and the food vendor had
plenty of venison and buffalo. The event includes midshipman from the Naval
Academy’s Native American club joining the powwow. The POC is LTC Mark
Smith, mark.smith@usma.edu.
Native American dancers at the Keepers of the Peace Powwow
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Cadets and OICs of the Native American Heritage Forum, and Native American dancers
at the Keepers of the Peace Powwow
Cadet Research Workshop and NYC Outreach: Cadets enrolled in EV372Geography of Asia traveled to Berkeley College in New York City to meet with Dr.
Rina Singh and Angie Tang, experts on India-US and China-US relations,
respectively. The presenters offered their views on what they believe are the most
important geographical and security challenges facing the region and cadets had
the opportunity to ask questions and assess the implications of the most pressing
geographical challenges in Asia including territorial issues in the South China Sea,
social and gender issues in India, as well as demographic change in East Asia.
Afterwards, the cadets and faculty traveled to Chinatown to enjoy dim sum and
meet with the publisher of the largest Chinese language daily newspaper in the
United States where they discussed the importance of the diaspora community in
shaping US-China economic relations. Finally, they ended the day with a visit to the
Kimlau Chapter of the American Legion where cadets learned about the ways that
the US military and service organizations such as the American Legion instill
American values in immigrant communities and build bridges between newly
arriving immigrants and the US population. The POC is CPT Nick Cosmas at
Nicholas.cosmas@usma.edu.
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