Dr. Yu Cai, Applied Computing, is seeking motivated students to help with this summer’s GenCyber Teacher Camp, which takes place on campus July 19-23, 2021.
Two recent rankings place Michigan Tech among elite colleges and universities on both the state and national level.
Michigan Tech was rated #2 on the list of the Best Accredited Online Colleges in Michigan by EDsmart. The ranking service assesses online colleges in Michigan based on data that covers cost, academic quality, student satisfaction and salary after attending.
Michigan Tech was ranked #13 on the list of the 50 Best Value Public Colleges in America by Stacker. The ranking included only public, four-year colleges and weighed the cost of tuition with each school’s acceptance rate, quality of professors, diversity and the median earnings for alumni six years after graduation.
by Yu Cai, College of Computing
A GenCyber Cybersecurity Teacher Camp for K-12 teachers will be held at Michigan Tech during the week of July 19 – 23. Participants will learn cyber hygiene and fundamental security knowledge including email phishing, password management, and cyber ethics. Participants will also learn how to develop lesson plans to teach cybersecurity in K-12.
This is a residential camp (commuting optional), and is offered at NO COST to all participants. Room and board is included. Each teacher participant will receive a stipend of $500 for attending and completing camp activities. Camp activities will count for 25 State Continuing Education Clock Hours (SCECH).
Click here for more information and to apply. The application deadline is May.
Funding for the camp is provided jointly by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an award led by Yu Cai and Tim Van Wagner from the College of Computing.
by Graduate Student Government
This year’s Graduate Research Colloquium organized by the Graduate Student Government was hosted virtually due to COVID restrictions. There were in total 48 presentations — 17 poster presenters and 31 oral presenters.
Poster presentations took place in a pre-recorded video style and the oral sessions were hosted live via Zoom. You can watch all the poster videos and recordings for the oral sessions here. Each presentation was scored by two judges from the same field of research.
Participants were able to gain valuable feedback from these judges before presenting their research at an actual conference. It was stiff competition amongst all presenters. Following are the winners for each of these sessions.
Of the many presentations were the following by two graduate students affiliated with the College of Computing.
Simulating the Spread of Infectious Diseases
Meara Pellar-Kosbar, Data Science
This simulation is designed to show how a fictional viral illness could spread among people in a virtual room. Over the course of the virtual simulation, a number of automatic simulated people called subjects will move about an adjustable virtual grid. During this time, subjects will come into contact with each other and with item cells in the virtual room. Subjects will be exposed to this fictional virus via contact with other subjects, items, and via the air when within a certain distance of a contagious subject. The viral counts of each subject will be tracked and shown as the simulation runs, showing how the actions of the subjects’ affects their viral counts.
Cultural Competence Effects of Repeated Implicit Bias Training
Karen Colbert, Social Sciences
Karen Colbert is a PhD student in the Computational Sciences and Engineering department.
Abstract: Diversity training literature suggests that mandatory and recurrent sessions should maximize training efficacy, but research has primarily focused on single, brief training sessions that are often voluntary. Michigan Tech is one of few universities to implement required and repeated diversity training for all faculty who serve on search, tenure, and promotion committees. The goal of this study is to evaluate the training’s effectiveness, as well as to fill the gap in research on mandatory recurring diversity training. To do this, we anonymously surveyed faculty members on their knowledge, attitudes, and skills related to content from the Diversity Literacy program and scored responses to create a single composite score for each participant. We hypothesized that composite Cultural Competency Score (CCS) would be higher for faculty who 1) have taken more refresher trainings, and 2) completed training more recently. This study included 130 total respondents (large sample), 69 of whom provided their Diversity Literacy completion information anonymously through Human Resources (small sample). Composite CCS did not differ significantly by frequency of training, H(2)=3.78, p=.151. CCS did differ significantly by years since last training, F(2,63)=4.436, p=.016. Results from both large and small groups showed no statistical significant relationship between CCS and faculty committee service. CCS was negatively correlated with years employed at Tech in both the large (r=-0.363, p=0.002) and small (r = -0.258, p=0.01) samples. This relationship between low CCS and longer employment at Tech may additionally be related to the Diversity Literacy program’s implementation in 2010. Qualitative responses were also collected regarding training material that faculty found most memorable (N=102) and most confident to put into practice (N=93).
by Major Daniel F. Gwosch, Professor of Military Science
Are you interested in a DoD career in Cyber Security after Michigan Tech? Join the Arctic Warrior Cadets and learn about DoD Cyber from a panel of subject matter experts. The presentation will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow (April 9).
