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Computer Science, ECE celebrate Tech Fiesta with research talks, posters

September 12, 2014 - By Kim Delker

The departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering celebrated what UNM has to offer the Albuquerque tech community during the city-wide Tech Fiesta on Sept. 10.

The event, held in the Centennial Engineering Center, featured networking with students, faculty and local tech professionals, as well as research talks by Abdullah Mueen, assistant professor of computer science, and Majeed Hayat, professor of electrical and computer engineering. The welcome was given by Provost Chaouki Abdallah and Christos Christodoulou, associate dean of research for the School of Engineering.

Since translating technology into innovation is a key goal in the school, representatives from the UNM business world were on hand. Suleiman Kassicieh, distinguished professor in the Anderson School of Management, who discussed the UNM Business Plan Competition, set for March 2015; and Jovan Heusser, senior innovation manager at STC.UNM.

The heart of the event came from the students who participated in the research poster competition. Many students, faculty and local tech professionals were on hand to peruse the posters and discuss research with the students. Twenty posters, spanning various engineering disciplines, were in the competition. Posters were judged by local professionals in the technology field.

Students participating said they felt the hard work was well worth the effort.
“My advisor suggested I participate, and it’s good to get the experience,” said Michael Wyatt, a Ph.D. student in computer science. His poster was titled “Optimization by Genetic Algorithm of GPCR Ligand Classification.”

Winners of the competition were:

First place: Torin Adamson, John Baxter, Kasra Manavi, Bruna Jacobson, and Lydia Tapia, for “Haptic-Guided Motion Planning Through Potential Fields” (Computer Science).

Second place (three-way tie): Kasra Manavi, Alan Kuntz, and Lydia Tapia for "Computational Methods for Studying Allergies: Simulation and Analysis of Antibody Aggregation” (Computer Science); Hossein Hamooni and Abdullah Mueen for “Dual-domain Hierarchical Phoneme Classification” (Computer Science); and Victor Chekh, Greg Iven, Shuang Luan, Peter Soliz and Mark Burge for “Infrared Screening for Quantitative Early Diagnostics of Peripheral Neuropathy” (Computer Science).

The people’s choice award went to Md. Mottaleb Hossain, Payman Zarkesh-Ha and Majeed M. Hayat for “Low Voltage CMOS Compatible Linear-mode p-n Junction Silicon Avalanche Photodiode” (Center for High Technology Materials and Electrical and Computer Engineering).

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