Class of 2009 Shines On

Though every class of EECS majors has special strengths, 2009 has distinguished itself as a group of terrific team players who help each other to exceed expectations at every turn. Class accomplishments include a 3rd consecutive win in the Cyber Defense Exercise, the best-ever record of National Science Foundation Research Fellowship award selections, terrific results on senior design projects including several prizes won at design competitions at MIT and Rochester Institute of Technology, presentations of papers at, work at national conferences to thousands of people, where undergraduate work is seldom seen, and also excellent presentations at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research, held this year at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.

Godspeed 2009!
We expect continued success!

Great Press...

- Check out New York Times coverage of the Cyber Defense Exercise (front page on 11 May 2009).  Also international coverage in Switzerland and Canada.

- The cadet Bionic Foot Project and Asian Pacific Celebration have been published by the Army web site.

- Lt. Col. Greg Conti's new book Googling Security is receiving favorable reviews [and more reviews and more reviews and still more reviews] and interesting discussion around the world.

Brilliance Unveiled
Tracy H. Sugg Sculpts Ada Lovelace

About 80 EECS cadets, faculty members, and guests celebrated women in computing in the beautiful Haig Room of Jefferson Hall, recently.

The unveiling of a new sculpture of Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, an English aristocrat who lived from 1815 to 1852, topped off the ceremony.  Ada conceived and wrote the first computer program. It was for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a programmable collection of punched cards, rods, gears, and levers widely regarded as the world's first computing device.

The sculpture is by Tracy H. Sugg. Only a small number of painted and photographic portraits of Ada had previously existed. Ms. Sugg's is the first known sculpture.  She employed the skills of her classical training to deduce Ada's facial structure and appearance, a real job of historical sleuthing and a splendid success according to all present. The statue is a personal acquisition of an EECS faculty member. "It feels like she's about to speak," said one.

Introducing the celebration was a media show by Maj. Katie Blue commemorating exceptional contributions of contemporary women to computing worldwide. Current and past faculty members and cadets of EECS were included! Col. Gene Ressler, the department head, delivered a short lecture. He noted the fast-rising importance of communication and community-building as foundations of science and engineering, strengths that recent science has identified as essentially female. Ada Byron exemplified those strengths in her short but inspirational life. 

The computer language Ada, used heavily at EECS and in safety-critical systems the world over, was named after Ada Byron. It strengths include support for clear communication of programmers' intent and very large system programming by communities of designers and programmers. How appropriate!

Ada inspires us all!

Cyber Defense Dynasty Lives On!

After a bruising cyber battle lasting four days, the USMA EECS team ended up on top of all four other service academies: Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine for the third consecutive year!

Discipline, teamwork, and diversity of skills made the difference, says Sal Messina, Class of 2009, who served as Cadet-In-Charge of this year's effort. CS, IT, and EE cadets participated.

The competition pits cadets and midshipmen  against a National Security Agency-led "red team" of professional network security experts. Cadets at each academy prepare a network to include specific services...like email, web, additional esoteric items, and a twist for this year: NSA-prepared contaminated computers that provided back doors for the red hackers to enter.

Every red team success subtracts points from an initial bag while a "white cell" of referees keeps track.  After the week long slug-fest of cyber-blows, the USMA team emerged with top points for the third time in a row, the first time any academy has achieved this in the CDX's 8 years.

Go CDX Team! We're all proud of you!

Helen Armstrong,
Our Down Under IT Wonder

Dr. Helen Armstrong, EECS Visiting Professor spending a year away from the School of Information Systems at Curtin University of Technology in Australia, was awarded the prestigious Western Australian Information Technology Achiever of the Year Award for 2008.

The annual award is given by the Australian Computer Society, Inc., the premier organization for information technology professionals in Australia. It recognizes her outstanding contributions to information technology and telecommunications in Western Australia. Dr. Armstrong is the first woman to receive the award.

Her department head is shown above accepting the award on her behalf while she engages in teaching and research here - a fact we're very happy to acknowledge!

Dr. Armstrong's success exemplifies the professional excellence of EECS faculty members with whom our cadets live and work on a daily basis. We're all proud and happy that she has received this award.

Congratulations Dr. Armstrong!

