The SGL will be held as a fireside chat discussion hosted by LTG (Ret.) Eric Wendt with audience Q&A.  A link to Secretary Panetta's biography can be found here: Leon E. Panetta > U.S. Department of Defense > Biography.  Attendance is mandatory for students and highly encouraged for everyone else. Please mark your calendars.  This will be a great opportunity to hear from Secretary Panetta, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Speaker: 
Dr. Rick Geddes
Visiting Fellow with Hoover Institution's State & Local Governance Initiative at Stanford University

Lecture title:  Reconstructing Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure: Policy Developments for a Sustainable, Resilient Post-war Economy

Lecture Abstract: 
This research examines how, in a post-war environment, Ukrainian policy makers can use the latest developments in infrastructure policy to rebuild its energy infrastructure in an efficient, sustainable, and future-proofed manner. Those developments include innovative public-private partnerships, bundling projects together, value capture in a variety of settings, and new ways of charging for infrastructure use. A key prerequisite for innovative delivery is developing strong public sector capacity among public infrastructure asset owners. Although Ukraine's economy was not yet ready for EU membership, many useful pre-war policy reforms were under development. Despite its enormous cost, the war-imposed pause in reform provides an opportunity for Ukraine to adopt preeminent global infrastructure technologies, as well as the best procurement practices. This presentation will review policies to ensure that Ukraine has resilient, green, efficient, and technology-enabled energy infrastructure. Innovative policy approaches also present an opportunity to rebuild Ukraine's aging Soviet-era infrastructure in a "smart" manner even if not war damaged.

Speaker Bio:
Rick Geddes is currently a Visiting Fellow with Hoover Institution's State & Local Governance Initiative at Stanford University. He is on a one-year sabbatical from his permanent position as professor in Cornell's Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell. He is Founding Director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy, or CPIP. Rick is a member of the graduate fields of Systems Engineering, Regional Science, and Economics. He is concurrently a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Previously, Rick was a U.S. Presidential appointee as a Commissioner on the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission.

Rick has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles on a wide variety of tropics. His research centers on the funding, financing, and delivery of major infrastructure projects, road pricing, and utility regulation, among other topics. His publications have appeared in numerous academic journals including Nature, the American Economic Review, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Law & Economics, and Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, among many others. He is author of the 2011 AEI book entitled, The Road to Renewal: Private Investment in U.S. Transportation Infrastructure. Rick holds MA and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Chicago, and a BS in economics and finance from Towson State

Full event details can be found on the EAG website at https://nps.edu/web/eag/seminars. 

Campus map: view map

Flyer: view flyer

Up to 25 Foreign Naval Attachés will visit NPS on Friday, 8 November 2024 as part of a week-long visit to California. Other stops include San Diego and Los Angeles. Composition of the group remains to be confirmed, but we expect it to include multiple Flag Officers.

Composition of the group will drive agenda, but expect meetings to be requested with at least: senior leadership, IGPO, meetings with students from their countries. Possible interest in NPS research (if appropriate based on composition).

POC: Captain John Tully (x3783, john.tully@nps.edu)

Physics Colloquium: Quantification of Malaria Parasite in Blood Sample Using Lensless Inline Digital Holography (LiDH)

Speaker: Charlotte Kyeremah, University of Massachusetts Boston

Abstract: Early and accurate diagnosis of malaria in the human red blood cells is acute to the success of eliminating malaria. The method of malaria diagnosis using optical microscopy involves staining and manual counting of infected cells by trained personnel, making the process subjective, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. Here we propose to develop a 3D-printed lensless in-line digital microscope (LiDHM) without the need for staining the cells. We will integrate the microscope with a small embedded systems hardware platform to run multiple neural networks in parallel for image classification, object detection, segmentation, processing, and machine learning algorithms for automatic detection and quantification based on parasite stages in infected cells, and display for the visual user interface. We present the results of LiDHM along with the proof of concept by imaging-controlled phase objects and biological specimens.

For more information, please visit the Physics Department website.