The Seidenberg School’s CS 641 Mobile Web Development class just wrapped up its second year, with 54 graduate students and one undergraduate in the class this semester. Students created iOS and Android apps with the Ionic 2 framework, and created online portfolios of their work.
The class is taught by Adjunct Professor Haik Sahakian. “If you’re a web developer, Ionic turns you into a mobile app developer as well. You write apps in Javascript that run on iOS and Android from the same code base. And it’s a fun way to learn Angular 2.”
One of the apps from the class was selected for a showcase of graduate student work being put together by the department chair, Dr Christelle Scharff. Written by William Dickerson, it uses the D3 and Leaflet JavaScript libraries to display a travel map of New York City. A user selects a point on the map and how far he or she is willing to walk, and the app displays which parts of the city are reachable with a single subway ride.
“[My app] began as a webpage, which took me about 40 hours to develop into what it is now. If I started from scratch today, it would probably take me less time, but D3, Leaflet, and even JavaScript were new to me at the time. Transitioning the webpage to a mobile app using the Ionic 2 framework took very little time, just a matter of hours.
I liked how each lecture and assignment in the Mobile Web class built on the previous one, allowing us to put everything together into projects worth sharing. We started the first lecture with a blank html file in a text editor, and by week 15, we had covered enough libraries, tools, and web fundamentals to build quality mobile webpages and apps.”
William Dickerson
The class’s apps feel very similar to native apps. Prof. Sahakian said Ionic achieves this because “it comes with web-based UI components that look and behave just like native components, and it uses the open source Cordova library to connect with a mobile device’s hardware and features. An Ionic app is an enhanced web page embedded in a native app wrapper, rather than a native app itself, so it’s a little slower than native for complex features and animations, but it works well, and enables web developers to build apps quickly.”
CS 641 Mobile Web Development is offered every Spring semester. Dr Scharff’s collection of graduate student work will be displayed in the Seidenberg Mobile Lab at 163 William St in the fall.
Dr. Pauline Mosley was honored Tuesday May 10th with a STEM Award for her significant contribution to children in the STEM field. Dr. Mosley was selected for this award because of the three years she has spent working with GIRLS Academy. Over the past few years, Dr. Mosley has helped develop and design STEM Curricular for the White Plains Afterschool Programs.
These programs offered awesome opportunities for girls aged 13-17 to learn about LEGO Mindstorms, SeaPerch robots, Alice, and HTML coding. The programs took place over 9 week periods, with Dr. Mosley working closely with the instructors of the sessions (instructors whom she happened to mentor and teach previously!).
The event was attended by the Mayor of White Plains and thanked the award recipients for improving the White Plains School District.
Pictured above is Dr. Mosley alongside White Plains Middle and High School Teachers, as well as fellow Pace professor Dr. Gerald Ardito.
Congratulations to Dr. Mosley! Hopefully we will see some of these amazing workshop participants at Pace in the near future!
Superstar faculty member Dr. Jean Coppola was inducted into the St. Francis Preparatory School Hall of Fame on April 23, 2016. The school’s Hall of Fame honors alumni that have gone on to set an excellent example for others to follow, and who “continue to live their lives in the true Franciscan spirit.”
Dr. Coppola was selected due to her significant lifetime achievement and service, much of which has taken place here at the Seidenberg School. Dr. Coppola directs our gerontechnology research and oversees the annual Mobile App Development Bowl, a massive event that sees teams from high schools and universities across the region compete by building apps to improve the lives of aging populations.
The Seidenberg School opened its doors to the 14th edition of the Michael L. Gargano Research Day Conference on Friday, May 6th.
This student-faculty conference provides the Seidenberg community with an opportunity to share research. This year’s event set a participation record: 42 papers published in the conference proceedings, including 60 doctoral, 84 masters, and 10 undergraduate student authors. Of these papers, over 25 were presented at the conference. From biometrics and security to knowledge representation and optimization, big data and the internet-of-things, the presentations covered problems in diverse domains including security, education and healthcare.
This signature Seidenberg School academic event could not be possible without the commitment and enthusiasm of computer science professor, and conference chair, Charles Tappert, PhD.
Dr. Tappert serves as research advisor to many doctoral students, and also runs undergraduate and graduate capstone courses on the Pleasantville campus.
Since this is an annual Seidenberg event, why not take part yourself next year? We will be looking for submissions in Spring ’17, so now is a good time to start!
The Michael L. Gargano Research Day is named after the late Seidenberg computer science professor, Michael L. Gargano, a passionate researcher and valued research advisor, particularly to students in the doctoral program.
The Seidenberg School is pleased to announce that we now have an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Student Branch at Pace University!
IEEE’s website puts it well: “IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through its highly-cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.”
