The AOG recently sent us the annual report of the Class Memorial Chair.
December 29, 2014
Dear Colonel DeGraf,
On behalf of the West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG), I am pleased to present you with the 2013-2014 Annual Report for the S200S Class of 1950 Chair of Advanced Technology Endowment. This report includes narratives on the activities and events supported by this endowment during the 2013-2014 Academic Year. For the 2013-2014 Academic Year, your endowment provided 104,944.88 for West Point.
The endowments of WPAOG are invested under the direction of the Association's Investment Committee, using policy guidelines established by the Board of Directors. The Committee retains a professional investment management consultant and allocates assets to various investment managers and asset classes to minimize risk. In 2013, the investments of WPAOG met or exceeded our related benchmarks, which reflected a favorable increase. For more information on how WPAOG manages and invests endowments, see the enclosed Investments Overview.
As of December 31, 2013, your endowment cash and investment balance was $4,238,418, of which $132,702.06 is available for the 2014-2015 Academic Year.
We also appreciate your support of WPAOG's For Us All: The Campaign for West Point. As we close in on the final year of the campaign, I thank you for your participation to date and for your commitment to strengthening Margin of Excellence programs at the Academy as well as WPAOG programs that serve the Long Gray Line.
Please feel free to contact Claudia Phillips, Director of Stewardship & Events if you have any questions pertaining to the report. Thank you for sharing in our mission to serve West Point and the Long Gray Line. We appreciate your generosity and commitment.
Sincerely,
Kristin E. Sorenson
Vice President of Development
www.westpointforusall.org
Chair of Advanced Technology
I was awarded The Class of 1950 Chair of Advanced Technology in August, 2011. Dr. Brian Macdonald, the Junior Chair holder, began in July, 2012. Dr. Macdonald is an expert in the field of computational statistics and its use in data analytics.
During the third year, 2013 to 2014, the Chair supported the following activities:
We taught, for a second time, a capstone course entitled Advanced Imaging and Computer Vision (AICV). This was taught jointly by Dr. Macdonald and myself with other faculty members from the Departments of Mathematical Sciences, Chemistry and Life Sciences and Physics. The course covered the methodology, available software and applications of imaging and computer vision. Applications included real-time analysis of video feeds, identification of objects in photographs, face recognition, understanding camouflage patterns, forensic analysis of different types of bullets (a lead jacketed bullet and a copper jacketed bullet) on armor plate and hyperspectral analysis of biological samples.
The course included a half day field trip to IBM Research where the students met with researchers on biometrics, surveillance, computer vision and robotics. It gave them a chance to be exposed to a number of applications from people who are putting the ideas into practice.
Eleven cadets completed the second offering of this course.
The Chair also supported the visits of leading scientists to West Point where they spoke to cadets and faculty on a range of relevant applications. These included
• Dr. Sharath Pankanti, IBM Research, Surveillance and Computer Vision
• Dr. William Cook, University of Waterloo, Exact Solutions in Linear and Integer Programming
During the past three years I have supervised eight cadet honors theses on a variety of topics. In the 2013-14 academic year, I supervised two theses. One analyzed existing ranking systems for Division 1 NCAA Football and proposed an alternative system to the current BCS system. Another provided advances on a forty-five year old graph theory conjecture. These have provided cadets opportunities to work on active research projects. In most cases, there was a real "client" who provided real world input on the problems being solved as well as the value of the solutions.
During the past year, Dr. Macdonald supervised two cadet projects. The first, which is related to our computer vision course, uses computer vision to track positioning and motion of players and the puck during hockey games. The second project was to provide a data based evaluation of NHL goaltenders. Cadet Calla Glavin, who worked on this project, presented the results at The New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports and at the 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship which she will start in September of this year. She, Dr Macdonald and I also presented briefings on our research at the Joint Mathematics Meetings.
Since 2011 I have served as a member of the editorial board news section of the Communications of the ACM. This is the monthly magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Established in 1957, CACM is sent to all ACM members, currently numbering over 100,000. The articles are intended for readers with backgrounds in all areas of computer science and information systems. The focus is on the practical implications of advances in information technology and associated management issues.
In 2013 I became co-chair of this board. This provides an excellent opportunity to stay abreast of advances in technology as well as informing people globally of new technology. We publish three articles per month on different aspects of computer science, one each on Science, Technology and Society.
In 2013 I accepted an invitation to join the CCICADA Advisory Board for a 3-year term beginning September 1, 2013. CCICADA is a Department of Homeland Security University Center of Excellence, based at DIMACS founded in 2009. It has 17 partner institutions, with Rutgers the lead (and CMU, UIUC, RPI as main partners). The center works on problems of data analytics, and works closely with a wide variety of government agencies as well as the private sector.
Since July of 2012, I have been vice-chair of Section 8 of the National Academy of Engineering. In July of this year I will begin a two year tenure as chair of the section. This section deals with the development and use of engineering and analytical methods to design and manage the operations of systems and enterprises that provide services or produce goods for society. I believe that my time spent on this will provide valuable new ideas to the activities of the Chair and to the United States Military Academy.
I would like to personally thank the Class of 1950 for their support of these activities which enable the introduction of a set of exciting, important topics to our ca keeping our academic programs at the forefront of the nation.
William R. Pulleyblank, PhD, NAE
Professor of Operations Research
Class of 1950 Chair of Advanced Technology
Department of Mathematical Sciences