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��ӽ紫ý announces its first NASA Space Mission, which seeks to uncover the secrets of dark energy

Jeannine Harvey — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 13:34:19 +0000

��ӽ紫ý announces its first NASA Space Mission, which seeks to uncover the secrets of dark energy Jeannine Harvey Mon, 06/10/2024 - 09:34

��ӽ紫ý will be the home of the $19.5 million recently approved Landolt NASA Space Mission that will put an artificial “star” in orbit around the Earth. This artificial star will allow scientists to calibrate telescopes and more accurately measure the brightness of stars ranging from those nearby to the distant explosions of supernova in far-off galaxies. By establishing absolute flux calibration, the mission will begin to address several open challenges in astrophysics including the speed and acceleration of the universe expansion.

"This mission marks another first for ��ӽ紫ý, a milestone that proves our impact as a major public research university truly knows no bounds,” ��ӽ紫ý President Gregory Washington said. “It's an honor for ��ӽ紫ý to lead this unique team seeking to expand the boundaries of knowledge through College of Science associate professor Peter Plavchan’s collaboration with NASA, one of ��ӽ紫ý's most prestigious research partners.”

Scientists know the universe is expanding, which is measured by calculating the brightness of numerous stars and by the number of photons-per-second they emit. According to Plavchan, a ��ӽ紫ý associate professor of physics and astronomy and the Landolt Mission primary investigator, more accurate measurements are needed for the next breakthroughs.

Landolt Mission Principal Investigator Peter Plavchan, associate professor of physics and astronomy at ��ӽ紫ý's College of Science. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Named for late astronomer Arlo Landolt, who put together widely used catalogs of stellar brightness throughout the 1970s through the 1990s, this mission will launch a light into the sky in 2029 with a known emission rate of photons, and the team will observe it next to real stars to make new stellar brightness catalogs. The satellite (artificial star) will have eight lasers shining at ground optical telescopes in order to calibrate them for observations. The effort will not make the artificial stars so brightly to see with the naked eye, but one can see it with a personal telescope at home.

“This mission is focused on measuring fundamental properties that are used daily in astronomical observations,” said Eliad Peretz, NASA Goddard mission and instrument scientist and Landolt’s deputy principal investigator. “It might impact and change the way we measure or understand the properties of stars, surface temperatures, and the habitability of exoplanets.”

The artificial star will orbit earth 22,236 miles up, far enough away to look like a star to telescopes back on Earth. This orbit also allows it to move at the same speed of the Earth’s rotation, keeping it in place over the United States during its first year in space. “This is what is considered an infrastructure mission for NASA, supporting the science in a way that we’ve known we needed to do, but with a transformative change in how we do it,” Plavchan explained.

Landolt Mission contributor Peter Pachowicz, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in ��ӽ紫ý's College of Engineering and Computing. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

The payload, which is the size of the proverbial bread box, will be built in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a world leader in measuring photon emissions. “This calibration under known laser wavelength and power will remove effects of atmosphere filtration of light and allow scientists to significantly improve measurements,” said Piotr Pachowicz, associate professor in Mason’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who is leading this component of the mission.

��ӽ紫ý faculty and students from Mason’s College of Science and College of Engineering and Computing will work together with the NASA and NIST and nine other organizations for a first-of-its-kind project for a university in the Washington, D.C., area.

“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for ��ӽ紫ý and our students," said Pachowicz. "Our team will design, build, and integrate the payload, which—because it’s going very high into geostationary orbit—must handle incredible challenges.”

With mission control based at ��ӽ紫ý on its Fairfax Campus, the team also includes Blue Canyon Technologies; California Institute of Technology; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Mississippi State University; Montreal Planetarium and iREx/University of Montreal; the University of Florida; the University of Hawaiʻi; the University of Minnesota, Duluth; and the University of Victoria.

With more accurate measurements, experts will use the improved data from the project to enhance understanding of stellar evolution, habitable zones or exoplanets in proximity to Earth, and refine dark energy parameters, setting a foundation for the next great leaps in scientific discovery. “When we look at a star with a telescope, no one can tell you today the rate of photons or brightness coming from it with the desired level of accuracy,” Plavchan, who is also the director of Mason’s Observatories in Fairfax, said. “We will now know exactly how many photons-per-second come out of this source to .25 percent accuracy.”

"Flux calibration is essential for astronomical research.” explained NIST’s Susana Deustua, a physical scientist in the NIST Remote Sensing Group. “We constantly ask: ‘How big? How bright? How far?’ and then ponder: ‘What is the universe made of? Are we alone?’ Accurate answers require precise measurements and excellent instrument characterization,” Deustua said.