Chris Kelly Catalyzes Castle Confab

Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of facebook.com, the on-line community of 175 million active users located throughout the world, regaled Class of 2012 cadets in IT105 Introduction to Information Technology and Computing, along with many other USMA community members in an after-dinner talk at Thayer Hall.  Chris discussed Facebook's goals, core values and principles of operation and many of the very tough and fascinating problems involved in putting all those into practice, with only about 800 Facebook employees serving such a huge clientele.

Transparency, balance, community, sharing, and doing the right thing were frequent terms of art in Mr. Kelly's remarks.  And good thing, too, since Chris produced solid evidence that Facebook has affected the political actions of millions of people, producing several outcomes of global significance.

With nearly all of the 700 attendees avid users of facebook, there was no shortage of excellent questions and conversations, which continued far past the planned end of the talk and reception.

Chris joins the long list of distinguished Castle Lecturers. Dr. James C. and Dorothy P. Castle generously support the lecture series and other activities of the department aimed at providing cadets with opportunities to be inspired by technology leaders.

HKN and UPE Induct New Members

The Honor Societies for the EECS disciplines - Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) for Electrical Engineering (below right) and Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) for Computer Science and Information Technology (top right) inducted new cadets and faculty members during a delightful dinner at Eisenhower Hall and - as luck would have it - the winter's worst snow storm! 

Neither snow nor sleet nor gloom, however, stayed these dedicated scholars from their appointed tasks. The solemn ceremonies - conducted by current cadet officers of both societies - were a beautiful and befitting tribute to the high academic and character standards required for selection.

The event also gave pause to consider that the Army shares many values in common with those of the professional technical disciplines we teach.

Congratulations to all new HKN and UPE members!

LTC Ken Viall CDT James Erkes MAJ Sam Abbott-McCune MAJ Sam Abbott-McCune Dr. Aaron St. Leger MAJ Ryan Ebel CDT Joe Fasone MAJ AJ Newtson CDT Thomas Marks MAJ TJ OConnor CDT Neil Milchak MAJ Leo Waugh CDT Andrew Thompson CDT Chinnawoot Thongpila CDT David Niblick CDT Kyle Sullivan CDT Jeremie Regnier CDT Joseph Schafer CDT Alois Renggli CDT John Chapman CDT Zachary Ciccolo CDT David Nelson CDT Ashley Olds CDT Donald Patterson CDT Matthew Supan CDT Ibrahim Thaufeeq CDT Samuel Thode CDT Kristopher Webber

Army Beats Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard
In Programming Duel

What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon at West Point than to defeat teams from Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard at the esoteric art and science of computer programming? Cdts. Adam Royal, Joseph Schafer, and Kyle Sullivan did just that, in a no-holds-barred competition to solve more problems in three hours than any other competing team. It was a storybook come-from-behind victory as Adam, Joe, and Kyle correctly solved their third and winning problem with only four minutes to go.

And they'll be back next year - all three teammates are juniors!

Dr. Chris Okasaki and faculty colleagues from the other service  academies make the contest possible each year, consistently coming up with some fiendishly tricky (and fun!) problems to work on. The scoreboard is virtual: a web page updated as local referees report results.

Congratulations Guys!  Victory is sweet !

Killer Ants Attack!

Computer science majors in CS478 Programming Languages had a chance to prove their algorithmic mettle by designing and building automated gladiators - simulated insect colony competitors - for the Ant Wars. In a virtual arena - just a fast computer with big screen - teams of two cadets each pitted their own ant warriors in a head-to-head, no-holds-barred "best colony wins" competition.

The real object of the exercise was to develop skill with the principal mechanisms of object-oriented computer programming: inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation. These subjects can be a bit dry ... but not when the difference between merely good and perfect understanding determines the outcome of a life-or-death struggle!

It was a winner-take-all tournament with Dean of the Academic Board, BG Patrick Finnegan on hand to present top honors, shown right, to the winning team of Cadets Thaufeeq Ibrahim and Matt Supan.

Little ants, big fun!

Lights! Camera! BEAT NAVY!

A Core IT Program faculty production...

Starring Cpt. Chris Miller!  Producer, Director, Editor, CGI effects Cpt. Chris Miller. Co-starring Heather Miller and Lt. Col. Rob BarthoGreat Service At The Bar

Great Service At The Bar

Cdt. Ashley Olds, Class of 2009 Computer Science major, and Mr. Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook, were among the distinguished panelists at a three hour New York City Bar Association presentation on the topic of "Social Networking: Balancing the Risks to Copyrights, Privacy, and Security," which took place recently in Manhattan. The panel was moderated by intellectual property in cyberspace expert Roland Trope, an adjunct professor at the USMA Department of Law and a long time friend and resource for EECS.