Presenting are:
This event will be a virtual event and is intended to provide information on current Cyber activities being conducted by US Army Cyber and the Joint DoD community of experts
by Office of the Vice President for Research
Join us at noon today (April 8) for a special session of the VPR Research Series as we “Meet MTRI.”
This event will introduce the team at the Michigan Tech Research Institute and explore opportunities for others in our research community to collaborate with them.
by Cognitive and Learning Sciences
Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences (CLS) chair candidate Kelly Steelman will give a talk from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday (April 12).
In the talk, she will share her administrative philosophy and goals for the department.
by Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
The net virtual graduate Seminar Speaker will be held at 4 p.m. tomorrow (April 8) via Zoom.
Weihua Zhou (CC) will present “Artificial intelligence for medical image analysis: our approaches. “
Zhou, is an assistant professor of applied computing at Michigan Tech. He has been doing research on medical imaging and informatics since 2008. Attend virtually.
View the University Events Calendar, which includes a registration link and additional information about Dr. Zhou and his research.
Dr. Sangyoon Han is an assistant professor in Michigan Tech’s Biomedical Engineering department, and an affiliated assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics department. He is also advisor to the Korean Students Association. He has been with Michigan Tech since 2017.
Han recently joined the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems and its Data Sciences research group. His primary research interests are in mechanobiology, cell migration, and image data modeling. His research goals include applying computer vision to microscopic images to capture meaningful information, and he’s looking for collaborators.
“Anyone with a good machine learning background is encouraged to contact me to discuss potential research,” he says. “Also, students who learned assignment problems or particle tracking are encouraged to contact me to discuss potential tracking-related projects.”
Teaching and Mentoring
Han’s teaching interests include computer vision for microscopic images, fluid mechanics, cell biomechanics and mechanobiology, and soft tissue mechanics. This academic year, he instructed Computer Vision for Microscopic Images in the Fall semester, and Fluid Mechanics this Spring.
Han enjoys teaching and interacting with students, “and feel their energy, too.” He says he makes a deliberate effort in his classes to pause from time to time so that his students can ask questions.
Han advises two Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. students, Nikhil Mittal and Mohanish Chandurkar.
“Nik is working on finding myosin-independent mechanosensitivity mechanism for stiffness sensing, and Mohanish works on the project finding mechano-transmission for fluid shear stress sensing by endothelial cells,” he says.
Research Aspirations
Han’s Mechanobiology Lab is interested in finding fundamental mechanisms governing mechanotransduction, and how cells sense mechanical forces and convert them into biochemical signals.
“We image cells and associated forces using high-resolution live imaging, which we analyze to obtain statistically meaningful quantity of data,” Han explains. “We apply force-measuring and molecular-imaging/analysis technologies for stiffness sensing, shear flow sensing, adhesion assembly, and cancer mechanobiology.”
Han is working to gain a thorough understanding of the mechano-chemical interaction between cancer cells and their microenvironment, and develop a an effective mechano-therapeutic strategy to stop the progression of cancer, and breast cancer in particular. Ultimately, he wants to apply that knowledge to cancer mechanobiology
Han is principal investigator of a three-year NIH/NIGMS research project, “Nascent Adhesion-Based Mechano-transmission for Extracellular Matrix Stiffness Sensing.” The research aims to determine whether newly-born adhesions can sense tissue stiffness through the accurate measurement of the mechanical force and molecular recruitment of early adhesion proteins.