Learn more at landolt.gmu.edu

Learn more about the mission

Landolt partners weigh in on importance of this mission

Did You Know

The Landolt Space Mission is named for the late astronomer Arlo Landolt, one of the most recognizable American astronomers. Renowned throughout the astronomical community for his discoveries, astronomers and physicists worldwide continue to use his series of papers, which established the “Landolt Photometric Standard Star Catalog,” and his standard stars are among the most heavily used photometric standards throughout the globe.

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��ӽ紫ý’s government contracting center is helping the Pentagon enter the 21st century

Jennifer Anzaldi — Thu, 30 May 2024 16:17:30 +0000

��ӽ紫ý’s government contracting center is helping the Pentagon enter the 21st century Jennifer Anzaldi Thu, 05/30/2024 - 12:17

When the Pentagon attempts to field innovative technology, its contracting decisions are largely dictated by a process that predates personal computing. Known as the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) resourcing system, it betrays its mid-20th-century origins in its extreme emphasis on long-range management and sequential planning over more agile and rapid program execution.

Jerry McGinn

Calls for PPBE reform are nothing new in the halls of the Pentagon, but recent geopolitical threats have contributed to a general recognition within the federal government that change is badly needed to speed the development and acquisition of new military capabilities.

Hence Congress’s formation in 2022 of an independent commission tasked with closely assessing the current process and making specific recommendations for reform.

The Commission on PPBE Reform promptly engaged the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting at the Donald G. Costello College of Business at ��ӽ紫ý as a key research partner. The center was awarded a $645,000 Department of Defense (DoD) research contract consisting of two projects.

First, the research team, headed by the center’s executive director Jerry McGinn, prepared six case studies documenting PPBE’s effect on DoD’s work with both research and development centers and industry to develop and adopt new technologies.

“We set up hypotheses and did background research on the programs,” McGinn says. “Our conclusions were based on a number of interviews with government and industry officials.”

For example, one of the case studies dealt with the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, for the development of AI-piloted combat drones. Five Air Force officials involved in CCA told the Baroni research team that PPBE complicated necessary collaborations with the Navy and other agencies, due to siloed budgeting protocols making it difficult to align priorities and make resource decisions in a timely manner.

Next, the Baroni research team turned their attention to three inter-related subtasks delving into specific rules governing PPBE’s application.

“For this project, we used a mixture of non-public DoD unclassified databases as well as information available to the general public,” says McGinn.

The researchers investigated whether PPBE should vary based on DoD’s acquisition categories or remain the same for all categories, concluding that the categories were similar enough to warrant a unified process. They were also asked to evaluate how military departments and agencies use PPBE’s various acquisition pathways, resulting in a determination that “budget justification documents, particularly for RDT&E (research, development, testing and evaluation), are overly complex, unnecessarily intricate, and lack standardization”. Finally, the researchers performed an extensive analysis of PPBE’s legal underpinnings and the wider governmental implications of reforming the process.

The team’s final report, submitted to the commission early in 2024, contained a consolidated list of dozens of findings and recommendations. In its own report issued in March 2024, the PPBE Reform Commission cited the Baroni team’s research numerous times.

“Our work played a large role in informing the Commission’s findings and reinforcing their policy recommendations,” McGinn noted. “These inputs are today being considered as Congress debates 2025 appropriations and DoD concurrently develops and vets the budget for 2026 and 2027.

Shortly after the release of the Commission’s report, the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting hosted a rollout event at Mason Square featuring the Commission’s chair, vice-chair and executive director. A series of additional events around PPBE reform are being planned for the summer.

“Our report reflects the strategic vision with which ��ӽ紫ý established this research center. Our research and analysis inform the federal government as well as the large government contracting industry here in the national capital region. Our relationships and location make the center uniquely situated to benefit policy-makers and entrepreneurs, alike,” McGinn says.

In This Story

John G. (Jerry) McGinn

Learn more about the Costello College of Business

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Campbell joins ��ӽ紫ý’s research enterprise

Colleen Rich — Thu, 23 May 2024 21:11:59 +0000

Campbell joins ��ӽ紫ý’s research enterprise Colleen Rich Thu, 05/23/2024 - 17:11

Sarah Campbell, ��ӽ紫ý’s new associate vice president of research for defense and security initiatives, joined the university in February 2024. She comes to ��ӽ紫ý with close to 20 years of experience in academia, government, and defense, most recently serving as the chief of staff at University of Maryland’s Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security. A ��ӽ紫ý alum, Campbell graduated with a master’s in international commerce and policy in 2011.

Sarah Campbell. Photo provided

What attracted you to this position at Mason?

I was attracted to this position and ��ӽ紫ý writ large because of the impact the university is making, and I wanted to be part of the future growth potential as we drive transformative change. ��ӽ紫ý is a young university so the faculty and staff here have a growth mindset and are adaptable to change faster than most organizations. My background aligns with the cross-disciplinary collaborative approach to achieving ambitious research and development goals. I have experienced successes at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the University of Maryland in large-scale research operations and strategic partnerships that will help propel the objectives of the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact (ORIEI) well.