Ashley's comments provided the unique insight of a brilliant student of technology and also someone who has grown up while modern Web 2 applications like social networking were also coming of age. All present paid rapt attention.  Every cadet thinks about ethics and honor on a daily basis. This background enabled Ashley to make additional unique contributions.

Generous donations from the great private benefactors of EECS underwrote Ashley's travel, another example of the incredible impact that these people have on cadet education.

Cdt. Olds, can we have your autograph?

Disruptive Times At MIT

Cadets working on an independent study of disruptive and super-innovative commercial technologies traveled to MIT recently with their professor Col. Barry Shoop to talk first hand with some people who are changing the world on a day-to-day basis.

Cdts. Richard Miles (EE '09), Sarah Noreen (EE '09), Mike Platek (CS '09), and Roy Ragsdale (CS '09) made the trip.  Their itinerary reads like a "who's who" of high tech creativity. Meetings included Timothy M. Swager, Head of the Department of Chemistry at MIT and John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry, John D. Joannopoulos, Director of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology, Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics at MIT, Professor Edwin L. Thomas, Head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and Professor David Barrett, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and former Vice President of Engineering at iRobot, also Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering Corporation. On 5 November, the team met with the Vice-President of Engineering at Foster-Miller, the company that builds the Talon robot being used in current combat operations.  Later they met with Dr. Zachary Lemnios, the Chief Technology Officer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

In each engagement, the cadets gained an insider's view of what it's like to participate in fundamental scientific and engineering advances.  It's hard to imagine better preparation for the Army's high tech future.

It was a Joint operation!  The Office of Naval Research kindly provided funding for this excellent adventure, and we're thankful. Still, we must say...

BEAT NAVY!

National Leader

Col. Barry L. Shoop, EECS Deputy Head, has received the 2008 Optical Society of America Leadership Award New Focus/Bookham Prize for leadership and vision in furthering optics education and humanitarian purposes, including contributions to founding the National Military Academy of Afghanistan and the global fight against terrorism, expressed in his work while assigned to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. He is shown here with OSA Vice President James Wyant, dean of the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. The OSA Leadership Award/New Focus Prize was established in 1997 to strengthen the link between the optics community and the public. The award recognizes an individual or group of optics professionals whose actions or policy outside the technology arena has made a significant contribution to society; this contribution may be social, economic, political or humanitarian. Past recipients include Past MIT President Charles M. Vest, NASA Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, and former Duncan T. Moore former Associate Director for Technology in The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Congratulations Colonel Shoop!

Hacking 101

"Know your enemy" was the wisdom of grand master of military strategy Sun Tzu." Interested cadets had a great chance to follow this 2,600-year-old advice by trying out techniques used by bad guys to attack Internet computers. The hands-on event was sponsored by cadet and faculty leaders of the EECS award-winning Student Chapter of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Security, Audit, and Control (SIGSAC).

The long name - though a mouthful - fits perfectly because It was a huge success, with well over 50 cadets filling the Cyberdefense lab with chatter about protocols, ports, exploits and countermeasures. It doesn't get any better!

SIGSAC leader Cdt. Nate Larsen and his colleague in (simulated) cybercrime Cdt. Alan Lewis worked hard to give the event its high impact feel.  Virtual machine technology created this cool "sandbox" for hacking without any true danger to network resources.

Food provided by generous EECS donors allowed the busy cadet attendees to learn and eat dinner at the same time. Thanks to them! We couldn't do this alone...

EECS rules the Network!

Hey Third Class Cadets!
GOT MAJOR?

There is no more exciting or relevant way to prepare yourself for Army leadership than by studying in the EECS majors: Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science. Our Army has always operated on the principle that technology can provide a decisive edge for winning, enhance soldier effectiveness, and keep soldiers safe. The next 30 years will see incredible changes in this regard:

• Amazing new information gathering, communication, and processing capabilities to root out entrenched enemies and inform Command decisions.
• Holodeck-like simulations for training.
• Robots doing dirty work that used to be for soldiers.
• Maybe even true machine intelligence. What happens when machines think faster or better than we do?
• Further globalization.  Hardly anything will be designed or made in a single country.  What does this mean for defense?
• Accelerating Moore's law effects...technology relentlessly getting faster, cheaper, more capable at a surprising rate.
• Disruptive technologies - ideas that change everything.
• Both good and bad effects on people and societies.  Engineers will be leaders of change.