Some Background
In 2012, Han received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington in the areas of cell mechanics, multiphysics modeling, and bioMEMS.
For his postdoctoral training, he joined the Computational Cell Biology lab led by Dr. Gaudenz Danuser in the Cell Biology department of Harvard Medical School. In 2014, he joined the UT Southwestern (University of Texas) Department of Cell Biology and Bioinformatics. Han received his B.S and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering at Seoul National University, Korea, in 2002 and 2004, respectively.
Han holds several patents and in 2015, he developed an open-source TFM (Traction Force Microscopy) Package, which is shared via his lab’s website: hanlab.biomed.mtu.edu/software.
Beyond Research and Teaching
Han loves science and discovering something new in his research investigations. Beyond his work as a professor and scientist, he describes himself as a husband to Sunny, and a dad to his son, Caleb.
“I am just a normal Korean who likes singing and dancing,” he says. “Unfortunately, my voice is still recovering from surgery, but I hope to get back to it soon. I also like to listen to all kinds of music, including hip-hop, classics, and pop.”
He appreciates a good sense of humor, but he says that being humorous in American English is something he continues to learn.
Han says he tries to be “normal” and not too nerd-like when he’s not pursuing his research, but “there are times when I am making my own hypothesis about some phenomena I observe in my daily life.”
Han enjoys life at Michigan Tech and in the Cooper Country. He likes getting to know his energetic students and he finds Michigan Tech faculty members very strong and collegial. He also enjoys the snow, hockey, and the mountains.
“I really like the snow here. I am already sad that the weather is becoming too mild!” he confirms. “It’s also a safe environment to raise kids, which is a big plus.”
And he likes his academic department. “Everyone is so nice in the Biomedical Engineering program, they have been so welcoming and appreciative my research,” Han says. “It’s a family-like environment.”
Active Research
1R15GM135806-01 (09/16/2019 – 08/31/2022)
Funding Agency: NIH/NIGMS
Nascent Adhesion-Based Mechano-transmission for Extracellular Matrix Stiffness Sensing
Project Goals: To determine whether newly-born
adhesions can sense tissue stiffness by accurate measurement of mechanical
force and of molecular recruitment of early adhesion proteins using traction
force microscopy and computer vision techniques.
Role: Principal Investigator
Additional Information
The Mechanobiology Lab studies mechanobiology, particularly how adherent cells can sense and respond to mechanical stiffness of the extracellular matrix. To investigate this, the lab has established experimental and computational frameworks for force measurement and adhesion dynamics quantification. Researchers apply these frameworks, with cutting edge computer vision technique, on live-cell microscope images to investigate the fundamental mechanism underlying mechanosensation in normal cells, and the biomechanical signature of the diseased cells whose signaling has gone awry.
The Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) creates and supports an arena in which faculty and students work collaboratively across organizational boundaries in an environment that mirrors contemporary technological innovation. The ICC’s 60+ members, in six research centers, represent more than 20 academic disciplines at Michigan Tech. https://www.mtu.edu/icc/
The ICC Center for Data Sciences (DataS) focuses on the research of data sciences education, algorithms, mathematics, and applications. https://www.mtu.edu/icc/centers/data-sciences/
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. https://www.nih.gov/
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) supports basic research that increases understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. https://www.nigms.nih.gov/
Recent Publications
by Michigan Tech Lode
Join the 2020-2021 staff of the Michigan Tech Lode as we celebrate one hundred years on Michigan Tech’s campus. We would not be here today without alumni, readers, and the support of staff. While we are restricted to Zoom, this allows us to invite many more people.
We will begin the celebration with a history of The Lode, then move on to introductions of the current staff. After this, we would like to hear about your experience with The Lode, fun memories, and any other comments you’d like to share. Those who register will be entered into a raffle to win a Lode hat.
We will be picking two winners. All members of the past and present Michigan Tech community are encouraged to attend, especially any Lode alumni. To register, click here. To view more information, visit our website.