Yours is a new role in the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact. What have you been charged to do in this role?

Over the course of the last year, ORIEI has been on an internal realignment/reorganization project to better serve the greater ��ӽ紫ý research community. To that effect, I will be working closely with the VPR [Andre Marshall] and the other members of his executive leadership team on this effort with the shared goal to increase operational efficiency and effectiveness, enhance Mason’s ability to scale research and build infrastructure, and improve risk management and compliance. I am also responsible for managing special projects that strengthen ��ӽ紫ý's position as a leader in innovation and research.

I will also focus on organizing and elevating the various defense and security initiatives to enhance the university's research profile. I will work closely with university leadership and the respective academic units to identify university-wide applied research goals, key resource needs, and funding sources to support defense and security programs at ��ӽ紫ý. I hope to advance a shared university-wide vision and execution for defense and security projects.

In your first weeks, you've been taking a deep dive into ��ӽ紫ý's research enterprise. What have you discovered?

I’ve confirmed what I already knew—��ӽ紫ý is a wonderful and supportive community of incredibly accomplished and respected intellectual leaders. It is also clear the university has seen significant growth in research expenditures, furthering its competitive advantage as a large player in the area of research.

In those individuals with whom I’ve had the pleasure of connecting in my first few months, the dedication to breaking down silos for enhanced collaborative research is refreshing and something that will only continue to expand the research activity on campus in a way that benefits our faculty and students. This vibrant environment is ripe to further strategic initiatives, especially in the biohealth, sustainability, and quantum and digital innovation domains, which often have interesting intersections in the defense and security space.

What do you hope to tackle first?

My initial focus will be to enhance the infrastructure and systems supporting research collaboration, and ensure it is fully integrated with Mason's strategic objectives. As the research enterprise has grown significantly over the last several years, our infrastructure and supporting systems have not necessarily kept up, and we need to take a look at how we scale effectively and how we manage the ever-changing compliance environment for federal research for greatest impact.

What do you do for fun?

For fun I am usually consumed by the activities of my three very energetic school-aged sons. As a family, we also like to travel, go to the beach, attend sporting events, and spend time with friends. I personally enjoy cooking and exercising to decompress, along with getting outside when I can for long walks.

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��ӽ紫ý receives $1.2 million to revolutionize Lyme disease testing

Colleen Rich — Wed, 15 May 2024 18:42:12 +0000

��ӽ紫ý receives $1.2 million to revolutionize Lyme disease testing Colleen Rich Wed, 05/15/2024 - 14:42

��ӽ紫ý researchers have received $1.2 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of the Army to revolutionize Lyme disease detection and diagnosis with urine testing. Scientists from ��ӽ紫ý’s College of Science and College of Public Health aim to harness the many advantages of urine testing over other methods and increase mainstream adoption.

Photo by Getty Images

“We have developed a urine test for Lyme disease that detects the bacteria (Borrelia species) that causes Lyme disease, making it a direct test to confirm an infection soon after the tick bite,” said principal investigator Alessandra Luchini. "This leads to earlier treatment when necessary and could prevent the long-term debilitating effects of the disease.”

The current standard of care test for potential Lyme disease is an antibody blood test, which measures the immune system response to the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. In contrast, the ��ӽ紫ý test detects molecules derived from the bacteria themselves, which have the advantage of high specificity (accuracy) and early detection. The test matches the exact amino acid sequences (the building blocks of the bacterial molecules) that are found only in Borrelia and not in other organisms. For example, one of the proteins the ��ӽ紫ý scientists studied is part of the Borrelia flagellum, which allows the bacterium to move around the body.

In Mason’s clinical research trials, urine tests had a 90% true positive rate (sensitivity) and close to 100% specificity (true negative rate).

Researchers will use banked samples from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of acute Lyme patients from the Lyme Disease Biobank and banked specimens from Johns Hopkins University, respectively, who are recognized leader in clinical Lyme disease research.

Utilizing her 15 years of Lyme disease bacteria (Borrelia) research, Ashley Groshong, PhD, unit chief of the Bacterial Physiology and Metabolism Section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a part of the National Institutes of Health, is collaborating on the project by evaluating the suitability of diagnostic indicators based on bacterial physiology.

Additionally, the ��ӽ紫ý study will pilot a collapsible urine collection cup shipped to a lab through the mail, making collection and diagnosis easier for more people to access through telehealth.