By creating a student branch, Seidenberg students have access to numerous resources available to the IEEE community, like the upcoming 2016 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference Have you done some work in machine learning, cloud computing, wearable technology or security? If so, use the upcoming summer to put together a paper – the submission deadline is September 3rd.
Seidenberg will host tech events under the aegis of IEEE starting fall 2016. We look forward your ideas and participation and hope this partnership will benefit your academic and professional pursuits!
We are grateful to Ronal Geiger, Lawrence Miano, and IEEE Mid-Hudson, and to our Seidenberg founding student members for their support with establishing the IEEE student branch at Pace University!
As a student in the Seidenberg School you have ample opportunities for professional and personal development, and adventure! Along these lines, a Seidenberg team attended the 2016 Women in Cybersecurity Conference (WiCyS) in Dallas, TX last week. The team, comprised of amazing students pursuing degrees with a cybersecurity focus, included Alexa Piccoli (MS/CS’16), Norissa Lamaute (MS/CS’17), Siobhan Kiernan (BS/IT’17) and Adriana Aluia (BS/IT’18). In addition, the team also included Lindsay Peckham (AAS/Cybersecurity’17) and Sara DaCosta (AAS/Cybersecurity’18) from Westchester Community College, a Pace Cybersecurity Academic partner.
Not only are women underrepresented in the IT field, but a report sponsored by ISC2 and Booz Allen Hamilton found that in 2013 women made up just 11 percent of global cybersecurity workforce and only nine percent were in senior leadership roles. It is in this context that WiCyS aims to bring together female students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in cybersecurity for knowledge sharing, networking and mentoring. The conference aims to raise awareness about the importance and nature of cybersecurity careers and to generate interest among students to consider cybersecurity as a viable career option.
From left to right: Lindsay Peckham, Alexa Piccoli, Sara DaCosta, Andrea Wright (Bank of America) Adriana Aluia, Siobhan Kiernan, and Norissa Lamaute
2016 WiCyS had great energy and blended both academic and professional speakers and content. The conference gathered more than 700 attendees! The tech talks included reverse engineering, cyber criminology, perspectives on research, exploit development, cyber-physical system security. Other professional talks covered tools and strategies for education as well as workshops oriented toward specific career tracks in cyber security. A job fair with over 30 prominent employers and numerous “networking socials” provided students with the opportunity to learn specifics about the skills in need in the industry, and in many cases get job offers on the spot.
Here is what the some of the participants had to say about the conference experience:
One take away from the WiCyS conference was the ample opportunity and support for women in cybersecurity. While the statistic showcase the dramatic lack of women in this field, it felt great to be in a place where women in cyber were encouraged to do great things. I really enjoyed the key note speakers from various top companies and felt empowered and driven to one day be at the level they are at. I got to meet many academics and professionals who offered guidance and reassurance that this is what I want to do as a lifelong career. I learned that it is okay to feel confused at times, and that if you keep working hard, you can reach your goals. I was inspired to take on new opportunities and dig deeper into my school work and cyber related topics.
Alexa Piccoli (MS/CS’16)
Lindsay Peckham (AAS/Cybersecurity ‘17, Westchester Community College): There were so many inspiring moments that it’s difficult to choose only one so I would love to share two items that have stuck with me since returning home.
First, the field of cyber security offers everything I desire in a career: technology, cutting-edge ideas, innovations and helping others but there are many specialties within the field that I had to be exposed to and barely understood in the real-world sense. Personally, the conference offered me a way to navigate the many career opportunities in this field. Through anecdotes, insightful speeches, networking opportunities and plentiful resources, I spent nearly 3 days putting myself in the shoes of others and thinking about how that career specialty may suit me in the future.
Second, one of my hopes for attending WiCyS was to learn about what other schools are doing for their cyber security clubs. It’s been one of my passions at WCC to improve and grow our club in meaningful and exciting ways. Attending the “CyberSecurity Club: 101 from Inception to Installment and Beyond” workshop gave me an opportunity to see what other colleges, both community and university, are doing in their clubs. […] I am very excited for 2016-2017 school year because I think some really neat changes are going to be made!
Many thanks to Dr. Li-Chiou Chen and Andreea Cotoranu for making this experience possible!
Are you working on cybersecurity related projects and have an interest in attending the next edition of WiCyS? Submit a research poster or just apply for a scholarship to attend the conference! Contact Andreea Cotoranu for questions related to future participation in this event.
“[My app] began as a webpage, which took me about 40 hours to develop into what it is now. If I started from scratch today, it would probably take me less time, but D3, Leaflet, and even JavaScript were new to me at the time. Transitioning the webpage to a mobile app using the Ionic 2 framework took very little time, just a matter of hours.