Be one of those rare future leaders who knows how to take on these challenges.  Come learn how high tech systems really work.  Design, build and test your own software, devices, and systems.

...AND HAVE FUN DOING IT.  Experience the joy of creating something that has never existed before.

...ALL WITH THE HELP OF THE FINEST TECHNOLOGY FACULTY IN THE WORLD.  We're committed to your success.

We want to see you at the Open House. Questions?  See our page for prospective majors!

Go EECS!

Get (Virtually) Real!

What do actor Will Smith and Michael Weigand, rising sophomore cadet shown here, have in commmon? They have both worked at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Marina del Rey, California and been filmed in LightStage 5, a technology designed to produce very high quality virtual reality (VR) experiences by allowing near-perfect subject lighting to be computer generated.

Computer games provide a tiny flavor of VR's capability. Full VR systems are being used to create Army training and education that are safe and cheap, yet still super-effective.

Mike spent several weeks in Marina Del Rey as part of a summer assignment.  For a cadet with only IT105 Introduction to Information Technology and Computing as background, Mike did remarkable work - developing a software pipeline for processing the enormous amount of data produced by the LightStage device ... 35 gigabytes for only 8 seconds of video!  It's likely Mike's work at ICT will connect with his planned studies as a Computer Science major.

What was Will Smith doing at LightStage 5? Working on his recent movie Hancock, where LightStage data feeds many of the special effects.

Go EECS, and see the (virtual) world!

Thai Tech Teaching

EE&CS faculty members Lt. Col. Matt Chapman and Lt. Col. Mike Brownfield traveled with six cadets to Thailand during June with a goal of learning about life in that country and serving people. That included teaching kids about basic electricity, home finance, and first aid, among other topics. The cadets prepared lessons and accumulated materials before departing. They couldn't quite prepare, however, for the vast differences between Thai village culture and the U.S. For one thing, they found that elephants get great gas mileage!

See the [ Pointer View article ].

Engineers for humanity!

Afghans Can

Maj. Matt Dunlop is the 5th EE&CS faculty member to deploy to Kabul as a mentor for faculty and staff of the shiny new National Military Academy of Afghanistan, or NMAA for short. Shown here at right is Matt with Computer Science department head Col. Rahman and USMA EE&CS head Col. Gene Ressler, who was back for a short visit. Ressler first deployed to NMAA during 2005, just in time to see the first class of New Cadets arrive. Those groundbreakers will be commissioned this January, marking a historic beginning for the Afghan National Army - the first members of a well-educated Officer Corps for the new republic.

Just as the USMA provided much-needed engineering expertise to a young United States, the NMAA is intended to provide graduates who can take on the huge task of building the national infrastructure as well as the Afghan National Army. Information technology, of course, has an essential part to play. It's no accident that Col. Hamdulah, the NMAA's Dean, has each cadet receiving two core courses in computer science.  In fact, the cadets are also focused on technology.  One-third will graduate as computer science majors.  Ressler remembers that the Dean saw IT's benefits very clearly from the start. Since the Taliban burned many of the books in the country during their reign, Col. Hamdulah knew that the Internet would have to serve as the Academy's initial library and textbook supply!  VSAT dishes for satellite connectivity arrived along with beds and blankets for the initial class of cadets.

Matt Dunlop is working with Afghan counterparts for three summer months to flesh out the last semester courses for senior year, which begin in September.

NMAA and USMA:  Together in technology education!

2008 Graduation Celebration and Awards

It was a great day for the Class of 2008 EE&CS majors, family and friends.  About 300 celebrated excellence achieved during four years of hard work to earn diplomas in electrical engineering, computer science, information technology, or electronic and information technology systems.  Numerous awards for special accomplishments were received.  Faculty and staff of the Department were on hand to wish Godspeed to cadets who have become colleagues and friends during their studies. 

Great things are expected when the Class of 2008 arrives in the field Army!  The department will be waiting for a select group to return as faculty.  It was a very good year.

A picture album is [here].

Congratulations EE, CS, IT, EITS grads of 2008!!