"A urine cup will offer a private, comfortable and convenient way to collect the sample at home without compromising the accuracy of the lab test,” said Lance Liotta, professor in the College of Science, co-director of Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, and co-principal investigator on the study. “Shipped in a semi-dry state that will preserve target proteins and protects again specimen degradation, this approach will improve specificity, which has been a weakness of previous testing approaches."

Lyme disease is the most common animal-to-human transmitted disease in the United States with approximately 476,000 people diagnosed and treated each year—and it is on the rise. If not treated quickly and properly, those bitten can suffer from prolonged symptoms (called Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome), such as concentration and memory issues, dizziness, fatigue, body aches, depression, and difficulty sleeping.

“This is a significant collaboration to advance diagnostics for Lyme disease,” said Melissa J. Perry, dean of the College of Public Health and co-investigator of the study. “This study will have a major impact on the timely diagnosis of Lyme. In my capacity as an epidemiologist, I am thrilled to work with Drs. Luchini, Liotta, and [Virginia] Espina, and Dr. [Jenna] Krall in her capacity as a biostatistician.”

This three-year study will take place in the same Mason CAP/CLIA Clinical Proteomics Laboratory that implemented the innovative saliva COVID test. The lab is run by Espina, who is a collaborator on the grant.

In 2022, Luchini, Liotta, and the CAPMM team were one of 10 Phase 1 winners of the LymeX Diagnostics Prize by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation.

In early 2023, CAPMM received $820,000 in federal funding to establish a clinic that will help combat Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. The project, championed by U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton, was part of the federal omnibus appropriations bill that President Biden signed into law to fund the government through Fiscal Year 2023. The federal funds will be used to launch the clinical deployment of diagnostic testing that will allow for a quicker and more efficient diagnosis.

This work will be supported by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Tick-Borne Disease Research Program, endorsed by the Department of Defense. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense.

Did you know...

��ӽ紫ý's Lyme disease test started as a student project in the Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program. Watch our original discussion with Temple Douglas on our YouTube channel.

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Mason professors are researching hacker psychology to defend against cyberattacks

Colleen Rich — Thu, 02 May 2024 13:39:13 +0000

Mason professors are researching hacker psychology to defend against cyberattacks Colleen Rich Thu, 05/02/2024 - 09:39

A team of ��ӽ紫ý researchers is probing the psychology behind cyberattacks as part of a U.S. intelligence community program aimed at turning the tables on hackers.

Illustration by Getty Images

As the prevalence and severity of cyberattacks continue to grow, the Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity (IARPA) has turned its focus on how best to exploit the weakest link in cyberattacks: the human factor.

Under a new IARPA program, researchers hope to better understand cyber attackers’ cognitive vulnerabilities and decision-making biases and use those vulnerabilities to derail future attacks.

Researchers Daniel Barbará, Giuseppe Ateniese, and Gerald Matthews were recently selected as part of a broader team of computer science, cybersecurity, and psychology experts to forge new research pathways and deliver cutting-edge technology as part of IARPA’s Reimagining Security with Cyberpsychology-Informed Network Defense, or ReSCIND, program.

Daniel Barbara. Photo by Office of University Branding

The team of researchers will build defensive tools that first cue in on hackers’ human limitations and use those weaknesses to delay or derail the attack while it is underway.

“You want to make them waste their time,” said Barbará, a computer science professor at ��ӽ紫ý’s College of Engineering and Computing. “The more they waste their time, the least damage they’re going to do.”

This can be accomplished by luring hackers with decoys such as false networks or documents to distract them.

But the trick is two-fold. The decoys must first and foremost appear to be real. They also need to entice the hackers away from their original aim. The latter is where understanding the psychological factors that influence hackers is essential.

As part of the first phase of the ReSCIND program, researchers will aim to fill gaps that exist in the current understanding of human cognition and decision making that influence cyber attackers’ behavior.

“It’s a challenging topic to address because hackers, of course, tend to be somewhat secretive,” Matthews, a professor of psychology at ��ӽ紫ý, said. “There aren’t many opportunities to study hacker psychology.”

Giuseppe Ateniese. Photo provided

Matthews said the current understanding of hackers’ behavior that provides the baseline for their research comes from several areas of study in psychology. Key among those areas is human performance and in particular how emotional states might influence performance.

“Hackers themselves are under pressure and potentially anxious about getting caught,” Matthews said. “They’re anxious about looking foolish to the people that they are working with.”

Cultural factors that motivate hackers are also important to consider and may vary greatly among hackers. Thrill-seeking college-age hackers, for example, would have different cultural norms and motives than highly trained professionals acting on behalf of a nation-state adversary, Matthews said.

Researchers hope to further understand the full scope of psychological factors that influence hackers, including how to measure, predict, and induce their cognitive vulnerabilities.

