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The international publication for members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers cites research on landmine detection at Lafayette in an article about developments in the field.
“Saving Lives, One Land Mine at a Time,” an article in The Institute, quotes Ismail Jouny, professor and head of electrical and computer engineering, in a section on ground-penetrating radar. It also notes that Jouny is working on algorithms for mine detection systems and that he outlined problems with ground-penetrating radar in a paper presented to the 2003 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society’s International Symposium.
Following preliminary work by electrical and computer engineering major Gregg Berman ’02 (New Milford, Conn.), Jouny collaborated on landmine detection research with electrical and computer engineering majors Ashley Wesmiller ’03 (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Mark Kolba ’03(Chelmsford, Mass.).
As an EXCEL Scholar, Wesmiller scanned images of land mines and other objects and wrote computer codes to differentiate between the images. Her work laid the foundation for Kolba’s research. Wesmiller graduated summa cum laude last May and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi (engineering), and Eta Kappa Nu (electrical engineering) academic honor societies. She is working as a systems engineer in defense at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pa.
Kolba graduated summa cum laude with honors last May after working on technology to greatly increase the area covered in a given period by those searching for mines. His research focused on fine-tuning the images produced by ground-penetrating radar. He also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and Eta Kappa Nu, as well as Pi Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society. He is pursuing an advanced degree at Duke University.
Jouny plans to include more students in his landmine-detection research in the future.
He is mentoring Volkan Oktem ’04 (Ankara, Turkey), a double major in electrical & computer engineering and economics & business, in a yearlong honors research project to develop signal processing and image processing algorithms that determine whether areas contain breast cancer tumors and whether the tumors are benign or malignant. Oktem is using data supplied by the University of South Florida, which maintains a Digital Database for Screening Mammography as a resource for those conducting research on mammographic image analysis.
Other recent students who have conducted research under Jouny’s guidance include:
Jouny has published numerous articles in academic publications, many co-authored with Lafayette students. He has served as a summer faculty fellow at the U.S. Naval Air Base in Patuxent River, Md., and Naval Underwater Warfare Center in Newport, R.I. Jouny also has a U.S. patent pending, has served as a consultant in industry, and has been listed in Who’s Who in Science & Technology.
The IEEE is a nonprofit, technical professional association of more than 360,000 individual members in approximately 175 countries. Through its members, it is a leading authority in technical areas ranging from computer engineering, biomedical technology, and telecommunications, to electric power, aerospace, and consumer electronics, among others.