JMU

Curator of Coins for the Madison Art Collection and Lisanby Museum

Starting this fall I have joined the Madison Art Collection and Lisanby Museum as their Curator of Coins. I'm excited to take a personal passion for ancient history and extend it into mentoring students and service to the University. My personal focus is on Ancient Roman coinage during the Imperatorial period from 44 BC through 27 BC. This was an exciting time dealing with the civil wars of Caesar and Pompey and concluding with the victory of Octavian over Marc Antony.

Papers at SIEDS 2023 and ICAT Day Panelist

Student Research at SIES 2023 The work of several JMU honors students and capstone projects was presented last week at the 2023 IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS) hosted by the University of Virginia. Sanda Thura (JMU Computer Science '23) presented his honors thesis on applications of machine learning for cardiac disease detection on embedded systems. His paper can be viewed here. Sanda was advised by myself, Dr. Kevin Molloy (JMU CS), and Dr.

Students Present Wearables Research at NCUR 2023

Megan Caulfield (JMU Engineering '24) and Justin Blevins (JMU Engineering '23) presented their research on wearable computing systems and haptic feedback. Their work explores how to provide haptic "instructions" to guide a person's motion. This work is an initial step on our larger progress to create general systems to provide feedback during physical therapy. Their poster is available here. Justin will be graduating this semester and beginning work with Northrup Grumman in Charlottesville.

ASEE and FIE Papers. Additional 4VA Grants Awarded.

4-VA Grant with Sol Lim (Virginia Tech) Sol Lim, Michael Stewart (JMU), I have received a 4VA grant to explore wearable haptic systems for persons with visual impairement entitled: "Supporting College Students with Impaired Vision in a Shared Housing Through Haptic-Guided Peripersonal Navigation" The work will be led by Dr. Lim and her students with supporting hardware and software development from JMU. ASEE Paper On Convergent Problems and Entrepreneurial Learning Stu Thompson (Bucknell), Alan Cheville (Bucknell) and I have published a paper at ASEE examining how the Entrepreneurially-Minded Learning (EML) framework can be applied to convergent problems.

New Research Students. Additional Grants Awarded.

There are many new items to report for the Wearable Computer Research group this fall semester! New Undergraduate Researchers With the graduation of Sophia Cronin (Microsoft) and Jonathan Li (Dev Technology Group) we are in need of new undergraduate researchers. We are excited to have join the research group: Megan Caulfield (JMU Engineering '24): will continue development of wearable and electronic textile solutions to provide feedback during movement correction. Dawson Dolanksy (JMU Computer Science '23): will focus on extending our real-time management and streaming for inertial measurement units to provide high-quality data during activity recognition and feedback.

Promotion to Associate Professor of Engineering

Based upon action by the JMU Board of Visitors on April 16th I have been promoted to Associate Professor of Engineering effective August 25th, 2021. I greatly appreciate the guidance and support from my JMU Engineering colleagues over the last three years. Furthermore, a great debt is owed to the undergraduate researchers in the Wearable Computing Lab for this milestone. I thank you all. At least the door change is effective immediately.

Wearable Computing Lab Researchers Present at Several Conferences

Despite the pandemic, Spring 2021 has been a productive time for the undergraduate researchers in the Wearable Computing Lab. Stephen Mitchell presents his work at IEEE SouthEast Conference Stephen Mitchell has presented his latest work at IEEE SouthEast Conference. This short paper and presentation is an extension of his previous work that was presented at MARCUS 2019. Additional analysis is on-going and has been accepted as publication for a full paper at SIEDS 2021.

Undergraduate Researcher Presents at MARCUS 2019

Sophomore JMU Engineering student and undergraduate researcher in the Wearable Computing Group, Stephen Mitchell, presented his initial research on measuring athlete performance at the 2019 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference on Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) at Randolph College. His work examines using low-cost inertial measurement units (IMU) to calculate an athletic performance measure called the "Drop Jump Ratio". These IMUs are low-cost, light weight, and more mobile than traditional force plates used to calculate the drop jump ratio.

Undergraduate Researcher Presents at ACM CAPWIC

Sanarea Ali at CAPWIC 2019 JMU Engineering student, Sanarea Ali, gave a flash talk on her proposed wearable computing system for physical rehabilitation at the ACM Capital Region Celebration of Women in Computing (CAPWIC). Her research examines how wearable computing can support clinicians in understanding patient injuries and improving their recovery. The abstract of her talk is included here.

Joining JMU Engineering Faculty

I am happy to announce that I will be joining the Department of Engineering at James Madison University starting Fall 2018. I am excited to work with my new colleagues and develop new bridges between engineering, computer science, and other interdisciplinary programs at JMU.