“There’s a certain amount of psychology that allows you to link the emotional reactions that hackers might have to cognitive biases and other vulnerabilities in performance,” Matthews said. “So, in this first part of the research, we’re trying to sketch out what some of those vulnerabilities might be.”

As part of the second phase, researchers will further define when cyberpsychology-informed defenses can best be used and how to determine the success of those defenses. The final phase will focus on modeling, adapting, and automating those defenses.

Ateniese, a computer science professor and eminent scholar in cybersecurity, said the ReSCIND program reflects the growing importance of cyberpsychology research in shaping emerging technology.

Gerald Matthews. Photo provided

“I see a myriad of excellent applications, not just this project,” Ateniese said. “As you can imagine, people today are building AI systems that either mimic or seek to improve upon human behavior. So, the psychology perspective is very intriguing.”

The ReSCIND program will run for nearly four years and is being carried out through research contracts awarded across five teams.

Barbará, Ateniese, and Matthews’ research will contribute to a ReSCIND contract awarded to SRI International, an independent nonprofit research institute headquartered in California.

The ��ӽ紫ý team will work alongside experts from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Margin Research, Research and Assessment Design: Science Solution, Two Six Technologies, University of Florida, and Virtual Reality Medical Center.

In many ways, the project is a natural progression for the three professors who have worked together on several previous projects requiring a multidisciplinary approach.

They were first introduced in 2021 by Amarda Shehu, a computer science professor and co-director at the time of the ��ӽ紫ý’s transdisciplinary Center for Advancing Human-Machine Partnerships (CAHMP).

A call for proposals from Virginia’s Commonwealth Cyber Initiative for a project that sought to bridge cybersecurity and human factors research to help users build secure passwords immediately brought to mind Barbará, Ateniese, and Matthews’ expertise.

“I always had the agenda of putting teams together and finding some funding opportunities so that then they could obtain preliminary results through which to demonstrate credibility for larger projects,” Shehu said.

The match has led to a series of successful projects by the team, including the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative password project and a project focused on distinguishing authentic videos from deepfakes.

“The IARPA project is, in some sense, an example of the culmination of an activity, how you put a team together,” Shehu said. “They find some funding so that they can start that relationship and then that kind of blossoms into a larger project. It's really a perfect example of what we want to see in […] in general at Mason in terms of transdisciplinary research and the fruit of that research.”

Shehu, now associate vice president for research for Mason’s Institute for Digital Innovation, said bringing teams together with broad collective expertise is critical to solving the most complex impediments to technological progress.

“The most challenging problems nowadays don't reside specifically within one discipline,” she said. “They bridge disciplines.”

In This Story

Amarda Shehu

Daniel Barbará

Giuseppe Ateniese

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Schrag awarded NEH grant for Metrorail project

Colleen Rich — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 19:30:30 +0000

Schrag awarded NEH grant for Metrorail project Colleen Rich Fri, 04/19/2024 - 15:30

Zachary Schrag, professor in the Department of History and Art History at ��ӽ紫ý, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) award for his proposal, “Rail Against Sprawl: A History of Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.”

Zachary Schrag. Photo provided

Schrag’s grant of $75,000 was one of the three NEH grants awarded to projects within Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Schrag submitted his proposal to NEH’s “Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities” program, which funds research examining technology and its relationship to society through the lens of the humanities.

For this project, Schrag is writing the history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project to help understand the possibilities of the ambitious efforts to reshape daily transportation choices. In his proposal, he wrote that the bold undertaking of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project was to give “airport passengers, airport employees, commuters, residents, and shoppers an alternative to constant driving, and to cluster development into transit-accessible nodes instead of the suburban sprawl that characterizes so much of Northern Virginia and the United States.”

“My hope is that the story of the Dulles Corridor rail will serve lessons from this attempt to give Americans new choices about how to live and how to travel,” said Schrag, who is also the author of The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro.

He will explore two main questions in his research: How did the creators of this project overcome suburban skepticism about transit? And how did they do so in an era of fiscal austerity?

Schrag plans to use this research to complete his fifth book, Rail against Sprawl, which will narrate the story of the project from its “conception to completion...blending the concepts from the history of technology, the history of planning, and policy history.”

Additionally, he will continue to work on the “Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Oral History Collection” to be housed by Mason’s Special Collections Research Center. Special Collections holds key archival material that Schrag is using in his research, including the papers of the Dulles Corridor Rail Association and of former Virginia congressman Frank Wolf.

NEH said they received many strong applications for the Danger and Opportunities of Technology program, only 13% of which were funded.

