by Mark Wilcox, University Marketing and Communications
Michigan Tech is celebrating the accomplishments of more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students who completed their degrees by the end of the spring 2021 semester. Despite the lack of a formal ceremony due to COVID-19 restrictions, more than 600 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in a physically distanced celebration tomorrow (April 30) throughout the afternoon.
The Graduation Celebration website shines a spotlight on the graduating class and provides links for graduates, their families and friends, and the community. Graduates and alumni can share their favorite memories and view profiles created by the Class of 2021.
Among the undergraduates, 99 will graduate cum laude, 116 magna cum laude and 68 summa cum laude. In the Graduate School, there will be 31 doctorates awarded, along with 203 Master of Science degrees, 46 graduate certificates, 27 Master of Business Administration degrees, two Master of Forestry degrees, five Master of Geographic Information Science degrees, and 46 graduate certificates.
The Air Force ROTC and Army ROTC will conduct a joint commissioning ceremony at 7:30 a.m. Saturday (May 1) at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Eleven cadets will be commissioned as officers in the Air Force and five cadets will be commissioned as officers in the Army. Due to limited seating, a livestream ceremony will be available via Zoom.
One of the highlights of Michigan Tech’s traditional commencement ceremony is an address by a member of the graduate class. Even without a formal ceremony, remarks by this year’s student speaker, Tanner Sheahan, can be viewed on the Celebration Messages page of the Graduation Celebration website.
Sheahan, a chemical engineering major from Bay City, Mich., is enthusiastic about the message he’ll share with his class. “I love writing, and I think I have a knack for telling stories. I had fun — this has been a great experience,” he said.
Because of COVID-19 restrictions, Sheahan’s internship last summer was conducted virtually, but it had a very positive outcome. “The situation really opened up extreme doors and led to a job as a sales operations manager at Nalco Water, an Ecolab Company in Naperville, Illinois,” he said.
University President Rick Koubek congratulated MTU’s newest alumni. “On behalf of Michigan Tech’s entire faculty and staff, we wish you the very best in your future endeavors and trust you will do great things with your degree from Michigan Tech,” said Koubek. “Congratulations again on this tremendous accomplishment.”
Read more about tomorrow’s celebration in yesterday’s Tech Today.
by Husky Innovate
For the 11th year running, Central Michigan University and Michigan Tech collaborated to offer Tech students a chance to compete at CMU’s New Venture Competition. 2021 marked the second year the pitch competition was held online as the New Venture Online Competition (NVOC).
Despite the challenges of a pandemic and a virtual platform, our students persevered, honed their pitches and won top prizes. This year’s NVOC winners were also winners at the 2021 Bob Mark Business Model Pitch Competition held at Tech in January. All of their hard work and effort paid off!
Congratulations to this year’s MTU winners:
- In the 2020-track 10-minute pitch category, Team Focus with Ranit Karmakar won the Best Overall Venture Award for $25,000. Watch Karmakar’s pitch.
- In the two-minute pitch category, Team The Fitting Room with Jordan Craven won third place for $1,000. Watch Craven’s pitch.
- Team Recirculate with Hunter Malinowski won an honorable mention award for $750. Watch Malinowski’s pitch.
Read more in the NVOC 2021 Booklet.
Jidong Xiao, an assistant professor in the computer science department at Boise State University, will present a talk on Wednesday, May 12, at 3:00 p.m.
Dr. Xiao’s research focuses on computer security, especially computer system security and cloud security.
In his talk, “Identifying New Threats in Cloud Environments,” Dr. Xiao will present two research projects focusing on a concept called virtual machine extrospection and a new type of rootkit, which allows attackers to perform active or passive attacks in a nested virtualization environment.
Talk Title
Identifying New Threats in Cloud Environments
Talk Abstract
Cloud computing has become prevalent over the past decade. While individuals and organizations rely on cloud computing more and more, various security problems in cloud platforms are discovered. In this talk, I will present two research projects. In the first project, I will present a concept called virtual machine extrospection, in which attackers or cloud customers collect sensitive information about the physical machine from within a virtual machine. In the second project, I will present a new type of rootkit, which allows attackers to perform active or passive attacks in a nested virtualization environment, and then I will describe our detection approach. At the end of the talk, I will briefly discuss my future research projects and plans.
Biography
Dr. Jidong Xiao is an assistant professor in the computer science department at Boise State University. His research focuses on computer security, especially computer system security and cloud security. He received his PhD degree in computer science from the College of William and Mary. Prior to joining Boise State University, he spent approximately 5 years in industry working at Intel and Symantec.
Dr. Xiao’s research was recognized in different venues, including publications that won the best paper award at the USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2015, won the distinguished poster award at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) 2016, and won the best paper award nomination at the International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 2020. Dr. Xiao has been awarded several grants by the NSF, NSA, and the Army Research Office (ARO).
It has been a challenging academic year, to say the least. As part of the Class of 2021, you are an exceptional group of graduates. Your final academic year presented you with unforeseen and unprecedented challenges, yet you persevered.
We are all proud to have mentored, instructed, and supported you on your educational journey. We know you’ll do well. You are a Husky, after all!
Please stay in touch!