Delve into more history with the SCRC

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Research will aid law enforcement officer decision-making in high-stress situations

Colleen Rich — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 17:54:37 +0000

Research will aid law enforcement officer decision-making in high-stress situations Colleen Rich Tue, 04/09/2024 - 13:54

��ӽ紫ý researchers are using immersive virtual reality to examine ways in which high-stress conditions may influence law enforcement officer decision-making and utilization of equitable policing strategies.

photo by Matt Gush/Getty Images

Mason College of Education and Human Development professor Stephanie Dailey is serving as the principal investigator on the project and working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, in collaboration with the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute, a federally funded research and development center at the MITRE Corporation.

Stephanie Dailey. Photo by Office of University Branding

For this project, Dailey aims to better understand how law enforcement officer support, including training and wellness strategies, can affect officer decision-making and lead to equitable policing outcomes.

This multidisciplinary, multi-year effort includes Sue-Ming Yang in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society and Justin Ramsdell in the Department of Psychology in Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The study, which uses MITRE’s SIMEX system, involves law enforcement officers who have been participating in a series of experiments where immersive virtual reality is used to simulate a high-stress encounter with a subject—as portrayed by an avatar—exhibiting various social and behavioral characteristics. The SIMEX simulation labs, located McLean, Virginia, offer a special mix of technical and operational capabilities for government agencies that want to try out new ideas by using dedicated, state-of-the-art laboratories.

In the experiments, the subject avatars vary throughout the experiment in dress, skin tone, compliant or noncompliant behaviors, and whether they are armed or unarmed. In response to a rapid sequence of simulated scenarios in which the suspect displays different combinations of these controlled variables, officers volunteering for this study are required to make quick decisions on how to respond to the subject. The simulated scenes mirror real-life situations in which officers could find themselves.

Sue-Ming Yang. Photo by Office of University Branding

In discussing her research, Dailey said that examining an officer’s use of force decision-making allows for a better understanding of the circumstances in which officers use different levels of force. Specifically, circumstances in which officers are more likely to react in a way that is not commensurate with the situation or threat level at hand.

“We all have biases,” said Dailey, who is an assistant professor in the Counseling Program in the School of Education. “Anytime we are navigating the world, we are operating off a series of cognitive shortcuts or mechanisms that support rapid decision-making, such as ‘don’t touch a hot stove!’”

But Dailey added that sometimes the cognitive shortcuts people use are based upon faulty assumptions. “Having officers repeatedly go through different simulated scenarios helps us isolate what factors may influence officer decision-making.”

Dailey provided several examples of how the behavioral cues displayed by the subjects in the simulated experiments are manipulated in isolation or in combination with other characteristics thus giving researchers the opportunity to observe the officer’s reactions under different scenarios. The combination of these variables is randomized and determined by algorithms designed to identify factors that may merit further investigation in subsequent runs of the simulated experiments.

“We look at different combinations of factors and see where there are statistically significant variations in the decisions made by an officer on how to interact with the subject, including use of force decisions,” said Dailey, who watches the simulations in real time.

She added that the officer’s use of force is based upon a continuum and not limited to discharging a service weapon but could include verbal commands, soft hand controls, using a taser, attempts at physical restraint, or other nonlethal actions.

The next phase of the project will center on the impact of training supporting equitable policing. Researchers will survey law enforcement officers who have had this training to investigate if it has positively impacted officer behaviors and well-being in the field.

Dailey emphasized the importance of being proactive in ensuring that law enforcement officers are well-equipped to make good decisions not only when faced with a threat, but to be prepared even before a threat presents itself. This can enhance the protection and safety of both the officer and the community.

“The idea is to provide recommendations for these trainings and to help law enforcement agencies understand what part of equitable policing training is most helpful for officers,” she said. “The primary focus of this training is self-awareness, de-escalation skills, and procedural justice.”

The research team will examine whether there are specific aspects of this training that are especially beneficial in enhancing an officer’s ability to respond to a high-stress situation in a way that protects the safety and well-being of the community.

“If my main goal is to help communities that are impacted by police violence, then the best place to start is with the decision-making of officers,” said Dailey. “As a researcher, I am trying to support safer and more just communities by helping officers make informed decisions.”

This is Dailey’s second time working with MITRE on research using their SIMEX. Previous research sought to determine best practices for school safety during active shooter incidents.

Read more about the project >

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Pitch Perfect: Entrepreneur hopes to change lives and inspire others

Colleen Rich — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 14:15:51 +0000

Pitch Perfect: Entrepreneur hopes to change lives and inspire others Colleen Rich Wed, 03/13/2024 - 10:15

When Shrishti Singh came to ��ӽ紫ý for her doctoral studies, she had a goal in mind: developing a new technology that would allow the visualization of cancer in deep tissue and perhaps enable earlier diagnoses.

Using a combination of FDA-approved dyes for photoacoustic imaging, Singh created an injectable contrast agent that attaches to tumor cells and increases the visibility of those cells against the background tissue.

Singh completed her PhD in bioengineering in 2022, but her relationship with the university continues. During her time at Mason, Singh has used all the tools the university provides to bring her discovery to the marketplace.

In April 2023, Singh was on one of the 15 teams that competed for $40,000 in prizes at the Costello College of Business annual Patriot Pitch Competition. She took home first place and the Mason’s Choice Award in the competition’s science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) track.

In November 2023, Singh was at Mason Square pitching her technology at Mason’s annual Accelerate Investor Conference, which attracts more than 400 entrepreneurs, investors, students, and members of the Washington, D.C., entrepreneurial ecosystem. She was awarded $2,000 for her efforts.

“I'm a researcher by training. I've been trained to present at scientific conferences so talking in front of an audience was not difficult for me,” said Singh. “The difficult part was assimilating all of the business information that I've learned so far into a presentation or a slide deck, and to be able to present that in a time-constrained environment.”

Singh, now a postdoctoral fellow at Mason, has cofounded a company, NIRView Biosciences, with her bioengineering faculty mentors Remi Veneziano and Parag Chitnis, and Singh and NIRView Biosciences have been designated a 2023 Virginia Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Success Story.

“As we develop the company, [Veneziano and Chitnis] are involved in creating strategy and vision of the company, along with helping me write grants and obtain funding,” she said. “They provide me with mentorship on the technology front to be able to take this company forward.”

Singh and her cofounders were a few of 30,000 entrepreneurs who participated in a Virginia SBDC workshop, seminar, or training in 2023. Through its 16 programs, the Virginia SBDC, which is part of Mason Enterprise, helped 10,000 businesses, provided 40,000 hours of one-on-one counseling, offered 1,600 training programs, and incubated more than 550 companies with an impact of $3.36 billion. Of the businesses served, 61% were woman-owned, 46% were minority-owned, and 15% were veteran-owned.

Mason researcher Remi Veneziano, Shrishti Singh, and Parag Chitnis cofounded NIRView Biosciences. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

“The SBDC has been one of our biggest supporters,” Singh said. “I work extensively with my SBDC mentor, Elizabeth Pyle, who is always ready to be to give us advice on how to take the business forward.”

Singh and Veneziano participated in SBDC’s Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP), a no-cost incubator that helps technology start-ups from ideation to initial funding and beyond. They worked with ICAP’s life science business mentors over the course of a year to position their technology for successful commercialization, and in 2023 they were accepted into the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which provides financial support and experiential education to help university researchers commercialize scientific discoveries.

“The support of SBDC has been tremendous,” said Singh, who also has a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and an engineering degree from Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India. “My training has been on the scientific front, so SBDC helped me learn different aspects of the lean business model canvas, customer discovery, and product-market fit, which was a new learning curve for me.”

Singh said while she chose Mason originally for its diversity, it is the people and community here that have made a difference in her life. “I have made friends, and I have gained mentors that are still an active part of my professional life,” she said. “I have been able to take this education and put it toward a better professional vision that I've always wanted. I can say Mason is the reason I have been able to accomplish a lot of my dreams.”

Costello College's Patriot Pitch Competition supports idea and early-stage business ventures and is open to current Mason students and recent alumni from all majors/fields of study.

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Alumni

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Costello College of Business News

Mason receives $4.85 million gift to increase intimate partner violence detection and reporting

Colleen Rich — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 15:38:51 +0000

Mason receives $4.85 million gift to increase intimate partner violence detection and reporting Colleen Rich Tue, 03/05/2024 - 10:38

��ӽ紫ý today announced an anonymous $4.85 million gift to advance groundbreaking research on bruise and injury detection for individuals who experience interpersonal violence.

The research team (from left) Janusz Wojtusiak, Katherine Scafide, and David Lattanzi. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

The funding will help develop new tools in imaging technology using a light source that is five times better than white light for identifying and visualizing bruising across all skin tones for use by forensic nurses, social service providers, and law enforcement.

“This single largest gift to support research in the College of Public Health’s history underscores Mason faculty’s leadership in life-changing work affecting those who experience interpersonal violence,” said Melissa J. Perry, dean of the College of Public Health. “A gift of this magnitude brings transformative resources to Mason’s cross-disciplinary research and collaborative approach that takes ground-breaking research to new heights with the potential for greater use and impact.”

Mason’s acclaimed interdisciplinary research in using Alternate Light Sources for bruise detection, as featured on NBC Nightly News, is led by researchers Katherine Scafide, David Lattanzi, and Janusz Wojtusiak. The funding will expand the team’s bruise detection system that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), imaging and light technologies, forensic reports, and clinical expertise to increase data collection and access to care for trauma victims. The technology can be used across all skin tones and responds to deficits in the identification of physical injuries particularly among people with darker skin tones.

"By improving documentation of physical trauma, we hope to address disparities in clinical care which can lead to improved healthcare for all as well as legal recourse for all survivors of violence," said Scafide, forensic nurse, research leader, and an associate professor of nursing in Mason’s College of Public Health. “This gift expands Mason’s leadership in developing new technologies to empower vulnerable communities.”

One in three women worldwide experience physical trauma at the hands of an intimate partner or stranger. In the United States, more than 10 million women and men grapple with intimate partner violence each year. Among domestic violence survivors, bruises and soft tissue trauma are the most reported injuries. When injuries are accurately documented, survivors are more likely to participate in the criminal justice process, according to recent studies on interpersonal violence and reporting. In addition, family and partner violence and elder abuse can lead to a host of other public health issues, such as infectious and noninfectious diseases, mental health trauma, and reproductive health problems.

"A vital piece to success is ensuring that any AI tool has access to in-depth data from all skin tones and skin characteristics alongside human expert analysis,” said Lattanzi, an associate professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering in the the College of Engineering and Computing.

Supporters working on ending domestic violence commended the announcement.

Ruth Glenn, president of Survivor Justice Action, applauds the groundbreaking work. “In a nation where domestic violence disproportionately impacts communities of color, this innovative research holds immense promise. By prioritizing inclusivity and recognizing the unique challenges faced by survivors with darker skin tones, Scafide’s research aligns seamlessly with our vision to end domestic violence in our lifetime. Continued research on this technology not only has the potential to revolutionize the identification of bruising in diverse populations but also signifies a vital step toward justice and empowerment for those who have long been marginalized. Survivor Justice Action stands firmly in support of initiatives that demand systems change and establish resources for survivors and advocates.”

“The Scafide team’s research and findings are revolutionizing medical forensic examinations. The ability for medical professionals to visualize and identify previously ‘invisible’ injury substantively advances quality medical assessment and patient care. Visibility and documentation of trauma/ injury provide valuable forensic corroboration for law enforcement and the courts to hold offenders accountable,” said Ann Burdges, CEO of End Violence Against Women International.

This project is led by Mason’s College of Public Health in collaboration with the College of Engineering and Computing. More information on the study can be found at bruise.gmu.edu.

Learn more about the project

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Tech inefficiencies, piles of (electronic) paperwork, and increased patient volume contribute to burnout of primary care physicians, study finds

Mary Cunningham — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:11:13 +0000

Tech inefficiencies, piles of (electronic) paperwork, and increased patient volume contribute to burnout of primary care physicians, study finds Mary Cunningham Tue, 01/30/2024 - 13:11

In This Story

Debora Goetz Goldberg, PhD, MHA, MBA

Burnout is an occupational phenomenon that results from chronic workplace stress, according to the World Health Organization.

Burnout often includes emotional exhaustion, negative feelings or mental distance from one’s job, and a low sense of accomplishment at work. COVID-19 increased feelings of burnout in primary care physicians, and a new study, sought to understand primary care clinicians’ perspectives on burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic, the causes of burnout, and strategies to improve clinician well-being.

Debora Goldberg

Inefficiencies of electronic health records systems and high levels of documentation contribute to burnout, according to clinicians participating in a recent study led by Debora Goldberg, associate professor in ��ӽ紫ý’s College of Public Health. Other contributors to burnout included high patient volume, staffing shortages, and expectations for responding to patient emails and telephone calls. Most participants also described the need to work after clinic hours to complete documentation.

“The results of this study provide an in-depth view of participating clinicians’ experiences and perceptions of burnout and other mental health challenges. These viewpoints can improve awareness of the issues and strategies to improve the health and well-being of our clinician workforce,” said Goldberg, the principal investigator.

Most of the suggested strategies to improve clinician well-being were changes at the organizational level and included increasing efforts to improve work-life balance, enhancing the use of team-based care models, optimizing electronic health record functions, providing accessible mental health services, granting additional administrative time to complete documentation, and increasing institutional awareness and recognition of the issues surrounding burnout.

Additionally, clinicians reported experiencing traumatic events during the pandemic and in some cases reported both burnout and depression. The study findings align with previous research that reported primary care physicians indicated dramatic increases in their workload since the beginning of the pandemic and an escalation in staffing issues, both contributing to an increase in burnout and stress among clinicians.

This research was funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, Health and Public Safety Workforce Resiliency Training Program (1 U3NHP45404-01-00), and ��ӽ紫ý College of Public Health Intramural Pilot Study Funding.

“Anxiety, COVID, Burnout and Now Depression”: a Qualitative Study of Primary Care Clinicians’ Perceptions of Burnout” was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in November 2023. Tulay Soylu from Temple University; Carolyn Faith Hoffman, a Mason doctoral student; and Rachel E. Kishton and Peter F. Cronholm from the University of Pennsylvania are co-authors.

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